Remembering a long-ago Saturday

The long-ago Saturday that is on my mind today was February 28, 1959.  Let's see, 2026 minus 1959 is 67 years ago.  That's the day I married.  I remember as we left the church, that car-loads of friends were lined up to follow us.  We got into our "getaway" car driven by a friend, but went straight through it to another friend's car going in the opposite direction.  Yep, we almost got away, except for those who happened to be parked going in that direction.  I no longer remember details, but I do remember divorcing him 14 years and three children later (also in February).  The three children, all married now, gave me seven grandchildren.  The first one made me a grandparent on grandparents day.  And now I have six GREAT-grandchildren).  This photo includes four generations (I'm wearing red):

Dark skies ~ sun rays later

My twin daughters are taking their time coming to visit me, partly because of the weather where they are driving right now.  They sent me this photo of dark skies.  Later, they sent the one below.  Two daughters, two views of the sky.

Alone vs. Lonely ~ and words coined by kids

Collins Dictionary has this in a section for people learning English, but I think it's interesting for the rest of us to ponder, as well.  Here are quotes from their page:

"If you are alone, you are not with any other people."

 "If you are lonely, you are unhappy because you don’t have anyone to talk to."

As I think of these differences, I come up with my own examples:

I live alone (except for my cat), and I'm not unhappy about that.  I can talk to other people by picking up my phone or going down to eat in our Circle@Crown Café.

It's also likely that I don't feel lonely in my apartment because it's filled with books, and those books are filled with characters who "come alive" as I read.

Words coined by kids

Somebody wondered what a boy meant when he said "a double kid."  Hey, it's a perfect way to describe identical twins.  In that case, I have "a double daughter."  As you can see (on the right), they visited the Arch in St. Louis.  It looks like they were wearing identical sunglasses and had been slurping identical treats.

One child calls an exclamation mark a "yell mark!"  A cactus should be known as a "sharpie."  A mom said her kids called the baby monitor the "momitor," and that makes sense.  Saying hand sanitizer is "hanitizer" is also logical, and calling a ham sandwich a "hamwich" is perfect.

You may put parmesan cheese on your spaghetti, but one child asks for "Farmer John cheese" on hers.  Three guesses what "yummy bears" are.  Have you ever visited the "Vampire State Building"?  If you travel, you could visit "Africa, Asia, and Syrup" (known to most of us as Europe).

Joyful thoughts for Thursday

1.  Look what I got in the mail:  A package from my daughter that was wrapped in JOY.

2.  Time for a confession.  Everyone knows that old age is our "second childhood," and everyone also knows that you can't trust children around Christmas gifts.

3.  When I realized my daughter didn't actually say it was for Christmas, even though she used Christmas wrapping paper, I went ahead and opened the gift.

4.  And what was inside?  More JOY, which is now hung on the wall where I will see it every day.

5.  When I texted her to thank her, she wrote back that she wanted me to have a bit of Christmas.

6.  I told her I'll hang JOY on my cart, when I go to the Circle@Crown Café to eat.

7.  Oh, by the way, Clawdia wanted to play with that tassel on the bottom.  Nope, nope, nope!  This one's not for you, Clawdia.

8.  Let's make more connections to the word JOY, some of which I have shared before.  It's my favorite word, for one thing.

9.  Why?  Partly because I've spent a lot of time with this word; to wit:  I presented a paper on "Joy or Despair?" at the Southeastern Undergraduate Philosophy Conference held at Emory University back in the early 1970s.  I asked why existentialists seemed to focus on despair (Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus come to mind).  If, as they say, we find our own meaning in life, why not choose joy?

10.  One of my favorite phrases from the Bible is "make a joyful noise," so when I started a church newsletter, I named it Joyful Noiseletter.

11.  I was so "into" the meaning of joy during my undergraduate years that my best friend addressed my mail to "Bonnie Joy Jacobs."

12.  When my bank got its first teller machine, telling us to choose four letters or numbers to access it, I considered using B-J-O-Y.  My young daughter Barbara said, "But Mom, anybody could figure out that's what you would pick." 

13.  At the top of my blog about words, I have these words:  "Joyful Noiseletter — an exuberant newsletter to myself about joyful things, like words, which I enjoy."

