L is for Letters —And Not a Love Letter in the Bunch

 

For the letter L in the A to Z Blog Challenge, I had a hard time choosing between Love and Letters. I wished I had a stack of love letters tied with a satin ribbon—something I could pull out and sigh over, combining both words into one tidy topic titled L is for Love Letters. But alas, while I’ve written and received hundreds of letters in my lifetime, not a single one qualifies as a love letter. 

I did once get a letter asking if there was any chance we could get back together—written a full year after a guy broke up with me. I kept that letter from the late ’60s until 2022, when I was downsizing for my move to Independent Living, what I called The Great Purging Project. A week later, I saw him for the first time since the breakup, at a funeral. How’s that for the universe laughing at me? We didn’t speak. I doubt he even saw me, and if he did, he probably wouldn’t have recognized me. He hadn’t changed a bit; I, on the other hand, had gained a lot of weight.

My first real letters—aside from those to Santa—were exchanged with a summer friend I met at the cottage. We were pen pals for four years. Another pen pal from my high school years was a boy I also met at the lake. During my downsizing, I became convinced he’d grown up to be a famous movie star. He lived in Georgia, I lived in Michigan, and after several years of writing, he moved and we lost touch. We were just friends, not boy‑girl friends, if you know what I mean. I thought about contacting the movie star, but what would I have said? “Hi, remember me? I’m the girl you sat in a tree with sixty‑plus years ago at your grandmother’s cottage.”

Another letter-writer from my past—a soldier in Vietnam—turned up living less than fifty miles away when I went looking. We had a brother/sister kind of correspondence, eight-to-ten-page letters about everything under the sun, including Twiggy. He had a girlfriend back home planning their wedding, and near the end of our exchanges he was giving me dating advice. (Apparently I wasn’t giving guys a fair chance. Who knew.) When I found his address in this century, I decided a voice from the past might cause trouble—especially if his wife was the jealous type. And, really, what did I expect? That I’d gain another brother figure in my life?

His letter bundle was part of a larger collection of letters I had to downsize out of my life, correspondence between me and 50—yes, fifty—G.I. Joe's stationed in Vietnam, circa 1967. I even had carbon copies of my own letters and index cards to keep track of everyone’s details. It all started one Christmas when I was in college and the local newspaper printed the addresses of servicemen who would welcome holiday cards. Over fifty guys wrote back asking about the perfume I sprayed on my envelopes. It was Avon’s Unforgettable, and I could probably write an entire essay quoting their comments. One guy said that at Mail Call the others passed my letters around before he could even open them. Another said any girl who “smells like that and has such beautiful handwriting has to be pretty.” Several said they carried my letters in their helmets—one to drown out the smell of jungle rot, another to “remember what girls smell like.”

What triggered me doing a deep dive into all my old correspondence was one of those serendipity moments that makes you believe the universe occasionally nudges things into place. During my Great Purging Project, the local senior hall hosted a speaker from The Million Letters Campaign, a museum collecting letters from servicemen from all the wars. During the Q&A, I asked if they’d want my whole collection or just the interesting ones. “Absolutely the whole thing,” he said. “Would you feel comfortable donating your copies too?” I told him I wanted to read them one last time, but yes—I’d donate everything. After spending winter nights reliving my life through those letters, I packed them up and sent them off. It felt right. As I often said during the Greats Purging Project, I wasn’t just selling and donating a lifetime of possessions—I was running an Antique and Collectibles Adoption Center.

I could go on writing about the decade of Christmas letters, the round‑robin chains, and the various pen pals who drifted in and out of my life but it seems enough to say that it wasn’t important who wrote to me, but who I became in writing back. By the time I discovered the blog community, it felt like another serendipitous pairing from the universe. Blogging is simply a bigger envelope to send off into the world. ©

K is for Toby Keith—For Writing the Soundtrack of Us

Did you ever have a theme song? I did—for 12½ years. And before that, Don had one from 1993 until the day he died in 2012. Both were born out of Toby Keith’s prolific songwriting, which is why K belongs to him in this month‑long daily A to Z Challenge.

According to Rolling Stone, Keith wrote 45 Top‑20 Billboard hits, “many written entirely on his own,” and who knows how many more he might have pulled out of that magical place where songs come from if stomach cancer hadn’t taken him at age 62. If I could have been a songwriter, I’d want to write in that same slice‑of‑life, down‑to‑earth style. If you liked his brand of testosterone, you couldn’t help liking his honest portrayal of the type—a good‑old boy “looking for love in all the wrong places,” to borrow Johnny Lee’s iconic line from Urban Cowboy.

From Keith’s debut single, Should’ve Been a Cowboy, Don and I became hardcore fans. Anyone who knew Don wasn’t surprised that the song became his theme song. From the time he was a little boy, Don loved western clothes—Stetson hats, Frye boots, boot‑cut Levi’s, Pendleton shirts—none of which were common attire in West Michigan. One of the best gifts I ever made him was a hand‑tooled leather belt and gun holster, his pride and joy on his annual hunting trips to Colorado and Wyoming. When Should’ve Been a Cowboy went into the cassette player, even the dog knew it was time to stop what we were doing and sing along with Toby.

In 2008, Toby starred in Beer for My Horses, the only film he produced and co‑wrote. I wasn’t the only person crazy about the song by the same name from that movie. It was his longest-lasting number one hit—the 2003 version sung with Willie Nelson. Nelson was Don’s favorite country western singer and Keith was mine. But I loved that ong for another reason: it reminded me of one of my dad’s stories about a bar where men occasionally rode their horses inside and the horses got served a pail of beer. My grandfather worked in the coal mines, and my dad—still a kid—would meet him at the mine entrance, grab his tin lunch bucket and run it to the bar, get it filled with cool beer and meet his dad at home. It’s also the same bar where my dad, at ten years old, played piano for a quarter a night. (He was self-taught and played by ear.) Try letting a kid do that today. I’ve often wished I were a cartoonist so I could draw that scene: a grinning little boy at a piano, glancing over his shoulder as a horse comes through the swinging doors.

Keith’s song, I Wanna Talk About Me has a punchy rhythm that begs me to crank it up and sing along when it's on the radio, but that’s not why I adopted it as my theme song. It came out the year after Don’s massive stroke, and as any caregiver of a seriously disabled spouse knows, the first words out of everyone’s mouth are always, “How is he doing?” Don was right‑side paralyzed and had only a 25‑word vocabulary for 12½ years. When the song came out I was falling apart—taking him to therapy appointments four days a week, living in a one‑bedroom apartment while trying to sell our two non‑wheelchair‑friendly houses, incomes gone, the dog was spending too much time alone. And in the middle of all that, I was designing a wheelchair‑friendly house and working with a builder to bring it to life. I’d wanted to be an architect since before my teens, and in a strange twist of fate, Don’s stroke gave me a small taste of that dream.

The first time I heard I Wanna Talk About Me on the radio, I cried, “That’s what I need—someone to ask about me, me, me for a change!” Every time it came on after that, I’d turn the radio up and sing along while Don stared at me like I’d lost my mind. This week, driving home from the sleep lab, the song came on again. I hadn’t heard it in years. And just like that, the universe handed me my muse for the A to Z Challenge.

