goodbye June

I am surprised by how quickly the months seem to be going by this year.  On the one hand this time of at least partial seculsion has reminded me of summer vacations when I was young with seemingly endless time to do fun things. As long as they are things you can do at home alone.  On the other hand, again like during those long ago summer vacations. the months do seem to be zipping by.  So here I am at the end of the last day of June.  I decided to check one of many lists I can Google to find out if June 30 is special in any way.  It turns out that June 30 is Social Media Day.  How appropriate is that?  I must admit that, during this pandemic, I have turned to social media more than ever before.  It is a great way to stay connected these days and certainly deserves to be celebrated. By the way, for me social media (beyond texting and phoning) only involves FaceBook and Zooming.  I don't tweet or twitter yet.  Who knows what July might bring?

I'm trying to learn

.I haven't been going into stores much lately.  Whenever possible I get things by curb side pick-up.  But sometimes I feel like I really need to go into a store and today was one of those days.  I bravely ventured into a Hallmark shop, wearing a mask and carefully staying six feet away from other patrons.  It wasn't too hard since I was the only customer in the store.  I really had to be there since I have seven family and friend birthdays in July and needed to buy some cards.  All went well until I walked up to the clerk to check out. I reached out to hand her the shopping basket with the cards in it and WHAM! slammed that big hard plastic basket into the large, very clean, plexiglass shield between her and me.  The clerk just laughed, said it happens all the time, and pointed me to the little open space two feet to the left where I could hand my purchase to her.  Then she showed me the little opening in the plexiglass barrier where I could reach the card reader to insert my credit card.  I promise, the next time I'm in a store, or maybe the library next week, I will watch carefully to avoid invisible barriers.  I have never been accused of being coordinated but I can try to learn more of this new normal.

Phones continued

In 1991 my son was a freshman at Harvey Mudd College, one of the Clairmont colleges in California.  That same spring I was scheduled to attend a real estate relocation conference in Reno, Nevada.  It was a lovely coincidence that his last day of classes was the same day my conference ended so it was decided that I would drive to the conference then swing south, pick up our son and bring him home for the summer.  Since I would be driving cross country by myself my husband decided that it was time to buy our first cell phone.  I think back then they were still called car phones.  It was a box about 8x7x4 inches that sat on the floor of the car.  I will admit that having that car in the phone did give me a feeling of security.  Neither of us had realized that there were still great gaps of space out west with no cell service.  I used that phone for several years.  In addition to the phone I carried a pagers so my office could always reach me, at least in theory.  From that phone I graduated to a flip phone; so cute and so much easier to carry around.  Then, some years ago I moved up to a semi-smart phone.  I could phone and text with it and that seemed to be enough.  Then,one year ago, my son (my technical advisor) and I went shopping for a new lap-top for me.  As we were considering various options my son drew my attention to a Moto7 phone.  As we talked about what I was looking for in a new laptop I realized that most of what I wanted was contained in that phone.  So I bought the phone.  I liked it from the very beginning but since we have been isolated over the last few months I have been astonished at how much I use my phone. From group texts (shades of the old party line) to Zoom meetings to emails to facebook to weather reports to ordering groceries on line to reserving library books, and of course phone calls, it's an amazing piece of equipment.  The bonus is being able to take, send and receive pictures.  From a box on the wall, to a box in the car to a 3x6 inch take anywhere phone/computer/camera, I think the evolution of phones is amazing.  And I know I don't have the latest technology but I'm ok for now. 

Phones i have known....

I was thinking today about how glad I am to have a good phone during this ongoing time of isolation.  It's good to have so many options for staying in touch.  That led me to remember other phones I have known.  When I was very young I had a story book that showed a picture of a tall skinny phone (I think they called them candlestick phones) and I always thought it would be so elegant to have a phone like that.  Alas, that never happened.  When I was eight my family moved to an old house in the country near Woodburn.  My parents had read a book called "Five Acres and Independence" and, while I don't think they ever achieved real independence it was a good place to grow up.  The phone on the wall when we moved in was a big box with a crank handle on the right, a receiver hooked on the left, and a speaker sticking out the front.  We were on a party line which meant anyone on the line could pick up when the phone rang.  But we knew when it was actually for us.  Our ring was two longs and a short.  Within a couple of years those old phones were phased out and we had a sleek black phone on the kitchen wall with a dial.  It was still a party line and if friends all picked up at once we could talk for quite some time, til some adult got on the line and made us all hang up so they could make a call.  The receiver did have a good long cord so if a person got a call from, for instance, a boyfriend they could walk out on the enclosed porch for some privacy.  The first time I had a phone in my bedroom was in college.  In 1962 I was housed in a brand new dorm with a phone in each room.  Such luxury. Of course no one could afford many long distance phone calls so communication to home was mostly by letters.  After graduation I spent one of my teaching years in Monticello, New York.  I rented a cute little third floor apartment and I had to have my own phone installed.  I bought a baby blue, slimline, push button Princess Phone.  In 1967 that was the height of elegance, at least in my eyes.  I loved that phone.  To be continued.....

