Mis primos

My cousins on Dad's side of the family got together on Saturday. I was still here but the photos I have seen were great. The only thing that puzzles me is who are these old folks in the pictures? What is scary, of course, is that I do recognize them and we are mostly about the same age. Since I have not asked permission of the whole crew I will not post the photos.

Good time at church this morning. I got home rather late, after the picnic and some shopping, and was exhausted. BFF came over to help me eat leftovers this evening and we had a nice visit.

The flipping New Mexico winds are howling away again. My yard is so battered by them. And there is a bosque fire in southern Corrales tonight. Let us pray for the people and the animals and the homes in that area.

A good weekend. And I'm tired.

--the BB

Dance with the angels! - updated

Jeanetta Braziel yielded her radiant spirit yesterday morning. In the past year she lived life as fully as possible and in this photo she looks fabulous. Hard to believe that was just over three months ago.

May she rest in peace and rise in glory. May Rich and the rest of the Braziel family be consoled in their grief.


UPDATE:

Jeanetta Braziel died peacefully at her home in Albuquerque on Sunday, October 4, 2009. Her husband Rich was with her at the time of her death. Jeanetta was the hub of a large and loving circle of friends and family. She lived and died filled with love and grace, leaving a hole that will never be filled although our precious memories will remain. Few touch the lives of so many in such a powerful and positive way. Jeanetta was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on October 9, 1952 to Frances and James Arndell. She grew up in Kentucky and Albuquerque and graduated from UNM with degrees in speech/language pathology and special education. She worked as a speech/language pathologist in California, returning to Albuquerque to finish graduate school. Jeanetta served her entire professional career as an educator at Jefferson Middle School, both as a teacher of gifted students and as a counselor. She loved Jefferson, her students and their families, her colleagues and the work to which she dedicated her life. Jeanetta was preceded in death by her father, James Arndell. She will be greatly missed by her family, including her husband Richard Braziel; her mother Frances Arndell; her daughter Lawren Carmignani; her daughter Christen Pike, her husband John and their two sons Jackson and Parker; her brother Jim Arndell, his wife Cindy and their son Conner; her sister Debbie Giles, her husband Rich and their sons Jason and Ryan; and countless devoted friends and members of her extended family. Services will be held on Thursday, October 8, 2009, 4:00 p.m., at Monte Vista Christian Church, 3501 Campus NE. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Jeanetta Braziel Memorial Fund which will be used to provide clothing for homeless students at Jefferson Middle School, 712 Girard Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106 attn: Mike McNamera.
--Obituary in the Albuquerque Journal

--the BB

101

Were he still alive, today would be my Dad's 101st birthday.

--the BB

Caption Competition

From the blog: Hoff Hoopla

With all the disgusting things going on in political circles I thought I would toss out something for Mimi to coo over. (If you are new to this blog, these are my twin great-grandnieces.)

OK, then, get those thought bubbles going!

(Jonathan, behave.)

--the BB

Война и мир

What the northerners did not know, nor did T., was that a humble hut three miles west of the town now sheltered the little princess.... Armies moved with the lofty goal of taking cities but no one paid attention to a modest country family with a new grandchild.

I have not given Grandmère any cute baby fixes for a while, so I thought I should share these short passages from today's storytelling.

Š. quickly decided she enjoyed life without fussy courtiers around and found the freedom to get dirty incredibly liberating. This was a three-year-old’s paradise so long as one ignored the occasional tantrum and had no knowledge that one had become an orphan.

Of the three claimants to the throne for which this child was ostensibly destined, one cousin would probably force her to marry his son, the other cousin would have her killed (as he had done with her mother), and her aunt? Neither of those actions, but what?

I have been talking about five armies moving about but as I pause I realize there were really six organized military bodies, though two more just joined the fighting today. How did Tolstoy write War and Peace without spreadsheets and genealogy programs?

The "find" function in documents is also very helpful. Good for questions like "have I introduced this character yet?" and "what have I said about this town?" and "are her/his physical characteristics defined yet?"

I suppose this would be as good a moment as any to tell those who have not heard it about my adventure at my grandparent's farm. I was three, the same age as the little princess. I saw some bantam chicks and thought they were too cute for words. I wanted to play with them, I suppose, but their mother had different ideas. I have no memory of any of this but my mother told me the story. Mother hen went after me. It explains something. I have an uncontrollable phobia of beaks and claws. Over the decades I have come to appreciate and love birds. Just so they don't get too close. Watching them, putting out seed, learning to identify them, etc.--all wonderful. But do I need to tell y'all that when my parents got me a parakeet to help me overcome this it was not a success? Imagine my relief when mom said he flew away while she was cleaning his cage (which I didn't buy for a minute). I actually worried about the bird but I was glad he was gone.

