Thanks Joe

Two weeks ago I was at the beach teaching. The big discussion was what was going to happen in the election. It was post the debate, pre the shooting at the rally. I went to breakfast with two dear friends, one red and one blue. The red one, who I love and adore, asked me what I thought was going to happen.

I said, “I think Biden will drop out, but not until after the Republican convention. It does no good to give Trump that time to figure out what he is up against.” I followed that up by saying I was not blogging about it because I am just tiny bit superstitious and did not want to jinx it from happening.

That night I also discussed this possibility with the friends I was staying with. We all agreed that both candidates are too old and not good choices and the best thing that could happen would be to have a new, younger, choice.

Today I was teaching mah Jongg from 1-4. My watch kept blowing up, but I could not stop to see what was going on. Towards the end of class one of the students told me why she had kept looking at her phone. It was general excitement on all our parts.

Joe has done an extraordinary job. He has gotten more done in four years. He steadied the ship. He got us through the pandemic. He renewed our standing in the world. He got infrastructure money passed and has started rebuilding important bridges, roads, and transportation hubs all over the country. He brought American manufacturing jobs back and ensured that America can provide vital parts with the Chips act. The stock market is up, inflation is coming down, wages are up, especially for the lower and middle class. Crime is down.

Joe deserves credit for all these things and now he has done the selfless thing of dropping out. Something rarely done in the world. Most people do not recognize their own decline. Trump certainly does not recognize his. He can hardly put two sentences not on the teleprompter together. It is pure selfishness for him to run, but then again he is doing it to try and stay out of jail. September and Judge Merchan are coming.

For all those people who said they would not vote for Trump or Biden because they both are too old, there is a new choice. It’s time to save America from the project 2025 fascist plan. It’s time to save democracy.

For those who vote Red because they think it will better for their personal fortunes, the conservative Moody’s analytics said that a Trump win will be very bad for the economy. Trump added more to the debt and not because of the Pandemic, but to give tax cuts to the rich.

And then there is the issue which needs to stay at the top of all women’s’ and those who love any woman minds, protection of women’s health care rights. Trump and the ones in his pocket are at war on women. We must not allow these men to continue to try and take women’s rights away.

Thanks Joe for all you have done. Finish strong and hand a good country off to Kamala.

I Like My Old Thing

I don’t buy new things just because. If something I have works, I am keeping it. First because I already know how to use it and second, why add stuff to the planet if I don’t need to. I keep cars a long time, I keep phones and electronics forever and I keep shoes until they fall apart.

I still have, and occasionally use the same stereo I had in college, with the addition of a cd player three years later. I have all my old albums and CD’s. I wish I had the cassette tapes I made when I would record the Casey Kasem top 40 every weekend off my original realistic stereo my Dad gave me when I was 10.

I have five half sheet pans I bought in 1983 for my catering business and I use them weekly still. I know I bought them for $5 each.

I have had an IPhone X for the last seven years. I still have it, but recently the memory was getting filled up and it kept telling me it couldn’t save a photo or download mail. I cleaned everything off that phone I could, but the system data kept filling up.

I went so far as sleeping with the IT guy in hopes of his fixing it. Even Russ couldn’t he get it fixed. So off to the Apple Store we went. The genius cleaned out my Safari cache, I write that like I know what it means.

It made little difference. So Russ told me it was time for a new, bigger memory, bigger camera, bigger everything phone. I had been holding out for the 16, but I said I would give in for the 15 pro max. Pro Max sounds redundant.

Since I did not want to import any issue my old phone had, I am manually reloading my apps. This is one of the reasons I didn’t want to get a new phone. I have to unpair and re-pair everything. I have to remember all my user names and passwords for banks I rarely go to.

I am yet to take a photo with my much better camera because the only thing I want to take a photo of is the phone and it’s not so good that it can take a selfie of itself.

I will be happy to have this new phone for the wedding we are going to next month, but I don’t think it will fit in my evening bag. This might mean a new purse is required. Not good, I have a beautiful one I bought 25 years ago.

I got a new car this year,that was a hard enough change. Now a new phone. I may have to go lay down. So much to learn how to use. Now I have to sleep with the IT guy who bought me this phone.

Sitting in the Dark

No rain for a month and a half and now we have had big rain multiple days in a row. This afternoon we had a deluge. Wednesday when I was driving home from the beach I drove through that kind of rain you can’t see through. I put my flashers on and slowed down, but not to the five MPH that some people did. People, if you are afraid to drive in big rain, please pull your car off to the side of the road. I don’t want someone to rear end you because they didn’t see you until it was too late.

Today I was home doing some deep cleaning. That means I polished TV screens until they gleamed. I had he robot vacuum running from room to room as Shay watched me use a q-tip in the crevices of baseboards. Trust me, it’s satisfying, even if it uses a bunch of Q-tips.

As the robot was running around the sunroom and I was picking up dog toys, I heard a pop. The electricity went out. The rain was coming down so hard that I could not hear all my many neighbor’s generators come on.

Thankfully the robot was able to keep cleaning until the battery ran down. I decided it was too dark to continue my baseboard work. Shay headed me up to her home base, our bed. She feels safest there, but she really shouldn’t since it is on the top floor.

It wasn’t that windy so I was not worried about a tree coming down on the house. My phone was at 50% and my iPad 68% so I opted to play a game on my iPad that did not need connectivity. Without power our signal booster is out so we get the pitiful one bar and no WiFi.

Duke Energy texted they knew the power was out and predicted it would come back by 6:30. We shall see.

At least we are filling up the ground water. It is going to rain some everyday this week. I guess I need to be charging everything at all times. Especially the vacuum.

Post Script: I wrote this while the power was out. I got a two texts at the same time at 6:19. The first one said the power would be back on at 9:45. The second one said the power was back on. Since I didn’t have any lights on when the power went out I didn’t notice it was back on. Thank goodness the first text was wrong.

Goodbye Bob Newhart

The funnier someone is the smarter they are. There can be smart people who are not funny, but there rarely are funny people who are not smart. Of course there are lots of kinds of funny. My favorite is dry, droll, ironic funny. Bob Newhart was that kind of funny.

He never raised his voice. He did sometime make fun of someone less brilliant, but often in a way that the person did not understand was a slight, because they just weren’t smart enough.

As a child I never missed an episode of the Bob Newhart show as I certainly was always home on Saturday nights, either with a babysitter or being the baby sitter. My sister’s were a little too young to “get” Bob’s sense of humor, which is sad, because they certainly would have loved it.

Most people think of themselves as funny. Actually most of them aren’t. There is hardly anyone as funny as Bob Newhart. He will be greatly missed.

The Best Recipe

When I was in boarding school I had the best roommate, Nancy Mack. Nancy had the best Mom, Jane. Jane was a superior Mother, Doctor, and Baker. I was always in awe of all that Jane did. She worked full time as the pediatrician for a whole town. She raised five children and kept Nancy’s Dad, also a Doctor, in line.

Sometimes she would just pop up to school and take Nancy and me out to lunch and then leave Nancy a tin of homemade snickerdoodles.

These snickerdoodles were so far superior to any other cookies on earth that we would talk about them long after they had been consumed. Since I had a mother who not only did not bake or eat cookies I especially appreciated Jane.

Today Nancy shared her mother’s hand written recipe. She said it is too good not to share. So I share it with you, with Nancy’s clarifying notes. I did ask Nancy what her mother meant by “shortening” and she confirmed it was always Butter.

So do yourself a favor and bake these cookies. I wish Jane were still alive so I could run a batch by her to get her opinion. I am going to have to make some next time I see Nancy so we can have them with milk just like we did at Walkers. They are a happy memory.

Figure Eight At Last

Thanks to Margie Springer, we brought Mah Jongg classes to Figure Eight. I love expanding to new beaches and new clubs. Margie asked me in February and she made this happen. I had 19 great students today for day one and tomorrow we add more for the more advanced play lesson.

Margie has been kind enough to host me at her beautiful house with her husband and son Curtis as well as her sister Caroline. Margie and I played Siamese Mah Jongg after I finished class and she won plenty.

