Burnt Toast!

April 22, 2020 – Burnt Toast!

         This was the moment this morning . . .

         You know that saying:

Insanity, doing the same thing over and

over again and

expecting different

results.

-Albert Einstein

         That is what this blog is about today.  I never do anything simple, I always take it to the height of drama.  I can still hear my Mom say, “Stop being so dramatic!”

         I find that drama works and today I was condescending when I snatched the second set of burnt toast out of my husband's hands.

         Yes, I think I like to make a scene to keep my heart pumping.

         It is simple, the non-high tech toaster has a small dial on the front that has 1 through 7 on it.  For the life of me, I still cannot comprehend why my husband continues to crank it to 7 and expects not to have burnt toast.

         My dear husband is making toast to go with his eggs for breakfast.  I give him plenty of room to get in trouble.  A friend advised me to let him do what he can do as long as he can do it . . . calling it “tough love.”  I will make him do until he can’t, then I will kick in and help.

         I smell burnt toast!  I am thinking “as usual.”  He is snarling up a storm about that darn toaster.  It is not the toaster, it is the operator- 7 burns, 1 only warms the bread.

         I’ve told him a million times, he just can’t remember.

         During this pandemic wasting two or four pieces of bread to make burnt toast is not the prudent thing to do.  My husband has a short memory issue and I tell him the same thing 4 or 5 times a day. 

         Example: He’ll retrieve the mail around 11:30 and come in and read it and the newspaper, and set it aside.  Half hour later he will ask, “Has the mail come?”

         I don’t make a big deal out of that or the toast or many other moments during our day.

         It’s my life now, trying to be patient, and sweet, and nice, but, I just couldn’t help poking a little dramatic fun at him today about the burnt toast.  I kept one of the burnt slices and pinned “This is setting 7” on it.  The sign is now hanging on the gadget shelf behind the toaster.

         I doubt he will pay any attention to it, but it will make me smile.

         Today was a burnt toast day, but it was good, all good.

Writing class exercise

April 21. 2020 - Writing class exercise

Prompt was: April is my favorite month

Of course, I deviated from the prompt - made it my own. Nothing new about that!  As soon as I was given it, the song, April in Paris started to play in my head.  It is always fun to have a little bit of imaginary romance on a lonely Tuesday in April.

April in Paris

         “Ah yes, April in springtime . . .” the gent behind me sighed and then suddenly switched from English to French. Sounded like fluent French to me, but what would I know as an unsophisticated American. I’d thought the gent was an Englishman; he sure sounded like it at the get-to-know-you cocktail party in Dover, England, two days ago.

         The pert travel director, with double dimples, lucky to be born that way, announced, “The bus will be moving to the large parking area, further up to the left. You may return early, if you wish, but please, everyone, please return by 3:00 p.m.” She tossed her dark hair back from her face and sparkled another smile switching into French for the rest of the group.

         I doubted she needed to bother, I found most Europeans knew English just as well as their native tongue.  I rose and stepped forward in the aisle to let the tiny women near the window join her friend seated behind me with the English gent.  They had both wanted window seats and I and the Gent had been graciously accommodating.

         I paused a moment and reached up to retrieve the T-handled umbrella, I had brought just in case, not expecting I’d be using it daily.  Still overcast,  still mist or possibly drizzle, I cinched the waist of my trench coat, flipped up my collar and disembarked the tour bus.

         I avoided the puddle below the stairs with a nimble jump saving my last pair of dry shoes; there is nothing worse than wet, cold feet.  Skipping between puddles, I drifted away from the crowd taking in the panorama view of the square.

         Oh, how lovely, a wobbly reflection of waffle weaved iron and one curve of the foundation in a large puddle at my feet.  Hoping to capture it with my digital camera, I fished my camera out of my pocket and took several shots.

         Reviewing what I had taken, the English gent, I assumed he was English, was hovering behind me. Being tall he was easily peering over my shoulder, “Well done, you captured it,” he said with gusto.