Looking at four generations

This family photo was taken in 2011.  I also posted it HERE.  I am standing next to my grandson; my daughter and my son (and his wife) are sitting in the chairs holding THEIR grandchildren.  My grandson's wife (mother of the youngest of my great-grandchildren at the time) is over there beside the Coke machine.  That's FOUR generations, and I'm the great-grandmother.  It's still hard to imagine myself the mother of grandparents.  I have seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren now.

This photo of me with my twin daughters was taken in 2016, when they visited me in St. Louis.  I also posted it HERE.  I enjoy sharing family photos with my friends, who also share pictures of their families.  We're proud grandparents and great-grandparents.

Wisdom gained the hard way

Here's a STORY that I posted in early 2007 on another of my blogs, a blog I called Words from a Wordsmith.  It's a long story, so I'll understand if you skip through it.  However, there's another photo of cats in boxes near the bottom.

"Wisdom begins in wonder." — Socrates

"This is who I am, and I like who I am.  It has taken a lifetime for me to get here." — Note to myself, June 18, 2006

Who can I talk to?

When I was younger, I talked to young and old, men and women, boys and girls, and found no one interested in what I was curious about.  At some point most children quit asking "Why?  Why?  Why?" and get on with living, the same way everyone else does.  I am as curious now as I was as a child.

Some of the big questions I had were "Why are we here?" and "Why is there something instead of nothing?" and "Why are things the way they are?"  I have not found all the right answers yet, but I have figured out some of the right questions.  What I did not find was someone who wanted to talk about these fascinating ideas.

If I have no one to talk to, no one who is interested in the same questions, then where do I find answers?  In books, of course.  If I were a child now, perhaps my answer would be "on the internet, of course."  If I were the age of my children, perhaps my answer would have been "on television programs, of course."  I see today's internet as a natural extension of the books that gave me knowledge in the '40s and '50s and '60s and '70s.  Then I started getting degrees:  the bachelor's degree in 1975, the master's degree in 1987, the doctorate (almost) in 1998.  But it was all about "Who can I talk to?"

If nobody in my world wanted to talk about my interests, then I had to find authors who would talk to me.  I began reading where I had questions, going from one book to another whenever an author would kindly provide me with a bibliography.  I would find another book on the same subject or a similar subject and read that one.  My discussion partners may have lived many years ago or many countries or continents away, but we shared the same ideas.

Why not ask my parents?

Well, I did, but when I was still very young, I began to learn that adults were not always honest with me.  What, no Easter bunny?  No tooth fairy, either?  And no Santa?!!!  Being a precocious child, I began to see a pattern here.

I never saw the Easter bunny, who left me eggs when I was asleep.  (And why EGGS, anyway?  Chickens lay eggs.)

I never saw the tooth fairy, who left a coin in exchange for my tooth.  (And why would a fairy want a tooth?  My mother's explanation was that she used them like bricks to build fairy houses.  Okay, THAT made sense, based on her tiny size.)

I never saw Santa either, a jolly old elf who managed to leave gifts all over the world in the middle of one night.  (But how did he get all those toys on his small sleigh?)

I never saw the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus.  Yes, it's a pattern.  Hmm, what ELSE have they told me about that I've never seen?  God and Jesus, that's who!  So when will they tell me God isn't real either?

What do I want to know?

For starters, I always wanted to know WORDS.  That is at the heart of what a wordsmith is, one who loves words, collects words, wants to understand words.  My earliest full memory is about words, a story I've told many times, so you've probably already heard it.

I see my grandmother's chandelier beyond the head of my uncle (possibly Uncle Paul), who is looking down toward Nancy and me standing at his feet.  He asks Nancy, "What grade are you in?" and she says, "First grade."  That's all of the conversation I remember, but my perplexity rings clear in my memory.  What were they talking about?  How could she be in a "firstgrade" when I could clearly see she was in a room?  What's a "firstgrade," anyhow?  I didn't even understand our uncle's question, but Nancy knew and she answered him.  EVERYBODY knew what the words meant . . . except me!  I couldn't stand it!  I wanted to know what all the words mean, all of them, every word in the world.  Even Nancy, a little girl herself, knew what these words meant, and I didn't.  It was so frustrating.

As an adult I pondered my memory of confusion and perplexity, realizing I must have been very, very young if Nancy was in the first grade.  Nancy, after all, is four years older than I am.  Let's see, she would be six years old in the first grade, making me . . . two?!?  This means I struggled with words and trying to understand grown-up talk from the age of two?  Wow!  In later years I realized an uncle whose name I didn't know would probably be one who lived away from Chattanooga (my hometown).  Many people were milling around in Grandma Reynolds's living room that day, meaning an uncle (one of her sons) was there for something big.  A funeral?  Probably, since Grandma died in early May 1943, and I remembered that uncle was wearing a dark suit.  That means I had just turned three years old a week earlier, and Nancy was nearing the end of her first year in school.

