Annual picnic in high wind, grab your plate.

Our Club has a bit of a tradition, we eat before we meet.  It is not my favorite thing, as I am not a fan of brunch, but I do like picnics.  This month we had our annual picnic in one of Spokane’s numerous and wonderful neighborhood parks, Comstock park. We were challenged by the weather.

Yum, fresh whole wheat pecan bread

The wind was gusting up to 35mph and we still had fun!  About thirty members and family attended, with the youngest attendee 4 years old, and  the oldest 80 something.  Newest member 1 hour and  longest time members from 1968.  The food was great  and our meeting was lively.

Pat T blowing in the wind with good humor

Today, five club ladies gathered sewing machines, donated white tablecloths and compression rods, and turned them into custom curtains for our Small Auditorium. Waste not, want not. And no more looking at missing teeth on the vertical blinds, yeah.

Patt H ironing the panels.

Sewing Station at the curtain factory Susan B and Ginger B.

Our parcel is located in Spokane oldest neighborhood, Historic Cannon’s Addition, platted in 1883.  Appearances can be decieving.  The flag pole needed a setback from the property line of 15 feet.  Our street right of way is wide enough to turn a carraige with four horses without having to back up.  Half of our lawn is city property, the property line was 30 feet from the curb! The flag pole ended up 10 feet from the building, not in the center of our lawn where I imagined it standing.

The flag pole arrive May 3rd. The project had many delays.  It rained and rained, and my elderly and wonderful father passed away, at age 96, on Memorial Day weekend.  Finally, on June 8th, nine volunteers  dug a hole and filled it up with concrete.  On June 11, seven volunteers raised the flagpole and set the plaque.  On June 14, Fairchild Airforce Base provided a color guard to raise our USA  flag in a beautiful ceremony, with a corpsman singing the Star Spangled Banner,  a three gun salute,  and a beautifully played Taps.  The installation was attended by disabled vets, a Gold Star mother, firemen and battalion chiefs from the Fire department,  two pastors from the churches on the block, club members, friends and neighbors.  After the reception of cupcakes and punch, we raised the GFWC flag.  Today Philip and I installed a solar flag pole light. Sweet.

Phil, Cole, Bill , Luke and Dan man the concrete mixer and wheel barrow.

Jacque, Rick, Phil and Dan raise the flag pole

Ginger Bowman-Rape, club president with the front side of the plaque.

From one Navy man to another, Rick Noll dedicates the plaque [backside] to Gene Bronson, our friend and neighbor, died on Memorial Day 2010.”]

Cupcakes all in a row.

A new view of the clubhouse.

I began to discuss my various frustrations with the clubhouse with Correen. I explained to her how important this building was in our neighborhood. It is a visual anchor that is so important to help preserve the viability and feeling of security in an older low income neighborhood. I saw a huge need for a renovation plan and a business plan for the clubhouse.

She answered my call for help by joining our club and becoming the House Coordinator. Correen is a retired college professor who brings so many skills [and contacts]with her to our club. Two years later we now we have a very active House committee with six members. We have an new building inventory, a house vision statement for the future and people energy to move it all along. We working on a master plan for renovation and maintenance of our 100 year old building. We have exciting projects working with students at Eastern Washington University on a business plan for the clubhouse and on grant writing for major capital improvements to the building. We are now working on our first public fundraiser for the clubhouse, a Father’s Day event to celebrate the the 100th anniversary of Father’s Day. Sonora Smart Dodd, the founder of Father’s Day was a member of our GFWC Spokane club for 37 years. I hope we can keep up the momentum.

Gail Cropper as"Who is That?"

007 makes a Mummy for Cowgirl

In October, our Club decided to do an old fashioned Halloween Bingo Family Fun Night.  It was a bit last minute so we did simple decorations, games and crafts projects for the children.   We had a haunted house on the stage, Bingo for prizes and a super cake walk.  T he PR was a little short, but everybody had fun, we made a little money and we learned a lot for next year.

One week before Thanksgiving brought the Fire Marshal to the the clubhouse for our annual inspection.  She was a young inspector and sharp on all points.  Six of 10 emergency exit lights were not functioning, 2 exit lights were out, and one 90 year old exterior door used maybe 3 times a year simply would not open. I got a good education out of the experience, met a great volunteer electrician, and dragged my fix-it friends to the building for help and company. Well, things happen to a 100 year old building, but what a pain to have this at the holidays. It took 5 weeks to get all this corrected, whew!

