Flowers of the First Day of Summer #WordlessWednesday

To my Canadian readers a few hours from me, Happy Canada Day.  On July 1, 1867, the Constitution Act of 1867 took effect, creating the Dominion of Canada.   

On July 4, my country celebrates its 250th birthday. 

 I can't believe it's already July!  It's hot, too. I want to go back to some cooler times.  How about the first day of summer June 21 (for us in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway).

What was blooming on the first day of summer?

 My earliest day lilies, that's what!

The names are long forgotten but day lily season has just begun. 

This is one of two fuchsia plants I purchased from Select Seeds.   It's a variety called Pink Galore and I am loving those pink blooms.

Honoring Canada Day.

 Honoring our Independence Day coming on Saturday.

Times are tough, but I hope the friendship between our two nations can endure.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday. 

Rethinking Technology

Sometimes, I feel like a lumbering dinosaur, refusing to adopt the latest and greatest.  My motto is "just because it's possible doesn't mean it's a good idea."

But sometimes it is a good idea.

My regular readers know that I've been a member of Weight Watchers (WW) since 2012 (with a two year break at one point of time).  It's been a successful program for me.

Part of the program from its beginnings in the 20th century were meetings (nowadays called Workshops) moderated by a leader (nowadays called a Coach).  Before the days of Skype and Zoom these meetings were all in person.  During Covid they went remote and Weight Watchers has since embraced the concept of remote meetings.  

The downside?  In the "old days" you could go out for coffee after meetings with participants you clicked with.  You could exchange recipes and tips.  Sometimes, friendships were formed.  Even if they didn't, you were interacting with real people.

Somewhere along the line, Weight Watchers introduced a social media component in their app called Connect, for members only.  It never appealed to me.  I don't need more social media than I already have.  In fact I'm trying to cut back.  I took the last 10 days or so as a complete blogging break and I also did not go on social media during the break until yesterday. 

Know what?  I didn't even miss the social media although I would have long term, especially as I learn friend and family news (both mine and my spouse's) through Facebook.

This past May, WW introduced a chat function on their tracking app.  The chat groups are private, and moderated.  I lurked from time to time but didn't use the chat.  Until this past Sunday.

And then....but let me back up first.

When I started WW in 2012, I'm not even sure I used an app.  The way their current points system works, that's just about impossible now.  If you try to use the website to track you are encouraged to use the app.  It's harder to do using paper and pencil, which is too bad. 

Now, about that chat feature.

When I first read about it in an email. I wondered: why are we pushed to use social media and apps to communicate?  What ever happened to just regular communication and not communication in the virtual world?  Of course, I use email and have since around 1997. 

Well, without that chat I wouldn't have found out that my WW coach, a WW member for over 30 years and a coach for over 20 (I think), had left suddenly.  We don't know why but we do know WW has been changing directions for a year or more.  This is not a place to discuss this, but I wonder what happened to make a longtime employee of the organization quit.

The people in the meetings she moderated are wondering that also.  There is a lot of heartbreak - it's obvious that our coach touched the lives of many of us.  I'm one of them.

Sometimes it's good to be old fashioned.

But it's also good to embrace change and technology.  Email, for me, is wonderful.  Chat has its place, too.  I was able to get in touch with my now-former coach and thank her.  Thank you, chat. 

Meanwhile, I am back from my blogging break, but still not sure about my blogging schedule going forward.  I will probably blog daily this week.  After that, I'm still not sure.

Whatever I decide, I thank you, my reader, for sticking with me.

A Friendship Fourth of July

It's been a while since I've repeated this post but I am moved to today, with some new material and new (to my blog, I think) photos from the trip I blogged about.

In July of 2013, we were commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which took place July 1, 2 and 3, 1863.  This battle, fought near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is said to have been the defining moment of who would win the United States Civil War.

I wrote many posts during the 150th anniversary of the war (1861-1865) including this one on July 3, 2013. 

I had wanted so much to be able to visit Gettysburg that week.   There was supposed to be a large gathering to commemorate that watershed battle, but, unfortunately, many people had the same idea and, unlike me, they didn't try to make last minute plans.

Spouse and I had already taken time off from work.

I was not happy, but then fate intervened.

First, I need to explain that many years ago, both this cousin (let's call her "C") and my childhood best friend (BF) were house hunting in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.  C has spent almost her entire life in Brooklyn.  BF grew up with me in the Bronx (another borough) but, as an adult, moved to an apartment in Brooklyn at the time she got married.  

Anyway, C and BF found themselves at the same open house.  

They hit it off.  They became friends, not knowing (at first) that they had something else in common.  Or, actually, someone else.  Me.

(Just as another fun fact, a good friend of BF's husband was the son of my next door neighbor growing up, proving that even New York City, with its eight million people, can be a small world at times.)

At some point, my cousin and childhood friend found out they had me in common, and when spouse and I came to Brooklyn, we always tried to visit both of them.

Fast forward to 2013.  About a year and a half before, BF was diagnosed with cancer.  As the summer of 2013 came close, she was doing well.

