Succulent Thanksgiving Memories

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, I find myself less focused on the turkey and more on the way traditions shift—how the table shrinks, the menu changes, but the essence of gathering remains. My Thanksgiving memories are as succulent as a roasted turkey, gleaming brown and crisp on a platter in the middle of a laden table.

 My childhood recollections have taken on a Norman Rockwell patina, which is particularly apt since I grew up in the 50s and 60s when his hometown-America paintings graced the covers of The Saturday Evening Post. Our big family (seven kids) filled up the table even when we didn’t have company, which we often did.

 With a 20-year difference between the oldest and youngest of us, meals were always loud and boisterous, but holidays had an extra frisson of expectation and anticipation. I remember oddities, like my sister Janet in her highchair with a tiny glass of wine. My parents always poured wine for everyone at the table on holidays – even for toddlers!

 Before I graduated into adulthood, defined as responsible for making a whole Thanksgiving dinner, I joined others for what we learned to call Friendsgiving, but back then simply called a potluck. Many of those potlucks in the 70s had elements of hippie culture, noticeably marijuana in the dressing or the brownies. It was pot luck for sure!

 Eventually, my turn to produce the whole dinner came around and I threw myself into it, eager to prove that I could live up to those remembered childhood meals. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole. (And just why are green beans the veggie of Thanksgiving? They are not my favorite, but they’re ubiquitous!) Okay, confession, I have never made a green bean casserole, I always let someone bring it to share, but I will eat it. The French fried onions and mushroom soup suck me in.

 I loved to show off my cooking, but most especially, I loved to bake. Those main course items may be in my wheelhouse, but I’d rather be baking. I am really good at making pie crust, which I do the old fashioned way, the way my mother taught me, with two dinner knives cutting across each other through the flour and shortening until it becomes precisely pea-sized, then sprinkling on a little water and transforming it into flaky perfection.

 Another trick my mother taught me: always make extra pie dough that you can roll out onto a cookie sheet. Smear it with butter and sprinkle liberally with sugar and cinnamon. Bake and you will shortly have one of life’s exquisite pleasures. Sometimes I sprinkle on chopped pecans. Last year I made a quick and easy date spread and slathered that on before baking. OMG, good!

 I always bake pumpkin pies and, because Alix doesn’t like pumpkin, French apple pies, which have a crumble topping instead of a top crust. (My apple peeler-corer-slicer is probably the best investment I ever made with Pampered Chef!) In my heyday, I made two of each, but there aren’t enough of us to eat that many nowadays.

 In the past, we hosted big Thanksgiving dinners for friends and family, the more the merrier, but things change. For the last few years, we’ve joined old friends for dinner at the Red Lion Pub, a notable Thanksgiving provisioner in Houston. The food has been delicious and plentiful—there’s always enough for leftovers— but it comes to the table ready to eat. There’s no golden-breasted turkey to admire and the pie is an added cost. Oh well, I’ll always have my homemade pies to enjoy.

 This year we are joining Alix and Adam at his mother’s house. Carol has graciously hosted before. We have six adult children plus a couple of their spouses and a handful of grandkids between us, but the most we can muster in Houston on an average Thanksgiving is six people total. It’s still a family dinner, but not like my memories.

 Whether at a crowded table or a quiet pub, the heart of Thanksgiving is the same: finding joy in what is, not just what was.

 I hope you get a Thanksgiving that gives you joy!

 Tschṻβ (Tschuss)

Stepping and Christmas. What a Weekend!

 Many of my weekly posts are reflections on activities or experiences I have had in the previous week. This week, two activities are vying for attention, and I decided to write about both of them. It’s a Saturday night/Sunday afternoon special report.

 Saturday night we attended a performance of Step Afrika!, a 30-year-old Washington, D.C. dance company that specializes in step dancing. I hadn’t ever heard of stepping before I saw it and, to be honest, I thought we were seeing a company of dancers from an African nation. We were not.

 Wikipedia describes stepping as “a form of percussive dance in African-American culture that uses the performer’s entire body as an instrument to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken word, and hand claps.” Step Afrika! also added drums, flute and saxophone, and singing to the mix.

 We are dance aficionados. We have season tickets to the Houston Ballet, attend four or five dance programs a year that, like this one, are brought to town by Performing Arts Houston, and attend many small company or pre-professional company programs in Houston and the surrounding area. Trips this year have included Sam Houston State University in Huntsville and AIMED Dance in Beaumont.

 That is to say, we know dancing. And we have never seen dancing like the movement swirling before our eyes on Saturday night. They presented an all-encompassing visual display—feet moving faster than the eye could follow, legs repositioning in ways the brain couldn’t decipher, hands clapping rhythms that beat right into our bodies.

 It was a “Wait, what!?” kind of experience that made both halves of the evening flash by as though we were there for minutes, not hours. The performers engaged the audience throughout the program, mostly with invitations to clap, and call-and-response exchanges.

 Black audience members outnumbered white ones significantly, and, as in Black churches, people joined right in with shouts of encouragement and joy as the performance unfolded. I was shouting and clapping myself before long. What a night!

 This brings us to Sunday afternoon. The Houston Ballet sponsors a huge Christmas fair every year called the Nutcracker Market. When I say huge, I mean enormous. It brings in $6 million dollars over four days to support dance education for the Ballet.

 I have never attended, primarily because I’m too cheap to buy a $20 ticket and the $25 parking at the venue—which is part of Houston’s football stadium—is very difficult. However, the Ballet included two free tickets in our subscription package this year. I have been excited about going since April and had a long-standing arrangement to go with my daughter Alix.

 That all changed when I broke my foot. There was no way I could manage getting around on my knee walker in that vast space with those vast crowds. I sadly decided to give the tickets away, but Alix intervened. I still have the old wheelchair from my non-walking days of illness. She offered to do the driving and the wheeling for our adventure. I offered to cover the parking and incidentals. Ta-da! We had a plan.

 Parking was horrible. It took 40 minutes to drive to the venue and another 40 minutes to find a space. Using my handicapped placard, we managed to weave our way through numerous parking lots on secret routes that the attendants whispered to us. We eventually ended up right at the front door of the Nutcracker Market. How about that!?

 Inside we found a riot of Christmas paraphernalia, gifts and treats of all magnitudes, costumed visitors that included families in matching Christmas jammies, friends in matching nutcracker outfits, and every sort of red and green design you can imagine on shirts and leggings. We drank in a delightful visual feast.