The day before Thanksgiving our eldest  member passed away.  Blanche Madren was 102 years old and just a delight to talk too.  We were all sad but want a wonderful life she had. We held a memorial on Dec 14.

Blanche and Rosemary August 2009

December 5 was our huge annual Snowy Lace and Lilacs Vintage Fashion Tea.  Seating for 140, tea delicacies piled high for 14 tables, hot tea  and a fabulous 100 year retrospective of fashion from our clubs Spokane Vintage Fashion collection.  Amazing outfits modeled by club members of all ages.  I narrated the fashion show for the first time this year and got pretty decent reviews.

Teapots and a few goody trays ready for serving

At our November and December Club meetings we held an in club Crack fundraiser, to repair the  foundation cracks  in our basement level  room called the Rose Room.  We raised $1000 pronto and got bids.  The contractor was scheduled to come in Dec 21 for a three day job.  Last December, Spokane had maybe 60″ of snow, this year it poured rain all December. The Rose Room was an on again off again pond. Rain was pouring through the cracks as the workers prepped for sealing.  The repair  seems to be working.  At least the room stayed dry for the wedding rental on December 28.  It was a  Military wedding with full honor guard.

I finished up the year doing major rewrites of rental contracts for Club Rentals.

1. 

   Rosemary in The Clubhouse Horror

   Rust paint and very coarse steel wool for “The Clubhouse Horror”. Last Spring our Rental chair was showing the the building to a future bride. Her fiance was not pleased.  The bride made us promise we would do something about the smell in the Men’s room before her September wedding.  It was bad in there long before I joined the club.  I have scrubbed with bleach, steam cleaned, and  used animal  deodorizer, but nothing touches that smell-o-male.   There is a jungle of pipes rusting away under that exclusively male, wall hung  fixture [who invented that thing?].  The whole business is just so bad to work around.  At 9 hours and still counting, of scraping and chiseling those pipes, and sanding the walls and ceiling with my half sheet sander [fondly know as "the bomb"] I am almost ready to prime the pipes and walls.  The final coat, rustoleum for the pipes, epoxy for the walls will, I pray, eliminate the smell.  I say, ‘”never again ladies, we are keeping the boys room clean.”

2. Wood Boards and Screws We are reorganizing our many closets so more of our long term renters [added a church and a dance troupe] can rent closets for their equipment.  This was an arduous process, the closets were a mess, and some members were reluctant to allow change from traditional uses.  Now, in the name of progress and increased income, I am building in shelves and adding a hefty security deadbolt to a less convenient, but under-utilized, closet under the stairs. We will still have to shred  boxes full of decades of old checks to make room, but that’s doable.
3. Bulletin Boards, More Wood Two years ago our club PR committee discussed placing a large cork  bulletin board in the public area of the clubhouse.   I was stumped until today on how to find one that fit the space and our tight budget.  I looked at the back-to school circulars on my kitchen table and inspiration hit.  A Rosemary-can-build-it solution appeared on the closet piece of scrap paper, combine 3 smaller bulletin boards [cheap for school!] in one 1X2 frame.  Today I cut and stained the wood.  I will post a picture when finished.
4. Dump Run The old coal room was/is downright scary.  There is absolutely no light in there and ugh! the 100 year old pile of coal dust encrusted junk was  truly unpleasant to sort.  The boiler last used coal in the 1950’s but coal is still piled in the corners.  A fellow club member, Correen, and I  braved the coal hole last Fall and sorted  piles for removal.  This week, my darling spouse, Philip, hauled the whole mess off to the Waste to Energy facility.

Yeah! Progress happens one volunteer chore at a time.

My Ride

I have a list of things to do, and a list of things that need to be done, and then the real list of things that must  be done.  And always the balancing act of finding joy in what I do, so I can actually do it.  Pain is reduced by producing seratonins in the brain, and well, ” good vibes” make  seratonin.

Here are some of my favorite seratonin producers for this summer.  Hard physical work in  my garden is just plain good, board meetings for the Woman’s Club are fun because I like these people.  Inventory is interesting because I am a history junkie and we have a few surprises in our clubhouse closets. Clubhouse vintage fashion inventory is fabulous for me with a BS in textile science, oh yeah, lots of fun. Of course, I love my new bike. I now have it all rigged out with cane holder, covered plastic gear tub, flashing lights and a bugle horn.  No more guilt about driving my car two blocks to work at the clubhouse, I ride my bike!

