I miss having someone to talk to. I write far too many e-mails to my family. I write too many letters to my friends. I am a pest. Well, we will see what tomorrow brings. I walk each morning and look at the world around me, and admire people's flowers and mourn the loss of trees. I shouldn't talk, though, since I had three apple trees removed from my own yard. Taking care of fruit trees is an enormous amount of work, and my strength wore out. The home on sixth looks naked without it's big shade tree. An oriental gentleman lives there, and he has planted pumpkins or zuchini or such around the stump.
Clay says the new Food Share building behind the Presbyterian Church is nearly finished and they will be training volunteers to walk around with people and help them choose what to put in their baskets. He will let me know when that happens. It will be one day a week for two hours. I can do that on a Friday or Saturday.
The house doesn't really get dirty except for cat hair. Two cats shed a lot in summer. I have to sweep quite often. The cats and I are all sloppy eaters. I guess people who want a carpet under their dining table don't have my problem. I sweep under there and around the cat's dry food dish and around their cat litter box in the sewing room. Ruby Cat romps around outside and uses the flower bed, but my Gracie Cat rarely goes outside unless I go out to work in the flowers. Then she sits on the patio and watches.
I haven't had the car out for the last two days. I had my PUD bill to hand in at JC Market, so I took it and a letter to mail and walked up, rather than get the car out. So I got two walks in yesterday. It felt good. Today Clay came over with his neat electric edger and did the front yard and I swept up the mess. It looks great, and that felt good, too.
School starts next Tuesday and that will be a busy, busy morning. Latino parents will walk their children back and forth to school, kids will be all bent over from the weight of their backpacks, a steady stream of cars will clog the street for several hours, morning and afternoon, and there will be yelling and laughter, and police cars out in force, protecting young lives. I've been nailed twice for not coming to a complete stop on 12th in front of the school. I solved that problem. I don't go down 12th any more.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Monday, October 6, 2008
Old Timer
This just goes to prove you don't have to be a fourth grader to use a computer. I write books and poetry (like who doesn't?) and think this will be fun.
We live between two schools, the High School to the south and the grade school to the north, which makes watching our sidewalk more fun than the TV during the day. What with mature walkers holding hands, joggers trotting by, (often with the loose legs of their shorts flopping on their hips-not too attractive) folks walking their dogs, little kids picking the neighbor's flowers to take home to mommy, and many Latino parents speaking soft Spanish as the walk their little ones to and from school, no day is boring on our street.
Our neighbors next door are an interesting couple. He has a hobby of buying vehicles of all kinds and reselling them, so what with their own passenger car and motorhome, there are seldom less than 6 driveable or rideable vehicles on their little corner lot. Nothing rusty or on blocks, though. They sell and are replaced constantly. When my husband complains, I remind him that they could sell their home to a family of 6 or 7 kids, so be happy. On the other side, We have a very nice Chinese couple from Taiwan. He is a student at the college, and she stays home with two little ones. It's fun in summer when they have barbeques for friends on their back deck. You can hear the adults laughing and talking in Chinese, while below, the kids run and play and shout at each other in English.
When we were young, there were 32 kids on our street, and on rainy days, it seemed as if most of them were in our house. Now that our girls have grown and gone, the street is more quiet and our house could be lonely if I let it. However, we have 7 grown grandchildren and now, 7 great grandchildren, and a Catholic daughter whose three girls have yet to marry, so we have great hopes for more greats.
