It was such a treat to go with my daughter Val (aka “murisopsis”) to Quincy, IL and meet these beautiful people! I took my new modest little digital camera so I’d have things to remember. I should have taken a photo of the wind chime whimsical fish named “Ruby” that was made by “Harpos Mark” and which I fell in love with. I acquired her and will get a photo of my “Ruby” after making her at home on my lower deck. I hope you enjoy these pictures and remember I am still learning to use my camera.

          

  Today, the 20th of May, was “Liza Doolittle Day.” Those of us who love Broadway musicals may have been the only ones who celebrated it. I also love Bernard Shaw’s play, “Pygmalion,” on which “My Fair Lady” was based. I’ve seen the musical so often and listened to the recorded music so many times, I know most of the lyrics. Here’s the one for this day with the You Tube movie clip of Liza singing “Just You Wait”:

 http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/myfairlady/justyouwait.htm

    Looking through my picture files and remembering my mother who died almost 26 years ago….so many good memories. Here she is through the years from about 1912 through about 1984…some with her only living child…me. I miss her. She was beautiful, gentle, kind and generous and loved me and her granddaughters with all her heart. She had the most gorgeous big blue eyes and thick red hair which became blond when she was in her 70′s. She died in 1984 when she was 74 years and 7 months old.

   
I really like this picture of the “Bulb Garden” in a basket that youngest daughter sent me recently. I’m still learning how to use and am enjoying my new digital camera…..say, “Cheese.” Oh and here is the view of the sky above my upstairs deck….which I just carpeted and did the downstairs deck too. I’d put in a request for a work order for the condo association board’s approval to paint the decks’ peeling boards….wrong kind of paint last time they were done. Anyway, I decided until the maintenance crew gets around to that job (hopefully before cold weather) I’d improve the appearance myself. Anyway, it is nice out there….sort of like living in a tree house…..and the sky was so very blue!

I have re-discovered my love for gardening and getting my hands full of rich black organic soil and growing things from seeds. I’m glad I kept all the hand tools from the days when we had a big house and our girls were still in school. I added a bulb planter and a tiller this year. Middle daughter left their small Rubbermaid wheelbarrow in our garage 11 years ago…..so now it’s mine legally…. sorta like a common law marriage. I used it today for planting Christmas and Japanese Painted ferns, Elephant Ear hosta and a zillion periwinkle to add to the ones planted last year. The shade garden will be beautiful some day.

Tomorrow the little peat cups of nasturtiums will start getting used to the great outdoors by spending daytime hours on the deck….there’s about 60 of them in both kitchen windows. That family of rabbits better leave them alone when I transplant them outside!

Gardening is good exercise…..and cheaper than my Y membership. I’ve been thinking of one of my favorite nursery rhymes while on my knees digging holes:

Mary, Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells    
And pretty maids all in a row.  

For me it’s “With Columbine and Coral Bells and pretty Nasturtiums all in a row.” I’m having fun using my new camera and learning how to transfer photos from camera to pc.     

Ahhh….”Sprig has sprug, de grass is rizz, I wudder where doze posies is?” was always repeated between sneezes at home each spring when the back yard became alive again and our noses had stopped up. Dad would say that little poem, and I always managed to laugh at our allergies and love spring in spite of the pollen that came with it.

We always had lots of flowers when living with Grandma Bessie during “The Great Depression” and WW 2. Grandma could grow anything…even plants from orange and grapefruit seeds. Later mom and dad had lots of lovely flowers too. I missed the lilacs, so last year I got some planted and this year got myself a digital camera on sale. Here are pictures of my first 2 bouquets. Grandma would be proud of me. Love those lilacs!
 

  I told my daughter that my next husband would be a corporation since SCOTUS has now granted corporations person-hood; and my mama told me to marry a rich man since it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man. She married dad in 1930 during “The Great Depression” which probably influenced this opinion

We haven’t heard much lately about the very controversial recent Supreme Court ruling which allows corporations to spend as much as they want on political advertising, but it hasn’t gone away entirely…just moved off the front pages by earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. There are plans to neutralize it via legislation, however. Here’s a Yahoo News article from last February which was all about it …. and with links to related articles:

“A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that the vast majority of Americans are  vehemently opposed to a recent Supreme Court ruling that opens the door for corporations, labor unions, and other organizations to spend money directly from their general funds to influence campaigns.

As noted by the Post’s Dan Eggen, the poll’s findings show “remarkably strong agreement” across the board, with roughly 80% of Americans saying that they’re against the Court’s 5-4 decision. Even more remarkable may be that opposition by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents were all near the same 80% opposition range. Specifically, 85% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, and 76% of Republicans opposed it. In short,  “everyone hates” the ruling.