There are other Toby Keith songs I love, but these three will always have the power to take me back—to the years when I laughed, cried, and lived my life the best way I knew how. Funny, isn’t its, how a few old songs can still tap us on the shoulder and say, “Remember?” ©

 Photo: Don as a little boy 

J is for July Fourth —The Year the Celebration Never Ended

The Fourth of July used to be my all‑time favorite holiday. Family parties with star‑spangled tablecloths and food of every description, parades where half the town’s children marched down Main Street while the other half sprawled along the tree‑lined route—those are pleasant memories now, tucked into the scrapbook of my younger days. Days when Don and I always had someplace special to go. Even before I met him, the Fourth meant a party at my folks’ summer cottage. My good memories of the holiday are endless, including the night I got my very first kiss from a boy—under a fireworks display, no less. Sweet.

Time marches on, and the only thing certain is that nothing stays the same. People move. People die. People divorce. People marry into new family units and spend their holidays elsewhere. The big family parties I loved for so many years petered out decades ago when the ones who organized them left this earth and no one stepped into their shoes. Such is the natural order of things. Whoop‑de‑do. Happy fricking Fourth of July.

If it sounds like I’m feeling sorry for myself, I’m not. I’m gearing up for a walk down Memory Lane to the happiest, biggest Fourth of July of my life—1976, the Bicentennial. Don and I were six years into our relationship then, still acting like kids even though we were in our thirties. I remember that summer as a blur of bluegrass festivals for us and the Ford administration for the nation. It was the year Rocky came out, along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one of our all‑time favorites. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” topped the singles chart, and Barbara Walters became the first woman to co‑anchor the network news.

And then there was the spectacle: more than 50 tall ships from 20 nations filling the Hudson River for the celebration. A laser beam—via satellite!—cut a star‑spangled ribbon to kick off the nation’s two‑day party. That was a huge technological marvel back then. And for every dignified event, there was something quirky to balance it out—like guys sporting red, white, and blue dyed beards, or the landing pads built for UFOs that never bothered to show up. I was so disappointed!

Don and I threw ourselves 150% into the Bicentennial spirit. We went a little crazy buying ’76 souvenirs, convinced we’d someday get rich off our collection of commemorative coins, china, jewelry, McDonald’s containers, and even dry‑cleaner bags wishing America a happy birthday went into a wooden Anheuser-Busch commemorative beer case. I made myself a long, flowing hippie‑style dress out of Bicentennial fabric, and I loved wearing that thing. When I downsized to move to my CCC, I discovered—duh!—that the souvenirs weren't worth much because everyone had saved them. But remembering our enthusiasm still makes me smile. We even signed a copy of the Declaration of Independence that now sits in a time capsule. That was also the summer several nearby towns opened their 100‑year time capsules, and of course we attended those too. I loved 1976.

I wish we could stay young and carefree forever. I wish people didn’t have to die or move away. I wish our country didn’t feel so fragile right now. But since those wishes can’t come true, I’m grateful for the memories that keep me company. ©

I is for Independent Living—Where Choice Still Matter

I doubt there’s much about living in an Independent Living facility that I haven’t already written about over the past almost five years. But I’m old, and old people are known for repeating ourselves, so if you’re a long‑time reader and have already heard what I have to say today, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 'I' is a hard letter for a lifestyle blogger to work into the A to Z Blog Challenge.

Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure “lifestyle blogger” fits me anyway. AI defines a lifestyle writer as someone who: “...creates engaging content focused on daily living, trends, and personal experiences, covering topics like fashion, wellness, travel, food and home décor. They produce articles, blog posts, and digital content designed to evoke emotions, offer practical advice, and help readers live well.” If that’s the standard, I checked the wrong box when I registered for this challenge. “Memoir Blogger” would have been more accurate. 

If I influence anyone at all, it’s usually about whether (or not) buying into a Continuum Care Community is right for them. It’s a huge decision, and in my opinion it’s one you should make for yourself—not wait until your kids are forced to do it because you shouldn’t be living alone anymore. And since most of these places have waiting lists measured in years, starting early isn’t a bad thing. The sales crew here tell people to begin the process five years before they think they’ll be ready.

So what’s it actually like living in an Independent Living apartment with an Assisted Living and Memory Care building just down the road where you could end up someday? I can tell you what it’s not like. It’s not like the stereotypes in movies such as Queen Bee or The Inside Man. At least not in my experience. And it’s not like high school, despite what one snarky commenter once suggested. I did a lot of soul‑searching after that remark, wondering if I’d been writing about my life here in a way that made us all sound silly or shallow. My reply to her was that the same personality types and situations exist anywhere a large group of people interact—schools, workplaces, neighborhoods. And I gave a silent apology to the residents I’ve never written about: the ones devoted to serious causes, like the man who won a national physics prize for a book he wrote while living here, the woman who teaches OLLI classes at a local college, the woman who founded and works at a church that serves a large immigrant community and the woman who helps out at the humane society's neutering clinic. 

But from that high‑school comment I learned something important: I’m no better than the creators of Queen Bee or The Inside Man. I choose the low‑hanging fruit when I write about my daily activities. Sure, there’s gossip and misunderstandings in my blog. Sure, there are 'portraits' of people I don’t like and people I fan‑girl. But that’s on me—not on the environment I live in. I like using self‑defeating humor where I can and observational humor where I can’t. 

But here’s the bottom line: I love living in an Independent Living facility. I have all the privacy I want, and when I want to be around people, they’re right outside my door. There’s intellectual stimulation—book clubs and serious discussions in my Tuesday night group. And lectures, like the one on Nellie Bly we had this week. We have good food in our restaurant, but when I get a kitchen itch that needs scratching, I have a full kitchen where I can make my own comfort foods. I get to laugh every day. And I love having a maintenance crew and an IT guy as close as my keyboard. 

(Tip: it helps to keep your computer skills up—checking schedules and menus, signing up for events and dinner reservations, ordering take-outs from the dining room, and putting in work orders online keeps you more independent than having to depend on someone else to do these things for you. We do have a concierge who will help with these things BUT my theory is the more independent you are the less likely your family and the management will put their heads together and proclaim it's time to ship you on down the road to Assisted Living or Memory Care.)

Yes, it was hard leaving a house I designed and built, a house full of memories and possessions that were difficult to part with. But I wanted to be the one to make those decisions. I didn’t want to end up like a close friend, who was given less than a week’s notice that her sons were moving her to assisted living. She was so shocked she stayed in her bedroom the whole while they packed her up. When I talked to her last night, she said she was surrounded by things her family thought made her new assisted living space pretty, but few of the things she wanted. 

I’ve heard versions of that story from others here—people whose families strong‑armed them into moving before they were mentally ready, and who had no say in the place chosen for them or the stuff moved along with them. Those are the people who struggle to adjust, who hide in their apartments, who find the transition hard. Finding your tribe and a new rhythm for living in a CCC is so much easier if you do with a free will.

When we’re growing up, when we go off to college, when we get married and move into our own places, we’re generally in control of our own destinies. Moving to an independent living apartment—for me—was just another station along the way. It took several years of visiting places like this before I found one where I wanted to sign on the dotted line. Then another couple of years of purging and downsizing a huge amount of stuff. But I’ve never regretted the decision. Not even once. Independence looks different at every stage of life; this just happens to be the version that fits me now. ©

 Photo: One side of my living area in my Independent Living apartment

H is for Happiness—a Colorado memory that never dulled

If you’ve been following my A to Z Blog Challenge posts, you might recall in E is for Education I ended with a teaser about me writing about the happiest day of my life for the letter H.  I first wrote about this topic back in 2012 and a few people might think I shouldn’t be recycling an old post for this month-long writing event. But for selfish reasons I wanted to wallow in old memories. So here it goes, my recycled post with additional text at the end….