What else did I want to know?

How about God-stuff?  I started learning words, exploring ideas, thinking big thoughts, and going to church every time the door was open, it seemed, because Mother was very faithful.  When I was little, she took me to HER Sunday school class because she was worried about leaving me in the nursery "alone," without her.  When I was about eighteen months old, she later told me, she decided it was time to help me settle in with other children.  So she explained to her Sunday school class that she would be in the nursery for the next few Sundays.  When she opened the door to the nursery, she was surprised when I exclaimed, "Oh, Mother, boys and girls!"  And I never looked back.  She didn't miss a single Sunday in her own class and I was, finally, happily in my own!

My parents went to different churches.  It was only after she married him that my mother found out Dad had been telling HIS mother he was going to dances when he was really going to church with my mother.  Grandma Setliffe would have been upset to find out he was attending another church, so apparently dancing was more acceptable.  Dad and his family went to Central Church of Christ when I was little, and Mother and her family went to East Lake Methodist Church.  We were a divided family, but it almost wasn't that way at all.

One Sunday morning Mother attended church with Daddy, thinking a family should worship together.  She had decided that, during the invitation, she would march down to the front and change her membership.  That morning's sermon was about the First Baptist Church and, Mother later told me, Dad's preacher "preached them into Hell and not back out again."  She said she could imagine it being the Methodists next week, and she just couldn't stand being in such a church.  Dad went to his grave not knowing how close Mother came to joining his church.  By then, he had joined HERS.

Anyway, I grew up attending two very different churches.  By the time I was eight, I was ready to join the Methodist church.  I don't remember what I made of their differences, but I had decided the Church of Christ was not for me.  Mother thought I was too young at eight, and even at nine and ten.  When I was ten-and-a-half, I told her one Sunday that I was going to go down front when the preacher gave the invitation, since she wouldn't talk to him about my desire to join.  She gave in and told "Brother King" (Rev. John King) that I insisted on joining.

I remember my baptism.  Methodists allow children to be baptized ("christened") as infants OR as a consenting believer, but my Daddy was firmly in the Church of Christ which insists on believer baptism by immersion only.  So I was not baptized as a baby.  Since Methodist churches rarely have baptismal pools for immersion, Brother King borrowed the one at the Baptist Church one afternoon.  I was a skinny little kid at ten and couldn't have weighed much, but when my bare foot slipped . . . oh, my!  I was sure I was going to drag poor, thin, elderly Brother King down with me!  But no, he held on and didn't lose me and I went under the water.

How do I love God and other people?

The main thing I learned from my mother was that I was loved by her, by my father, by my aunts and uncles and cousins, by God.  She sang "Jesus Loves Me" to us children, and I believed it because I felt loved.  If God loves us, then we are supposed to love God and each other.  That was clear to me.  The next logical step is to figure out how to do that.  How do I love God and other people?

When I was eleven, Mrs. Florine Morgan was my Sunday school teacher.  One Sunday she told us that there were only three doctors in the whole of the Belgian Congo.  Okay, so as an adult I can deduce what she REALLY said was there are only three Methodist missionary doctors in the Congo, but that's what I "heard" her say.  I decided from that day that I should be a medical missionary to Africa.

When I went to college, I was working on a degree in pre-med so I could become a doctor and go to the Congo.  Although I had a merit scholarship to Emory University, I chose to attend in my hometown (the University of Chattanooga, later the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) because Clyde said "if I love him" I wouldn't go so far away.  And he told me he would go to Africa with me as a missionary.  He even changed his major to facilitate his being accepted, he said.  He lied, and it was never changed.  After we were married, I asked why he lied to me and he said, "I figured you'd outgrow these childish ideas."

Now what?

I spent the first year of marriage in tears, wondering how I'd gotten myself into this mess.  After letting me use his car every workday while we were dating, Clyde refused to let me drive after we were married, not even on our honeymoon, saying, "Statistics show that wives are not good drivers."  What?!?  I tried to explain I was still the same person, to no avail.  No job ("not MY wife," he said), no college ("women don't need higher education," he said), no books to read, no money to buy them anyway (the money he earned was HIS money), no car to go anywhere, just staring at four walls after I'd made the bed, and then waiting for him to come home.