ahead of her time

My mother was a woman ahead of her time. For most of my childhood she was an elementary school teacher and a very good one.  Which is ironic because she never wanted to be a teacher.  She wanted to be a nurse, but in 1928 her mother didn't think being a nurse was respectable so she was forced to go to teachers college. I have friends who remember her as their favorite teacher ever.  When I was ready to start my teaching career I asked Mom what her secret to being such a good teacher was.  Her reply "I find something to love about each student."  A truly wise woman, but I digress.  The reason I think she was ahead of her time was because of something I heard on TV this morning.  The speaker was advising parents to keep their children on a schedule this summer with time for chores, play time, rest time and some limited screen time.  Well, my mom was doing that in the 1950s.  Our summers were wonderful.  We lived in the country with lots of room to roam, trees to climb and a big rock shaped like a ship to sail. But our days were organized.  Typically we did chores in the morning, had a mid-morning snack, took time to watch "Captain Kangaroo" with our youngest brother (screen time) played outside a lot, took a short rest after lunch, and always had some time to read.  It's funny but during this time of seclusion I find myself slipping into a very similar summer pattern; work in the morning, lunch, nap, do some fun activities and a different kind of screen time.  It's nice when sweet memories coincide with life lived now.

Statistics again

I am always sceptical about statistics. A boss of mine, who was a master of quoting statistics, said that 50% of all statistics are made up on the spot.  Think about it.  Today I heard a statistic that made me wonder a little.  This is in regard to a law recently passed here in Indiana against using your phone while driving.  Which, by the way, I think is a very good law.  The stat quoted was that distracted drivers are 400 (four hundred) more times likely to be in an accident than non-distracted drivers.  400 times?? I'm not exactly questioning the numbers it's just that I think any accident that isn't weather related can probably be blamed on a distracted driver. Aren't drunk driving, being high, kissing your girlfriend, singing along with the radio, grabbing for your purse that just fell on the floor, driving while legally blind, watching a show on your tablet or texting someone all forms of distracted driving?  Put your phone down, watch out for those other 400 drivers and be careful out there.

swim or fly

Today is World UFO Day and also 'swim a lap' day.  Your odds of seeing a UFO are slighty better that the chance of seeing me swim these days.  I can swim, sort of.  One of the reasons I like river cruises more than ocean cruises is because I can usually see the river banks and feel pretty sure that I could swim to shore in an emergency, especially wearing a life jacket.  Also there are no sharks in rivers. Piranhas maybe but I'm not planning to cruise on any South American rivers.  I actually passed my college PE swimming class.  We had to swim the length of the pool six times - back and forth swimming the back stroke (always my favorite because I can breathe) the side stroke and the front stroke.  We also had to dive in off the low board.  I did the dive and I remember it being rather pleasant but I have never been able to make myself do it again.  Pretty sure I could make myself jump in the river if the boat was sinking.  I managed all the laps but that was it.  I understand that our pool here at the apartments is open, with several restrictions, but honestly, given a choice, and I do have a choice, I would rather sit in the shade on my balcony and read a good book.  A real blessing about taking that swimming class way back in 1964 is that there were no cell phones so there is no record of my swimming test.  I'm sure it wasn't a pretty picture. 

Don't fall down

There is a commercial on TV that says falling is bad for you. I believe them. Recently I've been thinking that shopping is dangerous because of Covid 19 but evidently there are other problems with shopping.  I just had a text from a friend who is sitting in an ER over in Ohio waiting for the results of an Xray.  She was in a store earlier today, being careful, wearing her mask, but she tripped on an escalator and, she's pretty sure, broke her left wrist.  Proof positive that shopping is dangerous.  So I shall continue to enjoy curbside pick up for groceries and anything else that offers it.  Some people might think that I'm just lazy but now you know.  Safety first.  

