Dreaming

This photo from Syko lets me dream a little.

The dream is I have my same life AND the time to do stuff like this with my perfectly organized, gorgeous still life of supplies at the ready. Ha, ha, ha.

Speaking of which, it looks like Xmas will be a bust this year. Note to self: Make Xmas gifts for 2010 during Xmas 2009 holiday break.

Glasses

French eyewear collection from Face a Face

It started six weeks ago when I woke up--on my birthday of all days--and couldn't see the numbers on the digital clock. Happy Birthday to me!

A few weeks ago, I tried on a friend's Betsy Johnson glasses, looked down at the words on the page and found them magically magnified.

This morning, it's official: I could barely read one article in NY Times without straining. I'm told by the husband that when it happens, it happens fast.

Dear Santa, Could you please send the green-framed Face-a-Face glasses with the tortoise shell eye-to-ear stems?

Has It Come to This?

Sometimes there are these moments in a marriage when something happens that is so funny/ironic that both people realize it can only be fully understood by the two people who have been living the day in day out of this third thing called marriage.

One of those moments happened yesterday.

I'm suffering from a bad case of age anxiety. I have it so bad that I had to rely on my husband to make every decision about what I wore yesterday to an interview.

This is the same husband who once fought the fight and now waits patiently before any significant social event for me to lay out everything he will wear. For routine social events, when I say, "you should wear X shoes instead," he changes his shoes without argument.

Yesterday we went through a combo of five or more outfits. He narrowed it down. He made the final decisions. He postponed his ride until I was out the door. These pants or these? This shoe or this? These earrings or these?

I went without the suit, without the outfit that the lovely, early 30s sales lady talked me into yesterday, and without any jacket at all. Quelle horror! A first interview without a jacket? I called V. for final word and she concurred with the new fashion head of household.

Turns out he was dead on. I felt immediately at ease when I met my potential future boss, and I made the cut for the second interview.

Summer Love

Look who's arriving today!
Our flower girlies, L & A ages circa 2005.

My girlfriend, K, tells me, Big "A.. wakes up and the first thing she says is,
"Oh Mom, I can't describe how excited I am!"

Little L tells me confidently, "I'm just nervous about the plane."

Last year on their first flight alone, they confided to us that they cried "just a little" on the plane, and complained that the flight attendant never said a word to them.

The house is stocked with Quaker chocolate chip oat bars, Wheat Thins, and pizza makings, the sewing machine is repaired for projects, and the camping gear is packed.

I'm walking in my grandparents' shoes. Except then my brother and I flew on PSA with stewardesses who doted on us, pinned us with flying wings, and took us to the cockpit to chat with the pilot. We arrived to a big-kid swing rigged to the beamed ceiling of the living room, two cots at the end of our grandparents' bed, and an endless supply of Eggo waffles, Twinkies, and Ding Dongs.

Tugging at That Single Thing

Yosemite Creek was the low point. The car was sputtering and spit firing, and we had just reached the bottom of a long, steep, unpaved, potholed road. Our last hope for a place to stay had run out, it was pitch dark, and we weren’t sure the car would make it back up the hill. So we made dinner.

I chopped tomatoes. One of our headlamps started sputtering like the car and went out. I helped Jeff comb the ground for his misplaced sunglasses, which we eventually found, not on the ground, but on the bridge of his nose. We ate our Greek salad out of a big salad bowl between us in the front seat of the car. We sat for a few minutes just taking a breather. And then Jeff spit out a one of his zingers as he hoisted himself out of the car. My laughter started slowly, built, gained momentum as he joined me until we were both doubled over convulsing, stumbling, and crying like a scene from a Cheech and Chong movie.

Before I married Jeff at 40, I had at least a dozen substantial relationships. I wanted very badly to get married and have a family. But I couldn’t pull the trigger with any of these guys until Jeff came along. But this isn’t one of those happily ever after stories that happens when you finally meet your prince. The biggest blow came when it became clear I wasn’t going to get my dream of having a family. I’ve been finding my way out of that disappointment for awhile now. In surprising ways, this trip was one more stepping stone along the path.

