Paint the Town Red
Bec celebrated her 70th birthday at the end of January. While I gave her a modest gift, I promised her that I would take her out for a nice lunch sometime soon. That sometime soon turned out to be yesterday, when Bill and I treated her to lunch at Durant’s Steak House. You remember Durant’s — the restaurant that is so red that any photos you take have a red tint to them. Just to prove my point…..

Truly, it’s impossible to take a photo that isn’t red. The food is tremendous, and I will say that we all had a very good time. How bad can your day be when you have a martini at 12:30 in the afternoon? It is lucky that none of us was driving, with Bec taking Lyft and Bill and I riding light rail. When I made the reservations, I told them it was her birthday. While I wasn’t entirely truthful, I was truthful in the sense that we were celebrating her birthday. They treated her with great kindness and many “happy birthdays.” And they even gave her a complimentary strawberry short cake that was — what else? — red…..

My Father’s Daughter
The other day I received an unexpected package. I was delighted — if perplexed — to see it was from a dear friend who lives in Omaha. She and I have been friends since second grade. When I opened the package, there was a book entitled The Baker’s Daughter. I don’t know if she’s read it or if the book’s title simply made her think of me. I was delighted, because BOOK. I have started reading it, and to my joy, it is very good. Furthermore, it is, in fact, about a baker’s daughter. That’s like me, except my parents weren’t Nazis. Just sayin’…..

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
For the past week, I have been watching our new neighbor move into the house next door. I believe she closes on the loan tomorrow, and she and her 2-1/2 year old daughter will officially move into the house. Yesterday, as we drove into our garage, I saw that her garage door was open. I immediately spotted a little tiny pink tricycle, and it made my heart happy. But Bill quickly pointed out that from now on, we are going to have to be incredibly careful about backing out of our driveway so as to make sure we notice if that same little pink tricycle is on the sidewalk behind us.

How Don’t You Do?
On my first day of physical therapy, one of the therapists (not the one with whom I have been working, but another) came over and introduced herself. She had one of those handshakes that give me the willies. It’s hard for me to understand how a parent can raise a child and not teach them the simple act of a firm handshake. Now, I’m going to have to test all of my grandkids!

Where’s the Anvil When I Need It?
On Wednesday, I posted a photo of my potted herbs…..

When I went out yesterday to check on them, the thyme and parsley were fine. The dill, however, looked like this…..

I don’t know who to suspect. Maybe the coyote had the right idea about how to deal with the roadrunner. Funny that whoever the culprit was didn’t bother with the thyme and parsley.

Ciao.

I mentioned that one of my physical therapists apologized to me and all snowbirds on behalf of ARIZONA for the cold weather we have been having. I don’t believe she has the right to represent all of Arizona because frankly it’s a big state and there were a lot of people who seemingly enjoyed the snow in Flagstaff. And I must admit that Superstition Mountain looked very pretty with it’s chapel veil of snow on Sunday morning when Bill and I were able to capture this pretty shot….

Still, since I was one of the many who whined like a little baby whose mother took away her pacifier, I feel the need to admit that I was very happy to awaken yesterday morning to a lovely sunrise and blue skies as far as my eyes could see. What’s more, the weather forecasters were predicting warm and dry weather for the future, with the highs temperature nearing 80 on Thursday. Even the road runner seemed to have a spring in his step on its daily visit to our back yard.

The sunshine and warm temps got me in the mood for spring. And when I’m in the mood for spring, what do I do? I shop for outdoor plants and patio fixings. By midmorning, I had joined the throngs of snowbirds in the garden center of Walmart. I bought a few herbs…..

I selected a couple of geranium plants that I knew would brighten our back yard…..

And I impulsively purchased some new cushions for our patio furniture, replacing the faded cushions that had outlived their usefulness…..

No matter what Keith Urban says, blue IS my color, at least when it comes to patio cushions.

Even at my crabbiest, I knew that all of the moisture and cool temperatures we were getting would create a world of color when it finally warmed up. After all, in the real world, April showers bring May flowers. The time line is just moved up in the desert. Already, we spotted this field of flowers not far from our house towards Superstition Mountain…..

And I know for sure that once the cactus — fat and full as an Italian grandfather after Sunday dinner because of all the rain — start to bloom, the flowers will be beautiful.

