Dear John

Last Wednesday evening I such a strong desire to call you but I wasn’t sure if you were still in ICU or had been moved to another room.  Since I am not family, I figured I wouldn’t be able to talk to you on the phone and decided it would be better if Mr. Aitch and I would visit you again in person.

I wanted to tell you how much we appreciated your compassion and concern when our family had challenges.  No matter what.

We really enjoyed the times when you and MT would play Trivial Pursuit at our house until the wee hours of the morning.  You and MT would sleep on our sofa bed.  One morning you even made Eggs Benedict for us.  Things settled down soon after your second child was born. We didn’t see you as often.

Once in a while you would come over to our house for dinner when MT would take your kids to visit with her mother for several days.  One afternoon you helped Mr. Aitch bake a frozen apple pie for dessert after I gave him instructions over the phone.  I never understood how someone with a doctorate degree could mess up something so simple but you did.

Our daughter was selected to submit a recording of her playing the piano to perform at one of the music conferences.   You offered your piano studio and  professional equipment to record a tape for her.

We always had opportunities to talk about kids and life in the evenings on the motorcycle trips.  The teenage years are the hardest to get through for not just the teen but the parents as well.  Remember when we went to Connecticut in 2000?  You pulled your bike on a trailer using Dick’s truck.  It rained the entire time.  You offered to let me ride in the truck with you so I would be more comfortable but I declined.  You loaned me your brand new leather gloves that turned my hands black when they got wet while I rode on the back of Mr. Aitch’s motorcycle.

On the way home we stopped in Hazelton, PA for the night when Mr. Aitch saw a huge bolt of lightning ahead of us.  The skies opened right after we all got checked into the hotel.  Two other motorcyclists stopped at the same hotel and you invited them for pizza.  You ordered two of the largest pizzas I have ever seen.  The two bikers, you, Dick, Mr. Aitch and I sat around eating during that deluge and we still had almost an entire pizza left.  The girl at the night desk appreciated the leftover pizza.

Now don’t get the idea that you’re  perfect because we all know that is not the case. Words to describe you could be bull-headed, perfectionist, stubborn, egotistical.  And yes, a pain in the, um, neck.  But also honest, ethical, compassionate and generous.  I knew you when you were ”John” before you became ”Doc”.

The past several years have gone by quickly.   It’s hard to believe that the last motorcycle trip was ten years ago. Mr. Aitch would see you more often than I would since he had band practice close to your office. Lately I would only see you for a few minutes after a concert while I was waiting for Mr. Aitch to get his saxophone and music gathered together.  You always had time to talk about your next project.

I remember your yellow Corvette.  That you really liked my potato salad.  Your excitement of becoming a Catholic.  Your open arms and a peck on the cheek every time you saw me.  And that you were going to retire next year after you did Les Miserables.

Yes, John, I so wanted to talk to you last Wednesday night but I hesitated.  And then it was too late.

I hope your final hours were pain-free and restful.

May you find peace, comfort, joy and love in the arms of God.

If you would like to know more about John, you can read his obituary.

My view

My view from the breakfast table of a small part of our backyard provides me with a variety of happenings in nature.

Most mornings one or two rabbits who live under our deck nibble on grass.  At least one chipmunk scampers across the deck.  Various birds such as robins, wrens, woodpeckers and the occasional blue bird peck at the ground and surrounding trees for bugs and worms.  No fewer than four squirrels defy gravity with their aerial antics as they jump from branch to branch, tree to tree.

This morning a hummingbird frequented the hummingbird feeder and several squirrels ran helter-skelter across the ground.  A large hawk swooped down several times towards the squirrels.  Was he successful?  I’m not sure but the backyard became a ghost town rather quickly though the hummingbird (circled in the photo below) seemed oblivious to the drama.  I could hear other song birds in the trees.

But all the small furry creatures where nowhere to be found.

My windowsill garden

I started a mini windowsill garden last week.

Romaine lettuce.

What I did was save the short stalk end of the Romaine lettuce, put it in about a half-inch of water, and place it in a sunny window.  I change the water every day.  The progress is as follows going clockwise from the top Chobani container: Sunday – April 28, Tuesday – April 30, Sunday May 5 and Friday – May 3.  The first Romaine stalk I started is in the Chobani yogurt container.  I experimented with the clear vs. opaque containers to see if it made a difference.  Apparently it does.

I can cut and use the lettuce and start the process all over again until the stalk sends out a thick seed shoot, then I need to find a new stalk and start over.  I read someplace that these can also be started in the ground but I have a lot of rabbits and doubt I would get any produce before they nibbled it all up.

I understand you can grow celery this way as well.

Will this mini windowsill garden keep us in Romaine lettuce all spring and summer?  I doubt it.  But it’s fun to watch it grow.

It wasn’t my hair

Almost every Sunday morning I go to church and then to the market.  It’s a regular routine I’ve had for at least 20 years.  It started when my kids went to CCD after Mass and I had an hour and fifteen minutes to kill before I had to pick them up.  It worked out fine as I would be able to shop on the first day of the sales and have fresh food to pack lunches for the week.

The kids are grown and live elsewhere but I still go to the market Sunday mornings.  I typically see some of the same people there every week.  Evidently it’s their routine as well.

Usually I see one of the office people from my doctor’s office there with her husband.  Sometimes we just say ‘Hi” and other times we talk for a few minutes.

The last time I saw Sherry she remarked that she really liked my hair and asked who cut/highlighted it.  She went on and on about the color and style.  I hadn’t done anything different to it for a several weeks but she was sure I changed something.

Want to know what I did?

I got new glasses.

My old glasses just disappeared on my face.  Silhouette Titan Dynamics.

My new glasses don’t.  Fysh Urban Eyewear #3458 brown and lime.

I love them.  Maybe I’ll let you see them on my face sometime.

Apple cosy

I don’t know if you remember the apple cosy I made a while back.  Some people made fun of it and me for “wasting time and yarn” on such a thing.

I usually take an apple to work to eat at lunch and I just drop it in my purse.  This week we’ve had some warm days and my cold-just-out-of-the-refrigerator apple got condensation on it and made things in my purse wet.  Apple cosy to the rescue!

My apple stays protected and so does my purse.

Make fun of me and my apple cosy if you want.  I really don’t care.

I think it’s fixed

I have not turned on my computer at home for several days.  When I do turn it on, I check my emails and that’s about it.

A good amount of my time at work is spent on a computer.  Right after Easter I started having issues, challenges, problems with it.  The computer, not work.  I blame it on an update that I didn’t authorize.  Whatever.  The damage was done.

So our IT person and I worked on it all last week trying to figure out what to do with it.  We got it semi-functional.  Then out of habit I shut it down on Friday before I went home.

This past Monday it would turn on and that’s about it.  Error message after error message kept coming up.  We did a factory restore that allowed us to save all my data first.

I had to reinstall all my programs and try to get all my data back when it belonged.  My email program was a disaster.  I did import all my contacts and messages however it was an updated version and none of my “rules” and mailboxes were there.

Needless to say I didn’t want to look at a computer screen for a while when I didn’t have to.

Hopefully things will continue to improve.

Smells of spring

Yesterday I had my car windows opened on my way home from work.

I could smell freshly mowed grass infused with the wild onions that pop up in most everyone’s yard around here.

 

Some sweet floral scent drifted through the windows as well.

When I got home, the unmistakable aroma of a charcoal grill filled the air.

It rained overnight and will be raining here most of the day.  With spring rain comes the smell of worms.  I must have dodged hundreds of them while walking from my car to the office.  I thought about posting a picture of worms here but it was just too gross.  Plus posting from my iPhone is not easy.