When It All Comes Down....

Remember that song?  "When it all comes down, I hope it doesn't land on you."

Tech savvy people would link up to the YouTube version about here, but I'll spare you that agony.  By the time I linked that up my computer would decide it was done doing this for the day and I'd have one more day of no blogging.

But I digress.  When this week began, I had an "engagement calendar" that was almost totally blank---with one brief notation about a book club meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
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I had no company, no appointments, no expectations at all.  In truth, I was a little bummed.  Now suddenly I've had phone calls and a flurry of conflicting opportunities to see folks and go places.  Mostly all at the same time.  

I feel like the girl with two prom dates.  So what gets chosen?

There was a long pause here-------while I gave it some serious thought.  At this stage of my life, the most important relationships to nourish are family connections.  Since I've already made time (and enjoyed) a reunion with nursing classmates, I'll pass on this, and spend some time with cousins who I hardly ever get to see.  I think that will be the best use of my time.

My creative endeavor for the day is remaking a denim skirt which I found at the thrift shop (the tags were still on it) and it cost me $.50.  I couldn't resist all that inexpensive fabric because the skirt is floor length and sort of flared, so there's lots of denim there.  You can always use a nice denim skirt that fits right, I always say.  I just need someone to help me hang the hem, once I put a new waistband on it.

Our book club read is Moloka'i  by Alan Brennert, which has to do with the treatment of lepers and leprosy in Hawaii from the late 1800's through the mid 20th century.  It sounded like it would be unrelentingly grim, but it really isn't.  A great many innocent people were banished out of ignorance, but of course, that's nothing new.  I expect there's plenty of that happening right now.

My "knitting team" is going to knit like fiends all through the Olympics to benefit various charities which are left to each knitter's own discretion.  I'll use up ends and small yarn skeins and knit 8 inch squares for warm afghans for AIDS orphans in South Africa.  I can handle the warmth of an 8 inch square----even if it's beastly hot here during our Olympic watching.

I pray that all that English care and security will result in a disaster-free Games.  The world truly is small now, and I no longer watch just to root for the home team.  There are so many amazing athletes  who have worked so hard, it is enough to enjoy the contests.

And on a related subject, the Tigers have risen from the doldrums (at least temporarily) and are reason for enthusiasm once again.  I'll enjoy it while I can.  It gives me something to do until football season begins again.


Hang in there, and stay cool if you can!

Bits on Friday

Hi, Fellow Fragmented Friends,

Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin Time lets us link up and share on Fridays.  Check out the others HERE.

We are pathetically grateful for this little break in the heat wave.  We even got out to walk this morning between the fog lifting and the heat descending.  It's a delicate thing, timing when to go.

While we were in the northern suburbs of Chicago earlier this week, we drove to Arlington Heights to find a culinary delight we've never found anywhere else.  A restaurant called Johnnie's has Italian lemonade---a treat that's like no other on a 100 degree day.  It's like the finest ground ice in the world permeated with lemon flavor.  It is heaven when the weather is hot.  For less than four dollars we both got an hour of escape from the heat.

My garden is lush with sugar snap peas, flowering beans, trillions of little tomatoes, beet greens galore and radishes--now going to seed.  I need to get in there and pull them all out.

When I returned I had two books in my mail stack.  One was another copy of 29 Gifts, and the second was How to be an Everyday Philanthropist by Nicole Bouchard Boles.  It is really full of great information!

What must it be like to write your best, and sometimes only, work early in your career as a writer?  Think of To Kill a Mockingbird, or Catch 22.  I think that must be frustrating even if you have written something iconic.

I have relatives visiting the area from Wyoming.  I have to try to find and see them today--somehow.  They are camping and both of them have cell phones, but around here cell phone service is tricky if you are down in a hollow near a lake shore.  We shall see.

Sometimes people get trapped by their good deeds.  My sis and her husband have a place on Lake Superior where, for years, they have hosted a soiree on the day of a local bluegrass jamboree.  She doesn't sound like it has quite the charm it used to have, though now it is more of a potluck than it used to be.  I'm hoping the weather is cooperative for the Jamboree.  (The generation of listeners has gone from the tie-dye, bell-bottom crowd to the pot-bellied, polyester crowd.)  The irony!

That's enough fragments.  I have to go and see what Karen has learned this week!  I count on her to keep me in the knowledge loop.

From the City

I mentioned in my last post that we were going to the city to listen to music.  On Sunday night we hear   Barbara Cook, who played Marian the Librarian when The Music Man was first on Broadway.  Which puts her in her mid-eighties by now, yet she's still singing wonderfully.  Sometimes she forgets the words, and her voice isn't what it was forty years ago, but she is still amazing and we loved being able to hear her again.