Then we went back to the yacht club for dinner. It was during dinner that we discovered we both had great grandfathers in Charlottesville, VA at the same time in the early 1910’s.

After dinner we came back to their house and play Mexican Train Dominos. This is my kind of game playing family. Thanks to Margie for getting Mah Jongg going at Figure Eight.

Do you have a Rising Junior or Senior in High School?

I have a brilliant friend, Kristin Hiemstra. She is a super women, coach, leader, TedX speaker and fabulous college counselor. She worked for sixteen years in college counseling in the Chapel Hill school system. She went on to do more adult and organization coaching, but has found herself drawn back into college counseling.

Not all schools have the resources necessary to provide kids with the kind of help they need to figure out what they are interested in, what might be the best path to get there and what is realistic for them given their strengths.

Parents are not always the best judges about their own kids. Oh the horror stories I have heard. The parents who insist their little darling is Ivy League material, so they encouraged that child to apply only to the Ivies, not to get into a single one.

Or the parent, fearing costs, discourages a well qualified candidate to dial back their choices because they don’t know how to manage to money side of higher education.

I knew one family whose child was miserable in math, only apply to a business program at big university where he was qualified for a different program, but not business. He was rejected and ended up at a much lower standing school because it was the only business program that would take him with such poor math scores. If only he had known he could have gotten into a general studies program and taken business courses to see if he even liked them. The end of the story is he dropped out of the business program because it was not where his interest or strengths were. If only his parents had a third party work with the kid to figure this out before wasting two year’s tuition with nothing to show for it.

My friend Kristin is that person to talk with. Her college counseling business is called the Art Of potential and that is exactly what she teases out of high school kids to help them on their journey.

You can find Kristin on Linkdin or I am happy to put you in touch with her. She can work remotely so you don’t need to be close to Chapel Hill. She’s the real deal.

The Elephant in the Room

Yesterday’s tragic shooting at Trump and the supporters who were hit is not the way we solve public discourse. I am thankful that so far everyone has said the obvious, “We condemn political violence.”

Biden has called for us to bring the temperature down. I pray that everyone does that and it comes from all sides.

What I have not heard is any talk about why anyone needs a rifle powerful enough to shoot 400 yards with great precision. The 20 year old shooter apparently had his father AR style weapon.

I have long been an advocate for gun control. Other countries do not have these kinds of shootings as they have common sense gun laws. We have an out of control number of mass shootings growing every year.

I hear from friends abroad who say they won’t come to the US for vacation because they think it is too dangerous. I can’t blame them when we have a mass shooting on average more than one per day. Averaging over 500 per year.

Now that Trump has been shot at and hit by an AR style weapon, I wonder if his stance on these military style guns will change? You can’t hunt with them, unless you are hunting people.

When will we ever have the guts to change this in America?

Processing Tomatoes

I bought this one box of Roma tomatoes. Usually when you buy a box of tomatoes the top ones are the beauties and the bottom ones are the dogs. Not in this case. Every single one of these tomatoes was perfect!

I started by making two tomato pies. Then I made a giant pot of tomato sauce. I used my largest Dutch oven and put in 30 tomatoes and two giant sweet onions. Cooked it for five hours and when it was all said and done it was two quarts. But it is beautiful, especially since I put in my fresh basil which has flourished when everything else failed.

Lastly, I cut 18 tomatoes in half and seeded them and slow roasted them in the oven with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I just turned the oven off after four hours and are letting them sit in the oven until tomorrow.

All that cooking and I still have one third of a box of maters left. I will probably roast all of them since that is the least amount of work for me. Once roasted they can be frozen to make into sauce, soup or other ingredient in a future concoction.

Those were not the only tomatoes I bought. So we will be eating BLT’s tomorrow and anything else I can think of with tomatoes.

I also made a nectarine, cucumber and tomato salad today that we had for lunch with burratta.

We had tomato pie and corn for dinner. Outside of bacon, I can not think of when we might eat meat again. We have a few more vegetables to get through.

Storage Management

I need a new phone. My storage keeps getting full. Apple is going to stop supporting mine. Outside of those issues it is perfectly fine for me. I wouldn’t get a new phone otherwise.

Here’s the problem. Russ says I should wait for the IPhone 16 since it is going to be such a big departure from the 15. I would like to have a new phone when I go to my best friend’s daughter’s wedding, but the timing is not right. So I will go with my old phone.

My old phone still takes great photos, but my storage is full. I keep deleting things and it fills right back up. I hate that I have to have apps to get into museums. I don’t need the app, just let me buy a ticket and come in.

People send me videos. I watch them, but forget to delete them. Someone how I mistakenly store them. I can’t tell you how many times I mistakenly take a screen shot. It gets stored. I listen to books and they are stored. Phone management takes up way too much of my time.

What I really hate is as soon as I get a new phone they will announce what new features will be on the next one and I will want those. I won’t succumb to getting a new phone every year just to get what little improvements have been made, but I do wish they would wait a little more than a year before releasing new and improved phones.

It’s not social media that takes up my time, it’s storage management. UGH!

Just Buy the Tomatoes

Russ let me know that my tomato plants have suffered catastrophically from weeks of heat. If it is too hot the plants won’t fruit, but more than not just getting tomatoes, my plants are suffering.

I am going to have to put them out of their misery this weekend. I might cut some way back and see if they can recover, but the idea of getting tomatoes from them seems futile.

With that news from Russ, I stopped at a farm stand on the way home from the beach today. Beautiful tomatoes for $2.75 for slicing and eating. Tomato pie is in the future. Even better was the box of Roma tomatoes for $25. I will be making sauce and soup and dried tomatoes this weekend.

Gardening is heart breaking. Supporting a local farmer is actually cheaper than trying to grow things and fail.

It’s too hot to spend a lot of time in the garden. Being in an air conditioned kitchen processing vegetables someone else grew is fine with me. At least I am not worrying about fighting the squirrels.

No Mah Jongg Emergencies

When someone calls me desperate to get into one of my Mah Jongg Classes I always say there is no such thing as a Mah Jongg emergency. Today my class for the Coral Bay Club, which is being held at the Carteret County Culinary School while the club is being rebuilt, had an emergency drill.

The life flight helicopter was making a scheduled landing at the school so that the emergency training class of teenagers could get a look at it, along with some ambulances and fire trucks.

We loved just taking a break to watch it come in and go on and get our class photo with the helicopter. It was not a Mah Jongg emergency, but a few students to suggested that I could use a helicopter to travel between classes. I was not opposed to the idea, only the cost.

I could have used a copter this week as I have been teaching class in Morehead in the mornings and then again in New Bern in the evenings. I have been getting back to my friend Jill’s house in Atlantic beach at 9:30 each night. Tonight she waited to have dinner with me which was so sweet.

We have been staying up too late every night and before I left for New Bern she said, “Tonight we are not going to stay up talking so late.” Here it is 11:30 and I am just writing my blog because we stayed at the table on the porch over an hour after we said, it’s time to go to bed.

I think we could stay up all night talking, but we have that pesky class in the morning. Sleep really gets in the way of having fun. I still need to have some wits about me to teach tomorrow or we might have a real Mah Jongg emergency.

It’s Not the Class, but the Friends

It has become apparent to me that the only reason I teach Mah Jongg classes out of town is to get to visit friends I have made through Mah Jongg. Last week I taught two classes in places I don’t have friends and so I stayed at hotels. It was miserable.

This week I’m teaching at the beach and in New Bern. It’s not ideal as my New Bern class is in the evening so I drive back and forth getting back to the beach at 9:30 at night. The saving grace is I am staying with the darling Jill Gammon and she invited Martha Crampton and Bit Hardy to stay and go to class with her.

I have had more fun with these ladies in the little bit of off time I have between the morning class and the time I have to leave to go to New Bern. The bad part is when I get in late at night we stay up talking and don’t want to go to bed.

Tonight Jill had dinner for me when I got back of the most delicious Salad Nicoise I have ever eaten, including ones in France. The four of us could easily solve all the problems in the world, if only people listened to us.

I know it’s a lot to have me come stay, but it is so much fun for me. I hope it is at least half as fun for them. Class is great, but I love the visiting so much more. Now if only my extroversion would turn off so I could go to sleep. We all stay up too late and I have to get up early to go teach first thing in the morning.

