Russ’ Poorly Celebrated Birthday

In the life goes on department, today is my husband Russ’ birthday. We came home from my Mom’s to get a small break and rejuvenate and celebrate his day. Not that it is much of a celebration for him. The time I had planned to prepare for his birthday was lost, but Russ never complains. He has stepped up to help me and my Mom with things related to my Dad’s passing. This has been a role Russ knows well. Russ has been a stalwart when it comes to dealing with my Dad. So death is little different than life.

So there was little fan fare today. We went to the new downtown library and voted as it was the last day of early voting. Then we toured the new library, which was really beautiful. We had a salad outside for lunch then Russ did some work for a Committee he is on. Someone else was supposed to do the work, but they failed, as they consistently do, so Russ did it. So like him, even on his birthday cleaning up other people’s messes.

Tonight he gets his favorite pizza dinner. Little celebration for the husband of the century. Tomorrow it is back to my Mom’s and dealing with all that. At least my Dad did not die on his birthday. My Dad owed him that.

Three Baby Aspirin, Four Kinds of Chicken Salad and a Random Child

There is so much that is surreal in those few hours right after you lose a loved one and you can’t share with them the things that you normally would have, because they are gone. Yesterday soon after discovering that my father had passed away my mother’s house was filled with paramedics, and paramedic supervisors and a Sheriff and other official people who we don’t know and don’t really want to have to talk with. I found myself having to hear about how the young paramedic might give my very newly deceased father a run for his money as far as being hard headed. Really, when did this become about you?

Then, when the Sheriff introduced himself to my mother and she asked him if he was from “around here,” he said, “No.” He waited a good two beats and responded “I’m from Alamance.” For those of you not from Caswell, you would say that Alamance is “around here” since it is just the next county over. I was thinking how inane my father would have found these conversations and he wasn’t there for me to laugh with about them.

As the morning dragged on and all the officials hung around in the driveway waiting for some sign off that the funeral home could come and take my Dad away I realized that I had not had any water, caffeine or food all day and a massive headache was coming on. I asked my mother for some pain killer and made myself a cereal at noon. She brought me three tiny yellow pills the size of the head of a pin and placed them on my napkin. “What the hell are these,” I asked in the nicest possible way. “Baby aspirin,” my mother replied. Now I am my mother’s baby, but I told her I think I need something stronger. She brought me two more. Another thing my Dad would have gotten a big roar out of.

As the day went on some really kind friends of my mother’s were already bringing food. Word travels fast when there are three paramedic vehicles, a sheriffs car and a silver funeral home hearse in your driveway for two hours. There were two kinds of chicken salad and two kinds of pimento cheese

before four o’clock not eleven hours after he had passed. My dad liked both pimento cheese and chicken salad and I kept thinking he could use a little King’s Hawaiian roll with some chicken salad.

This morning, when I came downstairs early in the morning, after reading all the wonderful and kind comments on my blog and on Facebook from so many friends from near and far, I met my mother’s new cleaning lady. My mother thought was a good idea to have her show up and clean while people are coming and dropping off more chicken salad, deviled eggs wanting to visit with my mother. The nice woman introduced me to her ten year old daughter and apologized for bringing her. She had stayed home from school today and had no one else to watch her. My mother wasn’t bothered by this as she really wanted someone else to clean my Dad’s room. So the cleaning lady told the child to sit down in the family room, which is open to kitchen while she went upstairs to work.

So as I was cleaning the kitchen and logging the food into the register for future thank you notes and answering the door and the phone, the child, who happens to have autism, was peppering me with random questions. “What’s your dog’s name? Who are you? Why are people bringing you food?” She was a sweet child, but on the bingo card of things you will deal with while grieving the loss of your father, having to entertain a random child was not on it. This was definitely something my father would have had a big scream about.

My Dad and I shared the same sense of the absurd. I already miss hearing him laugh that huge laugh. I am not sure who I will be able to call and tell him when crazy things happen and I feel like I am the only one who thinks they are crazy. So Dad, if you are watching, give me a sign when you think things are as weird as I do.

A Long Sad Day

When I was a kid, perhaps, nine or ten years old my Dad started many words of wisdom with the line, “I have to tell you this before I die.” It was very discomforting as a child because I often missed the wisdom and just worried that he might die soon. Today I can no longer get to hear his advice because he died in his bed at home.

My Dad was bigger than life in everything he did. People either loved him or hated him, no one was ever indifferent to him. And if he loved you, you knew it and you were the greatest, smartest or funniest. But if he hated you, you were the nothing more than a Cromag, or his favorite insult, “you were all you would ever be.”

He defied all the odds by living to 83 in spite of the hard and fast life he lived. He outlived all his contemporaries and that made life lonely. He suffered many ailments over the last few years, but beat every odd and kept living in a body that he had worn out years before.

Ever the optimist he had planned to have an operation on his elbow in five days so he could qualify for a knee replacement. He bought a new car two weeks ago, when he also had a truck and shouldn’t have been driving either of them.

Yesterday my Mom called me and said he was doing poorly. I drove up to their new house he just finished building and found him disoriented and in pain, but had no idea that his end was so close. I stayed in the room across from his last night listening to his pain and then he unexpectedly got out of bed and fell on the floor. It was hell. The paramedics came and checked him out and put him back in bed, saying he was safer here than at the Covid filled hospital. Apparently he wasn’t safe anywhere.

My Mom and I are still in shock, fueled by our lack of sleep. We aren’t having a service right away, but are waiting until all the people who were important to him can be together. It’s been a long sad day, one I am happy I did not have to suffer when I was ten, or twenty or even forty. I was so lucky to live sixty years with Ed Carter always giving me advice.

People Aren’t Mind Readers

I have to admit that I watch the Bachelor in all it’s forms. I am addicted to the editing. I love to see who the editors are going to make the villains and the angels. I love to see them build someone up, just to have them let us down. Sadly these are real people who suffer the consequences of the Machiavellian minds of the producers.

There is one constant in these television shows that I find to be as true on TV as it is in real life; Most people don’t tell people exactly what they want or how they feel, but expect others to read their mind. Then they are disappointed with the outcomes.

One thing I have learned in my sixty years is there are no mind readers. If you want something you better make it clear. Conversely, it is the same for things you don’t want. Holding back the truth or expecting people to pick up on subtle cues rarely gives you the result you are hoping for.

No one is thinking about you as the center of their universe. They are thinking about themselves. So despite how close you might believe you are to someone, don’t leave things to chance. Tell them what you need, or want and wait and see how they respond. You may not like what they are willing to do for you, but at least you’re not waiting around or being constantly disappointed by others.

Along the same route, if you feel slighted by someone, don’t take it so personally. Usually the slight is not about you, but is about whatever that person is dealing with in their own lives. Remember, you are not the most important thing to them. No matter how close you are, they still have other things on their minds and usually they did not mean to hurt your feelings or ignore you. If you aren’t that close, take a chill pill.

Jeopardy Matt

I have been loving watching Matt Amodio, the current 30 day winner on Jeopardy. Tonight he had a really impressive win of $70,000 bringing his total winnings to over $1,074,000. That’s a lot of money for 30 show’s work.

Filming Jeopardy is grueling as they tape five shows in one day. Apparently they are taping 15 shows in three days so if Matt continues to win like he has been it will not only be amazing for his breadth of knowledge, but his stamina as well.

He certainly appears to reserve as much energy as possible and answers all questions with “What is…” regardless if the answer is a person, place or thing. At first it sounded odd to hear, “What is Lincoln,” rather than “Who is Abraham Lincoln” as the answer to “was the president during the civil war. It may be awkward, but it is perfect legal in Jeopardy rules. Matt’s judicious use of words is a strategy that works for him.

Having a long running winner makes the show so much more exciting for me. Every night I have to watch to see if he can hold on to the title. The hard part is watching the other contestants whither as Matt is able to ring in before almost everyone all the time and get the answer right at least 96% of the time. Keep up the good work Matt. Your calm demeanor and humility makes you someone worth rooting for.

It’s “What to Wear?” Season

If you are lucky enough to live in the triangle of North Carolina you would have to admit that we have been enjoying some absolutely beautiful weather the last few days. The temperature has been hovering between seventy-one and seventy-eight with the smallest swing between the high and the low. There is little to no humidity and the sunny skies are the perfect shade of Carolina blue. The autumnal equinox officially arrived a couple days ago so it is officially fall.

All that good new being said I find this time of year to be the hardest for deciding what I should wear. Technically I should have put away my summer linens and spring pastels, but those are the perfect things to wear now given the temperature. There is this arcane rule about not wearing white after Labor Day, but I already make a big exception for that since summer runs into the end of September. But this fall’s entrance with perfect weather I still want to and think I am going to be wearing white.

Traditional “fall colors,” like brown, rust and gold are horrible on me. I don’t have a wardrobe of light clothes in dark colors. I have a wardrobe of colorful clothes, most considered more summery.

