A to Z Reflections 2023 #AtoZChallenge

Welcome to my Reflections on the 2023 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. 

Along with hundreds of other bloggers, I participated in a blogging challenge this past April which involved blogging about something beginning with A on April 1, all the way to Z on April 30, with breaks only on Sunday (except April 30). (26 letters = 26 days of posts). My theme was "Exploring South Carolina and the Eastern United States."

I have a love/hate relationship with this Challenge.  I always make up my mind to do it at the last minute.   I was planning to take a trip in mid April for an event several hundred miles away, so had to scramble to write posts in advance.  Fortunately, I had the time (and energy) to do that.

I usually don't write all posts in advance, but this year I did, and it's the only reason I was able to stay in the Challenge.

In our Reflections post, we are supposed to reflect on the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge we just completed, and let the A to Z team know what worked, what didn't work, what our experiences were.  But I hit an unexpected bump in the road, although I was able to finish.  More on that shortly.

I'm just fortunate that I picked a good theme, enough to (mostly) carry me through.  I took a trip to South Carolina in February of this year, and I would have taken more (and some different) pictures I knew.  Fortunately, I had South Carolina pictures from past visits. 

As you've probably figured out by now, photography is a large part of my blogging.  I hope you enjoyed what I did.

It always seems, though, that I do variations of the same theme year after year.  Travel and pictures.  Rinse and repeat.  A part of me wants to be original.  Another part just plain likes what I am doing, variations and all. Next year?  As someone I love likes to say "I'm not worried about that".

Part of the fun of this challenge is finding new blogs, and rediscovering blogs I read during previous challenges.  I'm not going to name any blog in particular because I don't want to inadvertently leave anyone out.

To you all, I offer a virtual bouquet (not my tree) of cherry blooms.

In past years, we were expected to visit as many participating blogs as possible.  This year, we had the choice of  visiting only blogs that had visited and commented on our blog. I know the latter choice factored into the decision of one blogger who had stopped participating to participate (and she finished).  I chose the latter, too, and it was a good thing I did, because....

The Real Challenge of April Wasn't A to Z but....

On April 6, spouse and I both tested positive for COVID. Both of us were symptomatic. And, I had a rebound so I had double the pleasure, double the fun (NOT!)

I will spare you the details, but they were both (medically) mild cases and we both are fine now. I already had posts written so was able to stay in.  Thank you, participants who wrote short posts or had mostly pictures.  You saved me on the several days I couldn't concentrate enough to read longer posts.

The experience reminded me that life doesn't always go as planned, and you just have to do the best you can under what life throws at you.  So, if anything, that is the best lesson this year's Challenge had for me. 

At least two blogs I already knew and liked had to drop out for varying reasons.  Sometimes, life is like that, too.  Another lesson we can all learn:  be flexible.

Statistics? 

Didn't check.  So, if you followed me or read me a lot, I want to say "Thank you".

If you did find me, I did reciprocate, though -I hope. See "The Real Challenge of April" above.

Now, let's give a shoutout to those who comprise the Blogging from A to Z team:

Arlee Bird (founder)Tossing it Out

J Lenni Dorner (captain) of Blog of Author J Lenni Dorner

Zalka Csenge Virág of The Multicolored Diary

John Holton of The Sound of One Hand Typing

Jayden R Vincente (spreadsheets) of J. R Vincente Erotica Writer (note, this links to an "adult" website.)

Finally, the unknown Graphic artist who decided to remain Anonymous (graphics) (and A to Z is looking for someone for 2024)

If you discovered my blog through A to Z, either this year or previous years, and are still here reading this, I thank you.

Last but not least...I hope you'll stay and keep reading my blog

I've been blogging daily since 2011 (I started blogging in 2009) so I hope you'll stick around and check out my regular programming:  Music Moves Me on Mondays, a Wordless Wednesday (not that wordless) on Wednesdays, and Skywatch Friday on Friday.

THANK YOU, MY READERS, NEW AND OLD.  I WOULD NOT BLOG WITHOUT YOU. 

The Teen Years and More Thoughts on an Alumni Day

When I think of the possibility of reincarnation, one of the things I dread going through once again is my teen years.  Or, well, the teen years of the person I come back as.

Maybe "dread" is the wrong word, but if I come back again and have to go through the teen years, I hope they will be....different.  In a good way.  

Growing up is hard to do.  I think it's getting harder and harder.  It's harder now than when my son was growing up.

True, I grew up in the 50's and 60's, which we sometimes look back at with nostalgia, but the surface truths of those years held deep, dark, nasty secrets.  And the Vietnam War overshadowed the happiness of some of those years.

Then, there are high school reunions, where we are asked to relive some of those years.

After reading my recent post on my spouse's 40th high school reunion (the only reunion either one of us has ever attended) I found I'm not the only one who has stayed away from them.  One might say I hit a nerve.

Why do we get so nostalgic about high school?  Is it because of friends we have lost touch with, friends we hope to reconnect with?  Or because we want to return to a time when things were simpler and we were younger?  Except, things were never simpler back when, whatever back when is for you.

It certainly isn't simple now, though, in 2023.

I had signed up for my 50th high school reunion only because one of the two gatherings was going to be held at the high school I went to.  It wasn't a dinner dance, but rather was a daytime event, which was going to feature speakers, demonstrations, and tours of the school (it is still in the same building but things have changed).

There was only one problem - the reunion was scheduled to be held in June of 2020.  You can all guess what happened.  Nothing happened. If it ever happened, I never heard of a rescheduling.  I had other things to think about.

So I am trying again, this year, with an "all years" alumni day, again in June, celebrating my high school's 85th anniversary.  Scheduled during the morning and early afternoon, it will feature speakers, demonstrations, and tours of the school.  It will also feature opportunities to meet current students.

Meeting current students, I admit, was what interested me the most.  I keep in mind that these are the students of the pandemic years, the years of active shooters drills, the years of social media bullying.  They are the students who were rudely yanked from their almost spring 2020 routines and dumped into a new nightmare of remote learning, illness, and fear.   Then, they returned to school in the fall of 2021, to masks, illness (when Omicron swept through the school, which I heard about through Reddit) and more fear.