         I glanced over my shoulder and flashed a smile and nod for the compliment.

         “We meet earlier but lately I am dreadful with names . . . .” he started to apologize.

         “It’s Teri, or rather, now that we are in Par-EE I guess it’s Ter-EE.”

         He laughed and flipped his collar up and pulled a folded hat out of his pocket and jammed it on his head scanning the skies.

         The mist gave way to drizzle, but I didn’t want to put up my umbrella, as I wanted to see it all in my trip of a life time. I swept my newly purchased silk scarf out of my collar and wrapped it around my head Audrey Hepburn style, while holding my umbrella tightly between my knees.

         He softly said, “Chic,” and continued, “are you going to ride up or walk?”

         “I’m going to climb it, might take a little while, you know for the lasting experience of it.”

         We set off walking briskly, but again, I stopped a moment and captured the scene of wet tourists with the icon in the distance.

        

         “Shame no sun is expected today,” he ventured as he paused with me.

         “Who cares, Paris is Paris, besides my memory photos will be unique, Caption: Eiffel Tower in the rain,” I said with a smirk, closing my camera, and stashing it back in my trench coat pocket.

         “Ah, that’s the American Spirit, I was worried there a moment,” he tipped his fingers to his hat and said, “Maurice,”

         “Morris,” I repeated to fix it in my memory and we walked on.

         “No actually, Maurice, a different spelling, not like Morris the cat. I was born here, moved to England during my career.”

         I laughed, “You’ve been across the pond then,” up turning my face to assess his demeanor

         “Yes, often, and I believe you and I are the only two on this tour that are unattached, single, otherwise available,” he said with shear confidence, his hazel eyes twinkling.

         “Oh,” I mumbled charmed by his flirtations, and softly started to sing, “April in Paris.”

         His baritone chimed in, “Chestnuts in blossom,” then pausing he said, “let me see if I can remember the rest, April in Paris, this is a feeling . . .”

         Securing my elbow, he ushered me forward like found-again lovers continuing to sing.

         This might be an interesting trip, after all.

Irreverent quotes that are spot-on

April 17, 2020 – Irreverent quotes that are spot-on

         I dabble in all sorts of things; one is calligraphy – off and on over the years.

         Last year I took calligraphy classes in Copperplate.  It takes practice, lots of practice and quiet time – something that seems to have vanished from my life.

         The quite time hasn’t exactly vanished, I just think it is a case of poor time management at this juncture of my life - I am being a slacker – that’s all. Time I kicked myself in the butt and pulled up those boot-straps again.

         Every once in a while, I get a Pinterest pop up that has calligraphy and this morning I browsed aimlessly with my second cup of coffee.  I know how to kill time on the internet just as well as anyone else.

         But, I found something for the quote collector, that is me, and the calligrapher, also me, and I would say for any women who has grit, spunk, and is outspoken, those that know me, might say I fall into that category.

         I suggest you visit:

          https://gr.pinterest.com/delightfullydead/

         This gal, based in Melbourne, Australia – has it together.

         She has videos of her writing snappy quotes in calligraphy. Trust me, go to her site and experience it first hand – words can’t describe how mesmerizing it is.

         What better way to learn the flourishes and movement of the pen, and to be mesmerized by her certain and swift hand.  JUST AWESOME!

         So, this is a shout out to this gal, a total stranger, but I like her – I even like the quotes with  “f____ing” in them – I nod and heartily agree.  She has a twisted sense of humor that is honest.

         Have I piqued your interest?  I sure hope so.

         I will leave you with a couple of irreverent quotes that I admired from both the calligraphy and the quotes she wrote:



Sometimes you just have to burn the

bridge and learn to swim - @ thegoodquote



I just want to thank all those who’ve destroyed me

into the person I am today.



Stop being so f___ing forgiving,

people know exactly

what they are doing.



Coronavirus ain’t shit, my

ex was more toxic.