The warm weather took its sweet time to arrive, but arrive, it did. And just in the nick of time for Spring Training.

Play ball!.

Many years ago in days of childhood
I used to play ’til evenin’ shadows come.
Then winding down that old familiar pathway
I’d hear my mother call a set of sun.
Come home, come home, it’s supper time.
The shadows lengthen fast.
Come home, come home, it’s supper time.
We’re goin’ home at last.  – Ira F. Stanphill, sung by Jim Reeves

I came across an article recently that posed the question: When you were growing up, did you eat dinner or supper?

For my adult life, I believe I have served dinner. Breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon, and dinner as the last meal of the day. But I had to really stop and think about why I have always served “dinner,” because I’m pretty darn sure that in my formative years growing up in Nebraska, we always ate supper.

What’s for supper, I would ask my mom when I ran into the house after school, hoping against hope that it was something I liked. Maybe a pot roast, or oven-roasted spareribs. Fried chicken would truly be a scooooooooooore! But I’m pretty sure whatever it was, it was supper and not dinner.

I asked Bill the same question: did he eat dinner or supper. I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and I was right. The Chicago McLains always ate dinner as their final meal of the day. I specify the Chicago McLains, because when Bill’s dad grew up on the farm in North Carolina, they ate breakfast, dinner, and supper every day. Bill tells many stories about visiting his grandmother in North Carolina. His favorite story has to do with awakening at 7 or 7:30 in the morning, coming down to breakfast, and there was no one around. He asked his grandmother if he was the first one up. She laughed and told him everyone else had eaten breakfast hours ago and they were already out in the fields.

But he remembers that every day around noon, his grandmother would prepare a big noon dinner. Maybe a ham, or perhaps fried chicken or breaded pork chops. His uncles would chow down on this big dinner and return to work. At the end of the work day, she would lay out the cold leftovers for their supper.

My first thought when I read the article was that Midwesterners and Southerners ate supper in the evening. According to the article from wideopeneats.com, however, the breakdown is more along the lines of rural v. urban than by area of the country. Perhaps that has to do with the story Bill tells about his grandmother.

No matter what we called our evening meal, we always ate Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter dinner whether it was served in the evening or at noon.

By the way, the article goes on to say that the states that Google the word supper the most are Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. All midwestern and all largely rural.

When you grew up, did you eat dinner or supper?

I’m sure it has happened, but I don’t recall when last I was someplace where it rained — not drizzled, but rained — for three days straight. Well, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration because yesterday there were a couple of breaks in the rain. Thursday was the day when it was raining when I got up, rained all day, and was still raining yesterday morning when I awoke. Even the scorpions have umbrellas.

Yesterday at my physical therapy, one of the therapists actually apologized to me on behalf of the entire state of Arizona for providing such yucky weather for the snowbirds.

At any rate, both Bill and I have maintained a reasonably positive attitude. Our upbeat outlook is primarily because we have found indoor things to do that have made me smile.

First: I pulled a puzzle out of our closet, dusted it off, and between the two of us, we put it together over the past couple of days. I had forgotten just how much I enjoy puzzles…..

Second: Bill dragged the sewing machine out of the garage and began sewing the apron I have been nagging him to make for me……

He wasn’t nearly as happy about this as the photo suggests.

Third: When he wasn’t sewing, Bill was studying to take the test for his drone commercial pilots’ license. Because he can……

Fourth: While Bill was sewing and/or learning how to fly a drone for commercial purposes, I was reconnoitering through our den window. You know, like a secret agent. What was I studying? Our new neighbors. This is the third family to live in the house next door in the 8-1/2 years we have owned our house. To my delight, the first thing I spotted was kids’ play equipment…..

Photo taken surreptitiously, as any spy would do.

It wasn’t long before I saw a little pink riding car come off the truck. Yippee! A little girl.

Actually, as it turns out, I wouldn’t have had to be a spy, because our new neighbor, Melissa, introduced herself to me. (She likely thought that would make her more comfortable than seeing someone peering through the blinds.) She is the single mother of a 2-1/2 year old girl named Miami.

I do like the sound of little kids’ laughter.

Have a great weekend.