Until the weather actually turns reliably cold I am going to keep wearing my summer clothes. We should do away with the stuffy and ridiculous rules about what is appropriate for which season and wear what we want based on what makes us feel comfortable. Perhaps the pandemic has already done that. Maybe I should just buy a capsule wardrobe of all blue and white and wear it year round. If you see me out in white pants and a linen shirt in October don’t bother to remind me it’s fall, even if it’s 72 degrees. I’m not paying any attention to the calendar, just the weather.

The Slowest Quilt Ever

This summer I decided to make a scrap quilt with all the leftover bits of fabric I have leftover from previous projects. I can’t stand to throw away a six inch by 12 inch piece of fabric, when I know that EVENTUALLY I can use it.

This summer was eventually. I designed a pattern that uses tiny slightly wonky stars so that perfection is not an issue. I calculated that I needed 180 3 1/2 inch stars, but when I went to assemble the stars into bigger squares I discovered I needed 20 more tiny stars.

Making each tiny star is exhausting. They each use 17 little bits of fabric, which all must be cut, sewn, ironed and then squared up, meaning cut again. That’s 3400 pieces of fabric.

After a couple of months of that I finally started assembling the star squares into nine patch blocks with the stars making up five of the nine blocks and plain white material as the other four. That’s 800 more squares. More cutting, sewing and ironing, but so much faster than the tiny squares.

To get an idea of the pattern I had designed I laid out the nine patches on a design wall board. I will be adding plain white blocks between the nine patches. Only 30 more squares for that. More cutting, sewing and ironing.

I would have felt happier about my progress if I did not have to double back to making 20 more tiny star squares. Somehow having to do more of the tedious cutting and sewing makes me crazy, when I thought I was done with it.

All this and I will still have to design a border and back and then get it quilted. This project will officially be my slowest one ever. I pray I like it when it’s done.

Finally, a Wedding in Sight

It’s national Daughter’s day. Not a real holiday, just one that gets us to post pictures of our daughter’s. Now I have a great daughter, but since I am not with her I got to spend time with someone else’s wonderful daughter today.

To me, it was “spend time with your favorite bride and mother of the bride to be,” Tatum and Sara Pottenger. Tatum, like so many, has been a bride in waiting for years due to Covid. It used to be that one could get engaged and plan a wedding in six to nine months and have the day of their dreams. Then the time line got longer due to unavailability of wedding venues and the long lead times for things like dresses. So once people got engaged, if they wanted a big wedding, they had to wait a year and a half to two years.

Then Covid hit and brides who had planned their perfect weddings started postponing their celebrations. Tatum did that. She postponed everything exactly one year. So all her friends and family are very excited that her wedding is going to happen this winter.

I loved getting to talk about the plans and we are all hoping that there will be a lull in Covid activity around her date. After all the waiting she deserves a fabulous celebration.

But Covid also changed weddings for many who just went ahead with smaller, more intimate weddings. My sister got married on Zoom with just the clerk in Annapolis who performed the ceremony. It was not the wedding of her dreams, but she is happily married nonetheless.

I hope that Covid will not add more years to the timeline that people have to wait to have their weddings. Waiting a year or two is long enough. Thanks to Tatum and Sara for sharing the plans with me and letting me share some daughter time, when mine is far off.

Deceptive Advertising from L’Occitane en Provence

There is nothing I hate more than deceptive advertising. It is probably from my time of working in Marketing. I feel like lying to customers costs you so much more than you get in sales. Today I got a Facebook ad for L’Occitaine en Provence offering 20% off full priced items with a photo for a “Premium Advent Calendar” right under the banner. I have been a faithful l’occitane customer for many years.

I thought that the advent calendar looked like an interesting gift and I am a sucker for 20% off. Since I like L’occitane products I clicked the shop now. I signed into my account as I purchase from them regularly. I put the code of FRIENDS in the promo code and immediately was met with a red box, “This item is not eligible for this promo.”

Frustrated I dialed customer service and got a young man who told me that the website was right. Of course the website is right, but I wanted to register my frustration with the deceptive advertising.

The first young man passed me to a supervisor who was not interested in my point of view and just wanted to batter me with the mice type in the terms and conditions that “clearly” stated in the middle of the dense paragraph that Advent calendars were not eligible for the discount.

He did not get that I wasn’t trying to get the discount, but something bigger. I wanted them to know that I was most unhappy with the ad featuring the advent calendar as the first offering under the 20% off banner. They should have only put products that qualified for the discount in the ad.

The supervisor wasn’t listening and just kept reading the terms and conditions. I can read. I knew all that. It was not his job to create the Facebook ads, but it was his job to try and listen to my complaint. No listening. So now I complain to the world.

Companies need to be honest in their advertising. Yes I could get 20% off something else, and that is what they should show first. Poor form l’occitane. Too bad, I really liked your shampoo and hand cream that I have used for years. Time to look somewhere else.

Strategy

Thanks to my newest Mah Jongg class agent, Marty Peterson, I had another Mah Jongg class today in Raleigh. This one was a strategy class and was generously held at the lovely home of Amy Jo.

The class was made up of all friends who already play Mah Jongg together, although they have not been playing too long. That made teaching them very satisfying as they were eager to learn. A nice surprise for me was that two members of the class had been in my beginner class at the beach this summer, so I already knew they were more than competent players.

Devoting your whole day to learning how to better your Mah Jongg is the level of commitment that makes me happy and these women were excellent and attentive students.

After a full morning of lots of information we stopped for lunch. Everyone had brought a a “lunchy appetizer.” One women said she googled what a lunchy appetizer might be and only got chicken fingers as an answer. Amazingly, no one brought chicken fingers, but there was a huge spread of all kind of yummy finger foods. The winner was Jayne, who brought the cutest Charcuterie in a mason jar. It really could have been a meal all on its own.

After lunch it was back to work, learning and eventually time to play a game or two. For me it was a chance to spread the love of Mah Jongg to a group of new friends. I hope they remember all the tips and tricks I taught them and feel like they can take their game to the next level.

Detailing Day

The more and more I hear about supply chains issues, the better I want to take care of the things I have. Lord knows how long it would take to replace something. My friend Kate bought a new sofa. The original estimate to get it was 20-36 months. Thankfully that has been reduced, but really 2 years? I could build a sofa faster than that, and that was after I grew the wood and raised the sheep for the wool batting and the flax to weave into cloth and the plants for dye and the silk worms for thread.

The pandemic continuation of cleaning up and taking care of everything we own today was a big day. Shay went to a new groomer. Her last groomer, the mobile one, lied to me about canceling her appointment the day-of, saying the truck was broken and would take six weeks to fix. I found out it was a lie from a friend who also used them because they told her they were just dropping our neighborhood as part of their route. When the six weeks came around the owner called and told me the truth about dropping our neighborhood and I told him I had already heard and wished he had told me the truth six weeks ago. Lying never gets you anywhere. So I highly don’t recommend Indigo Spaw mobile pet groomers.

Shay went to a chain groomer, Woof Gang, today for her personal detailing. I had given her an at-home poor grooming this summer to make up for Indigo Spaw not showing up, the haircut was fine on her body, but not her feet. Apparently the hair grew all around her pads making her feet slip on our wood floors. I asked the vet if there was something wrong with Shay’s eyes because she stopped wanting to go the stairs on her own. Turns out it was her lack of groomed feet. Thank goodness it was not her eyes. Today we got all that cleaned up.

Continuing the detailing theme I also took my car to the Ritz to get detailed. I don’t think I have ever had it detailed before. It came back looking just as good as Shay. I had to wait a bit for an appointment, but it was worth it. Thanks Ritz car wash. You guys rock.

So things around here are looking good. We just need to keep everything in working order because we can’t replace things, especially Shay.

Cheating on Shay

Tonight I went to my friend Kate’s new house to play Mah Jongg with her, Nancy and Jeanne. They all just finished lessons and wanted to practice what they have learned. Such great students who have fully embraced the game and are getting addicted.

Since we were at Kate’s house I got to spend some quality time with her two labs, Lucy and Salty. They are big and friendly so by the time I left I was full of “other dog smells.”

Shay was so excited to see me when I got home. She is not used to me being out of the house at night. She jumped up on her hind legs and did her happy wiggle, waving her paws in the air at me. Then when I got closer she got a whiff of me and my “other dogs’ smells.”

Shay promptly dropped down to all fours and gave me a good sniffing over. “Who were you with? Why were you with other dogs and not with me?” The sniffs were down right accusatory.

I was cheating on Shay. I didn’t go to see other dogs, they just happened to be there. Sadly Mah Jongg has no smell, so I couldn’t prove that is what I was doing instead of playing with dogs.

Her unhappiness with me didn’t last long. As soon as I changed my clothes washed was better and promptly snuggled up to me and fell asleep. So sorry Shay. I promise I wasn’t cheating.