One late June day, C called to catch up on life.  In talking with her, she mentioned that, on July 4, BF had planned a BBQ.  Among other people, C was invited.  Too bad I couldn't be there, as I lived 150 miles away, and probably had other plans....or could I?

I contacted BF, and yes, we were welcome to come.  And to stay with her and her husband.

We came. We had a wonderful visit and 4th of July BBQ with BF, C, and other friends of BF.    We had a great time, that first few days of July we spent down there.    

My friend loved to garden in her small New York City plot.

I can't remember if this zucchini plant (picture taken July 4, 2013) was in my friend's yard, or in the yard of one of her neighbors.  

These were her tomatoes.  She also had rosemary and dill growing.
 

A fig tree in her neighbor's yard.

My friend's dill.

I can't believe eleven years have passed since that day.

This is not a story with a happy ending, I'm sorry to say.  That night, before the unofficial street fireworks began, my friend, her husband, my spouse, and I, walked to a store and had some ice cream.

Over the frozen treats, she matter of factly told me she had decided where she would be interred after she passed.  She knew her time was limited, and joked that the cemetery was near a shopping center, meaning that people would be sure to visit.

That kind of joke was so like her....

This visit was the last time I saw my BF "well".   She passed away in 2015.  May she forever rest in peace.

If I I had been able to find lodging down in Gettysburg, I never would been able to go to that wonderful BBQ, and we wouldn't have spent other quality time with her during that visit.

Maybe some things are meant to be.  

When I think of the Fourth of July, I think of her, each and every year.

May my readers in the United States have a happy and meaningful Independence Day.  

Cancer sucks.

A happier post tomorrow.

Twenty Six Years Later

On February 13, 1998 a friend and co-worker passed on to wherever we go after this life after a 16 month battle with lung cancer.

She had found a lump on her neck.  She went to her family doctor and he immediately knew something was wrong.  The bottom line was that she had cancer all through her body, so much so that it took almost two months to trace back where the cancer had originated.  

By then it was almost Christmastime, and she started treatment. From the first she knew the cancer was terminal but the hope was to prolong her life.

She was a talented crafts person and spent her first Christmas with cancer making the homemade gifts she loved to make, including for her teen-aged grandson and her co-workers:  and that Christmas we got the final homemade ornaments she made for us every year.

By that first February after her diagnosis she was no longer able to work.

Sometime that summer, she called me at work and invited me to a picnic lunch.  She drove down to her former office, picked me up, and took me to a local park, where she unpacked a lovely picnic set, complete with tiny salt and pepper shakers.  She was having a good day.  We had a lovely lunch.  She said she did not feel sorry for herself, that although she had quit smoking years ago the diagnosis did not come as a shock because of what her husband and she had loved to do-restore old homes.  During this work, she had been exposed to asbestos.

She lived in an old Victorian home, which she and her husband had restored.

At the time we picnicked, our office was falling apart.  Due to mismanagement, people were leaving, one after another.  As summer passed into fall, the last three of us from before this regional manager was hired quit.

One of us got another job right away.  The other two of us, along with our former office manager (another victim of the mismanagement), decided we would visit our former co-worker and have lunch with her every week.    We did for several weeks, but she was getting weaker and weaker and we stopped-although we kept in touch with her husband.

Her second Christmas was not filled with homemade gifts.  Instead, we went to her house (it was the first time I had been there) where her husband gave us a tour. She tried to show us around but had to quit when she couldn't catch her breath.

She was under hospice care.

In January she and her husband were watching the Winter Olympics ice skating. She had fallen asleep on the couch but when he tried to wake her, she would not rouse.  He called Hospice, and they came over.  They determined she had suffered a stroke.

She never regained consciousness.

The Tuesday before she died, the three of us visited her bedside.  She lay on a bed in the living room, a radio nearby softly playing the country music she loved. Medicine from a morphine pump dulled her pain.  Her husband told us that although it seemed like she was in a coma, she did have some awareness.  If we wanted to, we could talk to her and she probably would understand, but would not be able to respond.

What do you say?  What can you say?  I spoke to her for a couple of minutes and said goodbye to her.  I squeezed her hand.

I would love to imagine that she tried to squeeze it back.

On Saturday, February 14, I got "the" phone call saying she had passed the day before.  My spouse was at work.  My then young son was going to a birthday party in a couple of hours and I did not want him to know I was crying.  I vacuumed the floor, silent tears running down my face.

 Her husband and her loved each other deeply.  I think she always expected him to "go" first but that was not to be.  She was only 56 years old.

At the funeral home, photos of her family and her artwork were placed near her coffin.  At the church service, the family invited the three of us to go to the graveside with them, as if we were family.  We declined as we felt the family should be together.

The three of us kept in some touch with her husband but finally, as these things go many times, we drifted apart. Her husband died several years ago.  He had remarried and I hope that marriage was happy.

 In our flood of 2006, I lost almost all of the homemade ornaments she had made for me. What I have left goes on our tree each year and I treasure each piece.