John Muir wrote, “When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world,” When he wrote this, I’m sure he didn’t have in mind a 450-mile round trip to Yosemite for a 10-minute walk. But that’s what I got.

Jeff waited at the car while I went scouting for a site at the backpacker’s walk-in campground. Within minutes of my short walk, I was overcome with a sense of bodily ease and serenity that shocked me with its speed in arriving and profundity. I came back to the car shaking my head, “Nope. Full,” I said.

Before I married Jeff, I found a guy who had never been married and wanted a family. He was 35, three years younger than I, and very sympathetic to starting a family on my time clock instead of his. The relationship worked best on visits to his parents’ where his mother would look into my eyes and gently finger my long hair resting on my shoulders. He knew all the words to Queen, would belt it out to the delight of my friends, and listened to NPR. All this was very, very good.

But no wedding bells rang. We took a trip once—a cross-country trip from Boston to Palo Alto, California--that ended with our being stranded in Tallahassee, Florida. For four days we drove up and down Tennessee Street, the car dealership row, to try and get the car fixed, to try and buy a car, and eventually, unload and junk the car. Elizabeth, who was nine at the time, plotted the adventure on a map that she updated with a pin every time she got an email. When the trip ended with only a few plotted pins, Elizabeth simply drew a picture of a plane and pasted it over the string that stretched across the United States to Palo Alto in one swoop. I found it all hysterical. Day after day as we passed one of dozens of those ridiculous inflatable stick figure air tube dancers demanding our attention at every car lot, I busted up as they began to symbolize the mockery of the trip. My potential, perfect future husband, however, grew as serious and humorless as a spokesperson for Palestinian rights.

Jeff and I got out of Yosemite creek, drove home in the middle of the night and were detoured and delayed nearly every 30 miles by an Obama-stimulus-plan road crew. We got lost. A hubcap flew off. And the laughter never stopped. Flopping in our bed that night, I lay looking at the once-divorced, ten-years-old-than-I, father to a 21-year-old, ESPN-loving man lying next to me and felt certain that I married the right guy and that sometimes 10 minutes is enough to get everything you need.

Sitting on a Story

Last night, I returned from Yosemite. We were gone for about 12 hours.

Before I left on the trip, I wrote a letter to my great uncle. Getting a letter in his mailbox is the highlight of his day. He needs them.

This morning I started to write him a postscript letter about the Yosemite bust. The letter became an epic blog post, and then in the process the story changed. It got bigger.

It turns out it wasn't a bust, even though it was. Maybe I'll give it a shot sometime and tell the story. For now I'm sitting on it like Jen is sitting on her new painting.

One thing I enjoyed in our 11 1/2 hours in the car was telling Jeff all these details about my grandfather. I LOVE telling these stories over and over--a bit like a child who loves hearing the story of when he was a baby. Even though my grandfather left 27 years plus 1 month ago, it seems with every passing year his presence grows stronger and stronger.

A Summer of ARTnics

ARTnicing and looking so 19th century on a leisurely Saturday afternoon.



I'm becoming an expert at portable art studios transported in swirly canvas bag.

Jessa and her two little ones visited from Annapolis this week. We took them to the park for an afternoon of play and art. All this fun peaked the curiosity of three other kids in the park and the next thing you know yours truly was conducting a summer art camp, which was fine for about five minutes until one little girl started demanding more and more art supplies like an insatiable monster and then became Attila the Hun when I denied her.

"Where is your mother?" we said. And, of course, mother was no where to be found.

In one of the sweeter moments, our friend, Miss A, on the right did some face painting.


Attila gave us another shock when we moved to the playground. Here's my hubby, who I refer to as Roger these days--as in Roger Sterling in Mad Men.


Okay, hubby is no spring chicken, but we both nearly fell over when Attila yelled out from the swing set, "I want the grandpa to push me."

Collage Inspiration & Happinomics

Denise Falk Collage , spotted at Denise Sponge

I'm inspired by how this artist uses whole pieces of vintage pieces in a collage. It appeals to the part of me that wants to preserve the whole of these vintage gems.

