OCEANSIDE CA

PALM TREES

                                                                     BACK HOME AGAIN

Yes, absolutely, it was good to get back home again. This old Hickory Way home seems like a long lost friend, or like John Denver has sung “this old home (farm) seems like a long lost friend!”  After a very frustrating and extremely tiring trip it was great to get back to paradise.    Both of my nearby neighbor were busy entertaining family guest.   My next wall neighbor to the South, Sharon,had her daughter’s family from Kansas.     A few days after I returned my next door neighbor to the North, Florence, returned from Chicago with her older sister, Harriet, and her two children,  Barb and Steve. metthem on a couple occasions when I  took my daily therapy trek to our  community swimming pool. Once in a brief conversation with Barb I had to relate a senior moment or whatever they call it whenone of us more mature folks hears a word or even a syllable that sparks a memory from  forty       to fifty years ago. The word Chicago did it for me.  I remembered my mother telling us children many many times how she learned to pronounce and spell Chicago in her rural one room school in       North Carolina.  Her teacher had given her students a memory   aid, “chicken in the car and the car wont go,       CHICAGO.”  Ok, ok, that’s enough of that!

Barbara and her family were very impressed with our beautiful weather here in Paradise.   The family visited the beach and salty Pacific Ocean water, the San Diego Zoo, Carlsbad, and even Uncle Victor        and his two daughter’s two horses somewhere in the HOT, HOT desert a couple of  hours  away.  

And, speaking of winners,  they took Harriet to one of our “Las Vegas”  like casinos and she won the biggest jackpot and treated everyone to dinner.

The highlight of Florence’s Chicago guest’s visit was the big family shindig  that Florence set up at our community clubhouse.   The featured guests were Florence’s family Charlie, David, Andrew, Blaine, Bonnie, Mark and Glenn and their Families some of whom Barb said that she had not seen in 40 some years.

Now, having all of those human guest is beautiful, however, Sharon and Florence had a n exceptionally beautiful little furry guest, Sassy, for five Days.    I LOVE SASSY, our neighborhood YORKIE,  as well as, Tiffany and  her family’s YORKIE, MAXIE!

 SASSY’S owners, Jerry and Rose, flew away to celebrate the birth of their  first grandchild.

A few weeks ago our Oceana East III community lost our oldest and longest residents, Lucille Lambert.  She had recently celebrated her 101st birthday.

                                                         MY TRIBUTE TO LUICILLE LAMBERT

I really did not know our neighbor Lucille Lambert very well,  but I know that I will always remember her radiant and infectious smile. When I first met Lucille her beautiful smile just inspired me to sing, no, just sort of melodically mouth the words, “You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, with four hungry children  and a crop out in the field…” Lucille seemed to like such an amusing reference to her name so I repeated it every time we met there after.   It was on the first or second time that I actually  talked with Lucille that she related to me an account of where she was when she learned about the bombing Pearl Harbor that catapulted the United States in to WWII.   Her story inspired me to make a local video with accounts  of  the war for my granddaughter, Alene Lynch, whowas studying WWII in her 8th Class.   Our WWII video veryappropriately starred Lucille and her account of the beginning of the war along with three other neighbors, Henry Seigert, Robert and Elsie Dye recounting each of their unique experiences during WWII.   At Lucille’s memorial service I remembered very vividly her SMILE that I captured with mydigital “brownie every time that I met her at an Oceana East III function.  I learned at the service that Lucille and I had something very special in common.  We both did milked cows,  skimmed milk, and churned butter back on the farm.

Soon after I arrived in Russia this year I learned that we lost another neighbor, Henry Siegert, who died in his sleep.  I remember Henry’s last words as I left him at his entrance gate, “Give Tatiana my love and best wishes!”  

                                                         MY TRIBUTE TO HENRY SIEGERT

HENRY SIEGERT, AN AMERICAN CITIZEN

                                                         MY TRIBUTE TO HENRY SIEGERT

 Henry Siegert was a patriotic American, no matter how much STUFF his “redneck” type son-in-law gave him about not being an American but rather an OLD GERMAN@!  Such was a sore point with Henry, but I guess that all of us have some such in our family’s lives.  C’EST  LE VIE!

I first met Henry when he came to my door with all of the documentation about the swimming pool and equipment.   Henry took care of the pool for the Oceana III East residents for many years.  I honestly felt sorry for Henry after his wife died and as many Oceana III East residents know I recorded

Henry telling a very interesting story as a United States Army Officer and how he met his wife, Ursula, in Germany at the end of WWII.   At least one of my Neighbors thought that Henry moaned and cried too much about the loss of his wife.  Henry and his wife were extremely close.   Henry frequently  told me about trips that he and his wife made to Germany.  And, yes, from our point of view many of us have experience a similar husband or wife loss and are toughing it out alone.

 Actually, I befriended Henry initially after hearing an unkind comment made about him by a distinguished member of our community.   After our initial meeting Henry and I shared a lunch at the European deli and ever so often to IHOPS for potato pancakes.  And, when he called and ask me to assist him with his television or hearing aids, I promptly responded.

 If you could divert Henry from thinking and talking about his “gourmet food” interest he could very intelligently talk about many different subjects.

I was very interested in the many stories that he told me about his upbringing in Germany and his coming to the United States.  He and his wife Ursula lived for many years in the same Germany city without knowing each other until the end of WWII when the U.S. Army assisted by Henry as a German language interpreter moved Ursula and her parents out of their home to accommodate Allied Troops who were moving from the field fighting into

the area after the defeat of Hitler’s Army.  The role that Henry played in this activity was a very sad moment, as well as, a beautiful one in Henry’s life as witnessed by a 50 plus years of blissful and loving marriage.  As we all know the Russian Army moved into Germany from the North during the same period of time, and it was a sad note for me to learn that Ursula, Henry’s future wife, was raped by a Russian soldier during that period of time.

 I will always remember Henry and his love for KNORR mushroom soup, Danish beer, and the best kind of dark chocolate, as well as, his friendship with our Swiss/American neighbor Leni Davis.

Whenever I travel to a wedding and stay in one of the suggested room blocks, its always a pleasant surprise to receive a special gift bag from the couple to welcome me to their city, and to their wedding weekend. I decided to do the same thing when I got married to make sure that our guests arrived with something personal from us, letting them know we were glad they were in town. We made one per room, and added enough items for two people. If we knew more people were staying in a room, then we’d send along two boxes. Most hotels are willing to accept your gift boxes to distribute to your guests, without a fee.

I ordered some craft boxes online and printed some tags to decorate the box with our little logo that I created on my computer. I also went to costco and various other stores to buy items to add to the box. 

In each box we added:

• 2 of those 100 calorie snack bags
• A pack of trident gum
• 2 mini bowls of instant ramen with forks
• 2 tea bags
• Maps to our wedding venue and the surrounding areas with recommendations

Some other good additions would be:

• Invitations to any weekend activities
• Bottled water
• City maps or magazines
• List of restaurant recommendations and activities to do
• Cereal or granola bars
• Non chocolate candies
• Personal messages written by you to welcome your guests

Type A Planning always highly recommend these out of town gift boxes to my clients whenever you are hosting guests from out of town. However big or small, it is a nice gesture, and really makes people feel glad they made the trip to your city.