New Bern, Can We Have Some of Your Rain?

As I was driving 70 towards New Bern, I could see it. Off in the distance of this sunny, blue sky day, Rain. It was grey ahead, and getting darker. The trees on the side of the road separated me from the really dark grey. I was driving parallel to the river, now the rain highway.

I had come from Durham. Yes, we had some rain this weekend, but not enough to green anything up. We are still short due to four weeks of no rain. The ground is 100° baked hard. What little rain we got rolled down hill.

Now I was driving into a storm I was desperate for, but at home. Sure enough, just before I got to my exit to go to Trent Woods the rain came hard. Quickly huge puddles formed on each side of the road. Sign that this was not their first rain.

The neighborhood was flooded. Volunteer lakes sprung up in yards. Lucky ducks, and tomatoes and lawns.

I pulled into a little park, as I was early for my class and watched as a mother bird supervised her chicks in a bath in their newly formed baby pool in the grass. The tiny birds, splashed like toddlers in yellow boots. The mama found a worm pushed up from the saturated ground by the new deluge forcing the worms to float.

Rain sure makes me happy. Now, please go on up to Durham. Our Mama birds need you too.

Cooking for Others

There is one thing I can do, it’s cook. I always told young people to learn to cook, you use that skill everyday. I don’t cook as much for myself as I do for others these days. Russ is always coming up with things he wants me to make for him. It’s a good thing he likes leftovers because I am not good at cooking small amounts. I figure, make it once eat it three times, OK maybe five.

It seems like a lot of my cooking lately has been for others. I have been baking cooking for funerals at church. Or cooking meals for friends who need them. This is the kind of cooking I like to do.

For my friend Jan I have to think about the kinds of foods that are good for Chemo. No Beef as it would have to be well done. Not too much raw stuff. Not too caloric, but tasty.

Today I cooked for my friend Holley, who has ALS. She is at the stage where swallowing is not working so all her food is through a tube. I made things that are already liquid, but also food for her family that is not. The difference in cooking for Holley is trying to add as many calories in as small a liquid as possible.

I got to have a great visit with Holley and her husband Paul. Paul said the vitamix can liquify anything into a Holley palatable form. We joked about the industrial sized Duke’s Mayo and what it can be added to. My suggestion was liquified pimento cheese.

Cooking may be a small thing, but it is my outward expression of love to the friends who need it. Holley seems to be craving a cheeseburger casserole. I think I can whip that up and Paul can run some of it through the vitamix and keep some whole for himself and their daughter Wheezie.

Anything Holley and Jan want is my motto. I’m not near John Cadigan’s family up in Massachusetts to cook for them, so I hope other’s are doing it. There is nothing better than not having to think about making a meal when you are grieving. Leave the cooking to your friends. And friends, the cooking is your love.

Make Sure You Have Carbon Monoxide Alarms

Early this morning I was woken from a really good dream by the sound of my phone texts going off. I have my phone silenced for everyone except for Carter. When it kept going off I was quickly awake and looked to see six messages from her.

She and Claire are visiting Claire’s parents and they awoke to five alarms going off in their house and the fire engines arriving. Turns out a golf cart that was plugged in emitted something that made the alarms go off.

I am so thankful that Claire’s parents have a good monitoring system and it kept them all safe. I am sure no one was happy about being awake at 5:30 in the morning, but thank goodness they were.

Please check that you have CO monitors along with your smoke alarms. They need to be loud to wake you because Carbon Monoxide can disorient you before it takes you out all together.

With houses being more energy efficient there is no place for carbon monoxide to escape. Stay alive and get out if your alarm ever goes off, that is as long as you have one.

Our House at 30

This morning Russ asked me if I knew where we were 30 years ago today. I correctly guessed that this was the first night we slept in our house. We made an offer on this house on a weekend we visited Durham in April after Russ picked UNC for business school.

It was our second trip to North Carolina to look for houses. The first house we bid on was in Chapel Hill and that did not go well, so we moved on to Durham. It was a good move for us. Our Chapel Hill realtor was not happy about showing houses in Durham so she basically only showed us Hope Valley. We looked at every house that was on the market.

One house in New Hope Valley had a kitchen island the size of an aircraft carrier. I could not figure out how you cleaned the center of it without crawling on top of it. Needless to say it did not make the short list.

The house we bought, where we still live, had a big lot and a tiny house. It had been built by Mr. Harris, the President of CCB, a local bank, as his retirement house. He and his wife lived here for over thirty years. The second owners were a couple who did not live here long as she got run out of town for having relations on her desk at work with a donor. We never met her, only him and I was certain he was more attracted to men and that was perhaps why she got it at work. (That’s all the information I will give you.) They only lived here a couple of years. For years people still referred to our house as the Harris House.

So now to us. We were the youngest people on our street. We didn’t know anyone in Durham, but we quickly found so many nice people. Our across the street neighbors, the Admiral and Mary Teer Outlaw had us over for drinks right away. They told us who everyone in Durham was starting with themselves. It was like an old southern movie. So every time I met someone in the neighborhood I never let on that I already knew their back story.

In those early days it was me and Russ and our dog Beau and three cats, Stormy, Charlotte and Chappy. I never would have guessed that we would still be in the same place 30 years later. Things have changed slightly, as we doubled the size of the house and added a daughter and new dog years after we lost all our original pets.

Now that daughter is grown up with a place of her own in Boston. We are no longer the young people. In fact, we are the second longest term residents of our street. We have seen a lot change, especially the prices. It has been a great 30 years. I think we still have a few more to go to beat the original owners as longest residents. Thankfully I think our house is now thought of as the Lange House since most people who knew the Harris’ are dead.

Happy Anniversary to our house. As Russ said, “30 years ago today boxes were moved into the attic that have never been opened.” I asked him if we should ceremoniously get one out today and he said, “ Not in this weather.” We might have to do it on the 30 1/2 anniversary.

July 4th Reflection

Happy July Fourth! My wish is that all Americans want a free country today and tomorrow. Russ has been watching the UK elections and the results are still not final.

As we spent so many years living in the UK we hold it fondly in our hearts, but are glad we don’t live there now. Russ mentioned that since Brexit there has been no foreign investment in the country. Without immigrants the economy has not grown and they don’t have the tax base they need to keep up services.

The idea that natives wanted to keep “others” out of their small island and return to some fictionalized time has been a failure. There are not enough workers to do the low end jobs that keep a country running. Without immigrants there are not enough lorry drivers, farm workers, health care aids, dish washers, construction workers, line cooks, meat packers, rubbish collectors, outdoor maintenance people, house cleaners and the list goes on and on. Without those immigrants working jobs and paying taxes there will not be enough in the coffers to cover health care and retirements for pensioners. We would do well to learn from their mistakes.

Undoing Brexit is much harder than enacting it was. Even if the UK loosened immigration it is hard to attract the right people to come to your country after you have treated them badly and thrown them out earlier. It may be too late for us to learn from that mistake.

Isolationist policies have never paid off. The greatest times of growth are when there have been free and fair trade. We need others to buy our goods and to get that to happen we also have to be open. What British goods are we buying right now? We need to learn from them.

An uneducated electorate often chooses short sighted, short term choices to things they are unhappy with. Being staunchly proud of being uneducated does not serve anyone in the long run. Educate yourself on how countries with isolationist policies are doing. Then decide if that is the way you would like your country to go.

It will be too late to change when we don’t have workers doing the jobs we need. It will be too late when Social Security is underfunded because we don’t have immigrant workers paying into the system. It will be too late when you want a home health care aid to come take care of you because you can’t take care of yourself, and none are to be found.

On this Independence Day remember we were founded by immigrants. None of the founding fathers were native Americans of more than a couple generations. Unless you are 100% Native American you too are a descendant of an immigrant. Never forget that.

You Are A Store

Recently I stopped into Whole Food with my friend Jan to grab lunch. I got the salad bar and went to the coffee bar to get an iced tea. There was no line and the barista was standing at the ready.

