Wednesdays are free again

This a.m. I sent out the church newsletter and was delighted to get responses from a couple folks. It is nice to have that happen, compliments are always welcome. One man wrote to ask if we had choir rehearsal tonight, in addition to acknowledging his newsletter. I told Sterling we were done for the season and he thanked me for saving him an hour and half bicycle ride. My pleasure!! 

Not having choir allows me to gather with my neighbors and friends at The Club for Happy Hour. I had hoped we would be outside again like we did last week and it was, in fact, set up out there. The owner, Karrie, and I went out to the patio, thinking we were first on the scene. The waitress came out to say the gang opted to sit inside, out of the breeze. What?? Okay....

One of the gentlemen got me a chair and parked me next to Kathy. Our usual chair arranger, Maureen, was gone for a few days so we got to sit wherever we wanted to. Otherwise, she assigns the seats, making sure the men have other men to talk to. I don't know that they have problems talking with women (maybe her hubby does!) but it is sort of comical to see her bustling people around the tables. Kathy and I like to discuss the news of the day so we are good! 

My roast beef sliders and onion straws were fabulous, making for a filling dinner for me. Betty, Kathy, and her brother, Gary, had eaten before coming over to The Club (I know, early eaters!!). Betty's reason is that her husband liked to eat early so they still do. Not every week, though, as they sometimes eat at Happy Hour. Betty is so sweet, and so is Kathy.

***

This a.m. before getting dressed, I decided to remove the silver from my hair. It is the beginning of summer and I am due for a haircut, so it was time. Now I won't have to mess with it until fall as the sun and pool water do their thing with my hair in the summer. I will get an appointment closer to the time I leave for WI so I look decent for them. There is a reputation to uphold!

                           

Early in the month of June Betty S. and I are serving as hostesses for the preschool graduation program. Betty made some cute mortar board hats using a marshmallow cookie, covered in chocolate, topped with a chocolate graham cracker. She anchored them together with frosting. Then, Betty used a string of licorice and an M & M to make the tassel and button on top of the cracker. She brought me a sample one Sunday and when I opened the container, the scent of chocolate wafted to me. I managed to save it for after coming in from the pool that day. Delicious and oh so cute!! Betty is doing those treats while others and I will be bringing store bought cookies. I am also making the punch and together we will decorate the fellowship hall for the kids and their families.

I had the privilege of taking the graduation pictures of the preschool kids, so thankful to be welcomed back into the classroom again. There was one gown and cap so each one had to slip on the gown and try to balance the one-size fits all cap. Some of the kids had bigger hair so the cap floated on their heads, while other had closely cropped hair which made it hard to keep in place. The pictures turned out cute, as we Monday Bible study folks got a sneak peek at the slide show last week. Best wishes, kids, and God's blessings to you!

A visit from a friend

Wow, these past few days sort of flew by, and I guess I had better get used to it. Things change when it is summer! I can at least claim to have summer-like weather while my family and friends in the north are not being treated to decent weather. In fact, my friend, Mark, who travels for business, reported having temps in the 70's and pleasant as well as rain and ice while in north central Wisconsin a couple weeks ago. Yes, that is about right! He had to go into the hotel for cups of hot water to clear his windshield in order to drive his car. No ice scraper came with the rental car. No ice scrapers needed here, unless one climbs into the pool. Not quite warm enough for this girl!

***

Friday I got myself up and dressed for the day earlier than usual. Not because anyone was calling to have breakfast, but because my friend, Randy, from San Diego, was coming to town. I got busy with my duster brush, this time NOT knocking over any of my pretties in the process. Randy was bringing me replacement flowers for those I broke in a previous dusting frenzy. Me and this dust here---I tell you!!!!

The dark green and brighter orange flowers were survivors from the original arrangement. The rest are new!

He called from the airport and got here around the time he had expected to arrive. He sat and chatted for a bit (later telling me that dust is invisible to men...oh great!) after he gave me my bouquet. He told the lady he wanted one of each so I have a lovely array of colors and types of flowers. These heavy glass flowers were hand-carried from San Diego, to Houston, to Norfolk, to Jax, arriving intact!