 I love Christmas and have a really extensive collection of Santas and other seasonal knick-knacks that I love to put out every year, but I do not need another one! I steadfastly refused to buy anything that required a place to put it. That left food.

 Alix and I sampled every single offering we could find, and I eventually left with Mexican vanilla popcorn, Wisconsin baked cheese, sugar-free (mostly) saltwater taffy, a giant cashew turtle (for Michael), and one gift for a friend. I went way over budget because I didn’t plan to buy anything. Silly me.

 On the way out, I bought us both a large soda for the road. That cost $19!! I can get pretty incensed over the abuse of customers at convention-type venues. Just did it at the Quilt Festival, too. Highway robbery, but we needed the drinks. Alix and I breezed out of the parking lot and made it home in good time.

 Stepping and Christmas. It was a wonderful weekend! I wish you could have been there.

Tschüß (Tschüss)

Finding My Inner Cobbler

 

Several months ago, my quilt guild announced a class coming up in November on making quilted sneakers. My brain exploded! Making Quilted Sneakers!! I HAVE to do that. I already loved handmade and custom-made shoes. In fact, I own two pairs. The idea of walking around in the world in fabulous sneakers (yes, mine would be fabulous!) that I made myself just rocked. I signed up on the spot.

 A prodigious amount of work had to be completed before the actual class, and I undertook it with relish. First challenge, acquire the shoe kit. The kits are not readily available, but Tandy Leather sells them, so I went to the local shop. The shoe is sized in four ways: American men, European men, European women, and finally American women.

 Because of the sizing, all the American woman shoes are half-sizes, so my size 10s were going to have to settled for 10½s. And I would have to wait several weeks for the order to arrive at my local store or pay an exorbitant sum for shipping. Spoiled by Amazon Prime, I waited.

 When I opened the box, I found the inner and outer soles, three different patterns for the uppers, and very basic instructions. The patterns included a high-cut, mid-cut, and low-cut silhouette for the uppers. If I made a quilted fabric, I wanted as much of it as possible to show, so I went right for the high-cut pattern.

 Now, to design and construct the quilted fabric. I spent a lot of time thinking about what parts of the quilt would show on the sneakers. It would have to be a small pattern, meaning that I would have to sew even smaller pieces of fabric together to create the look I wanted. After lots of quilt bingeing, I decided to make a pinwheel design.

 Each pinwheel consisted of a square made from eight pieces of fabric sewn together. I needed to make 25 pinwheels to have a large enough quilt. And—this is tricky—I needed the two shoes to be mirror images of each other as much as possible. Planning the layout required contemplation and, ultimately, a little help from my friendly Copilot AI to do calculations.

 I had raided my fabric stash and discovered forgotten riches: an ombre charm pack in coordinated jewel tone colors. (A charm pack, for non-quilters, is a selection of precut five-inch squares. Ombre simply means that the colors graduate from light to dark.) Copilot told me didn't have quite enough, but with a little more searching, I found extra pieces that blended in.

 Each square had to be cut into four 2½” pieces, matched to 2½” white pieces and sewn back together into 5” squares that now looked like pinwheels. It took some time, but the final product pleased me. Quilting is kind of magical even when you know what’s behind the curtain!

 

Before I sewed all those pinwheels together, I looked at my pattern and figured out how the fabric would actually fit on the shoes and plotted, as best I could, the optimum layout for the project. It should have been straightforward, but it never seems to be. I ripped out a lot of seams and turned a lot of squares around before I got everything in the right place. But, finally, success!

 The actual class took place last Wednesday. Me and my handy-dandy knee scooter showed up with Michael schlepping my sewing machine and a large tote bag of paraphernalia. The classroom space was cramped and I was oversized, but friendly classmates helped me make it work. Crafting the shoes took patience and attention to detail. There were do-overs aplenty. Hand sewing through the layers of quilted fabric and the rubber soles took tremendous strength and concentration. My right thumb tip is still numb 5 days later!

 In the course of that day, I only managed to finish one shoe, but I had the foresight to create a LEFT shoe. Since my right foot is encased in a boot for the foreseeable future, that's all I need. I left the class a very happy camper!

Tschüß (Tschüss)

P.S. I would not recommend trying this without a qualified teacher. There are some extremely tricky parts and other parts that are not intuitive at all.

 

Broken

Today has not been a regular Monday, so I am behind on writing my blog post. I spent the day dealing with an orthopedic doctor about my broken foot and with buying equipment to help me get around. For those who may not have seen my Facebook post yesterday, I had a run-in with the door of my dishwasher Saturday night. Tried to walk around the open door to throw something in the trash and caught my shoe on the corner. That somehow flipped me over and I landed on my fanny and my right foot. The dishwasher was uninjured.

 I knew immediately that something was broken, but stayed in denial until the pain got too bad. Then I dragged Michael out of bed to take me to the ER. They took x-rays and diagnosed a broken bone in my 5^th metatarsal. After putting me in a temporary cast and giving me pain medicine (yay!), they sent me home.

 As it turns out, I do not have a broken bone in my foot. No, I have two broken bones. One of them is fairly minor, the other more serious. Here’s how the doctor put it as he pointed to my x-rays, “If you were a professional athlete, they’d ignore this one and immediately do surgery on this one. But since you aren’t, you can just take the time needed to heal naturally.”

 And how much time is that? A long time, as it happens. Could be months. For now, I can’t put weight on the foot. And, since it’s my right foot, I can’t drive. If I’m lucky, for a month, but it could be two. This is terrible news for Michael, who is now my designated driver, because I have lots of activities and appointments and lunch dates. For his sake, I’ll have to trim them down. And there are things I want to do on days he can’t drive me, so that will be disappointing. It looks like my quilting bee is off the calendar for the duration because they meet on Michael’s day to lunch with the boys.

 Geting around from Saturday night until today was awful. They gave me crutches at the hospital, but I couldn’t manage them and fell again before I gave up trying. I tried to use my cane and then my old walker, which Michael kindly climbed into the attic to retrieve. You know, with only one working foot, you have to hop. To hop, you have to have quad and shoulder strength. I am sadly lacking in both.

 The next option was to unearth my old wheelchair from the garage and set it up, which took a lot of WD-40. It’s about 25 years old, so very heavy and unwieldy compared to modern wheelchairs. It worked though; I could thankfully sit and move myself around. But it doesn’t fit through any doorways, so my bedroom and both bathrooms required me to get around by hopping on one leg. I did not know my bedroom was so big until I faced hopping across it to the bathroom door!

