Before I forget...
Hi, all.
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks here. Seems like spring has sprung prematurely…the weather is unseasonably warm, and things that shouldn’t bud til April are budding now - before I could get the two “dwarf” apple trees pruned. =sigh=
Luckily, my friend Amy Nakhle in Elon came to tote me back with her for a week’s visit with her and my old friend Buffy Pilloud. I’d been wanting them to meet, as they are peas in a pod and hopefully hit it off as well as they seemed to while we were together. They yakked about similar interests, and I caught up on the latest with Buffy’s wonderful and funny husband Harry Shaver. I felt - whether I was at Buffy’s or Amy’s - as though I was staying at a very nice hotel. No dog hair, for one. Nor dust or creaking floors or traffic noise.
Jim went to the airport last week and picked up Sue and Betsy, two of my sisters from Wisconsin. They’d come to take my car back with them, but it turns out Sue really wanted something along the Prius line; mine is a muscle car, truly. Pontiac Grand Prix Turbo, bright red, best suited to a leggy teenager who likes to show off. It has incredible pickup, which has come in handy when I needed to quickly pass people who obviously forgot anything they learned in drivers education class - which I just found out is no longer taught in the NC public schools.
When my brother Greg and I were taking drivers ed in Wisconsin, we had the same teacher, but lessons at different times. Where we lived was quite rural and flat. We absorbed clues about driving from riding with our older sibs and parents. Because you could see miles in any direction, Dad would just cross railroad tracks without slowing down and looking both ways. I’m not sure they ever had RR crossing gates. I don’t know where our drivers ed instructor was from, but I think he wasn’t a native. When I was at the wheel, I crossed the railroad tracks without looking, just as Dad always did, and the instructor said, “Train coming?” - pause - “Good thing, huh?” I related this to Greg and when the same thing happened during his lesson, he burst out laughing. Or it was the other way around. I’m not sure; after all, it was 57 years ago.
Sue and Betsy wanted to visit her son Paul in Charleston while they were here, so they took my car. If they could have waited until today (Thursday), I would have gone with them. But every other Wednesday, Jim and I and my neighbor Mary play trivia at a local watering hole. Jim’s on a team called Jeopardy Rejects, and Mary and I are on the team called the Potato Liberation Front. We usually win. Two weeks ago, Mary wasn’t here and we lost to the Rejects, but last night, we pulled it off again. Here’s the kicker: one of the questions was, “Who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic?” All the other teams wrote Amelia Earhart, but I knew Amelia had a copilot, and for some unfathomable reason I know the name of the woman who really did do it - Beryl Markham. While the Trivia Master (who also thought it was Earhart) was scoring, Mary pulled up Markham on her phone for me and I showed it to him. Ta-daa! Markham wrote a book about it - West with the Night - which I’ve never read. Thinking about how my brain works these days, it’s strange I even know something like that.
My annual eye exam a couple weeks ago caused my prescription to drastically change, so I had to order new lenses. Weirdly, with the new lenses, I have to tilt my head up to find a very narrow horizontal part of the lens that allows reading. It’s okay for watching the telly, but not books or the computer screen. Jim toted me back to the eye doc office, and they adjusted the arms (is that what they’re called - the things that go over your ears?) but that didn’t work, so I go back again next week.
Since my neighbor and friend Mary doesn’t care to grow anything she can’t eat, and I’m not good at growing food, I’m planting flower seeds randomly in what had been garden space. I’ve got large paving stones piled up here and there, so am going to place them randomly in what I call the “garden yard,” so I can walk around out there without crushing flowers. Someone gave me some packets of “expired” flower seeds, so that’s where I’ll start planting today. Wish me luck!
I love getting feedback on my ButtonDown letters, but replying directly from here doesn’t get to me. Please email me at lucydoll@fastmail.com instead. Thanks!
xox
Lucy