Too Much

               Too much of anything isn’t really good.  Reading for a long time can hurt your eyes or even give you a headache (I know this from personal experience).  Eating a whole bag of potato chips or a container of ice cream in one sitting, while it may be “good for your soul” (as I am prone to saying), is not good for your overall health, especially if you do it frequently.  Even over-consumption of something healthy, like water, is likely to cause some problems.  It’s important to find a balance between what you enjoy and what is good for you and try to avoid feeling addicted to things you know don’t make you feel good, but you just can’t seem to stop.  This is also true when it comes to what’s happening in the world, your personal world, hometown, nation, and globally.

               When I was growing up, my parents read the daily newspapers, one published in town with local news, and one that had more state and worldwide news.  My father watched the late news, at 11:00 pm, sometimes my mother watched news in the late afternoon, at 5:00.  That was it, they kept informed about what was going on and then moved on to other things, books, magazines, tv shows, chores, hobbies, and spending time with us kids. It is very different today.  It’s hard to stay away from current events and opinions.  Much of what is put out there as news is, in my view, the opinions of the broadcasters and celebrities. Between the tv, radio, and social media, over consuming news is hard to avoid.  I do think about this a lot, because I feel that in general we as a society and me personally have become fearful, overwhelmed, and have an underlying anger; most of us probably don’t even know why we feel like this or realize it is happening.  It is hard to avoid becoming fearful of everyday life when we are constantly bombarded with alarming reports and “statistics”, read in an intense manner into the camera, or splashed across any written media in bold lettering with alarming graphics.  The weather alone is enough to make you hide under the covers and wait for the end of the world.  I never remember “weather alerts” when I was younger.  If it was going to rain, we stayed inside or wore raincoats and boots, depending on what it was like out.  We were not alarmed by it, but we respected that Mother Nature would have her way no matter what and we acted accordingly.  Snow was exciting, but not frightening, hot days in summer were expected and called for shorts and t-shirts, ice pops, swimming or sprinkler play and lying in the shade sipping lemonade.  Nobody had to tell us (except our mothers) to stay hydrated and not exert ourselves too much in hot weather.  Cold in January was just par for the course, so we donned our coats, hats, and gloves and went about our business of getting to school and work, but we weren’t scared by it.  Now, half the time I’m afraid to go out of my house for fear something terrible will happen to me if I do.  How silly!  Fear is what keeps us going back to check the weather frequently so we are not caught off guard by dangerous conditions which rarely occur.  In our current situation with the pandemic raging across our country, it’s hard not to become obsessed with finding out “the latest” about it.  If we pay too much attention to what most media is telling us, we forget that common sense is what we most need.  It makes sense to wash your hands after you have been anywhere besides inside your house, and after handling groceries or using the bathroom.  If doctors are saying that wearing a cloth or disposable mask will keep germs from spreading, then common sense tells us that we should do that when we’re going to be around people we don’t live with or who are sick, until a vaccine is available to everyone.  There is so much common sense missing right now.  I think that planting seeds out doubt is one thing that media excels at, and helps to cloud our judgement and ignore the common sense most everyone has.  Fear allows us to ignore our inner voice of reason and readily buy into disinformation. 

               I think about this a lot, as I find myself fearing going out in the rain, driving anywhere, even grocery shopping.  Too much news is not a good thing, at least for me.  I’m doing my best to limit how frequently I check on current events.  Once in the morning and then once in the evening seems to be a good balance for me. I hope you find a good balance for yourself and let your internal voice of reason be your guide.  I wish you peace.