Pam sent me this fun piece of writing, Happinomics by Clay Williams, on his experimentation with Dr. John Helliwell's theory that increased social interaction increases our happiness quotient. Perfect timing. Here's a sneak peak of some favorite parts:

"The woman sitting opposite me on the #4 Powell bus is wearing a leather bomber jacket and stylized Armani glasses. Her fingers are crossed over the wooden handle of a corduroy shoulder bag. The words "PURL" and "KNIT" are tattooed across her knuckles in the same gothic lettering that Tupac Shakur used to tattoo "OUTLAW" on his forearm. I'm about to talk to someone who is, apparently, a gangster knitter."

And later:

"Ten minutes later, the bus pulls up to my stop. At the door I turn and say, “I like your tattoos.” She removes her iPod buds and looks up at me (hazel eyes. I love hazel eyes). “Thank you,” she says, a smile dancing at the edges of her lips. As the bus pulls away from the curb, I record a happiness level of seven into my logbook.[1]"

Yeterday after a glorious Whole Body Focusing class in Mill Valley, I had the opposite experience at a Mill Valley gas station. Never in my life have I had so many people honking their horns at me and others at a gas station. I finally lost my cool after the fifth incident when the horn-honking Prius owner pulled up beside my car, rolled down her window and started to chew me out because she couldn't tell that I was pumping gas while sitting in my car. The irony of the conclusion to my body bliss day was beautiful.

Risking Enough to Care about Strangers

I've been meaning to show you these.

Artist: Klaris Reis. Mixed media epoxy polymer on aluminum panel. Spotted at the lunch version of Slanted Door.



Yesterday was a good day with the public. Two of my quips to two strangers were received with hearty laughs that said either "wow, you're talking to me" or "get away from me crazy lady."

But my favorite encounter was at Peet's. A and I were catching up while we ordered and waited for our drinks. Next a woman, who I hadn't noticed before, appeared and said, actually she whispered, "Excuse me. I overheard you talking.."

Immediately I thought, "Oh, no. What did I say? She's going to chastise me."

She continued, "....about the dry spot on your face and I had the same thing."

"Oh boy," I thought, "I was doing that thing I do that my husband and I have a signal for--speaking MUCH too loudly in places that have hard surfaces--and I was talking about my personal health problems for the whole damn place to here. Nice. Where's my husband when I need him?"

She continued, "I went to a dermatologist in Palo Alto, Dr. Jacobson, and she told me to get Aquaphor and put it on every night. I did and it went away."

I was so shocked by this kind woman caring enough to help me with the mysterious dry spot that appeared on my face three days ago that I had to ask her to repeat the prescription.

"Aquaphor," she said. "It's very inexpensive, and you can get it over there at Rite-Aide."

Some time ago...

I set out on a journey. My only intention was be with myself in a kind way to honor a loss.

I sat in the living room of a coastside B&B and sipped a glass of wine as I enjoyed the company of the innkeepers.

I drew a bath and soaked.

I slept well and rose gently.



I rocked for awhile in a rocker at the end of the hall.

I listened to the quiet of having the inn to myself.

I ate a fine breakfast and bid my hostess goodbye.

Rambling through the backroads along the coast, I passed fields of strawberries clustered with workers squatting to harvest the fruit.


Alyssa A, Marina High School, 11th Grade, Acrylic

I stopped in an antique shop and fingered through old books. One book was a discarded baby book of a mother's son born in the 20s who died in the 50s. The book included a thick lock of his blonde curl and told the story of his first outing to a Sunday luncheon at his aunt's.



Bundled in my woolies, I pulled to the side of the road to watch the surf of the ocean under a swath of fog.

There was nothing I needed to see and nowhere I needed to be.

So I wandered.

Along the way I discovered a landmark from the Mexican period of California's history: Monterey's La Miranda adobe.





And then the time came to return home.

Entering Other Worlds

Yesterday Jeff and I volunteered at one of my favorite elementary schools for their once-every-two-year Ohlone Indian simulation. One, unusual little girl about seven years old had quite the series of back-to-back conversations with Jeff:

*********************

Girl (G): Who ARE you?
Jeff (J): Jeff
G: How OLD are you?
J: 50 (fibbing slightly)
G: No. You're two.