I have my rights

I've heard lots of discussion lately on wearing masks.  Should I be forced to wear one or does that infringe on my civil rights?  But yesterday I heard a different example of concern about rights.  My grandson works at McDonalds, and, in an effort to keep things safe the servers are wearing masks (optional for patrons) and plexiglass shields have been put up at the order stations.  Nothing unusual there.  Many stores and restaurants are doing the same.  On the shield in front of the register they have posted a sign requesting that patrons speak clearly and loudly to insure that their order is recorded correctly.  Sounds reasonable to me.  Evidently one customer that my grandson was waiting on didn't think so.  This particular customer got very upset, started shouting (so no evident problem with raising his voice) and claimed that his civil rights wee being violated.  Really? My grandson tried to explain and remained calm while asking for his order but the customer got more and more upset, and finally just walked out.  It seems to me there were no winners in that situation. 

accidental sympathy

I joined some friends for lunch in the courtyard at our church on Wednesday.  This is a weekly opportunity to bring your own brown bag lunch and chair and do some safe distance socializing.  I don't have a lawn chair but I happened to have, in the back of my car, a walker, the kind with a seat.  A friend had borrowed it from the church and I promised to return it to her.  I figured I could use it as my seat for lunch and then return it.  I got there early and found a nice spot in the shade.  No one noticed what I was sitting on until I got up to leave and started pushing the walker in front of me.  There was an immediate outcry.  "Oh my gosh, what have you done?" "Did you have another hip surgery?"  It didn't help that I was moving a little stiffly when I first stood up.  It wasn't a very comfortable seat.  I hastily explained that I was simply returning the walker for a friend and everyone laughed.  It's nice to know, though, that people cared enough to ask.  A little sympathy, even misplaced, never hurts.

The wheels on the bus...

A news report I saw yesterday got me thinking about things that rotate.  When I was very young  my father took me to a round house to see the way huge engines were rotated on a round table so they could head back the way they came.  I was impressed.  Some years later, when my brother was eight years old, he fell off a playground merry-go-round (only two feet off the ground) and broke his elbow,  He was in an upper body cast for most of that long, hot summer.  Things that rotate can be dangerous.  I have a small rotating item, a lazy Susan, on my dining room table.  My friend Susan really hates that name,  I have a similar aversion to the phrase loosey goosey, but I digress.  The report I saw on TV, about places to visit in Indiana, focused on a rotary jail.  I had never heard of such a thing, but there were evidently several of them around the country at one time.  Ours, now a museum, in Crawfordsville, is evidently the only one that still rotates.  It is a two-story structure with wedge shaped cells on both levels.  The jail was supposed to provide greater security because a jail cell could only be opened when it was rotated around to one open space.  There were bars at the front of each cell, and evidently they gave up on rotating jails when too many prisoners got arms and fingers caught as it was rotated. Didn't they give them any warning? I'm thinking I want to take a road trip to visit this rotary jail when such things are possible again.

a little history lesson

I was watching some boats on the river that flows by my apartment today and the flat bottom party boats made me think of the canal boats that used to travel on the Wabash and Erie canal in this area. I grew up near Woodburn, Indiana and Highway 24 ran along the route of the old canal.  You could still see the deep ditch that ran along one side of the road, all that remained of the canal.  Once, when we were on a family drive my father commented that the entire canal had been dug by hand.  After a little pause my five year old brother said "Weren't they allowed to used shovels?"
When I was in high school I had a summer job (1960 & 61) as live-in housekeeper for an 85 year-old widow who had lived on the same farm since she and her husband married some 60+ years earlier.  When they were married, at the very end of the life of the canal, she remembered that much of their first furniture and farm equipment was delivered on canal boats which stopped right at their farm to unload. Shortly before I worked for her, she sold most of her farm land to BF Goodrich for the construction of their new Woodburn plant.  I estimate that she was born about 1875 and I find it fascinating to think of all the history she lived through.  I wonder if, ten years from now, my grandchildren will think that I have lived through some interesting times in history?