I still think of her every Valentine's Day. 

Rest in peace.

My 1976 Friendsgiving

It's the season for rerun posts, and here is one of my favorites.

Friendsgiving.  It's become, as we say here in the United States, "a thing".

It's interesting to see how a holiday evolves, because I was introduced to the concept when my spouse was in the military, back in the mid 1970's.  That's way before the TV show Friends, which some credit in making this unofficial holiday popular.  But Thanksgiving among friends is a lot older than the show Friends, and I know this from experience.

Although the term did not make it to the Merriam-Webster dictionary until 2020, military members have been doing this for years, without a name.

Think about it - young men and women hundreds or thousands of miles from home.  For some, it's their first Thanksgiving from home.  Many are single.  Travel home, for many, is out of the question.  Young military people do not make a lot of money.

So you turn to the people you are with - your fellow military people.  We decided to host a Thanksgiving at our one bedroom apartment for some of my spouse's buddies because my spouse loves to cook.  

We did the traditional Thanksgiving with one major exception - a non traditional pie, anyone?  Here is my blog post about the experience.

I don't remember asking for food contributions, but nowadays a lot of Friendsgivings involve potlucks.  And, although our Friendsgiving was on Thanksgiving Day, a lot of young people hold this the weekend before Thanksgiving.  That will be this coming weekend.

After all, not everyone has a happy family life. Some would rather skip the drama.  Or, sometimes, people just want to hang out with friends. Or co-workers.

As far as I'm concerned, Friendsgiving is, and will continue to develop, as a wonderful tradition.

That 1976 Friendsgiving  (what I remember of it) is a cherished memory of my youth.

Or maybe my spouse and I were years ahead of our time.

Have you ever hosted or participated in a Friendsgiving?

Food Family and Friendship #MusicMovesMe

It's almost the middle of November already, and it's time for music!

Let's introduce the Music Moves Me bloggers.

We blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!)   Our head host is Xmas Dolly, and our co-hosts are Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and yours truly.

You are welcome to join our Monday music group.  It's so easy. All you have to do is join the linky above but your post must contain at least one music video.  No music video? Your post may be removed, or may be labeled *NO MUSIC*.

This month our guest host is none other than our head host Xmas Dolly and her theme for this week is "Tunes about food, family, or friendship".

What I found out, in my research, is that a lot of food songs are actually about something we all need, but not food.  So how about a couple of songs with sweetness in their titles?

 

Neil Young and 1977's Sugar Mountain.  It's really not that much about food but about life.  Neil wrote this song on his 19th birthday in 1964 and it was recorded a bit later.

Paul McCartney lends a celery vibe to this 1971 song by the Beach Boys:  Vegetables.

Let's switch to family.

Stevie Wonder and Isn't She Lovely, an ode of love to his newborn daughter, Aisha Morris. (I'll have a bonus song with both of them a little later.)

One of my favorite songs, 1982's Our House by Madness, a song about a working class family.

Friendship songs abound.  Here is Randy Newman and You've Got a Friend in Me.  Originally written for the 1995 movie Toy Story, this song was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.  It's since been used in other Toy Story movies.

Weezer and My Best Friend.

And now for the bonus song I mentioned.  Stevie Wonder and Aisha Morris performing The Girl from Ipanema.

And that's a wrap!

Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me.

Father's Day 2022

Today is Juneteenth - if you want to learn more, please check out my Juneteenth post.

Today is also Father's Day in the United States, and it also would have been the birthday of my best friend from childhood, who died in 2015.   

My father died when I was in my 30's, almost 40 years ago, and I think about him each Father's Day.

So I am going to repeat a post from Father's Day 2015 and combine it with another Father's Day I sometimes post.  It's long but I hope you'll read all of it.

Let me first take you back to July of 1914.  The world is on the brink of World War I, going through a series of crises, but no one knows how close to war the world is yet.  My father is also too young to know.  He certainly doesn't know that the life expectancy for a male born in 1914 is only 52 years.  Or that the leading causes of death in 1914 included tuberculosis, influenza, and diarrhea.  Or that his one daughter would use something called the "Internet" one day to blog, and to pay tribute to him.

He would have no idea what a blog was.  Or a cell phone.  Or a computer.  They were way in the future, the future he was fated never to know.

When he was a young child, he would have been too young to know that a pandemic would hit, taking some 675,000. American lives, and more than 50 million lives world wide.

My father was born and grew up in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood called Brownsville.  My grandfather owned a candy store, which he ran with the help of his wife (my grandmother) and their six children (including him).  A seventh child died weeks after birth.

In the 1930's, my father's mother died, from complications of high blood pressure, an illness so easily treated today.  My father ended up quitting high school after two years.

Dad doesn't have too much of an Internet presence, but there are a couple of things I can find.  Several years ago, I looked at his record in the 1940 census, when he was still living at home with his father and several siblings. 