I wish I had a better memory or I would have had the foresight to keep travel diaries when Don and I took vacations. In my defense, I never needed to keep track of the pesky details of our trips because Don could be counted on to be my living, breathing encyclopedia. If he was here right now, for example. I’d ask him if it was in Central City, Black Hawk or Cripple Creek Colorado where we found ourselves on a Halloween night with nothing but fumes in the gas tank. It was one of those little boom and bust towns high in the Rocky Mountains back in the days before they became tourist destinations. That happened more recently after the state legalizing gambling in their historic goldmine districts.

Whatever town we landed in on Halloween, back then there was only three ways to get to that town: a narrow gauge railroad, a two lane road that wound its way through horseshoe curves with a mountain on one side of the road and a deep drop off without guard rails on the other side, and a far less dangerous road going out the other side of the town. We were young and stupid back then or we never would have taken that mountain pass---especially after dark----and we never would have driven past a sign by a gas station proclaiming it was the last chance to buy fuel for x number of miles. 

Let me tell you, we were never so relieved to see a gas station in our entire lives and as far as Halloween memories go, that night and the next day created some of the best. Inside the station was a table full of popcorn balls for trick-or-treaters and when Don tried to buy one, the lady explained they had 27 kids in town and only 27 popcorn balls. ("No popcorn for Don!" as Seinfeld's soup Nazi might have said.) We had a 50 gallon auxiliary gas tank on the pickup and it took a long time to pump 49+ gallons so we were there a long while, and as we waited Don handed out popcorn balls while the proprietor took Polaroid pictures of the kids for their bulletin board. That was small town America at its very best.

Our next stop in town was to the only other business open that night---a bar inside of an old three story hotel built in the 1800s that no longer rented out rooms. It was a beautiful building with ornate carved wood everywhere and it had a staircase winding upward to a sky light framing a full moon. No amount of talking on Don’s part could get the owner to let us stay in one of those rooms upstairs but he did get us invited to stay overnight in the private home of a patron of the place. Don would have taken up the offer, I’m sure, if he’d been alone but all I could think about was the Bates Motel and getting killed by a psycho while taking a shower. No, that night it was sleeping bags under the stars for us.

The next day we spent roaming around the town, talking to the residents and soaking up the history of their heyday of gold mining. We even spent a fair among of time sitting on a huge pile of dirt at the mouth of an old mining shaft, sifting for gold that some how—we thought—had escaped the eyes of hundreds of other people in the hundred years since that mine was active. It doesn’t sound like much to tell the story but that afternoon, sitting there in our flannel shirts and jeans, the sun overhead and the smell of fall in the air was the happiest time in my life. We were young, crazy, newly in love and we didn’t have a care in the world. We were letting our imaginations run wild picturing ourselves alive and living a hundred years ago and also trying to figure out how we could buy that old hotel in town that was up for sale for ridiculously low price, especially considering what has become of that place since casino gambling gave the area another boom. Back home we'd been looking for a vintage house to restore.

People in the widowhood circles I’ve come to know all seem to name their wedding days as the happiest day of their lives. And of course, everyone else immediately understands the reference—the emotions and commitment a day like that represents. I usually don’t say anything when this topic comes up because there is no shortcut to understanding how sitting on a pile of dirt in the mountains of Colorado could be the happiest day of anyone’s life. But it’s the day I keep coming back to when I think about Don and myself starting out life together. Even when people see the gold miner’s pan filled with rocks, fool’s gold and unpolished rubies sitting on the dining room table no one could have ever guessed that it’s the equivalent of having wedding day flowers pressed between the pages of a book. They’re the souvenirs we brought back from a trip we took to heaven on earth.
Back to 2026: I didn’t change a word since I first wrote the above. Visiting that post still has the power to bring back those Zen-like hours we spend panning for gold and day-dreaming of the futures we could have had, if we could have found a way to live in that area. After we got back home we did give it serious consideration but in the end we didn’t have the assets to buy that old hotel and restore it, not to mention at the time there was no way for us to make a living out there. For anyone, we thought. This area was not even in the sight-line of the deep-pocketed people, back then, who later came along with bigger dreams than we had. From all reports, they turned that dying town and the hotel into something uniquely Western and profitable. But we were always afraid to go back again because in this case, Thomas Wolfe was probably right. You can’t go “home” again. Seeing the town spit-shined and full of tourists would have destroyed the feelings of total solitude, peace and love we experienced that day.  © 

When I downsized to move to Independent Living the gold panning tin got sold and its contents ended up in this fruit jar. Note to Nieces: Be sure to move it with me if I end in Assisted Living or Memory Care.

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G is for Goofs — Life’s Built‑in Comic Relief

I struggled to find a topic for the letter G in the A to Z Blog Challenge. My original prompt word—gullible—just wasn’t coming together. I picked it because if my nickname growing up wasn’t “gullible,” it should have been. To this day, someone can tell me something totally off the wall and I’ll believe them, which usually ends with me becoming the butt of their joke.

After staring at a blank computer screen long enough to drink two cups of lemon tea with French vanilla creamer, I finally resorted to asking my MS AI copilot for suggestions. I have a love/hate relationship with how AI can spit ideas out so fast that it makes me feels like my brain could break, trying to keep up. Jasper (because I insist on personifying my copilot) gave me twelve possible G‑words.

Grace, Grit, and Glimmers, he said, have “hidden depth.” 

Grandmother, Games, and Gatherings “lend themselves to storytelling.” I didn’t tell him I’m not a grandmother nor did I have any in my life, and I’m saving Games for the letter M. As for Gatherings, long‑time readers are probably sick of hearing about the events we have here in my Independent Living building.

Goofs, Gumption, and Gaps, Jasper claimed, are “words with winks.” I didn’t ask what that meant because he can get long‑winded with explanations—like every professor I ever had who thought we should care about the boring stuff he was going to put on a test. 

Growth, Goodbyes, and Guidance rounded out his list, and he claimed they echo my overall A to Z theme the best.

In the end, I chose Goofs because I’ve had plenty of them, and many of my best ones came right out of my mouth.

Like the time I spent two hours manning a refreshment table at the senior hall. After many times repeating, “What can I get you? We have coffee, tea, and water,” I was absolutely shocked when, out of nowhere, the words “We have coffee, tea, or me” rolled off my tongue. It was embarrassing, of course, but I laughed it off. That didn’t stop the phrase from popping out two more times. By then I was mortified, though thankfully half the people in earshot were hard of hearing and probably thought they misheard me. Needless to say, I didn’t volunteer for that job again.

I did have a revelation that day: the old guys who wanted to be friendly or flirty all used the same opening line—“Did you girls make all these cookies?” I’m guessing they didn’t notice the gray hair and the orthopedic shoes that no “girl” would be caught dead wearing. Girl, gal, lady, woman—pin a pronoun on my back and see if I answer.

“Coffee, Tea or Me” was the title of a book in the ’60s, and it became a pick‑up line back in its day. It was a flirtatious code for “If you ask me out, I’ll go.” Those were the good old days when girls were still halfway coy and boys didn’t shout about our body parts as they drove by. “Nice rack!” “Bodelicious butt!” And they wonder why older people get flaky as we age. We have decades of memories merging with our present‑day adventures to form a perfect storm of confusion.

There’s no confusion about another goof that came out of my mouth in my late twenties. It was at a family Christmas party. We were all opening gifts when, for reasons I no longer remember, I said the F‑word. Loud and clear. If you knew my mom and dad, you’d know they kept swearing out of their vocabularies. You’d also know why the proverbial pin dropping could be heard in the silence that followed.