On the down side:  painting the men’s room at the clubhouse; working up enthusiasm is challenging so it has to be a party.  There is so much more on the gotta but don’t wanna list, but I have depleted my seratonin levels just thinking about it.

My life revolves around 5 hours a week of exercises in the pool with weights and resistance to maintain muscle balance, more time several times a day to use techniques to minimize stress, more time for Biosomatics movement education and practicing the moves so I can remember how to move this oh so reluctant body through vague time and space.

On April 30, my former exercise facility at the local Salvation Army closed precipitously and permanently.  I found a new home at a brand new YMCA facility that does not best accommodate my old regimen.  So I am learning a new regimen step by slow step.  So much time to learn anew, and my brain is filled to overflowing with trying to move these limbs through a new system.  Confused, dazed, tired and loving it!

Changing routines is so frustrating and so good for me.  I have a personal trainer at the Y teaching me how to use specific machines that challenge my poor proprioception and physical integration.  I also got very brave.  I bought a bicycle and rode in the breeze for the first time in 27 years.  It’s an Electra townie that is so light, semi-recumbent and I can put my feet flat on the ground.  Watch out, I have a bugle horn and 21 speeds.  I am free at last, oh wow.

All this necessary time spent on me has really strained my volunteer efforts.  The clubhouse is  not going to get new fluorescent lightbulbs any time soon and my Smart Growth write up for the  Historic Cannon’s Addition neighborhood planning document is in limbo until I have the energy to think clearly.  But, I must be physically sound if I want to actually do anything with my brain.

Honestly, I am not sure I can kill all the lawn dandelions in time for the tour. Our second harsh winter in row has decimated our climbing red roses, sigh.   I will be hard pressed to change all the burnt out light bulbs.  Why do light bulbs burn out in series?

I hope to have a This Place Matters poster placed prominently in the clubhouse windows by the middle of this May.  GFWC is participating in this program with the National Trust for Historic Preservation [NTHP]. The April/May 2009 issue of Clubwoman magazine features this great idea on the front cover.  I have special plans for the picture we will be posting soon with humans in front of the clubhouse. I encourage all GFWC clubs with historic [50 years plus old] clubhouses to print a sign, pose your members and post the photo to the NTHP site.  Let’s celebrate women’s history. This Place Matters <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>
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Daffodils and My Shadow

The  Woman’s Club clubhouse and my home are in a very low income neighborhood. I planted daffodils in a bleak spot at the base of the side steps to the clubhouse. A local elderly woman, who walks her dog that way everyday, stopped to chat as I planted them last November. Five days ago the daffodils bloomed. Today, I was fully involved with weeding the front beds, when I saw her little dog Henry sniffing at the end of the leash. She exclaimed to me, “ oh, your flowers are a blessing”. ‘Yes”, I agreed, “they are”. She said, “As I walk and see where flowers are planted, it changes my day to a happy one. I keep checking back to see if they are in bloom.”

Ten years ago, I sat through a meeting with a HUD bureaucrat who expounded on why it was a waste of money to plant street trees and put flowers in parks in low income neighborhoods. He stated that “low income people could care less about shade or nature in general”. I think of that moment often, and try my hardest to combat that ugly, inhuman attitude.

As House Superintendent, I want to be sure that the clubhouse puts its best foot forward for all my neighbors to enjoy. The clubhouse is around the corner from my house. The elderly lady lives close by in a little apartment on her social security payments. We agree that trees and flowers are a blessing that all humans can appreciate, income has nothing to do with it.

Rosemary's 1904 house in March

Coreen and Brenda, both neighbors and clubwomen work the big Spring weeding

It is almost time for Earth Day, April 22. April showers and snow and hail have delayed me but there is so much to do weather or not I want to. My IRS personal taxes are done, whew, but I had to do an extension on our family business corporation taxes. It’s so hard to stay inside now that Spring finally beckons, but I must try to find a balance.

