Mosquitoes

Dallas has been inundated with rain. We've had a hard-to-fix roof leak on that stupid flat roof. (Why would anyone have a flat roof anywhere but in West Texas or the Middle East?) And the mosquitoes are out in force. Every door of our house has a colony of the biters lurking, just to try to get in. I have the pests in my car! My new perfume is Deep Off Woods (25% Deet) and I have about 12 current bites. Fortunately, these aren't the kind that give West Nile Virus.

To make matters even more annoying, my husband does not get bitten. Oh, he'll get the occasional tick attached to tender parts when we go to the ranch, but mosquitoes just don't like him. He doesn't spray at all and he just never gets bitten. NO fair.

I'm waiting anxiously, for someone to do his DNA and give me some of that.

Gum chewing

I know this is trivial with war, insane college shooters and out-of-control TV coverage, but gum chewing is driving me crazy. I think there must be a requirement for postal employees that they perfect gum chewing before being allowed to work the desk at the post office. Seriously, when was the last time you stood in line and actually watched a post office work NOT chomping away?

My aunt Jane (born in 1902) wrote in her diary that "they were so naughty - they chewed gum!" And my mother thought gum chewing should be done only in private.

Just look at Britany Spears - doesn't the fact that she's always chewing away (mouth open, of course) just punctuate the fact that she's just trashy?

Writing Contest, life lessons

In between editing the pet magazine, preparing the library budget and grandmothering, I have entered the over 60 PEN Texas contest. As background, I remember leafing through a book in the library at the Theta house in Austin in around 1964 and being fascinated with an account of a life told in checks. The series of checks revealed a life in Hollywood in 1931 (writen by Wuther Grue) and published in a big book.

Last year I came across the same book ( Vanity Fair 1931) and thought that this could be adapted to Dallas from the 70s to 2006 and tell the life of a privileged young woman. It was harder than I thought to organize the events and the different banks (there were lots of bank changes in the time)! Anyway, I sent it off and we'll see.

I used events from my own daughters' lives (the OB/GYN, the ballet school, cotillion) but other events (obviously, since my daughters grew up to be perfect, unspoiled, intelligent and beautiful) are made up or drawn from friends or acquaintences who weren't so blessed. Looking at their lives makes me realize that you can do everything you think is right and still be wrong.

Family history

In my spare time I've been organizing the mound of family papers - putting them in binders titled with family names;
Egan
Dean
Camp
Flanary
Armstrong
Stroud
Camp
Walling
Breeding
Crozier
Smyth (or Smythe)
Kuhn
Denton
and others.

It has been fascinating and I've been lucky to be the family historian. Most of the men in my husband's family have left a personal record of who they are and from where they came.

Here's mine:

I was born in Pecos, Texas December 3, 1943, the second child of John Robert "Bob" and Nancy Elizabeth Camp Dean. My older brother was born October 31, 1939. My younger brother was born July 25, 1949 and my younger sister born September 1, 1952.

Pecos, a town of about 15,000 people at the time, was a great place in which to grow up. We had prosperity from oil, gas, cantaloupes (the World's Best) and cotton. My father and grandfather operated an abstract office - very important in determining ownership of mineral properties - and Daddy and his cousin Marcus Dingler operated cotton and cantaloupe fields.

Our high school provided us with exemplary education with outstanding teachers and many of us went off to colleges. I went to Christian College in Columbia, Missouri (which a cousin had attended) then transferred to the University of Texas (at Austin - a suffix not required in 1963).

My father's family moved to Pecos, Texas in 1918 (when he was 8) from Carlsbad, New Mexico. (He was the youngest of four siblings - Jane, Bill, Jr, Katherine).

Mother was the youngest of her family, as well. She had two brothers, Hilliard and Keith. She was born in Pecos in 1916 and was delivered by her father, Dr. Jim Camp.