News Flash

Have you heard?  Aunt Jemimah and Uncle Ben have eloped, or at least they will soon ride off into the sunset together.  This really doesn't bother me at all.  I haven't bought either product for years and I do think they are names that need to go.  However, It has me wondering what about Mrs. Butterworth?  She looks brown because the syrup in the bottle is brown and she's actually always reminded me of my sweet, chubby Aunt Dora.  But maybe food continers don't need people shapes and names.  That leaves me wondering what names they may come up with.  Simply Syrup?  Regular Rice?  Good Enough for Waffles?  Maybe, instead of people pictures,shapes and names, food producers should think about using animal shapes.  I mean Honey Bears have worked well for years.  

Zoom on

I attended a meeting this evening at our church - really at the church, with plenty of space between tables and chairs and everyone wearing masks.  However, those who didn't want to come to the building could still attend the meeting by Zoom. It worked well.  We could all hear the Zoom attendees and they could hear us.  Our pastor had set up a tablet on a tall microphone stand so she could turn it allowing the Zoomers to see those of us who were there in person.  As I said, it worked pretty well but I got the giggles (of course no one could see behind my mask) remembering an episode of Big Bang Theory where Sheldon decides to stay safely at home and send his robot self to work.  This involved a screen on top of a tall skinny robot from which Sheldon could watch what was happenng and send orders to his friends.  Life imitating art?  It certainly seemed so.

like a kid in a candy shop

Today I went into a store at the mall for the first time in quite a while.  Oh, I have been in a drug store a couple of times to pick up necessities but this was so much better.  This was a book store.  My favorite kind of store in the world.  I wore my mask and stayed behind the 6-foot line at checkout.  Not a problem with crowds.  I got to the store shortly after it opened at 10am and discovered that the rest of the mall didn't open until 11:00.  All this helped to make me feel that the store was open just for me and the parking lot had also been reserved for my use.  I was there for one specific purpose, to buy a cookbook for my grandson and I found one that looks really good.  Of course I had to take some time to browse.  It felt like the whole place was saying "Welcome home Luci; come on in and spend, spend, spend." Lucky for me I had just last week gotten some books from the library via curb side pick-up so I was able to exert some self control.  Goodness knows what will happen when the library actually opens.  They have a limit of 10 books at a time for curb side pick-up which seems like a lot.  The most I have reserved at a time so far is four.  A friend who works at the library tells me that in ordinary times some patrons have up to 100 books checked out at a time.  I can't imagine this but, once I can get in the building, I know that, like the people who stocked up on toilet paper. I will be tempted to hoard an ample supply.  You never know when things may shut down again. 

Plein Air Worship

In French 'en plein air' means in the open air.  Plein air painters, and there are several around Fort Wayne, paint outside.  Today I was part of some plein air worship.  We needed to have an actual church service this morning because we were installing new elders and deacons and it was decided that it couldn't really be done virtually.  The service was also live steamed but I had a small part in the service and needed to be there.  I was a little reluctant to go.  I've gotten much too comfortable with couch church.  It was an interesting experience.  We followed all the guidelines- chairs spaced six feet apart (unless you were part of the same family) everyone wearing masks, no congregational singing and so on.  We did have some lovely choral music by a soloist and a trio and a good sermon and prayers so it did feel like church, sort of.  It was good to see friends in real life but I had to look twice to recognize some behind their masks.  The weather was perfect, sunny but only 73 degrees with a cool breeze which made sitting in a parking lot comfortable.  But after the service was over all that careful planing seemed to be gone with the wind.  I've read lately that being outside in a group is safer than in an enclosed space.  I certainly hope that's true.  I saw several groups standing around talking, so excited to see each other in real life, and certainly not staying six feet apart.  I think the human impulse to get too close is just too strong.  Hopefully that good brisk breeze will keep us all safe.