I lost a high school reunion in June of 2020.  They lost so much more.  They were too young to have the resources to cope that someone my age has.  

They persevered.   But at what cost?

We'll see the outside of those students, their public faces, the faces of high academic achievement (something my high school specializes in).  What we won't see is the inside.

Nor will I see how they see us - the young adults, the middle aged, the elderly.  An all years reunion.  I may be happy I can't read their minds, but a part of me will want to know how they will perceive the alumni like me.

Who will come to the alumni day?  Will I know anyone? (Being a New York City school, my graduating class had hundreds of students.  I knew a fraction of them.)  Will I even be able to make my way through the school floor plan?

(I'll be happy to have a friend, and perhaps a couple of guests, just in case....)

The event is free, and I could change my mind and decide not to come after all.  It will cost me some, for two nights worth of motels, just for a four hour event.  Fortunately, I have other things I can do just a few miles away from the school

If I do go, it sure will be interesting.  And different.  

Am I ready?

Stay tuned.

Art Social

 During the first three weeks of October, our general area runs several "art trails" on weekends.  On each of these, you can visit the studios where the artists work, meet them, and ask them questions.  Spouse and I have been going to these events for several years, but this was the first time since the pandemic we participated in so many.

In our county in New York State, the art trail was mainly displays in museums or historic houses, but the artists were still there.  This event is where I took this short class in flower arranging.

This past weekend (and yesterday) we went to two more art trails: one in and around Ithaca, New York (home of Cornell and Ithaca College), and one in rural Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. 

All three art trails had one thing in common.

Almost everyone was eager to meet and talk.  Of course, they were ready to talk about their art, but there was more to it than that.

Several, almost a little shyly, showed art influenced by the pandemic.

Others just wanted to talk.  The hunger for human contact is still there, and I think that is what made these events so special this year.

It was so much more than staring at paintings, which one might think is what these trails consist of.

There was the older woman who had grown up in the British Isles, who talked about how different their clouds looked from ours.

There was the mother and daughter artists and how they interacted with each other.

The artist who made beautiful wall art from stones, driftwood, and other found objects.

The woman who showed me her large garden.  She could no longer work it all herself, so had given some of it over to a local CSA (community supported agriculture) organization.  She wanted to know if my area had CSA's and we had a nice discussion about gardening.

But some discussions were serious.  There was the man who made birdhouses that were works of art, while his wife and I discussed hunger in their rural area.

At that stop, we purchased a raffle ticket to support a local food bank where we would have won one of those birdhouses, but we didn't win.  Alas.

Another man talked about his neighbor, a guitar maker.  That led to a string of discovery that I want to blog about another time.

Of course, there was autumn foliage to look at.

The historic state park and its demonstration gardens.

Taken from the car - sorry for the blurriness

The barn that reminded us about ETERNITY.

We remember that we have these pockets of peace in a world that sometimes feels full of war and violence.

Sometimes you just need to stop, take a deep breath, and appreciate what is around you.

What If The Pandemic Had Never Happened?

Do you like playing the "What if" game?  

I do, sometimes.  Saturday and Sunday were one of those times.

I went to a county wide Art Trail, where various artists open up their studios to visitors, or display their creations in venues such as museums.

A flower arrangement created before our eyes

There was even a flower arranging class, taught by a creative woman I hadn't seen since before COVID.

Yes, that expression we all use so casually now.

"Before COVID".  We all know exactly what it means.

It was the time of nothing being what we had planned it to be.

Over this weekend, talking to some of the artists (and overhearing other conversations) the pandemic lockdown was mentioned time and again by the artists.  I heard a lot of "I had a lot of time to think/to work on a certain project/I had time to reconsider where my life was going."  There were career changes.  There were new ways of expressing themselves. 

I also know many others didn't have that time to think.  First responders didn't.  Health care workers didn't.  Teachers.  Farmers. Essential workers. Parents of school age children.  They didn't.  All of us, though, learned lessons about how fragile life is, and how life laughs at our plans.

It was a valuable lesson.

For me, I think of it as being moved to another track in the journey of life.  Pre-pandemic, I was planning to retire in April of 2020.  I planned to go to the senior center.  I planned to snowbird in Florida.  I was going to do volunteer work.

Those plans.  It all seems like it's a million miles away now. 

I retired but went right back to (part time, same job but at home) work. Why not? It was a way to keep in touch with people I had known for years.

I never signed up for volunteer work after all.  I didn't go to a senior center, not once not even when they opened back up (which took a long time where I live in New York State).

Last month, I went back into the office for the first time since COVID.  I ended up going in twice, because I couldn't get through all the boxes I needed to go through on day one.

One of my regular readers asked me what I found, so here we go.

The once noisy open space was still open, but it was quiet.  We are still spaced to be apart from each other, and many of us are still working from home full time, or are hybrid (working in both places).  It was almost too quiet.

The boxes awaited me.

I ended up tossing much of what was in the boxes, but I had to look through everything first.  I scanned what I felt needed to be scanned, so we could refer to these items electronically.  We hadn't missed much of what I had boxed up in those three years (my department's floor was being remodeled when COVID hit, so I had actually packed in the fall of 2019, when we moved into temporary quarters.) 

I also found out I missed the office in some ways.  I talked (in person! not on a screen!) to several people I used to see several times a week, or more.  Some were working full time (or that day) in the office.  Some, like me, had been called in to go through their boxes and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. 

There was an electricity in the air.  An energy.  An energy that could almost be touched.

My final impression?  "It was weird.  But good."

I understand now what the people who want their employees back in the office are talking about, although I don't agree with them forcing employees back. But, on the other hand, I do not want to go back to the way it was.  I'm not the same person I was on March 19, 2020.

So, what if the pandemic had never happened?  There are many very bad things happening all around us.  Many people seem to have lost their basic manners, their social behavior, even their very humanity.  COVID was a huge social experiment.  We won't know the final outcome for years.

As horrible as COVID was (and still is - make no mistake, it's still with us) it has changed all our lives. Sometimes tragically.  Sometimes, for the good.