 The doctor put me in a walking boot (but told me not to walk in it!) and suggested a knee scooter. My sister Janet used one for a long time while healing a serious foot injury, so I knew what they were. The local Walgreens had one in stock, and so this afternoon, I finally got wheels that work. Thank goodness!

 The knee scooter is not perfect. It turns like a tractor-trailer rig and requires maneuvering to back up, so getting around in tight spaces, like the bathroom or hallway, is tricky. (It made me think of my dad backing campers into the driveway: always an ordeal.) But it is doable. I’m back in control and absolutely chuffed about it. I have a big class on Wednesday that I thought I might have to miss, but now I can attend. That adventure should be next week’s blog and I’m expecting it to be a doozy.  

 For now, I’m fairly exhausted by all the commotion and my shoulders are aching—not to mention my foot—so I’m going to go to bed early. What a weekend!! Here’s to a better month ahead.

 Tschüß (Tschüss)

 

 

 

 

Transmogrification

 You have to be certifiably old to recognize the name Ol’ Blue Eyes, otherwise known as Frank Sinatra. Maybe you have to be certifiably old to recognize Frank Sinatra—the crooner, actor, and OG heartthrob of generations of girls and women in the mid-20^th century—at all. My mother, born in 1922, swooned over him as a teenager and women were still swooning over him when I was a teenager, although we teens were swooning over the Beatles.

 Ol’ Blue Eyes inspired the name of our cat Frankie S. Frankie joined the family in 2009, one of many kittens born in our backyard to feral moms. We had quite a few batches of kittens over the years for three reasons: we had a pond that was a source of easily accessible water; we had a fence that kept the dogs out; and we fed the cats. (This meant we fed the raccoons and the opossums, too.) I’m fairly sure the pond drew them originally, but the free meals kept them coming back, with friends in tow.

 I loved watching the kittens frolicking in our yard. We’d turn the inside lights off, turn them on outside, and have a free comedy show for as long as we stood there. Playing a laser light across the patio and grass made the show even better, with uncoordinated kittens tumbling all over each other to get that dot!

 I began rescuing kittens, taking in five of them before we found help with Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) that got several adults fixed. In 2008, I rescued Smudge. In 2009, Frankie S. and his two sisters. And in 2010, Baby Boy, so named because we weren’t going to keep him. Ha! Of course, we did. Frankie’s sisters went home with a friend and have lived there happily ever since. Frankie, with his big blue eyes, stayed with us.

 As a specimen of cathood, Frankie is gorgeous. He has a long, silky coat, the markings of a Maine coon, including the long fur tufts between his toes, and those fabulous blue eyes. I’d never had a long-haired or blue-eyed cat before. I was besotted with him. I could have spent hours petting him or simply looking at him. Therein lay the problem. Frankie was the scaredest scaredy-cat I have ever known.

Ol' Blue Eyes

 

New Frankie

 You couldn’t get him to sit beside you, let alone hold him or pet him. Crinkling a plastic bag would—no kidding—terrify him and send him dashing out of the room. He had to be coaxed to come and eat and wouldn’t take treats if a human stayed within his sight. It took literally years before Frankie jumped up on my recliner and took a spot as far from my body as possible without falling off. My daughter Alix, who has regularly fed my cats when we travel, could stop by every day for two weeks and never actually see Frankie.

 Our menagerie of cats, which has numbered as high as five at any given time, slowly dwindled. The old cats, Jack and Trixie, passed away. Scruffy, the roaming stray who insisted on living with us, disappeared one night. Suddenly, we only had three cats—Smudge, Frankie, and Baby. Two years ago, Smudge passed away and last year, Baby. Frankie is the last cat standing. Now 16, he has the run of the place. And guess what? The old timid Frankie disappeared after Baby died.

 Frankie snuggles with me in the recliner whenever I sit there, as long as I sit there. He rolls onto his back and lets me scratch his tummy for extended periods. He comes up on our bed for some exceptionally serious biscuit-making every night before I go to sleep. (Sometimes this even comes across as a little perverted, and I have to shoo him away.) He begs for treats and—no lie—lets me pick him up (briefly) before I reward him. It is as if the cat we knew for 15 years received a personality transplant.

 When Alix fed him during our spring trip to San Antonio, he came out to say hi several times. Visiting friends have actually seen this cat, which they previously only knew through photographs. I’m sure some people doubted his existence.

 Frankie’s transmogrification has led me to reflect on why. Why did a timid, reticent, fearful cat become friendly, curious, and personable at the ripe old age of 16? The obvious conclusion is that his competition is gone. He has no one to beat him to the punch on getting affection, treats, or even dinner. The over-the-top kneading he subjects me to use to be directed at Baby (who also thought it was a little perverted, BTW). Without Baby, he needed a new target and humans were all he had left.

 I wonder what kind of cat Frankie might have been if he had been a singleton from the start? We’ll never know, but it makes me happy that he is, at long last, getting his shot in the center ring with no competition.

 Tschüß (Tschüss)

 P.S. Cat is Katze in German. And, in German, all nouns are capitalized. I’ve been working diligently to get ready for our trip next year!

 

 

 

 

 

There's No Time to Waste

 Those commercials for personal alert systems—“Help!! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”—haunt me. I remember the flexible days of my youth and middle age, rising and lowering into the lotus position at yoga without any effort, powered only by my legs. I remember touching my toes without stretching into discomfort. I remember turning on a dime, pivoting without stumbling. But the memories aren’t reality.

 IRL, as we say nowadays, I struggle to get up from a squat. Just after Christmas, shopping the discounted cards, I had to hunker down to get to boxes on the lowest shelf. I found what I wanted there, but I couldn’t pull myself back up. For increasingly panicky moments, I tried to find a position that would let me leverage one leg to a spot I could rise from. The thought of calling for help in Walgreens mortified me.

 Fortunately, I did make it to my feet unaided. No one saw my struggle and my dignity remained intact, at least until this confession. But OMG, I don’t want that to happen ever again! I started looking into leg strengthening exercises and doing them, if haphazardly. I am better at rising now than I was in December, but not better enough.