We had an unusual Christmas last year. My husband, bless him, has Alzheimer's and can't travel, and none of our families could come home for one reason or another, so we planned a little Christmas for ourselves, with our tree in the family room and our presents opened in front of the gas fireplace. Then we had a nice breakfast and read the paper, with our cat purring on the back of my chair. I had cooked, so we would have left overs, but we planned to go out to a good restaurant for lunch to treat ourselves. About 10:30 the front door opened and it was our nice Latino cleaning lady, vacuum in hand. She comes every other Tuesday, and it was her day, so here she was, with her smiling husband to help her. It was an icy cold day with a wind chill to make your bones brittle and your toes rattle like ice cubes, but looking out to their car in the driveway, I saw four little dark heads bobbing in the back seat. I was in shock, and grateful I didn't have a house full of company, so I sent the husbqand out quickly to bring those liitle boys in while I found stuffed toys from my stash, an extra box of chocolates (sugarless but good), turned on the TV to the cartoon channel, and opened the toy cupboard, which has a rich mixture of color books and crayons, cars, dolls and games. Then we went to an early lunch, leaving her money on the table. I had wished for children under our tree and I got my answer. Truly, God has a sense of humor.
Life here, is good, with all our difficulties. I wonder how much of her wages go for haircuts or if she has learned to cut their hair herself? I'd maybe ask, but she doesn't speak English yet. (She understands, though.) Her boys translate for us. We get along fine, and she cleans the way I used to when I was young. The world is full of wonderful people, and I seem to be surrounded by many of them.
We live between two schools, the High School to the south and the grade school to the north, which makes watching our sidewalk more fun than the TV during the day. What with mature walkers holding hands, joggers trotting by, (often with the loose legs of their shorts flopping on their hips-not too attractive) folks walking their dogs, little kids picking the neighbor's flowers to take home to mommy, and many Latino parents speaking soft Spanish as the walk their little ones to and from school, no day is boring on our street.
Our neighbors next door are an interesting couple. He has a hobby of buying vehicles of all kinds and reselling them, so what with their own passenger car and motorhome, there are seldom less than 6 driveable or rideable vehicles on their little corner lot. Nothing rusty or on blocks, though. They sell and are replaced constantly. When my husband complains, I remind him that they could sell their home to a family of 6 or 7 kids, so be happy. On the other side, We have a very nice Chinese couple from Taiwan. He is a student at the college, and she stays home with two little ones. It's fun in summer when they have barbeques for friends on their back deck. You can hear the adults laughing and talking in Chinese, while below, the kids run and play and shout at each other in English.
When we were young, there were 32 kids on our street, and on rainy days, it seemed as if most of them were in our house. Now that our girls have grown and gone, the street is more quiet and our house could be lonely if I let it. However, we have 7 grown grandchildren and now, 7 great grandchildren, and a Catholic daughter whose three girls have yet to marry, so we have great hopes for more greats.
We had an unusual Christmas last year. My husband, bless him, has Alzheimer's and can't travel, and none of our families could come home for one reason or another, so we planned a little Christmas for ourselves, with our tree in the family room and our presents opened in front of the gas fireplace. Then we had a nice breakfast and read the paper, with our cat purring on the back of my chair. I had cooked, so we would have left overs, but we planned to go out to a good restaurant for lunch to treat ourselves. About 10:30 the front door opened and it was our nice Latino cleaning lady, vacuum in hand. She comes every other Tuesday, and it was her day, so here she was, with her smiling husband to help her. It was an icy cold day with a wind chill to make your bones brittle and your toes rattle like ice cubes, but looking out to their car in the driveway, I saw four little dark heads bobbing in the back seat. I was in shock, and grateful I didn't have a house full of company, so I sent the husbqand out quickly to bring those liitle boys in while I found stuffed toys from my stash, an extra box of chocolates (sugarless but good), turned on the TV to the cartoon channel, and opened the toy cupboard, which has a rich mixture of color books and crayons, cars, dolls and games. Then we went to an early lunch, leaving her money on the table. I had wished for children under our tree and I got my answer. Truly, God has a sense of humor.
Life here, is good, with all our difficulties. I wonder how much of her wages go for haircuts or if she has learned to cut their hair herself? I'd maybe ask, but she doesn't speak English yet. (She understands, though.) Her boys translate for us. We get along fine, and she cleans the way I used to when I was young. The world is full of wonderful people, and I seem to be surrounded by many of them.
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