The weather is up and down. It is almost Thanksgiving here in the states. When reading about the state of our country, there is little to be thankful for. Each week is a new low. I told Patrick not to come down for the holiday because all of them will be here in just another month. I have been asked to come to dinner by kind women who knew I would be alone. Also one of the old guys I meet for coffee asked if I would like to join him and his wife. How nice is that!
My doctor friend who usually has dinner with us has opted for a nice dinner out for the two of us to catch up. This year she cannot spend Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with us. So dinner out at a nice restaurant seems a good option.
I ordered new boxing gloves. They are too thin so am returning them for heavier ones. I am hitting harder and at 81, need more protection for my knuckles. It feels so good to swing and connect with a good one.
Earlier this week I cut back all the dying ferns in the pots and decided to replace with sticks and stones for the winter. I have stones but had to order sticks. I like the straight birch branches. Now I am waiting for more to arrive via Amazon. A neighbor who has a good decorating eye is consulting with me and is ready to go back to a local shop with me to find more of whatever the pots need to look right. Here is one of the three by the front walk to the door.
This week I went to the monthly ladies lunch from the neighborhood. I also went to a HOA meeting. Between them I have used up my socializing in groups skills, so will retreat for a few months. Always best to quit while ahead.
Still writing. Working on essays right now. This is an excerpt from 1955, the story of moving to Florida to meet my father’s mother.
“………totally speechless, as we watched her sharpened fingernails slowly peel a nectarine grown in the back yard. Once the skin was removed, I thought she’d eat broken off sections. But no, each membrane thread had to be slowly, ever so slowly, removed and dropped onto the peelings. Then she’d look up from her tangerine to make eye contact before slowly putting sections into her mouth to savor even more slowly, offering nothing.”
I never liked the old woman. And never remember calling her anything…just wait for her to look at me and then talk quickly before escaping the room. Anyway, it is making a good essay on life in the fifties and how children stayed quiet, hoping not to be noticed. One generation later and that thinking is all but gone.
This morning I thought I would get out my carving tools and attempt a Christmas card. I will spend a few days on it before deciding whether I should, after so, so many years give it up and just buy a few cards. We’ll see. There is always the back side of the block if I screw it up.
When a wood block has been editioned, it is supposed to be destroyed. For some sentimental reason I just kept all mine. Not to use again because that is wrong, just could not part with all that work and memory of the fun in doing them. Now I wish I had buried them all with the other things some years back. We are not allowed burn barrels here, or I would love tossing them in, one by one. I will have to think of how I might do that…not here, but somewhere where I could have a bit of a farewell ceremony and a glass of something nice.
Time to get a bit of lunch and back to my audio book and carving.
Til later…
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