 Some very happy news has made this topic—physical fitness for older people—even more important to me. Next year, Michael and I are celebrating our 50^th wedding anniversary by taking a month-long trip to Vienna Austria! We’ll have our own apartment, a cohort of fellow travelers, and a local guide/concierge for some activities. Otherwise, we’ll be on our own. The company that oversees the experience and makes the arrangements is The Good Life Abroad.

A requirement of handing over your hard-earned money and joining the group is that you can walk two miles on uneven terrain (cobblestones, etc) and climb two flights of stairs. (They do promise the apartment buildings will have elevators, thankfully.) So we are now on deadline to get fit. In 360 days, we will land in Vienna and begin our adventure.

 I will be ready, but I’m not taking it lightly. I’ve had several falls or serious stumbles in the last year, so I got my PCP to prescribe gait and fall prevention physical therapy. I’m doing that right now. The next step is to go back to the gym. I stopped going after I had a fall in my Silver Sneakers class last year, but I can’t stay away any longer.

 It so happens that, while sitting in the waiting room at PT today, I saw a slender paperback book titled Stronger Longer: An Authoritative Guide To Aging Actively by Jackie Bachmeier and Dan Ritchie. I skimmed a few pages and realized it was just what I needed. The other person in the waiting room said, “Oh. I go to that gym. Jackie’s great. She does personal training, group classes, and video classes.”

 Turns out ‘that gym’ is about 5 miles from my home. Could it get any better than that? It could when the PT receptionist says “We have more of those books. They’re free. Do you want one?” And to think I had already planned to plunk down $9.99 plus tax and shipping to get a copy.

 The other patient, my PT twin because the therapists always work with two people at once, continued to sing the praises of Jackie and her gym throughout our hour. If I didn’t have a firm commitment to being at my writing desk on Monday afternoon, churning out this blog, I would have zipped over there to check it out.

 I write with a group on Mondays. We are all memoirists who happen to live in different cities, so we gather online each week and check in, then write with the comforting knowledge that other people are also working on their manuscripts. Since my manuscript is done, I write my blog. It’s soft accountability that bolsters us. A tip of the hat to Cathy, Mindy, Penny, and Yvonne today!

 In addition to seriously tackling physical fitness, I started a German language course on Duolingo. I work on it every day and I am acquiring vocabulary, an ear for German pronunciation, and even some new-to-me sounds and letters. Did you ever see this letter before? ß, called Eszett and pronounced like a double SS in English. The German word for tall or big is groß (gross). German also has several vowels with symbols hanging over them that are new to me.

 It’s been tricky learning to read and pronounce these strange new letters. Like the strength and fitness I need to acquire, I only have a year to get ready. There’s no time to waste!

Tschüß (pronounced schuss with a long u, my new ciao)

 

 

 

In the Quilt Zone

The International Quilt Festival in Houston just completed its 50^th show yesterday. It ranks as the largest quilt show in the United States. I have gone to the show many times over the last two decades and the beauty of the quilts people make never ceases to amaze me. Often I have gone with my daughter Alix, or with a friend, but this year I went solo. There is a certain pleasure to that—no coordinating of whens and wheres are required—but the camaraderie of oohing and aahing with another person is lost, too.

 I always ride mass transit when I go because I hate the traffic and I especially hate the astronomical gouging on parking. The lot near the convention center charged $35 to park this year! The cheaper the parking, the farther the walking; it’s easier to travel by bus and rail.

 There’s an express bus downtown two miles from my house that connects nicely to the train that goes right to the convention center. And hey, Houston’s Metro service is great: people over 70 ride free with a 70+ bus card. Who could ask for anything more?

  In my excitement, I over-estimated travel time badly and got on an 8:15 am bus that resulted in a 9 am delivery to the Festival. Doors didn’t open until 10! Oh, well. The people-watching was good. I saw a couple friends in the crowd and also had nice chats with a few strangers. Quilters are generally easy to talk to with.

  I also studied the show program to suss out my moves. There is so much to see between the quilts and the vendors that one really needs a plan. I decided to walk the vendor aisles first, eat lunch, and then walk the quilt aisles. Walk is a generous description of the start and stop, almost lurching, progress made amidst literal throngs of people. As shoppers accumulate tote bags full of goods, the traffic jams up more and more. And that doesn’t include the effect of scooters, wheelchairs, and walkers as impediments.

  I only wanted to buy one thing for sure, a tub of Karique shea butter. A fabulous product that soothes my abused hand-quilter’s fingertips without being greasy (which means it won’t rub off on my fabric), I prefer to buy it every year at the show because the one time I mail ordered it, the Houston heat melted the stuff into a mess. But drat, no Karique booth this year!

  I had no other shopping plans, but did that stop me from shopping? No. The big thing I got was a quilt display system that goes over a door and doesn’t require drilling holes or screwing anything into the wall. I had never seen one like it and I really wanted it. I went back and looked at it three times! Then I texted Michael about it. His response is why I love him. “Would it really be the quilt festival if you didn’t bring something home?”

  Here’s a picture of my purchase, set up on the door to my office/guestroom. The door faces our foyer, making it a nice view for visitors as well as a privacy screen.

 I picked up some other inconsequential purchases, a couple of pretty good freebies, and some candy before lunch. I ate my usual, an exorbitantly priced baked potato with BBQ beef, and then went into the show side of things.

  So begins quilt overload. A friend called it quilt blur. That is not an exaggeration. There are only so many quilts you can look at before they begin to run together in overwhelming beauty! With no partner, I didn’t spend a lot of time discussing details, which I ordinarily would do. I just looked, felt astonished and unaccomplished, and then walked on to the next masterpiece. I also didn’t take loads of photographs, which I have often done in the past, only to realize later that all those pictures were wasting space in my cloud. Since you can find any picture you want on the internet, there isn’t a reason to keep them in your own collection.

  I couldn't resist taking pictures of three special quilts. I hope you’ll open the photos up a bit and look at the details. They’re incredible. 

 

This one is a whole cloth quilt that is entirely hand-stitched. The thousands upon thousands of tiny stitches took the quilter over 2,000 hours to complete.

 

These two are the same quilt. The quilter created 680 individual little girls with unique umbrellas, rain boots, and outfits. Imagine the time that took!

 This quilt just tickled me, and I thought Alix would get a kick out of it, too, so it's for her. What great cat energy!

Another year, another Quilt Festival. I’m re-energized and it’s a good thing because I have a special quilt project looming. Next month, I am going to learn how to make quilted tennis shoes. While I’m at it, I’m going to make a matching quilted purse. I have to get the fabric quilted in advance of the class, so that’s my next task. Like, immediately next! When it’s all done, I’ll share the results here.

