Be back soon.

Lunch at Panera and bonding with the Hankster!!

Yesterday I went to spend some quality time with my son and grandpuppy. It's about two hours and twenty minutes of a thruway drive to get there. We went to lunch at a Panara Restaurant which is one of my favorites, and the two of us caught up on life as it is. This week is his 30th birthday...whew! Hard to believe. I have a mental snapshot of the moment he was born. Where does the time go? Seems to be a crossroad of sorts...I am majorly proud of all that he has accomplished, and he is fortunate in that he has a job using the degree he pursued, and even better than that...he loves what he's doing!!!. And the best part...he is great at it, too!! Effort and determination have paid off for him.

Hank, my grandpuppy, is a great dog.[lab/collie mix adopted from the pound]. Good thing he is so cool, because during his chewing puppy stage, he chewed the sofa and its cushion. Not good, Hankster! And a gentle giant he is!! He now has a fenced in yard, and Pavlov would be proud of him nudging the bell by the door when he wants to go out! Thank God for Hank!! Cause no one loves you like your dog!!

My words of wisdom for people who are having a birthday that is perceived to be a crossroad in life.

Happy B'day Jer!!

And my B'day is 3 days after his. Is it a big one?? Oh yeah!

The porcupine eraser...soon to be known as...

We have a number of garden fruits and veges growing in containers. It is fun watching for signs of life and being a part of it all. I had promised myself that I would NOT order flowers/fruit plants from QVC this year. While very reputable and accomodating [if it doesn't grow, they send you new ones the next year], I have 3 year old blueberry plants that thus far are fruitless! But as I channel surfed my way through the stations, there were these strawberries guaranteed to be either huge or produce everlasting growth throughout the summer. They even had packaged the container, dirt, and plants as a kit. So I weakened...$38...planted...and they are on the deck...and we are watching and waiting.
We spotted greenery! Yeah!
A flower sprouted! Wahoo!
And then...with very close inspection...there was what looked like a pencil eraser with miniscule porcupine-like things sticking out...and...
Yes! We have a strawberry in progress! Unbelievable!!
We called it the $38 strawberry. And entertainment at its best!
Well, we now have 3 baby pin cushions in sight, and so they are the $12 strawberries!
We'll keep you posted. And hope that the price continues to go down as the strawberry patch produces more and more of the potential red sweet berries!
And those blueberries? They could learn something from their cousin berries. And, for that reason, they are now right beside the real fruit producing container.
Here's hoping they get the message. Or they will remain those 'boo-o-o-berries!

Make someone happy...

Happy Birthday to 'Good Night Sweet Jesus' !! That is Flo's nickname for the music teacher where I used to teach. I have two friends with the same first name and so when listening to a story, Flo will ask, "Which one are you talking about?" and I will sing the answer, "Good Night Sweet Jesus." The story behind that?? The short version:

One of my mom's favorite songs is 'Let There Be Peace On Earth', and whenever she went to church, she would always be hoping that they would sing that song. The organist met me at church and she played it and I taped it onto a cassette for Flo to listen to whenever she wanted to hear it. Since the tape had 3 hours, I started filling it with her other favorites that I was aware of, and nonchalontally asked her if I missed any.

She said, "Good Night Sweet Jesus' is a long ago favorite, but you I haven't heard it in years." I tracked down a copy of the music, and as we went for communion, the organist started playing it. She poked me in the back and said, "That's Good Night Sweet Jesus!!!" Great fun!!

So, I added it to her tape via my very talented music teacher BFF with the trained and beautiful voice! And that is how she was renamed 'GNSJ!!'

O Happy Day, Birthday Girl!

Dancing, pancakes, and the color 'yellow'.

For Flo, I started another set of pools because they help keep life interesting and something to look forward to. It is the first time that I have watched the TV show, 'So You Think You Can Dance' and it is in its 4th or 5th season. It is the dancing version of American Idol, and I was so surprised at how much I truly enjoyed it. It really just began with the top 20 dancers [ 10 guys and 10 girls] competing for the win. Everyone [ in the pool] gets one girl and one guy to cheer on [luck of the draw]and Flo has Janette and Jason. I like the way that the show changes the partners each week, and the variety of dance is refreshing. I watched all 10 dances, and the talent of these people amazed me. As a kid, we always watched 'The Ed Sullivan Show' with alll of the variety of talent that it offered. Coming up soon is, 'America's Got Talent', but we don't watch it until it is beyond the stupid auditions. And then, it is interesting. [and yes, another chance for Flo and 9 others to win some $$. And pass some time...watching some entertainment...especially since Flo doesn't get out often enough.

Tip of the day: Fiber One makes a pancake mix that [to me] made better pancakes than traditional/other kinds. We made half of them with fresh blueberries, and the other half with chocolate chips. You could eat them without syrup or you could cut them in quarters and eat them without silverware, dipping them in a little bowl of maple syrup. Either way, tasty and nutritious.[ and, oh yeah, the fiber, too!!]

