Morning Thoughts

Standing stones in West Ridge Nature Preserve

I've been away for a while. I went to Chicago to see Mollie graduate from her radiology school. She did well. She passed the boards with 93%, which seemed to impress the administration of the school. Apparently, that is an unexpectedly high percentage of obtain. Mollie, in her usual fashion was disappointed that she hadn't done better. But the boards are passed, and she is fully licensed to give you an ultrasound, an ex-ray or a mammogram. She also will start working full time and making three times the amount that I made the year that I retired. It's a huge salary bump for her. I don't think that she has grasped that for the first time in her life, she is fully financially secure on her own account. If everything falls apart. If Chris's job becomes less secure, which it might in a recession, she can support herself and him too. As a parent, I feel tremendous relief, and a bit of pride that my children are secure. 

As always, I ate well in Chicago. We had brunch at Kitsch-In on Roscoe, of course. The food is amazing. And the owner, Andre was there to offer mimosas to everyone. I had the Dulce Leche' pancakes, so very decadent! I usually get the chilaquiles or the eggs benedict. But this was a celebration of Mollie, and I wanted over the top. For the celebration dinner we went to Anatolia in Andersonville. But I was blown away by the breakfast that I had after a morning walk with Mollie, just blocks from her apartment. We went to a cafe' called Savanna. I had the Fruta Roja waffles, and oh my goodness! Throw decadent over the cliff! I spent the equivalent of my weekly grocery bill on one breakfast and didn't care a bit. It was worth it for a memorable meal. That evening we told Chris about it when he asked about our day. Apparently, he had been wanting to go there too. So the next morning, before I boarded the plane to return to Alabama we went there again. That time, I had the red velvet pancakes and could not believe there was anything more decadent than the waffles, but there it was. 

My flight back to Atlanta was delayed. Some maintenance problems caused a delay in boarding. And then we sat on the tarmac waiting for clearance to take off. I had been worried about making Tim wait on me to arrive. But when we landed and I was able to turn my phone back on, I got a text that he was still 45 minutes away. He had car trouble earlier that morning and spent the entire day in the shop with the car, getting the brakes fixed. I really didn't mind finding a seat and waiting for him. And I had a fascinating conversation with a woman travelling from India, who was on a layover. 

When Tim arrived at the airport, I offered to buy him dinner to smooth over what had been a rough day and he eagerly accepted. We went to a chain restaurant that we usually enjoy. But I was struck by the mediocracy of it. The server was okay. The food was okay. But there was nothing special about it. You would not take pictures of your food there. You would not write about it in a blog. It was just another overpriced meal. 

What is it about Chicago that makes the food so much better? I have never eaten in a restaurant there where I walked away feeling disappointed with either the food or the service. But I pretty much quit going out to eat in Seattle because I was always disappointed. And here in Alabama, in a college town at that, I have yet to find a restaurant that wows me. But it's not just the restaurants, but everything in Chicago that is over the top. It's everything: the churches, museums, libraries, the parks and nature preserves, even the presidents and popes. I always come away from there inspired to better, to knit a better hat, to bake a better sourdough, to make crisp waffles with fresh fruit toppings and mint grown in my garden. Will I ever move there? Probably not. The rent is as high maintenance as the city. I simply can't afford it. But it is great to know that I can visit it often.

'Nuff Said...

She was praying for God's protection for ICE agents

 

Falling Stars

My parents were from Alabama, as were their parents and their parents before them. In fact, my family has lived here since Andrew Jackson stole it from the Creeks and Cherokees, I'm not really proud of that as they would have been here sooner if they hadn't feared for their lives for doing so. I am told that it is unwise to judge the past by today's standards, but some things are just wrong by any standard, and that was just wrong. 

So, there is this story I have been told all my life about the night that thousands of stars fell on Alabama. I can remember sitting out on my grandparent's porch on warm summer evenings watching the "falling stars" of the Perseids meteor shower. Someone would always bring up the story and my grandfather would claim that his grandfather had actually seen it. The likelihood that our ancestors had viewed it is almost !00% as they were all living here by then. But my grandfather told the story as if he'd seen it himself. 

Tonight, both the Delta Aquariid and the Perseids can be seen in the skies above us. I was looking forward to seeing it, but there is a tropical depression sitting out in the Gulf of Mexico that might ruin my chances. Luckily, the star showers hang out for a few months, and I hope that it doesn't rain the entire time.  

Around midnight, I will be heading out to the porch and looking up into the southern skies. If Jack decides to join me, maybe I will tell him how my ancestors and his mother's all were here to see the stars fall on Alabama.

 

Sleepless

It's almost 4:00 am and I'm still awake. There is no reasoning for my sleeplessness, I am just awake. It happens a lot nowadays. If I allowed myself to worry about it...