 Ciao

P.S. I'm still learning how to get the pictures situated and obviously struggling. Sorry!

Tell Your Story

 

“If an ordinary person is silent, it may be a tactical maneuver. If a writer is silent, he is lying.”    Jaroslav Seifert

 “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your story. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”    Anne Lamott

 

I found writing memoir to be a long and difficult process. First of all, you have to live the life in order to write about it. That takes time in the most literal sense. The consequences of actions play out over many years, even decades. The ability to look back and reflect on life experiences is one of the most valuable aspects of memoir.

 My memoir is essentially about the 35 years that a serious chronic illness disrupted my life and my family, and the concurrent 30 years that raising an adopted child with serious mental health problems affected all of us for better and for worse. Either topic offers rich material for reflection; together they often feel overwhelming.

 Reliving painful experiences is no less painful than the original incidents; it’s just a different kind of pain. Sometimes I couldn’t face the work for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes I wept while writing. And sometimes I laughed out loud, remembering joyful or hilarious moments.

 In 1994, I attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a very august, 100-year-old gathering of writers held in Middlebury Vermont each summer. We were newly adoptive parents to our youngest child at the time and did not yet appreciate the difficulties that lay ahead for us.

 Someone at Bread Loaf, who heard the unusual story of how she came into our life, very excitedly told me I had to write a book about it. I thought that might be a good idea and I tinkered with it for a bit, but ultimately realized that there wasn’t going to be that much I could say about the experience until we actually experienced more of our life as this newly constructed family.

 I put the idea away and spent many years writing essays about life as we lived it. I also filled journal after journal with my thoughts and ideas. Ultimately, 15 years or so down the line, my essays and thoughts began to take the shape of a coherent story about our life. That’s when I started writing my memoir in earnest.

  There are many phases of writing a book: concept, draft, revision, more revision, and even more revision. I’ve worked with structural editors and developmental editors. I’ve had chapters read and critiqued by other writers over many years. I feel sometimes like I’ve written ten books! The day comes when you can’t do any more revising. Maybe, you just can’t face any more revising. Nevertheless, it’s time to make your manuscript a book.

That’s where I am. My manuscript is begging to be a book. And, actually, people are asking me where to buy it. I wish I had the answer to that question. Selling or publishing a book is a whole different thing from writing it. And writing it doesn’t prepare you to sell it.

 If anyone has thoughts about this, I’d welcome them.
 
Ciao

Conflating Activity with Creativity: A Wander

 I belong to a women’s spirituality group that meets for an hour on Sunday mornings via Zoom. The group, Changing Women, which started at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, has been meeting for at least three decades. I used to be involved all those years ago when we were members at First Church, but when we changed congregations to get closer to home, I stopped going.

COVID has had more deleterious effects than anything I can remember in my lifetime. Oddly enough, it did have one positive effect, at least for me. Several of my organizations started using online meetings during lockdown and continued the practice afterwards. Changing Women is one of those organizations.

 A momentary detour into geography may be helpful because Houston is so much bigger than most people who are not from here can imagine. The Houston MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) contains nine counties, Harris County being the central entity. We live on the far western outskirts of Harris County in a community called Cypress. Down the road a few miles is Waller County, and up the street a few miles is Montgomery County. Our part of Cypress is in a corner that butts up against these other two counties.

 The cultural heart of Houston is the Theatre District downtown, followed by the Museum District in mid-town. Those locations are about 30 miles from us. Driving to the far end of Harris County from our house, Seabrook, is over 60 miles. First Church is in the Museum District, so the amazing opportunity to meet online versus driving brought me back to Changing Women a few years ago.

 The group is centered around the book Earth Medicine: Ancestor Ways of Harmony forMany Moons by Jamie Sams. Published in 1994, it is a collection of daily readings based on Native American spirituality, tied to the cycle of the moon. There are two companion books to Earth Medicine: Medicine Cards and Sacred Path Cards.

 As the name implies, each book comes with a set of cards, similar in size and shape to tarot cards, meant to be used with guidance from their companion books. Medicine Cards is about how animal totems can enlighten you; Sacred Path Cards delve into Native American beliefs about spiritual development and how people should live.

 The reading for September 28 was Boredom. It told a story of one child who used time creatively and another child who felt aimless and bored. There were three questions suggested in the study guide for the reading. How are you creating beauty from what you have at hand?  What are you seeing in your mind’s eye?  How does boredom affect creativity?

 My initial reaction was kind of combative. I never feel bored. I mean, duh, books, right? Then a bit of reality slipped by my defenses. Uh, reels on Facebook? Email? Mindless games on my phone? Even when I read a “good” book (as opposed to pulp fiction), am it just masking boredom?

 This is a poser, for sure, but I have so far concluded that passing time is not creativity. Even making something isn’t necessarily creativity. I think I have been conflating creativity with activity. Shame on me for feeling so smug about my own cleverness!

 So what does constitute creativity? Two days is not enough time to devote to this question, but some things did pop up readily. Creativity requires the application of thoughtfulness and design to a problem or idea. Take making a quilt. What do I want my quilt to look like? What fabrics can I use to achieve the effect I want? How should I cut those fabrics and sew them back together to realize the image that’s in my brain?    

 Even if I use someone else’s pattern for a quilt, there are countless intermediate steps, starting with picking the fabric and ending with how to finish the binding, that require creative processes.  I have made two quilts for which the pattern and all the fabrics were pre-selected. I made them in Block-of-the-Month classes designed to teach technique and coach people through difficult quilt block execution. But at the end of these admittedly non-original, non-creative processes, I had to make a creative choice about how to finish the quilts.

 Option one, pay someone to quilt it on a machine. That’s minimally creative, assuming I pick the pattern. Option two, machine quilt it myself. More creative decisions required here. Option three, hand quilt it, which then requires several more choices about pattern, thread, and complexity.

 I hand quilted one of my non-original quilts with a fairly simple overall pattern because I had a time crunch. It turned out beautifully, BTW, and the recipient really appreciated it. I’m still working on the second one, years after I finished the top, because I picked a ridiculously complicated quilting design to hand quilt. It will be done one of these years and that’s okay.

 Most of the quilts I make now days are unique wall hangings, designed and executed by me, to express something special. Often, they are designed for particular people. Alix, for example, has a small reverse appliqué of a tree frog that I made for her because she loves frogs. I designed and made a reverse appliqué wall hanging of a monarch butterfly for myself.