More fascinating family history later.

black pants, braces

Ok - I've ranted about maternity clothing. Now I want to rant about grown women's clothing. Have you noticed that all the "new" looks (tunics, empire waists etc) look like maternity clothing? I'm 63 - I don't want to look pregnant! I want to look put together and stylish (not to mention, this) - if I can achieve that without itching, holding my stomach in, or sweating.

I looked at the mall today for plain lightweight black pants - cotton blend. It's too hot in Texas to wear heavy polyester or even microfiber. We need cotton with a little spandex for shape. We older women want a little camoflage of the bumps and rolls - no thin fabric - and give us a little room, for goodness sake! Anyway, no luck with black cotton-blend pants. I think the Chinese look of black pants and jacket would look great. I'm looking online.

In other news, I've decide to get braces to correct the overcrowding of my lower teeth. So far, ouch. The benefit of orthodontia at an advanced age is wine.

Ugly, ugly

Well, I've looked everywhere and there are no good-looking maternity clothes. My oldest (of three) daughters is having her second baby in July and we went shopping yesterday. Destination Maternity is a store here which carries Mimi Maternity, A Pea in the Pod and other brands under the same roof - and it's all ugly! I checked out Sears, Motherhood and Penney's today - ugly, ugly. And cheap-looking.

Who decided that the "look" for pregnant women is an empire line (which hits most pregnant breasts about the nipple) and thin, jersey-like fabric which clings so closely that nipples and bellybuttons are in high relief? Ugh.

Looking back on pictures of me in maternity clothes back in the 60s and 70s, I'm surprised I wasn't arrested they were so short. But they did cover the vitals. They were dresses (for the most part) which hung from the shoulders and were made of thicker fabric. They didn't disguise the pregnancy but they didn't thrust it in the face of passersby, either.

I'll bet they were also more comfortable and cooler (a big advantage for a big, hot body) as well as being easier to navigate the frequent bathroom stops.

I had the bright idea of finding a maternity jumper dress made from a wool crepe or light gaberdine which Elizabeth could wear with or without a blouse or T-shirt underneath. She could wear that to the office, to lunch or even out for dinner with appropriate accoutrements. I couldn't find anything like that. They do have denim ones with cutsie embroidry, but anywhere you would wear that, you could wear jeans.

Maybe I'll have one made (I gave up my sewing machine after the disaster of the purple velvet pants suit, which I made with the nap going up on one leg and down on the other.)

Ears and Years

We attended the University of Texas Chancellor's Council meeting here in Dallas last weekend.

They presented a fascinating program at UT Dallas (the UT system has nine academic campuses and six medical ones) - showing off the latest in nanotechnology, brain studies and art. Their interdiscipilnary coordination between the science and art departments boggle the less-than-young mind.

Then we reconvened at UT Southwestern Medical School and heard about the coordinaton between Callier Center for Communication (used to be just speech and hearing challenges), UT Dallas Engineering school and UT Southwestern Medical. They are doing ground-breaking work on deafness and cochlear implantation.

Did you know:
Hearing aids supply amplification; cochlear implants electically replace the tiny hairs in the inner ear which transmit impulses to the brain which allow you to hear.

They can do a cochlear implant in childen as young as 6 months.

A cochlear implant never (so far - they've been being implanted for the last 20 or so years) needs to be replaced as the inner ear is adult size at birth.

Children can't learn to speak if they can't hear.

Getting a cochlear implant can result in loss of any residual hearing.

Studies show that background noise can sometimes be eliminated with two implants.

Technology is coming up with new systems to deliver sounds to the deaf - future systems may include hardware that looks and acts a like PDA.

In more news, we are having our 45th high school reunion and about a fourth of our class of 97 will attend. I expect lots of laughing over old pictures and oohs and ahhs over the photos of the grandchildren - some of whom are in their 40s. In our old days, people didn't wait until their late 30s to marry and have children. Some of our classmates married at 18 or 19 and had children right away - AND some are even still married to their original spouse! What a concept!