In high school I had been in concert band, orchestra, and marching band, becoming Band Captain in my senior year.  I got to go on all the band trips, including once to Washington, DC, where our band marched at half-time, seen on television across the nation.  I played in the Youth Symphony, taught bassoon to a younger student, and played in the college band while still in high school.  I was in the writer's club that met after school every week.  I wrote a short story for an English class that my teacher had me read before a meeting of English teachers.  I published poems and articles in school papers, took a required history class in summer school just so I could take all the electives I wanted to study during the year, and never saw the inside of our study hall until we were given an IQ test in my junior year in high school.  I was either president or secretary or some position in every club I joined, and I was elected to the National Honor Society.

I had been into everything I could manage to find time for, so sitting at home doing nothing was absolute torture.  It lasted less than two months.  After getting married on February 28, 1959, I had had enough of staring at four walls by mid-April and got a job at Sears.  My boss told me, months later, I had made the highest score ever recorded for Sears-Roebuck applications.  Huh, so I did have a mind, but a mind that had been suddenly deprived of any stimulation whatsoever.  The job lasted until the last day of that year because Sears (and most businesses, at that time) had a rule:  No woman could work past the mid-term of her pregnancy.  Yes, I made the classic mistake of thinking I could make the marriage better by having a baby.  I now know more than I knew at age 18 when I got married or at age 19 when I got pregnant, but I'm glad I had my children when I was in my early twenties.

Numbers are also words

It's sad to waste a mind or, for that matter, to mind a waist.  Oops!  Here I am again, playing with words.  Lest it appear I was all one-sided, I must say I have also loved numbers all my life.  When I sat on Mother's lap while she looked through a magazine, I wanted her to read me the long number in ads for, say, tire mileage.  When she read me nursery rhymes, I wanted her to read me the page numbers, too.  I would tell Sassy, my aunt Lillian, that I loved her to the end of the line and then some!  In other words, beyond how far I could count.

I remember I could count to twelve at age four because I learned to count the numbers around Mom's watch.  And that reminds me of a story.  In other words, this wordsmith also became a storyteller.

I needed a tonsillectomy, which Dr. Harold Starr would do in his office.  Since they would be using ether on me, Mother explained they would have me smell some "perfume" and I should count all the numbers around her watch when they did.  They started the procedure and put the ether mask over my face.  Mother asked me to count the numbers, but I didn't.  After a little bit, they removed the mask to see whether I was already asleep.  I wasn't.  They did it again, and I still refused to count.  When I woke up after my tonsils were gone, Mother asked me, "Why wouldn't you count?"  In great indignation I told her, "I didn't LIKE that ole PEW-fume!"

While taking a state exam during the sixth grade, I probably lowered my score because of my fascination about one particular question.  Using a symbol I had never seen before, with a 49 inside it, the test gave me four answer choices:

(a)  5

(b)  6

(c)  7

(d)  8

Well, that was easy.  The only one of those numbers that had anything to do with 49 would be a 7, of course.  Also, that funny looking symbol seemed to be telling me the answer; it was shaped like a division sign but had a little thing like a 7 attached to the bottom left of it.  I know now it was the "square root" sign.  I had the right answer without ever having studied square roots.

That was probably the most fun I ever had on a test!  But I devised other ways to have fun with boring tests.  When we were tested on our assigned spelling words, maybe ten in all, I would wait until the teacher had called out more than half of them before starting to write.  That way, I not only had to spell each word correctly, but I also had the challenge of getting the words in the right order!

In my ninth grade algebra class the teacher started explaining our homework, for the FIFTH time, because most of the students still didn't get it.  I had "gotten it" the night before when I did my homework and was bored to tears.  Miss Blackwell didn't change anything when telling them again, so why bother?  Being among the tallest in my class, I was seated on the back row, and beside me was a bookshelf.  Ah, yes, books.  I found an interesting title, probably also math, and slid it off the shelf.  Just as I started looking through the book, the teacher spotted me and called me down, even though nobody in the class was aware of what I was doing.  So I was chastised for knowing algebra too well.

As a mother of elementary school children, I went back to college.  So did a woman who lived about half a mile from me.  We carpooled, so our children knew each other and were playing in her yard while I tried to help her grasp the concept of algebra.