So for the sake of our earth and ourselves this year my family and I are:

• “sharecropping” our elderly neighbors 900 sq foot garden patch. We garden and they get fresh produce.   This plot has been weed infested for the past two years so we are growing a cover crop of annual rye first to suppress the weeds, then planting seedlings [growing in paper cups next to a south facing window upstairs] after the last frost date late in May.
• Planting a huge variety of spinach, Asian greens, cabbage and peas in the raised beds I installed in my backyard last year. Our son is home from Asia for a few months and finds American grocery store greens selection quite boring and not very fresh.
• Making a lot of compost. I have all the leaves from last Autumn for our entire block steaming away in my backyard.
• Riding bicycles instead of driving [well I am at least thinking of buying a bicycle]. My son [26] tells me that he and many of his friends have no interest in owning cars. I am searching for a bike that I can get on and off of safely as I am mobility impaired.

Over at the Woman’s Club clubhouse I am counting the ways we have gone green since 2007.

• By programming the clubhouse thermostats every week for actual building use we reduced monthly energy use by over 35%. Two years ago our monthly bill was $556 today it is $360, and rates have gone up! This was like doing a fundraiser without all the hassle.
• I added hardy, drought resistant annual perennials to our landscaping beds. All of the new plants were donated as plant divisions by friends and neighbors.
• The City arborist planted a 15 foot tall flowering Linden tree in the hot SW corner of the clubhouse lawn. The clubhouse is located in a very low income downtown neighborhood that qualifies for HUD community development block grant funds. Thirty percent of the area residents walk [do not own or drive cars] so planting street trees to shade the buildings and sidewalks is considered a priority use for CDBG funds, as trees serve the needs of so many.
• We are well into the process of converting all of the incandescent light bulbs in our 10000 sq foot building to fluorescent. Our local utility has added a rebate incentive to do this.
• We are using neutral cleaning products, like orange oil, that give good results and result in a better smelling building.

Thinking up ways to do necessary chores, while also making a smaller footprint is a joy.

Recycled bikes and newly planted raised garden beds

Happy Earth Day from downtown Spokane.

Family, business, and Woman’s Club must-do activities have all converged early in this month of March.  Whew! life is grand.

It all began on March1st, in California. We flew down to Oakland and picked up our 26 year old son Ryan, who has been living in Asia for the past three years. We visited with my youngest brother who had housed my son for two days while Ryan adjusted to the 16 hour time difference. Then we moved on to my spouse Phil’s parents home 50 miles away. We indulged in my mother-in-law’s delicious French cooking for two days, and then proceeded groaning down the road to the annual National Society of Consulting Soil Scientist’s meeting in Sacramento.

The four day meeting was held on the Delta King, a renovated paddle wheel boat.  But Sacramento is my hometown, so we bunked at my middle brother’s home two miles from the meeting site. My 94 year old father resides a mile from my middle brother, so I was able skip out of the meeting a couple of times to spend some wonderful quality time with him talking about politics, the financial crisis and history. He is so sharp still.

I served as registrar for the NSCSS meeting this year. It was a much smaller meeting than normal as so many of our fellow small business members are suffering financially from the economic crisis. We missed them but the meeting had great content and was well worth attending.

My eldest brother showed up from Oregon on our final full day in Sacramento. It was pure circumstance that got us all together for a much needed family meeting to discuss a few issues concerning our aging father.

We returned home to a Spokane once again caught up in the grips of winter with 3 and 5 degree days, snow, ice, and hail and lightening storms. Our families business waits for no woman. Filling out and filing C-Corporation IRS Tax forms and a complex new-for-this-year Errors and Omissions insurance form due both [due by the 15^th of March] were the first items on my to-do-list. Groan.

In the midst of filling out those darn forms, and settling Ryan into his USA life, I got two calls from my GFWC club’s rental chair, Gail. First call, the thermostat in the basement Rose Room had ceased to work. The Church that rents that room wanted it replaced because the temperature outside was hovering at just above zero. So I researched programmable thermostats [always take the opportunity to go-green] and ran out to purchase a new 7day/4 period item. A church member kindly volunteered to install it for no cost which allowed me more leeway on the price and quality.

Second call, the solitary men’s toilet in the clubhouse was running hard and no amount of handle jiggling would stop it. I really hate plumbing, but I do understand the basics so no research needed just another shopping trip for parts. Fortunately, Ryan was willing to take on the job of replacing the innards, supply line and shut off valve.

So, March 11 was family volunteer night, with Ryan fixing the men’s toilet, Phil programming the main clubhouse thermostat to fit the clubhouse rental week and blowing down the steam furnace, and me programming the new Rose room thermostat and doing some office duty updating the Club computer’s security.

The monthly club business meeting was on March 14.  Peace.

