It's Me: Jennie Block Taylor

The grandkids were all sitting on the floor.  I couldn’t believe that they wanted to hear my story.  They typically showed very little interest in me, but they asked, so I told.

“How did I get to where I am today?  It was the door I chose.  Things are so different today.  We didn’t have personal computers, tablets or cell phones back then.  Back then, your future was determined, or at least you believed it was determined, on Door Day.  You kids probably can’t even imagine it, but I remember.”  And I did remember.

Why didn’t they look as nervous as I was? I hoped there was no arm-raising involved.  There’s no way my “antiperspirant” would earn that label today, I thought.  Well, I might as well suck it up and go into the auditorium. 

Whew, there must have been others who were as nervous as I was.  The place stunk. I looked around the auditorium and could see the tables set up.  There was a dealer at each table.  Just one dealer per table.  I had heard that you could get an idea of the dealer’s cards, by examining the dealer; by really looking at him or her.  I wondered if the dealer’s gender was a clue to the cards in his or her deck.  Of course, some of the lines weren’t available to me.  Some lines were by invitation only.  My Dad was a mechanic.  Dealers whose decks I choose from would be unlikely to contain the doors available to those in the “invitation-only” lines even though I had been told that while the decks of doors varied from dealer to dealer, there were a few cards that showed up in all decks.    

Where were my friends?  I had thought we were going to meet up and pick a line together.  Maybe I was too early.  I was always either too early or too late.

“Hey, no loitering.  Once you enter the auditorium, you have to get into a line.”

“I’ll just go out and wait for my friends.”

“That’s not an option.  You can walk the perimeter of the auditorium once, but the next time round you have to get in a line.  You’re not allowed to enter the lines that are curtained off – I can tell by looking at you.”

It must have been my low-quality antiperspirant.  It always gave me away – that and my stomach rumbles (nerves, not hunger).  Even though I couldn’t see who was in the curtained-off lines, I knew who would be standing there; the cheerleaders and kids who were cool by virtue of money, looks or intellect.  Money being the surest attribute leading to an invitation to one of those lines.

“Yeah, I’ll just get in this line.” I responded as I moved towards the line directly in front of me.  Impulse control also suffered when I was nervous.

The line was moving incredibly fast.  It didn’t take much time at all, and the hard-plastic chair (orange of course to match the school’s colors) at the table facing the dealer was vacated.  I hadn’t even seen the last kid sitting there get up and leave.  The dealer, in a black suit, with white shirt and black tie, waved me over.  So much for getting a clue to the cards in the deck by examining the dealer.  I moved forward and sat down.  The fact that my sage-colored shirt clashed with the orange chair, increased my anxiety.  The dealer, in this case a man, began to explain the process very matter-of-factly.

“So, I’ll shuffle the deck and then you’ll pick your door card.  You can have the cards door side up, or door side down.  I’m not supposed to, but I’ll go ahead and tell you.  You can’t really tell where the door will lead, even if you can see the card before choosing.  Particularly this deck.  To be honest, I don’t much like this deck.  It’s difficult to judge where the doors in this deck lead by looking at them.  They are partially open, but you can’t see much of what’s behind the door.  The line’s getting long so we better get going.  I’m going to shuffle, and you choose.  You must choose immediately after I shuffle. Cards face up or face down?”

All I could think was that I hoped my sage-green top didn’t show the perspiration that was accumulating under my arms.  I blurted out (I tended to blurt out when I was nervous), “Face up.” 

The dealer shuffled. He had been right.  I really couldn’t make out much of what lay behind the doors pictured.  At that moment, I realized that there was not much advantage to the cards being face-up.  I grabbed a card.  I glanced down at the door, and before I could begin to examine it, it grew and opened before me.  I could barely hear the dealer’s voice in the background saying “Next.”

The door opened to a black and white, checkered linoleum floor.  I knew it.  I was destined to wait tables in a diner the rest of my life.  I had worked at a donut shop during high school to earn gas money for my sixty-two Ford Galaxy (I’m pretty sure that Ford Galaxy owners were not allowed in the exclusive, curtained lines of students awaiting their turn with a dealer).  It was thankless work.  I pushed open the door, a little more so that I could enter, and saw what I still believe to be a small alien.

“Wait a minute,” grandson Cody called out.  “You’re telling us that when you left high school you went through some sort of magical door and met aliens.”  He was looking down at the floor, shaking his head back and forth.