Musing about boredom and creativity has led me to realize that I am spending precious time on activities with little or no value instead of activities that are fulfilling and expressive. And I’m really too old to be wasting my time like that. How about you?

 Ciao

 

 

Jonesing for Yellow Curry

     Do you have a favorite meal at a favorite restaurant? Something that makes your mouth water when you think about it? I do. In fact, there are several meals I love at different restaurants and I often make lunch plans with friends based on going to those places for those meals. One favorite is a Thai restaurant about 25 miles from home that serves a delicious yellow curry that I crave.

     It’s funny how I started eating it. A board that I once sat on would go out to eat after meetings and one evening someone suggested the restaurant Thai Spice. It was new to me. I consider Thai food generally to be too spicy, and this place was bragging about it right in the name. But I decided to try the yellow curry with chicken after the waiter assured me they could dial down the spices for my ‘delicate’ sensibilities.

     They delivered the dish in a soup pot — creamy yellow curry broth full of carrots, potatoes, and chicken. It came with steamed rice on the side. I dolloped a spoonful of rice into the broth and sampled the results, then had an OMG moment. The soup slid around my mouth like silk, rich and luscious. The chicken and vegetables tasted perfect, and I fell in love, victim of an on-the-spot addiction.

     We went back to that restaurant once in a while, and I ate the yellow curry every time. One night, I forgot to add mild to my order. The first bite tasted wonderful — just what I expected — until the curry bit me back. Oh, dear! My eyes were watering and my tongue was tingling, but I had gotten exactly what I ordered, so I could hardly send it back. Lured by the still silky and delicious taste of yellow curry broth, I soldiered through.

     There are almost always leftovers from this meal. The restaurant is generous, and I get full, so half of it goes home to give me a lovely lunch the next day. Two-for-one, who could ask for better? I've found the spice level is more intense after reheating. More teary eyes, a runny nose, but always, I soldier on. The curry is just too good to waste.

     Eventually, I stopped asking for adjustments to the spice level. A person who would never willingly eat a jalapeño or add red pepper to my chili, who doesn’t like the spicy taste of banana peppers or use Tabasco sauce ever, here I was, eating spicy curry at my favorite Thai restaurant whenever I could get there! And I still am.

     My friend Cathy lives near the dining spot, and we usually eat there whenever we lunch out, every couple of months. Fortunately, Cathy likes Thai food and has never complained about going there all the time. The lunch menu is a bit different from the dinner menu. You are served soup, a small egg roll, and a small salad alongside your smaller serving of the yellow curry, for, of course, a lower price than dinner. I think it’s a bargain. By the time I eat the appetizers, I’m full enough that I still can’t eat all the curry and I get to take home leftovers. Win-win!

     It has been a while since I ate yellow curry at Thai Spice in the Heights. I think about it anytime my mind turns to food. Literally, I can find myself jonesing on yellow curry at the drop of a hat. I beat back my cravings by remembering that I can go there if I want to; just get in my car and drive! I don’t need a lunch or dinner partner or an excuse to indulge. I’m a grown-up who owns a car, has a debit card, and can do it right now!

     I’m going to hold off though, at least long enough to see if Cathy is free for lunch soon. And I mean soon!

Ciao

    P.S. The restaurant changed its name for reasons I don’t understand, but everything else is the same. If you want to try the yellow curry — I recommend with chicken — you can find it in the Heights under the name ZapVor by Thai Spice. I’m told that ZapVor means “Super Yummy” in Thai. There's no arguing with that.

How Many Old People Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

    How many old people does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently, more than two, because Michael and I haven’t succeeded yet. The bulbs in question are actually tubes — fluorescent tubes — for the main fixture in our kitchen. Everyone has one, right? About two feet wide and four feet long, with four tube lights that provide most of the functional illumination in a kitchen.

     The four long neon tubes in ours have been faltering for a couple of weeks now. At first, they would dim and flicker occasionally, then settle down and illuminate just fine. Recently, one tube died and the kitchen got darker. When we got down to a single working fluorescent tube light, I hated working in there at night. I asked Michael to fix them: it was really too dark, even with the over-the-sink lights and the laundry room lights turned on. Michael turning on the microwave light as I complained did not much help either the lighting or my mood.

    Coming home from an event one day, I found the ladder in the kitchen and the cover off the fixture. Good, I thought, we’re going to have light again.” One tube had been removed; none of the other tubes worked at that point. I tracked Michael down in his office and commended him for working on the lights.

    “I’ll need to run to the hardware store for bulbs,” he told me. Easy enough, Home Depot and Lowe's are both within two miles of our house. Of course, one has to work up the motivation to soldier on and actually go to the store, so the ladder and cover got in the way in the kitchen for about a week.

    The next time I left Michael home alone, I returned to find new bulbs on the dining room table, one two-pack opened and loose. “I’m going to need some help with these. I couldn’t get them seated correctly by myself,” he said. “Fine, just let me know when you’re ready.”

    And so today, a Monday some days after his first attempt, he got back to it, but without waiting for me to finish lunch. Before I could join him to give whatever help he needed, I heard a crash, followed by appropriately loud cursing. The very thin glass of a fluorescent tube had scattered everywhere, and it took both of us sweeping in both the kitchen and the dining room to clear away the bits.

     “What can I do?” I asked. 

    “I can’t get the bulb to seat in the ballast,” he said. “If you could work on one end while I work on the other, that’d be great.” 

    So I dragged out the stepstool and climbed up, ready to insert and twist. I mean, that’s really all there is to it, right? Over 48 years of marriage and several different homes, we have replaced fluorescent tube lights numerous times. Mostly, Michael has replaced them, but I do know how to do it.

    But not today. He got his end in fine, but mine would not for the life of me insert far enough into the slot to twist in place. “Something’s blocking this side. It won’t go in all the way. Let’s switch sides, maybe you can do it.”

    Michael climbed down, I stepped across to his ladder, and he walked around to the stepstool and climbed up. All right, we were ready. It was going to work this time, I knew it. My confidence lasted right up to the moment I felt Michael’s end slip and heard another tube break. Fortunately, I still had a grip on my end, so we only had half a broken tube to clean up.

    At this point, Michael suggested that it was time to get track lighting for the kitchen. After all, fluorescent tubes were a thing of the past. I couldn’t agree more, but there is one thing special I want on the new track lighting for our kitchen. An installer. 