Mah Jongg Classes All Day

Some Mah Jongg Students take to the game bigger than others. This summer I had over a hundred different students at the beach. They were an enthusiastic and delightful crowd. One, Marty, really took to the game and asked if I would come and teach in Raleigh where she lives year round. No brainer for me,

When people ask me if I will come and teach in their town they don’t always follow up. Not Marty. She contacted me to ask me to teach at the Carolina Country Club. First it was two beginners classes, then a strategy class. Those classes filled and she said their was desire for an evening class. That filled and then a second class had to be added, all in two weeks.

In record time Marty had filled five classes for me, secured spaces to hold them and ensured that all the students bought their Mah Jongg Cards in advance. Between Marty and Reba (my agent at the beach) I have had a very busy few months.

Today was day 1 for the morning and afternoon beginner classes. I forgot to get pictures of the lovely women who came to learn. I took this photo by mistake during the break in the afternoon class.

Mah Jongg is so much easier than bridge. It can be learned in three three hour lessons. Then after playing a while you can take the strategy class to step your game up. Learning to play Mah Jongg by sitting next to people who are playing is no way to learn quickly.

I had some very enthusiastic learners today. Six of whom all bought mah Jongg sets before they left class. Spreading the Mah Jongg love makes my day. Thanks to Marty for organizing these classes.

Restaurant Changes

The last couple of restaurants I have gone to have done away with menus. They also have done away with humans I get to interact with when ordering. Instead, I have had to scan a QR code attached to my table that then brings up an online menu. I scroll through the whole thing and order everything myself, put in my credit card and then am asked how much I want to tip and I pay before I have even been given a napkin.

At one place today I had to get up and go to a central station to get my own napkins and water and I had to clean my own table. Now I have no issue with taking care of myself. I have done plenty of food service work in my life. What I do have a problem with being asked to tip before I have gotten anything at all.

I love tipping people an extraordinary amount who provide great service. I believe in rewarding excellent behavior. What I don’t like is being asked to tip on hardly any service at all. When I do my own ordering, my own table cleaning, both before and after a meal and getting my own drink I begin to wonder why the person who comes and drops a bag on my table deserves 20% or even 15%.

I don’t mind online menus as they save paper and are cleaner because lots of different people are not handling them. I also think that not printing menus give restaurants the opportunity to change the menu more often. My issue with online ordering is I have no chance to ask questions. Like, “Which is better, the chicken or the fish?” Or “What do you recommend?” This is all part of the service.

What if I order something online and the bag with my food gets dropped in front of me and I never see a server again.? What happens if I don’t like something or the order is wrong. At the place I went today I could not tell you what our server looked like because they dropped the bag from behind me and I never saw him or her again. For this I tipped 15%.

Also ordering with a group is slow and difficult on the app. If everyone does their own phone scan and orders their own items they don’t necessarily all come at the same time. It also makes paying an individual thing. What if I want to treat someone? It just takes a lot longer to place the order.

Covid has caused all kinds of changes in food service. I want restaurants to stay in business and hopefully in the future we can have an actual conversation with a person working in a restaurant. What I think needs to happen if I am going to do all the work as the patron is tipping needs to go away. The restaurant can raise their prices to pay their workers a living wage. Something I wish had happened long ago. People should not have to depend on tips to make enough money to live. Tipping should be for exceptional service in place where service actually exists. Tipping should also happen after a customer has been delighted, not at ordering.

As someone with food service experience I will continue to tip upon ordering if that is the way the system is set up. I know what can happen to someone’s food if there is a no tip order. I am not interested in pissing people off. I just don’t want to tip someone else if I do all the work.

Same Dinner Thirty Years Later

The old adage, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” was not true in my case. Yes, cooking is my best skill, but Russ asked me to marry him on the way into the Acme supermarket to buy veggies to cook him dinner for the very first time. Yes, it was a surprise to me. No, he had not planned on asking me at the Acme, but he said he couldn’t wait.

After returning home engaged, without a ring, I did cook him a yummy veggie pasta. He said he hit the jackpot since he had not eaten my cooking before hand. See, he grew up with some very average American food, so life with me was a totally new adventure.

This morning, with the garden full of the same vegetables I made that first dinner from, Russ asked if I could remake that first meal.

It was even better tonight than it was thirty years ago because I grew it myself and it was much fresher than anything we could have gotten at Acme.

So here’s to thirty years and a month of a half from the day Russ asked me to marry him. Thank goodness he liked that meal and didn’t change his mind about marrying me. (You know the dinner was the lock.)

Anger at the Unvaccinated is Boiling Up

In the spring when Vaccines were made available to most adults many of us did not have any problem with the vaccine hesitant because it meant that there was availability for us to get our shot faster. There were days when three million people got vaccinated. Then once all the people with brains had gotten theirs the lines slowed down and at some pints there were under 400,000 people a day getting a vaccine.

The news told us to be patient with the skeptics and give them time to come around. Well as far as I am concerned TIMES UP. The vaccine has been fully approved. It is not experimental and nothing in the history of medicine has more data given how many people around the world have been vaccinated.

Speaking of data we also know that if you don’t get the vaccine you are 11 times more likely to die from Covid, but you will not die from the vaccine. So given all the data it is time to stop being nice and put the hammer down.

If you don’t get the vaccine your health insurance company should immediately quadruple your premiums. Hospitals should build tent wards for unvaccinated Covid patients and real hospital buildings are for everyone else who is vaccinated and needs care. So if you have a heart attack and are vaccinated you can get care, or you are in a car accident. Health care workers should be prioritized to care for vaccinated patients.

Unvaccinated people should not be allowed inside any buildings where large groups might gather. It’s their choice not to vaccinate, but why should the rest of us be exposed to them.

If people don’t get vaccinated for religious reasons then their religious organization should pay for their health care if they get sick, or even better do the caring for them and make their own Covid hospitals.

Being nice to people did not get them to come around. It just gave the virus more hosts to continue to spread and get stronger. We are losing over 2,000 Americans a day (really a lot more, because Florida is not reporting their deaths), and most of those people are unvaccinated. Too stupid to save themselves. I have little sympathy for their stupidity.

Spreading the Joy

Today was day two of my needlepoint Mah Jongg class. Jeanne and Lisa brought the most fabulous “snacks” which turned out to be a huge meal for dinner. We had to have a little class before I let everyone take a break for dinner.

The group actually played their first real game and just when Kate thought she needed to be refreshed before she could go on she won her first Mah Jongg game. There is nothing more thrilling than losing your Mah Jongg virginity.

After a lovely dinner we went back to playing. This is a competitive group who all want to win and everyone did a superior job to night. Even people who did not Mah Jongg were so close.

Nancy made Mah Jongg and I have never seen her so excited in her life. It was a true celebration, especially since she has been wanting to learn for years. She announced that there will be a lot more Mah Jongg Needlepoint at the store after this!

Kate knocked it out of the park winning the third game in a heart braking steel from Lisa because Lisa had been on call for one last tile for two whole walls and Kate had her tile.

I predict everyone will get their first Mah Jongg at their next lesson since they all are progressing at record speed. That pattern recognition skill from needlepoint definitely translates to Mah Jongg.

From the Garden to the Platter

I am really going to miss the summer growing season. So quickly I became accustomed to cooking from the garden. Planning my dishes based on what was ripe. I definitely made some new combinations of foods because of what I had available.

Tonight we had a young couple over for dinner. As I am busier this week than I have been in months I had to make things that were quick. Since both Russ and I had to be on the same Zoom call for the hour before our guests arrived I needed to make everything in advance.

I settled on making a room temperature meal to simplify life. I did some cheese, hummus and veggies as nibbles with drinks. Then I served this platter for dinner. It was roasted vegetables of eggplant, zucchini, red peppers and marinated artichoke hearts. I garnished it with fresh basil from the garden and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Some pan seared salmon, not from the garden. Then a tabbouli of bulgar wheat full of fresh parsley, mint, tomato and cucumber all from the garden. It was fresh and easy.

I am dreading winter and having to eat store bought veggies. I have not planted fall vegetables yet as my summer ones are still taking up space. As long as they are producing I am going to keep them. My tomato yield picked up a little this week. It is going to be cruel to lose fresh tomatoes.

Back to School

Today was like a day from 2019. It started with Garden Club actually meeting for the first time in person in eighteen months. We had a small turnout of faithful mask wearing members outdoors at Pokey’s pavilion, which is the most perfect tented area out back of her house.

It was kind of like the first day of back to school when you have a class made up of all your friends with no smelly boys. It was nice to get dressed and talk about things other than Covid, even if what we talked about was garden club budget. I am very thankful that Missy McLeod continues to be our treasurer.