Change is hard.  Some of us try to go back to March 2020, the way it was.  I think we should carefully pick and choose.  There was good mixed in with the bad.

Sometimes, we need to be pushed beyond our comfort zone.

As the saying goes, "it is what it is".  I hope we can all move forward eventually, to a better tomorrow.

The alternative is too terrible to imagine.

What Was Once Familiar

Once, the routine was familiar.  Expected.  Normal.

The commute to work.  Entering the building.  Walking to my office, taking off my coat if it was winter, booting my computer.

Putting my bagged lunch in the refrigerator.  Getting water.  Making a cup of coffee in the Keurig.  Greeting my co-workers. Checking voicemail and email.

Never quite knowing what to expect from the day, but I knew what to expect from the routine.

Later today, I'll be back in the office for a few hours.  It will be the first time since Thursday, March 19, 2020.  This may amaze many, who returned to the office months or even years ago, but, during the months after I was sent home, I retired but then immediately resumed part time work.

This is the post I wrote the day after I was sent home..

The morning that turned out to be my last day in the office, and the first at home.

Binghamton in the time of COVID (including what happened that morning of March 19).

When we were sent home, I was working temporarily in a different area because my area was being remodeled and updated. That work began in the late fall of 2019.  I had packed up everything I wouldn't need during the months of  remodeling. I have to laugh now.  Months. It's been almost three years since I started to pack.

My manager asked me to come in today to go through those boxes.  I don't quite know what I will find.

I don't know what my former space looks like now.   There was extensive remodeling since the last time I was in the space.  Even the door to the area where I work was relocated.

Other people are working in my area.  I still work fully remote.  Please don't laugh.  How do I interact with these people? (One I know, one I barely know).

I no longer drink coffee.

Why do I have mixed emotions about what is, in a way, a homecoming?

Will I take time to retrace some of my daily routines - eating lunch in a public space or the library garden, taking pictures of the downtown trees, taking a walk past downtown businesses that no longer exist? But, on the other hand, there are new businesses.

Collier St, Binghamton, New York 2017

Probably not.  I don't want to wallow in memories, though it's tempting.  The past is the past.  So maybe not.

Spring renewal

The past belongs in the past.

Roundabout, downtown Binghamton

I am excited, though.

October 2019, downtown Binghamton

 Meanwhile, the space I live in changes. From spring to summer to fall....

Broome County Courthouse

 ...to winter.   Nature remodels and changes, too.

Let me learn again from Nature. As the seasons change from spring to winter, Nature decrees that change is inevitable.  So it is with our lives. Now, new things are familiar. Our days here are not to be wasted.  

So yes, I am excited.

I can hardly wait for this newest adventure to begin.

Facing the Future by Remembering The Past

A heads up: this post includes some discussion of a book that takes a deep dive into COVID's affect on those who experienced the pandemic, especially in the second part of the book.  It may hit too close to home for some.  The research this author did for this book, incidentally, is outstanding. So onward to my thoughts:

A few days ago, I finished reading a book by Jodi Picault called "Wish You Were Here". It's my first book by her, and if this is like her other works, it won't be my last. (I hope the next one doesn't disappoint - I've had that happen with prolific writers).  

In a nutshell (because if I revealed the plot, it would have to contain a major spoiler), two 30-somethings, Diana and Finn, have their entire lives planned.  They will marry, buy a house, get a particular breed of dog, have two children, and visit a list of places.  Diana is an associate art specialist at a major New York City auction house.  Finn is a surgical resident at a major Manhattan hospital. 

Their careers are both on track.

Diana and Finn have purchased tickets to visit the Galapagos Islands, where Diana suspects that Finn will propose to her. It's the trip of their lifetimes.  It took them four years to save up.  They are supposed to leave in mid-March, 2020.

And then....COVID.  Everything changes, and the book is an examination of life during the first months of the pandemic from several different angles.  The book, for me, was a wrenching, emotional experience.

I had forgotten so much about those months.  Perhaps we all have, in a kind of mutually agreed on amnesia.  We don't want to remember.  We think, perhaps, that forgetting will make it easier to move on.  Or maybe we still deny it never happened.  Denial can be a type of forgetting, too.

But we need to look inward and to document our experiences.  We should ask ourselves, in that review, if our actions are making the world, or at least our neighborhood, a better place.

Are we bringing happiness to others?  Do our words, our writing, our photography, our volunteer work, our paid work, bring meaning to us?  Joy, or another positive thing, perhaps, to others?

This book stayed with me after I turned the last page. I stayed in its world.  As harrowing as what was presented could be, I didn't want to let go.

Those books are the best kinds of books.

But other things happened while I was reading the book.

Hydrangeas, Ross Park, Binghamton, 8-20-22

While I was reading the book, I read a blog post by a fellow midlife (or later) blogger, Laura, who has written candidly on her blog about various challenges in her life.  She considers some of her health challenges a gift, teaching her to look at others with compassion.  One of her latest posts bluntly discusses "What It's Like to Age Faster than my Friends".

Here is the blog post, and I invite all my readers to read and ponder it.

It seems to me (and many other people I've read) that we in the United States have become more selfish.  Less caring of our neighbors and community.  Some have turned to social media with posts and thoughts that will terrify you.

Finally, a man I went to high school with, the life partner of a friend of many years, and a man who fought his years long battle with cancer with grace and courage, would have turned 69 on Sunday.  But he passed away recently, so, instead, his birthday was marked with remembering the good man he was.

We are all granted a number, the number of breaths we will take in our individual gardens of life.  Most of us don't know that number.  But some of us do. I have been blessed by a lifetime longer than that of many people on this Earth, including my mother, and several "in real life" friends who passed in their 50's and 60's.  In a couple of years, I will be as old as my father was.  

Both my parents passed suddenly.  Here one day and gone the next. Both had health challenges that impacted their life spans.

So what am I doing with the years and health I've been blessed with?  Have I tended my garden of life?  Or is it getting overgrown with weeds, drooping in a drought brought on by not enough of the rain called self love?

We live in perilous times.  Anxious times.  But that makes self care, and finding meaning, even more important.

It may be time to reexamine our lives once again, and remember what we've been through in the pandemic times.