– Demetris Tate

Nice neighbors

April 15, 2020 – Nice neighbors

         Sunday night’s storm of high winds and heavy rains passed through from late evening into the wee hours of Monday morning.  The gusts of winds and driving rain had awaken me several times.

         Morning sun falls on my front door and typically, I open my glass storm door peer out along my front walk to admire whatever is in bloom and sniff the air for temperature. 

         What’s that? Limb down or a tree?  Barefoot I step out into the cool morning and pad my way up the cool, wet sidewalk to the drive to investigate.

         A huge limb has sheared off from high above the front Bradford Pear and crashed down half covering the driveway – blocking in my car. 

[The picture is deceiving, much bigger than it looks.]

         I have no place to go, really during this “stay-at-home” scene, except that I always want my vehicle to be able to rush to the emergency room at a moment’s notice. [This is a built in reflex, when it snows here in the South, us Yankees are the only ones who dig out in this neighborhood instead of waiting for the snow to melt.]

         I advise my husband that I might need his help once I cut the greened out part off the downed limb, thinking I can handle this myself with my loppers and a handsaw.

         Later, geared up in garden clothes and wielding my trusty loppers, I attack the limbs that are under 2-inches in diameter.  My objective, cut off all the green leafed out limbs to reduce the weight of the limb.   Good thing, the huge limb is completely sheared off from the tree, so no one will have to climb up and cut it off; but, bad news, it is resting precariously on branch ends above what I call my “Daddy’s prize ferns” display.

         It is merely a matter of pacing oneself, snip, snip, snip – some more difficult than others, then drag the 5 to 6 foot leaved branches down the drive and toss them into the bed of the pickup truck.  Snip, snip again, continue the process and use caution that the limb doesn’t flip over and lurch at me.

         Darn, the branch is as large as my thigh – I won’t be able to cut that with a hand saw.  We don’t happen to have a working chainsaw anymore.

          After an hour of work, I can gingerly back my car out of the drive and onto the lawn without scratching the side of it.  As I park and get out of my car my neighbor advances out his front door half way across his lawn and shouts out to me.

         “Have you got a chainsaw?”

         “No,” I yell back.

         “I will be back in about an hour with my chainsaw to cut it up for you.”

         “Thanks Randy, that is sweet of you.”

         I continue on the green limbs that I can manage with the loppers.  The back of the pickup truck is just about overflowing.

         When I’ve cut all the greened out branches I can, I have the foresight to grab a couple of cages I use over tender plants to keep the feral cats off and plunk them over Daddy’s emerging ferns, - the fiddle heads are so delicate at this stage.  Yes, that will keep the chainsaw operator’s feet off them.

         I don’t want to lose those ferns, I have no way of getting any more, Mom and Dad’s home sold a few years back.  Dad had drifts of soft ferns that nestled up against the stonewall along the road in front of their home.  They were beautiful, and occasionally you’d sight a chipmunk or two  darting in and out into their home in the stonewall.  They are a bit of my childhood and I want to retain them at all costs.

         Later in the day, Randy heads over to cut up the wood.  

         I call out the front door, “Randy, I’ve got to caution you about where you can put your feet up there on the hillside . . .” 

         I explain about the ferns and where they are and why I have cages over them. “Yeah, you have a nice garden here, we see you out in it all the time.” He understands and steps around the cages as he works.

         As he cuts, I carry off the 4-foot lengths of limb to the pickup truck and pitch them over the end of the tailgate.  They are much heavier than I expected.  As he continues up toward the larger radius of the limb, I can’t even lift them.

         He is so very careful about Daddy’s ferns, and due to the weight hauls the last four segments of the downed limb to the truck for me.  He made fast work out of that.

         He turns off the chainsaw and then we chat about the matters of the day, how Forest Hills, a large subdivision, got hit hard with downed trees, about the Corvid-19 virus and the two deaths so far, and about who in the neighborhood is out of work because of it. 

         He is a magpie to say the least, but he is in-the-know because he is also a volunteer fireman.  Randy isn’t handsome, but he sure looks mighty fine when you see him carrying a chainsaw in one hand with a smile on his face and you have a downed tree. He loves helping out a neighbor in need.