4x = 16

X is the unknown.

That means 4 times "something unknown" = 16

so 4 times WHAT = 16?

About then our children ran past her back deck and Barbara, having heard my question, yelled, "FOUR!" as she disappeared around the house.  I couldn't help but laugh because that's exactly what I would have done as a child.  I don't know if Jeanette ever did learn algebra.

During my stay-at-home time, when the only books available to read were my college textbooks and his, I took down his trigonometry book and started going through it, page by page.  In two days time I taught myself a third of his book.  It was such fun!  Clyde continued his college courses in night school.  One night he was stumped by a calculus problem, and I looked over his shoulder, curious about it.  I had never even had trigonometry, much less calculus, but after studying his figures and strange symbols I'd never seen before, I told him, "I can't explain HOW to fix your error, but it's right here in this section."  When he reworked that part, he was able to solve the problem.  I still don't know calculus, but I seem to have an affinity for numbers.

Most of my grandchildren could probably tell you "Grandma's favorite number" is nine.  It's a magic number!  Multiply 9 times anything, say 9x2.  The answer is 18; now add those two digits: 1+8=9.  Do it again: 9x4=36, and 3+6=9.  This is fun!  Again:  9x9=81, and 8+1=9.  One day in the car I kept Cali entertained with this "numbers game" while we rode along, with her in the backseat and me driving.  She wouldn't have been able to multiply this "big" number in her head, but it works as well:  106 x 9 = 954, and 9+5+4=18, and 1+8=9.  There are other games we could play with nines, like adding up all the single digit numbers:  1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+0=45, and 4+5=9.  Okay, I'll stop now.

Thinking outside the box

Do you know that feeling when you are working on a difficult problem and everything suddenly comes together?  That's what I call an "aha!" moment, a time when everything is wonderfully and completely clear.  The pieces have all fallen into place and you can see the big picture.

Writing is the process by which I synthesize what I am learning at the time.  (Then I added:  "to be continued" at the end.)

The famous "Dewey" left the first comment.  She was a blogger early on, but she died in 2008.  I miss her still.  This is what she said:  "I had that same line of thinking when my father told me Santa wasn't real.  I said, 'What about the Easter Bunny?'  Nope.  'Tooth fairy?'  Nope. 'God and Jesus?'  My dad said they actually were real, but I don't think I ever thought they were real again after that day."

Then Dewey added a comment about numbers:  "Nines are the most fun ever!  Do you know the hand game with nines?  If you hold up your hands, and put down one finger, then the answer to nine times that number will be the two numbers on either side of the finger you put down.  So if you put down the sixth finger, you'll have five fingers on one side and four on the other, so 54."  Wow!  No, I had never heard that.  It only works with the smaller (hand-sized) numbers, obviously.  But what fun!

I responded to her:  "Dewey, the more I learn about you, the more I realize how much we think alike.  I am so glad I'm getting to know you."

My friend Ginnie commented:  "Please do continue!  I was enjoying every word, until you hit the wall.  Please, keep going!"

=========================================================

*** NOTE:  I wish I could tell Dewey and Ginnie that what I typed at the end (adding "to be continued") is actually a quote from Colleen's Loose Leaf Notes blog.  On the sidebar, Colleen says:

"From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia I write to synthesize what I'm learning at the time, whether it be poetry, a political commentary, or a letter to my family in Hull, Massachusetts, where I'm originally from.  Whenever I don't know exactly what it is I'm doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research.   'Dear Abby, How can I get rid of freckles?' was my first published piece at the age of 11."

Looking back, on this Easter Sunday

My children on Easter 1967 with their Easter baskets.

  

Same three on April 4, 2010, but he got taller than his sisters.

Memories are made of this

Please share a MEMORY you have of me (or us), and I'll share something I remember about you (or us together).

When I did this two years ago on Facebook,

1. Jan remembered our early blogging days,
2. Shon remembered book club discussions,
3. Candy remembered dim sum together (with Barbara, now departed),
4. Sarah remembered reconnecting at the bookstore in North Chattanooga,
5. Fartema remembered being adjunct professors and lunch at Blue Orleans,
6. Kathryn remembered us visiting in her kitchen,
7. Barbara mentioned our mutual friend Sylvia,
8. Sylvia remembered I took her to Candler in Atlanta,
9. Leslie remembered having "daisy" rolls for breakfast at my home,
10. Annette remembered "Bonnie, Donna, and Annette's Excellent Adventure in Atlanta," and
11. Donna said, "Too numerous to name."