Following up my back to school theme today I held the first class of my needlepointers learning to play Mah Jongg. Needlepoint Nancy, Jeanne, Kate and Lisa all came for the first of their three classes. Nancy and Jeanne have been waiting through more than the whole Pandemic to learn. They were all excellent students and Kate only got distracted two or three times.

I had warned them that they will not know how to play Mah Jongg after the first class and they didn’t believe me until the last fifteen minutes when I threw some hard concepts at them. It’s Ok. Thursday they come for the second class and then they will get to actually play.

Oh, today felt like the old days, even though I wore a mask at garden club.

Canada Rules

I hope you have Apple TV, because if you do please watch “Come From Away.” It is the musical based on the true story of the people of Gander, Newfoundland Canada who took in over 7,000 people on 38 flights on 9/11. I watched the film of the musical on 9/11 and it made the heaviness of that day lift off me.

Thirty years ago I was lucky enough to get to work with all the Canadian Provincial telephone companies for two years. Although the headquarters for the work was in Ottawa, my specific role meant that I got to visit every province at least four or five times. Some places I went to more often. It was never a hardship to have to go to Vancouver, or Toronto. Those cities are still some of my favorite places, but there is nothing like Moose Jaw.

I got to know lots of really wonderful Canadians. Some I am still in touch with today. One of my favorites, Stuart Wright from Bell Canada, even invited me to have dinner at his home and meet his family. Since then he and his wife Saundra have come to our house on their way to play golf down south. One of my clients in Calgary made sure to schedule my work with her during the stampede so she and her husband could take me to see what life there was really like.

I went to St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland a couple of times, but never got to Gander. They gave me a bottle of Screech, a local favorite, and I never had the heart to tell them I had given up drinking long before. I think they might not have trusted me if I told them that. But the people In St. John’s were a fun group.

Watching Come From Away I felt like I had met all those people before all over Canada. It made me miss going there. I feel very lucky that I had those years there. I pray that if the tables were turned and we had to welcome a large group of strangers we could be half as hospitable as the people of Gander.

Watch the musical. It is a treat, with great music, but mostly a story about kindness that we all could be reminded of right now.

Never Done

When we were in Maine I made a spur of the moment purchase of a new rug for the living room when Russ was not with me. It was a little out of character, but I was so drawn to this rug that I just had to have it.

When I got back to our friend’s house where Russ was hanging out, instead of shopping, I told him about the new rug. “Huh, I didn’t know we needed a new rug.”

Need is the key word here. We did not need a new rug. In fact I now have my old needlepoint rug put aside and am not exactly sure what I am going to do with it. It is in perfect condition, but I have had it for twenty three years.

I am of the mind that you need to constantly be redoing rooms in your house. It does not mean you have to do everything all at once, but recovering, repainting something every year. A few years back I got new window treatments for the living room and I thought I would redo the furniture soon after that, but somehow got side tracked. I am so glad I did, because now I am going to work around this rug. I chose the rug because it went with my new window treatments.

It is so easy to become complacent with things they way they are, but things get tired, faded, worn or out of date. Freshening up your surroundings is like instant happiness. I know people who move houses because they are tired of looking at their old house. They could just reupholster the sofa.

I have a list of things I want to do at my house. Like I want to change my entry hall, but have not figured out exactly what color I want it to be. I guess now I’ll wait until I pick out new fabric for the living room and then decide. You know the old saying, “If you pull one thread…”

In my case it was a new rug.

200 Times Worse than 9/11

I’ve lived exactly one third of my life post 9/11. Before that date bad things that happened in our country were just bad, but we got over them. I grew up watching the TV news in the era of Vietnam. Every night Walter Cronkite would open the news with the number of dead Americans in Vietnam that day. To my small person’s perspective I thought the news was the report of everybody that died in all of America, but the number was small, a dozen or so.

We had the assignation of Martin Luther King and the Kennedy’s. Then their was the Challenger explosion. I felt like those were the worst tragedies I would ever see. 9/11 changed all of that. We came together as a country in our collective grief and we supported each other, because we had a common enemy.

Covid has been a tragedy of more than 200 times the magnitude in the sense of deaths, but somehow Covid has divided this county unlike any terrorist. I wish that people would learn to come together like we did after 9/11.

The idea of getting a vaccine and wearing a mask to protect your neighbor would have been a no brainer right after 9/11 if that would protect the county. Where is that American spirit today?

After 9/11 I thought that would be the biggest national tragedy I would witness is my life, but Covid has overtaken that spot. We didn’t know 9/11 was going to happen, but we did work to ensure that terrorists could not use planes as bombs again. We can slow Covid and give our health care workers a break if we all take the scientifically proven measures of vaccines and mask wearing . It is patriotic to do what is right for the collective good of America. Children under 12 can’t be vaccinated yet. When in modern American history have we not tried to protect children? Not getting a vaccine and wearing a mask puts children at risk. I know no one thinks of themselves as child killers.

Let’s feel that good feeling of coming together for each other. Let’s do what Dolly Parton wants us to do. Get the vaccine and wear a mask. There is nothing more American than that. I don’t want Covid to be 400 times worse than 9/11.

The Slowing Harvest

I knew that when I went away in August I would be missing the bulk of my harvest. Thankful for my friends who got all the butternut squash and cucumbers and beans, but sad that it was the end of those.

I have lots of green tomatoes, which are reluctantly ripening and an abundance of banana peppers, but the variety that was my garden is dwindling. Everyday I cut a couple of okra that keep holding on, but no cucumbers or squash. The eggplant are so slow growing it is almost like they are fake, like baby plastic eggplant attached to the plant.

It is time to pull things out. My garden does not get much fall sun. I want to plant some kale, arugula and herbs like cilantro and dill that like the cooler weather. My enthusiasm for daily garden work is waning, even though there is still lots of work to be done.

My compost is so depleted and the fig tree that so promisingly had tons of figs waiting to ripen got wiped out by deer in one night, right before I was about to harvest.

Overall I am thrilled with the output this year, with the exception of summer squash and zucchini that were ravaged by boring worms. Next year I will have to try every organic method to save the plants, starting with putting them in different beds.

What I am going to miss most is not having to buy vegetables. But having a garden gives me an even bigger appreciation for all that farmers do.

Dogs Love The Pandemic

Sometimes I wonder if dogs are secretly keeping Covid going so they could keep their humans home with them. I don’t know how they might be doing it, but it seems plausible.

Today Russ left extra early to fly to Washington for the day. Shay stayed snuggled in bed late into the morning. When she finally woke up she went on a hunt to find Russ. Her first stop was in his office, where Shay serves as his work supervisor. As he was not there this got her upset so she went to the kitchen to see if he was just getting his coffee, no Russ.

I watched as she visited every room in the house, even crying at a closed door to Carter’s room until I opened it to show her he was not there. How could he have snuck out of the house without her knowledge, and where was he?

I offered myself up as a candidate to be supervised. I had a long morning zoom, but Shay chose to stand and lookout the front door, pining for Russ. She had no interest in helping me sort socks, her normally favorite task.

I invited Shay to come to the sweat shop while I worked. Turned down cold. She barley asked for meals as her despondency increased. Russ is not due home until ten tonight. I am certain that she will have worked herself into a full on anxiety attack by then. Thank goodness this is just a one day trip.

Happy Birthday Margsey

Tomorrow is my sister Margaret’s birthday. For the longest time it was just me and Margaret. We wore sister dresses and tortured each other. We were fairly old, 8 1/2 and 5, when we got our surprise third sister Janet. Despite Janet’s arrival Margaret was always my “little sister.” I am sure it was not a position she prized.

Margaret’s birthday is just a week after Janet’s so she lost having a whole birthday month to herself. Top it off, her birthday was right after the first day of school which was not the most celebrated thing in a class of new kids you hardly know.

Margaret has always been more stylish than any of us. So I can imagine it was quite a horror to her that she had to wear my hand-me-downs. It was made even worse by having to wear what looked like the same dress for three or four years because she would first have hers and then my matching dress.

The worst thing about being the “little” sister is when we got two of anything she automatically got the smaller one – Like easter baskets. The Easter bunny would leave me a big basket and Margaret a little one. They might have had the same amount of candy, but I don’t think so. Especially since I always got up earlier and rearranged the candy giving her all the stuff I didn’t like, which she also did not like.

Why give us two different sized baskets? She could tell mine was bigger. Why not give us two that were the same size, but different colors. When Janet came around I think all the baskets were equal, but the damage of the small basket years was done.

I want to say I’m sorry to Margaret for anything I ever did that made her feel like the “little” sister. This is Margaret’s first Birthday as a married lady. I hope that Pete is treating her like a Queen.

I can’t fix the childhood issues, but at least I can get as many people as possible to wish Margaret a Happy Birthday.

Greg Abbott is Full of It

Today as Texas Governor, Greg Abbott was signing a terrible restrictive voting rights bill he was questioned about last weeks abortion bill he signed. The question was about the bill not making any provisions for rape victims who become pregnant. Abbott’s response was, “Let’s be clear, rape is a crime, and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.”