If we forget the past, we won't have a roadmap to the future.  History teaches us that without a roadmap, things never end well.  

What road will we choose?

The Summer Picnic Reunion

For years, the company I worked for held an annual company picnic for employees and their families.  They got away from it in more recent years, thanks to COVID.

Last week, my company held an in person company picnic in a local park.

Many of us still work remotely, either full or part of the time. I am happy that the work I do permitted that option.  My son has been in his workplace from day one of COVID, and my spouse, if he hadn't retired, also had a job that had to be done in person.

I don't know the number, but enough of us hadn't see each other in person since mid March of 2020. Some of them I have seen in online meetings.  Some I've seen around town.  Others I hadn't seen at all.

I never thought it would be like this.  We had been sent home "for two weeks", after all. 

Who could see into the future?

Some people had gained weight in those almost two and a half years.  Some people had lost weight.  Some people had a lot more gray hair than the last time I had seen them.  For many of them, I don't know what their personal struggles and joys have been since the day I was sent home in mid March. More than one of them had retired in the intervening years, and their absence was noted by those who worked closely with them.

Some of us sat together and ate.  Others played games.

Once again we saw spouses of our co workers.  We met some of their children and grandchildren, and (in one case) a parent. Several people brought their dogs. 

We sent phones around with photos.  We circulated, saying hi to people we used to pass in the hall or talk to at the water fountain.  People air hugged and real-hugged.

Memories flooded back, but not always.   In some cases, I had trouble remembering people's names, and I wasn't the only one.

But, other memories were as fresh as the day they happened.

What a long, strange two weeks it has been.

But, whatever happens in the coming weeks and months, we were able to get together for a handful of hours. We have those memories.

No one will be able to take that away from us.

The Dead Goldfish and Other Colonoscopy Adventures

Yes, you read the title of my blog post correctly.  And fair warning, it's going to get a little gross.

But before I get into my latest colonoscopy adventure, I have a request for you.  If you are (in the United States) 45 or older, please please please get that colonoscopy.  Yes, the prep (which involves a liquid diet and then hours of drinking mass quantities of a liquid that makes you - um, empty out your colon) isn't fun.  

Yes, the prep and procedure itself ties up perhaps one and a half days of your life.  But please be the warrior and get it. 

Having said that, I was supposed to have my 10 year colonoscopy in January of 2021, right in the middle of Delta.  So I put it off.  And there were other delays caused by practicioners.  My pre-procedure appointment finally happened in November, 2021.

By November, we were surging with Omicron and some hospitals in New York State, where I live, were starting to temporarily halt outpatient surgery.  So I discussed at my November appointment and I got the bright idea of putting the colonoscopy off until late April, 2022.  The gastro's office was agreeable.

To make a painful story short, I started my late April prep in the afternoon of the day before the procedure, in the midst of a snowstorm.  That snowstorm ended up causing many downed trees and a lot of power failures by the morning of my procedure. The power failures included the hospital where I was supposed to get the colonoscopy.  An hour after I finished my prep I got the call - cancelled.

It was rescheduled for this past Friday.  

This time, all went well.  Friday morning, all cleaned out (I'll spare you the details), I reported to the hospital.  I was checked in and pointed to the waiting room.

The waiting room is right next to where all the nurses and other staff are. You couldn't see them but you could hear them. There was a lot of conversation, which I ignored, but then someone sounded upset.

"It died", a woman I couldn't see exclaimed.  Let's call her Woman 1.  My ears perked right up. What had died?

Someone else said, "well, flush it down the toilet!"

A minute or so later, the sound of a flush echoed through the waiting room.  Loudly. 

Right after that, I heard a co worker scold "I TOLD you it was going to die!" To which Woman 1 responded "It jumped out of the bowl!" Woman 1 also mentioned she was "going to get another one."

Bowls.....flushes. Childhood memories of the goldfish my Mom tried to keep alive.  Did one of the GI nurses seriously have a pet fish?  That's my guess. This is just a wild guess and maybe it's a hallucination hangover from the colonoscopy drugs.   Except that my spouse was with me until I was taken in, and he heard the conversation and flush, too.

(No pictures today).

About a million years later, my name was called. I was taken to a room, changed into a gown, and the nurses did what they needed to do.  I will say the nurses I saw that day were all wonderful.  After they prepped me and wheeled me into the colonoscopy room, the gastro asked me to start counting from 1 up.  I made it to 21 (a personal record). The next thing I knew, I was back in the room with my belongings. Finally, I had the procedure!

They found a polyp, the first I've had.  I'm waiting for the biopsy result.  My only concern is the year and a half I was late.  Some my doing, some the gastro's office. I was hoping this would be my last colonoscopy.  We'll have to see.

So, please don't wait.  Get it done.

Retirement Thoughts

The other day, I was congratulating a co worker for her promotion, and she asked me, "When are you going to retire?"

I'm technically retired, but started working part time, literally, two days after I retired.  Same employer.  Same job.  And I'm still at it.  Part of the reason was my timing (not the best; I retired in April of 2020) and part of it was, I still liked my job.  I just couldn't do it full time anymore.

I had plans.  Didn't we all?  And then the pandemic came along and upended everything. 

First daylily of 2022 - June 4

I'm fortunate - I'm not outgoing, and my flowers were unaffected by COVID.

I've been fortunate enough to be able to work from home ever since (I was sent home March 19, 2020) and my employer has recently allowed most of its employees (some jobs just require a physical presence, but many don't) to choose full time in office, hybrid, or fully remote.

At this point, for my department, only one of us is in the office, and she sometimes works once a week from home.  The rest of us are fully remote, although a couple of us may be returning on a hybrid basis.  No one has chosen to be in the office 100% of that time.

I should also mention that I'm the only part timer.

Our manager's manager, several months ago, decided to schedule a half hour meeting once a week (on one of the days I work) for the two departments she manages, where we do not talk about work, but rather about ourselves and our lives.

We've been introduced to co-worker dogs,cats, grandchildren, nieces, and even (once) a son in law.

This week, the manager's manager was out, and we got to talk about our working from home.

