Only the Strong will Survive AI

Kermit relaxes

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My best friends in the nineteen nineties were folds of cotton fabric, spools of thread, and a thimble. In my enthusiasm during that quilting phase of my life, I subscribed to a couple of magazines devoted to the craft. One was Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, and I still have all the back issues stored in plastic holders in a cabinet. In my on-going attempt to purge outdated and unnecessary items from my possession, I began thumbing through those magazines, in the hopes of reviewing useful information and extracting pertinent patterns, prior to giving them away or donating to the local library. 

    One article caught my attention. It was published in the April 1996 issue and is titled, Your Computer Quilting Neighborhood: Online Services and the Internet. Written by Betty Rovedo and Jim Burchell, it is not only a history lesson but an eye-opener about how far computer technology has traveled in a short time.

Is this the real thing or only a fling?

 

Praying Mantis

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Lo and behold, I am in love, which I never thought could happen again at this late date, and I cannot help myself. When the love bug bites, there is no swatting it. May this love affair continue until the fire dies down, until the embers are stone cold, and all that remains is a pile of ashes to be swept into a pail and scattered in the woods, strewn upon the dead leaves and twigs that no one cares about, and stepped on by heavy boots. I beg you though, that before passing judgement and forcing me to wear a scarlet letter A, like Hester Prynne, to hear me out.

Managing the Ps that Bring Writers to their Knees

 

Osprey

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In August I volunteered to lead a session of Write In Louisa, a writers' group that meets monthly in a neighboring county. Its leader called for a volunteer, and I knew exactly the topic I would speak about. It is one my husband unknowingly inspired.

    In his spare time, he builds rock walls; not the kind with mortar between each piece, but dry-stacked ones where every rock is pressed in, almost like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If one does not fit, in contrast to cardboard puzzles, he positions a chisel and wallops it with a mallet to conform the rock to the space. Some of the rocks are small and easy to lift, but some are huge and heavy. From my observations over the years, I concluded that rock walling is not for dainty hands and weak spines. 

A Tinge of Sadness

 

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Back in May, we went to a restaurant to celebrate a special occasion, a restaurant we had not been to in years. Our entrees were delicious, but the waitress was sour. In her bad mood, or what could have been her usual grumpy disposition, she put a damper on the experience. She ignored us, did not ask if we needed anything, and barely opened her mouth, let alone, smiled. We chose not to tell her about the special occasion; I doubt it would have made any difference in her demeanor. On the way out, we skipped on complaining to the management or scrimping on the tip. 

    This unsavory incident was most unusual, as generally, when we eat out, we meet a friendly, efficient staff. I have never been a waitress (although I've served plenty of people), and I am sure that waitressing is challenging work, and that some customers can be curmudgeons, but a server taking out a bad day, or a bad life, on her diners is not a good thing. I left the restaurant feeling sad for her and for us as well. 

A Star is Born

 

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In 2019 I came up with the hairbrained idea of making another quilt. This time, I would size it to fit our bed, which I had not done before. All of my other quilts are hanging over bannisters, resting in folds at the foot of beds, or lounging on the backs of chairs and racks. This one would be different; we would sleep under it. It would fit our queen size mattress and come down to the dust ruffle. That was the criteria, and my needle and thread would be coaxed toward that goal.

    As usual, when I sprint down the quilt trail, I jump in on all fours and start cutting and stitching, not stopping to eat a sandwich, not thinking about the future, and certainly not planning how I will accomplish certain maneuvers along my quilt making way. This failure to appropriately plan creates the potential for a disaster, but as the instructor of my first quilt course once said, "There is no mistake that cannot be fixed."

One thing, or one word, at a time

 

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I turned the page of a used paperback to find a miniature brochure stuck between the pages. It was not much bigger than a Post-it note and boasted of a Speed Cleaning Guide, Compliments of Real Simple. In eagerness to improve all areas of my life, I read it quickly and learned that I could swoosh, wipe, squeegee, spray, and straighten my whole house in nineteen minutes.

    By the time I finished speed-reading the brochure, persuasive words had almost convinced me that I could accomplish such a feat, but before jumping on the house cleaning bandwagon, only to risk tumbling off and hitting the ground, I conceded that I could no more clean my house in nineteen minutes than I could write a chapter in nineteen minues.

    I pictured Martha Stewart, the queen of domesticity, running circles around me, and Danielle Steel, the bestselling author, spewing pages of a manuscript out of a typewriter, like a geyser spews water and steam. Then I looked around me. Dust on the windowsill made me sigh, and words not yet written piled up in my head higher than the sheets and towels in my laundry basket. What to do?

    "Be not dismayed," I told myself.

    In both instances, I will keep trying, because every house is cleaned one sweep at a time, and every book is written one word at a time.