I ordered an iced tea with lemon, my go to order forever and ever. He looked at me from beneath his hair net and said, “We don’t have any lemons.”

Not missing a beat I replied, “You do, you are a store.”

By then another women joined my line of one, but stood to the side of me. Jan was on the other side of me in front of the goodie cabinet of baked goods, trying to look like she was picking between the almond croissant or the morning glory muffin. I knew she was actually taking in all the reactions to my comments.

Before I could continue the lemon conversation the barista volunteered he could add lemonade to my tea to solve the no lemon problem. I agreed to that compromise. Then he told me he had to make another drink first, for some invisible customer. It was a complicated coffee drink that inexplicably involved him adding a non-dairy form of milk in small drips and stirring vigorously between each drop.

Finally he got to work pouring the premade tea from a pitcher he retrieved from an under-counter refrigerator into the cup of light ice. The line to my side continued to grow and the women next to me was displaying a humorless posture.

The Barista started to search for the lemonade in the under-counter refrigerator. He didn’t look long or hard and quickly stood up and announced he didn’t have any lemonade. I withheld my obvious comment that “he did have lemonade, since this was a store. He just didn’t have it right there.”

Instead of that comment I suggested they stock lemons since they sell tea. That was when he volunteered that they had done away with lemons during the pandemic.

“That was many years ago. You need to tell management it’s time to bring them back.”

At this point Jan had stopped pretending to look at the goodie cabinet to get a continuous good look at the humorless women next in line who was appalled by my suggestions.

I was appalled that this barista had been working there since the pandemic and had not learned make drinks faster and how to provide any obvious customer service when it came to selling iced tea. For goodness sake, this is North Carolina, in the summer, lemon is required with iced tea, just as ice is required. Someone could have gone to the produce department and solved this problem. Apparently no one besides me realized that the Whole Foods is a store. They sell lemons in this store. Don’t tell me you don’t have lemon.

Take Care of the Living

Yesterday I got a message from my friend Lilea, whose sister Stori was one of my closest friends in boarding school. Lilea is the one you contacted me when Stori had her fatal horse back riding accident. Yesterday’s message started with, “I have some sad news…”

Stori’s husband John was found dead on his front porch Sunday. It was numbing to read. How could this be? My heart immediately broke for Sam, Stori and John’s only daughter. Sam is just 26 and has lost both her parents in less than two years.

Since Stori’s passing I had heard from John every few months to talk about Stori. He was heart broken and just wanted to talk about her. I was always happy to do that. Now I wish I had reached out to him more.

Today I got to spend the whole day with my friend Jan as she continues her breast cancer journey. She has had a miraculously successful double mastectomy. I say successful because she has not had much pain and has a nicely healing scar. Unfortunately she still needs chemo.

The chemo starts next week, so today I went with her for her oncology appointment, her chemo training and her operation to implant her port for the chemo treatments. My most important job was a to distract her when she got her IV needle inserted. I am an expert on this front.

Jan is a trooper. Her positive attitude serves her well, but I was at the ready in case she wanted to be like the rest of us and have a pity party. No such thing happened.

She got through everything like a champ and even did the unthinkable and brought me a little gift and a keeper of a letter. She knows not to give me a gift!!!

I will be starting up a new meal train for Jan for the Chemo weeks. If you want to be included in the providing meals let me know. We are just starting with the first round and will judge from their when she will need help. Most likely on the day of Chemo and then for a week a few days after Chemo as those are predicted to be the bad days. Then she gets two weeks off before her next round.

Between the passing of Stori, my dear college friend Hugh, now Stori’s husband John I am feeling like I need to do a better job of keeping care of old friends. Jan is one of my first friends I made in Durham, and one of my best friends going on 30 years. I can’t afford to lose any more old friends. I am not live long enough to make new old friends.

Please reach out to the ones you love. We have to take care of the living.

Shay Goes Out To Dinner

It’s a very good day when Shay gets invited over to her friends the Pottenger’s house for dinner and she is allowed to bring us as her +2. Dave and Sara Pottenger’s beloved dog Brady was a cousin of Shay’s and is the reason we have Shay.

Sadly Brady crossed the rainbow bridge two years ago. So Shay needs to visit the Pottenger’s to give them their labradoodle fix. Megan was there too and Shay made sure to snuggle with her.

Shay is so spoiled at the Pottenger’s. She was allowed to put her head on the dinner table. Megan texted a photo to her sister Tatum and Tatum texted back that Shay needed her own seat at the table.

Love our dog, love us. Well our dog loves the Pottenger’s just like we do. We all decided that we should always have dogs in every meeting because it lowers the anxiety. Perhaps dogs should be required in Congress. They would make better deals and decisions.

Thanks Sara, Dave and Megan for the wonderful dinner and dear friendship. You are about the only way for me to keep my sanity and you make Shay very happy. She loves you as much as we do.

The Right Container

For a good two decades I have needed reading glasses. It came as quite a shock when my 20/10 vision was not so perfect. I first noticed in a shower in a hotel with tiny lavender shampoo bottles with light purple writing. Was this bottle body wash, or shampoo? Lotion or conditioner? The lack of good lighting or contrast in the mice type on the bottles meant I was clueless as to what I was doing to my hair.

So began my affair with reading glasses and ultimately the chains I wore them on so I had them with me at all times.

Nothing about reading glasses and their accessories is long lasting. No matter the price they all fail, but given the number of hours of wear and tear it’s no wonder. The worst thing is that manufacturers don’t carry the same styles year after year and I am often in search of a replacement for a broken beloved model.

Tonight the little rubber loop that holds my chain on the arm of the glasses broke. This has happened before. I have bought replacements for those things, so I went searching in my bedside table.

What I found was a collection of glasses and chains that may or may not be useful still. I found eleven pairs of glasses and four chains and I didn’t really go deep into the back of this skinny little drawer, I had no idea I had this collection, given that I also have lots of other things like nail clippers and sewing kits and floss dispensers also in this drawer.

I guess this is a new opportunity to organize something which will involve trying to find exacting the right container and find a place to put it. To think I just organized all my sparkle floss cards for my needlepoint fibers. It only took me two years to find the right container for those.

Blissful Youth

This photo came up in my memories today. It is of me, my sisters Margaret and Janet and my cousin’s Brooks and Leigh on the front porch at Pawleys Island in August of 1973. Thankfully I had a 1973 shirt on to give evidence of the year. I was 12, Margaret was about to be nine, Brooks was five, Janet was about to be four and Leigh was two.

We spent every August at Pawleys. My father and his only sibling, Wilson and their families. Eventually my cousin Sarah came along on my fifteenth birthday and that completed the six cousins.

Those summers at Pawleys were kid heaven as our father’s made sure we had the most fun possible. We always had a few giant tractor inner tubes with ropes tied around them that we used as group flotation devices along with oblong floats we used to ride the waves.

August was a hot time to be at Pawleys so we were always in the water. My Dad and Will made sure we were strong swimmers and we knew how to dunk under giant waves and body surf smaller ones.

We learned how to dig up sand dollars with our feet and we would crab off the dock on the backwater, using chicken necks tied on string as bait.

At least once a summer Dad and Will would go buy a ridiculous amount of fireworks and would put on a big show on the beach after dinner. We ate watermelon and spit the seeds at each other and played endless hours of board games.

Will would play the guitar and my Dad would play the ukulele and we would all would sing. “Joy to the World” (the three dog night version) and “Let it Be” were regulars in our line up. We also sang old spirituals like, “Will the circle be unbroken” with all the right harmonies.

We had the cousins, Mary and Haidee, with their family at their house and friends and other family members who showed up from time to time, like the McIntyres.

We didn’t have a phone or a TV, or air conditioning for that matter. Whatever was happening in the world, we were ignorant of. It was bliss.

Just Praying for Rain

I’m doing a rare weekend mah jongg class away from home. I try and stay home on Fridays and Saturdays, but the demand is so high I just gave in and agreed to teach a sweet group in Greenville. My only consolation about doing this is that it’s been so hot and the lack of rain makes being at home terrible. I look out at my yard and gardens and it breaks my heart.

I don’t water grass. I consider water too precious a commodity to waste it on grass. I do water my gardens, but there is not enough time in the day to water enough to counteract this weather we have been having.