My nieces and their boyfriends stared at their hands, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. My shocked mom’s mouth formed a perfect O. My dad stuck a finger in his ear as if trying to clean it, probably hoping he’d misheard. My brother’s wide grin made it clear he was delighted to witness me screwing up in front of our parents. The silence dragged on for what felt like an hour before someone finally picked up a gift and thanked the giver. In all the years that followed, not one person—NOT ONE—ever brought up the F‑Word Christmas, but it lives in infamy in my memory bank.

Swear words are as rare as ten dollar bills growing on trees in my continuum care community. But one day another resident let the F word slip and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth, eyes darting around to gauge the reaction. I laughed—at her, and at the memory of the day I made the same goof in public.

Sometimes I think my word goofs are just life’s way of tapping me on the shoulder, reminding me not to take myself too seriously. They turn into stories, and the stories turn into the glue that holds all the years together. ©

 Note: If you normally get email notices of when I publish, you won't be get during this April, daily Challenge. I have the free service which limits how many times a month they send them and I've reached my limit for April.

F is for Friendships— The Company we Keep Along the Way

 Writing about friendships for the A to Z Blog Challenge shouldn’t be much of a challenge, says the woman who has only typed eleven words on the topic so far. Still, I can think of many sitcoms built entirely around friendships—Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory to name a few of my favorites. (That should tell you something about what I look for in a friend.) The characters in those shows are flawed and quirky, but sitcom writers don’t create them in a vacuum. They pull from real life and enlarge the flaws so we can’t miss the stereotypes we might meet in our own lives. Somewhere in my archives I even compared fellow residents in my continuum care community to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha (Sex and the City.) I could easily do the same with the other shows.

Jess C. Scott wrote, “Friends are the family you choose,” and it would be hard to disagree. But since moving into my CCC, I’ve noticed how loosely some people use the word friend. I’ve been introduced that way by people who don’t know the first thing about me beyond the fact that I started the First Thursdays Desserts Only Club. If I were introducing someone here, I’d probably say, “This is so‑and‑so. She started the line dancing group,” or whatever fact I can tag the person with. Hearing “This is my friend, Jean,” never fails to make me wonder what makes us friends. If you don’t know a person’s last name, that’s an acquaintance in my book. But I suppose it would sound cold to introduce me to someone’s son or daughter with, “This is my acquaintance, Jean.” Not that I would care.

Experts say there are four types of friends: acquaintances, casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. I’d add situational friends—work friends, school friends, neighborhood friends. People we don’t see outside the bubble where we’re thrown together.

Verywellmind.com defines a good friend as “someone who respects your boundaries, supports you, and brings out the best in you.” I agree, and I’d add that a good friend is someone you can laugh with, cry with and trust with your secrets, knowing they’ll keep them in a vault. I’ve been lucky enough to have a lifelong friend since kindergarten, and I’m guessing that’s rare. Had she not moved 656 miles away after college and getting married, we probably would have driven our husbands nuts with our giggle‑fests. Distance changed the way we interacted, but not the fact that our roots are tangled from growing up within view of each other’s houses. After she married, we became avid pen pals. Then when cell phones came along, ending long‑distance charges, we kept in touch that Way. Recently, after her sons moved her into assisted living, Nancy asked them to bring her some stationery and stamps so she could write to me again. Everything old is new again.

A few years after Nancy was no longer part of my daily life, I met my husband, and Don took her place as my best, best friend. We were together for 42 years, so I’m calling him my half‑a‑life‑long friend. (Take it up with the management if you think that’s absurd.) We knew each other’s faults and strengths and supported each other through thick and thin—an overused phrase, but I can’t think of a more poetic way to describe our relationship. And with him came a group of neighborhood friends. We could laugh together over Saturday‑night pizzas, but sharing secrets or sensitive information? Not on your life. But on the surface, I suppose, we looked like I sitcom.

One reason I’ve always loved sitcoms built around a group of friends is because I could live vicariously through them. Only once in my life did I have a friendship circle like that. After my husband died and I was spending time at the senior hall, they held an event called “Looking for Friends,” or something similar—an event that, under different circumstances, would have falsely marked anyone attending as an apathetic loser. (Think teenagers with fragile egos.) But we were widows, and we started meeting for lunch, then movies—yada, yada, yada. We shared a sense of humor, laughed at the same throw‑away lines and could toss our own right back. Then Covid came along and nearly dealt a death blow to the group. As they say, friendships change over time, and even the good ones have expiration dates.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include another kind of friendship: the ones that grow across generations within a family. I’ve watched my two nieces become wonderful mothers and grandmothers. I’ve watched them grow into remarkable human beings. And I’ve been privileged to watch our relationships shift from niece‑and‑aunt to equal adults who are also friends. I’ve seen a few mother‑daughter duels that eventually make that same transition. It’s a wonderful kind of bond to have in one’s life.

Whatever form they take, friendships have a way of evolving right along with us. They change shape over the years, but they never stop shaping us. ©

Photo: The Gathering Girls trying to teach each other new tricks on our cell phones. 

E is for Education—and the Lessons That Stick

Using the letter E for the A to Z Blog Challenge was another hard choice for me, but I settled on writing about education. It fits with my overall theme of things that have shaped me. But then, can’t we all say that about our education, or lack thereof, to one degree or another?

My mom and dad never made it to high school, but they were both well educated in the ways the world works. Their generation were avid newspaper readers; my mom also read a lot of fiction. My dad was self‑taught, mechanical and could fix anything. That doesn’t sound all that impressive to the Google‑it generation, who can get how‑to directions or step‑by‑step videos for things Dad’s generation had to figure out by instinct, logic and trial and error.

In my generation, finishing high school was more the norm, and I did, but I’d be the first to admit I didn’t do all that well in school. In grade school I struggled with mild, undiagnosed dyslexia paired with being left‑handed in a school where a couple of teachers tried to change the latter or pronounced me “stupid” because of the former. Today schools don’t do that, and I’ll let AI explain why: “Forcing a left-handed child to use their right hand disrupts natural brain development, often causing emotional distress, academic confusion, and neurological stress. Common consequences include reduced coordination, stuttering, dyslexia-like issues, shyness, and lower self-esteem. Handedness is rooted in brain wiring, not just habit.”

I struggled with reading and had a hard time keeping up in classes that required keeping my nose in a book. Thankfully, I excelled at art, mechanical drawing, home ec and math, so my average got me accepted—probationally—into college. There, I had to take what we students called Dumbbell English.

Something happened that summer between high school and college. It was as if the two sides of my brain quit warring over control, and I aced both semesters of Dumbbell English. It might also be because the class gave us all a fresh start without the preconceived opinions of our intelligence or lack thereof. I’ve had two outstanding teachers in my life, and the woman who taught that course was one of them. I still have the worn and tattered books we used those semesters: Basic Composition and Clear and Correct Writing.

Note to my nieces: If you ever have to move me out of Independent Living and into Memory Care, make sure these books go with me. They’ve always been my benchmarks, reminding me that I’m not stupid or dumb—words no child should ever hear an adult, much less a teacher, label them.

One of the guys who lives in my building offered me a watercolor set of his wife’s shortly after she had to go to Memory Care. “She doesn’t use them,” he said. I told him to leave them in her room unless she asks him to take them away. “She’s been an artist her whole life,” I went on. “On her good days, she probably still thinks of herself as an artist, and seeing the watercolor set could help with that.” I’m a firm believer in keeping benchmarks around for people struggling to remember who they are.