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Don't be blindsided by someone else's "perfection"

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A friend invited me to visit while she was house-sitting. I drove to a hamlet about an hour away and parked in a paved driveway. A winding sidewalk showed me the way to the front door. Taking baby steps, I admired the meticulous lawn with fresh mulch nestled around lush green bushes. Dead leaves and weeds had taken the high road, and the front porch was spotless; no trace of a spider web or wasp nest.

    I rang the doorbell, and my friend let me in. When we had finished eating lemon icebox pie, she led me on a tour of the house -- three floors of more meticulousness. Every room had been decorated in House Beautiful fashion, with such things as white coverlets and matching dust ruffles, accent pillows in soft aqua, and flowing curtains framing all the windows. Pictures, in the perfect shape and scene for the space, hung in every spot where a picture should be, and if I swore, I would swear that not one speck of dust rested on any surface. I hinted to my friend that the team of housekeepers and interior decorators should be awarded a trophy. She assured me that the owner vacuumed and dusted, as well as decorated every wall, every nook and space herself.

    After an enjoyable visit with my friend, I drove away from the rows of stately homes back to my neck of the woods, passing by hay fields in need of baling and barns in need of painting. I turned into my gravel driveway and into the garage. Getting out of the car, I stepped over a wayward leaf, and on the way to put my things away, I tripped over a dust bunny. Compared to where I had just been, I had work to do.

    So, I started cleaning, but not with a mop or a broom.

Throw away and start over? Not so fast.

 

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My decades-old washer died, and I needed to buy a new one. I began searching for a no-frills model like the old one; wash, rinse, spin, delicate, etc.; no screens; no high-tech frivolities. It was a challenge. Few washers, if any, in the home improvement store aligned with my simplistic views, but I tried to stay true to my washer wishes.

    A week or so later, two guys in an oversized truck arrived at our house. They blew through the back door and into the laundry room like a cyclone. By someone's definition, they deposited and swiftly installed a new washing machine, then dashed out the door faster than Looney Tunes' Road Runner. Barry noticed the washer was not level and called them back to fix it, which they did, lickety-split. Then they skedaddled out the door again.

After all these years, a way of writing is still a way of writing

 

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A Way of Writing is an essay written by American poet William Stafford (1914 - 1992) and published in nineteen seventy. In the short essay, he details his writing philosophy, beginning with this sentence:

"A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is        someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he    would not have thought of if he had not started to say them."

     In the summer of nineteen eighty-six, an English professor at UNC-Greensboro used Stafford's essay as a writer's prompt for her students. I sat at a desk in her class and wrote the following response: 

Books, like people, leave you with a feeling

 

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I remembered a book I read when I was around ten years old, but I could not remember its title. It was about an animal, a fox, I thought, and I loved the story. The author, as well as any other identifying characteristics, were buried deep in my subconscious, underneath an accumulation of years and other books. I tried to dredge up those particulars, but they were buried too deep, and I finally gave up on having the pleasure of reading it again.

    Fast forward a few years.

A time to keep and a time to give away; "To every thing there is a season"

 

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Someone I know is cleaning up his life. He is selling or giving away the bulk of his possessions. Things like a vintage car, a tractor, a truck, a vacant chicken house, a kit for a building he never built, a fiddle, a mandolin, books ... 

    "It's all going," he tells me. 

    Why? Because he is an octogenarian, and time for him is running out. So that his children will have less to do when he departs to a place where clutter does not exist, he is sweeping out the contents of his house and barns and sheds. These acts of simplification have been underway for several months, and he is making headway, but there is more to do, as his earthly possessions are plentiful.

    Earthly possessions. We all have them, and most of us have more than we need.

    I ran across an article about this very thing, along with the mention of a book titled, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (2017). The title reminded me of Someone I Know, and I decided to read the book.

Musings from a Facebook Flunkie

 

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Several years ago, my twenty-something nephew told me I should join Facebook. I responded by saying that my quiet life did not warrant postings for all the world to see. Eventually though, I signed up and crept onto the Facebook bandwagon. It carried me through some positive experiences and a few negative ones. 

    I had the most fun on Facebook when a different nephew created a particularly witty post using words that sounded alike but were spelled differently and had different meanings. Everyone who commented followed his lead, and the ridiculousness snowballed from there. Creativity shifted into high gear when every commenter tried to be more creative than the previous one. One of the most memorable words from that exchange is the word truculent, which my nephew finagled into a sentence about the "truck you lent me." The whole conversation continued for days, not hours, and it provided tons of laughter and a welcome diversion from the seriousness of life. 

Age happens, and there's nothing you can do about it.

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Yet again, I have had another birthday accompanied by the profound realization that a lot of years have come and gone; more than I care to admit. What have I done with those years? Well, I've laughed some and I've cried a lot. Many of those tears were from sadness and disappointment, a few were from happiness, and some were from anger, which might surprise the people who know me, but yes, a long time ago, anger had a hold on me, but I contained it quite well.

    Now, I am over the sadness and disappointment and anger.