OK, Mimi , David, and baby lovers everywhere, here are Clara and Olivia on Monday.


I'm going to return to the war for the throne.

--the BB

At last!

At the family wedding last September I kept trying to get a nice picture of my grandniece Rachel. No luck. None of the trio of grandnieces yielded a good picture that evening, which is a great pity. But here is one with Rachel looking gorgeous. She is holding her niece Clara. Her big brother Jeremy, the twins' dad, is in the background.

Aunt Rachel and Clara

--the BB

OK, ladies, here's your cuteness fix

Remember when they appeared the size of Jeremy's fist? Here is some family togetherness with the growing girls.

--Great granduncle BB

Because I can't deny Mimi....

... a "cute" fix, here are the twins from Saturday.


A comment on their blog reminds me: though they were born three months ago, they are newborns in developmental terms.

We now return to our regular posts on torture, injustice, ecclesiastical horrors, and fictional wars.

--the BB

It took a while

But the girls are home together at last. On Monday Olivia came home to join her sister Clara.

The Hoffs

Here is another picture of Jeremy with a baby, his sister Esther, and his cousin Mindi in the foreground.
--the BB

All four in one pic!

Parents Jeremy and Katie with Clara and Olivia

The outpouring of love from family and friends is overwhelming. We are so grateful. The girls are growing and changing each day. There are still challenges they need to master. The biggest challenge right now is feeding. It is an exhausting task and they have to breathe and suck at the same time. For babies, who were three months early, that is a big job. Every day is a blessing, every day they get a little bit closer to their original due date. God is good and loving.

Quote of the Day:
Breathe in, Breathe out, Smile.
Thich Nhat Hanh

--from the blog

--the BB

Update on my family

I got an e-mail from my sister and also talked on the phone with Jay's brother today.

Iva writes:

Brought Jay home last night. Lots to learn and seems a bit overwhelming right now. I am not as young as I used to be! His numbers are better. 211 this a.m. and 367 before lunch. He gets long acting insulin twice a day and the other on a sliding scale before meals and at bedtime.

The laser surgery on the twins went well. This is a new procedure for pre-term babies that helps prevent detached retina later on.

Jay's brother was reinstated at his job (a different story and a long one) and now we are praying that budget cuts don't affect Glen.

Here are some vintage and recent shots, mingled.

My nieces and nephews. Front row L to R: Kazan, my mother's dog, nieces Paula and Jannita. Jannita is the grandmother of the twins. Paula is also a grandmother. Back row: my nephews Glen, Jay, and Burt.


Here are Granduncle Glen and his partner Julie visiting the twins at Stanford.


Here I am with nephew Jay (back when I had a full head of brown hair - and tacky polyester pants).

Here are Glen and Julie at Jeremy and Katie's wedding last September, flanked by Glen's kids (some of my other grandnips), Steven and Morgan.

And here we have Jay along with Jannita's stepson and older brother of the groom, Joe.

Here is my cousin Bessie who shares her birthday with me, hugging her grandson Dallas. Isn't she beautiful? She has always had the sweetest soul (and comes from a carnival family - never underestimate these these sweet senior ladies, folks, not that any of you would).

Many thanks for the prayers that have come from all over. I told my sister we have a lot of love coming our way.
--the BB

More of my family

The young aunts visited the twins at Stanford yesterday. I am going right to left in naming folks in this photo because you have met the parents already. So, starting at the far right:

Katie, the twins' mom, and Jeremy their dad.
Grandma Jannita (my niece)
Jeremy's sisters: Aunt Hannah, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Rachel (all adopted, just like me and my Aunt Jessie - it's a family tradition)
Grandpa Tim

I really like this photo. Maybe this is because when I have tried to take pics of my grandnieces, the aunts, they start squirreling around. I think they look adorable here.

Full report at the blog.

--the BB

It seems to be birthday season

In just the past several days we have celebrated Eileen, Kirstin, Mimi, and Ruth. (Apologies to any I have unintentionally slighted.)

Had he lived, my father would be celebrating his 100th birthday tomorrow, 21 September 2008.

It seems I cannot let this milestone pass by.

Dad grew up on the family farm in Kingsburg. He was the eldest child and had lots of responsibilities, as Grandfather was often away working in construction (or as a logger) to help pay for the farm. Dad was always hyper-responsible.


Here is a photo of Dad as a young sailor. When he was younger than this he had the most amazing (almost frightening) head of hair, with his high forehead and a pompadour that rose way above it. I now resemble him more in his latter years, with less and less hair on top.

As noted in the Kingsburg nostalgia post, Dad was born and raised in that small Swedish farming community. He was senior class president at Kingsburg High School (go Vikings!) in 1927 and also starred in the senior class play. That was the end of his formal education.