I then looked up my father's World War Two enlistment record and found this.   What I know of his enlistment is that he was already considered disabled (a childhood illness destroyed his hearing in one ear) and had tried to enlist without success.  But, by 1942, we needed anyone who could serve.

State of Residence:	New York
County or City:	Kings[Brooklyn]
Enlistment Date:	6 Aug 1942
Enlistment State:	New York
Enlistment City:	Fort Jay Governors Island
Term of Enlistment:	Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Component:	Selectees (Enlisted Men)
Source:	Civil Life
Education:	2 years of high school
Civil Occupation:	Semiskilled occupations in manufacture of miscellaneous electrical equipment, n.e.c.
Marital Status:	Single, with dependents
Height:	69
Weight:	130

I suspect one of the dependents was his younger brother, the only sibling still alive today.  He and two of his sisters helped to raise my uncle after my grandmother died, in their own apartment.

His military experience shaped my father's life.  For the first time, he was out of Brooklyn. He saw the South (stationed in Arkansas and Mississippi).  He was also stationed for a time in India.  He would sometimes tell me bedtime stories about his time in India.

My father didn't make it to the end of the war.  He suffered a head injury and was flown back to the States.  He was given an honorable discharge but suffered the aftereffects of that injury for the rest of his life.  

After the war he worked for several years on Governor's Island, part of New York City, where his World War II enlistment took place.

Now, his one child is in her late 60's, and our country is in its third year of a pandemic.  We recently passed 1,008,000. dead in our country, and 6,339,000 worldwide.

When I was 12, my mother died, and my father raised me to adulthood as a single father in their Bronx apartment in a city housing project.

When his last sister died, in the first decade of the 21st century, the funeral procession didn't go directly to the cemetery.  It wound through Brooklyn, going through some neighborhoods before it got on the highway. I wondered where we were going and why.  It didn't occur to me at the time that we were going near to where where my aunt, my father, and their siblings, had grown up.  It was one final tribute.  My father had died almost twenty years before.  I found out about why the path to the cemetery after the funeral.

I owe a lot to my father and the simple, everyday lessons he taught me.  He did what he could the best he knew how. He ended his life in Brooklyn, in the same facility where his own father spent his last days.

My love of history, a love I share with my late father, got me to thinking how much our world has changed in the many years since my father was born.

But also, how much the world has stayed the same.

I also wonder what my childhood best friend would have thought of these times.  One thing she never withheld were her opinions.

Happy Father's Day, wherever you are, Dad. 

And to you, my best friend from childhood, I commemorate your earthly birthday.

Pat and the Poem

It's turned into another dreary day in the Southern Tier of New York.

We have a warm front moving in, but it will only be temporary - tomorrow morning, a cold front will come through.  But, in the meantime, the sun has deserted us once again.

When it's dreary, I lose ambition.  I'm stuck in the grey blahs.  And I couldn't think of anything to blog about today, so I turned to some blog sites I like for inspiration.

Dorothy, whose blog I've read for years, publishes a poem every Sunday. This Sunday, her selected poem was "Warning" by the Scottish poet Jenny Joseph.  It was written back in 1961, and it was a favorite poem of one of my co workers, Pat.  She had a copy of the poem at her desk for the several years I worked with her.  They were good years.

Although she's been gone nearly 24 years, her memory remains a treasured part of my life.  She wasn't granted old age - she died at the age of 58, from cancer.

She would tell me to lift myself out of those grey blahs, and I am going to do that.  We are granted a certain number of days, and most of us do not know when they will end.  The thought of Pat makes me smile today.

Here is Jenny Joseph (who died in 2018), reading the poem "Warning".

Friendship is Everything #MusicMovesMe

It's Monday, and it's time for music!

Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!)   First, there is XmasDolly.  Her co-hosts are: Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and me. 

Each month we have a guest conductor. Today, we welcome - ME!

My theme for today is in honor of National Friendship Day - songs about friendship, or mentioning friends in the title. 

One reason I picked this theme is because, the older we get, a fact of life is that our list of friends tends to shrink, with health issues and even death.  At the same time, friends become more important than ever, especially in these times of pandemic.  So let's treasure each of the friends we have in our lives.  And now, let's start the music!

Let's start with one of the greatest rock singers of all time - Freddy Mercury and Queen, and 1986's "Friends Will Be Friends".  Yes, friends will be friends, right to the end.

I want to thank all my online and "in real life" friends with Andrew Gold and 1978's "Thank You For Being A Friend".

"In My Life" is such a beautiful Beatles song.  "Some are dead and some are living...in my life I've loved them all..." 

It's time to lighten the mood a bit.  The next two songs may surprise you if you know my musical likes, but I like them both. 

This next song was popular when my son was in late elementary school and I must have heard it a zillion times.  Let's make it a zillion and one, with Vitamin C and "Graduation (Friends Forever)".

 And, although I generally don't like pop that much, I love this Spice Girls song - Wannabe and its line "Friendship never ends".

One last song.  Several weeks ago, I included James Taylor's covers of "You've Got a Friend" in a blog post about 1971.  It's now time for the original - Carole King and "You've Got a Friend". 