Banana Memories

It’s funny how an everyday object can bring memories rushing back, causing you to pause what you’re doing to take a little trip into the past.  I realized this recently when making a peanut butter banana smoothie for my daughter; the bananas were fairly ripe, a bit soft with many brown spots on the peel.  My maternal grandfather liked them that way, and even riper than that.  He ate a banana every day, as did my mother with her lunch. I can picture her, sitting at the table for lunch with her plate of tuna macaroni salad or cottage cheese and jello, a glass of iced tea with 2 ice cubes in it, and a banana laid alongside the glass waiting for its turn to be consumed.  I can smell the tang of the onions and slight fishy smell of the tuna, and almost taste the sweetness of the Miracle Whip salad dressing she used to make her salads.  There were many days as an adult that I stopped in for lunch with her, especially on the weekends after my first daughter was born. Lunch was usually tuna macaroni salad and a banana; although sometimes it was tomato soup and a cheese sandwich, or cottage cheese and jello.  If my father was there, he had a sandwich of white bread, butter, chicken roll, and sometimes lettuce, iced tea, and a banana.  There are such fond memories brought up by a humble piece of fruit!

          I always have bananas in my house, and we don’t always eat them before they are overripe so we usually have either banana bread or banana cake either on the counter or in the freezer.  We find that we enjoy the banana cake more than the bread, although toasted banana bread is tough to beat with a cup of tea or coffee.  Speaking of banana bread brings back memories of visiting my aunt at the shore and breakfasting on her screened in patio on warm summer mornings, with the smell of the ocean on the breeze.  She served toasted banana bread with her homemade jelly; most memorable for my husband was the beach plum jelly she made.  I don’t know if it was being on vacation, or the fresh sea air, or a combination of the two but when I make banana bread he always mentions the toasted banana bread spread and beach plum jelly, with fondness both for the food and my aunt.

          Humble everyday objects surround us, each one waiting with the potential to offer us a break from our current reality with a little trip down Memory Lane.  I like that.

Bittersweet Summer

Summer is bittersweet in so many ways.  We savor the days of sunshine and days of gentle rain, while at the same time realizing the danger of  sunburned skin, strong storms, tornadoes, flooding and hurricanes.  Summer is a season where we slow down a bit, take time off, and let our minds wander; our thoughts blowing through our brains like those white puffy clouds the wind pushes and changes as they move across the deep blue sky on a hot afternoon.  As my memories meander around in my head I realize that it is this time of the year when I miss my parents the most.  Most people I talk to about their parents once they have passed on say they miss them most around the winter holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, or around Mothers Day and Fathers Day.  Those days do have a poignant emptiness to them once your parents are no longer here but for me it’s the summer time that leaves me with an emptiness quite unfillable.

It was in the summer that we seemed to have the most fun with our parents.  Whether it was a family game of softball in the field across the street, a trip to explore and picnic at Tillman’s Ravine, or a trip to visit my aunt at the shore we did it together on the weekend.  During the week, my mother packed picnic lunches of cheese sandwiches, iced tea and vegetable sticks and we walked up the street where there was forest now many houses) where we walked through the coolness of the trees and stopped at “Diamond Rock” for lunch.  Other days we’d simply yell into the house through the screen door to let Mom know we were going to a friend’s house, bike riding, or to the playground.  She was always there; she was our anchor as we navigated our way through childhood.  The evenings were spent either sitting together in lawn chairs on the porch drinking lemonade and talking and laughing about whatever four kids and two adults would, or playing games; usually either Scrabble or Rummy.  Even after we were all grown, when I visited my parents Mom was always ready with the Scrabble board or a deck of cards once the dinner dishes were washed and put away.  She was really hard to beat as she knew so many words and was a strategic player of letters.  In Rummy she always seemed to get the cards she needed, I don’t know how she did it but she usually reached 500 before anyone else was even close.  Those were such nice times, the cool of the evening, a citronella candle on the picnic table, glass of iced tea, and a quiet game which invited casual conversation and fostered a closeness of which there is no comparison.

Summer, for me, is the time I most wish my parents were still here.  It’s the time that I feel the loss of them the most, yet I have to smile at all the happy memories I have of those long lazy summers.

Some Things

It’s been a while since I’ve done a list so decided tonight might be a good time to do one of some things that have brought me pleasure lately.

*Central air conditioning!  It’s hotter than hot here in NJ lately!