         Thank you, Randy.

        

        

An Easter Season Tradition

April 14, 2020 – An Easter Season Tradition

         I am exhausted, yes, exhausted looking for one pair of white capris in my closet.  After tearing apart all my closets, I find them when I start to take every bit of clothing out of one closet.  It is after Easter, you can now wear white fashionably – as if we have fashionista police in this county, not hardly.

         I was simply looking for something to wear today in what I expect to be at least 80 degree heat today, as I need to go to the bank – drive up window only banking – but nevertheless, I have to go out in semi-public.

         That is the old way, switch out your wardrobe Easter and Labor Day for the seasons . . . pretty old fashioned isn’t it, and I am as old fashioned as you can get.

        

         When my husband can’t find something, I usually do an Erma Bombeck, and walk to his closet, put my hand in and viola – the lost item is found.  [Erma wrote about that in one of her wonderful books and when I actually do that feat I shout out in celebration of her, “I just did an Erma Bombeck.”]

         But, today, with only one cup of coffee under my belt, I looked and looked and pawed and looked.  An hour later, the white capris were exactly where I looked for them the first time before I started this crusade – I found them only when I emptied my closet out onto the bed, UGH!

         Now I have arms of clothes tossed on the bed, and it is bright and sunny and I want to do anything but go back in the bedroom and put everything up.

         Nope, I will purge the wardrobe again now that it is all out on the bed – but, that can wait until this evening, I don’t want to waste a whole beautiful day. 

         I will do the Marie Kondo – if I don’t love it – it is gone.  But, I can’t cut too deep as I can’t go out to any stores to try on any replacements.  What a perplexing situation! This might not be the time to do the all-season clothes project.

         Besides, I love my warm winter clothes – I can keep the heat lower and with lower heat, I sleep better.  Over the course of fall and then into winter, I slowly migrate one item, then another, then a flood of them into my wardrobe and by Spring I have a MESS.  The same mess every year, I guess I haven’t learned.  I wonder if the “all-season” wardrobe keepers don’t have a mess at any time of the year.  I wonder how often they actually say I haven’t a thing to wear!

         

         Maybe this is the wakeup call that I need to have no seasonal clothes in my closets.  But, I am perplexed how to shift to all season clothes.  How does one do that?  How does one pry her fingertips off her favorite cashmere sweaters and lined wool pants?    It has been touted the thing to do in just about every magazine I’ve read in the last five years and I am still backing away from it.

         Nope, not yet, I will go through the process of packing away the winter things and pulling out the summer things, and leave the few transitional things in the closet for the swings in spring, summer weather.

         But, I will add to my to-do list – look for “all-season” clothes to integrate into my wardrobe – maybe in five years I won’t have this Easter tradition. 

         Here’s to all-season clothes hunting once this pandemic has ended. 

Is there anything better than a paperback romance novel?

April 10, 2020 – Is there anything better than a paperback romance novel?

         We are in the “stay-at-home” loop imposed by our Governor and added to by President Trump.  So, reading does become a pleasure when you have ample time on hand.

         Today the roofers were finishing fixing my roof. [Say that quickly a couple of times!]  Years ago, we had it replaced after a massive hailstorm in the county, and unluckily we ended up with inept roofers to fix our roof.

         It took a few years, but eventually the shoddy workmanship proved to falter and we ended up with leaking skylights.

         It took three tries before I even found a roofing firm who would fix it, and then after going under contract, we waited in line until they finished jobs scheduled ahead of us.  Three weeks is a long wait.

         So, earlier this week, they started. They were good workers and they DID mind me when I told them not to stomp all over my emerging perennials. [And, they were neat - they cleaned up their mess before they left this afternoon.]

         Today should have been the last day, except they had a “bad cut” on the last piece of roofing and it will have to wait a couple days to be finished – they say Monday.