And that, dear friends, is a wrap!  But before you go, I hope you have time to enjoy my post from yesterday, a tribute to Dusty Hill of ZZ Top.

Join me again next week, same time, same place.

Three Cheers for Independence Day

Today, in the United States, it is Independence Day.  For this year, it's going to be cause for great celebration.

Let's celebrate with some flowers.

Red geraniums

White impatiens after a rain (with one pink impatien).

About as close to blue as you can get in a cultivated flower.

Even wildflowers want to celebrate Independence Day

No Red but I do have a White Queen Anne's Lace with a Japanese beetle on it.

The closest one can come to blue in a wildflower - here, chicory.

Independence Day would not be complete without some music, so here is some "America" themed music.  My favorite piece of fireworks music is this song by James Brown: Living in America.

Three cheers for the red, white and blue.  Our country is flawed, yes, but we also have a lot to celebrate.  Let today be the day to do it.

July 2013 Revisited

 In July of 2013, we were commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which took place July 1, 2 and 3, 1863.  This battle, fought near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is said to have been the defining moment of who would win the United States Civil War.

I wrote many posts during the 150th anniversary of the war (1861-1865) including this one on July 3, 2013. 

I had wanted so much to be able to visit Gettysburg that week.   There was supposed to be a large gathering to commemorate that watershed battle, but, unfortunately, many people had the same idea and, unlike me, they didn't try to make last minute plans.

Spouse and I had already taken time off from work.

I was not happy, but then fate intervened.

I was so positive I had written a blog post about what happened next, but if I did, I can't find it on my blog, so here goes (eight years later).

First, I need to explain that many years ago, both this cousin (let's call her "H") and my childhood best friend (BFF) were house hunting in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.  H has spent almost her entire life in Brooklyn.  BFF grew up with me in the Bronx (another borough) but, as an adult, moved to an apartment in Brooklyn at the time she got married.  Anyway, H and BFF found themselves at the same open house.  

They hit it off.  They became friends, not knowing (at first) that they had something else in common.  Or, actually, someone else.  Me.

(Just as another fun fact, a good friend of BFF's husband was the son of my next door neighbor in the Bronx, proving that even New York City, with its eight million people, can be a small world at times.)

At some point, they found out they had me in common, and when spouse and I came to Brooklyn, we always tried to visit both of them.

Fast forward to 2013.  About a year and a half before, BFF had been diagnosed with cancer.  As the summer of 2013 came close, she was doing well.

One late June day, H called to catch up on life.  In talking with her, she mentioned that, on July 4, BFF had planned a BBQ.  Among other people, H was invited.  Too bad I couldn't be there, as I lived 150 miles away, and probably had other plans....or could I?

I contacted BFF, and sure, we were welcome to come.  And to stay with her and husband.

We came. We had a wonderful visit and 4th of July BBQ with BFF, H, and BFF's other friends.     We had a great time, that first few days of July we spent down there.   

BFF loved to crochet and knit.  During her treatments, she would work on outfits for pediatric cancer patients, and she showed me some of her work.  Here is one picture of her work.

The next day, we went into Manhattan on the subway and walked (in that 90 plus degree heat) the  entire High Line.  Here's a post I wrote about it at the time.  At one time, this was an elevated railroad track.  Now, it's one of the most successful urban parks in the United States, full of art work.  The neighboring buildings take advantage of its popularity, too.

This is not a story with a happy ending, I'm sorry to say.

This visit was the last time I saw my BFF "well".   She passed away in 2015.  May she forever rest in peace.

But if I I had been able to find lodging down in Gettysburg, I never would been able to go to that wonderful BBQ, and spend other quality time with her before and after.

Maybe some things are meant to be.  Each July 4, I think back on that special July 4 I spent in Brooklyn.

May my readers in the United States have a happy and meaningful Independence Day.  Tomorrow I will have a happier post - I promise.

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?

Determination

I had set out to blog about one of my Christmas ornaments.  Many of them have stories behind them.

On my Christmas tree each year I hang some ornaments that were gifts.  One has special meaning.  I remembered blogging this several years ago, and I'd like to update it just a little.

This is a year where many of us are apart from loved ones, and they are in our thoughts.  I've been thinking about one person recently, a woman who passed away in 1998.  Here's the story:

Many years ago, the company I worked for was bought by a new owner, along with a couple of other local businesses.  Two other offices were combined into the office where I worked, and Pat came into my life.

Pat was many things - an experienced worker, a loving mother and grandmother, and a woman who loved crafts - needlepoint, tole, and more.

Her and her husband (also now deceased), a building contractor, restored a house in Maine, New York, and had a loving marriage. 

Every year, at work, we would have a small gift exchange at Christmastime. Pat's contribution was always a Christmas ornament - usually made by her, or one made by another craftsperson.

One December day, Pat called us together.

A couple of months ago, she said, she had found a lump on her neck.  She went to the doctor, who immediately ran tests.  It was cancer.  Not only that, they found cancer all through her body.  Doctors ran more tests, trying to find where the cancer had originated.  It turned out to be lung cancer. She had perhaps 18 months to live.