Stretching the Truth
I had my first session of physical therapy yesterday, as ordered by the doctor. I only have one thing to say about it: OUCH! The hope is that by stretching and strengthening the muscles around my knee, the pain will be relieved. I hope so, because it’s going to be a pain in the, well, knee. She sent me home with a red elastic band and an order to do the exercises at home as well. Masochist.

Does It Hurt When I Do This?
My sister Bec maintains that we can get more and better information from our physical therapists and our pharmacists than from our doctors. Yesterday, she was proven correct. The doc who went over the results of my MRI with me told me that I had an inflamed calf muscle, a muscle that went up to my knee. The physical therapist had me do a specific activity in which I lifted my left leg from the ground and did toe lifts with my right foot. Because it is my right knee that causes the problems, she warned me that it would likely hurt to do so. But it didn’t. Not a bit. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed. “Then it isn’t your calf muscle that is inflamed. It’s your hamstring muscle.” Well, that seems like a swing and a miss from the doctor I said to the PT. “Not really,” she replied. “They overlap on the MRI. It’s easy to misdiagnose.” Well, easy if you’re a doctor apparently, but not a physical therapist.

Some Like It Hot
There is a restaurant in west Mesa that proudly brags on their hot New Mexican-style food. Since New Mexican style is hard to find here in the Valley (meaning no smothered with green chile), I am always eager to visit Los Dos Molinos and eat some of their fiery food. Bec invited me to meet her there the other day, and I was happy to do so. You can practically smell the heat, can’t you?…..

Tempting
Every weekend, in the parking lot of a pawn shop, a van is parked with signs advertising fresh shrimp and lobster from Rocky Point, Mexico……

I will admit that it’s always a bit tempting. Still, buying seafood from a van parked in front of a pawn shop with hand-written signs gives me no confidence. Thus far, I haven’t been tempted quite enough.

Ciao.

I wonder what my mom wanted to be when she grew up. I wonder if a girl who was born in 1926, is the youngest of 14 kids, and grows up in a very small farming community in the middle of Nebraska has the luxury of dreaming about adult options. Given the 14 kids, her mother obviously did nothing much beyond be pregnant and rear children. I doubt she had much time to counsel Mom on all of the options available to women, especially since the options were few: mostly marry and have your own kids. Maybe to a teachers’ college if your family can scrape together a few bucks…..

I never talked to my mother about her dreams. As I grow older, it makes me sad that I didn’t ask her more questions. It wasn’t until after she died that we learned that my mother didn’t finish high school. We were very surprised to learn that she left school at 16 because Mom was very smart. Her grammar was always perfect, she was a great speller, she had a firm grasp of math, and perhaps most important, she knew how to navigate life. With a mom almost totally unavailable to her, the accomplishment is commendable.

As it turned out, no matter what her dreams were, what she did accomplish was being an excellent mother of four relatively sane children, a wife for 46 years to a man with whom she held hands even to the end of her life, a hard-working and smart-as-a-whip business partner with my dad, and someone who never backed down from her convictions. Much to our chagrin, sometimes. When our friends’ parents were telling their kids that the nuns could do no wrong so put up with it, our mom was taking them on if she felt they were wrong. That’s a good example to set for your kids about the imperfections of authority figures.

Because there is such a difference in the ages of my siblings and me, we really had unique parenting experiences. So, generalizations are dangerous. But I can tell you that I never had discussions with my mother about expectations of adulthood. I never remember her asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t feel abandoned; instead, I mostly felt like she trusted my decisions. Well, maybe trust isn’t the correct word. Maybe it was that she accepted my decisions. And believe me, I made some doozies. I wonder what sorts of conversations Mom and Dad had when it came to some of the choices I made as an adult.

Last Sunday was my great-nephew Asher’s birthday, and it brought back a memory. At my dad’s funeral in 2010, I remember that while most of his grandkids sat in the front of the church, four of the grandkids (or their spouses) stood in the back of the church bouncing their fussy infant kids: Maggie (Austin), Kacy (Lexi), Court (Mylee), and Christopher (Asher). It always makes me sad that Mom never knew a single one of her great grandkids, because had she been strong and well, she would have LOVED them.

At the end of the day, after I began my nostalgic musings yesterday, I concluded that while my mother might not have had the options that were available to her kids, she never looked back. That’s why she was so loved by her husband, her kids, and her grandkids. She was really good at her job.