the great banana heist

When my daughter was divorced she moved back home and brought along her two children and two cats.  Eventually she happily remarried and she and the kids moved into their new home.  The cats stayed with us - but that's another story. During most of the time that they were all living with us, my daughter and I were working so my recently retired husband became the daycare provider for the three year old and the eighteen month old.  He was a loving grandpa but it took him a while to learn the truth that every stay at home mom learns quickly.  When children are very quiet, and out of sight that's probably not a good thing.  On the particular evening I'm remembering, I arrived home, hugged the kids who seemed to be fine and went to the kitchen to start supper.  During the prep time I reached for the bunch of bananas (8 or 10) because I planned to use a couple in fruit salad.  No bananas!  I turned to the three year old, my grandson, and said, half jokingly, "Do you know where the bananas are?"  He led me to the bedroom that his mom and baby sister shared, and showed me, in the foot wide space between my daughter's bed and the wall, a pile of banana skins.  They had eaten every one.  Years later my grandson told me that he really doesn't care for bananas.  He didn't know why but I'm guessing the banana binge had something to do with it.  

a cooking challenge

My grandson will be 19 next Friday, and he's sharing an apartment with two friends and, I've just learned, he has a girlfriend.  I may get to meet her next Sunday when the family is having a small (only six of us) pizza party / birthday party / Fathers Day party.  We will probably gather in their gazebo so lots of fresh air and space between us.  My daughter told me that he might be bringing his girlfriend and asked me to think of as many embarrasing childhood stories about him as I can.  I have a few really good ones.  'The great banana caper' and 'nail polish art' come to mind.  I may share these with you later in the week for practice.  In the meantime my assignment is to buy, as a birthday gift for my grandson, a good, not too complicated, cookbook and maybe print off some of my recipes.  It seems he has expressed an interest in learning to really cook.  My first thought is the good old "Betty Crocker Cookbook" newest edition of course.  I have a copy I have used since I was married 52 years ago and the recipes always work.  Also there are pictures.  I think it's always good to have some idea of what your food should look like.  The real joy of this is, of course, that it is an excuse to go shopping at Barnes & Nobel.  They are open now but do insist you wear a mask. Not a problem.  Thanks to my masks, I haven't worn makeup in the last three months.  Life is good.  

longing to travel

In a pre-coronavirus world I was supposed to be in France today on a nine-day trip to France and Switzerland.  Needless to say, that trip has been cancelled, with the hope that it will be rescheduled for 2022.  In the meantime the two friends I often travel with would be starting their Rhine River cruise this week.  I couldn't have gone with them because of the conflict.  But now their cruise has been reschduled for June of 2021, so, assuming any of us are traveling next year, I can go with them.  I've only been on one river cruise but I really liked it.  The problem is I need a roommate.  This tour won't allow three in a room.  The travel guide is working to find someone for me to room with and I am open to suggestions.  One of my friends has generously said that if our leader finds a hot guy, I can room with my other friend and she will take the guy.  When I told our leader this she said if she finds a hot guy I can have her roommate.  Goody.

a genuine antique

The other day I lost my favorite book mark.  It was one that my oldest granddaughter had made for me during the summer when she and her sister were making all sorts of crafts out of fancy patterned duct tape.  I really like this particular book mark it's a nce size and very colorful, but I can't find it anywhere.  I suspect my recliner ate it.  So, I went in search of another bookmark.  I do not just turn down the corners on pages.  I've been well trained by many librarians over the years.  Hidden in the back of one drawer I found a nice stiff card with a design colored on one side by another of my grandchildren, or perhaps one of my children.  It looked like it would work and it does. After admiring the coloring I looked more closely and realized that the design had been colored on an old (very old) computer punch card.  Once upon a time programs were entered into computers after first being encoded on punch cards, lots and lots of punch cards.  I'm not really sure how this all worked but I do know that my husband used to come home with long boxes of these used cards which the kids could then use for all sorts of craft projects like, for instance, book marks.  I have no idea how this particular card has survived but I'm happy to give it another lease on life. I am doing a lot of reading these days.

geting serious

I usually try to avoid serious topics on this blog but this evening I have decided to share a devotion that I wrote recently.

Please Pass the Milk
by
Luci Foltz

I've been metaphorically wringing my hands for the last two weeks, wondering what can I do?  What should I be doing? 
MY days of protesting are long behind me.  Sit-ins are a dim, distant college memory. 

I truly thought back then, when I tried to imagine this far into the future, that racism would be a sad distant memory, that mixed marriages would be the norm, that the world would be on the way to being populated by coffee and cream skinned people.
I was so hopeful, and that hopefulness was fed by circumstances.  The black friends I met on campus (the first black people I had ever met) were bright, intelligent people looking forward to successful lives.  I graduated from college in 1965 and spent one year of my teaching career in Monticello, New York; a wonderful town in the Catskills that had been so thouroughly integrated for so many years that it gave me hope that this is how it would soon be everywhere.