I am praying for rain this weekend and in significant amounts. I am not sure that is going to come true, even in a small way, but lord knows we need it.

There are a lot of things we need right now and lots of to pray for, but I don’t want to think about the the other things so I am going to just concentrate on rain.

The Eighth Deadly Sin

I spend a lot of time with women. Most of my Mah Jongg students are women (although men are catching on to than Mah Jongg is fun.) In a given month I probably spend nine hours with over 450 different women and that is only counting students, not friends. One trait I encounter in almost every class is at least one student who I can identify as a perfectionist. I guess I should call them an aspiring perfectionist (AP), because no one is perfect.

First I have to say I am really proud of these AP’s because they are attempting to learn something new in a group setting. That is terrifically hard on someone trying to achieve perfection. When you learn something new you are vulnerable, before you are proficient.

To learn requires failing, because you learn best from your mistakes.

Perfectionists often quit before they fail. Quiting is not seen as big a failure by them. Not being great at something quickly is seen as failure, and it should not be. To be good, not even great, at Mah Jongg takes practice. Being great does not ever promise perfection. No one is perfect at Mah Jongg, that is what makes it an interesting game.

Teaching perfectionists takes a huge amount of patience on my part. These people want to know the one right answer quickly. What hand should they play? What tiles should they pass? What hand can they change to since ONE of the tiles they needed has been discarded.

Trying to teach patience to perfectionists is my most practiced skill. At this point I should become some Buddhist monk.

What I really wish is that people could learn to give up on perfectionism. I see very little benefit in being one and so much heart ache in trying to achieve the unachievable.

Spending time to go from being 50% good at something to 70% is probably good enough to be happy. But to go from being 98% good at something to 100% is never going to happen and you will make yourself miserable over 2%. Perfectionism should be considered the eighth deadly sin. It is probably equal to sloth, which at least has a cute animal named after it.

Yeah for the Wilmington Food Bank

I’m in Wilmington teaching. Since I finished class at 3:00 I decided to run by the new branch of the Food Bank. I was involved in raising money for this ground breaking branch and was unable to come to the grand opening.

Although the Branch Director Beth was not in I had three different staff members show me around. The big thing I wanted to see was the teaching kitchen. I had been advocating for a teaching kitchen for years. It makes the most sense in Wilmington because they make meals that can be frozen and brought out for emergencies, like hurricanes.

It is a more impressive operation than I had even dreamed of. I met one of the students to in the culinary training program. She was loving learning chef skills. It is a win-win because she learns how to cook, while making emergency meals and at the end of the training can be hired by a local restaurant or food service organization. I was so happy to see years of dreaming come to fruition.

Appreciative Receiver

I don’t tend to needlepoint for people who are not stitchers. People that don’t needlepoint have no understanding of the time and cost that goes into each piece. A fellow stitcher said she has now adopted the same policy when she went to the home of close friends she had gifted many personalized ornaments. She looked at their Christmas tree, up and down in and out, none of her gifts were displayed. She looked all over the house to see if they were hung on a special display. Nothing. She asked about them and was told, they didn’t “match.”

I feel a little bit the same way when it comes to vegetables I have grown. Non-gardeners see a gift cucumber as a .99¢ gift. They have no appreciation for what it takes to grow that cucumber. It’s not about its value on the open market, but actually the sweat that goes into it.

So today when my plumber John called to ask me if I were home, I knew he might be bringing me some okra. For years I have learned a lot about gardening from my plumber brothers. They have given me seedlings they had grown and I cherish them as I try an honor the gift that they are.

When I came home today I found not just Okra, but tomatoes and potatoes from John. I don’t grow potatoes and did not put okra in this year, which he knew. My tomatoes aren’t ripe yet so all these vegetables are an appreciated gift. John knows that I, as a fellow gardener, know what went into to growing these beauties. What a thoughtful gift.

Now don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to have your own garden for me to give you something I have grown. I just have to know you actually want it and will eat it. The worst thing is to grow something and have it get thrown away. At least I won’t be looking through your house to see if the green beans I gave you are displayed.

Dog Temperature is 101.5

Shay was out of sorts yesterday. She didn’t eat, which is not unusual for her. Lately she’s been on an eat one day and not the next diet. Of course she keeps her girlish figure no matter how much she eats or doesn’t.

Her issue yesterday, scratching her face, and going outside every two hours got worse through the night. Russ took Shay duty and was up with her every half an hour. Finally at 6:00 I took her and he got a tiny amount of sleep.

I called the vet the second they opened and even though they didn’t have any appointments they said to bring her over and drop her off and they would work her in. For five hours she didn’t pee once while there despite being taken out every half an hour. Why is this what dogs do at the vets?

The vet eventually got a sample manually, which I am sure Shay was greatly insulted by. The diagnosis was not complete, but they wanted her to come home to help relieve her “I don’t like being at the vet” anxiety. So I ran right over to pick her up, but the vet was closed for a meeting, except for me.

On the door was a note to “Shay’s Mom.” I called the number and got an Indian man who proceeded to talk to me about Shay, even though it was a wrong number. I knocked on the window and finally the tech came and let me in and reunited me with my poor girl.

I was instructed to take her temperature, yes rectally, so we could see if her elevated temp at the vet was white coat syndrome and not actual sickness. I needed Russ to help me do this and thankfully her temp was 101.7. 101.5 is normal dog temp, never knew that before, but then again I have never taken her temperature before.

She came home and drank two bowls of water, which was two more than she drank yesterday. They had given her a shot for itching, which she gets annually about this time of year. We hope that is all that she needs because Russ has to sleep tonight as he has a 5:00Am flight tomorrow, so I am night nurse. As long as I don’t have to take her temp alone I think we will be fine. She seems much calmer than yesterday.

Green Bean Season

Somewhere in my garage shed is my rolling garden cart. You know what it is a little bench you can sit on, while working in the garden. I can’t seem to find it, despite my need for it.

Since I was away most of last week, my garden did not get picked. My green beans grew and grew. I needed to harvest if I wanted edible beans. Bending over to do it was not my favorite. Despite my raised beds, they are not so tall that one doesn’t have to bend way over to pick.

I asked Russ to fetch Carter’s little Peter Rabbit step stool. Turns out it was the perfect height for me to sit beside the beds and pick to my hearts content. I filled my whole garden basket with yummy green beans.

Thank goodness we never got rid of the little peter rabbit stool. I am thankful to have it, but still would like to find my rolling stool and before green bean season passes.

Rest In Peace Russ Morash

Although I did not know him, I adored Russ Morash, who died on Thursday. Morash was the creator of four of the biggest TV shows on PBS, The French Chef, This Old House, Victory Garden and Ask This Old House. He was the one who thought that Julia Child could host a cooking show, when other’s did not. Cooking shows did not even exist. This Old House, was the first DIY home show and thanks to Morash we have Food TV and HGTV. He was years ahead of everyone else and he made superior TV shows on a PBS budget.

It was my Russ, who really turned me on to the other Russ. When we first got together he insisted we never miss an episode of This Old House. This was back in the days of live TV because no one really knew how to tape shows on their VCR’s. Through my whole marriage we have seen every episode of This Old House at least three times. We started with Bob Villa as host, moved to Steve and now Kevin and I have to say we like Kevin best. They were all thanks to Morash.

He has been retired from WGBH in Boston, home to these productions, but the shows lived on and in very similar ways to his original programs. Get likable experts to teach real skills, have a non-expert host who can ask all the pertinent questions so the audience had someone they could relate to and do good projects was his model.

I didn’t always love the houses, or the homeowners, but I always learned what was the best way to do home renovations and repairs. This knowledge has served me well in life. I often can fix things myself, thanks to This Old House, I learned what I should not attempt to fix and I gained the vocabulary to talk to repair people so they can’t bamboozle me.

One example was the time we got a new gas cook top to replace an old one. The exact same size cooktop was no longer made. I bought one that was very close to the same size. When the installer came and discovered that the cook time was 1/2 an inch too shallow for the opening he looked at me and said we would have to replace our beloved 70 year old stainless steel counter tops.