*********************

J: Which station was your favorite so far?
G: The one out on the field.
J: Oh, why?
G: Because my mom was out there.
J: Ohhhh, is she one of the teachers?
G: My mom is dead.
J: Oh, I am SO sorry.
G: My mom is not dead.
J: Oh.
G: But she's dead. But she's not dead. She's dead.

*********************

G: Did you eat breakfast this morning?
J: Yes.
G: What did you have?
J: Oatmeal, cranberries, yogurt.
G: That's VERY inbalanced.
J: Why are you asking what I had for breakfast?
G: Well, you're so SKINNY.
J: Well, what did you have for breakfast?
G: Chocolate cake.

*********************

It's Feeling Like 1999 in Kim's World

I saw this fountain at Starbucks of all places. I love it.

Recession? Sure Jeff and I were both laid off within 1 1/2 weeks of one another, but for me, it's starting to feel like what 1999 was supposed to feel like.

In 1999 the economy was booming, and my consulting business was starting to build, but was nowhere close to booming. In 2002 in the midst of the dot.com bomb, my business hit its peak (and I was serving dot commers). After 14 years, I'm done with consulting (yes, Kay Zimmer, I'm purposefully using "done" instead of "finished"). And, what da you know. So far it looks like I've got a bounty of job choices coming my way. A couple of these jobs REALLY excite me.

But will they support my living closer to nature? Will they support a lifestyle of having time to make stuff? I have a feeling that I have one of those defining moments coming that will force me to clarify my top values.

I wonder if I'll surprise myself.

Visiting the Tall Texan in Vacaville

Photo credit: City of Davis

We're headed to Vacaville this afternoon to visit my Uncle Wayne and attend a hospice benefit at the Northbay Wine & Food Jubilee. Family and friends have made generous donations in the name of my late Aunt Helen and several cousins will be coming into town for the event.

My cousin, Cynthia, has been sending out reports on how her dad, my Uncle Wayne, is coping with losing a beloved partner after 64 years. She wrote last week:

"As Dad tries to deal with living alone, he has set a routine for himself to go out every day to the store, usually timing it around the deliver of the mail. So imagine 2 p.m. in the afternoon, Dad pulls up in his car next to the mailbox, gingerly gets out of the car and retrieves his mail from the box. He quickly assesses if it's all junk mail and can spot the real mail, i.e. cards and post cards right away. I can see on his face how much that means to him to get real mail.

Clothing catalogs addressed to Mom are tough for him. Dad has called the companies and asked for her name to be deleted. He has had to do that lot. And usually, he gets a kind voice on the other end who extends condolences and assures him that his request will be processed.

One of the toughest tasks he did back in January was to go by Mom's beauty shop to pick up a elevated toilet sheet she left there for her use. The ladies didn't know, and Dad had to tell them. I thought I was going to pick it up for him. But he beat me to the punch. And it was probably just as well. Dad has been very brave in dealing with the day in and day out of letting people know Mom has passed away."

On this visit, we'll stay overnight (courtesy of donated hotel rooms because of the benefit) and take the opportunity to ride our bikes through Davis and explore the town as a possible next place to live. Our exploration is a tiny step forward on my hard-won battle to move out of our house. Jeff has decided to embrace my desires and added "out of the country" as one of the many possibilities. Today, we start with Davis.

Earth Day

On my way home from the grocery store this weekend, I saw a pile of stuff curbside waiting for the trash and this table caught my eye. I thought it would be perfect as an extra table for my art/craft room, but it needed some repair. I dragged my repairman/husband down to take a look. He thought I should just go buy one from Ikea or Target. But these days $50 adds up and I'm definitely more conscious of our landfills and my part in perpetuating our throw-away culture. After some prodding, he agreed to fix it, hauled it home, and now I have a new table.

As a teenager, I was constantly irritated by my grandparents depression-era ways. They reused plastic bottles, containers and bags, wore down vests in a chilly living room to save heat, and bought new things as only a last resort. I pleaded with my grandfather to get with the times and spend money. This was the 80s after all! But the only place he'd spend freely was to indulge me with a new school wardrobe every fall and, of course, a college education.