One person, who is quite outgoing, started out hating it, but she's changed her mind.  Others have loved it from the start.  It's given us flexibility.  One person's two daughters have both had their first babies during the pandemic, and she was able to spend time helping her daughters out, and bonding with the grandbabies.

Another co worker, who lives alone (not counting her pets), talked about how less stressful her life has become.

As for me...no grandbabies.  No cats.  No dogs.  But I can spend my lunch times with my spouse (who retired before I did.)  My commute, once 20-30 minutes each way, is now 30 seconds.

Instead of walking in downtown Binghamton, New York, where I used to walk, I walk in a local park, along a river, and listen to birds.  (OK, I also have to dodge goose droppings, but the streets of Binghamton have their own perils.  Like the remains of the prey of peregrine falcons, which live on top of one of the taller buildings.)

So, back to retirement.  How should I answer that co-worker?

In 2014, I blogged the following:

"Years ago, I used to play The Game of Life with my young son.  This board game has a fascinating history - it was created by Milton Bradley (yes, there was a real Milton Bradley) in 1860.

 In the Game of Life version we played, after high school, you could choose either to go to college or start work immediately.  You chose a profession, got married, had children, did various things, and ended up in one of two retirement villages, depending on how much money you had.

And then, I suppose, you drove into the sunset.  As I recall, that's where the game ended.  You added up your money and other assets and the player who had the most won.

Won.  As if life was a competition.  For some people, of course, it is.  I'm not one of them.

I wonder about retirement, because I know several people around my age, and even younger, who are retired.  Some retired voluntarily.  At least three of them retired to take care of elderly parents and stayed retired when the parents left the planet.  Several retired when their employers, long time employers decided they were not needed anymore...

 I also know several people who retired, with high expectations, and found themselves working again (generally not for the same employers they retired from) within a matter of months.

Guess that sunset wasn't too attractive.  One man was plain bored.  Several discovered they missed income coming in."

In that blog post, I hoped we could do things we loved.

So, retire for good?  Not quite yet.  But I'm thinking.  I'm going to be 70 later this year.  I have cousins older than me that are still working (part time).  But others have taken the plunge.  And there's the issue of inflation.

I'm thinking....  

Sadness at the A to Z

Blogging from A to Z is a blogging event I participate in each April.

Participants start with the letter A on April 1, the letter B on April 2, and end up with Z.  On "A" day your post must be about a topic that begins with the letter day, then "B" on "B" day, and...well, you get the idea.  You post every day in April except Sundays, and if you subtract Sundays from April you come up with 26 days of blogging.  26 letters.

It isn't easy, but it sure is fun.  Here is an excellent explanation of how it works, from someone who has been doing A to Z since 2012.

Many bloggers choose themes, and part of the fun is going to blogs you haven't read before, reading their offerings, and making new blogging friends.  In fact, you are encouraged to visit as many blogs as you can both during April, and (optional) during the rest of the year.

So, when sadness strikes, it's a special sadness.

I started doing A to Z's in 2015 and have done it every year since.  My themes tend to be centered around my domestic travels (minimal since January of 2020), my photos, or both.

But my thoughts have been elsewhere all winter, and it wasn't on my radar.  At all.  

Every winter I go blank for a while.  Sure, I'm here physically but suddenly I wake up one day and feel like I've lost several weeks.

I've woken up from that mid winter mental nap now and I'm starting to get that "A to Z" itch. You'll know what I've decided on March 7, when the theme reveal starts.

Yesterday, I went to the A to Z website and, to my sorrow, discovered that the graphics designer for A to Z, Jeremy, passed away January 3 from COVID-19.  February 2 was to be a tribute day.  That day, of course has passed, but it's obvious that Jeremy was loved by many, and will be missed.

But I can still offer a virtual flower.  I didn't know Jeremy, but I do know people who have lost loved ones to COVID.  Too many of us have lost family members or friends to this plague which continues to divide us, and worse.

This is a kalanchoe flower with a special backstory.

Back in 2018, my mother law had to be taken to the ER several times.  Her health conditions, at age 90, were gettig worse.  She was hospitalized, sent to rehab in a nursing home and eventually entered the nursing home proper.

This kalanchoe was a gift from us, and after her death in late November, 2018, we took it home.  It never bloomed after its initial bloom when we gave it to her.  Earlier this winter, I repotted it.

Sunday, it bloomed.  Just one flower bud, but it's a start.  Maybe it's a sign of hope, too.

I sometimes wonder at the paths each of us would have taken without the pandemic.  Millions of people alive in 2020 would still be alive today, and others of us would have taken different paths in life.

I found a poem yesterday that may not be speaking of COVID, but it spoke to me.

Sadness at the A to Z.  Sadness in the world.

But also hope, as my last amaryllis flower blooms.

Neighborhood Church #WordlessWednesday

For years, the small neighborhood church had served its members, many of whom were refugees from Southeast Asia.

When churches had to go remote during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown, I had assumed that church had gone remote, also.

The parking lot was never plowed.  Perhaps, there was no need.

But, even after churches were permitted to resume in person services, no one seemed to be coming here anymore.

One day recently, I passed the church.  

There was a "For Sale" sign off to one side.  I'd love to know the story behind it.

The gloomy sky fits the mood of this building perfectly.

 

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

In the Mall 2022 Style

Today was one of those deceptive sunny days where I live in the Southern Tier of New York.  It looks lovely outside but it's cold, and we are also under a winter weather advisory.  We may have some icing tonight and tomorrow is going to be a mess.  So we took a short walk outside, unlike yesterday.

Yesterday, after lunch, we went to the local indoor mall for the first time since the holiday season.

The Christmas decorations had made it look so bright.  Of course, they were no longer there.

Neither was the Christmas art.  And neither were the several popup stores selling calendars, Christmas decorations, and the like.

What we did see was a sign of the times, at the franchise pretzel place.  It may have been the reason why a couple of other stores were shuttered on a Friday afternoon.

The mall has been in trouble for a few years now.  But this is the last thing we ever dreamed of.

Blue Christmas 2021

Today would have been my mother in law's 94th birthday.