Last night we heard Diana Krall sing and play a mean jazz piano, with a great back up group of a guitar, drums, and bass.  Diana used to open for Tony Bennett, and she's a formidable talent.  Along her path she accumulated a fine husband, (Elvis Costello) and has five year old sons.  (Twins, I assume.)

We stayed in an old fashioned, European style inn, with dormitory style bathrooms----for those of you who lived in old-fashioned dorms.  Actually, it was presented as a Bed and Breakfast, but the people there weren't as friendly as real B&B folks are.  Maybe it's just my Midwest mindset, but I can strike up conversations and be friendly to strangers without being pushy.  I think.

 

We were in Evanston, where it was hot, just like almost everywhere else in the country.  The farmers in Illinois and Indiana are very concerned about the drought conditions, because 30% or more of the corn crop is already lost.  Very worrisome.  

My e-mail urged me to join a zillion others and pray for rain.  Plenty of nice gentle rain.  Join us if you wish.

Anyway, today we returned home where it is now cooler and clouded over and perhaps there's some thunder in the air.  We won't turn down rain here, either.  It will probably rain, since I soaked all my planters and watered the garden a bit.  My garden has peas forming, cucumbers climbing the fence, blossoms all over the bean plants, and tomato plants like a jungle!  Tomorrow's job is to do some pruning and tying I think.

I am always happy to be back home.  The Rearranger is resting in my suitcase, and I am happy to see all three of our animals.  They are glad we came home to open the windows for them, so they could smell and hear what's really happening.   Bliss.

Stay cool, wherever you are!

Loafing

I read this week that routine is good, but if every day blurs into the next, time seems to go more quickly.

I can not attribute this wise saying to the proper author, but I think I read it on The Happiness Project blog.  But who knows, because I have been entertaining myself by reading both online and with Actual Books this summer in the heat. And I feel as though I'm "enduring" more than experiencing the season.

My sewing room is the warmest place in the house, so I'm sure not entertaining myself in there!  The west side of the house benefits most from AC, so our afternoons are spent there, reading.

I have read in no particular order, these books.  I will rate them from 1-10, with 10 being "Don't Miss This!"

1.  The Unbidden Truth by Kate Wilhelm    (7).  Great characters who stay in character throughout.

2.  Moloka'i  by Alan Brennert     (8)  Read for book club and I learned a lot about the treatment of lepers and leprosy in Hawaii in the last century.

3.  Second Chance by James Patterson and Andrew Gross  (7)

4.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins  (8)        I may be the last person in the USA to read this.  I enjoyed it even though I found the premise troubling. 

5.  Delicious and Suspicious by Riley Adams  (4)  Silly--like so many "murder mysteries" set in bakeries, quilt shops, and such.

6.  Split Image by Robert B. Parker  (7).  There's never much action in Parker's books; I just love the snappy dialog.

7.  Big Jack by J.D. Robb.   (8)  I read this on my Nook, and I know I liked it, but I have the worst time remembering stuff I read on it!  And when it's a library book, it expires and I can't go back to refresh my shaky memory.

8.  Star Island by Carl Hiaasen or maybe Hiassen .  (8)  Guilty pleasure.  Full of gross stuff and bad language but so, so funny.

The only thing I've read this year that I'd advise you not to miss is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  A truly memorable book on many levels.  Louis is truly a man you need to know.

We'll be off enjoying fine music for a few days.  I'll have a computer, but may not take time to check in.

The Joys of Old Friendships

 A very good morning to you on a cool early morning, when the forecast is for a "reasonably" hot day.  I will take my blessings however they are doled.  I love these cool, dewy morning hours and try to accomplish as much as possible before I get red-faced, irritable, and tired.

Well, that is probably too much information.  Suffice it to say, I am happy that someone invented air conditioning.

My real subject for the day is the blessing of old friends.  Good Guy and I got to spend Saturday evening with a wonderful couple from the town where he used to teach school.  He has known them for many more years than I, since I only came on the scene 24 years ago.  (See, I told you we were old!)  So they qualify as old friends, and their younger kids, all married now, were just starting school when I first knew them.

So we caught up on the town obits, the news of the children and grandchildren, what they are reading, where we've been traveling, and how good it is to get together again.

Tomorrow I'll see my "back to my youth" old friends when my nursing class has a reunion.  I always have to laugh at my reaction, because (to me) my classmates all look the same as ever, but their husbands are really aging.