But here and now, with the distant sounds of protest outside my windows, I find myself deeply saddened and wondering if things will ever really change. 
So I found myself praying the question what can I do now?  And the answer came "You can be kind."  Really God?  That doesn't seem like much."   And then another phrase slid through my mind. Consider 'the milk of human kindness.'  Who knew God quotes Shakespeare? 

I like to think I'm a kind person.  I'm always cheerful and friendly to people I meet in the hallways or on the elevators of my building.  I think I usually leave people smiling but with masks, who can tell? 
But when I think of the milk of human kindness, I think of milk flowing freely and unendingly.  Babies nurse greedly, never anticipating an end to the milk.  Teens inhale milk right from the jug and assume there will always be more.  Abundant milk, abundant kindness.  I think Jesus' idea of kindness was of the flowing milk variety.  Walk the extra mile, give him your shirt and your coat, turn the other cheek.  Jesus was God's great example of milk-flowing, over the top, intense kindness. 

I saw, on a recent news report, an excellent example of the kindness I'm talking about.  Security footage caught the image of a young man with a baseball bat approaching a plate glass window.  It looked like he had vandalism in mind. Suddenly he was surrounded, very quietly, by four people who hugged him, held him close, and waited for him to calm down.  No one yelled, no one was injured.  Just quiet kindness.  I can imagine Jesus saying "Hug, don't hit."

So what can we do now?  We can be kind, over and over again.  It may not seem like much, but like spilled milk, it will spread and spread and spread.

success and sweet memories

I am happy to report that the banana bread turned out just right, no soggy center and it even tastes good.  I knew you would want to know.
On another topic, I watched the movie "Grease" this evening. Fun music and it stirred up lots of memories.  School dances, although we never danced as wildly as they did, at least I don't think so.  Drive in movies, talk about summer fun. I never owned a tight black leather outfit but I did date the school 'bad boy' for a while. My first love.  
Two friends who I have know since high school, and I have gotten in the pandemic habit of texting each other if we're all watching the same TV show in the evening.  Usually it is a reality show like America's got Talent or The Voice so we can compare notes on the performers.  Tonight it was just a chance to enjoy a sentimental rerun together.  Memories shared (some sugar coated by time) are the best.

when life gives you bananas

I had promised myself that I wouldn't do any more baking for a while. So far, during these months of isolation, I have baked lemon bars and butterscotch brownies (yummy) and apple pie and sour cream sugar cookies.  But the problem is I eat what I bake, so no more baking, at least for a while.  However earlier today I noticed that my three remaining bananas looked like they were not long for this world.  I know, I could have just thrown them away, but everybody knows that old squishy bananas make the best banana bread so I dug out a recipe from my faithful Betty Crocker cookbook and set to work.  I have had problems in the past with banana bread being soft in the middle after it's baked to I tried to follow the recipe very carefully. It said that the batter would be lumpy and it was.  It said to bake it for 55 minutes, then insert a toothpick to make sure it was done.  I did and it was.  I let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then out of the pan for a couple of hours, till it was comp;etely cool.  Then, and this was the hard part, wrap it up and put it away and don't cut it till tomorrow.  What?  I had been sniffing delicious smelling banana bread all afternoon and I couldn't taste it?  I was good, and it is wrapped and put away, but I'm pretty sure I'll be having banana bread for breakfast.  