The poll’s findings could enhance the possibility of getting a broad range of support behind  a movement in Congress to pass legislation that would offset the Court’s decision. Of those polled, 72% said they supported congressional action to reverse its effects. Sen. Charles Schumer, who’s leading the reform effort in the Senate, told the Post that he hoped to get “strong and quick bi-partisan support” behind a bill that “passes constitutional muster but will still effectively limit the influence of special interests.”

The “low information” U.S. citizens, those who fail to check the sources of who and what they hear and continually fail to see the difference between opinions and facts or between entertainers and real journalists, are really very frightened. This group is so scared (“scared shitless” according to one of my friends) that they have become dangerous. The political discourse has become hateful with people so filled with rage that they threaten the lives of our elected officials and their families with physical harm and even death because they disagree with the voting record on certain bills or opinions on some issues. Some politicians are themselves guilty of encouraging the rage.

We could learn a lot from those giant packages of crayons. They are a lot like people: some are sharp, some are pretty and some are just plain dull. Some have really weird names, and all are different shades and colors, but they all manage to be together in the same box.

This Wednesday I turned 78 years old. That sounds really old but don’t feel it. Been too busy to feel old.

My friend Barb lost her husband Sunday morning after a hell of a year. I visited the hospital Thursday afternoon. Two of her four children were there, and her daughter Debbie who lives in the Netherlands was flying in Saturday evening. They were going to keep her dad alive until she arrived. Seeing him with all those tubes, gaping mouth and hearing his labored heavy breathing I knew he wouldn’t last long once the tubes were removed. I went home and made over a gallon of vegetable soup and took it with cornbread and a cake to the house Friday. Then this Wednesday I took an orange cake and a big container of fresh fruit salad over.

Our little fellowship group had divided up the menu to help Barb feed her big clan….lots of grandchildren and sisters and nieces, etc. at the house. It sort of tradition around here when a friend or neighbor is busy making funeral arrangements, etc. to provide the family with food …. one less thing for them to worry about. Wed. evening, at the funeral home, Debbie said she’d eaten 4 bowls of my vegetable soup, loved it. Hearing that made my chopping of all those raw vegetables very worthwhile indeed.

I did have some fun on this special day. My German friend Doris and her 5 year old granddaughter Maddie sang “Happy Birthday” to me and took me to lunch. Maddie also sang “Happy Birthday” to me in Arabic! And insisted on giving me a goodbye hug and kiss. She lives in Dearborn, MI and most of the children in her kindergarten are Lebanese Muslims. Maddie’s mother died when she was just a baby; and her father, Doris’ son, has to do a lot of overseas business travel. He’s in charge of quality control for one of the large auto companies…Honda or Subaru. Anyway Doris gets to take care of Maddie a lot….and I get to provide Doris with the tools for teaching Maddie so she won’t fall behind in her school classes while staying with “Oma Doris” and provide some toys for Maddie too. I took the old zipped suitcase with Barbie dolls and some dress-up pretend clothes my daughters, granddaughters and visiting children have all played with. When one is getting old, being around very young children is such a treat.

This is for all of us who are senior citizens,  for all of who are related to or friends of senior citizens, and for anyone who someday (hopefully) will live long enough to get the senior discount at stores and draw a Social Security retirement check. It pays to be able to laugh at oneself and about the pitfalls of aging when you become a member of this group yourself. 

“WHERE is my SUNDAY paper?!”

The irate customer calling the newspaper office loudly demanded to know just why her Sunday newspaper hadn’t been delivered.

“Madam”, said the newspaper employee, “Today is Saturday.. The Sunday paper is not delivered until tomorrow, on SUNDAY”.

There was a really long pause on the other end of the phone followed by a ray of recognition as the formerly upset customer was heard to mutter, “Well, shit! That explains why no one was at church today.”

It is true that we can become forgetful as we age. I remember my Grandma Bessie’s most unforgetable forgetful experience….funny now but not back then!  She had made a cake…from scratch of course. She then went in the living room to watch her “Soap” while it baked. When the timer went off, she returned to the kitchen to take the cake out of the oven. Imagine her shock and surprise when she opened the oven door to find it was EMPTY! For a short time, she feared she was losing her marbles. She then saw the mixing bowl, etc. soaking in the sink so knew she really had made the cake; but where the hell was it? She made herself a cup of coffee to ponder this. She loved lots of half and half or cream in her coffee. (You know what’s coming next.) When she opened the refrigerator, there was her rectangular cake pan on the middle shelf.