Ciao

Don't Look a Gift Bag in the Mouth

This afternoon, someone left a plain, navy blue, paper bag hanging on my front door. To say this was unusual would be a gross understatement. It’s been since my childhood — when people left May Day baskets of candy and treats on doorsteps — that any unexpected goodies appeared out of nowhere at our house. But the bag was meant for me: a handwritten note attached began “Ms. Devereaux [sic].”

(Point of clarification, there is no A in our Irish version of the surname Devereux. The sender obviously doesn’t know me well or doesn’t pay attention to nit-picky details. But kudos for getting Ms. right!)

 A quick perusal of the note revealed that the Salvation Army had delivered this bag as a thank you for completing a recent survey they emailed to me. Imagine if every one of the multitude of companies that bombard you daily with requests to complete their surveys sent gifts afterward? Responses would skyrocket.

The bag included flyers about their estate planning/future giving program and a handful of treats: two Halloween-sized bags of Skittles, one gummy and one regular; a retractable red measuring tape suitable for a sewing room; and two miniature red Salvation Army bells like the ones wielded over their Christmas kettles. The bells had split rings attached, presumably so you could slip them onto a key ring. I immediately put one of them on the font drawer that hangs on my office wall and houses a variety of tiny treasures I love. The other is beside my laptop awaiting deployment.

I am a big fan of the Salvation Army. In 1973, I was a pregnant graduate student whose husband had left her with no visible means of support. It took me a bit to get my life in order, take a leave from school, find an interim job, and support myself until Alexandra was born several months later. During that lean, mean period, the Salvation Army gave me groceries and I have been grateful ever since.

Every January, when we distribute our charitable contributions for the year, the Salvation Army gets a chunk of money. I have been giving to them faithfully for literally decades.  And I will continue to give as long as I can. I don’t say this to brag, just to explain why I might have been picked to get an unexpected gift hung on my front door today. And why they might have included some brochures encouraging me to continue giving after I die.

My immediate reaction to this lovely, unexpected token of appreciation was, “Why are they wasting money on this?  Why don’t they use the money to provide services to needy people?” Munching my way through both bags of Skittles, I did a little research on donor premiums, as they are called in the solicitation business. (Aside: Skittles gummies are surprisingly tasty!)

According to 2018 research by three Texas A&M professors (It's Not the Thought that Counts: A Field Experiment on Gift Exchange and Giving at a Public University | NBER), donor premiums do not generate more money for the organizations that give them out. In fact, they cost more money to give than the amount they generate. But charities must think that showing appreciation to donors will benefit them in the long run or why would they do it?

I do admit to feeling some warm fuzzies when I look at the tiny Salvation Army bell. I kinda wish I had a little kettle to go with it. And the gift did prompt me to write this blog, which might get them a smidgen of notice from a few people. Possibly, I will look over their brochure before I recycle it — not promising.

Maybe the Salvation Army likes me as much as I like them. Maybe they’re happy that my life turned out well enough that I could become a donor. Maybe I am WAY over thinking this and it’s time to stop looking a gift bag in the mouth. (Forgive my abuse of a venerable adage, but I couldn’t resist.)  Time to just say thank you, Salvation Army, the treats were lovely.

Ciao

 

 

Vaccines on My Mind

Vaccines are on my mind. Or, rather, the vaccine-deniers are on my mind. I have been appalled by RFK Jr. ever since he opened his mouth to run for president. (I had the good fortune not to have noticed him before then.) I have been appalled by vaccine-deniers since I first heard of them a few decades ago.

Most people do not have the associations with public health that I do because most people did not have a microbiologist for a father. My father worked for the North Dakota Public Health Service his entire career. Hired out of college, they sent him to the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor for his master’s degree. After, he went to work in the lab in Grand Forks, my hometown, and eventually ran it. Ultimately, he took over as director of the public health services at the state offices in Bismarck until his retirement. He worked in public health for 45 years.

His work had a big effect on me. First of all, as you might suspect, hygiene and food safety got a prominent spot in our household. No hands had better go unwashed! His lab tested all the milk products from regional dairies. The technicians would sample a tablespoon or so of milk, cream, ice cream, etc. from every batch. They sent the remainder home with Dad because he had a big family to feed, so we always had lots of dairy products. We also got pets from the lab: white mice.

Dad’s lab ran the tests on all animals in North Dakota suspected of having rabies, which is done using the animals’ brains. Whenever someone – usually farmers or hunters – ran across a potentially rabid creature, they would send the head to the lab by special courier. It could be any time of the day or night. Dad would get a call and go retrieve the specimen.

If it came at night or over a weekend, he’d store the package in the extra refrigerator in our basement. We were all accustomed to having specimens in the fridge from time to time. Dad used this to his advantage. When my grandmother sent homemade goodies that he wanted to save from the depredations of his large family, he’d wrap them up to look like specimens and put them in the basement. “Don’t open that box, it’s a head,” he’d tell us.

Okay, by late elementary school or high school, we’d grown pretty confident these packages were not actually heads … but not sure enough to risk opening them. Many a powdered sugar doughnut escaped early consumption because of this. Once the package was open, he kept it locked in his gun closet, which he could have done in the first place. I think he just enjoyed teasing us.

Polio was raging in my early childhood. I remember going with my neighbor Susan to whirlpool treatments for her withered leg. I’m sure it was actually physical therapy, but at 6 or so we didn’t know that. I suppose I was there was to entertain Susan while she sat in what looked like a horse trough of swirling water for her treatments. We had fun being silly together. I remember wishing I could get in the metal tank, too. It looked like fun.

When the polio vaccine came out, my dad had early access because of his job. One Sunday afternoon, he and my mother took the little kids — I was the oldest little kid — to visit their friends, the Culmers. Dr. Culmer and his wife Vangie played bridge with my parents while us kids goofed around. The adults, of course, drank as they whiled away the afternoon. To the kids’ great surprise, when the card game and libations were done, my dad collected us and Dr. Culmer gave us all polio shots!

I remember running away and being dragged back, probably kicking and screaming. There’s nothing like getting a jab from a slightly inebriated family friend when you’re not expecting it! But, really, we were probably some of the luckiest kids in town because we got protection from polio very early on.