Really? First, Texas is the 15th highest state for rapes in the country per capitia. There are over 55.2 rapes per 100,000 per year and those are just the ones that are reported. Last year over 8,000 women in Texas reported a rape, but the statistics show that only about one in ten rapes ever gets reported.

So let’s guess there were 80,000 rapes in Texas last year. How in the world can Abbott prevent rapes from happening when the number is that big? Most women are raped by people they know. There is no way to lock someone up before they prevent a crime so how can Abbott say he is going to protect women from rapists. If he were going to do that why has t he done it already?

It’s just another ridiculous response to a terrible law. Abbott is not about protecting women, but controlling them.

Cilantro Lime Dressing

I know Cilantro is a taste that divides many, but if you are not a soap taster of it this dressing is yummy. It is easy to make and was perfect on this corn, shrimp, okra, tomato, avocado salad.

It is easy to make this in a blender or with a stick blender. No need to chop anything.

1 bunch of cilantro, stems and leaves

1/3 cup of lime juice

3 cloves of garlic

2 dried red chillies, or big pinch of red pepper flakes

2 T. Honey

2 T. Rice wine vinegar

1 T. Grated ginger

1/3 cup olive oil

Big pinch salt

Put everything in the blender and pulse until cilantro is minced.

Too Late For “Story Teller” Business Cards?

When I was kid I was often asked the common question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is an unfair question to ask most kids because we have no idea what all the jobs out there are, let alone what new jobs are yet to be invented. But today at Church I learned of the most important job, one that actually would be my dream job.

Alex, our youth pastor, was preaching today. He told the congregation that there was something more important than anything else on earth, stories and story tellers. Being a story teller is a job. I am not exactly sure it was laid out that distinctly, but that was my take away.

Shoot, I thought. Finally at the age of sixty I hear of the job that is best suited to me in every way, and I had no idea it was a real job. Now I have to admit that I have listed “story teller” as my occupation on more than a few forms, but that just was covering up the fact that I actually was not working for pay.

As a child, if you were labeled a “story teller” it meant you were a liar. No wonder I never thought it could be my actually line of work. Of course, when I was a sales person or a marketer, telling stories was my line of work. I would tell clients stories about how what I had to sell them would improve their life, their bottom line and even make then appear more beautiful. It had to be a really good story to make someone believe that a Mail opening machine would affect their appearance, but it worked.

For our entire marriage Russ has numbered my stories based on how often they get told. My top most repeated story is number one and so on. Of course the numbers on the stories change depending on my audience and the relevance of the material. How many of my friends have asked me to tell “Saskatoon” over and over again.

Sadly, I am still not sure how I can earn a living as a story teller. Yes, writers are story tellers, but writing is not my best skill. I do much better with a captive live audience and that is something that does not seem to be coming back anytime soon. So perhaps I missed my chance to have a really important job. I still will keep telling stories, just try and stop me. I just don’t think I will get business cards that say “story teller” on them.

Remind Me, I Need Low Profile

When it comes to beds, I am particular and Russ is not. He says he is happy to sleep on a piece of plywood and I am closer to the princess and the pea, minus the crown. With all the staying home over the last two year, my mattress became more and more important to me. I have hated our last bed for a long time, but had not told Russ until recently.

When we went to a hotel in June for a memorial service I had a great nights sleep and decided now was the time to break down and buy a new bed.

It took me a couple of months to actually go to the mattress store, but after all my research I was ready for some side-by-side tests. I decided to go with a Sterns and Foster, the first time I have bought this brand. The only decision my salesman gave me after I picked the mattress was box springs or adjustable base?

Since the adjustable would mean that Russ and I would have to agree on degree settings I went with box springs. Today our bed was delivered right on time. The young men brought in the two box springs and then the mattress. The combination, when placed on our frame, are so high that I practically need a step stool.

I called the salesman and he said he made a mistake by not asking if we wanted a low profile box spring. Nice of him to admit his mistake. The new, thinner box springs will be here Tuesday. Until then I will just have to jump.

As for Russ, who never went for a test visit at the mattress store, he promptly lay down on the new bed and fell asleep for a quick nap. I think it is way better than a piece of plywood.

What Can I Do About Texas?

I don’t live in Texas, but I have a few friends who do. I love my friends, but I don’t love their government. The list of things I am upset about Texas about keeps growing. Their anti-choice law, allowing guns everywhere, not allowing mask mandates, it all makes me crazy. But it is not my state. As just one person it is hard to make an impression on a place as big as Texas that I am never going to support anything they do.

Sure, my never traveling to Texas will not make any difference. My choosing products that are not made in Texas, will not change things. But what if everyone who thinks like me boycotts all things Texan? Texas is the size of most big European countries. They can stand on their own, but Texas is not content to just sell to themselves.

When my own state of North Carolina enacted the stupidest bathroom law ever seen in this country, others boycotted NC. When we lost the NCAA basketball tournament that seemed to really make an impact on NC and we got rid of that ridiculous law.

I can’t vote out people in Texas who think they should force women to have unplanned babies, but I can let Texas know that I don’t support them. There are laws of unintended consequences. I can only imagine how clogged up Texan courts are going to be with child support cases for all those babies needing the fathers’ to step up and pay for the next eighteen years.

The majority of Americans believe that women and their doctors should make decisions about pregnancies. Just because there is a heart beat at five weeks gestation does not mean that a fetus will be a viable human, but in Texas that is not considered. Well Texas, I don’t consider you for anything.

Indisputably MY Best Family Member’s Birthday

Quiz anyone about my family and everyone in and out of it agrees that my sister Janet is the most outstanding family member. None of the rest of even come close so there is no jealousy, just admiration. This fact has been true from the moment she came into the world.

Janet was the most beautiful baby. And even a more stunning toddler, but to make us all not fell inadequate she shunned bathing and brushing of her hair. In spite of the lack of grooming she still outshone us all.

Her physical beauty was minor in relation to her athletic ability. She could out throw, hit, swim, ski and score everybody.

Loyalty has always been her hallmark. The only people who do not like her were those who were intimidated by her and insecure themselves, and they are few and far between. She is even nice to those people.

Janet is the hardest worker I know, even as a child. If there was grass to be cut, or logs to be chopped, she was the only eight year old doing that. That trait has lasted her whole life. Today when she goes to sell a department store products she does not take no for an answer, always finding a way to make things work for everybody.

Considering her superiority I feel like September 2 should be a national holiday. Since I can’t make that happen the least I can do is let people know that this is her day. My most wonderful sister Janet’s birthday.

Random Knowledge

Over a lifetime I have accumulated a lot of random knowledge. I wish my memory for french verb conjugation was as good as my memory for cleaning tips. School life would have been much easier. Sadly I have never taken an AP stain removal test, which I am certain I would have gotten a five on.

A couple of days ago, after our long road trip to Maine and back, Russ looked at my car and said I needed to have my headlight professionally cleaned as they were slightly foggy with some crazing. I was planning on having my car detailed anyway, but since I could not get an appointment until the end of September I went ahead and cleaned the headlights myself.

Russ had already hand washed the car and was unhappy with the headlights. I told him that the answer was tooth paste. I can’t tell you where or when I learned this trick, but it works great.

I bought the cheapest tube of white tooth paste I could find. Turns out Pepsodent is only .99¢, while the most expensive Crest is over $7. I ran a big bead of tooth paste on the plastic lens of my headlight. Then, using an old tooth brush, I rubbed the paste all over the lens in circular motions.

After the brushing I rinsed the headlight with the hose. The lights were greatly improved. No fogginess and I could not see any crazing.

I looked online after I had already used the toothpaste and found many products for a lot more money than .99¢ to do the same job. I don’t know where I learn these things, but it is great when the cheep home remedy works so well. Thank goodness for a random knowledge brain.

Talk Radio Talkers Dying Off

In the last month at least three conservative talk radio hosts have died of Covid, Phil Valentine, Dick Farrel and Marc Bernie. One of Tennessee and two of Florida. All three of them apparently rallied against the Covid Vaccine and Mask Mandates and paid the ultimate price for their ignorance.

Being a talk radio personality is a job that does not necessarily have any requirements for expertise or education. You have to be able to talk, and get people to follow you. In the conservative talk realm there was little to no requirements for honesty or brains.

Thanks to politicians who thought they knew better than public health experts we have had plenty of people not following experts and not getting vaccines or wearing masks. Once the politicians started that line of thinking the conservative talking heads picked up that line and ran with it.

Well these idiots ran right to the grave. None of the deceased got vaccinated, because they knew better than public health officials who actually have degrees and expertise, unlike talk radio people.

I hope that some of the listeners to these former talkers learn from their deaths and get a vaccine, wear masks, get their children vaccinated and make them wear masks at school. I really hope people will stop listening to non-experts who just happen to have a radio show. Of course they all could die off before that could happen.