Pat was only able to work a couple of more months.   We all kept in touch after she went out on permanent disability.  It was a small office, and we were close to each other.  We knew each other, our spouses, our children.  

Pat had to prepare her children and grandchildren.  And us.

Pat always conducted herself with dignity and determination, and the months after the diagnosis were no exception.  By her example, she showed us how to face death with dignity.

Our office, in the following months, fell apart due to poor management.  One by one, we left.  By the next Christmas, several of us were unemployed.  As each co worker quit the job,  they started to spend time with Pat every Tuesday when she felt up to it.  When I left, I joined them in the Tuesday outings.

The Tuesday before Christmas 1997, Pat gave us our final gift - the gift of her presence.  We took her out to a local restaurant, and she gave us a tour of her house - something that took her great effort.

By January of 1998, we suspected the end was near.  She could not walk more than a few steps without losing her breath.

Pat died on February 13, 1998, a day short of Valentine's Day, a week after suffering a stroke and lapsing into a coma.  In my last visit to her, five days before her death, she lay on a bed, under home hospice care.  Her favorite country music was playing.  I held her hand and whispered in her ear.  I don't know if it was my imagination, but I am positive she gently squeezed my hand.

Now, fast forward to 2011.

In September of 2011, my neighborhood was flooded by a tropical storm and we had several feet of water in our basement.  We were so fortunate, compared to many of our neighbors.  The next months were hard for us and many other in our community.

When we cleaned out our basement, I found that several of the homemade ornaments Pat had given me were ruined.  There was no way to salvage them.  But the ornament you see above, a needlework Pat made, had survived in a box above the water level.  Yes, Pat was watching over her ornament.

Every year the ornament goes on our tree, a sign of survival, caring and love.

Time marches on, and things change for us all.  But Pat lives on in my heart, even after all these years.  Every year, I gaze upon the ornament she gave me, the ornament she stitched with her own hands.  It whispers determination.

Determination is what we need now.  The determination to see this pandemic through, not to inadvertently spread it, to protect our health care workers by our behavior.  She would have told us to make the necessary sacrifices, even as we tire of the things we need to do.

It's not time to quit yet.

Pat never quit caring for others.

Pat would have approved this message.

 

Keeping in Touch Through Photography

It can be hard to keep in touch with people in these times.  We find all kinds of ways.

I do not have a lot of friends.  I'm an introvert and don't make friends easy.  But I value each and every person I call friend.  The same goes for all of my readers.


I text photos with a cousin and a cousin in law.  One is recovering from surgery and I do the flower photography, one a day for her.  For the other, we exchange flowers.

I also text flowers occasionally to my late mother in law's best friend.  She's 89, still feisty, still restless, still loves to be around people.  It's been hard for her.

Then there's the woman I call my "guest photographer".  Once, before she retired, we used to sometimes take lunch together and we would go out and walk, and take pictures.  I miss those walks.

I used to see my guest photographer a lot more than I do now.  In fact, I've only seen her once since the pandemic started and it was for about five minutes.  So we try to keep in touch by email but then life happens.  She's a caregiver (for both people and animals) and has a packed life.

Zoom?  I'm not a fan and I'm not sure her rural internet service would support it even if I was. 
Guest photographer keeps sending me photos by email (she lives out where there is spotty cell phone service) and today I decided I would publish some of her photos. 


So, I will take a short break from photography.  Today's wildflowers are brought to us by my "guest photographer" using a DSLR and not an old iPhone like I do.  Enjoy!

This is meadow dropwort, which is considered invasive in some parts of the country.

I am not sure I have ever seen this, but it is beautiful and I understand it has a light fragrance, too.

A far away shot.

A small butterfly (I'm not good on butterfly ID) on black eyed Susan.

Last but not least, a blue wasp.  Guest photographer thinks it is a type of mud daubber.

It's wonderful when you can spend some of your days in nature.  My hope is always that pictures I post bring you some joy.

And please, stay safe.

How are you keeping in touch with friends?

Farewell to a Blogging Friend

Last night, I checked Facebook.  I had not seen any posts from a Facebook friend since mid-May.  The fact that she had not posted since worried me, as she loved to post on Facebook.  I also knew she suffered from a number of health problems.

So I went to her page and....found a post from her sister.  My Facebook friend  had passed away a couple of days after her last post.  The sister didn't mention the cause of death, but does it matter?

The sister invited us to tell a story about Billie.  I had met Billie in 2006, and I had only seen her a handful of times since.  The last two times I was in Florida, we couldn't connect.  But I do have a story.

Here is my Billie story. It's one I've told before and I hope you won't mind the repeat.  In the original post, from 2006, I used her name and another name, and I will do so here, too.

As newlyweds, my spouse and I moved from New York State to Tampa, Florida.  We lived there a little less than two years, and then left.

Since the day we left in 1976, we had never been back to Florida.  In 2006,  it was time to return.  Florida bound we were.