“I’m not only telling you, that’s what happened.  That door, opened to my life’s adventure.  I had many great times and more than a little pain after going through that door.  There were also many more doors.  I choose to open them, and what happened next was always a consequence of my choice.  Opening those doors led me here.  They led me to be here with the five of you.  I’m happy here, and even if I wasn’t it wouldn’t matter.  I didn’t have total freedom-of-choice for the first door that I opened, but it led me to the other doors, and they led me here so it was the right choice.”

Cody looked at me incredulously and asked, “But what about the alien?”  I answered, “Why do you think we all have two spleens?”

This post is in response to Dan Antion’s writing challenge (No Facilities) to write something inspired by a picture of a door. I picked the intriguing door pictured here which was posted on the blog, Retirementally Challenged.  

I like to walk in a dedicated open space area in the North Valley of Albuquerque. The walking paths follow the perimeter of agricultural fields. Last Friday, the field was full of geese (the Sandhill Cranes having migrated away in early March). A hawk circled overhead and landed at the top of a very gnarly tree. I’ve walked past the tree many times and always admire it (it’s gnarly dude). It has a LOT of character. It encompasses both the traditional definition of gnarly – twisted and knotted, or difficult and challenging; as well as the Urban Dictionary definition – cool and awesome.

Like the tree I saw on my walk, the map of my life has been gnarly. It’s twisted and knotted; and while probably not cool, and often down-right painful, it has been awesome. My gnarled career path included pretty much every job position ending with the word “assistant,” including library, medical, legal, office, program, etc. Eventually I progressed to job positions ending with the word “manager,” including office, program, etc. Ultimately it led to retirement, and that’s awesome!

My neighbors and I gathered in front of my next-door neighbor’s house on Monday before retrieving our recently-emptied trash bins. We started discussing the paths our lives had followed. The neighbor across the street told of the excitement and challenges of being in a band in the late 70s (a great time to be in a band as far as times to be in a band go). He shared that there were amazing successes and some devastating losses, but that he wouldn’t have chosen any other path. A gnarly path almost always beats a straight path.

Visually, a gnarly tree is much more interesting than a run-of-the-mill straight-up-and-down tree. Gnarly trees twist themselves into unique yoga-like poses that probably hurt, but ultimately keep the tree going. So, “come on baby, let’s do the twist” and create a life that is fun to look back on. Life (even when gnarled) is good!

I had written this post before reading a fellow blogger’s post which shared a challenge (Glastonbury Doors) to write something inspired by a picture of a door. Her post (Interplanetary Portal) contained an intriguing picture of a door. My response to the challenge is in the following post.

I have always said that what I needed to write a book was time. I said that I was going to write a book when I retired. I said that I would then have time. I didn’t (have time or write a book). When the pandemic came along, I didn’t even think of using all of the time it provided to write a book. I knew, if I did, I would have had to come up with an excuse as to why I hadn’t written a book. Apparently, I’ve known for a long time that I wasn’t going to write a book anytime soon

Yesterday I opened my journal to write an entry and realized that I was near the end…of the journal; happily, not near the end of any of the many other ends that loom in my future. I try to write at least three pages at a time (a practice leftover from “The Artist’s Way” class I attended). When I turned to the last page in my current journal, I was surprised to see at the bottom of that page, the words, “I may not have written a book, but I’ve filled a book with writing.” I don’t remember writing that, but I must have been experiencing a little bit of extra-sensory perception at the time. Those words were true. I like to tell the truth, and apparently, I like to predict the truth too.

I made the first entry in this journal in early November, 2018 at a time when I was anxiously anticipating my impending retirement. The entry was a summary for a book I planned to write in retirement. I must not have developed the ability to truthfully predict the future until I actually became a retiree.

Filling this journal with writing did require a lot of writing, It’s a good-sized journal. I filled the first half during my first year of retirement. It’s taken me almost a year and a half to fill the second half. I’ve had distractions. Cinnamon is a very demanding cat. There were many crocheted afghans and stuffed animals that demanded creation. Ummm, I’m sure there were other things, too, I’m just too overwhelmed with demands on my time to remember them right now.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write a book, but I’m sure I’ll fill many more books with writing. Life is good!

This past year, my retirement entertainment reading has included Lillian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” series. The stories combined some of my favorite things (no pink-satin sashes for me): mystery, cats and small-town life. The plots tend to be predictable with the cat-hating ailurophobe being the murderer, but her description of cat behavior is always right on. She romanticizes small-town life which is in keeping with my fantasy of living in a small town. I’m on number twenty-eight. There are only thirty in the series, and since Ms. Braun died ten years ago, that will be it. It will be time to move on. I’ll be looking for something light and happy to read next. I’m always looking for something light and happy.