And lastly, I had another flower bed made outside the living room window. Today, we purchased flowers to go into the new bed. Mostly a shaded area, begonias and impatiens were recommended. And there were YELLOW impatiens!! I love them! The pink, purple, and white are nice, too, along with the begonias . But yellow impatiens...

Wahoo!"

It's a surprise!

The hockey season is over for this year, as the Penguins won The Stanley Cup last night. Hockey fans [my son included] are a special breed of people. And I was reminded of his father and what a huge hockey fan he was. So, on a Friday night I picked him up from work and said that we were going on a surprise trip. He had no idea that I had gotten tickets for The Rangers in Madison Square Garden. Half of the fun was watching him realize where we were going. And it was a great time, too. Likewise, when my son was about 10 years old, there was another surprise trip that was quite memorable.

Good friends, whose two kids were Jer's best friends, and my son and I got into the minivan and started driving out of town without telling the 3 kids where we were going. We told them it was a surprise, and all the way there it was a guessing game of excitement. We had gotten tickets to see David Copperfield and it was around the time when he made the motorcycle he rode onto the stage ...disappear!! It was so worth the trip watching their faces light up when they saw the marquis: "David Copperfield Tonight!! " It was a terrific show... 'How did he do that?' and Jer got his Copperfield poster signed by the Master of Illusion himself!!
Surprises [good ones] can be great fun. Have you had a similar experience...whether you were the surpriser or the surprised?

Childhood in the 50's and 6o's.

When I saw this bike in clipart, it immediately brought me back to my childhood. We lived a half-block from a huge park, and there was always something going on. There was a yearly bicycle decorating contest. Kids would weave 'red white and blue' crepe paper in between the spikes of the bicycle wheels. Handlebars, seat, and everything else became our 'art' canvas. There would be a bicycle parade around the park, past the maypole and basketball courts, and by the main building [where we also made lariots and wove baskets] . We continued past the tennis courts which were flooded in winter for ice skating fun, and I can still remember the smell of burning mittens from standing by the barrel of fire where you paused to get warm]. There were swings , slides, and a 6 ft by 6ft concrete sandbox . There was no cover, and I can't remember evidence that cats also enjoyed it too. The center oval football-sized field was where all bikes came together for the winner's ceremony.

There were games of jump rope [daily], SPUD, red rover, mother may I, red light green light, all kinds of tag, hopscotch, jacks, and cards [war, rummie, fish, solitaire, ] and hide and seek. . The giraffe is responding to, "All-ie, all-ie in free!"[ HARD TO BELIEVE HE WASN'T FOUND!]

Kids of different ages played together, and boys and girls even played together in those group games. We knew how to tell time by the distinctive Westminster Chimes that the church's bell tower that 'bonged' every 15 minutes. Kids were kids and no one was rich. Rather, bikes were repainted and recycled.
I went to a retirement party last night and someone was talking about a book that had been written "How Did We Ever Survive Childhood Without a Helmit?"

Much of this is gone, but not forgotten. I don't know if kids today are having as much fun. Technology has taken away some of their "get up and go", and also caused a loss of 'people skills'. It is a very different world now. Kids need people to play with...so, how bout helping to get them out for a bike ride...or bocci ball...tennis...anyone?

Speed it up!!

I've had a request from my friend, Steve, about my blog:

"So, when are you going to tell the story about the ski lift?"

To get to Steve's reference, I should tell about the two ski resort experiences prior to his favorite ski lift memory.

#1: When I was in my early 20's, a friend of my brother's was going skiing for the day and asked me to join him.

"I have never been skiing, and don't have any of the equipment/gear to go with you."

"No problem. You can rent all of the ski stuff, and it's easy to learn."

What the heck! [I thought] We went to the mountain[!!], rented the equipment, and bought a one day lift pass. As we are in motion on the way up, I asked, "When the lift stops, which way are we turning?"

"The lift doesn't stop; you ski off of it."

Well, of course you do...what was I thinking? Just because I had never skied didn't mean that disaster was looming at the top of the hill! [How stupid was I!!!]

It took me a while [3 hours] to get down the hill. I asked to ski at my own pace...learn how to stop without just sitting down, and wanted to be miserable all by myself. It was a very frustrating experience for half of the day, and the other half was better. I got the hang of it enough to enjoy the sport. But I think I vowed not to go again.

#2: I think that it was my last year in college that about 5 of my friends wanted to go to Hunter Mountain for the weekend. If I didn't want to ski, I could hang out in the ski lodge, meet people, etc. There were many activities going on that weekend. I had one problem to fix before going. Since I had just finished a course of antibiotics, I managed to get a yeast infection. In the 70's, you couldn't buy the over the counter appropriate medicine, but somehow I managed to get a Friday afternoon doctor appointment along with a prescription to make things right. As my friends picked me up, I told them that I needed to have this prescription filled to take with me.