We took the Auto Train down. At last, we arrived in Tampa, with our then teenaged son in tow.

I have two cousins who were born, and grew up, in Tampa.   One of them, Barry, and his (now former) companion Billie decided they were going to give us a tour of Tampa so we could see how it had changed in 30 years.  My son came along for the ride.

Barry and Billie drove us around Tampa. And finally, I asked Barry if he would take us back to where we had started our married life.

Of course he would.

We couldn’t believe it.  A neighborhood which was once not too desirable was up and coming and most desirable.   We went past what, when we lived there, was a small neighborhood mall – it was now something spanning several blocks called Hyde Park Village.

Historic sign in Hyde Park Village, January 2020

New construction was everywhere.  The “don’t go there” neighborhood was gone, razed, with condos going up on the site.  Our neighborhood had gone upscale.

The two family house we lived in was still there.  We didn’t recognize the street at all.  It looked really nice.

We parked in front of the house.  And I had to open my big mouth and say “Say, wouldn’t it be nice if we could see the apartment again?”

“Why not?” replied Billie.  She marched up the stairs and knocked on the door.

She came back down.  A young Hispanic man had answered her knock. And yes, we were more than welcome to come in and look around.

So we took our son up and showed him where we had started married life over 30 years before.  The young man proudly showed us around the apartment.   He had restored most of it but the bathroom was almost exactly how we had left it, 30 years before.  We couldn't believe it.

I never would have had the nerve to knock on that door.  But Billie did it for me, brushing my fears away.  And my spouse, my son, and I, were richer for it.

Flowers, Hyde Park Village, January 2020

The last words Billie wrote on her Facebook page were:  "Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music..."

But right now, I can't.

RIP, Billie. You are the person who got me into serious blogging back in 2011, two years after I had started to blog, introducing me to my first blogging challenge.

Our world is poorer for your absence.

Friendsgiving Pie 1976 Style

A while back, in 2015, I shared the below memory with you of my young adulthood, when my spouse was in the Air Force, and we were spending our first military Thanksgiving, together with other people serving, away from home.  At that time, I couldn't find the recipe for my Memory Pie, which is a soybean pie (no, really, please keep reading) that tastes like a pumpkin pie.

But, thanks to a decluttering project, I found the recipe.  This was my second copy of the cookbook - I had worn the first one to shreds.

So what happened when I found the recipe?

I offered to make it, but my spouse took one look at the recipe, and said "no". When we went to our local supermarket, I couldn't even find dried soybeans.  So I am not going to bake a pie for you.

I will leave you, instead, with a link to the recipe, which is available online.

But I will not leave you with the pie.  Just a memory of what we called "having friends over since we were thousands of miles from home."  In modern times, it may have been called a Friendsgiving.

It was the mid 1970's and we were over a thousand miles from home.  It was my spouse's first Thanksgiving in the military.  He was undergoing technical training in Texas.  And he had friends in his class, all of whom were far away from home, too.

For the most part we were in our late teens or early 20's, but among us was a slightly older man.  Sgt W. was from Iowa and he was a soybean farmer.  As I recall, he had joined the National Guard and was training with my spouse's Air Force class.

Sgt W. had never eaten a soybean.  He had never sampled the crop he grew.

In the mid 1970's, soybeans weren't common the way they are today.  But I had become an on and off vegetarian in college, and I had fallen in love with a couple of books - Diet for a Small Planet and Recipes for a Small Planet.  As I wasn't working at the time, and my spouse was making the tiny salary of an airman, money was tight and we used the methods explained in this book to stay healthy.  We ate whole grain homemade breads, bean and rice casseroles, and even dishes made with the healthy soybean.

In one of these books was a recipe for a mock pumpkin pie made with pureed soybeans, pumpkin pie spice and other ingredients I can't remember (nor could I find the recipe in a long Internet search last night). 

My spouse invited several of his classmate friends, including Sgt W., to Thanksgiving dinner.  And, an idea hatched in my mind.  Why not make something with soybeans for him?

We had a turkey, and other items no longer remembered.  It was one of the happiest Thanksgivings I remember, because we were all away from home but not lonely, and I remember our companionship much more than I remember the food.

Except for one thing.  When I served my "pumpkin pie", Sgt W. dug in, and said he liked it.  So did everyone else.  I even liked it, and I don't like pumpkin pie.

So I admitted to him that his "pumpkin pie" was really soybean pie.  And he didn't seem to mind.

I wonder what he said when he returned home to Iowa when his class was over.  We never saw him again after that.

I don't know where Sgt W. lives today, or if he is even alive.  Sadly, I  know at least one of the young men at that dinner passed several years ago.  So I don't know if W. remembers the young woman he had Thanksgiving with, in an apartment near an Air Force base in Texas in the mid 1970's, and the soybean pie she served him.

If you are out there, Sgt. W, Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to you and your family.

Tomorrow I will be participating in both the United States Thanksgiving and the twice monthly Thursday Tree Love meme. I'd like to wish all of my readers a Happy Thanksgiving.