My friend Rikka moved to the four-corners area of New Mexico after extensive travels. I’ve followed her family’s travels since she was a co-worker of mine around seven years ago (ahhh, work, the thought can still be frightening). Theirs is an adventurous family, having traveled extensively and calling many things home, including a schooner named Wind Dancer. Now that they’ve settled in Northwestern New Mexico, they’ve opened their home to more animals (and more animal species) than I can keep track of, and they’re not even retired. They have dogs, cats, bunnies, birds and fish. Their young daughter, adopted while they were in Guam, looks so happy among her many siblings (human and other animals) in the many photos they post on Facebook. Their posts will be a nice segue into my next reading endeavor.

While I have not loved, nor owned, as many animals as Rikka and family, I have loved all of the animals I have owned, starting with my first pet, Snoopy the rat. She was a former lab rat that retired to our family’s home. We taught her to jump from our knee to the coffee table and back. We loved that rat. Next came Vigaro the cat. He was a big Maine Coon. We loved that cat. After I left home there was a long succession of cats, a few dogs, a half dozen ferrets, turtles and then more cats. Our ferrets were famous for their industrious and fastidious tidying of our home (moving beanie babies, shoes and visiting family members’ underwear from wherever they found them to under their bed of choice). One of our ferrets was discovered missing shortly after starting the dishwasher. We quickly opened the dishwasher to find a waterlogged unconscious ferret in the hot water standing in the bottom. We grabbed her, revived her, rubbed her ears with our hands that had been cooled with ice and her gums with water mixed with corn syrup. We loved that ferret (and all of our other ferrets).

I enjoy watching videos on the internet of animals behaving with total acceptance and unconditional love for other animals and people. I’ve been bitten by ferrets and dogs and scratched by cats and I still think that those animals were better behaved than some people. I’m blessed to have amazing (well-behaved – except when it’s more fun to not be well-behaved) friends and to have had wonderful (even when not well-behaved) pets. Animals and life are good!

Historically, we’ve had lots of “greats.” They include The Great Depression (I had one of those a few weekends ago), The Great Recession, The Great Chicago Fire, The Great Famine, The Great Train Robbery, and The Great War, just to name a few. Historically, “Great” can be terrifying. I’ve decided the last twelve months have been my Great Hibernation. It has been a little terrifying. My parents survived The Great Depression, and The Great Recession. They both died before the pandemic, a.k.a. The Great Hibernation. They came and went at will their entire lives. Family and friends have determined that neither of them would have thrived in the pandemic-required social isolation.

My children, grandchildren and I have earned the right to tell those not-yet-born, “Yep, I survived The Great Hibernation/Coronavirus pandemic.” Unlike some of those aforementioned “Greats,” the pandemic has had some positive outcomes. People have been incredibly inventive and flexible. Children learned at home. Adults worked from home. Animals found homes. I’m not saying it’s been easy. So many have lost livelihoods, and family and friends. This great has been much like those other greats in that regard.

Back to the hibernation analogy. Wikipedia defines hibernation as, “a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most commonly occurs during winter months.” The metabolic depression explains “the Coronavirus five” pound weight gain experienced by me and many others. Because this was a “GREAT” Hibernation, it spanned two winters and included the seasons between. I’m a huge proponent of mask wearing as evidenced by my manufacture of over 150 masks. Sadly, the masks I made were uncomfortable to wear resulting in slow breathing by the wearer; hibernation. As for “heterothermy,” what the heck is that? Well, according to Wikipedia it’s, “a physiological term for animals that vary between self-regulating their body temperature, and allowing the surrounding environment to affect it.” Yeah, we did that during the pandemic too (I think).

We’re rolling up our sleeves and getting vaccinated. We’re coming out of our self-regulated, temperature-controlled environments. It’s GREAT that we’re coming out of pandemic-induced hibernation. Let’s be nice and have a Great Awakening. Life is good.

These days, I write a blog. In days gone by, I wrote letters. In the mid-nineties, I wrote a letter to Kathie Lee Gifford in response to a statement she made in an interview, saying that anyone could be as wealthy as she and her husband, if they worked as hard as she and her husband. She made the statement in response to criticism about sweat-shop conditions for migrant workers employed to make her line of clothing. I said in my letter, that for some, no matter how hard they worked (and many worked unimaginably hard) they’d never escape poverty, much less be rich. I never received a reply.

I wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton, thinking she would win the 2016 election, saying that I believed she would win, and asking her to fight for a better world for all grandchildren, including hers and mine. It was a call for grandmother solidarity in the fight to protect the future of the planet for grandchildren everywhere. I never received a reply. It was a contentious election, so I understood.

Blog writing has not put an end to my letter writing. I recently wrote to the Dental Board of the State of New Mexico. I asked that they encourage dental practitioners to provide patients seeking dental implants with information regarding the timeframe involved for the process (it takes months – unlike what is illustrated in commercials promoting the process) and the cost (I was given a quote for “implants” but wasn’t told until the day the posts were surgically installed that I would have to return to my dentist for costly “crowns”). Drat. I never received a reply.

Some might think I would give up letter writing, but I have received lovely replies to letters I’ve written to friends and family. That’s all the encouragement I need (the secret’s out). Thank you!

Spring is behaving this week (unlike last week) just in time for Easter. Life is good. The jury is still out on letter writing.

I’ve been going round and round trying to decide what to write about this week. It’s been a mental musical chairs without music, chairs or much in my mind. The going in circles part, I’ve got down. I’ve been thinking about stuff, because it’s everywhere. I’ve been thinking about Spring, because it’s been elusive, since hitting the calendar last Saturday.

The “stuff” thing took centerstage in my mind (yes that scary place where I spend most of my time) when, while driving, I saw a homeless person pushing one overflowing grocery cart while pulling behind him, two more bound together by a heavy strap. It appeared burdensome. I thought, wow, even the homeless are weighed down by stuff. When my Dad died, and my siblings and I gathered to clean out our childhood home, there was a lot of stuff; my parents’ treasures. They had worked to collect those treasures, and we were left to work to dispose of the treasures. Rather than, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasures;” it was a case of “one man’s treasures are another man’s trash.” Stuff is ambiguously seductive.

So, what about Spring? It, too, is ambiguously seductive. My grandchildren and I spent the first full day of Spring pulling weeds from the rocks in my xeriscaped front yard. Weeds had popped up during the warm final days of Winter. By the fourth full day of Spring, Spring had donned her dominatrix outfit and whipped Albuquerque about the buttocks and back of the legs with branch limbs, ice and sometimes trees. Stuff (ha!, get the connection?) was everywhere. I hope the city’s homeless had enough stuff to keep themselves warm.

As I sat in my house, watching snow and my yard furniture swirl around my backyard, I created a community (I’ve been longing for community during the pandemic) in my mind (yeah, we’re back there again). In this community, people live in boxcars that surround an octagonal round house (there are eight boxcars). The people gather in the round house for meals and fellowship, and retire to the boxcars to sleep and engage in peaceful contemplation. There’s not a lot of space for stuff, but there are enough people to help each other when the weather or emotions make a mess. I hope all of the people are nice, sincere, honest and empathetic. The community will be a happier place if they are.

The sun is trying to come out. Life is good. I better go out in my yard and try to right my backyard furniture and gather and dispose of the felled branches. Life is good, but it ain’t easy.

Max was a big cat. Friend Mayra reminded me of this, when she told me that her daughter remembered Max as “the biggest cat she had ever seen.” Max was NOT a gentle giant. He was a fierce hunter and fighter. Those were the traits that brought Max to our home. When our son and his wife brought home their first born, they asked us if we could bring home Max. Thus, began the establishment of what our son-in-law deemed our “cat retirement home.” Years later, one of their cats retired to our home.

Max was a big cat. Max was headmaster of The School of Unconditional Love of Cats. It was a tough school; like one of those English boarding schools where the headmaster beats the kids if he believes them to have misbehaved. The school had many rules. Max allowed three pet strokes. If you proceeded with a fourth, he drew blood from the offending hand. Max patrolled the hall leading from the living room to the bedrooms with the ferocity of a gang boss protecting his turf. Many a calf felt the incision of his incisors while, what Max interpreted as not-so-innocently, traversing his territory. We loved Max.

Max would lay down beside you, with his head on your arm, purring loudly (until you moved and then he would bite you – moving wasn’t allowed). Max was a huge believer in the adage, love hurts. Max was a big cat.

Max was followed by Gravity (Jessie and Neil’s cat – according to Jessie, she fell from the sky, hence the name Gravity), and now my beautiful rescue cat, Cinnamon. I was well trained by Max, and have loved each of these cats unconditionally. It’s a good thing, because each of them required unconditional love. I have been rewarded with love from each of them, along with an occasional bite. Love may hurt, but life and cats are good.

My mini daffodils persevered through the late February polar vortex to bloom in March. Way to go daffodils! March in New Mexico is a tease. It can be seventy degrees one day, and cold and snowy the next. I’m not sure which the daffodils prefer. I simply prefer the daffodils – rays of sunshine in my backyard.

I have a love/hate relationship with my backyard. I love the out-of-doors refuge that it provides. I even love the work it requires. I can’t say that it’s less expensive than a gym (yard maintenance can be very expensive, even when doing the work yourself), but it is a very rewarding way to get some exercise. I have severe allergies so working in it in the Spring requires lots of tissue and antihistamines (antihistamines make me grumpy, so I try to be a daffodil, and persevere without them). Backyards also invite mosquitos which then dine on the table of Jennie’s ankles. It is an unholy communion that irritates throughout the day and night.

I love to sit inside and plan my Spring backyard planting. It’s all so beautiful in my mind and my plan never includes allergies or mosquitos. My mind, like my backyard, vacillates between a beautiful place to visit and an uncomfortable scary place, even when there are no mosquitos.

My backyard houses my She Shed, a small pergola and deck, a labor-intensive saltillo-tiled patio and many memories. My backyard has evolved. There is currently much less grass than there was when we bought the house. Both the peach and mimosa trees were casualties of our home ownership. The yard now is home to many herbs, which I use to make herbal remedies, and flowers, which I use to make me smile, and a small patch of Bermuda grass which uses me to fulfill its sadistic goals of irritating skin, eyes, and nose.

My backyard has been the site of many gatherings of family and friends. Other times, I have sat alone on the deck and enjoyed the beauty and solitude of nature (until a mosquito buzzes by, and then I go inside). My Rosemary bush is beckoning. It likes to share its scent with me and its pollen with bees. It’s a nice Rosemary bush. My backyard and life are good.

Phil and I both had passports that went unused. Mine expired before being used and Phil expired before using his. That was not very nice to him. I had gotten mine in 2008 when Wheel of Fortune still gave “a lucky wheelwatcher” the trip won in that night’s Prize Puzzle. Apparently, I was not a “lucky wheelwatcher” despite being a prepared-to-travel wheelwatcher. Phil had gotten his in hopes of riding his 1989 Harley Davidson ElectraGlide from New Mexico to Canada. He had ridden it up to Washington state, but had to stop at the Canadian border because he did not then have a passport. I got my passport in 2008 and it expired in 2018. Phil got his passport in 2018 and he expired in 2019. The international travel Wheel of Fortune never seemed to land on Phil or me.

I have traveled domestically. While working in research, I traveled to cities all around the country to assist with clinical trial kick-offs. I loved getting to see my Country and would always try to see as much as possible at the different locations. While I’m always ready to rejoice in my retiree status, I remain extremely grateful for the travel opportunities I was afforded while working.

I do have an easily-renewed PBS Passport (a mere $75 annual donation) which allows me to stream the many wonderful and often exotically set programs they broadcast. I love to travel to the High Dells of Yorkshire while watching “All Creatures Great and Small.” I have seen the beauty of Corfu in Greece while watching “The Durrells in Corfu.” Like Zoom meetings, I don’t have any travel time and don’t need to be overly concerned about my appearance (with Zoom, from the shoulders down; however, in all honesty I look bad from the shoulders down no matter what I do and not much better from the shoulders up), but unlike Zoom meetings, there’s no social interaction. Being that I’m socially-awkward, it keeps me from reflecting badly on the United States, which is a good thing. My PBS Passport has allowed me to further my domestic travels also. I’ve rejoiced in, “The Black Church,” and further explored my local culture with my local PBS station’s program “Colores.” The PBS Passport has been great, because it allowed me to continue my virtual travel (local and abroad) during the pandemic. The Pandemic. THE PANDEMIC (this is a written echo – the pandemic is always ready to sneak in and reflect back into everything I do).

The pandemic… I got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday. In three weeks, I hope to get my second dose. In my mind (oh no, we’re not going there again), this will be my pharmaceutical passport to leave my house for more than an hour or two at a time. Where will I go? How will I go? What will I do? Who will care for Cinnamon (who has with no intent at all, preserved my mental and emotional health over the past 12 months)? Thank you Pfizer, for re-introducing where, what, who and how into my life. Thank you PBS Passport for allowing me to see so much of the world’s beauty without leaving my sofa. United States Postal Service, hang in there. I may want to renew my passport one day. Life is good!