That was not even a consideration. I told him that I would just go get a folded edge piece of stainless steel that could be a filler and he could install the appliance on top of it. It worked perfectly. No one who comes to my house notices that the folded piece is not part of the stove.

That kind of creative problem solving in home situations is exactly what I learned thanks to Russ Morash. I am thankful that he stayed at WGBH for his whole career and made good shows that stand the test of time. Rest in peace Russ Morash.

Driving Addictions

I spend a lot of time driving to various towns to teach Mah Jongg. In the summer I am back and forth to the beach, which depending on which beach is usually a three hour drive. Since my car can practically go on its own I like to listen to books on audible. There is nothing better than a well written book performed by a talented reader. The best readers are like the best actors, able to play all the parts.

Besides enjoying a fabulous book, I love to talk on the phone to far off friends and family as I drive. Talking on the phone is a lost pastime and that is sad because it was my best skill as a younger person.

I was lucky enough to have a free long distance card thanks to my father’s connection to many phone companies. So when I was a just graduated twenty something during the terrible recession of the early 80’s, I could call all my far off friends for free and talk for hours. As poor young adults it was good entertainment to get to gab into the night. I often would talk to my friend Hugh in Miami as we would watch the same TV show in our own respective cities.

Nowadays it is practically rude to call someone without first texting them to see if they are available. It must be what it was like when the phone was first invented and people stopped dropping by theirs friends homes. Today it would be shocking for someone to come by unannounced or uninvited. That is almost what phoning someone is like.

On my drive home from the beach today I was listening to a book my dearest friend Suzanne had recommended. A very funny phrase came up and I wanted to discuss it with her and didn’t want to forget it. Since I was driving and did not want to text I did the audacious thing and called her.

My call went to voice mail, no surprise, but not five minutes later she called me back. We had a great gab fest for over an hour. It made my drive go by so quickly and enjoyably. I told her I was going to stop at the farmers market on my way home as we were saying goodbye, but when I hung up I realized I had passed it six exits before. No going back.

So I turned my book back on and listened the rest of the way home in pure happiness. Between the book and the call I felt like my drive was not a chore, but a highlight of my day.

Making New Friends Never Gets Old

On the last day of mah Jongg classes I am always a little sad. In the three days I have taught a group I get to know the students and adore them. This is especially true for beyond beginner classes because it is such an interactive fun give and take.

I love seeing how people progress and develop strong friendships with each other. The camaraderie and celebration for each other gives me hope that we are still a country full of kind and generous people. If everyone would just play mah Jongg together we would have a lot fewer problems in the world.

I owe a big thank you to Page Littlewood for hosting the beyond class and Annette Williamson for hosting me. There is nothing more restorative for me than having a comfy bed and a quiet space.

It was a bonus today to get to hang on Annette’s front porch and watch the boats on the water. I had a pair of doves come and sun themselves while I was out there. It was idyllic.

I know I have had a fun week when I lose my voice, as I did today. Thankfully it wasn’t totally gone so I could still teach. For someone who talks for a living, I talked an extra amount this week.

I’ll be back in July. I can’t wait to see all my beginners from this week in the beyond class then. Making new friends never gets old.

Too Much Fun

I am running out of time, battery and juice to write my blog tonight and it’s all Page Littlewood’s fault. We had a Big time at her house tonight with a beyond Beginner class. Page gathered a most fun group of people to spend three evenings learning how to be better players.

She set up her house as a perfect mah jongg parlor and everyone enjoyed food and drink while we learned. It got to the point that if all four tables guessed the right answer they got to drink. This turned learning into a great drinking game. It was hard to tell if their analysis improved with each sip or improved because they wanted a sip.

After class a few of us stayed and George joined us as we talked all about Durham and how much we love it, even when quirky things happen.

We stayed much too late leaving me mere minutes to write and post and only single digits of battery life left on my iPad after pulling up so many mah Jongg hands for class.

It is hard to beat the beauty of Beaufort, with the shrimp boats coming in as the sun was going down. But the people are the true jewel of this wonderful town. I could have stayed up and talked all night, but my early morning students might not be happy about that. Now I need to find a way to wind down quickly after such a fun night.

I Always Make It

No matter how insane my schedule is I always make it. You can almost always do more than you think you can do. When I think about people living in the middle of war zones, who survive. Or people who fall into deep caverns and are not discovered for days and days and they are still alive.

For me, getting up at five in the morning, driving three hours and teaching three classes is nothing compared to those cavern survivors. The big difference is I have food and water and air conditioning. Why should anyone think I might not make that schedule.

I started the morning at the Doug and Elizabeth Townsend Event Room for the Coral Bay Club. Then I went to a private home to teach.

At least tonight I had the joy at teaching at Page Littlewood’s beautiful Beaufort house. We had a wonderful smart group and Page made Shrimp tacos for everyone.

Now I am coddled in luxury at Annette Williamson’s house, down the block from Page. So one good night’s rest and only two classes tomorrow with no driving very far, easy peasy.

I Should Have Scheduled a Nap

Seven days in a row of non-stoppedness was bad planning on my part. After a fun Boston Weekend I should have scheduled a nap today in advance of my week.

Shay and I both had haircuts today, nothing too stressful in beauty treatments done by others to us. Then I had to prepare for a Food Bank event being held at Russ’ office with us as the hosts. Not that we were doing any of the work, but Russ was concerned about how the office looked. He asked me to come in during the middle of the day to help tidy up.

I got there and looked at him and said, “What the hell needs to be done.” The place was perfect. I did bring him lunch and we ate at the counter, so we had three grains of rice to clean up. I got my car washed and came home to clean up at our house and pack for my work trip tomorrow at 5:00 AM.

Three classes tomorrow after my three hour drive. Thankfully I am listening to the best book, Good Material. (Thanks for the recommendation Suzanne.)

We had a lovely event for the Food Bank and I met a lot of really nice like minded people. Sage and Swift catered it so at least I didn’t have to worry about dinner.

I left Russ with the staff still cleaning up and came home to try and get ready for bed early. It’s going to be a big week. I wish I had gotten in one nap.

Happy Father’s Day

What a blessing I have for the father’s that I have had in my life. First my brilliant and very funny father, Ed. He was always my greatest champion and teacher. Generous to a fault. He always taught me to talk with strangers as if they were friends, friends as if they were family and family as if they were cell mates.

I learned all the bad words I know from him, but of course when I first learned them I did not know they were bad words as they were so frequently used I thought they were normal words. He taught me to cook or more likely demand I learn to cook so someone in the house could do the cooking if he wasn’t there. I got all my work ethic from him and thought everyone worked 15 hour days as the norm. I miss him, but am glad he is not able to vote again.

I was lucky enough to get Russ and have him be the father of Carter. They say you marry your father, but that is not the case as Russ is kind, thoughtful and cerebral in his brilliance. He is like my father in his his generosity and work ethic, but he rarely calls anyone dopes, as my father did often. Russ is wry and witty. Carter got most of her good qualities from him.

One other quality that would describe both my father and Russ as fathers is selfless. Neither had or have hobbies that would take them away from their kids. Both knew that time with your kids can be fleeting so they both spent as much time when they were not working to be with them.

So on this Father’s Day I want to thank heavens for them both. My wish is that all children could have father’s who instilled so much good in them as Russ and Ed did, maybe minus the bad words.

Dorchester/South Shore Day – Seaport Night

We had few plans for our big day together with Carter and Claire. Russ and I started out walking up to Carter’s apartment for one last visit. The window boxes on Mount Vernon St. were worthy of the houses.

Russ loved Carter’s place and I loved that I am to going to have to walk up the five flights of stairs again, especially. To when she has to move out.

We drove to Claire’s building which is also going to be Carter’s when they move into a two bedroom in July. The building is lovely. They have secured assigned parking which is the biggest bonus. We got breakfast from the cute American Provisions cafe next door and ate on their roof deck with Norman, their dog.

If I had ordered the weather I could not have made it better than today. Cool, no humidity, sunny perfection. We decided to take a drive to the south shore, going back roads to Hingham, Cohasset and Scituate. We stumbled upon Cohasset strawberry festival with the community band playing on the village green and the Unitarian Church selling lobster rolls.