Measles vaccines came along later. In my day, everyone got the measles. It was miserable and inconvenient for most people, but life-altering for others. Remember Helen Keller? Blind, deaf, and mute because of measles as an infant. Some kids were maimed by the disease, some died. My three older brothers had measles at the same time. While Mother was tending to them and running our household, I apparently contracted a mild case that no one noticed. I don’t remember having the measles, but everyone said I must have. In today’s world, where measles is again a danger, I really hope I did.

I do remember having chickenpox. I was eleven. I got them on Easter weekend, and my grandmother died the same day. And I remember when my son got them. He was in high school, so only 20 or so years ago. Little Tori got them from Nick. We all have a few chickenpox scars and I’ve been lucky enough to get shingles — a direct result of having had chickenpox — as well.

Now days, no child, in America at least, need ever contract polio, or measles, or mumps, or rubella, or whooping cough, or chickenpox again. No child need contract HPV, which causes cervical cancer and throat cancer, among others. My husband had HPV throat cancer in 2016. He survived after an excruciating treatment regime that you really want to avoid!

We did it. We found a way to save so much misery and loss in our world through science. And my dad was one of those scientists. I’m proud of him and happy for the safety of future generations.

But wait! The anti-vaxxers are refusing to get their kids protected. And by doing this, they are threatening the protections that we have built into our society. They are lying about vaccines and the vaccination process to scare people away from protecting everyone through childhood vaccination programs. My father is rolling over in his grave. And to make it worse, some people in my own family are anti-vaxxers who children have never been protected. I pray it doesn’t happen, but those kids, like all the other unprotecteds, are at risk of illness, disability, and death.

What has our world come to that the government agencies tasked with the health and welfare of our people walk away from proven protections? It is worse than a shame. It is a crime.

 Ciao

Relishing my Grandma-hood

These charming mice appeared in my mailbox on a birthday card from my 11-year-old granddaughter. The accompanying message said, “I’m so glad you’ve stuck with me for all my life.” Oh, Sweetie! So am I and how could I not have?

 Her little brother’s card, with rocketship graphics, said, “I love you so much my heart flys to neptune ♥”

These two cards are a continuous delight and I’ve been reflecting on grandparenting since I opened them. (Not that grandparenting has been far from my thoughts lately, since we are regularly babysitting for our 3-year-old grandson these days.)

 I never had a “grandma.” We called one of our grandmothers Grandmother Gustafson and the other one Florence. In grade school, I made a brief foray into grandma territory. Helping Florence with the dinner dishes one evening, I ventured to call her Grandma. Florence pivoted towards me and proclaimed in a stentorious voice, “You may call me Grandmother or you may call me Florence, but I am nobody’s Grandma.” Point taken, Florence.

 My mother told me she preferred to be called Mother rather than Mom, but she was, nonetheless, Grandma Jeanne to her hordes of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It went without saying that I would be Grandma Lane. I could picture it, too. I would be the Grandma the kids loved to visit when they were little and confide in when they were older. I even saved my kids’ picture books and stuffed animals for their future kids’ visits to Grandma’s house.

 In a twist of fate, the first grandchildren I got were my stepson’s kids. Because his mother had disappeared with him when he was a toddler, and kept him hidden his whole childhood, I didn’t meet him until good fortune and Facebook reconnected him to Michael in 2009. By that time, he had already married and had two children, then 6 and 9, who had ample grandparents in their daily lives. Consequently, we have a warm and loving relationship with them as Lane and Michael, not Grandma and Grandpa. Because they live in Oregon and have never visited our home, my book and toy collection didn’t get used with them.

 Grandma-hood finally arrived when our son had his children, those delightful creatures whose birthday cards I quoted above. Unfortunately, he had the temerity to move to New York City to fall in love and have a family. Visits happen regularly, but more often us traveling north then them traveling south, and so the books and toys still have gotten little use.

 Our oldest daughter, who lives practically next door by Houston standards (8 miles), skipped children. Our youngest daughter, who lived a 5-hour drive from us at the time, had three. I began to believe that my stash of goodies would finally be put to regular use.

 I’ve had one special toy put aside for a future granddaughter for many years: our youngest’s My Twin doll, which we gave her for Christmas in elementary school. As the name implies, it had the same facial shape, same skin tone, same eye color, and same hair style as our daughter. They looked alike right down to the glasses they both wore. We invested in look-alike clothes for them and I enjoyed the turned heads that followed them around whenever we went out. When she had Heaven, and later, Hayden, I expected that the My Twin doll would eventually move in with them.

 Tragically, both Heaven and Hayden died in a house fire in 2022, on Hayden’s first birthday. Heaven was just days short of 4-years old. Our grandson came along a few months later, a beacon in the darkness. Now that our daughter lives in Houston, we are regular overnight babysitters. It delights me that the books and the toys finally get plenty of use. I’m into my Grandma-hood!!

 When our daughter outgrew her doll, I sent it back to the factory’s doll hospital and had her reconditioned. Looking like new, she has sat in my closet in her custom case, with her special clothes, for 20 years, waiting to be loved again, but I don’t think our grandson will appreciate her. And I’d be mighty surprised to get another granddaughter at this late stage in the game. Giving the doll back to our daughter is fraught. I worry that it will painfully remind her of what will never be.

 Problems for another day. Today I’m basking in the wonders of grandchildren near and far who love me! I love being loved by them. I am so glad to be a grandma.

 Ciao.

 

In Celebration of Friendship

 

    One’s 75^th birthday is their Diamond Jubilee. I had the good fortune to attain my Diamond Jubilee yesterday. And I had the precious opportunity to celebrate it with a few close friends and family at a luncheon today. Some of my friends knew one or two other people there; some knew no one but me. Nevertheless, conversations took off like they were all friends already, with laughter and chatter filling the room. That’s what happens when creative people gather, and my friends are definitely creative!

     The theme for the party? Friends. A local home baker created these cookies for the occasion. The diamond for my Diamond Jubilee, the peridot green icing for my birthstone, and the sentiment from my heart.

     It is good to have friends and to find time for them. It can’t all be luncheons and parties, of course. There isn’t time or money for that in most people’s lives. But phone calls, cards – yes, mailed!! – and even texts, if you are just too rushed to do more, are good ways to stay in touch. An occasional coffee klatsch is fun. Try taking in a movie with a friend. Just connect; it’s invigorating.

     My abbreviated post today is in celebration of friendship and in appreciation of the people in my life! They make it all worthwhile.

     Check in with a friend today!

 Ciao