The other outstanding teacher in my life taught a class called Women in Transition that I took twenty‑three years later. It was a required, no‑credit course for—yes—older women going back to college to finish their degrees. Had I stayed in college back in the ’60s, it would have taken only a year to graduate, assuming I didn’t flunk out, which was a possibility given the fact that I had left all the heavy‑reading courses for my senior year and was still struggling with the slow-reader bugaboo. But between the ’60s and the ’80s they added a bunch more required classes, so it took me two years to finally graduate. The day I walked across the stage to get my diploma was one of the top two happiest days of my life.

If you want to hear about the other happiest day, you’ll have to come back on the 9th, when the letter H will be my muse. And no, it’s not about my wedding day. ©

 

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D is for Dogs—Love, Loss, and All the Pawprints Between

 

Dogs, Dad, Don or dyslexia. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. What should I write about for the letter D in the April A to Z Blog Challenge? Since my theme this month is “The humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world,” I could cheat and pick all four—Dad for the humans (the best person I’ve ever known), Don for habits (he chain‑smoked three packs a day and I’ve got stories), dogs for the joys, and dyslexia for the heartaches that followed me far beyond school. But if I start cheating this early, by the time I get to K the Challenge Police might kick me off the spreadsheet that tracks how often we comment on other bloggers. As I understand it, that’s half the point of this yearly event—discovering new blogging voices. So welcome if you’re new here, and if you’re a long‑time reader, thank you for sticking around.

I’m choosing Dogs for my D topic because most of you don’t know that back when blogging was at its height, I kept a blog in a large dog‑blog community—large as in roughly 700 dog lovers. Most of us wrote in our dog’s voice. I loved it. My dogs could say things I couldn’t, or add a humorous twist to the antics all dog parents recognize.

Here’s something Levi “wrote” in The Levi and Cooper Chronicles when he was a puppy: “Wednesday me found Moomie’s boobie hammock hanging in the bathroom. Levi is smart. Me figured out how to get it off the hook and mes turned it into pull‑toy for my stuffie, Mr. Goose. He was having so much fun riding through the living room and Daady was having fun watching us until Moomie came along. End of fun. End of Daddy, Mr. Goose and Levi being happy.”

Six years later, Levi had learned proper pronouns but not how to soften a blow: “Something happened I want to share with the world because it hurts so much. My daady died! My human daady died and I’m so worried because he went to the Rainbow Bridge without his wheelchair. He needs that chair and Moomie just took it to a place called Goodwill. If they really have good will they’d bring it back and bawl my moomie out for leaving it there.”

In this blog alone I’ve written seven posts dedicated to the dogs in my life, and there are countless others where they wander in and out of the narrative. They’ve been shaping me since the beginning—from Blackie, the puppy who shared my playpen and grew into my babysitter and protector, to Levi, my last dog, who died just before I moved into Independent Living nearly five years ago. They’ve been confidants, companions and stand‑ins for the babies I never had. They’ve made me laugh, cry, brag and shamelessly use them for blog fodder. I worried over them, cleaned up after them, and I was, admittedly, a helicopter pet parent.

Don, my husband, spoiled them in the classic good‑cop way, while I was the bad cop in charge of training them to be good citizens and housemates. I loved him all the more for the way he treated my poodles. Before we were married, I gave him a document proclaiming him to be 49¾% owner of Cooper, and you’d have thought I’d handed him the keys to a mansion. On his birthdays and Father’s Days, “Cooper” would tape a quarter inside a greeting card and deliver the cards mouth to hand. When I was cleaning out my husband’s stuff during a move I discovered that he’d kept all those cards and quarters. They were the same quarters Don had dropped into Cooper’s piggy bank every time I let him take the dog along while he plowed snow. They were crazy about each other.

John Steinbeck once wrote, “I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.” Most dog parents know that look. They judge us, and sometimes we come up short. But we also know their look of pure devotion, and the one they use when they’re trying to sweet‑talk us into shelling out a treat.

I miss having that co‑dependent relationship in my life. Truth be told, I probably needed my dogs more than they ever needed me.

And that’s my wrap for the letter D. ©

Photo at the top: Levi, the only Schnauzer I ever had. The rest of the dogs in my adult life were poodles (3). In childhood we had collie and two Belgium Shepherds and one dog of questionable breeding. 

C is for Cottage—Where the Past Still Answers the Door

 “Old people talk about the past because they have no futures and young people talk about the future because they have no pasts.” I’ve probably shared that Ann Landers quote before because it’s one of my favorites. The older I get, the more I understand the scary truth in those words. Sure, I’ve got plans that go beyond daily living, but none of them stretch much farther than whether I can recapture any of my lost art skills or lose enough weight to fit into the box of clothes I’ve got squirreled away under my bed. The former is doubtful, but since I’ve lost seven pounds since December’s weigh‑in at the doctor’s office, that second thing on my Bucket List is a tentative “maybe.”

With so many decades in my rear‑view mirror and only one decade in front of me—if I’m lucky—thinking about the future doesn’t come with the same optimism it once did. Yes, I know it’s all in my head. There are people my age doing exciting things: climbing mountains, jumping out of airplanes, running for political office, traveling the world. Developing a passion project and seeking adventures can happen at any age. On the other hand, it’s very First‑World of me to wish I could find my muse and live happily ever after wallowing in paints and canvas while looking better in a slimmed‑down body.

And yes, I am working up to the C Topic. When I think about the future, it feels hazy. But when I think about the past, many of my best memories don’t live in my head—they’re connected to a place and that place is a small, two bedroom cottage on a lake in West Michigan with a screened-in porch and a ton of oak leaves to rake each fall.

Looking back over my time on earth, the cottage stands out larger than life. By “cottage,” I mean the one my dad built when I was two and remodeled more times than I can count. The place where I spent all my summers growing up. The place where my parents retired and hosted countless holiday dinners and picnics. The cottage has always been the go‑to place my mind wanders when I think of home and family and good times.

If it were possible, I’d track Thomas Wolfe down and tell him he was wrong—you can go back home again. Of course, we all know his iconic 1940 book title, You Can’t Go Home Again, has become shorthand for the idea that once we’ve moved into the more sophisticated world of adulthood, with all its ups and downs, heartaches and headaches, joys and disappointments, any attempt to relive our youthful memories will fall flat. Nothing ever stays the same.

But what Thomas Wolfe didn’t know is that my niece bought the cottage when my dad died and presented my brother and me with keys tied with red satin ribbons that matched much of the décor inside the cottage. It was her way of saying we would always be welcome to stop by, even if no one was home. That was a few years back, and the door has since been swapped out, so the key no longer fits—but I know I’m still welcome.

She’s retro‑decorated the place, replacing the 1970s décor with a charming cross between mid‑century modern and a 1940s post‑war style. I love it. My niece didn’t just give it a face-lift and a new coat of lipstick; she gave it a wide smile and flirty eyes. And her "tweaking the place" is so like her grandmother, my mom, liked to do. Every time I go there, my memories meet me at the door and automatically put me in a playful, summertime mood.

I remember the rainy days of painting or putting jigsaw puzzles together, as well as the long days of swimming and boating. I remember every remodel project my dad did—every window and wall he moved. My mom should have had a house built out of Legos because her hobby seemed to be dreaming up changes for my dad to do. Growing up, the cottage was always changing. And it’s taken me until just this moment to see where my unfulfilled dream of becoming an architect was born. At the cottage, watching my parents measure and draw plans. Built and tear down. Paint and polish.

