Just About People

49°f/9.4°C, mostly cloudy. Won't get very warm today, again.

Being on the road so much last week meant running into interesting people. 

Like the man at the VA. He was tall and thin, sitting there quietly, but had rings on every single finger. Some you might call women's rings, though they looked manly enough on his hands. I asked if he minded if I looked at them, and he held them up for me to see. 

"Tiger eye?", I asked, and he responded, with difficulty, "Cat eye." He tried to say more, but struggled, and his daughter beside him said, "He had a stroke last year,  and it messed up his ability to speak." 

Still, we had a good conversation.  I commented how frustrating it must be to know what you want to say but be unable to say it, and he nodded emphatically and grinned. I watched as he and his daughter (with whom he lives), through gestures and his halting, broken words, communicated. It was like watching charades, as she would ask, "Is this what you mean?" He would nod or shake his head, and in this way they worked out what he wanted to say. Her patience was a lesson in loving, and it was clear to see he adored her. 

Then at a store there was the strikingly beautiful woman in her early 60's whose head was completely shaved. I asked, "Is your hairstyle a choice? Because you look amazing!"

"Well," she said, "it is and it isn't.  I am going to have to have radiation and they said I will lose my hair, so I decided to just shave it off."

"It suits you," I said. And she replied, "I think I might just keep it this way. I like it!"

At the Farmer's Market, a lady was running the register at the place where I bought the Mothman chips. A lady came over and asked, "How are you doing, Ruth?"

"I'm a little tired," Ruth said. 

A man came over and said, "She's very tired. She's going home as soon as she finishes serving this lady, right, Mom?" 

I asked Ruth, "Do you enjoy working here?"

"Yes," she replied, "it's something to do. I do get tired,  but I like getting out. "

"If you don't mind my asking, how old are you?"

"I'm 80 my next birthday!" 

80, and still working at the market a few days a week. Go, Ruth!

Also at the market: three young black men smelling and identifying (correctly) the herb plants, and  another young man pushing a stroller holding identical twin girls. He couldn't go more than a few steps without being stopped by women who wanted to tell him how adorable the babies were. 

I told him he should rent them out to single guys as they were such excellent girl magnets!

At the Goodwill, I carried a 5-foot long set of longhorns to the counter. "Whoa", said the young male clerk. "Yeah," I said, "I was feeling a little horny." He laughed til tears ran down his cheeks. "I was not expecting that!" 

I think he meant hearing it from someone as old as I am. If he knew me, he would have known better.

And last, at dinner last night, a friend of Derek's who served in the National Guard in Iraq joined us at our table. Brian was there for a graduation party group, but their table was pretty much full, and he was happy to sit with us. I was so entertained as he, Derek, and Larry shared military stories. Some funny, some surprising, others, well...the kind you don't tell your mother until years after the fact. One story really struck me. When they were deployed to Iraq for the third time, they had to go to a training for those coming in-country. The trainer was a young second lieutenant who was in Iraq for the first time. 

As the guy started the training, Brian raised his hand and said, "Sir, many of us were in regular service before joining the Guard, and some have been here in Iraq before too." The second lieutenant paused, and said, "Right. So how many of you were in regular Army before?" Hands went up. "How about Marines?" More hands. He went through all branches of the service, and in the end there were only a handful without prior experience. "Well, I guess the rest of you can go," he said.

There were so many stories from Iraq, Korea, Germany, and of course Larry's tales from Vietnam. So many experiences, yet here they were, safely home, eating dinner together. I doubt they saw it as I did, these three men. It was just their lives, but to me it was a testament to resiliency, strength, and a whole lot of luck.

All for today. Happy Mothers Day to those of you celebrating.  Hold those children tight!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

What a Week

47°/8.3°C this morning, clear bit later mixed clouds and sun. Warmed to 73°.

What a wild ride this week has been! One of those weeks where we had to go out almost every day. I hate that. I am a much happier camper when I can be home for several days, or even a week or two, with no trips out. But sometimes life sure intervenes.