*Listening to our local radio station with its interviews with people from local organizations, some who I know, trivia contests, “swap ‘n’ shop”, and “talk of the town”, as well as playing songs considered “oldies” but that I know most of the words to.

*Sipping iced tea and reading a book while waiting at a coffee shop for a friend to join me for lunch.

*Meeting friends for breakfast and lunch---love my summer time freedoms!

*Baking blueberry cake and eating it with vanilla ice cream!

*Watering the plants and filling the bird baths.

*Spending lazy afternoons watching crime drama reruns.

*Donating usable but unwanted items to Goodwill.

*Trimming some bushes early in the day.

*Puttering in the kitchen while singing along to a favorite cd.

*Watching bees enjoying the blooms on the Rose of Sharon outside the kitchen window.

*Watching the lightning bugs rise up out of their hiding places at twilight and seeing how high they go.

*The way the setting sun lights the underside of the trees.

*Feeling the fan stirred air cooling me as I lie in bed at night.

It’s A Mad Lib Life

         When I was a kid one of our favorite games was Mad Libs.  For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a series of writing tablet style books with a paragraph or two on each page, each page generally unrelated to each other, with words missing in the sentences.  The missing words are represented by a blank line with what type of word, such as noun or adjective, is missing written in small lettering underneath.  One person chooses a page and asks the other players for the words, without reading the paragraph to the group until all blanks are filled in.  The result is usually so funny that it’s tough to get through the whole paragraph without stopping to catch your breath.  This game is still one of my favorites to play with my brothers and their children.  One line that I still remember from when I was a kid and playing with my brothers is from “The Three Little Pigs”.  In this abbreviated version of the fairy tale the line “and he huffed and he puffed” ended up being replaced with “and he went and he gone”.  I can still see my brother Doug’s face turning beet red with tears streaming down his cheeks as we laughed until we couldn’t breathe and our bellies hurt.

         I’m noticing more and more that my conversations are getting to sound like Mad Libs.  I don’t know if it’s hearing loss, or people mumbling more or I’m just not paying attention but I’m hearing some pretty crazy sentences throughout my days.  I was talking on the phone to my sister-in-law who told me that she had just come in from working in the garden and had been attacked by a bunch of speedos. Wow! That produced some disturbing images until I stopped laughing and realized that she said a bunch of mosquitos.  Then there was the day at work when I was told that Linda dropped an eye in the pizza.  Ha ha! No, she dropped ice in the freezer.  Another time one of my coworkers, who is from another country and has a fairly pronounced accent said “I have no tongue, I need tongue”, we all looked at her in puzzlement so she repeated herself, “I have not thong, I need thong”, as we laughed and she repeated herself again and began making hand motions we realized that she wanted tongs to pick up the lettuce with on the salad bar.  It’s a good thing she likes us or I think she might have been angry.  I’m not going to get into the misheard song lyrics and don’t even get me started talking about those auto corrected text messages!  It’s getting to be a Mad Lib world.

Saturday Morning Joy Reflections

I just wanted to share quickly some of the joys I felt this past week in the midst of for whatever reason felt like the longest week ever to nearly everyone I spoke with and me.

A plate of spaghetti and salad at the end of a long day.

The laughter of family on Easter Sunday.

Yellow peeps.

Talking about mundane things such as new pillows with the lovely ladies I work with.

The news that our supervisor is doing well after treatment for a tumor and may in fact be back with us sooner than anticipated.

Lunch out with my oldest daughter.

Listening to the radio.

Reading a book without falling asleep after the first page.

Writing a letter to a dear friend and imagining her delight and surpise when it arrives.

Bright sunshine and birds singing.

Watching Miss Hillary having her senior portait taken in preparation for her final year of school beginning in September. (this will also be part of a future post on mixed feelings!)

Perusing the "dollar deal" bins at CVS and finding something I just couldn't live without.

A soothing cup of tea before bed.

A delightful cup of coffee this morning.

Have a nice weekend, and I wish you many moments of joy.