Our planning has focused on how many of us can get together at one time, plus what to bring to the potluck.  Program consists of finding something for the husbands to do, while the wives gather in small enough groups to visit and catch up.

We are fairly unique, I think, in that we have a round robin letter that circulates among eleven of us so we get news of each others several times a year.  It makes its circuit about once per season, but I certainly wouldn't get individual letters from each of them that often.  Nobody writes that many letters anymore, do they?

These get-togethers are cause to reflect on the ways we are the same people we were when we were 18-21 year olds in nurses' training, even though so much time has passed and we have experienced so much of life.  It reassures me somehow, that even though most of us have grown wiser and have weathered some stormy times, there is still some mischief to be seen.  The people who were always full of fun are still laughing, and the smartest are still smart.  The stylish are still looking fine, and we are all staying out of the obituary column.

 Nobody smokes anymore, though many took it up when they first left home.  (I thought I was the voice of reason, telling everyone it was dumb to start.  They thought I was a big nag, and I probably was.)


My only distinction in the group was as the class wit, so you must understand that it was a very small class indeed.  (Cue in the laugh track.)


Well, you will have to excuse me now so I can get to work on my contribution to the potluck.  In true Weight Watcher fashion, I should have signed up to bring a veggie tray.  Alas, I am going to bring porketta, simmered to tenderness, and buns.  The husbands have to be fed---and some of them still eat meat....and maybe it isn't too late to be more than the class wit.

Five on Friday

I usually sweep together my "bits of the week" and dump them on my friend, Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time.   However I am without bits this week and besides that, I am awfully late to link up, so I will write about something else.

Once a blogger decides to have their comments count up to benefit others somehow, they become aware of many worthy causes that are competing for their attention and donation.  So one of the first places I found and trusted was an organization called Charity Navigator.  They call themselves the guide to intelligent giving, and gave me information such as what percentage of what they raise goes to the people who are supposed to be helped.  (Good to know.)

Other interesting ideas have come from other blogs, from the news, from friends, and newsletters. Just a couple weeks ago I found a posting from Be More With Less that sent me to a story about a man who decided on his fiftieth birthday that he was going to set this amazing goal.  He was going to try to bring about a change for someone in every country of the world.  He was going to study, find a cause, and make a personal connection whenever possible.

From another blog I read from time to time I found Kiva, which does microlending to people in other countries.  The amount you can lend is modest, plus as the money is repaid, you can use the same money to help another person.  (I think this is really cool, because you can scroll through people and countries and choose, and if you'd like to join a team of givers, you can do that too.)

If you stop by here you know that I am a book lover, so I am crazy about the idea of Little Free Libraries.  The idea here is to build community in your own neighborhood by putting a sturdy waterproof box on a pole in your front yard, stock it with books, and encourage your neighbors to take a book and leave a book to share.  The organization will sell you a box or provide you with plans to build one, and provide a label to attach to explain what it's all about.

Another worthwhile cause I have found is Forgotten Children, which has many volunteer helpers, which keeps administrative costs to a minimum.  Check them out.  They are doing good work.

I have had contact with other causes that I feel do a good job, too.  I wrote letters for Soldiers Angels, and learned about Doctors Without Borders (a personal favorite), agencies that help the children of prisoners, a facility nearby that serves addicts and introduces them to the Lord, Heifer International, the Salvation Army, the local women's shelter, and the cancer closet.

It is only fair to tell you that if you donate to a place, and they have an address to contact you, you will receive further pleas for money.  Let the donor beware.

I'm not sharing this with you because I'm so generous, but because sometimes I benefit from the vision that others have, and I'm trying to pass that along.  I am so challenged by the man who wants to change every country!  I will tell you more about that just in case you don't hunt for that link yourself, but not tonight.   Come back again.

In the meantime give something away!  Even if it's just a happy grin.

 
 

Report Card

Time to give you some feedback on the comment count for May/June.  I wrote an entire wordy tome about this last night and either Blogger or AT&T, or mysterious forces beyond my control made the whole thing disappear.

I was too irritated to do it over then, but maybe in the early hours, there won't be so much competition in the ether.  Whatever!

In May and June we racked up 104 comments which will translate to a flock of chickens or ducks, and a hive of bees.  Neither of which sound too impressive in our land of plenty, but can make a real difference in the nutrition and prosperity of a family in a Third World country. 

I am disappointed in the comment count, but not enough to make me show up here every day with a fascinating subject to share, so I guess I'll reap what I've sown.  Life intervenes.

I'm not doing the comment for charity thing again for a while, but I'm investigating some other interesting sharing strategies.

Check out Little Free Libraries.  More about that later on.  Have a Happy Independence Day!