I Knew It Would Come In Handy

I’m not exactly a hoarder. I have “collections,” but they are not things that take over my house. I do tend to save things from trips that remind me of a certain place, person or time. Every once in a while I go through a big purge and get rid of things that I have forgotten their meaning.

What I keep is not always of value, but sometimes I keeps unusual things I think might come in handy one day. Today’s found object is the perfect example of that.

Twenty-five or six years ago I went to South Africa to make some commercials. I actually went twice, once on the advance scouting trip and back again for the ten day shout. We stayed at the Palace Hotel in Sun City and we were well treated there. My iced tea always came with a long plastic tusk like tooth pick with my lemon attached to it. It wasn’t anything valuable or special, but it reminded me of that trip. I brought one home and stuck it in the pencil and pen bucket on my bedside table.

Now I have cleaned out that bucket about every five years, testing the pens to see if they still work. Somehow the tusk has remained.

Recently I have made a special drink of Gosslings Diet Ginger ale, lime juice and a cherry and some juice from the cherry jar. It’s a yummy, not to bad for you drink, but the only problem is I make it in too big a glass and the cherry falls to the bottom. To me and my Shirley Temple loving ways, the cherry is the best part of the drink, but I can’t get it out without getting my hand wet with sticky liquid.

I was enjoying this drink in bed last night and suddenly I looked over at my pencil bucket and saw the answer to my problem, the tusk. The long curved pointed skewer was able to grasp the cherry without my hand having to go too deeply in the glass.

I hate to pat myself on the back for saving the tiny tusk all these years, but boy I was glad I did last night. I think I should look around at other “saved” objects and see how I could use them.

Better Late Than Never

It was three or four years ago that I agreed to chair the building committee for our churches new Fellowship hall. There was a great committee of building experts so it seemed like my job would mostly be communicating and herding. The schedule had us moving into the new building in time for Rally day, the first Sunday in September 2020.

The old building was torn down on time, the new building started coming out of the ground and then Covid hit. The building committee no longer met in person, like every other in person entity, but the building continued.

The worked slowed due to rain, and Covid. The original move in date seemed unimportant since we could not gather inside the building so we let our contractor go slower. We finally finished the building this winter, but we still could not use it. As people got vaccinated we thought we could begin to gather in groups, then Delta hit. We did go back to in person church services, but no all-church meals.

Today, one year, less one week, from the day we originally wanted, we finally dedicated our fellowship hall. At the end of church we all walked across the court yard, and social distanced ourselves around the main room. We installed our new officers and then dedicated the building with parishioners all putting a hand on the building to pray for it.

Next week will be Rally Day and the fellowship hall will be used for the purposes it was intended. It may have taken many years, but I look forward to celebrating many events there. Soon, no one but me will remember how long it took and how over due it was.

Driving Vs. Cleaning the Bathroom

For the last three days I spent a good amount of time driving in the car. Two days of the drive were not too long; day 1, three and a half hours, day 2, six hours, but day 3 was eight hours. Today is our first day home and I only had to drive Russ over to the airport to pick up his car. Other than that I have spent most of the day cleaning.

Normally if you asked me if I would like to drive five hours or spend one hour cleaning the bath room I might take the driving. I really don’t mind driving. But today I have never been so happy to clean the bathroom, as well as doing laundry, changing the sheets, vacuuming, mopping the kitchen floor and tending the garden.

As fun as visiting so many friends and doing so many fun things it was kind of nice to just do mundane things today. Despite all I did I still have plenty of other things to clean in my house. There is nothing more frustrating than leaving a clean house empty and coming home to a dusty one. I shouldn’t complain because I love my home. I just wish vacation wasn’t so tiring and coming home was more relaxing.

It Takes Good Friends

We made it home tonight, but stopped first to pick Shay up at her wonderful sitter, Mary. Mary has been taking care of Shay whenever we go away for ten years. Shay adores visiting her. This trip Shay was there with her cousin Brady for a few days and her neighbor dogs, Harry and Winston.

Mary said Shay had a ball, which we do not doubt, but now Shay is exhausted from all that activity and she is snuggled up ready to pass out. Thanks to Mary for always taking such good care of Shay.

I came home to a happy garden thanks to my friend Jan who watered and picked while I was gone. She got a good trade in all the veggies she could eat. It is terrible to work for months on your garden only to go away during high production season. Without Jan my garden would have failed. You need to pick constantly and water when needed.

I do have a lot of work to do to clean out cucumbers, squash and beans that have lived their course. Hopefully it will get a little cooler so I won’t miss Maine so much when I go out in the garden. Thanks Jan for keeping your eye on everything.

It helps to have good friends back at home when you go away. It is even better to come home and have everything in order.

Packing in the Visits

This is our last night on the road. Russ is making the drive home with me which is unheard of. Usually he flys in and flys out from vacation. This year when I said I thought I would stop and see his family if Bucks County on the way home he thought he would like to do that too. So today I got to be his work chauffeur. I drove, in silence and he talked to clients for the whole day.

We left Boston at 8:00 with him on his first call. We were headed to Ridgefield to meet up with Suzanne, Steve and their youngest, Oliver to have lunch at their club. Russ worked the whole way so I made the trip very quickly. We arrived in Ridgefield early so we went to see my childhood home in Wilton. We couldn’t see much because I did not want to drive down the driveway, but they have added a new garage and turned our old garage into rooms.

Our next door neighbors’s the Phrals’ house looked very fixed up and the Scheweitzers house next to them had a huge addition. The Humphrey’s house looked the same and was for sale.

We had the best lunch with Suzanne and family. We realized that the last time we had seen each other was on this day two years ago at her father’s memorial service and that going two years without seeing each other in person is the longest we have ever gone since 1979. We are not going to let Covid or any other stupid virus do that to us again.

We left Ridgefield and drove to Russ’ father’s house in Bucks county. It has been two years since we have seen them too. Brother David and his wife Tasha and their oldest daughter Bree came and brought dinner. Then, just as I was about to pass out his sister Nancy and her youngest Jack showed up. Dave served Nancy some of the orange watermelon he had brought. After eating some, which tastes just like watermelon, Nancy asked if it was actually cantaloupe, because it was the same color as that melon. She knew it tasted like watermelon, but after a long day at work your mind can play tricks on you.

I finally had to excuse myself, as chauffeuring really took it out of me. We packed in seeing nine people today as the last hurrah for our trip. Tomorrow I will be back to silent driving, but it is well worth it to have Russ with me on the drive and getting a chance to see his whole family and my best friends.

Art on Vacation

When we go on vacation we try and work in as much art as possible. Sadly only I made it to the MFA when we were in Boston last week, but today we all went to the Farnsworth in Rockland along with Warren.

Maine is a state full of art and artists. It is no surprise since the natural landscape is inspiring. The art is everywhere. I especially loved this mural on the side of a building in Rockland, but the lighting and my photography don’t do it justice.

The Farnsworth is one of my favorite museums. Today we got to see a new exhibit of Wyeth works, NC’s, Andrew’s and Jamie’s that were all donators by Andrew’s wife Betsy who passed away last year at the age of 98.

It was a generous collection of 27 new paintings that had been held in the family and now we all can enjoy them at the Farnsworth. Such a talented family the Wyeth’s are and I really appreciate the chance to see not just finished paintings, but studies in pencil and charcoal for paintings and see the artists progress and planning.

Sadly Warren left us after the art, bidding us safe travels. We will be back again as soon as we can, as we all love Maine.

We grabbed a quick bite of lunch which was difficult because many places were closed due to the shortage of workers. I am hoping that the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine will prompt more people to get it and go back to work.

It was too long a drive back to Boston to bring Carter home. Russ and I checked into our tiny Hotel room. I had made the reservation when I thought it might just be me spending the night. Russ is a good sport about my frugal travel. Why spend a bunch of money to spend thirteen hours in a place. Thank goodness it has good air conditioning since it is hot as can be in Boston. As far as I am concerned it is a work of art to outfit a tiny room with a king sized bed.

Maine Walks

One thing our whole family loves to do together when we come to Maine is walk. Everyday we pick a different trail, path or breakwater to ramble on. Before we arrived the weather looked iffy, but with each passing day it has been better and better and today was the most glorious day of all.

Day before yesterday we walked in Belfast. The town is hilly and you really feel that walk on your backside. Russ and Warren walked across the river while Carter and I walked between stores. I had to visit Fiddlehead Artisan, the store that first inspired me to learn to make quilts. We also made a fifth return visit to Bella Books and luckily they still had some Orange Julius Cookies for sale.

Yesterday we walked the child’s chapel walk in Rockport in the morning. It was a shady walk near the shore so we got to view the beautiful waterfront houses from the back. The gardens this time of year are extraordinary and I coveted the old stone walls that surrounded them and the rock gardens.