Chetelaine's Keyring

Two years ago I took on the house superintendent job at the Spokane Woman’s Club. I was given a few [4 or 5] keys on a ring. I found a big 3” inch key ring for the clubhouse keys that was easy to grab with my arthritic hands. I thought I was set. My spouse, Phil, and I decided to map and chart the clubhouse locks. Trying the keys in many various rocks revealed that the set of keys I had was very incomplete. After extensive rooting around in the clubhouse office, hours of trial and error putting keys in locks, and then gaining the trust of some suspicious members who had sole copies of keys, I had an almost complete set. The key ring was evolving.

We have long term renters with storage closets off the main stage, and I found that I had to acquire copies of their keys too. One summer day there was a wedding. The Folklore Society of Spokane had left their storage closet unlocked. A wedding guest, arriving directly from the airport via taxi put her suitcase, purse with ID and cell phone in the that closet. Someone from the FSS came in during the wedding, put something away in the closet, locked it, and left. Well, I got a call about 10 PM that evening from the exhausted and desperate mother-of-the-bride complaining about the guest’s luggage. It was not a pretty scene, oh my, but dealing with renter psychology is a subject for a different blog day.

The stranded guest was a librarian who had flown in direct from a conference on the east coast. She was going to stay with a friend of a friend in Spokane that she had never met before. Her only contact information for that person was …locked in the FSS closet. I made many phone calls and could not find a soul from the FSS to come in and unlock the closet that night. It was 11 PM and the wedding party was out-of-there. Guess who got to house a very nice librarian that night in her guest bedroom? She was very sweet and insisted on making a donation to the Woman’s Club. [Maybe I should start a Bed and Breakfast for stranded Woman’s Club guests as a fundraiser] Yes, I need a key to every door and cupboard in the clubhouse.

Finally, I had to fire the clubhouse janitor. And change out the main exterior clubhouse locks immediately. That’s when I made the discovery about how many people had keys to the clubhouse [most of whom should not have had keys at all]. The three adjectives to describe the now thwarted ex-keyholders angry, sheepish and relieved. But that too is another story. Now I have a complete set of keys.

Before I went to the hardware store for Ryan’s key I was choosing the right key off my chatelaine’s key ring by feel, appearance and position on the multiple interlocking key rings. It was time consuming to find the right key when a third of the 24 keys are identical in appearance except for the cut edge. The evolution of the clubhouse key ring continues. Today, thanks to Ryan’s homecoming, the keys I use most are color keyed. Last night, I did a midnight prom party close out at the clubhouse. I saved at least 10 minutes using my newly marked keys. Thank you for coming home Ryan, I got to bed a little sooner last night because of you.

Well, but I was sharing a table with Shirley Phipps, and I just enjoy her so much and see her so rarely. We can talk about the clubhouse [she loves it too] Vintage Fashion, [she coordinates the clubs huge collection and trunk shows and I have that old Textile Sciences BS and can eat and breathe costume history] and Washington State affairs [she is GFWC WA State president and I am always fascinated by what’s happening on the other side of the pond]. Time with a good friend is precious, so I stayed.

In practice, at club meetings I always choose to sit beside a 20” square column located in the south third of the room where we meet. That is so I can stand up and hide behind the column and do a sort of stand-in-place somatic dance when the pain gets to me. I am sure some of the older ladies in the club have wondered what I am doing behind there. Yesterday, I was sitting in the right place but I did not use my column device. I need to be more honest with myself and just leave when the pain level escalates. Of course those club meetings might be shorter if we met more frequently. I could then leave club meetings with a sense of accomplishment, not just survivorship.

Any way, what I really sat down to write about: I got excited when I received my GFWC Step for the Roses kit on Friday the 13^th from http://www.stepfortheroses.com. I popped open the box, adjusted the pedometer to extra sensitive and clipped it on right away. On M-W-F, I water run with weights and all sorts of other gear, in the deep end of a 90 degree Fahrenheit pool. I love my 4-5 hours a week of pool time. My Step for the Roses pedometer will never know about that, it’s not waterproof. On the other four days of the week I will measure real walking. I am curious what I can do, as I am definitely mobility-impaired-on-land and 6000 steps a day goal sounds like a lot. I will probably not add much to the bottom line of our club results but I will try. I hope many other club members across the country will join me in this gentle effort to encourage physical fitness in adult Americans.  And maybe wearing this step reminder thing will get me up to protest march during those long club meetings I attend. What message should I write on my sign?