Archive | July 2025

Never JUST Right

Jul30

Mom sat in the front seat of the family car. I and a few of my siblings piled into the back seat. Daddy got in behind the wheel and slammed the car door shut. One of Daddy’s favorite things to do on Sunday afternoons during the summer, was to take slow, meandering drives on country roads. I liked to go along because I always hoped we’d stop for a treat, and occasionally, we did!

As Daddy drove the country roads, he examined our neighbor’s corn field. With an approving nod, he announced, “Mark’s corn looks good. It’s as far along as mine.” With his attention not on the road, the car began to veer towards the left ditch. Mom and the older kids yelled, “Watch the road!” This happened again when Daddy noted that our neighbor Tony had already finished taking in his first crop of hay. Sunday afternoon drives were always exciting during the summer months. My father took his job of inspecting local farm crops then comparing them with his own crops, seriously.

While getting ready for one of our Sunday drives, Mom told me, “We’re going to stop at a custard stand today.” I wondered what sort of treat a custard was. At ten years of age, I thought a custard was just a pudding. A good treat, for sure, but it seemed to be an odd sort of thing to be selling from a stand.

            That day I sat between Mom and Daddy in the front seat, because more of my siblings were coming along. I shrugged and commented, “Okay. I like puddings.”

            Mom smiled as she corrected, “It isn’t pudding. It looks and tastes like ice cream, but it’s soft. Instead of being scooped out of a box, it comes out of a machine when a button is pushed. The server puts the custard into an ice cream cone.”

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Religiously Exercising

Jul23

Because the sides of my hoop building garden were open, I could feel a gentle breeze. But the late May sun made everything within the protective confines of its plastic walls feel hot. There were only four more small nursery plants for me to tuck into the garden row, so I doggedly continued. I made a slit in the plastic mulch covering the drip-taped row. Then I scooped a handful of the soft, warm, moist soil out from the opening. After placing the infant plant in the hole, I poured a cup of water over its roots and covered it with soil. I did this three more times before standing up.

Pulling off my gardening gloves, I sat on the steps of my deck. A small, cool breeze swirled around the corner of the house. It felt good, but I wanted a stronger breeze. It occurred to me that by going for a bike ride, I’d cool off. Moments later, I was pedaling my bike away from home.

Having recently retired from the hospital, I felt fit and capable. I tilled and planted my own garden each spring. In late summer, I washed every window in the house. Before winter arrived, I’d buy six tons of wood pellets and throw the 40 pound sacks into the basement and stack at least half of them. My only physical limitation was the distance I could walk, due to arthritic foot joints.

My life became more sedentary as the years passed, especially during the winter. I didn’t work outside the home anymore and the cold and snow kept me mostly indoors. One day I realized that a stationary exercise bike would be the perfect thing for me to buy to get me moving. At the store I picked out a mid-price one that showed how many minutes an exercise session lasted, the speed, calories burned, and distance covered.

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Licking a Dirty Banana

Jul16
Macaroni and Cheese (Mac) playing with his still new banana cat toy!

“Rasp! Rasp! Rasp!”  A repetitive sound pulled my attention away from the article I was reading. I glanced around my living room, and then with a frown closed the magazine on my lap. Whatever had made that sound was nearby. The dry scratchy noise made me recall the time my mother scraped a knife across a slice of bread that got too dark in the toaster. After having scraped off the darkly toasted breadcrumbs, she buttered and ate the crisp bread.

Peeking behind my chair, I saw my cat Jerry playing with a cat-toy that my daughter forgot to take home after one of the visits she’d made with her cats. Looking blissful, Jerry rubbed his face against the old, soiled toy. Stopping mid rub, he began to lick the stained canvas. His moist, textured tongue dragged across the dry canvas. This made the rasping sound that I’d heard earlier. My mouth watered and I shivered convulsively.

The toy had started out many years earlier as a bright yellow, plump banana, made of canvas and stuffed with catnip. Tammie’s cat, Mac, loved this toy and often rolled around on it and licked it, just like Jerry was doing. After being played with this way for years, the yellow color faded, and the middle had turned brown, as if it really was an over ripe fruit. The banana was no longer plump, either.

I should have thrown the old cat toy out, especially since Mac is no longer among the living. But I have trouble getting rid of things that can still be used. I’m more like my mother than I care to admit. Just as my mother had scraped off burnt crumbs, buttered and ate the bread, I’m frugal. Besides, Jerry obviously isn’t repulsed by Mac’s dried saliva!

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Panning for Gold

Jul9

I carried two cups of tea into the dining room and placed one on the table in front of my daughter Tammie. Glancing up at me, she questioned, “Did you put sweetener in mine?”

Sitting down across from her, I admitted, “Your tea might be sweeter than you like.”

Taking a sip, my daughter raised her eyebrows and chuckled, “It is pretty sweet!”

I offered, “Would you like me to get you a fresh cup?”

“No, it’ll be fine.” Tammie assured me. “I want you to stay at the table with me so we can discuss where we will go for our vacation this year.”

Cupping my cold hands around the warm mug of tea, I confidently suggested, “This is the year we should go to Alaska.”

With a broad smile, Tammie commented, “We’ve talked about going to visit Alaska for the last dozen years. Somehow, it just never happened. Why do you suppose that was?”

Nodding, I admitted, “The idea of going there has always appealed to me, but we never could agree on what we wanted to see or do while in Alaska. We talked about going salmon fishing on the ocean, but I felt really reluctant about it. This year I’ve finally realized that fishing would be fun to do if Arnie were still with us, but not for us to do alone. A fishing trip like that was something he would have absolutely loved, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it! We also talked about Alaska’s gold rush history and how much fun it would be to try panning for gold in a stream. We never investigated finding a guide for that.”

             Tammie added more reasons why our plans to visit Alaska other years just never worked out, “We never could come to an agreement about which cities to visit, where to stay, nor how long to stay.”

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What Was That?

Jul2

The loud, frighting bang against the living room window and a flash of light happened simultaneously. Something had entered the house and zipped past me into the dining room, then I heard what sounded like shattering glass.

What had come into my house? Although I didn’t exactly see whatever it was, my eyes had tracked its movement as it entered the dining room. Where was the broken glass? I got out of my rocking chair to investigate.

Earlier in the evening, ominous dark clouds had filled the sky. The air in my backyard was still, like it often is right before a storm. Standing at my back door, I studied the dark, roiling clouds overhead. Then my cell phone buzzed, and a business-like woman’s voice announced, “Attention please! Tornado warning in this area until 7 P.M. Take shelter now! Check media.”

Having to deal with something scary like an approaching tornado makes me think of my late husband. If he was still with me, he’d probably would’ve stood on the back deck and not retreat to the basement unless he saw, with his own eyes, a funnel cloud approaching. I didn’t want to sit in my unfinished farmhouse basement for three-quarters of an hour, so I compromised by wrapping up in a blanket and sitting in the stairwell to the basement. Fortunately, the power didn’t go out, so I had lights and WIFI.

The worst of the storm passed, so I returned to the living room where I sat down in a rocking chair across the room from the room’s large window. The drapes on the window were open a few inches so I could still see the flashes of lightning. On the television, a meteorologist was pointing to a map, showing where tornadoes had been sighted.

I wasn’t expecting anything to happen, but by chance I glanced at the big window just as a ball of light, about the size of a basketball, struck the center of the window with a bang and I sensed something zipping past me into the dining room and nearly simultaneously hearing glass break.

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