Randy took his motorcycle battery which had been delivered here in advance of his visit. He needed to have the bike operative to drive it up the ramp into the truck. The day was expected to be more a relaxed one for him but did not prove that way. The battery was minus what it needed to charge it (I don't understand it all) but he was able to take the original battery to NAPA where they charged it for him at no cost. He was so pleased with this good customer service!

Our tentative plans were to go to dinner around 6:00 pm, at Carrabba's. Later, he called me and asked if we could go at 7:00 instead, which is better for me anyway. He was tired so I thought he would want to get to bed early. Anyway, I asked Justin if he'd like to go too so we made arrangements to meet at Carrabba's at 7:00. Justin and I are very fond of being prompt....I will leave it at that! Our meals were great, dining alfresco, and I had leftovers to bring home with me. 

I dropped Randy at his hotel after dinner with no plans to see him in the morning. However, he called me bright 'n early, asking me to meet him at the rental car lot and drive him to Home Depot to pick up the rental truck. Of course I did it, but wouldn't that have been a good thing to figure out the night before?? I just had to laugh...It was a good thing I had no plans for Saturday morning and could get him straightened away with his truck. He also hired some 'inebriates', as he referred to them, through craigslist.com to load the truck for him. Randy was using the long weekend to make the cross country drive with his earthly belongings in the truck. As of this a.m. the report is he made it safely and he thanked me for my prayers for him, as 'they were necessary....' What a guy!

It's pool time!

With my trademark soda can in the foreground and The Club in the background---once again holding court at the pool. Having to break in a new cook and server this season, so far so good on Miss Kim's likes and dislikes. "You can keep the green stuff..."

This picture was snitched from my former upstairs neighbor, Jessica's, page on Facebook. Her two boys are lovingly embracing on the bow of a friend's boat as they watch the moon rise over the river. She said they are almost always like this, which is a blessing but oh so rare to have happen. The whole family came to the pool on Saturday and Travis told me that Justin's company will be doing their yard from now on! Best wishes on that, Greenway Lawn Service!

Sweet Memories

My neighbor, Ellen, usually asleep in the daytime, grabbed her camera to photograph this recent morning sky. Today's wonderful breezes are most welcome!

This morning I am listening to a radio host who is notorious for saying things like "I have never seen anything like this before in my life", or asking "have you ever seen this before in your life?" of his co-hosts. Of course, they have to agree with him, in order to assist him in making the point, but he is likely overstating it. This time perhaps not overstating since he was speaking of the butchering done on the street in London, in broad daylight, with folks failing to intervene. Can you say 'gun free zone'?

***

Anyway, you think of things that have happened in your own life, thinking you will never, ever forget those things as long as you live. And you are determined not to forget---yet, somehow, the memory of the specifics fade. The names and faces escape. That which was so prominent in our minds and hearts has moved back further into the seldom-summoned memory storage. 

In cleaning out a dresser drawer the other day in search of something else, I came upon a packet of cards, etc., in a zip-sealed plastic bag in which a prescription had come. Date? 2005!  In this packet were old credit cards, punch cards for shops and restaurants (many which no longer exist), frequent shopper cards from the area bookstores, and calling cards. What a trip down memory lane this became!! Not so much a special attachment to the credit cards (no reason to keep them either!), but the calling cards-the business cards-had a special place in my memory. My 'old' painters, wall paper guys, tile installers, other tradesmen with whom we'd done business at one time.

I had not thought of these fellows in ages and ages, and yet they were at one time very important in my business and personal life. Many of these guys watched my boys grow up. Or stood in line for over an hour to greet us at the funeral home, walked up our sidewalk with hams or a plant for us, took the afternoon off to attend a funeral service in a crowded church for our little guy. At the time, I thought I would never forget them. Their kindess remains fresh to me, but their names and faces have faded from my memory. 

                                      

I don't think the fading is intentional or an accident---this is from God. He stores those things away from us so we move forward and do not dwell in sorrowful places. Those heavy thoughts are replaced in the front of our memories with more pleasant, more pleasing ones, and for that I am most grateful. It is also no accident to find things like this little packet of momentos which allow us to recognize just how far we've come. Thank you for that, dear Lord!