You might not be able to go back home again, but a visit—even in my thoughts—still has the power to teach me who I am and how I got here. ©

B is for Brother—and All Those PB&J Adventures

After I picked writing about my brother as my second April A to Z blog topic, I searched my archives to see what I’d already said about him. What I thought might take fifteen minutes took half the morning. He appears in fourteen posts, with six of them devoted entirely to him. I was shocked, but it also sparked an idea for a gift I might make for my nieces and nephew. If I gather everything I’ve written about him into one place, add a few photos and a handful of bridge‑paragraphs, I could turn those memories into a short soft‑cover book. At Blurb Publishing, twenty‑five pages keeps you under the price break for small runs, which means I could print enough copies to give one to my great and great‑great nieces and nephews, too, who are old enough to remember their great and great‑great grandfather. (Is there a prize for how many times you can use the word great in a sentence? There should be. Figuring out the lineage was not easy for an old brain like mine.) So many ideas, so little time.

My brother and I started life during WWII, and some of the antics we grew up with—think Happy Days episodes—might seem ho‑hum to others who lived through the 40s and 50s. But in an age of helicopter parents, some of the things our parents allowed would seem extreme or even akin to child neglect. For example, several years before I was even a teenager, we could pack peanut‑butter‑and‑jelly sandwiches, grab bottles of pop, tell my mom we were going to walk around the entire lake, and she’d simply say, “Be home before dark.” What didn’t dawn on me until adulthood was that she could probably see us from the shoreline of our cottage as we made our way through alternating cow pastures and woods. Not that it would have helped if we’d gotten into real trouble. Few housewives of the era had cars while their husbands were at work, so the quickest way she could have reached us was by rowboat—assuming it wasn’t too windy. This was long before cell phones or even a landline at the cottage. When we weren’t circling the lake, we were walking five miles to the nearest store for ice‑cream cones or playing at a fort we’d built on the far side of the woods behind our cottage.

As kids, my brother and I were close, but as adults we drifted. Jerry married young—too young—and I went to college. They had the kind of marriage a lot of people have when they marry right out of high school, where both partners eventually look around and wonder if they’re missing something. Nineteen years later, they divorced.

One conversation from my mid‑twenties stands out. Jerry was trying to figure out why I seemed to have no interest in getting married. Most girls in that era listed marriage as their number‑one goal. So did I, if I’m honest, but I was stubborn and wouldn’t have admitted it short of being waterboarded. I’d had a few serious relationships, and he couldn’t understand what was “wrong” with me for not taking the next step. I didn’t tell him the first guy turned out to be an in‑the‑closet gal‑guy. And the second — well, that’s a story too long for this post, not to mention it took me a decade to figure out why exactly that relationship fell apart. 

In the last two years of his life, when Jerry moved into my continuum‑care community, we grew close again. Even though he was in the Memory Care building and I’m in Independent Living, I could see him a couple of times a week and most of the time we could still talk about our childhood, our parents, our marriages and his children. We understood each other in that way only siblings can. He had a good sense of humor, loved his kids and our parents fiercely, wrote great poetry, and was a dedicated caregiver to his second wife, who had early‑onset Alzheimer’s and didn’t make it easy.

And I still miss him because some people leave a space that never quite closes, and maybe that’s how you know they mattered. ©

A is for April—Where My Story Always Seems to Circle Back

 

According to Dictionary.com, a glutton for punishment is “someone who habitually takes on burdensome or unpleasant tasks or unreasonable amounts of work. For example, Rose agreed to organize the church fair for the third year in a row—she’s a glutton for punishment. This expression originated as a glutton for work in the late 1800s, with punishment substituted about a century later.”

I’ve decided I must be a glutton for punishment myself, because I signed up for the “April Blogging from A to Z Challenge.” My first time. While I don’t consider writing “unpleasant,” posting every day is something I haven’t done since I started blogging back in 2004, after my husband’s stroke, when daily highs and lows gave me plenty of fodder. (Well, I take that back. I did the NaWriNoMo challenge in 2013 and 2015. That’s the challenge where you try to write a 50,000‑word novel in a month. I reached the goal once, a first draft I haven't touch since.)

If I understand the rules correctly, here’s how the April A–Z Blog Challenge works: we commit to posting every day except Sundays. The first day’s topic begins with A, the last with Z. All 26 posts connect to a theme of our own choosing. Mine is: “The humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world.” I apologize in advance to long‑time readers if I revisit a topic or two I’ve written about before. I may have eight-plus years of memories to draw from, but some of them stand taller in my brain, waving their arms and shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!”

I’m starting with A is for April because it has always been an important month in my life. My brother and I both arrived in April, and while I’d love to claim my parents planned it that way, I seriously doubt that in the late 1930s and early 1940s they had many “family planning tools” at their disposal. Some questions you just don’t ask your parents.

And some questions you do. After my mom died (in April in the '80s) I grilled my dad for his memories of raising two kids during WWII, and those conversations became a few chapters in first family history book.

Most of us think of April as the month when the world comes back to life after winter leaves everything colorless and bleak. The daffodils poke up through cool soil, the grass greens up and we rake away the wet, matted leaves so we can dream over the seed catalogs arriving in the mail. As journalist Hal Borland put it, “April is a promise that May is bound to keep.”

But back when my brother and I were toddlers, my parents were dealing with shortages, ration stamps, and blackout shades in case of air raids. Dad was deemed essential in an essential industry, working 14–16 hour shifts making patterns and prototypes for airplane parts and munitions. Mom bought our birthday and Christmas presents at the Salvation Army Secondhand Store. She also cared for two additional toddlers during the week while their mother joined the Rosie the Riveter movement, taking a man’s job in a factory after the "men folk" went off to war.

Fast‑forward to April 1970, when I met my husband. He was also born in April, and we were married in April. We planned to get married between our birthdays so Don would never forget our anniversary and we could celebrate all three occasions at once. But as an 18th‑century Scottish poet said, “The best‑laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” The courthouse was booked, so we had to wait until the following week, and to this day I can never remember the date. In widowhood, remembering the month and year feels good enough, especially since I no longer get boxed, sugary‑sweet Hallmark cards or give Snoopy cards when I could find them. (Note: don’t assume those fancy-ass cards reflected Don’s undying love and devotion. He’d sign them on a Post‑it note because I collected greeting cards and he knew they’d be worth more unsigned. There’s a dichotomy in there somewhere if you care to dig deep enough.)

So there you have it—my first post in the 2026 A–Z Blog Challenge. It clocks in at 923 words (or 629 if you don’t count the first two introductory paragraphs). The Challenge requires 200 words per post. My weekly Wednesday posts usually run 1,200 to 1,500, so I shouldn’t have any trouble there. I’ve got a rough idea for every letter except Q. I’m thinking of asking you (my readers) to send me questions I can answer.

If you’ve got one, let me know. ©

Armageddon, PAP Machines, and Other Bedtime Stories

 There are seasons in life when the practical and the existential collide in the oddest places—like a hospital sleep lab, a mortality table, or a phone that won’t stop ringing because someone you love remembers the past more clearly than the present. What begins as a simple medical test can open a trapdoor into bigger questions: how we measure a life, how we outlive the people who shaped us, and how memory—our own and others’—keeps tugging us backward even as time keeps pushing us forward. This is a story about breathing, dreaming, aging, and the strange comfort of knowing that even the actuarial “house odds” can’t quite account for the human heart….AI

 

Tomorrow I’m spending the night in the hospital for a sleep study. I flunked the at‑home test—apparently I’m not breathing in the “safe zone.” My sleep doctor said I stop breathing or am breathing very shallow on an average of 64 times an hour. 30 times an hour is considered severe and over 60 times is considered life‑threatening. (And here I though I'd slept exceptionally well the night of the test.) Several times after surgery, anesthesiologists have told me I’m a shallow breather, so I’m not surprised to learn I sleep the same way. I’ll be getting one of the PAP machines—whichever kind the test tomorrow night determines I need. I just hope I can actually sleep in a hospital setting so they can get what they need.

On one hand, I’m looking forward to getting the machine, knowing I’m less likely to die in my sleep. On the other hand, it’s oddly empowering to know that if Armageddon breach our shores—perhaps in retaliation for us electing a president who brought his own version of Armageddon to so many other countries—I could simply refuse to use the machine, pulling my own plug so-to-speak, and cross my fingers I don't wake up. (Can you believe what the U.S. led oil embargo is doing to Cuba? Last I heard Mexico and China were both attempting to deliver ships full of desperately needed food and medical supplies, while our president seems to be waiting to sweep in like a vulture to pick the bones of the died.)

Back on topic: Thinking about sleep inevitably leads me to thinking about dreams. Will the machine affect my dream life? I dream of my husband so often that some mornings I don’t want to get out of bed, even when my bladder is telling me I'd better get up if I know what's good for me. He’s been gone fourteen years, but with his nightly visits it doesn’t feel that long. He was the best friend I ever had—and that includes my best female friend since kindergarten, who has been calling several times a day since her family moved her into memory care a few weeks ago.

She lives in another state, and before her move we touched bases maybe seven or eight times a year. From what I can tell, she has major short‑term memory issues, but her memories of our childhood friendship are still intact. It’s been fun to revisit our past antics with her. But I’ve had to start turning my phone off at night so her early‑morning calls don’t wake me. She’s called as many as seven times in a day, just like we did when we were kids, but now she doesn't remember talking to me earlier in the day. And I’m not sure if she remembers her husband who died a few months ago.

Memory is funny that way—what stays, what slips, what returns in dreams. Many widows (myself included) remember our spouses vividly, but we tend to put on rose‑colored glasses. Disagreements tend fade, and what remains are the character‑revealing moments: the times they stood by us or held us together during the hard times, the times we laughed, traveled, made love or simply sat together in companionable silence. Sunday mornings with newspapers and coffee were always special, even when the dog decided to lay down in the middle of the spread-out paper. At least that’s my experience. When I’m awake, I remind myself Don was nowhere near perfect. Even in my dreams he’s not Princess Charming rescuing me from my daytime woes. More often than not I’m chasing after him and our last dog, begging them not to leave just because I have to get up and pee.

And once you start thinking about the people you’ve lost, it’s hard not to think about how we'll eventually go. We’ve all read stories about spouses who die within hours or days of one another. Recently I saw a story about a man and his dog who died together. Their son found them side by side in a La‑Z‑Boy and thought they were sleeping; he even snapped a photo. Near the end of my dad’s life, I did the same thing—only I thought he was dead, but he wasn’t. He looked so peaceful, but so old, and his memory was unreliable. I remember thinking that if he had to die, doing it in his favorite chair with that peaceful expression was the way to go. When he finally did die in a hospice home the last thing he said was, “Am I there yet? Is this the Pearly Gates?” which made me laugh so hard I couldn’t stop. It was Christmas Eve at midnight and organ music was blasting from his roommate's TV. Aging has a way of turning these unexpected moments into mile markers.

When you get to my age every birthday is a mile marker and you can’t help wondering how and when you’ll start that journey into the Great Unknown. In my case, a young salesgirl once showed me the actuarial projections my continuum‑care facility ran on me before accepting my down payment. She wasn’t supposed to show them to potential residents and she may have lost her job for doing it. I had asked if she was absolutely sure I’d have enough money to live there, and she said, “Oh yes—see this mortality table? It estimates your life expectancy based on age, health and other factors. You’re going to live five years in independent living, two years in assisted living and two months in skilled nursing.”

In October I will have lived here five years, and don’t think that fact doesn’t weigh on me. The computer programs that make those actuarial projections keep the insurance industry thriving. In other words, the House always wins… unless it’s a Trump casino, which he managed to bankrupt along with a dozen other businesses. I just hope he doesn’t do the same with our country.

And now here I am, circling back to that sleep study. I’m wondering if they ordered a new mortality table that factored in a PAP machine, would it change anything? Will it help me beat the House odds? Or am I just grasping at straws? In the end, none of us really knows how long we get — we just keep breathing, dreaming and hoping the House doesn’t call in its chips before we've checked everything off our Bucket Lists. ©

The Great Wii Bowling Kerfuffle in Independent Living

Social dynamics in senior living communities can be surprisingly complex, especially when everyday activities spark unexpected debates. This post explores how a simple game of Wii bowling led to a four‑day discussion about class, background, and perception among residents in an independent living setting. Through a mix of humor and real‑life observation, it highlights how small misunderstandings can grow into larger conversations—and how easily a friendly activity can turn into a full‑blown kerfuffle. ….AI

Sometimes I feel like I’m living inside a sociology experiment. At least that’s how it felt last week when I got myself tangled in a four‑day…well, let’s call it a social snarl.

It started when our Life Enrichment Director put Nintendo’s Wii bowling on the schedule. Ten of us showed up, and we were having so much fun—cheering, laughing, carrying on—that people wandered in just to see what all the racket was about. Near the end of the game, our resident retired lawyer drifted in. When he learned it was bowling, he said, “I’ll bet Jean is the best bowler.”

By sheer fluke, I’d gotten five strikes in one game—three of them in the final frame when the points really add up. So he guessed right. I was the top scorer.

If you’re not familiar with Wii bowling, it’s a “popular motion‑controlled simulation game for the Nintendo Wii where players use the Wii Remote to mimic a real bowling motion, swinging their arm to roll the ball.” I haven’t bowled since the late 1960s, back in my man‑hunting days, when I was on a league that bowled at an alley with a bar, live music and a dance floor. It was a prime pick‑up spot, and it’s where I met my husband. But that’s a story I’ve already told in Tall Tales and Little Fish.

When The Lawyer left, someone asked, “Out of all of us, how did he guess Jean was the best bowler?”

“Easy,” I answered. “I’m the only person here with a blue‑collar background, and bowling is a middle‑class sport.”

Oh‑my‑god. You’d have thought I’d stripped my clothes off and was about to parade naked up and down the halls. Two ladies were especially shocked and would not let it go.

“Bowling is NOT a middle‑class sport!”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’ll bet he said that because you’re good at Mahjong.”

Mahjong? Bowling? How are those even in the same universe?

Then came the declaration: “We are all the same here. We don’t have classes.”

No, we are not all the same—but I didn’t say that. I also didn’t point out that people living here have been known to donate $1,000 to $5,000 a year to the Benevolent Fund that pays for the care and keeping of residents who run out of money. Or that some residents here take extended vacations, own second homes, buy new cars, or have wardrobes that could fund my grocery budget for a year. Meanwhile, I’m over here worrying that if I don’t watch my nickels and dimes I could be on the receiving end of that Benevolent Fund. And getting my surly face printed in their promotional material like a newly adopted shelter dog is not on my Bucket List.

I couldn’t tell whether they thought I’d insulted them, insulted the lawyer, or insulted myself. But for the next two days at lunch, the interrogation continued. Why did I think bowling is a middle‑class sport? Why, why, why? Others chimed in, but no one backed me up. Most people said, “I'm staying out of this one.”

Finally, I decided to do a deep dive using AI. I came up with two pages of credible information supporting my claim. I printed it out and slid it under my neighbor’s door, planning to catch the other woman later.

The next day, my neighbor greeted me with, “You win. I just never looked at things that way.”

I got to thinking: her husband was career Navy, and they lived all over the world. Maybe she really didn’t see that historically, bowling’s cost structure is geared toward the middle class. Rented shoes, rented balls, pay‑per‑game is far cheaper than golf, tennis, or skiing, which require expensive gear, lessons and often club memberships. And maybe she didn’t see a lot of American TV, where bowling was a middle‑class staple in programs like The Flintstones, Kingpin, The Big Lebowski and sitcoms like All in the Family while golf and tennis were portrayed as the domain of professionals and the well‑heeled.

Shortly after I delivered my research pages, the other woman slid her “research project” under my door: an old Ann Landers column defining class.

“Class never runs scared. Class has a sense of humor. Class knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of small, inconsequential sacrifices… Class can walk with kings and keep its virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch.”

And suddenly I understood. Lady Two was equating 'middle class' with 'having no class' and thinking I was putting myself down. Meanwhile, I was simply calling a spade a spade when I labeled myself middle class. She’s probably one of the wealthiest people here but is easily rattled by any hint of controversy. She’s the reason we can’t bring up world affairs or politics. Yes, this tiny woman with the soft voice and her Let’s-Pretend-we-Live-in-Disneyland Retirement Plan sets the tone for the rest of us. Bless her heart, as the southerns say.

And there you have it: another “exciting” episode in the ongoing social experiment I’m labeling, The Four-day Kerfuffle in Independent Living. ©

Until Next Wednesday.

Photo at the top: This was taking in 1969 and I'm the one in the caramel-colored sweater. Until I dug out this photo I'd forgotten that our entire league was made up of left-handed bowlers.

Trying to Find Stillness in a World Determined to Shake It

Some weeks feel like a collision between the headlines and the heart, and this was one of them. Between a new war unfolding, a conversation group that didn’t want to have the conversation, and Jean’s attempt to study Buddhism without tripping over her own attachments, she realized her thoughts were staging a full‑scale mutiny. What follows isn’t a solution or a sermon — just a clear‑eyed walk through the contradictions, fears, and questions that have been crowding her head...AI

Spoiler Alert: This One Gets Serious. I can’t help it. I feel like I need to write about the following things because writing is the best way I can bring any clarity to my thoughts, and God only knows where my head is at half the time, if you know what I mean. If you don't, it's that feeling when so many contradictory thoughts are running laps in your brain that you’re afraid they’re going to break out into a blood sport to see which one gets top billing. 

I was with my Liberal Ladies Conversation Group last week and I thought, finally, I'd get to compare opinions about the war with other human beings. But the twelve of us sat around the table, talking about art and music and making plans to get together to make signs for the upcoming No Kings Protest on March 28th. Mind you, this was two days after 45/47 started his war with Iran, and yet no one was bringing it up. As the waiter was dropped off our checks I couldn't stand it any longer and I said, “So we’re not going to talk about the elephant in the room?”

Silence. Then it was as if Hans Brinker pulled his thumb out of the dike. Everyone started talking at once. And there was no consensus on why he did it. The theories flew:

• To distract from the Epstein files

• To line his son‑in‑law’s pockets when it comes time to rebuild the Middle East

• To line his own pockets when the rebuilding starts

• A secret deal with Israel 

• To create a pretext to halt the midterms

• To bring about a regime change 

Not one person mentioned the party‑line explanation, that the bombs were dropped to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Which I’m not buying. If that were the goal, why tear up the 2015 agreement that allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to aggressively monitor Iran and ensure they were reducing their enriched uranium stockpile by 98% on a timeline approved by five countries? Oops, I know the answer. It's because that agreement was brokered by the Obama administration. Ding, ding, ding! Give the lady a Kewpie doll.

Now we have eleven countries involved in a destructive war that Republicans insist “isn’t really a war,” which conveniently allowed them to vote against Congressional oversight. And is it naïve to think it won’t eventually reach our shores, likely in the form of cyberattacks? Yes, it's naïve. Here's another doll, of you!

Alongside all this political garbage vying for attention in my head is my study of Buddhism. I’ve been doing daily lessons with an app called The Karma Path since the end of the Walk for Peace. Each lesson is only 20 or 30 minutes, but they make you think. This isn’t my first time studying Buddhism seriously. If the third time is a charm, as the saying goes, this time I might actually stick with it and become a practicing Buddhist for the rest of my life.

Being old helps. Letting go of attachments should, in theory, be easier. In practice, it’s still my greatest challenge. I’m far too sentimental. But if I fail at that part of the Buddhist philosophy, death will eventually pry my creature comforts and memory‑vessels out of my hands anyway. I’m certainly not wealthy enough to build a pyramid and have slaves stockpile the tomb with all the things I hold near and dear.

Of course, it’s not just material things a Buddhist learns to release. It’s people. Expectations. The belief that someone else is responsible for our happiness (which is something I thought I'd learned a long time ago but clearly I didn't, judging by the wee little hurt feelings I wrote about in my last post). I’ve just begun studying meditation and the Noble Eightfold Path (the heart of Buddhism): right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right vision and right intention. And I'm batting 100% on The Karma Path's periodic quiz's.

What I don’t understand about any religion (and Buddhism doesn’t claim to be one) is how so many can be so certain their way is the only way—certain enough to go to war over ideology, century after century. In the Middle East, every peace plan ever put forth eventually falls apart over who controls the holy places. You’d think letting go of sentimental attachment over such small patches of earth would be a reasonable price to pay for lasting peace, says the lady who hasn't let go of her grade‑school report cards.

And then, to make this current war even more complicated, we have a commander telling U.S. troops that Donald Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran” and that the bombings are the beginning of Armageddon and the “imminent” return of Christ. This is according to several sources including a HuffPost article titled Military Commander Tells Troops Bombing Iran Is ‘Part Of God’s Divine Plan’. We could have seen this coming when Pete Hegseth started hosting prayer meetings at the Pentagon and bringing in Christian Nationalists to lead them.

Unfortunately, no amount of meditation, no amount of looking the other way, no amount of sticking our fingers in our ears and singing “la la la!” is going to set our country back on a path where elected officials can be trusted to do the right thing for all the people, not just their buddies with the biggest wallets or the biggest sticks. It's going to take time and effort by all of us i.e. we need to study the crap out of those running for the midterms and beyond and never, ever miss an opportunity to vote.

So there you have it. The reasons why I say I don’t know where my head is half the time. And I suspect many people across the nation are having the same meltdown, judging by the massive impact the Walk for Peace monks have made as their movement builds quietly in the background of everything happening in Washington, D.C.

Maybe that’s the real story here — not the war, not the politics, but the silent truth that millions of us are trying to hold our center while the world keeps shifting under our feet. ©

Until Next Wednesday….

 Three Things to Release in Life
Shen Yu, Buddhist Monk 

Stop chasing other people, What is meant for you will stay without force.
Stop trying to return to the past. It exists only to teach, not to live in.
Let go of regret. It holds the mind in places you can no longer change.