         But, I had to be patient all day as they worked on this last section, where they pried the old skylights off and then proceeded to affix the new skylights as I had spread drop cloths inside expecting and receiving debris bits that I eventually collected and carried off to the back property line.

         What a perfect day to sit in my easy chair waiting for my “beck and call” – several times by the contractor to chat about a few things – and each time I settled back in to my soft read.

         I opted for a soft romance novel to read. I’d been holding onto a Harlequin paper back by Leigh Michaels entitled The Corporate Wife for just the right occasion. [Copyright date 2000 – yes 20 years ago, not a typo.]  I had found it at a used book store.

         I was intrigued by the title as I was a corporate wife, but this was a love story far different than my own.

         It was an entertaining read – I leisurely read it on and off during my many interruptions.  A classic romance between the boss and his assistant and it has the twists and turns, subtle humor along with some snappy dialogue, and of course romance – reluctant romance.

         At the end, after the climax where they have had a fight – in the kiss-and-make-up scene where you expect them to live happily ever after there is one line that I had to turn off the TV and read out loud to my husband.  He chuckled.

          On page 182 of a 186 page book:

         “He kissed her till her toenails threaten to dissolve, and then . . .”

         It makes me giggle even now.  Wow, what sort of passion is that? 

         For all the other romance readers out there, you are not alone.  Sometimes one line makes the book forever memorable.

         Now that the outside roof has been fixed, I will have to deal with the inside fixing.  While I am working on it, I will remind myself about the ‘dissolving toenails’ – it might make my work go quicker.

Info on: Leigh Michaels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Michaels

https://www.writingclasses.com/faculty/profile/leigh-michaels

Also Author of non-fiction: Writing the Romance Novel, 1996 and On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel that Sells, 2007

Behavior changes & the curtain twitcher

April 9, 2020 – Behavior changes  & the curtain twitcher

         I subscribe to The Washington Examiner and Hugh Gurdon is the editor-in-chief.  I adore his editorials and column – I am on his wave length – I get what he writes.

         In the April 7th to April 14, 2020 edition he is writing about how we have changed our behavior because of this coronavirus.  He says:

         “ . . . we are . . .  veering away from oncoming pedestrians, . . . ”

         “ . . . enduring the same frustrations, in the same boat.”

         “ . . . shoppers stop and wait at the end of an aisle until the only other customer in it has emerged and left it vacant.”

         “Strangers make way for each other with a renewed politeness that germinated in an understanding that society will function a lot better if we treat each other considerately.”

         And, then he described me succinctly:

         “The common culture has curtain-twitching aspects, . . .”

         I am a curtain-twitcher.

         YUP, he has my number, he knows I twitch the white lace curtain aside to see what other people in my neighborhood are doing as I watch the news or drink my morning coffee in my easy chair.  Sometimes I try to hide it, in the evening, when the lights are on – I know I am a fish in the fish bowl of my interior lighted house;  In order to be more discrete, I get up and turn off all the lights, then, I twitch the curtains aside.

         He is right: “There is more to watch outside our windows when the neighbors are at home, more people whose ordinary behavior is suddenly of greater interest than it used to be.”  Gosh, he was describing me!

         There is the blatant twitch – my walking up to the window and flipping the lace curtain back to get a good view not caring if someone sees me.  Then there is the sleuth twitch – where I sidle up to the window, my body pressed against the wall beside the window and peering askance at my target, not wanting to be seen.

         I am not the only one in the house paying attention to the goings on in this neighborhood.

         My husband in his “command post” chair - his TV easy chair - can see every vehicle come and go in our development.  We live on a corner, so he has a 20-car-length view of the front of the vehicle, then the corner, which is a forty-five degree angle at our drive as they pass. He can see the driver up close at the drive on the way into the development and the passenger up close on the way out of the development. 

         What can we call him?  Development Security Guard?  Too bad he is not being paid on a per vehicle basis, he’d be a millionaire.

         We have always done it – watched what was happening in the neighborhood – it is being a good neighbor or – or are we just old-fashioned nosey?  NAH.