Throwback Tuesday - The Full Measure of Courage

Today, my childhood best friend would have turned 66 years old.  But she is not here to celebrate with me.

This is from a post from the summer of 2013, when my friend was a couple of years into her fight for health.

My friend sent an email to friends and family:

I brought the fruits of my knit/crochet project to the pediatric oncology department today. Grand total was 2 baby blankets 7 hat scarf sets, 2 plain hats, and 9 infant/toddler hats. The nurses were so excited and happy. Some good came out of some bad. I hope some children like the things I made while waiting.

As one of my other friends from childhood said "cancer and children should never be in the same sentence."

At the time I wrote this post, my friend's husband was battling cancer alongside of her. Her spouse had to spend a lot of time in doctor's offices to be treated for a medical condition.   My friend normally came with  him and waited for him while he has his treatment - sometimes waiting an hour (or even more).

Out of boredom, she started to do her needlework while waiting.

She did beautiful crocheting and knitting work - and, recently, has been working on projects for pediatric oncology patients.

I crochet but I do not knit, and I wanted to show off her work because I know quality work when I see it.   Again, this is from 2013:

A crocheted blanket and some knit hats.

Another crocheted blanket.

And finally, some hats and scarves.

We have the cliche "lemons out of lemonade" - this is about as lemony as you can get.

And now she's gone - three years gone, in September.  In her last two years, she showed the full measure of courage, but she fought a foe that was strong, and unrelenting.   Her memory lives on in those of us who miss her.  On days like today, especially - what would have been her birthday - I miss her.  She was a teacher, and she taught me so much.

One day, perhaps, I will understand why she was taken from us too soon.

One day, perhaps, no one will know the meaning of the word "cancer".

Should You Friend Co Workers on Facebook?

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

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.  And, 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).

I don't feel lonely that much.  In fact, I crave, and need, time to myself.  Fortunately, I have an understanding spouse.  But about that out of the loop feeling:

A photo is what started it off.

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 (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.  And I was totally out of that loop.

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 working there).  But maybe there is no outside work connection outside of Facebook.  I have no idea.

For the first time, I'm questioning my policy.  Mind you, no co worker has invited me to be their friend, which is just as well, because then I would have to face this question head on.  Also I interact with some of them on LinkedIn, but that is something totally different.

So I am going to ask my readers this question today.  Have you friended co workers on Facebook?  If so, has it been a good experience or not so good?

I'm just curious. 

My gut still says "don't do it" but if I do get an invite, I don't know what I would do.  And perhaps that is my real, unspoken, question.

The Word for 2018

The last three years, I had chosen a guiding word for the year, a word that would represent my goals for the coming year.  I haven't made New Year's resolutions for years; I figured one word shouldn't be hard.

For 2016,  I chose "Determination" and then promptly forgot about the word.

For 2017, I decided perhaps I was a year too soon with that word, and chose Determination again.  In part, I said:

"DETERMINATION - not to stay silent if speaking out against hatred is needed.

DETERMINATION - to stand up against events that need standing up against.   I think about authors who have written books that have changed the world.  It is possible.  I must remember that one person CAN make a difference.  Could a blog post change the world?

DETERMINATION - to make my voice heard if the quality of life of my brother in law, who is developmentally disabled, is threatened.  

DETERMINATION - once again, that I will grow my writing, and my photography, no matter what my personal challenges are this year.  Even if it only grows a little, it will be a victory. "

And then I promptly forgot about the word. 

No focus.

So, what did 2017 hand me, and others I know?

One of my first cousins died.  At that time, I learned that he was in the early stages of Parkinson's, which contributed to the cause of his death (choking on food).
A co worker's mother died on Christmas Day.
A fall my spouse took that he may not ever heal completely from.
Someone I went to high school and college with was diagnosed with cancer. 
My family faces many challenges with future planning for my developmentally disabled brother in law.

As we age (I am officially a senior citizen now), people we know sicken, or, sometimes, die.  We will go down that last path one day ourselves, and that realization has hit me hard in the past year. That realization makes relationships more important than ever. 


We like to think of ourselves as independent.  But when my spouse fell in October, and ended up in the ER, I suddenly found myself being helped with various issues, and I am grateful for each and everyone of them.  In fact, we are all interdependent.  

I need to pay this kindness forward.

Tomorrow, I join, once again, the Ultimate Blog Challenge.  I am thinking of how I cherish some of these blogging relationships - I look forward to making cyberfriends this year through this and other challenges.

So I am not going to choose a word this year.  But I do have some goals that I need to work on.

I hope I can be a good friend to my friends, old and (hopefully) new.  I hope I can be someone who will be honest, someone who will make you laugh, someone you can trust, someone who will stand by you.  And, in my own little way, perhaps I can start to change the world with one little ripple.  

One little flap of my butterfly wings.

Courtesy of my guest photographer

Happy New Year to all my readers, near and far!  

 I look forward to interacting with some of you this January, in the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost.