Things in Common in Everyday Ramblings

A neighboring garden plot. Ready to go. I was thrilled when I went down Monday and saw that the columbines are beginning to bud. They made it through the ice storm. It looks like the dianthus made it through as well. In my mind I am all ready to get the garden year started.

As well as the bush tomatoes, the sweet peas (grown from last year’s seeds) and the sweet peppers are just beginning to sprout. I found the box all the rest of my seeds were in, so I am going to start some more flowers. I splurged with my tax return money and purchased a heat mat, some vermiculite.

For my birthday coming up in a few months all I want is someone to take me out to breakfast, not a group thing, and to a garden center.

I have been in touch with cardiology all week and have an appointment with a nurse practitioner next Tuesday morning. The thing is we all don’t know if this is a gastric thing or a heart thing, but the discomfort and fullness is my chest has persisted intermittently. I am writing about this mostly because it is a cautionary tale for women to think about our hearts and their health. Take it seriously.

The other night I had that oh gosh what is this, is it a big one, do I need to call the paramedics thing again and couldn’t get to sleep so I stayed up until midnight finishing reading book one in the cozy Irish Village Mystery series by Carlene O’Connor. One of those romance/mystery mashups.

I was reading one of the Joy Ellis books last week in the Matt Ballard series, (my least favorite of her series) and she got all meta saying that there is nothing cozy about murder and that is so true.

Walt wants us to talk about mystery series in our online Bibliophiles book group tomorrow. He doesn’t read them. One of the other women in the group has her own group that talks about them and is writing one. I met her for the first time in person at Walt’s book launch and we shared a table and chatted cheerfully the whole time when Walt wasn’t reading.

Apparently, this did not go unnoticed. She is in her 80’s, is a huge camelia fan, was married to a British actor when she met Walt 50 years ago. She is too introverted to come to coffee with the guys she says.

This week Walt gave us assignments for that. Most unusual. We were to bring a poem to read or recite as it is National Poetry Month. Everybody did it, the ones that forgot looked up poems on their phones and one lovely new guy, who has some history or knowledge of clowns recited song lyrics. The other assignment was to bring children’s books. Favorites. We had a long discussion about Winnie the Pooh and books with hats in them.

Walt also brought his story telling machine, which is wooden with two rollers like a little stage, and he had a story like a comic based on drawings in the characters of Dagwood and Blondie, but it was the story of Adam and Eve and the snake and shame after eating the forbidden fruit. He rolled the panels forward and we were assigned to read the speech bubbles aloud. The drawings were wonderful.

I got to voice the snake.

My proudest moment of the week.

Well, I did present the League budget to the board on Monday too and it was approved. I have some tinkering to do there to submit for membership approval in May. I can’t wait until that is all done, and I get a break in the action there.

These volunteers, we are all volunteers except for our part time office person, are doing such incredible meaningful work to ensure that we have an informed electorate both for our Primary in May and the General Election in November and I am awed by the dedication and commitment these people are putting in.

Quietly. We get all caught up in the news and how bad and scary things are, and they are. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things happening and people aren’t working with diligence to make sure democracy stays a democracy. Just saying…

Our Voter Services Chair, (who had heart surgery last year), got on a bus I was on this week. An older retired guy, served as a page in Congress in Washington as a teenager and became a lawyer. He got on with his phone in his hand and focused on that the whole time I saw him. This is how he responds so quickly to his emails I thought. I never see anyone I know on the bus. He has a car. I have been in it. How cool is that?

Okay, enough. I need to get in my rain gear as I am walking with Mrs. Sherlock shortly. May we all stay well and keep up the fight. I am sure that is what the other guys say too.

We have more in common than we think.

Last updated April 06, 2024