There’s an elderly gentleman I often see when I’m at the health club. We chatted a bit one day while we were on side-by-side treadmills, so now we’re old friends – meaning we smile and say hello whenever we see each other. When I greeted him the other morning and answered his “How are you today?” with “Fine, thanks. And you?” he responded enthusiastically that he was doing great. Then he added, “In fact, I’m fantastic! If I were any better, I wouldn’t be able [...]
I received a number of responses to last week’s blog, which focused on the people who lost everything in Hurricane Dorian, and on the way the storm put things in perspective for those of us who often get frustrated and annoyed by minor inconveniences. One of my friends, who lives in Florida, said he recently starting working on a way to deal with those minor inconveniences. Whenever he encounters an issue or problem that causes him stress, pain, or discomfort, he tries to remember there [...]
Due to a minor plumbing problem, we were without water in our house for two days last week. It was inconvenient and uncomfortable, especially since we didn’t foresee the need to fill containers or our sink with water ahead of time for drinking or washing. Still, it was indeed a minor issue, and the timing of it kept things very much in perspective. By “timing,” of course, I’m talking about this happening the same week as the catastrophic hurricane that decimated the Bahamas before turning [...]
The night after her funeral, I dreamed about my mother-in-law. She was sitting in a lawn chair in the back yard of the house where I lived till I was ten years old, and she was protecting us from pythons. I have no idea how pythons got into my dream. They’re not normally found in the Chicago area, where we had been for the last two weeks. And I hadn’t seen any movies or news reports lately about python invasions, although I did watch – [...]
“She’s transitioning,” the nurse told us, which was a lot more comforting to hear than, “She’s dying.” “Transitioning” made it sound as if she were simply moving from one phase of life to another, and that’s actually what she was doing. A booklet given to us by the hospice chaplain contained a poem that described dying in terms of a ship sailing away toward the horizon, getting smaller and smaller in our sight, but not in reality. On a far distant shore, one beyond our [...]
One of my favorite annual events was this week – the Perseid Meteor Shower, which shows up every August. And, as always, I set my alarm for the wee hours of the morning in order to watch for the shooting stars it always brings. A bright, full moon made it difficult to see much of anything earlier in the evening, so prime viewing time was much later – closer to the next morning than the night before. For two nights in a row, I got [...]
It was a great birthday. It was a great party. My husband’s Aunt Vera turned 100 last week, and we were among the family members who traveled to Chicago to help her celebrate. Her two surviving siblings were there, and many of her nieces and nephews, some who came from as far away as California, West Virginia, and Texas. And, of course, Georgia. “Is it a surprise party?” a number of people asked when I told them why I was going out of town. My [...]
I was digging through my files the other day, looking for something I wrote a long time ago. Before I found it, I came across something else from long ago that I thought I’d share with you today, since it seems even more relevant and appropriate now than when I first wrote it. It was first published in the Chanhassen Villager on December 2, 2004, and reprinted in 2016 in my book, Find Your Buried Treasure—Nuggets Mined from Everyday Life. I hope it gives you [...]
It was a perfect night for stargazing. The heat and humidity of the day had dissipated, and the sky was clear and bright. We weren’t scheduled for one of the major astronomical events that occur regularly, like the Perseid or Leonid meteor showers, or for a once-in-a-lifetime event like a super-blood-red-total-lunar-eclipse-moon. But when our neighbors invited a group of us over to enjoy the night sky and each other’s company, we were all in. “Bring your binoculars,” they said. It was still light out when [...]
A week after the all-day event celebrating her 75th birthday, I still have Alice Walker Fever. I’m sure one of the reasons is that our local newspaper this week was filled with stories and photos from the day, giving me a chance to relive it and to read about some of the activities I missed. Also, after writing about Alice and the celebration in my last blog post, a number of people have been emailing me to say they were at the event and that [...]