Beautiful sunset photo taken by my daughter

Here's a beautiful photo by my daughter Barbara showing how far down the water level is at the lake.  Just last week, she says, it was up to the base of the tree.  I think it looks like a painting.

Colorful photo of Clawdia

Here's Clawdia posing with Friday's library loot.

A black cat really shows up when she's around

colorful books and a rainbow-colored bookbag!

Sept. 25 is National Daughters Day

Today is National Daughters Day.  I have two daughters, who are identical twins.  This photo was taken when my twins visited me in St. Louis in 2016.  Can you see the family resemblance?  Actually, I do have another daughter (hyphenated, that is):  my daughter-in-law, who just had a birthday this week. Happy, Happy Birthday to you!  (Yes, I sang to her on her actual birthday.)

Friendship, an owl, piano lessons, and kayaking

National Women's Friendship Day has been observed the third Sunday in September since 1999.  So today, as the name suggests, is our day to express gratitude for all our women friends.  Let's share some names (it's okay to share only first names).  Who is your best friend?  Or which woman has been your friend the longest — and still is?  Ginny is the one I thought of first.  I met Ginny in August 1955, when I started high school by attending marching band practice at City High School (CHS).  Officially, CHS means Chattanooga High School.  Ginny was a year ahead of me in school, and we are only the same age from April until August, when she gains a year.  She has visited me here in St. Louis, and I've visited her in Tallahassee.  Let's see, 1955 to 2021 is ... wow! ... 66 years that we've been friends!  Love ya, Ginny!

A gorgeous owl ~ Someone shared this photo of an owl on NextDoor, our neighborhood group.  Those who chimed in seem to agree that it's a barred owl, after arguing that it is not a barn owl (which is smaller) or a great horned owl (which is larger and "has feather tufts on its head — the so-called horns").  Anyway, I think this is a beautiful picture of an owl, whatever kind it is.

Learn to Play Piano in Six Weeks or Less ~ by Dan Delaney and Bill Chotkowski, 2009, self-help, 111 pages.  

I've made the photo small because I'm not happy with this book.  It is not really a beginner's book, but a fake book.  Do you know what that is?

fake book /fāk bo͝ok/ noun = a book of music containing the basic chord sequences of jazz or other tunes.

The first sentence in the Introduction even admits that it's a fake book:

"Throw away your bass clef and give your left hand a break — melodies in the right hand, chords and rhythms in the left hand."

This looks like a beginner's book, and in one sense it is.  But the women who bought it so I can teach them how to play the piano will be learning only half of what I expected to teach them.  It's something.  It's a beginning of sorts, but I feel like I'll have to either come up with a way to teach them how to play with the left hand or get us "real" piano books that teach fingering for the bass clef.

My daughters have taken up kayaking.

No, I wasn't out on the water with them. 

One of them took this photo of the other.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The 

Sunday Salon.  Bloggers gather in the 

Sunday Salon — at separate computers 

in different time zones — to talk about 

our lives, our books, and our reading.

Earth Day ~ April 22

I took part in the first Earth Day in 1970 on my college campus.  I came home with information and handouts that day, including one that said "Stop at Two," meaning two children to replace the two parents so we don't overpopulate our earth.  My 6-year-old son nodded and said, "That's a good idea" (or something like that).  I said to him, "David . . . think about it."  I have been pregnant twice, but my first "baby" turned out to be identical twins.  David was born three years later, making him number three.  His eyes widened as realization hit him.

I've celebrated Earth Day on April 22nd every year since then, but I never use the "Stop at Two" slogan.  Never.  David may have taken the advice seriously, though.  He and his wife have two children, a boy and a girl.  Each of his sisters also had two, a girl and a boy.  One twin later remarried and had one other daughter, but that is still only one child per parent.  That youngest grandchild happened to be born on — wait for it! — April 22nd.  Happy birthday today!  What a great coincidence, huh?

Our world is in worse shape now than it was a half century ago when Earth Day was first celebrated.  We need to do more to care for Mother Earth.  I recycle cans and bottles and paper, and I try to avoid anything that may pollute our environment.  What are you doing to save the only planet we have?  Here are a few ways to make a difference.

Click on this image to enlarge it.