Then I heard,"Let's get on the road and get the prescription filled when we get there." OK.

Can you guess what's coming next?? There was no drug store in Hunter Mountain.

What could possibly make things worse??...a blizzard so encompassing that we were snowed in the cabin and could not make our way anywhere! for anything! skiing, food, NOTHING !
And let me add that each bed was allotted one blanket. So, there I was...snowed into a cabin with 5 of my friends...freezing...with no where to go ...and the added joy of an untreated yeast infection! Probably this experience was the one where I learned to never, ever, ask the question, "What else could happen?" or "What could be worse than this?"

#3: ok...first time, I skied a bit, second time...snowed in and not able to even go to the ski lodge if I even wanted to ski. The third time...was at a ski/golf resort depending upon the season. About twenty of my fellow school colleagues were at 'Curriculum Camp' in the first week of July.

From Sunday at 4 PM until Friday at 4 PM, it was an intense educational experience that was very scheduled. As a matter of fact, we had a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon that was our only free time. You could go golfing [at this resort], shopping, whatever...and they fired up the chairlift for rides for anyone who wanted to go. The non golfers decided to go for a ride, and two by two, we got on the chairlift with some empty seats between us, probably to even things out I guess. It started out just fine. It was beautiful scenery, a beautiful day, and as we went up and then back down, we got to smile and wave to our friends. Pam and I [going up] shouted out to Steve and Dean [coming down] and Diane was right behind us. Kind of fun. And then, all of a sudden, the speed of the chairlift was noticeably faster. We were zipping along at a record pace and so was my heart rate! Evidently, Steve had given the 'Wizard of Oz' [the man behind the control window] the hand signal to...S P E E D I T U P ! And he did. And I was in altered states of fear! What, oh what, could possibly make this situation worse?? I did not voice that question, but we found out anyway. Suddenly, in the middle of the ascent to the top...the entire chairlift came to a sudden stop. Well, not exactly! You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that the chairs would swing in a 'back and forth...back and forth...' motion. Holy ****!

And then there was prayer on the mountain as my "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph " rang out and my eyes closed [to block out the scary sight of swaying mid-air].

I had exceeded my capacity for fun.

And Pam stood up at my retirement dinner and told everyone, "I didn't realize how religious Mare was until curriculum camp when her 'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph' echoed back from the mountainside."

And no, there will be no more ski lifts or skiing in my future.

So, there you have it. There were tears of laughter rolling down Steve's face. Uncontrollable laughter. Which, by the way, is one of my favorite things....uncontrollable laughter.

It doesn't get any better than that.

My!...What big eyes you have!

I hadn't been to the eye doctor in three years, and so I had called to make an appointment a couple of months ago. The doctor is an excellent eye doctor, but I have spent many a 'half-day' in his office waiting....then in a room waiting...then drops in my eyes and more waiting...that I am smarter now. I asked for a day when I was either his first appointment of the morning or the first appointment after lunch.

After meeting with a good friend for lunch at a restaurant [wahoo!], I continued on for the tests: glaucoma, cateract, general eye conditions. Ya know...eyeball to eyeball close with the doc..is pretty darned close!!!It was a definite invasion of my 'personal space'. Oh well, everything went well and I passed all tests with flying colors!
"See you in 3 years."
They gave me sunglasses to wear out, and as I sat in the driver's seat and looked at my dialated eyes, it reminded me of my last visit several years ago. I had taken a half -day off at school, because I figured I could still teach with no problem after the appointment. I wore sunglasses driving to school, and removed them to get things rolling. And then, one by one, I heard...
"Wow! What happened to you?"
"What happened to your eyes?"
And even as I started the afternoon and we switched classes, I still watched their eyes get as big as...??my eyes ??
"Do you have any idea what your eyes look like?"
Okay, okay, let me look. They can't be that scary, can they?

Yes, indeedy! Ooph!! What big eyes I had!! It made me look very, very weird. And that was the general reaction from the adults, too!
Had I known I would be scaring the kiddies, I would have taken the whole day!
Today, I only scared the dog when she jumped onto my lap and came into the close proxitity of 'eyeball to eyeball' contact. If dogs could talk, I think she was swearing!!
'What the ****happened to you?"

Tuesday June 2...Independance Day!

Yesterday was my first trip driving my car since Feb. 17 , and it was great, and I was pooped afterward!! Just a three minute drive to Meals on Wheels to visit friends, and practice walking. The walker gives a sense of assistance, and it went well. I stopped on the way home and bought some already growing sunflowers. I had called ahead and was able to make that transaction from the driver's seat of the car. I didn't want to test the gravelly plant place's ground. Nice people and very helpful. When I got home, I took a couple of Aleve, and wished that Physical Therapy wasn't at 430 because I didn't think I had the amount of energy to do all that I knew was on the agenda. Well, 430 came and went, and YES! There is a God! PT was actually scheduled for Wed...so I got a one day reprieve!! Wahoo!