I wish he were here today, so I could hear him say, "I was ahead of my time."

Metropolitan Diary

Mondays mornings are busy mornings for me. On these days, my morning routine is disrupted, I'm out the door before my eyes are open, and the paper gets a once over or more than likely, completely ignored.

But I've learned that there's one part of the paper on Mondays I can't miss--the Metropolitan Diary. I consider it the spiritual section of the New York Times. Printed only once a week, it often reminds me of what I love about New York and New Yorkers. I may share a favorite every Monday.

Here's today's favorite: Dad's old apartment


Dear Diary:

A woman in her early 20s overheard talking on a cellphone on West 75th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam:

“Hey Dad. ... I’m on your old block. What was your number? ... Oh, I see your building. Yeah, the facade is plain. ... The number plate? ... Wooden? ... Yes, it’s there. ... You made that! In the ’70s? Well that’s cool.”

Katherine Humphrey

Photo: Jeff on the way to the Guggenheim

Waiting for the Garbage

A friend of mine went to see Seinfeld on Friday night and told me about some of his favorite Seinfeld jokes of the evening:

"All the stuff we buy is just waiting for the garbage."

About it Seinfeld said something like:

"We buy something and put it on the table. It sits there waiting for the garbage. One day we say I don't like it there anymore and put it in the closet. It sits in the closet waiting for the garbage. Next we move it to the garage, which is just a big holding place for garbage."

Maybe I needed to be there, but this strikes me as more profound than funny. I'm looking at my stuff differently. I have an HP LaserJet 3100 sitting on my desk waiting for the garbage. It's a perfectly good printer, but the USB is no longer compatible with new technology. I've used it for copies, but now it's out of ink and I don't plan on buying another cartridge. And there it sits.

I'm consider myself really good at not having a lot of excess stuff; yet when I walked through my house this morning, I found loads of stuff in purgatory waiting for its final resting place. Without even hitting the garage, an iomega hard drive back up thingy, a VCR, a lovely wooden box, and a set of jacks, hand clappers, and bubbles left over from Tuesday night's party winked at me and whispered, "I know you're stalling."

What's whispering to you?

Still Ga Ga

My blog has no focus. Pam has a rule that she doesn't blog about current events. I don't know how she does it. These days it's all I think about.

Thursday night as I got into bed and started to chit chat with Jeff I thought about Obama and Michelle. What must it have been like for him to crawl into bed with her at the White House at the end of his first day? Did they say, "Can you believe it?" The work part is probably easy for him; he's known what he was going to do and he's just doing it. But this must have been a moment. Did George W leave Obama a note like Reagan left Bush? What did it say?

Yesterday, while I was waiting for Ann, I was thinking about the scuttlebutt about Yo Yo Ma's prerecorded performance, (so what, btw) and it took me back to the absolute joy he exuded playing that day (he was playing). The performance was so much more than the music. Without his beaming in-the-moment expression, it wouldn't have been the same. I had chills all over again just in the remembering. The best video I can find of it is here at 2:22 minutes.

I spent this morning reading the paper like it was Sunday. I caught up on bits I didn't have time to read from cover to cover throughout the week. I want to know what Obama says and how he says it. Give me the details. I'm fascinated by stuff like Eric Cantor, the number two house republican's, description of Obama's reaction to Cantor's points of opposition on the stimulus plan:

>>
[Cantor] said the president had told him, “You’re correct, there’s a philosophical difference, but I won, so we’re going to prevail on that.”

“He was very straightforward,” Mr. Cantor added. “There was no disrespect, but it was very matter-of-fact.”
NY Times, By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
>>

Somewhere else I read some writer commenting on the difference between Obama and Bill Clinton and how Obama is so self contained. He doesn't need the validation that Bill needed and how that makes Obama able to maneuver so cleanly and clearly and build relationships with people who differ from him.

My mind is all things Obama all day long. Today, I even sent my first personal, not-for-work letter to the editor on the subject.

I heard a Jay Leno joke I've been replaying and laughing over all week.

Barack is upstairs sleeping in the White House.
Michelle and her mother are downstairs in the kitchen.
Marion says to Michelle, "You could have done better."