You made me smile ~ thank you

On this penultimate day of a difficult year, I felt I should thank all of you who made me smile this year.  You are one of them, so here's a big

THANK YOU

for being you.  Special thanks for smiles from these family members during the holidays:  Getting that "Peace on Earth" card with a peace dove on it (above) from Sandra made me smile.

Getting this Christmas card on Monday from Barbara made me smile, once the US Postal Service began to catch up with their overload of holiday mail and got it delivered.

Getting the toilet paper Christmas tree from Brandy that I shared with you on Friday made me smile.

Getting a card from Whitney's family in the mail addressed only to "Grandma Bonnie" (without my last name) actually made me laugh out loud.  I love all of you, including family that I didn't mention in this post, and I enjoyed ALL the cards people sent me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(Did you notice I'm already practicing my focus words for 2021?  The first two are Gratitude and Love.)

Day 266 since lockdown = 38 weeks

This is actually a doormat.  My daughter Sandra had a photo from the mid-1960s of me and my three children put on a doormat for me.  We were at Signal Point that day, overlooking the Tennessee River.  The city of Chattanooga is off to the left behind me.  This surprise arrived in the mail yesterday.

Gotta brag a little

My daughter shared her painting of a Christmas tree on Facebook today.  Click to enlarge it and see details better.

I love her Christmas tree!  Her black phone on the wall around the corner is a vintage phone like the ones I blogged about on Thursday.

Exploring the world

The only way I have traveled since March this year is online.  In July, I discovered WindowSwap and have clicked on it occasionally ever since, jumping to random windows all over the world.  Recently, I learned about View from My Window on Facebook, where over 200,000 of us share a view from our own windows, limited to one post a day per person.  I've only posted once so far, sharing a photo of Clawdia in her favorite window.  Click on my blue links to see for yourself.

Another way I get around is to Google the places where I used to live.  Today, I went back to take a look at the first house we bought just before the twins were born sixty years ago.  The house looks pretty much the same, but the trees in the front yard are different and they've added a deck that we didn't have.  Over the years, I have walked the neighborhood where I grew up, looked at my old school buildings, and visited a friend in the Netherlands whom I've never met.  I've never been in her country, either, except via Google maps.  It's fun; try it.

Face masks

Vincent van Gogh would have a problem in our masked world of 2020.  I hope you are still wearing a mask and staying socially distanced when you go out.  To make your face mask fit better, watch the tutorial video at the end of this short article.

Bookish things

I haven't read much this week, but I did borrow The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult from my friend Donna.  I am still reading a Maisie Dobbs book right now, but I'll share more about this latest book by Jodi Picoult in a Book Beginnings on Friday post.

Bloggers gather in The Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

Going bananas? Or playing Bananagrams?

My friend Donna wrote, "My 1:30am activity to calm me."  When I asked, she pointed out a couple of good words in this one spread out on the coffee table:  quartered and gamin.  Can you find them?  Click on the image if you need to enlarge it.

Nancy posted on Bookfoolery:  "And, speaking of art . . . I'm working on a collage to combat Election Anxiety, right now (and we watched mindless TV, last night, for the same reason)."  Can you tell that we in the United States are having anxiety issues because of the election yesterday and the days it will take to count all the votes?

I spent election day (yesterday) reading the fourth Maisie Dobbs mystery book (Messenger of Truth), so I "went" to London and Dungeness on the coast of Kent in the United Kingdom.  In other words, I left the country.

Update

My daughter Barbara posted this "helpful" map on Facebook with the words:  "What we know so far."  It made me smile, so I'm sharing it with you.  Laugh a little.

Happy 60th Birthday to my twins

Happy Birthday to you both, from your proud mama,

with lots of love coming your way today and always.

There's a cat licking your birthday cake

Here's the birthday girl, wearing my face mask "uniform" as usual when leaving my apartment.  Notice the tissue in hand for punching elevator buttons, so as not to waste a disposable glove just to take the elevator down once and back up.  Donna had ordered me birthday dinner from Panera — Fuji Apple Salad with chicken and apple chips, and a blueberry muffin for dessert.  I met her where deliveries are left on that table next to me because outsiders may no longer roam the halls of the Crown Center.  We met the delivery guy there and each took food to our apartments to eat, all socially distanced to stay safe.

I'll show you what I ate, and it was delicious.  I shared a few nibbles of the chicken with Clawdia.  Maybe it's because they are trying to be extra good to any customers they can get right now, but it seemed to me there were more of all the goodies in the salad today — more sliced up tiny tomatoes, more feta crumbles, more pecans, even more of the chicken.  It was very delicious.  Clawdia concurs.