The Long and Short of a T-shirt

 

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On a trip to Utah years ago, I bought a rust-colored, long-sleeved T-shirt. On the front are images of rocks and the names of five of the six national parks we visited. The caption reads: Utah Rocks. (It's a play on words.) 

     I remember standing in the store and contemplating which size to buy. A small fit me better, but I settled on a medium because it would offer more comfort in wearing and ease in putting it on and pulling it off. Back at home, my new T-shirt seemed too long and sloppy. I liked the memento and especially its autumn leaves color, but after wearing it only a few times, I stored it in a drawer with other T-shirts that were long on sentimental value and short on fit.

Water and Wildlife

 

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Living by a small body of water is one of the joys of my days. Water entices an array of wildlife. Mergansers, buffleheads, wood ducks, and Canada geese are only a sampling of the species that stop by to swim and dunk their heads underwater. Some drop in for brief visits, and some stay for years. On any given morning, I can look out the window and see a flock of feathered fowl taking their morning baths.

    In all the years we've been here on this special spot of earth, baby ducks have eluded us -- until now. A wood duck and her three ducklings have been frolicking at the edge of the lake and even coming ashore. The baby ducks are almost too cute for human eyes, but a photo shoot is out of the question, as ducks are skittish.

    Last year in one of the duck boxes, Barry found a nest with several eggs that had been abandoned by the layer. Wildlife, like humans, sometimes do wretched things, but for the most part and from my observations, ducks and geese and other birds of a feather are amazing caretakers of their young. 

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Tidying a Room Requires More Than a Broom

 

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Barry and I often interject humor into our conversations by quoting favorite lines from The Andy Griffith Show. Lines like, "Don't get your clothes all dirty," which is what Andy said when Opie wallowed on the jailhouse floor in a pretend tantrum. Or "Got time to breathe? Got time for music," as said by Briscoe Darlin' when Andy asked if they had time to play one more song. My all-time favorite, and one that is particularly fun to work into a dialogue, is Ernest T.'s clever remark, "I'm a little mean, but I make up for it by bein' real healthy."

    Another quote that racks up a lot of mileage for us is from the episode where Andy comes up with a scheme to introduce Ernest T. at Mrs. Wiley's dinner party, and fool her into thinking he is a refined individual. To help Andy pull off the feat of turning a rock-throwing, illiterate misfit into a socially adept, genteel man-about-town, Barney, who sees himself as a polished gentleman, offers his expertise. He volunteers to teach Ernest T. how to behave and mind his manners in a social setting. The first lesson is "How to Walk into a Room."

The Magnificent Obsession?

 

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While stitching pieces of fabric on a Sunday afternoon, I kept tabs on a 1954 movie starring Jane Wyman and heartthrob Rock Hudson, titled Magnificent Obsession. The heartthrob enticed me to watch the movie, but the title drew me in and convinced me to follow through. I had to know what the obsession was.

All because of words on a page

 

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The clouds hid the sun, making it possible for me to sit comfortably in the car while waiting for him at an appointment. In my hands I held a book titled The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the last three chapters remained unread. I had been saving the ending for this block of quiet time. With the windows down and cool breezes blowing, I delved into my reading, as people walked down the sidewalk and pulled in and out of parking spaces around me.

    I finished two chapters and began the last one. Right away, the author pulled at my heartstrings in such a way that tears began rolling. I reached for a tissue and dabbed my eyes, hoping that passersby would not notice a blubbering woman sitting in a car outside a medical facility and wonder if she had been given some devastating news. I kept on reading words and dabbing tears until I had read the last word on the last page. Then I closed the book and sat there, relishing.

It's not as ridiculous as you think

 

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Someone near and dear yet far away handed me a paperback to read and keep. My heart skipped a beat at the thought of him even thinking of bringing me one of his favorite reads. As handsome as he is intelligent, he lives miles away from me, and our paths cross a couple of times a year. He is a youngster. Well, actually he is in his third decade, but he is a youngster to me. 

    Standing with him in the sunshine that afternoon, I looked at the title of the book he had just given to me: Howl's Moving Castle. Uh-oh. I felt conflicted. Happy over his thoughtfulness; uncertain about the book.

Majestic and Mean

 

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Through the kitchen window, I spotted a big bird on the limb of a tree in the back yard. I grabbed my camera and clicked once before it flew. 

    I later posted the photo on FB where folks enjoyed seeing it. One described it as "majestic"; another said, "gorgeous," and another said I made his day. Someone else said something about hoping it would come back so I could see it again.

    In full disclosure, I do not welcome the eagle to land anywhere on my property, especially at this time of year. In a few weeks, there will be adorable little goslings scrambling all over the yard, trailing after their mamas and daddies. The last thing I want to do is look through my window and see a helpless, fuzzy, yellow baby goose writhing in the talons of an eagle. 

Is the eagle majestic and gorgeous? Yes. But I would rather it go away and not come back, at least, not until fall and not when it has a ravenous appetite.

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