Norman Rockwell could have painted up this scene.

Carter and Claire showed us all their favorite homes and neighborhoods. The dream is to have. Shingle style home in one of these places one day. It never hurts to dream.

Because of the Strawberry festival parking nightmare we went on to Scituate and got a snack and walked Norman along the water. I needed a car nap after that.

Tonight Russ and I walked to the Seaport and met the girls at LoLa42 for a special dinner. Carter had told them it was Russ’ birthday. It is not. Still we got nice treatment and a yummy dinner. We walked the fan and enjoyed the last light as it was setting. Such a fun day with our girls.

Let’s Visit Carter for Father’s Day

When asked what he wanted to do for Father’s Day, Russ came back with the best answer. Why not visit the one who made him a father. So off to Boston we went.

Carter is only going to be living on her fancy Beacon Hill street for another month. Russ only visited her apartment once when she first moved there so he wanted to experience it all furnished before she moves out to Dorchester with Claire.

I told Carter that Mt. Vernon St. Might be the nicest street she will ever live on. She told me I was right because the house on the corner of Louisburg square, four doors down, was for sale and it was just under $20M. Definitely the best neighborhood she will ever live in. Getting to live in Beacon Hill has been so much fun.

Carter lucked into her apartment with a wonderful landlord. He only raised her rent $25 from the first year to the second year and apologized for doing that. He made up for it in a big way and raised the rent $700 when he put it on the market when Carter told him she was moving out. He rented it to the first person who saw it, even at a crazy price.

Tonight we went to dinner with Carter and Claire at Myers and Chang. It was so good. The tuna two ways probably the best thing out of many outstanding dishes. It was fun to just be with them. I am going to love this Father’s Day weekend way more than Mother’s Day.

Pray for Rain

We’ve been 7 days without rain and none is in sight for two weeks. This is not a good place to be with my garden. I spent a good two hours working outside this morning. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I could take. It did act as a bonus spa treatment as at least one layer of skin sloughed off from the sweating.

I need a lot more time to water, but am not going to be here much to do it. So I tried to water deep today.

It appears that some animals consider my zinnias a drive through and have eaten all the leaves off a bunch of stems. I may or may not get any zinnias this year.

The vegetable garden started producing green beans. If you want a cheap and fast crop buy green beans seeds. They grow easily and you get a bunch of green beans from each plant continuously.

I also picked the first four cherry tomatoes. I have plenty of tomato plants and not a lot of fruit coming. Tomatoes are the whole reason for the garden. The arugula is out of control. If you want some just come and cut it from the two beds outside the garden. It will grow back.

All I ask for is a little rain, maybe Saturday night if I get to be specific in my prayers. We just can’t go three weeks without rain in this heat. Well we can, but it will be sad.

Broken Into Cary

As regular readers you might know of the many cities and towns where I teach Mah Jongg. I joke with my husband that if I were to break down in any Eastern North Carolina town I would know at least a dozen people I could call for help. And those people would all know a tow truck driver.

Despite my total dominance of Raleigh and Durham, I have never once, in 25 years taught a class in Cary, until this week. I easily have taught over 1,500 people in Raleigh in the last year and only one person from Cary and that was in Beaufort. So when I got a call from this cute business in Cary, Home for Entertaining, I knew it was time to break that Cary spell.

This business is a shop for homewares and bridal registry and a place for events and classes, like cooking and flower arranging. It is run by a darling family and it is just beautiful.

The bonus for me is that since it is not a club, people don’t have to be members to come take classes. I have loved getting to know Cary people. I will be scheduling more classes there, some daytime ones in the fall, since my evening classes in the fall are already booked.

It’s about time the Cary barrier has been breached. I love teaching classes in far off places, but being close to home is the best.

Annual Squishing

I had my annual squishing today. Those awful uncomfortable moments where they squeeze your boobs between two pieces of heavy duty plexiglass with the power of two f-150’s driving toward each other at 99 miles per hour are your best defense against breast cancer going bad.

As I have lived through my friend Jan’s second breast cancer and my friend Kathi’s second breast cancer I know I want to do anything possible not to have to do that. If that means flopping out a naked one and holding my breath so be it.

I feel lucky I have good insurance so I get the 3-d scan. Good thing since these girls are triple D. I got to look at the scans, not that I know anything, but the tech explained the white dots as calcium and the little marker for the place where I had a needle biopsy 14 years ago.

Thank goodness there are good techs who get us through these squish sessions. I will await the radiologist’s report and pray that it is all good news. Don’t put off getting checked.

Cleaning Out Birthday Calendar

It is easier than ever to remember Friend’s and families birthdays. Between Facebook and perpetual calendar reminders I have no excuse. Of course there are those people important enough to me that I know their birthdays without any reminder. Some are childhood friends who I have not seen in years, but still I know their birthdays.

I made a big snafu last month when I let one of my best friend’s birthdays go by for a week. It wasn’t until I was watching Good morning America and they said, “Today is May 30th.” My mind went, “ Oh Shit.” I called and my friend offered me such grace in my missing the birthday. I had no excuse, but I did everything I could to make up for it.

Today I looked at my calendar and I saw that someone who used to be a good friend has a birthday next week. She moved away more than a decade ago and despite my attempts to stay in touch she never reciprocated. This was a good enough friend that we had gone on trips together, but once she lived half a country away it was as if we never met.

I looked at her birthday on my calendar and I decided today is the day I can remove that listing from my perpetual calendar. I have no guilt. I have not seen or heard from her in years, even though we never had any falling out that I knew about. Russ and I still hear from her husband and we get updates on their son, who we adore. She is someone who is fully in the present. Knowing her as well as I did, and her family history, none of this surprised me. Still I kept her in my calendar.

I decided I am not doing a good enough job on the actual friends I love and adore. I am going to clean out my birthday reminders of people I really don’t have a relationship with. Now this actions does not mean I will be better at communicating with people on their Birthdays. That would involve know what day it is right now. Unless I am teaching you mah Jongg, I don’t know what day it is. So please accept my belated birthday wishes when I send them. It’s not you, it’s me.

I chose the Quilt

Friday was a free day for me. I had a choice for the three day weekend I had ahed of me. I could deep clean the house or I could make the baby quilt for the baby that came a month ago. I hadn’t made a quilt since December and I had just cleaned something in my house last week. So quilt it was.

As of Sunday afternoon I designed, cut, pieced, sewed, pressed, trimmed, backed and quilted the whole thing. That leaves just the binding and I can knock that out tomorrow. It was very satisfying to get this sweet boy quilt done.

I was told by the grandmother about the colors they wanted so it’s not terribly baby, but it is for boy. I feel accomplished to get this done in a weekend, but a little guilty, so I m going to go dust the dining room. At least then I can say I cleaned and quilted. I also better go water the garden. Some chores you don’t have a choice about.

A Sad Anniversary

Today I was reminded that a year ago yesterday was the last time I saw my friend Hugh Braithwaite. It was our college reunion weekend. Hugh only came for Friday night.

He joined our gang at the G’man, the bar we hung out at in college which is still the same place we hang out. We spent the evening catching up and then Hugh, Doug and I drove around Carlisle late at night, looking for a place to eat breakfast at 1:00 in the morning.

Carlisle has changed in that no place was open, not like when we used to do the same thing in college. Eventually Doug and I dropped Hugh off at his microtel before going to our AirBnB where we rehashed all the conversations of the evening.

Hugh was leaving just a few hours later to go to a family wedding in DC. He texted us a video of him dressed in a blue raw silk suit dancing and laughing at the wedding. It was so Hugh. Hugh was a great dancer. Sending us a video of him having a great time was a way of saying, “See, I couldn’t stay at the reunion. I had this better offer.”

We had no idea that it was the last time we would see him. He was our elusive friend. The life of the party when he was with us, but in demand everywhere. He always chose to be with his family, and rightfully so. He loved them so much and was so proud of his children.

That last night we were together he told us wonderful stories about the people they had grown up to be. Thanks in no small part to his beloved wife Carolyn. I am so thankful that we had those conversations as our last ones. He had found some higher power.