After lunch Carter, Warren and I did a Camden town walk. The lack of available employees is hurting business up here. We had to wait in line at Zoot for coffee just making it before they closed at three o’clock. The primary reason for our Camden Walk was to look at Warren’s store, Antiques @ 10 Mechanic where he has a successful antique booth. Carter looked at a lot of items that interested her, but decided her apartment is getting fairly filled up.

We walked up and back the main shopping street where I said I was tired of shopping and stopped going into stores, since I really hate shopping… until we came to Jo Ellen Designs. This store has always been a favorite so I gave in and went in. It was all I could do not to buy everything in the store. I purchased many Christmas gifts and then in a moment of weakness I bought the biggest thing in the store, a rug for my living room. The owner and designer could not have been nicer about how they could ship it to me. Since Russ was not with us he was surprised to learn that I needed a new rug for the living room.

For today’s walk we were joined by one of my dearest high school friends, July, as we call her, who drove up from Durham, Maine for the day. We all walked the Rockland breakwater as it was the perfect sunny day, pick day of the vacation. Getting to spend time with July was soothing to my soul. We just wish that our friend Shannon was here with us.

While Warren, July and I went to lunch Russ and Carter went to the Maine Sports

Store and Russ bought Warren a map of all the hikes in the area. It is too bad we are leaving in the morning because we have at least a dozen new walks to take. Just more incentive to come and spend time with our precious friend Warren at his sweet home on the coast.

Recentering

The forecast for the weather for the last two days has been ever changing. Yesterday I went to church with Warren at his sweet little church. Since it was not so rainy Russ and Carter stayed behind to do their own spiritual renewal.

Warren was the Deacon in charge for the day so I helped him open the windows of the little church and prop them up with wooden dowels as the grayness of the morning lifted. The building was built in the 1800’s and has boxes instead of pews with the straight backed, small bench type of seating that made early parishioners feel no comfort in earthly worship and made me wonder how church survived at all. I was greeted warmly by the forty to fifty people who made up the congregation for the day.

Warren told me the regular pastor was away, but that I would love the guest pastor. If there ever was an understatement it was that. Kate Braestrup, the pastor for the Maine Game wardens and a four time book author was the guest preacher. The service opened with a welcome and a call for announcements from the congregation. People stood up to announce flea market sales and a note about donuts. There was the masked singing of familiar hymns, and then Warren gave a moving prayer and asked for concerns and celebrations where the congregation parcipitated, including me asking for prayers for a friend’s child.

Then Kate stood for her sermon. She echoed the words of the Hymn There is a balm in Gilead as she brought the congregation to tears as she spoke about the women of Afghanistan. It was a heart wrenching talk about mother’s passing their girl babies through the barbed wire fences to the arms of awaiting soldiers who they hoped would take their daughter’s out of a country that was once again a dangerous place to be a girl. I quickly forgot how uncomfortable the slightly forward leaning back of the pew was as my body tried to hold back the wrenching sound that came with my tears. It was a powerful morning.

Warren and I drove back towards the coast as the sun was trying to break through and I felt the huge appreciation for the luck that I was born here and to the people I was born to. Sometimes it is hard to have that perspective.

I was sorry Carter had missed a chance to listen to Kate. She would have felt a kinship with her feminist point of view. But she and Russ had their own chance to commune with nature, one that gave them that rest from work to renew themselves. Maine seems to recenter us all in different ways.

Uncontrollable Laughter

One of the best things about our old fashioned Maine Vacations is that Warren, Carter and I love to play games together and Russ gets out of having to play games because we have a third. Today we played Ticket to Ride, which Warren did not love, so he taught us a card game called Pitch, aka High, Low, Jack, Game.

Carter has never played a lot of cards, so she is unfamiliar with common game terms, like what the suits are called. Clubs are referred to as clovers in her games. As Warren was teaching us the rules, which involve bidding a suit, commonly called, “the Trump suit” I commented that Trump has even ruined cards. Carter quickly shot back, “As if that is the worst thing he ruined.” We laughed until we fell off our chairs.

Speaking of laughing, there came a point in the night, after dinner and dessert and lots of game playing that Carter looked over at the table next to her and noticed a tiny tray displayed on a plate stand. She asked Warren what this “tiny tray” was for and it just struck a funny bone in us and we started laughing. The laughing was so uncontrollable that I actually was worried that Carter had stopped breathing, but I was to paralyzed with laughter so I could not do a thing about her. Eventually we all took a breath and got back to the game. We still don’t know the tiny tray is for.

It was a very eventful day in many other ways, but as we were busy from early morning until late at night I will have to save all the other stories for another day so I can post this before midnight and try and get some sleep.

We are all safe in sound here with no Henri action. Thanks for the messages of concern from far and wide.

Back to Howard Johnsons

It has been two years since our last visit to our favorite HOJO’s. Our friend Warren has been obviously despondent over our absence because he has pulled out all the stops for our visit.

Last night he made a lovely dinner and this morning the breakfast was divine, especially the grapes cut in half. (There is never a need to cut my grapes in half.). After breakfast we went to take my favorite walk, the Rockland breakwater. It was slightly misty at Warren’s, but only foggy at the breakwater. Russ and Carter, with their long legs were way out in front of us. Thankfully Warren had no issue walking at my pace. By the time we finished the walk things cleared up a d we could see the islands.

Not satisfied with just one walk we went from the breakwater to the wellness trail in the woods. Again Russ and Carter were off like deer and I brought up the rear. Nonetheless it was good to get 12,000 steps before lunch.

We lunched at home with the famous hojo’s tuna melt and that prompted the need for naps for us all.

Tonight we went to our favorite restaurant in the mid-coast, Primo. They make the farm to table seem like the only way restaurants should go. They never disappoint us. It is a good thing we got all those steps, but it is our first vacation in months.

Finally Vacation

I left home on Monday and I just arrived at our vacation spot. It was a fun journey, but not a vacation. The last bit from Boston to the mid-coast of Maine seemed the longest. I think I am just extra exhausted, perhaps my big day of walking yesterday wore me out. I have no excuse because unlike Russ and Carter I was not working right up until the minute we left Boston. Actually they both worked In the car.

As soon as we crossed into Maine we headed to Kittery for lunch at a spot Suzanne suggested. It was wonderful to sit looking at the boats on the water and have a lobster roll. That’s vacation.

We avoided the coast road and drove the backroads to Warren’s house. He greeted us with his usually over abundance of snacks, offering us a choice between superior Cheddar or Vermont Cheddar. When I asked what the difference was he said, “Green label or red label.” I likened the cheddar choice to scotch brand tape; Red plaid or green plaid, both the same tape.

We had a delicious dinner after cheddar time on the front porch watching the tide come in to clam cove. Russ and Carter are doing the dishes as I write from the cool night’s air of the porch in the dark so as not to attract bugs. For now I need sleep so I can rest up for vacation.

City Living

Russ and I are staying in a hotel in Boston because I promised Carter I would not stay with her until she had a guest room, which I am not counting on anytime in the next decade. Last night as we slept on the twenty sixth floor I was rudely awakened by a bright flashing light and loud voice in our room repeating, “Potential Emergency, await stair evacuation instructions.” I was up like a bolt, but Russ barley moved and resumed a light snore. For two hours I awaited instructions, planning what I would take down the 26 flights of stairs.

I went to the door and smelled nothing and heard only the opening of other doors, wondering the same thing I did. I looked out the window and listened for sirens; Nothing. I lay down and tried to not go back to sleep thinking about what an orphaned Carter might do. We never got follow up instructions and eventually I fell back to sleep, only to awake prematurely when Russ got up to have a very early work call.

Since I was awake I went ahead and got up. It was raining, but not too hard. I was going for a Pedicure at Carter’s nail place, it had been 18 months since my last one and I did not want to subject my regular nail person to these feet. Russ gave me his tiny travel umbrella and I walked the six blocks in the rain.

When I was finished with fabulous feet, the rain had significantly picked up. The howling wind came around corners flipping the tiny travel umbrella inside out so I stopped in a CVS and bought an equally small and flimsy replacement. There was no way to keep my thin white button down shirt from being totally soaked, providing a sheerness that no one wanted to see. I finally made it back to the hotel only to discover that the wind had pulled my reading glasses off their chains around my neck. So much for my favorite glasses.

As I had not eaten anything yet, and Russ had a one hour break we went to find lunch in a way that we did not have to go outside. Since our hotel was not serving lunch we traveled through some overground tunnels until we found one open restaurant. It was huge with no customers. We were sad for the, but happy for us.

After lunch the sun came out. Russ went back to work and I walked to the MFA for my planned visit. Along the way I passed the Christian Scientist Mother church, which has been under renovation since before we looked at Northeastern with Carter seven years ago. I got to wondering if there would be any Christian Scientists left due to Covid to pay for finishing the renovation.