Father was a very bright man. His two loves were aviation and electronics. If you had something with vacuum tubes in it, he was the go-to guy for repairs and tinkering. I remember him using a ring of coiled wires to de-Gauss the television periodically, something he did with the flair of a born ritualist. I doubt he considered that I may have gotten that touch of priestcraft legitimately from him, Swedish Baptist roots notwithstanding.

Dad rebuilt, and built, small aircraft and loved to fly. He met Lindberg when he was young. I, alas, invariably got airsick and thus was loathe to acommpany him in the air, though looking down at the world from above was very exciting. Dad always felt safe in very small planes and uncomfortable in airliners. I was the opposite.

When I was three years old, Father taught me to read using my alphabet blocks and simple phonetics. By the time I arrived at kindergarten I was already reading my comic books, including the publishing data, copyright notices, and fine print in the ads. If it had text, I read it. I will forever be grateful to Dad for introducing me to the magic of symbolic communication.

One of Dad's early memories was of an old man walking down the main street in Kingsburg banging two short pieces of pipe together. He was announcing the end of the Great War. (For you youngsters, that's WWI.)

May we soon all bang pipes together with the same motive.

Happy birthday, Dad!
--the BB

Cousin PJ pays a visit

Regular visitors may be aware that Maggie and Belle, the intrepid damsels of New Orleans adventures, are part of a large extended family. They have so many siblings I doubt I could give an accurate count without inventorying two large houses. (Hey, I know all their names, I just don't count my kids; they're not numbers after all, and look at how God viewed King David doing a census!)

Anyhoo, I had not expected to be home this weekend when the San Diego contingent was in town and was thus pleasantly surprised to see Cousin PJ, shown above with Aunt Debbie Bear. (Yes, Debbie, like me, is a bear. One really needs a shamanistic viewpoint to follow some of my posts, I know.)

PJ, or Paddington Junior, is a homemade teddy bear that Debbie made for her mother, Anne. This was after Debbie had made a larger homemade bear for me, my official teddy bear, Paddington. My Paddington looks like the Paddington Bear in Michael Bond's books, not like the commercial Paddington Bears one sees for sale which look about as much like Paddington as the Disney Pooh looks like the real Winnie the Pooh. PJ had a nice visit with the two Gregorys during dinner (Gregory Bear and Gregory Hedgehog).


That evening we marveled at this colorful and humongous spider in the garden. Quite impressive and I did not get near enough for it to try eating me too. Any experts on Arachnidae out there care to identify this critter?

Dinner included grilled pork loin; a medley of incredibly sweet and delicious canteloupe, green grapes, and blackberries; grilled vegetables including red peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes from the garden; and corn from the garden. All this was followed with German chocolate cake made from scratch. There were lovely wines. On mange bien ici.


Here we have the cottonwoods in the golden light of sunset.

That was the end of August and one could feel an autumnal edge to things.
--the BB

Heart thread - 8/22/2008

I just received an update from my sister's niece's daughter:

Last night was her roughest yet, after sleeping for 12 hours straight, she awoke to excruciating pain that was extremely difficult to relieve.
...
Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for your outpouring of love and prayers for mom, they have meant the world to her, and will continue to bring strength to all of us.

Jan is being transferred to a hospice ward of a local hospital as pain management has become too difficult. I know you will help pray her, uphold her, love her into the Light.

I also learned this evening that my cousin Laura died of a heart attack on Tuesday. Two of her siblings have preceded her and I have lost five younger cousins over the years. We were not close, geographically or emotionally, but Laura was one of the few (four?) relatives who attended my ordination to the priesthood. I had not even known she was in Grace Cathedral that day. Later she wrote to say what a thrill it was to see her cousin stand at the altar to bless the congregation. I hope that now she knows that in feeling that and sharing it with me it is she who blessed me.

Into paradise may the angels lead you. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

--the BB

Memory eternal

A week ago my Aunt Ruby V. Rosander was received into the everlasting arms. This afternoon my brother-in-law sent me a scan of her obituary.
For the non-Central Valley folk reading this, rolling trays is what you do with trays of raisins drying in the sun.

Aunt Ruby was the eldest daughter, as my father was the eldest son. They remembered the hard times when resources were few and life was tough. Her memories were much darker than those of Aunt May, who is the baby of the family (as am I). Things had improved over time. Comments above about farm hospitality were true and I remember having coffee in her kitchen.

["Coffee" to Swedes is like "tea" for the Brits. It's what you do at four in the afternoon. I never drank coffee because I don't like the taste of it, but I had coffee in the larger sense. Grandmother and my aunts knew how to bake!]

Grandpa's name was Victor and so my dad was Paul Victor and Ruby was Ruby Victoria. It sounds like a very grand name and, in truth, I rather think that Aunt Ruby was an empress on the farm.

May she rest in peace and rise with Christ in glory.
--the BB