"I felt full"

I got this message today from a Focusing message board, but wasn't successful finding the video clip. I'd love to see it if anyone is able to unearth it:

Dear Focusing Friends,
Maybe some of you saw the clip on one of the networks these last days, in which a young angelic boy--his name and appearance suggested he was of Middle Eastern or African and white parentage--met and talked with Obama. He actually looked like a young version of Obama. After they conversed, a reporter asked the boy how it had been, how he felt, to talk to the then-President-elect. The boy got very quiet. He went inside. Then, very seriously, he said, 'I felt full.' You could see him checking that with himself. He nodded. 'Yes, I felt full. Full of my self." He emphasized 'self.' 'I feel like I can do more now, do more things in my life." Then he checked inside again, sensed he was finished, and smiled."
Joyce Kornblatt

Beautiful stuff. Pure.

I remember this being mentioned on CNN. A reporter told the broadcaster that this is what the kid said. The broadcaster laughed nervously and said something like, "oh, okay...well, there you have it." She obviously thought it was strange.

Her response reminds me how alien felt experiencing is to our culture. The boy reminds me that it's our natural state of being and access to it is takes just a little bit of pause and listening.

In Church

I had the pleasure of catching Rev Gene Robinson's pre-inaugural prayer for Obama on Talk of the Nation today. Rev Robinson said he wanted to give a prayer that would surprise in the tradition of the Franciscan four-fold prayer.

"Dear God of many understandings," he opened. Now, that's a God I can embrace. He's not the God of my childhood or the God of this religion or that. He's more than belief and doctrine.

On the rare occasion that I pray, I'm usually praying for forgiveness and compassion. To no one in particular, I'm usually wishing to be rid of my character flaws. If only I didn't have a direct route to the autobahn of anger, there wouldn't be such unpleasantness. But "bless us with anger?" Wow, there's a transformational, turn-conventional-wisdom-on-its-head prayer.

I was in church this weekend for my great aunt Helen's memorial service. Sitting in the Episcopal pew with my cousin Mary Katherine on my left, Jeff on my right and surrounded by my Italian cousins, I had a view of my great uncle Wayne who sat in rapt attention as each of his surviving grown grandchildren and his three children eulogized his wife of 64 years. The service began in song and with little forwarning, my dormant grief came crashing through like a torrent. Fortunately, before the service I asked Jeff to switch seats with me so I could sit next to Mary Katherine. She knew just what to do and held me tight. Never needing to glance his way, I knew Jeff had his own revisiting of losses quietly quaking inside him and he was grateful Mary Katherine was taking over.

There was lots of getting up and down and while I was crying outwardly, inwardly I was laughing as we rose and I heard my dear husband belting out the refrain, "I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord...I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, etc." I'll tell you, there's nothing like one's wife falling to pieces next to you in the middle of your own seismic activity to help you find Jesus Christ. Seriously, those words could have been anything. The point is we were all holding on through the saying of those traditional words together.

Over the weekend we gathered seven times to visit, be together, and tell stories. As our time unfolded, the roots of my grief revealed themselves in a story, a comment, or a photo. Some grief was for Aunt Helen and the welcoming open heart she extended to me. Some was for those I love who passed long ago. Some of it was for my own irretrievable losses. Some for the pain of current challenges. Still some more of it is grief that existed long before I was born and that has been passed down through the generations. It even occurs to me now that some of that grief may have been my Aunt Helen's. Grief she never mourned that I picked up. Grief that passed through me on her way out. I'll leave the definitive explanations to the God of many understandings.

What I've come home with is a washing through, fatigue in the wringing, spaciousness and expansiveness in the holding and belonging, and vulnerability in the knowing that this life passes quickly leaving us ravished with beauty and pain.

-----------------

I'm also including here Aunt Helen's beautiful obituary, written by her daughter, my cousin Cynthia:

Helen C. Roberts
Aug. 21, 1922 - Dec. 20, 2008

A memorial service for Helen C. Roberts, 86, of Vacaville is set for 1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 12, in Epiphany Episcopal Church.

Mrs. Roberts passed away peacefully at home in the care of hospice, with her family near her side, on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008, from complications related to cancer.