After a good mile walk I arrived at the Museum. Thankfully museum goers are good rule followers and everyone had their masks on and did excellent social distancing. A whole afternoon of fabulous art fixers all other problems, as well as the 14,500 steps I got today.

After working all day, Carter joined us for dinner at Salty Girl where we had a most fabulous selections of various seafood dishes, but by 8:30 my middle of the night interruptions were catching up with me. Carter went home on the T and Russ and I walked home. Praying for a solid night’s sleep since we finally get to Maine tomorrow.

Friends and Family

Today’s adventure of Dana’s New England Friend tour started out with a yummy breakfast of homemade blueberry scones and fruit at the Bed and Breakfast of Nancy and Peter. Friends really go all out when you visit them for two meals. Stay longer and you might get hot dogs, but two meals and they put on the dog.

When I visit you there is no reason to make home baked goods, but for some people it is a good excuse. Nancy’s scones were hands down the best scones I have ever had. Very light and flavorful. The Brits could take lessons from her.

Sadly I had to say goodbye right after breakfast as I had some miles to go up the coast to Rhode Island. I was off to my friend Sally’s in Jamestown Rhode Island. Sally is the best thing to come out of Covid for me. Although we went to college together we did not hang out that much there, but we have become fast friends thanks to regular Zooms this past year.

I had never been to Jamestown and found it to be an absolutely darling seaside village. Sally lives in a beautiful shingle style house with the most fabulous hydrangea tunnel and perfect gardens. She gave me the whole tour of the small town with so many gorgeous homes and gardens. New England is so hard to beat in the summer.

We had lunch on the water at her club where we talked about the fun of visiting old friends and how much we liked road trips. It was a short, but sweet visit, because I had to get back on the road to get to Boston to see Carter.

One of the objectives of this trip was to deliver to Carter a rug, painting and lamp she got from my mother. While I was bringing those I also threw in a bunch of other things, like a pot of mint from our garden, some new good knives and a Costco lifetime supply of trash bags. After unpacking Carter’s stuff we delivered a box of China that Carter sold to her boss from my parent’s estate sale.

We went to our hotel for me to check in and Russ joined us from his day of working up here. Off on the T to the North end for dinner and I will say it has been a very full day. Friends and Family what could be better?

Timeless Friendships

My favorite kind of days are when I wake up at one old friend’s house and drive to an even older friends house. My darling friend David flew home today from Ghana just in time to see me at breakfast before I departed his and John’s house. I would have loved to have had more time with David, but after his flying all night and my need to get on the road I had to go.

Driving north on I -95 was a very familiar thing for me to do. Covid is still having some affect on traffic in a positive way, until I hit Connecticut. Then it was just one Range Rover after another jockeying for a one car advantage and putting all the rest of us at risk. But they do own the road.

I got to my friend Nancy’s house before either she or her husband Peter were back from their haircuts. I really love friends who step up their personal grooming just in time for my visit. I am sensing a theme here as I cut John’s hair yesterday at his house and now Nancy and Peter.

I got a chance to spend time with their wonderful daughter Sarah who is about to go to grad school. I love talking with my oldest friend’s grown children because you see so many qualities repeated in their offspring. I knew that when I met Nancy when we were both fifteen that I would be friends with her for life. Then when she introduced me to Peter before they got married and he had a sticker in the back window of his car that just said, “college” I knew he had the kind of sense of humor that was well above most.

Nancy and Peter, of newly coifed hair, came home and we got a good gab on while Nancy slaved away cooking us a Spanish extravaganza of tomato bread, cheese, paella and salad. My friends I impose on to visit during my drive really go all out cooking for me and I really appreciate it. Considering Covid, going out to eat holds no joy, but sitting outside on a beautiful cool Connecticut summer night with friends is glorious.

After dinner we went inside and on Nancy’s coffee table was an unopened game that I had just read about YESTERDAY, as the best game ever made. It is called Wingspan. So we decided to play it. There is nothing I like better than a whole family of game players.

Nancy started unpacking the box of small colored eggs, 170 game cards with birds, little tokens, game boards, a birdhouse you have to build and hundreds of other small bits and bobs. There were two instruction manuals and an appendix. She started reading. It was way too confusing. Then she saw you could watch a video to learn how to play. We opted for that and crowded around her computer for the fifteen minute video, pausing at every instruction to set things up. After watching the whole thing none of us actually had any idea what the object of the game was and what we were to do with half of the bits and bobs, but we started anyway.

One thing we did know was it took four rounds to play a whole game. We barley got through one round in over an hour of actual play. Sarah beat us all, with Nancy coming it a close second, followed by Peter and I was dead last. I am not sure who wrote the article about Wingspan being the best game ever, but I think it definitely needs to be played a few hundred times before you understand all the options of the game.

Nonetheless, it was one of the most fun evenings I have had all year. Forty-five years of friendship is just a timeless thing. Breaking up my driving by going from one friend to another is the best. Thankfully they welcome me every time.

Thanks Be to Friends

Today is day one of my great northern migration. Last year was a sad year without a trip to Maine. Thanks to wonderful and safely vaccinated friends I am not missing another Maine summer.

One of my favorite parts of making this trip is stopping to see kind friends along the way. Today’s stop is with my friends John and David. Sadly David is not here tonight as he is flying back from Africa, just in time to have breakfast before I leave. John has more than made up for David’s absence. He runs the best Bed and breakfast in the capital, but just for dear friends.

I arrived this afternoon just after he had finished doing all the cooking for our dinner. The house is immaculate, especially my bedroom apartment, with it’s own living rooms kitchen. We had a grand time catching up, telling stories and enjoying their garden. As part of my thank you to him I gave him a haircut cutting off some of his founding father’s hairdo.

We enjoyed a refreshing watermelon gazpacho, spinach quiche, zucchini fritters and green salad. If that wasn’t enough John made a to-die-for strawberry pie with fresh cream. I am certain to sleep well tonight.

Breaking up my drive with the fun of friends makes the journey a vacation. Thanks to John and I can’t wait to see David in the morning.

Rationalizing my Catan Addiction

Some Pre-pandemic years ago my friend Suzanne, whom I was visiting, said to me, “I can’t believe you have never played Settlers of Catan.” Being behind on a game craze was tantamount to not liking Apple pie for me. So she got the game out and gathered her two game loving sons, Jack and Oliver and they introduced me to Catan, as it is now known.

It was the start of a true addiction, and not one I am sad about. First, it Is not fattening and second I can do it in fifteen minutes. See I left Suzanne’s house and quickly discovered an online version where you play against real people, but you do not have chat capability, so there is no fighting or insulting, as long as you ignore the face emoji.

So now I have to admit it has been at least four or five years that I have played online Catan at least once a day, but more likely three times a day. I wake up and play a game while I am watching the news, drinking my tea and waiting for my daily medicine to take effect.

I might play as a break from the mundane chores of the day, while Shay snuggles with me and gets her ears scratched. Then right before I go to bed I play one more game, although I have nodded off in the middle once or twice.

The first step to dealing with addiction is admitting you have a problem. And I do. I could give it up cold Turkey, but since I spend only between 30-40 minutes a day partaking I am not sure I have to go that far.

It doesn’t cost me any money outside of the $4.99 one time fee I paid years ago. I do have some suggestions to improve the online experience and would be willing to pay another $4.99 to get them, but it does not appear that anyone at the game company seems to care.

So I think I am going to hold the status quo on this addiction. It is one of my healthier ones and it certainly kept me sane during the lock down. As Delta rages I may have to go back to all online game playing and Catan is right up there. The way I look at it is no gambling is involved and as long as I am not losing money I can justify this. As Jeff Goldblum said in The Big Chill, “Rationalizationis more Important than sex. Have you ever gone a week without a good rationalization?”

Sheep, Not The Brightest

August 13 came and went and amazingly 45 was not reinstalled as President. This despite all that the My Pillow idiot said. I wonder what all the followers thought was going to happen. Whatever it was, it didn’t.

I think a lot about why there is a huge group of people who don’t believe science. They scorn the Covid vaccine and don’t believe in climate change, despite all the evidence around them. If there was a Venn diagram of the people who thought that 45 would be “reinstalled,” which in it’s self is not a thing, and the non-science crowd, I bet there would be a large overlap.

Why would people believe something so fantastical yet not anything so factual? Perhaps the whole idea that 45 was not “reinstalled” makes these people not believe anything. But wait, they also tend to believe that they are chosen, but chosen for what, other than an offer for a car warranty, I do not know.

Please believers, stop following the likes of My Pillow Guy, or any Governor who signs anti-mask mandate laws. So far they have been wrong more than they have been right. It’s time to make them face the consequences of leading sheep to slaughter. So stop being the sheep.

Oh Yeah, very few sheep read my blog. Preaching to the choir again. Baaaa.