This throwback is from December 9, 2009, the first time I wrote about "Blue Christmas".  Repeating this post has become a holiday tradition for this blog, because not everyone has a happy holiday season.

We've had several instances of deaths around the holidays in my family.  My father in law died overnight on Christmas, 1998.  In 2015, our family (inlaws) experienced holiday death in the family again when brother in law's mother in law passed away right after Thanksgiving.  In 2018, my mother in law died the day after Thanksgiving.  Two weeks later, a first cousin passed away after a brief hospitalization.  Needless to say, we aren't the only ones sharing in this type of trauma.

But none of us ever dreamed we would spend almost two years in a pandemic.

Now this sorrow is shared by the families of over 800,000 people in the United States. Not only that, but there is the "hidden pandemic" - all the children who have lost one or both primary caregivers due to COVID-19.

The secular Christmas, the Christmas of shopping, spending, decorating, and eating seems to be more intense this year than in a long time.  For those left out, it is more painful than ever.  What my family went through pales in comparison.

My writing has become more polished over the years but I am not going to do any editing.  This voice from the past is speaking to me, and I hope its message will help some of my readers.

Here's the post from 2009.

Tis the Season....for Sadness

Happy Holidays!

No, that's not true.

The holidays are not happy for everyone. 

11 years ago December 25.....  Spouse and I were at my in-laws on Christmas Day.  They live about 150 miles from where we live.  We had a nice day with other family members, and settled down to watch "It's a Wonderful Life"  with my mother in law and father in law.  Then we went to bed.

My father in law never woke up.  He died during the night of a massive heart attack, his third.

Imagine my mother in law, spending the day after Christmas arranging for the funeral of her husband of nearly 50 years.    The decisions that had to be made quickly, oh so quickly.  The little things, like flowers being almost impossible to come by (flowers being a part of their culture's funeral tradition).  Or us having to borrow clothes for the funeral-most people don't visit for Christmas with black clothes in their suitcase!  Those little details, in a sea of all the major details, on a holiday weekend.

The family gathered again but this time for a much sadder occasion.  Many people came to the funeral home, and it was a great comfort.  But then everyone had to go home, including us.

And then the next Christmas rolled around.  It was not easy.  But we survived, and each year it became easier.  My mother in law has established her independence, and enjoys Christmas with family.

It never goes away but it does become easier.  Although, I have never watched "It's a Wonderful Life" again.

Years ago I worked with someone whose husband died from cancer on Thanksgiving.  In my youth I couldn't understand why Thanksgiving was so hard for her.

Now I understand.

"Blue Christmas" is more than an Elvis song.  For those who have experienced loss:  loss of a loved one, loss of a relationship, loss of a job, the holidays can be so hard to survive, even if you are not a Christian.  Wherever you go, you are surrounded by smiling Santa's, by holiday decorations, by endless carols blaring at work, at the supermarket, at the mall, by constant reminders that everyone is happy.  Except you.

But, you are not alone.  And you will get through it, although it may take a long time.

Time is your friend.  It was for me.  I hope it is for you.

Mourning The Living

Today, I look in the shadows.

This won't be a light hearted post but let me lighten it with a photo from this fall.

Today was the birthday of a Facebook friend, someone I don't know in real life.

Nowadays, when I get a birthday notification (or, on LinkedIn, an anniversary of employment notification) of someone I don't keep in contact with personally, I inch into it.  I look at their page.

Are they employed?

Have they abandoned the social media platform?

Or, worst of all, are they seriously ill or are no longer in a place where social media exists?

And then, if I ascertain they are alive, there is one more step.  I don't even want to admit it, but I have to do this, just to preserve my sanity.

If they've posted in the last year or so, and I just haven't seen those posts, I look to see if their recent posts are toxic.  If they've gone to a place I don't want to follow.  If...if...if....

A post by minister John Pavlovitz I read today spoke to my heart. It's true, some of his posts may not be what you want to hear, but they all deserve a good read and this one, I think, speaks to all of us.

It's called "A Funeral for the Living".

I think we've all attended those funerals, whether we know it or not.  We all are the walking wounded.  This pandemic has affected us all in ways that we won't be able to realize until we are able to look back.

Because, this pandemic will end.  All pandemics do end, even the one that may have killed hundreds of millions of people.

But what will be left of us?

Tragedy in A Small City

I am in mourning today, for a town in Iowa I haven't been to in almost twenty years, for a high school that three of my first cousins went to, and for a teacher I never met.

Last night, we turned on the 6:30 pm national news and one of the headlines was about a murder in Iowa.  When I saw a picture of a park entrance I knew exactly where it was.

My heart sank.  I used to have family in that city of about 9,700 people.   I lived there for a brief time and had walked in that park with my uncle several times, back in the 1970's.

A 66 year old Spanish teacher at the high school in Fairfield, Iowa, had been reported as missing on Wednesday morning. She had taught in that school since 2012.   Her body was then found, later that day, in a local park where she loved to walk in the afternoons.  Now, two high school students, both 16, are being charged in her death.

Apparently, they had discussed her murder on social media.  They are being charged as adults.

A couple posts I've written about Fairfield.

My introduction to Fairfield

Why I Didn't Become a Librarian 

The Fairfield I remember was - how can I put it? Different?  Original?   I don't remember it as a place where you had to be afraid.

People think of Iowa as a flat place with miles of cornfields and nothing much.  That's far from the truth, although there is lots of corn grown in Iowa and some parts are flat.  But there are also a lot of surprises in Iowa.  And, yes, hidden gems.

In our pandemic times, there is an upsurge of violence, including an upsurge of violence against teachers.  So much doesn't get reported, but this tragedy made the national news.  

Last night, there was a vigil for this teacher, with hundreds attending.

I can't bring myself to even start to understand.

 

A Post Labor Day Rant

No flowers today.  Instead, it's time for a rant.  I backed off from it but got encouragement from some of my regular readers (thank you!).

So, if you don't want to read it, here's a picture for you (impatiens in morning light). Then feel free to skip onto something else.  But if you are staying with me, thank you.

Friday, in front of the hospital where my son was born, a local station gave live coverage, on the 5pm news, of health workers demonstrating for their right not to take the vaccine.  It was the last straw.