A better photo of that black iris. Just stunning, I think.

Tuesday was open mic; Wednesday we needed gas, groceries, line for the string trimmer, and we dropped off the riding mower at a repair guy 's place in the evening. So that day was a bust. No garden work at all. Thursday Larry had a VA appointment in Charleston. I was happily reading blogs and doing my puzzles, still in my nightgown, at 9:45am, having had a rough night's sleep due to arm and shoulder pain (should never have helped load that mower!). Suddenly I realized that we were to be in Charleston,  50+ miles away, in 30 minutes! Hollered for Larry, who was messing around outside, called the VA to explain, and we got there an hour and a half late. Fortunately it was just for blood work, so they were pretty flexible. Whew.

Since we were in Charleston, we stopped at the Farmer's market for herb plants. I want to expand my selection of herbs, and there's just nowhere closer. And since we were there, we decided to have lunch at Soho's, a restaurant we like in the market. As we were sitting down, in walked my friend Suzy and her friend Karen! 50 miles from home, what a coincidence. So we enjoyed a nice lunch, did our shopping, and got a call on the way home that our mower was already fixed.

One thing I bought at the market that was not a plant:

These are going to granddaughter Sarah, a Mothman fan. I also bought some Aztec chocolates for granddaughter Grace, from a chocolatier who makes the best chocolates in the state. These are Grace's favorites, and she can't get them where she lives. 

I was amazed that the mower was ready so fast.  How often does anything get fixed that fast? So home to get the truck and pick up the mower. It turned out that the problem was electrical,  and a fuse box and a few other parts had to be replaced. Who knew mowers had fuseboxes! The cost was reasonable, and it was such a relief to find someone so close who can do this work.

A few photos from the road to the repair shop, which is only a few miles from home.

One of the oldest homes in our county:

On the way home, we were behind this poor wrecked Jeep being hauled to the junkyard. A bad wreck happened just a little earlier, and the driver had to be life-flighted by helicopter to Morgantown. So sad, and sobering. Apparently they were just going too fast and lost control in a curve. I haven't heard anything about who the driver was, or their condition, but they certainly have our prayers.

I had our son Derek stop by to help unload the mower. (Not going to ever get involved with loading or unloading it again. Learned my lesson as my arms and shoulders are still giving me heck at night.) Derek stayed around a while to enjoy the firepit with us. That was nice. 

Today was booth day, but a light one because I have had little time to get anything ready. So we had lunch at Shari's with a group of friends, and it was such a good time. So many stories, I am pretty sure all of us left with brown legs due to the large amount of BS around that table! There were stories of snake-handling churches and church revivals, most of them pretty funny. 

Our friend Bill said he was at a revival once and the preacher was telling the story of David and Goliath. The preacher was really wound up and getting into the story, and as he was telling about David using his slingshot to shoot Goliath, the preacher yelled, "He just pulled back as far as he could, and let that stone fly, and it hit that big son of a b**** right between the eyes!" The congregation was stunned for a minute before everyone broke out laughing. 

Larry told them about a church he went to once, in Lincoln County, WV. There was a girl who went to church there that he was sweet on, so he agreed to go to a service with her. Suddenly a man picked up a box and started taking rattlesnakes and copperheads out of the box and handing them to people. Larry said he was out the door fast! And that if there hadn't already been a door there, he'd have made them a new one! 

After finishing the booths, we had a couple extra stops, one to pick up an armoire, another to buy a beautiful brass candelabra from a friend who is also a reseller. 

That armoire was heavy, and no one was there that could help load it, of course. I think i need to take some weightlifting training if I am going to keep on hoisting heavy stuff about. 

Then finally, home, where our dofs were overjoyed to see us. Dinner was leftover cream of asparagus soup, a free pizza bread (given to us at a restaurant on Wednesday because they said they messed up the ones we ordered, even though we couldn't tell the difference), and leftover cobbler. We ate out on the deck, enjoying the beautiful evening. 

We ended up at the firepit---it is just the perfect way to end a busy day,  I think. Need to clean up around the firepit, but that's a job for another day.