The house is getting back to a normal rhythm. Jack is going out again, but not into the woods alone. At least not that I'm aware of. He's been meeting up with friends, and I try not to pay attention. Honestly,,,just...that these kids will be turned loose on their own in a year is a very frightening idea. What's worse, they will be the ones caring for us in our nursing homes...I just can't even...I'm pretty sure that my grandparents felt the same.

Tim has started his new work schedule. He is much happier than he was working close to home. He and his fiancé have been looking for property in north Georgia for both families to move too after they are married next June. They found something they are interested in, but it isn't their dream property. They are holding on putting in an offer to see if the price will drop. When Trumpsession finally hits I'm sure they will be able to get a better price, either on it or something similar. He's a paramedic and she's a court clerk. They will have jobs when no one else does.

I have been baking, and shopping. Mostly shopping it seems, and that needs to stop. But the baking...I'm getting a handle of the sourdough bread. The loaves have been good, but I have wanted a softer crust. I asked Copilot how to do that, and it gave me a few suggestions that have worked well. As scary as AI is for the future of mankind, it is a very useful tool now. But then, chat rooms used to be fun. 

This is my bread recipe: The card created by AI...

As for the shopping, that isn't something I will be leaving up to AI. Actually, it's not something that I should pursue much further. But you know, OH LOOK! Something shiny...

Hanging

As Debra aptly pointed out to me in a comment on my last post, I left you hanging on the side of a cliff. Details should be coming...

Unfortunately, there really are none that we know. I have a lifelong habit of not asking the questions that I really don't want the answers too. It seems that I have passed that on to my son. He didn't ask many questions. Jack is in deep shock and isn't really talking right now. I have ordered a large cheesecake from Walmart that should arrive in an hour and have baked a lasagna for when Jack wakes up. Apparently, we eat through our hardships.

Last night Jack went out with some friends. Tim thought that he had plans to stay over at the home of one of them. So, we weren't concerned when Jack didn't show up at curfew. 

I was up late following through with a genealogy hint I had just learned, when around 2:00 am I heard Tim in the hall on the phone with Jack. I didn't think much of it, we are all night-owls and don't sleep when others do. But then, Tim came in and told me the news: Jack had left his friends, heading home for curfew when he passed some woods that he wanted to explore. While he was exploring, he came upon a dead body. When he called Tim, his first sentence was the one that every parent dreads, "I'm okay, I'm not in trouble. I'm here with the police."

The Jeep is still in the shop. Tim had to call Uber to get to where Jack and the cops were. I baked cookies while I waited for them. And then I took a shower. And then I blogged...because what else do you do in a crisis? 

Tim didn't ask the police, or Jack any questions about the body. His focus was on Jack being safe and being supported. As I said before, Jack is in shock. He really isn't talking. This morning, after Tim got him home, he was pacing, circling the apartment from stress. He ate all the cookies in the baggie before I went to bed. When I got up around noon, I found a pan half full of canned soup, another one unopened on the counter. If you are going to eat your stress, you may as well have something decent to do it with. That is when I decided to bake the lasagna and order the cheesecake.

I know nothing about the body. From the Facebook neighborhood page, I know that there are a couple of college students that have been missing for a few days. I hope that they have just decided to take a quick trip down to Gulf Shores and will show up in a bit. hope that the body Jack found wasn't either of them. I don't know why that should be more comforting than if it was a homeless person, or a confused patient that wondered away from the nearby hospital. Someone died in the woods alone, and that is disturbing. And Jack found their body. We are in shock. The hygge has been shattered

I don't know if we will ever find out anything more about it. I don't know that we want too. Maybe it is better if we don't. 

 

Those that Roam the Night

I have complained mentioned in the past that Jack thinks he's a hobbit. And not the kind that likes to stay close to the shire and eschews adventure. He roams the local woods at night, looking for what, I could not tell you. Tonight, he found more than he'd bargained for. 

He's a good kid, mostly. The cop noted that, and that he's polite. It's a good thing that his father, being a paramedic in the town, is well known to law enforcement for the right reasons. And his mother is a senior manager at the University. And her parents are well established in the area, being alumni donors to the same university. That sort of thing helps around places like this. It especially helps because his grandfather is known for hiking and exploring, having established many of the trails around here. It does explain why a teenager might be roaming around the woods at 3:00 am on a random Tuesday in July.

My fears, being the worrying kind, were that he'd find a bobcat or a snake of some wild beast suffering from rabies. There are plenty of dangers without even considering the evil caused by humans. You wouldn't want to come up on someone's still, or anything like that. Everyone knows that nothing good can be found after midnight. 

But tonight, Jack found a dead body...

Reports From the Homeland...

The reports are beginning to come in. My friends are posting their pictures online. This photo was sent to me from an anthropologist. She is ordained as an Episcopalian minister and is working as a manager for a fortune 500 company. She is bold in her efforts. She posted her pictures online with her name attached. She is unafraid to let others know what she is doing. 