fun memories

Today is Hot Air Balloon Day.  I've only taken one hot air balloon ride in my life, so far.  I would go again given the chance.  For years I've enjoyed watching hot air balloons float by.  When we lived on Tonkel Road, several balloons would float over during any summer.  Four years ago a friend an I spent a long weekend at the International Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was a fabulous show with hundreds of balloons, no two alike, taking off early each morning and glowing in the evenings.  I found it fascinating that these balloons could take off, go with the air currents and then come back to the same spot,  No motors, but they could catch the early morning winds going one way, then go up higher and catch another current coming back the other way.  This phenomenon doesn't happen in many places which is why this festival is so popular.  I would have gone for a ride that weekend except for two things.  One, my friend is afraid of heights and two, the cost was rediculous.  
Two years ago, the same friend and I went to Australia, and there, finally, I got my balloon ride.  She did not go along but several others in our group did.  It was a large balloon with a rectangular basket (gondola) which carried 17 people, eight along each side, and the pilot in the middle.  There were some challenges involved. The first one was getting into the basket.  It had five foot high sides which felt nice and safe once you were in.  to get in, though, I had to climb up and over and drop in with the help of some hand and foot holds. I did it, on my own, but it wasn't a graceful picture.  Once we were all in we were given instructions on where to stand, and how to position ourselves for landing.  It did give me pause when we were told not to let go if the basket tipped over on landing, and definitely not to jump out.  Well, the basket didn't tip and it was a wonderful 45 minute ride over the edge of the Australian outback.  We saw kangaroos and other wild life and wonderful distant and close up views.  One thing did surprise me a little.  I had always heard that hot air balloon rides were very quiet, and they were, except when the pilot pulled the valve or lever or whatever that allowed hot air to blast up into the balloon.  That was a loud noise, Thankfully it never lasted long.  All in all a great experience.  I'm glad it has its own special day.  

very unrealistic

Today is national cheese day and also hug your cat day.  I will eat cheese but I have real doubts about hugging cats.  Through the years I have enjoyed the company of many cats including Heathcliff and Hercules when I was very young.  I also had a dog named Mabel during those years.  My father named our pets during the early years of my life.  Hercules would allow me to dress him in doll clothes and give him rides in my doll buggy, but he never wanted to be hugged.  He also got tired of the doll clothes pretty quickly.  Through many years and many cats, I never lived with one who wanted to be hugged.  Snuggle sometimes, sprawl across my lap often, sleep on my pillow with a tail across my nose, naturally, but hugged?  No.  It is obviously beneath their dignity.  Now that I think about it, cats may have invented social distancing.  

a great day for running

Frequently my west coast brother sends me information about special days.  Today, for example, is chocolate macaroons day.  It's also, according to a local TV personality, global running day.  But, most importantly, today is Chimborazo Day.  I know, amazing right?  When he sent me the information I assumed it was some kind of Mexican dish, like a combination burrito and chimichanga.  Not even close.  Thanks to Google, I learned that Chimborazo is a volcano in Ecuador and also the nearest spot on earth to the moon. It's not the tallest mountain in the world, but, somehow, because of it's location close to the equator, it's the farthest spot from the center of the earth and also the spot closest to the moon.  Now, isn't that a fun geographic fact?  Next year when Chimborazo Day comes around you'll know what you're celebrating.  Or you might just want to focus on the chocolate macaroons.  Global running is obviously out of the question, at least for me.

simple pleasures

I got my hair cut today. Both my stylest and I kept our masks on.  I didn't go in the building until I was called in.  I used the hand sanitizer as requested.  A little different than the usual experience, but still, I did get my hair cut.  Picture available upon request, but sadly, it's still the same old face.  I'm pretty sure I lost about 10 pounds in hair weight.  I know, I know - wishfull thinking, but still, the pile of hair she swept up off the floor looked like a small cat.  Then, wait for it, my day got even more exciting.  I drove by the library and got three more books from their curbside pick up service.  Not a very exciting day by many measures, but, as I have told several friends, I am easily satisfied.  Which is a really good thing these days.

book news

I was talking with a friend yesterday who works at the library.  They are trying hard to get to the point where they can open to the public but for now, and for the next several weeks, they will only be offering curb side pick up.  I have found this service to be very convenient, like ordering my groceries on line but without the risk of ending up with too much celery.  I don't care if I end up with a few extra books.  I told her how much I enjoy this service and she told me that within a week I should be able to order up to ten books at a time.  Ten?  I told her I wasn't likely to be putting that many on hold any time soon.  She laughed and told me that some patrons have one hundred books checked out at a time.  I can't imagine.  The most I have ordered at a time is three.  Maybe I'll go crazy and try for five next time.  They do come sanitized and in big blue plastic bags.  My only problem is what to do with the bags.  They are too nice to throw away.  My mother-in-law used to say that about lots of stuff that we found in her basement when we had to clear it out.  Someday, when my kids are cleaning out my apartment, for one reason or another, they may find a closet full of blue plastic library bags.  I'm sure they'll find some great use for them.