When I first learned the terrible news of his sudden passing in February the first thing I thought of was how much he loved his family and how happy they made him. He had told me that in those exact words. He didn’t talk about his own success, just theirs. So proud. Just a year ago last night.

Our college gang, Doug, Suzanne and Dave talk or text regularly about Hugh since we were last together at his funeral. Our grief is collective and we lean on each other a lot. I am not sure we will ever get over losing him so early.

Locked In the Sweat Shop

There are not enough waking hours in a week for me to complete all the projects I have to make for gifts. Thankfully I finished the needlepoint pillow I was making in record time, thanks to two rainy weekends. Today I had the day off and I got started on the baby quilt I need to make. I should just make baby quilts every month just to have on hand when a new baby comes along.

I love making baby quilts, which I encourage the mothers to use. Let the baby roll around in the grass on it. Allow them to drag it after themselves as they learn to walk. Let them use it to wrap their puppy up in to pretend it is their baby. My quilts are made to be loved, thrown in the washer and loved some more.

The thing that is wonderful about a baby quilt is I don’t get sick of making it because it is quick to piece. I can also quilt it myself which is fun for me. I know tomorrow might be a nice day outside, but I might be locked in the sweat shop. I got a good start today, let’s see if I can knock this out.

Maria’s Big Thrill

As a teacher the thing that makes me most happy is when I see progress in students abilities. It does not matter where you start, just that you improve.

All my classes for people who are beyond the beginner state try and meet people where they are and move them up a notch. This week I had a wonderful group of beginners at Dunes as well as a most enjoyable group of beyond beginners.

Beyond beginners usually know what to expect from me as a teacher, so they come ready to do their best work. As we go through exercises and the students pick tiles to give away and then we compare their choices to my choice it is very exciting when we all agree on the choice.

Sometimes we don’t agree and I explain why I picked my choice and they explain their thinking. We then have to come to an agreement about what to pass. Most of the time the students defer to my choice, even though I encourage them to challenge me.

Today, in the third day of doing this Maria from Morehead, challenged me and made an excellent case for her choices and I agreed she choice was better than my choice and we went her way. Her excitement was immediate. Beating me was the thrill of the day. Congratulations to Maria. I loved that she had found a better hand than I had. It means my work as her teacher is paying off.

It was a thrilling moment as the teacher. Yeah Maria!

Developing New Mah Jongg Curriculum Perhaps

Staying with my friend Mary Jo means there are a lot of laughs, but also a lot of serious discussion about what the future might hold. Mary Jo is always pushing me to figure out what comes next. She is all about me creating new curriculum for Mah Jongg classes and finding new ways to help people be better players.

I am all about helping people learn “how to think” not “what to think.” In order to figure out what to teach I need to figure out what people are doing wrong or how they are not maximizing every opportunity.

Perhaps I need to do a few focus group/game playing opportunities where I watch people playing and try and see the patterns in what is difficult so I can create a class that teaches to those issues.

If you want to volunteer to come play Mah Jongg at my house, or have me come to yours and let me watch you play it might help me flesh out a new mah Jongg course. Not that I am not already busy teaching the classes I have, but there are so many people like Mary Jo who want to constantly be learning. It could be like Mah Jongg academy.

The bottom line is there are not enough hours in the day when staying with Mary Jo. We went to dinner at City Kitchen with Kate. The view was beautiful and the food delicious. I ran into three different Mah Jongg student friends who came in the restaurant while we were there. It is funny to meet people’s husbands for the first time and they say, “I know all about you, the guru of Mah Jongg.” I hope all these husbands are happy that their wives have found such joy in playing. Now it is time for the husbands to learn to play. Mah Jongg is not just a female game.

Thanks May Jo for the wonderful hospitality, even if I didn’t get enough sleep because we stay up talking so long.

Morehead Madness

The Summer Beach Mah Jongg has started. There are four weeks this summer I will be making the trek to Morehead/Atlantic Beach/Beaufort for classes. That means I impose on four different friends to stay with them.

I leave home at five-thirty in the morning so that is one night I get to stay home. This morning’s drive was fantastic because I finished up listening to my book group’s read of Long Island by Colm Toibin. It was a great listen as the reader was excellent at switching between Long Island Italian accents, and Irish.

Toibin made me sympathize with every character which is quite a feat. I loved the book and highly recommend it. Now I have to start a new book on my drive home. I’m a little sad that Long Island is done.

I had classes at the Dunes Club, but the highlight of this trip is that I am staying with Mary Jo Bowen. She has the most darling house in Morehead and I practically invited myself. She was offended when I said I like to spread out my stays so no one gets sick of me. She thought that meant I didn’t want to come back to her house. Nothing could be further from the truth.

She did Iron my sheets, which I told her was absolutely over the top and unnecessary, but they are beautiful.

Mary Jo, invited Kate to dinner with us. I introduced them to each other last year and am so happy they have become friends. We went to Full circle and it was so nice a quiet downtown since it is the week before the Big Rock Fishing tournament. I am usually here the week of Big Rock and it is crazy busy then. I like the quiet best.

The first day is the long day. I need to rest up after my early morning long day. There are people counting on me being able to teach them Mah Jongg.

Don’t Skimp on the Thank You

It’s graduation season and that means gifts. Graduating from college or high school is an accomplishment. It is not graduation from preschool, lower school or middle school. Those are just moving up ceremonies and are not gift occasions. A gift for those is like a participation trophy, but the rules are suspended for grand parents.

I never got a gift for graduations from parents or grandparents, although I still have a beautiful sterling perpetual calendar I got from Deicy Stockwell, Stori’s Mom, for my graduation from Walkers. In our family getting your education was the gift and I fully understand that now.

I had a grandmother who was a stickler for thank you notes. One year an unnamed relative, who was younger than me, did not send a thank you note for her Christmas presents. My grandmother informed my mother that child would not receive a gift next year due to this oversight. It was tough love.

I think I have taken after my grandmother, but in an even more picky way. I received a thank you note that was so generic it could have been written in advance to be given to anyone who gave the grad a gift. The salutation was, “Hi.” Followed by, “Thank you for the gift.” (No mention of our specific gift, which was very generous.) A bit about the grad and the a closing with a bad grammar mistake.

Now I am a horrible speller, as all readers of my blog remind me of and I make plenty of grammar mistakes, some are actually stylistic choices, but still I make others. This mistake was something a college grad should have gotten right.

So I will forgive the grammar, although it does not bode well for the institution that conveyed the diploma, but the generic thank you, that could have been to someone who gave a ten dollar gift card or a new car was disappointing. Even the addressing on the envelope was wrong.

Like my grandmother I will hold back on future gifts. I know getting kids to write thank you notes is hard, but by the time they get to high school and certainly college they should learn to do it with a little more thought. You should at least thank the givers by name, mention the gift and how you might use it, even if that might be a stretch and then you can talk about yourself and your plans. This skill is something you need to use your whole life, like when you go to interview for jobs, or receive wedding gifts. The big moments that require a little tiny bit of effort on your part because you are being judged on your thank you.

The Perfect Evening

There are some perfect evenings in North Carolina, after the pollen has gone, when the potted flowers on the terrace are all in bloom, before the humidity and the bugs have come, and the temperature feels not warm, but not cool, but soft. Tonight was one of those nights.

You can’t predict when they are going to come. There is no way to send an invitation that says, come eat on the terrace only if all the planets line up just right, otherwise don’t come.

Thankfully, I had invited Lee and Tom to come for Sunday supper and conditions were just right for eating on the terrace. We sat in the living room for drinks, but when dinner time came I invited everyone outside. Lee said she didn’t know the terrace was there. That’s because we are not going to eat out there unless conditions are perfect. And they were.

So we lingered over dinner and the peach and blueberry cobbler I threw together at the last minute. Eventually the sun set, but we had the outdoor lamps to keep the party going. Even with the lamps on the table turned on, there were hardly any bugs. Just that lady bug that got in Lee’s water.

Maybe we can have dinner outside tomorrow. There just aren’t that many perfect evenings. I’m so glad we caught one tonight. Maybe we should eat breakfast outside.