Other friends from Seattle, Portland, Flint, Austin, Charleston and many other places are also sending out their pictures. Like me, they still feel that we have the right to protest. I wonder if they too were cautioned that their photos might at some point be used as evidence against them, and they just don't care. That kind of prosecution is not supposed to happen here. But many things that we grew up believing don't happen here are happening now. 

My friends are telling stories of meeting people at the protests that less than a year ago voted for the regime in power. They say that this isn't what they were voting for. When they voted to deport the criminals, they weren't voting to deport the pastor of the Spanish speaking church or the coach of their kid's baseball team. Now they realize that the criminal with 34 felonies, the adjudicated rapist, is actually running the country. It would be all to easy to just say, "FAFO, I guess you didn't see the leopard coming for your face." I wonder how many more of them will

be at the next protest when they realize that the disabled child they know was kicked off of Medicaid; that they got no warning of an impending storm because the program was cut; that the roadway project to fix the potholes in their streets and the projects to fix the bridges and dams where they live have been gutted. The money was all diverted to give tax breaks to the already very wealthy. 

It used to be those other people who protested, who got out in the streets and made the government listen. Now it must be all of us.

And Maybe It Happened...

Not saying either way, but it may have happened. So, if we were there at Toomer's Corner yesterday the feeling was to not post any pictures online that could identify anyone. The rumor being that the 🟠💩administration might at some point run out of immigrants to harass and start deporting protestors. You know, don't rat out your neighbor. Maybe I was there, or maybe I wasn't. 

And if I happened to be there, innocently holding a sign and looking around, I might have been surprised that in this very red state hundreds of people were hanging around some trees that suffer from toilet paper poisoning. Not that anyone was tossing toilet paper, the football team hadn't won a game after all. I mean if there had been anyone there at all.

It was hot, and the air was soupy. So, if I had gone, I had to leave early or get sick from the heat. And if the teenager had been with me, I would have thought he'd complain about having to leave early. But if he was there, he was more interested in going home and playing video games in the air conditioning than standing out in the heat. Priorities, after all...

I'm not saying it happened, but you know...it could have... And kudos to the people walking around handing out red, white and blue popsicles.
 

Cluttered

I keep trying to write this blog post, and when I get the words written out, I realize that I have gone too far. I will be telling a story that is not mine to tell. It will reveal things that someone else may consider private. (Nothing illegal, or immoral. Just something someone else might not want discussed in public.) A blog is gossip, after all. You get one side of any story that is told.

We live in a cluttered place. It's very small and there are three of us. We all have our things and they kind of compete for space. We see each other's things: mail, purchases, laundry, medication. And this is where it becomes not my story to tell. It frustrating, because it affects me, and my hygge. And deep down, I know that as much as it isn't my story, it isn't my responsibility either. My best bet is to let it rest. 

I'm a clean as you go type person, and a semi-un-fit housekeeper at that. The house will be clean enough to eat off the plates, but you don't want to set up your charcuterie on the floor. The floors get vacuumed. swept, and mopped every day. I keep dishes washed, surfaces wiped down, furniture dusted. It's clean enough. 

In my mind, the clutter equals depression. In reality, it is mostly caused because there are three of us in a small space and our things compete for space. There is a component of depression there. We are all three recovering from recent trauma. 

I need to do more to deal with my depression. I told myself on the train here that I'd seek counseling when I got here. Then I said I would get help when my insurance got changed over. Now I have no excuse really. So, I say as soon as I get back from Chicago. I'm putting it off. As easy as it is to overshare on social media about other people, calling it venting or telling my story, it is hard to do it when the person I'm venting about is myself, when it's me being scrutinized. I want to control my private things. 

 

Where Have All The Old Blogs Gone?

I'm becoming more undisciplined in my old age than a teenager on summer break. I sleep when I want, eat what I want, waste massive hours of time doing whatever I want. It's fine to do here (at least for now). Tim and Jack tend to keep odd schedules themselves and don't seem to mind my selfishness. 

So, in keeping with my lifestyle of time wasting, I have spent a good portion of the morning perusing my blogger reading list. I follow over 100 blogs, but most of them aren't active anymore. I kind of knew this because when I log in to read blogs, I am only seeing the same 10 or so bloggers anymore. That led me to nostalgia. Remember the good old days?  The Cheerful Oncologist...Radish King...37 Paddington...Six until Me... there were so many more. And I realize as I am typing this, that I too, am part of the problem. Like everything else in my lack of discipline, I am an undisciplined blogger. I blog when it suits me. That doesn't make me a very good friend, even if it is a virtual one. My sincerest apologies. I am trying to get better. The new computer helps.

I worry that blogging is becoming a thing of the past. You know, one of those odd things boomers did, like chat rooms and dial-up internet. It has been a decades long lifeline to me. I really don't want to see it go away.