Tomorrow we still need to go out again, for concrete mix to finish the patio project, mulch for my herb garden, and a couple more cattle panels for trellising the tomatoes. We may just put off that trip though, as I am longing to be home. But Derek has invited us out for dinner to celebrate Mother's Day, since he has a golf thing on Sunday. So maybe Sunday we will just stay put all day? I hope so!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Gardens (again), and Open Mic

61°f/16°C, rainy night, showery morning but ending soon. 

I'm interspersing flower and garden pics into this post today. I do seem to take a lot of them, but can't seem to control the urge.

The peonies are blooming! Again, 2 weeks early.

It was so good to get a whole night of rain. Not big storms, just rain, the kind that soaks right into the ground. I am especially grateful because I have so many seeds planted that were just waiting for a good soaking.  And for the past two days I have been planting flowers that I bought last week. I waited to do this until the last cold spell ended. 

These iris are so full of blooms they fell over. I propped them up later, but several others are doing the same. Need to think about this for next year.

I guess that frosty weather must have been our blackberry winter? The blackberries were blooming, but fortunately didn't get bit. We have had our redbud and our dogwood winters already this year, so perhaps this is the last of Old Man Winter. Although, it is supposed to get cold again this weekend. Humph.Regardless of what Mother Nature and her cohorts are doing, plants are determinedly doing what they know they are supposed to at this time of year. 

I bet this lovely bloom is on the ground this morning, after all that rain.

Today I am feeling the effects of all the digging and hauling,  but it feels good to have it done. There is still plenty more to do. I have not yet filled all my planters,  and a box of plants arrived in yesterday's mail. There is a full tray of peppers and tomatoes still waiting, and more seeds to get in the ground. I need more mulch for the herb garden, and have just started mulching the vegetable garden. 

This iris looks black in the garden, much darker than the photo.

But it is coming along. Potatoes, peas, and onions are doing great, lettuce is ready to pick, some corn,  beans and cucumbers are up, and lots of other things are growing well. The garden is such a hopeful place in Spring, and gardeners, I think, are the most optimistic of humans, going out every year blithely believing that this will be the best year ever. How often that optimism is checked by reality! How often achieving even decent results means hard work, lots of watering, and fending off wildlife and disease. And still sometimes we fail. And yet, when the next spring comes, and we are right back out there 

Another one opened yesterday. Such delicate colors!

Today is town day, I think, once Larry gets back from taking the @#*$ mower to a neighbor to repair. He has tried to repair it himself and just made things worse, I am afraid. I finally convinced him to take it to our neighbor Bill, who is a wizard at this stuff. 

Edit: neighbor wasn't home, so he's back, with the @#$% mower still in the truck. Now we can't pick up mulch and stuff today. Grrr!

Another new-to-my-garden iris, but I can't remember if it's a Siberian or a Dutch variety!

Last night we went to the open mic. I needed a break after all the garden work, then helping Larry fix the weedeater, and load the mower into the truck. (I will tell you now,  two chubby 75-year-olds pushing a heavy mower up a ramp into a truck is not the best idea! But we got it done.)

My favorite corner of this garden. The Mexican primroses are so pretty. Spread like wildfire, but I don't care--they pull up easily.

The open mic was excellent. Lots of great music, and I told this story, 

and sang this song by Kris Kristoffersen. I really like the lyrics, pretty fitting for our times, I think, even though it was written in 1972. (It sounds like a John Prine song; Kristoffersen actually discovered

Price in a little club in Chicago, took him with him to New York. John sang one night in a club there and was signed to a $25,000 contract the next day. That was big money in those days. Kristoffersen wrote this song as a tribute to Prine. Pretty neat.)

Last night's featured performer, Jim Snyder, shared a mix of classic songs, like this one:

He joined in with a girl who sometimes comes to sing, in this clip:

All performers were excellent, and again we marveled at how much some of them had improved since they first started coming. Honestly,  I have paid to see shows that weren't as good as last night. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.