Yes, you have the right not to take the vaccine. Yes, you have the right not to wear a mask.  What you don't have is the right to make someone else sick because you don't want to be responsible.  What you don't have is the right to fill up hospitals so that others without COVID can't get care.  I don't want to hear about the falsehoods circulating about what these vaccines do to you.  I won't even repeat them here.

Today, I think of someone I know through blogging, who has a family member who may have a cancerous tumor.  She worries that her hospitals, almost to full capacity with COVID patients,  may not be able to treat her family member.

I don't understand how selfish a country we have become, with our personal rights trampling all over the rights of our neighbors, our friends, and even our families. 

One of my cousins continues to work retail (and is still doing so in 2021) in an essential retail setting.  Last year, a customer spit on him.  Why, he doesn't even know.   Another one of my cousins is a teacher in New York City.  One of my husband's cousins is a teacher in Florida. A third cousin moved recently from Massachusetts to New York City.  She's in education, too.  Just imagine what they have gone through and are still going through this new school year.  It's not over yet.  Maybe it could have been, in a more perfect world.

Another one of my cousins is an emergency room in a Midwest hospital. What has he experienced? He has a father in his 90's.  Does he want to get sick?   His niece is in her second year of nursing school.

For me, and many of my readers, this has become personal.

Just imagine what the parent of every school aged child in this country is going through, for this matter.

And, the children.  Let's not forget them.  Just in my county, the statistics are concerning. They can't be vaccinated even where their parents want them to be.  You want to see their smiling faces.  G-d forbid they get this illness, they won't be smiling.

Now, too many families have gone through the experience of having sick members, maybe sick enough to require hospitalization.

When my autistic brother in law contracted COVID-19 in April 2020, our family entered a world where our only contact with him was through his health care workers.  He was hospitalized for three weeks and was in a skilled nursing facility set up by the agency that provides his housing and services for another two weeks. 

But that wasn't the end of his story.  It took him a while to regain full lung function.  I'm not sure what he went through was long COVID, but long COVID is real and it puts its sufferers through hell.  COVID isn't a head cold or a mild flu, folks, even if most people don't die from it.

The health care workers and support staff we spoke to during his hospitalization almost always were able to take the time to talk to us, provide updates, and reassurance, and just kept on keeping on.  They worked hard and yet they took the time to support US.  I will never forget that.

They are getting tired. No, I'm wrong.  They are past tired.  Past tired of treating people, many of whom chose not to get one of the three (in our country) available vaccines.    In the county I live in, some 90% of those hospitalized are not vaccinated.

They are past tired of being abused by the public and some their patients. COVID-19 isn't just a health epidemic in our country.  It is an epidemic of everything becoming politics, of misinformation coming from various sources, of fear, of distrust, of hating your neighbor because he or she votes for the "wrong" person.

And yet, there are health workers who won't take the vaccine, even while treating a population where many of their COVID patients haven't taken the vaccine. They are walking off the job.  Same with those working in nursing homes.  Everywhere our facilities (here in our part of New York State) are shortstaffed and the latest tsunami here isn't at Texas/Florida/Missouri/Louisiana levels yet.

Has everyone forgotten our developmentally disabled population, some who can't advocate for themselves?  Our immunocompromised?  Cancer patients? Those unfortunate enough to have heart attacks where the hospitals are full of those who have exercised their personal freedom?  We all pay that price for some personal freedoms.

It would be a wonderful thing if everyone in our country could show respect for each other by our actions.  Respect those who put their lives on the line for our health, for our food, for our transportation, for our packages in the mail, for the education of our children, each and every day.  Respect the elderly, those with health issues?

I asked this in 2020.  I'm asking you to do it again, except this year that respect includes vaccination.  Wear a mask. (No one will see your smiling face if an oxygen mask covers it.)  Educate yourself with facts, not rumors read online.  Practice consideration  Get the jab if you are medically able. 

And, if you leave a comment on this post, please be respectful.  Any comments not meeting this criteria will be immediately composted.

If we all don't clean up our act as American citizens, what kind of society will we have when this is no longer a pandemic?

Friending Co-Workers on Facebook Dilemma Again

This is a reworking of a post from 2018, because it's become relevant once more.

Why am I feeling so out-of-the-loop again?

It's a strange thing.  I have always been introverted, although I do enjoy the company of a select few people.  I've been happy with that.  I admit, for the most part, I enjoy interacting with people on social media.  A lot of my introvert nature melts away online.  But just try to call me (one reader did, many years ago) and you will see a woman in her 60's in panic mode. (No, she wasn't stalking me - rather, I had posed a health question, and she was just trying to be helpful.   But I wasn't ready for it.  Fortunately, I wasn't home, my answering machine picked it up, and I never did call her back).

 But about that out of the loop feeling: I guess I've recovered enough from the pandemic to feel it again.

A photo is what started it off back in 2018.

People at work were talking about a photo a co worker had taken.  It was quite a photo (dare I say "epic"?), and he had posted it on Facebook.  That's where my co workers saw it.  Lots of co workers saw it.  Turns out that there is a whole world of my co workers interacting on Facebook with each other in their personal time.  I'll mention here that we are not permitted access to Facebook (or any social media other than LinkedIn) on our work computers, so this is all on our own time.

I've maintained a policy of not friending co workers on Facebook.  OK, I have one co worker friend on Facebook, but we've been friends outside of work for years.  I've heard of bad stuff happening when you friend co-workers on social media.  It happened at my spouse's job while he was still working (not him personally, because he isn't even active on Facebook) where some co workers/Facebook friends ended up in a fight about something work related that got back to management, and someone ended up getting fired. 

But back to that photo.  For the first time in a long time, I felt out of the loop, like I was missing out on something. I actually felt lonely, especially after someone took pity on me, whipped out their phone, opened Facebook and showed me the photo.

So that's how I found out just how many people at work were interacting with each other on Facebook.

I'm not native to this area, and it could be these people went to high school with each other, or had each other as neighbors, or are even related to each other (and we do have siblings and in laws and even parents/grown children working for my company).  But maybe there is no outside work connection outside of Facebook.  I have no idea.