The Rev. Terry Gilmore, a longtime friend, will lead the service.

Though she resided in her adopted community of Vacaville for the last 14 years, Mrs. Roberts always considered Los Angeles her home. She was married and raised her three children there.

The youngest of five children of Italian immigrants Achille and Concetta Marinucci, she was born in Detroit on Aug. 21, 1922. In 1935, her family moved into a house at 1508 Temple Street in the city of Los Angeles, a home her father later remodeled into a small apartment building.

As a young girl, she loved the movies. In school she discovered the joy of books and literature. A 1941 graduate of Belmont High School, Mrs. Roberts had a generous, fun-loving spirit. She once took a friendly dare and jumped into the ocean off the end of the Santa Monica pier.

Shortly after high school, she moved to National City near San Diego and completed aircraft training school before going to work for Ryan Aeronautical Co.

In the summer of 1942, at a USO dance, she met a tall Texan on his first leave after Navy boot camp. She not only liked the looks of Wayne Roberts, but the devoted way he talked about his family back home in Burkburnett, Texas. They dated until he shipped out to the South Pacific in November 1942. They wrote back and forth unfailingly for nearly two years. Upon his return, they were married in St. Athanasius Episcopal Church in Echo Park on Sept. 10, 1944.

Her hard-working immigrant parents taught Mrs. Roberts to value education. She relished learning about the world, a passion she passed on to her three college-educated children.

An FDR Democrat, rarely did she miss watching the Sunday news show, "60 Minutes." Although her Italian heritage did not endow her with the gift of song nor language, she had the skilled hands of a Michelangelo to craft whatever her imagination or family need might be - children's play clothes, matching Christmas outfits, prom and party dresses, wedding gowns or a grandchild's christening dress.

Her culinary skills were generously practiced in her home of 44 years on Bracken Street in the San Fernando Valley town of Arleta.

Her extended family knew Aunt Helen's was the place to celebrate birthdays, holidays and Sunday family dinners.

Even her Christmas fruitcake, bejeweled in cherries and pecans, was a prized gift.

There were spaghetti dinner fundraisers and craft projects for her beloved Girl Scouts, pecan pies and angel food cake for the St. Mark's bake sale, a bright dessert table for a bridal shower, picnic potato salad for the Fourth of July and Texas icebox pudding, her husband's favorite.

A willing volunteer who cherished doing good works, Mrs. Roberts cared for her aging parents, making sure her mother, who lived to the age of 101, got her hair coiffed regularly. She was her chauffeur on errands and to family gatherings.

Mrs. Roberts enjoyed her garden of roses and azaleas - and all things lemon. Swimming at the local YMCA was her pleasure and her exercise.

Her last volunteer project was baking brownies and pineapple upside-down cakes for Epiphany Church's Friday dinners in Vacaville.

Mrs. Roberts was preceded in death by her sister and three brothers, and by her granddaughter, Emily Roberts, all who lived in Los Angeles.

She is survived by her best friend and husband of 64 years, Carl Wayne Roberts of Vacaville; daughter and son-in-law Cynthia and Steve Huddleston of Vacaville, daughter and son-in-law Donna and Clay Dluehosh of Albany, Ore.; son and daughter-in-law Dana Roberts and Bessie Kouvara of La Canada; grandson Gavin Dluehosh and his wife, Jana, of Valley Springs; grandson Tyler Roberts and his wife, Alicia, of Pasadena; granddaughter Lindsay Dluehosh Harrison and her husband, Tim, of London, England; grandsons Henry and Thomas Huddleston of Vacaville; great grandson Wil Dluehosh of Valley Springs, and many nieces, great-nieces and great-nephews.

Memorial contributions may be made to NorthBay Hospice & Bereavement, in care of NorthBay Healthcare Foundation, 4500 Business Center Drive, Fairfield, 94534.

A second memorial service will be held in Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 17 in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys.

My Secret Garden

Sitting in Noelle's living room this morning, I watched the light stream through the cutouts in the fence and dreamed of my secret garden. It's unassuming, rambling and intimate--a place for play, special friends, some planting and some weeding.

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It's the most satifying garden I've know.