Donna sent me a singing birthday card, and I've found it on YouTube for you.  If the video here quits working, click on the link to view it there.  The words are appropriate, since Clawdia would act just like these cats.

Cats on an antique player piano

As if one musical card weren't enough, I got another lively one from Mary Grace (Gigi) entitled "Kit Cat Boogie."  She wrote:

"Happy Birthday!  Hope you'll boogie on your birthday, Bonnie!  Last picture I saw of you, you looked well and happy — hope that is still the case.  Enjoy your special day.  xxoogg"

Yes, I'm doing well and have been doing the boogie all over my little apartment today.  My cat didn't lick my cake when I ate a little Hostess cake for lunch.  For breakfast, I ate a small can of Vienna sausages and the last three green olives left in the jar.  There's a back-story for that.

When I was ten, I went off to summer camp with my cousin Carolyn, who's a year older than I am.  Mother sent me a care package that week, and in it were a can of vienna sausages and some green olives.  She knew I loved those special treats.  So for my breakfast today, I gave myself a treat from my childhood and thought about what my Mom sent me seventy years ago. 

Marie brought me a gift last night and, wearing our masks, she handed off the bag she'd used to bring it up to me and backed off across the hall.  I had a hard time deciding whether to open it last night — who would know, right? — or wait for my actual birthday.  I did manage to wait to discover a wooden box full of Tea Drops.  On the side are directions:  "Pour in boiling water, add Tea Drop, stir and enjoy."  Tea Drops, it says, "are pressed teas made with genuine tea leaves that dissolve in hot water."  And inside are five kinds of tea:

• Citrus Ginger
• Sweet Peppermint
• Blueberry Acai
• Rose Earl Grey
• Matcha Green Tea

I've had so many text messages and phone calls and long conversations that I had to recharge my phone at midday:  Barbara, Sandra, David, Sheila G., Susan, Sandy.  I got Facebook birthday wishes from Sylvia, three books shopped off her own shelf from Donna (stay-home orders, you know), and these birthday cards from Donna, Miriam, and Marie.

When Clawdia woke from her latest cat nap, we ventured out into the sunshine for the walk she's been wanting for days.  Miriam called happy birthday to me from a distance, while she was out sitting in the sun after days of rain.  We're both 80 now, since her birthday was in March.  As Clawdia sat in the lush grass looking around, I decided the pollen count seems to be down.  The mowers and trimmers were working here on this sunny Sunday, even though they usually come here on Mondays.  Maybe they've gotten their days as mixed up as the rest of us during this lockdown, or maybe they're worried about "rainy days and Mondays."

That's not all, yet.  Later in the day I got a couple of other singing electronic cards, both from Sharon.  One was these goats yodeling, and the other was William Shatner singing to me and putting my name in lights as I posted at the top of the page.  Okay, Sharon, how'd you do that, getting both of them to sing my name?  Thanks for the shout out!

And at the end of the day, more birthday wishes on Facebook from Gina, Toni (who included another birthday cat for today's collection), Annette, Judith, Charlotte, Bonnie M, Jimmy, and Terri.  Thanks to all.

Update 4/27/2020:  Birthday wishes keep pouring in, like floodgates have opened.  Facebook friends continue to send belated good wishes ~ Nancy, Jess, Alyssa, Cindy M, Jean L, Dora, Sharon L, Sylvia, Diana, Laurie, Mary Virginia, Cindy Z, Carol H, Ginger, Rosemary, Vickie, my brother Jim, Pamela, Ginny D, Candy, Sheryn (who added a dog to celebrate with us), and Rosie (who added a cat flying around in a small bi-plane to my cat collection).  And I forgot to include the twenty-plus who have clicked "Like" or "Love."  Feeling very blessed by all of you.

LOCKDOWN ~ humor

For more fun during our lockdown, here's a short video from a music teacher, who has composed a sweet little song.  In her viral video, Liz explains:

"As some of you guys might know, I'm a music teacher, and I've found that one of the best ways that I can process the whole transition to online learning and teaching is to write a song.  So, I wrote a song, and I'd like to share that with you guys now.  Here we go."

 What follows quite succinctly sums up the collective feelings of many, many teachers, parents, and students around the country.  And I'd say, it applies to the rest of us, too.  Shall we sing it with her?