transcribingmemory

A day in the life, 2018, and Another Month in 1940: Part Five

In the afternoons, Babu does her exercises. She reads the paper. I bring the dog down and she tells me that “she’s getting bigger!” She rests again and gets up and does her exercises again. She places her double sided sheet of instructions that are, of course, in a plastic sheet protector on the table…

A Day in the Life, 2018, and a Month in 1940: Part Four

“Dobre popowoodnew!” as she crawls from the living room after her long nap. I say good afternoon in Polish slowly, and spell it (incorrectly) even slower. She doesn’t reply but keeps making slow progress towards the bathroom. “How are ya feeling?” I ask as cheerfully as possible but I already sense, and brace myself. She…

A Day in the Life, 2018, and a Month in 1940, Part Three

After breakfast, once Babu is safely on the couch, is another span of time where I don’t need to be 100% on watch. Many aspects of this job are not that hard. Most days, Babu doesn’t need all that much and sleeps a lot. I’ve gotten into the habit of cleaning and showering during this…

A Day in the Life, 2018, and a Month in 1940: Part Two

Babu rises and shines again right around 8:30. Ok, now we are back on track. As she takes about 25 minutes in the bathroom I get breakfast started. I should set my alarm in the morning a lot later because at this point I can do this in my sleep. When the door to the…

A Day in the Life, 2018, and a Month in 1940: Part One

There is some dream, some dream about…my garden. I keep walking, taking turns peering around corners, snooze and there’s more. More yard, more rose bushes. It’s both a marvelous snooze dream, like The Secret Garden! and an anxiety dream. There’s more. More work to do. I could have put the snooze cucumber plants here and…

A Hello and a Little Update

Hey everyone. I feel that right away I need to tell you Babu is doing well! 🙂 Yes, I have been away from the blog for a while. Whenever this happens, which some of you long time followers know happens a lot, I feel its tug. When I’m not working on the blog or transcribing…

April A-Z: January

Usually, when I “end one year” and “begin another” inside this project I celebrate almost as much as I do the actually changing of years. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but possibly this January, the January of 1940, deserves to start without a lot of fan fair. Here is a shock: Oh my. This hasn’t happened…

April A-Z: Insufficient sleep

You really cannot say that Babu had a wild life. She did everything a good woman of the time was supposed to do: waited until marriage, did well in her college studies, got work and was, for the most part, a very dependable employee. Even still, here is one passage I will never forget: Rumble…

April A-Z: November, 1939: Doubts

Here is an extra post for April A-Z for D. I leave this here as a record of where Babu and “Peaches” or “Cookie” or whatever sweet thing she is calling Jake, are in this moment. Yes, here is the typical Babu, doubting: Monday, November 13th, 1939 My honey took me to work this morn…

April A to Z: Dawn Dance

The first time I ever read about “Dawn Dances” was October 11th, 1937. I wrote about it in this post: A Brief History of Dance Feel free to click on that link and check out the entire post, it was a fun one! This is a snippet of what I wrote: Monday, October 11th, 1937…

April A-Z Four Hundred!!

Yes, my April A-Z is completely out of order. I’m out of order! I had to jump to “F” today because…drum roll please…this is my four hundredth post. I find that amazing. I think of the work I still have to do I think that this four hundred is a drop in the bucket and…

transcribingmemory

The Big Day

The Great Hurricane of 1938

Two Wonderful Moments. Excerpts, September, 1938

Ghosts

Hindenburg on My Mind

What I gave Babu for Mother’s Day