Living under a rock

When we used to play trivia at Johnny Angels Diner on Tuesday nights, my friend, Rita, would tease me for not knowing the music from the 1980's and forward answers. Sometimes the group names would ring a bell for me but I had little trivia to add to the mix. They could not depend upon me to agree or disagree on an answer for this category. Inevitably Rita would ask me, "Where were you? Under a rock?" Sometimes that would happen with TV programs as well but mostly with music. I had my categories where I scored higher, so I carried my own weight in the game, believe me!

On my Internet radio show today, the guys were going through a list of the top-rated TV programs for the year. The one fellow would read the name of a show from the list, and the 3 guys would say "yes" or "no"  if they'd seen it, or liked it. One guy does not watch network TV (regular TV, he calls it) so he had a terrible disadvantage. The ones he could say yes to involved pro football. Same here! Another of the guys, the one who gets picked on the most, knew many of the titles and could say 'yes' or 'no' to whether they were any good. He got mocked for having so much time on his hands for such lame TV viewing habits. 

The list had about 150 of the network prime time programs listed (who would think there were that many?) and I could only say, to myself, that I watched a couple of them. Several of the 'yeses' were for NFL games on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Hey, that's nearly everyday! I only watch Packer and Jaguar games so it's not as bad as it seems. 

                     

This must be Friday night as they are eating Chinese food. Sheldon keeps them on a firm schedule. This is also then vintage game night...Before I ever watched this program, Justin would say to me, "You are sooooo Sheldon!" Perhaps, in some ways, I am!

I could also say 'yes' to one other show, but I do only watch it on reruns, which might not count on this list. One day I was asking Justin about a TV show and he said, "You'll see it in about 10 years..." Ha ha! Yes, I live in the past! Now, I do see some of these programs when I am visiting in WI, as my mom likes them. In particular is "NCIS", which was high on the list, but then again, those are mainly reruns as well. My friend, Linda, also enjoys the NCIS series. 

The cable channel programs are not included on this list or I would have been able to say "yes" more often. "The O'Reilly Factor" is the highest rated prime time news show, but not on this list because of being a cable program. This one program beats the entire prime time line-up ratings for CNN each night. 

I also 'can't miss' Fox News Sunday, and, of course, The Five, these two not being prime time programs. I also like Law & Order: Criminal Intent, as well as the original L & O, but they do not appear on the list. It seems no new episodes of those two have been made in a couple years---only the SVU series. Who knew? Everyone except me, I suppose!

Justinisms

The other morning my friend, Barb, in MN, wrote on Facebook, "As my grandson would say, "Don't talk to me, I'm crabby". She wrote this because they had gone so many days without sunshine and it was taking its toll on her good nature. I wrote back to her about how Justin told Mom and me that he was out-of-sorts one morning because "I got up on the toy-box side of the bed...." Oh, I see. If you know Justin, that was a significant change for him. He took the expression of 'getting up on the wrong side of the bed' to the nth degree, and got up on the 'toy box side'! We steered clear of him the rest of the day!

He would take expressions quite literally. One night, during the holidays, he kept getting up from bed to come out and look at us in the family room. At last I asked him why he kept getting up and he said, "I wanted to see you in your nightcaps..." My former spouse and I had mentioned having a nightcap (slush) before bed, and he thought we wore hats!

One of Mom's favorite Justinisms was when we were driving down a very busy Blanding Blvd. during rush hour. Justin made the announcement that he had to go to the bathroom. We were a long way from home, with no prospect of a toilet on our side of the road for quite a stretch. He sighed and said, "I'll just hold my legs together and pray...." which sent Mom and I into convulsions. I found a place to do a U-turn and went back to the Hardee's so he could go potty. After all that laughing, Mom and I had to go, too!

Again with the angry skies

This is the look of the angry sky yesterday, which deposited rain and showed some lightning. This one taken with my big camera.

...and then it gets angier still!!! After what happened in OK, we need to pay special attention to these type of clouds! This photo taken with my cell phone and submitted to the local radio station's Facebook page.