Now, some three years after I blogged about this dilemma, I'm thinking about it again, because of a chance remark a co-worker made at a recent weekly departmental meeting.  Here it was again: people "friends" online and I'm not part of it.

I haven't even seen most of my co workers (except for a couple of chance encounters on a local walking trail and a couple of drive through events) since March 19, 2020. Many of us are still working from home.  Web cams aren't the same.

That work from home thing is going to change soon (and has changed already for many), but other things have changed in the meantime.

Me and my work status, for one.

I retired last year but went right back to work. I retired during the COVID lockdown, and I craved both something worthwhile to do and continued contact with my co workers.  Working part time was a good solution.  I've never regretted signing up for it.

I don't know how much longer I will continue to delay travel to places I want to go, but I will.

But I know I will be "there" one day.  I also know (or hope) I won't work forever.

Then what?  Will Facebook help me stay in touch with people I worked with for years?  I've seen (all too well) what happens when you retire. You lose touch.  On the other hand, sometimes, via social media, you find out more about people you thought you knew than you ever want to know.  That seems to be more and more true nowadays.

So: on the day I retire for good, what will I do?  Will I head for Facebook? Or will I try to keep in touch the old fashioned way?

I wonder.

Has this ever been an issue for you?

Time Passages

 I write some of my best blog posts in that hazy, intermediate time after I wake up (especially at 4:30 am) and I'm still kind of half asleep.

Those posts are always so good, but when I finally fall back asleep (if I do), i can never quite grab onto those glowing, golden words that expressed whatever it was so well.

I can't recapture it.

So let me start off this way.

This morning, soon after I turned on the TV set, I was greeted by a song from my childhood.  To my amazement, I remembered almost all of the words of the shortened version used by the commercial.

Here it is, from the original Broadway cast album.  It's a song called "I Won't Grow Up."

Incidentally, I've never read the original Peter Pan story, the story of a boy who never grows up, but I understand it has a somewhat dark origin.  I'm only discussing the Broadway song here.

Because, of course, we all grow up, and none of us can know what lies ahead.  But, for too many of us, as we enter adulthood and start feeling the pressures of career, parenthood, and possibly medical conditions, those childhood dreams are left behind, lost in a fog of years that pass by increasingly fast.

Because of the recent deaths of several people - one, a Facebook friend who died a couple of days ago from COVID-19, one a businessman and musician who died just seven weeks after a terrible medical diagnosis, and one, a woman I met just twice, the first time in 2018 (I'm planning to blog more about them in the near future) who died from cancer last year but I just found out yesterday, I hear my own personal clock ticking.

I just don't know how to go forward right now.

At least right now I'm privileged to have time to think about it.  I'm only working part time now.  I am in relatively good health, although I do have conditions that drag me down from time to time.

While I'm in a moment of reflection, I'd like to share a daylily photo with you (taken June 25 in my yard).  Plants have so much to teach us.  Patience.  Not giving up.  And, that nothing is forever, but whatever we have is what we are given to learn from.  Daylily blooms only last a day, but the plant puts out blossoms for about a month.  And, it withstands many types of soil and climate.  It will even bloom in less than optimal conditions.  Once the blooming season is over, it comes back each year.

So, I will keep on keeping on and try to make the most of every minute allotted me. (No, I'm not sick. Just being a little realistic right now.)

Stay cool, my readers.

For When It's Time

Important note before I begin:  If you subscribed to my blog by email, you will need to resubscribe (using the box at the upper right corner of my right hand column.  My present service is going away in early July.  I apologize for any inconvenience. 

I read about this commercial in a New York Times magazine a week or so ago, and decided to check it out yesterday.

It's a gum commercial, and it's titled "For When It's Time".  It's a bit tricky to film pandemic-themed commercials, but Extra, I think, hit it just right.  There's so much joy (maybe a bit too much joy, if you stay to the end) but I got a big kick out of it.  Yes, they are selling gum, so there are some packs of gum here and there, but I think many of us can identify with this.  After all, if you are running into the street to make out with total strangers, your breath needs to be minty fresh.

Presenting:  For When It's Time. It's set to Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back Now."

In a sign of the times, when this commercial was made, all COVID protocols were observed, and only members of the same households kissed.

As lighthearted as this is, I would be remiss if I don't think of the countries (India, South Africa, and many others) where COVID has remained a serious issue.  I can only hope that one day soon, COVID can be under control everywhere, so we all can have a Season of Joy, each in our own way.

Primary Voting 2021

I think my first voting post was in 2010, and I've blogged about it several times since.

For example, the elections of 2020, which I think few of us will ever forget. 

My personal pandemic voting experience.

The first time women voted in the county where I've lived for years. 

When I moved back to New York State from Arkansas in the 1980's, we were still using mechanical voting machines.  As the saying goes, "how times have changed".

Yesterday, early voting for the New York primary elections started.  New York State didn't even have early voting until 2019.  I didn't expect this election to be well attended - all we were voting for was a family court judge - still important, and we voted both yesterday and in the recent school board election.

As opposed to the election of 2020, where we (and many, many others) waited a long time on line, the early voting center was empty.  Our county has two this year, both in highly populated areas. 

None of the poll workers were masked when we walked in.  Only one put on a mask as we (we still mask when indoors although both spouse and I are full vaccinated) approached.  She was elderly, another change from last year, where elderly poll workers stayed home and many young people took their place.

This year, New York State sent out cards to our house that were scanned by the poll worker.  This is a first.  Based on that, and our identifying ourselves, a ballot was printed out for our district.

We cast our votes quickly.  In New York, you take the ballot and walk to a corral where you mark your vote (in those little circles, like an old time school standardized test). You then insert the ballot into a machine and if all is in order, your vote is cast.

Simple?  Sadly, in our times, not so simple.

Tomorrow is Flag Day, the commemoration of the adoption of the United States Flag on June 14, 1777.  Our country and its people are being severely tested right now.  In which direction will we end up going?   Will we ever be able to unite and make the decisions that will preserve our democracy? 

It's up to all of us. Still being interested in the voting process is still crucial.

History is waiting to judge us.