Flat as a Pancake.....

Sitting on the deck reading a book yesterday afternoon and I suddenly became aware of the "quiet". No breeze....no sounds of waves hitting the beach or the breakwater. I looked up and realized that big Lake Michigan was a smooth as glass. Not a ripple. Interesting clouds floating overhead....but the lake was still.

That's part of the fun when you are lucky enough to live near a big body of water. It changes all the time. Day to day.....hour to hour.....look out the window or go for a walk and the scenery changes. Peaceful, still, tame.... or.....

Don't let that quiet fool you....when Lake Michigan wakes up she is impressive, powerful and not to be ignored.

Love watching "our" lake!

Spider Poop.......

Our condo has a small deck overlooking Lake Michigan. Just large enough for a small round, glass-top table, two chairs and a potted plant. (We can squeeze four chairs in the space when friends come over.) The view is lovely and always changing.....but the table top and chairs always seem to be "dirty".

There are lots of spiders that make their home on/over/around the deck. We don't see them during the day, so they must be busy at night. We never see them.....but we find their "leavings"....broken webs on the railing. Spider poop on the table. Black blobs.

So we grab a paper towel and bottle of Windex and clean the top of the table and wipe the chairs. And we sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee or glass of wine or our dinner.

It doesn't really bother me.....except yesterday, while sitting in my chair......plop.....a glob of spider poop landed on my beige shorts. Ugh. I looked up and couldn't see a darn thing. Where are they??? How can a little spider (small enough to go unseen) produce such a "big" poop??? And why did it have to land on my beige shorts???

Ah well.....living close to nature. I'll take the small inconvenience and do another load of laundry.

Follow the Clues.....

Last night we went to a party at our neighbor's condo. It was a "who-done-it" murder mystery party. We'd never been invited to one before and frankly, didn't really understand just how it worked!

Dave and I got our "characters" with a printed invitation a few days prior to the gathering. It included a newspaper article about a suspicious death and the inquiry scheduled for Saturday night. All of the suspects gathered at Pat's condo....some in costume....and the fun began.

Pat gave the instructions and we broke into smaller groups and started to ask questions to try to determine who was the guilty party. If we tried to stay in character it meant Dave was Crawford Benton....."rescued" from a mental hospital by a rich couple. He spent years as their loyal servant and I was his "assistant".  Now what could we infer from that? Perhaps he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and as his assistant I was really in charge? Or his wife of ten years, "Carrie", (another neighbor) was running the show?

Anyway, there were lots of players to try to sort through, lots of sub-stories revealed as the evening progressed. Lots of laughter and conversation and good food. It was a fun evening.

And at the very end Crawford (Dave) discovered he was married to the murderer!!! But she (Carrie) acted alone.....so Crawford was free to enjoy the house and pension left to him in the victim's will.

Mystery solved.......by following the clues.

Blaze.......Natural and Not......

Watching the news tonight. Mother Nature set parts of California on fire.....the news coverage shows people whose homes have been burned to the ground. Firefighters working hard to try to save other neighborhoods.

Both national and local news shows a Milwaukee neighborhood also on fire. Another tragic situation....young men with guns, police response, a young man killed and a community reacting. We don't have all the details.......but from what we are told the young man had a gun and as soon as the police stopped his car he jumped out and ran. He has a long history of criminal behavior.

Over the weekend some people in the neighborhood reacted angrily by setting businesses on fire, throwing stones at police, setting police cars on fire. The newscasters share that "social media" brought more and more people to the scene....only complicating an already difficult situation.

Tonight's news showed the victim's sister saying something about how people should take their anger to the suburbs and burn things there.

This is a complex and tragic cycle.....being repeated all around the country. And while I certainly don't support the comments about "burning the suburbs".....I also know that grief plays a part in this particular comment.

Dave and I were just talking, as we watched last night's coverage, that yes.....the young men involved seemed to be less-than-stellar members of their community. Many would classify them as "thugs". But I said to Dave "....they are still someone's son, someone's family member and they are loved." No....they don't "measure up" to our standards of what a responsible, independent young man is expected to be....but then we don't live where they live, we had different educational and family experiences than they did.

Again.....not excusing what is sadly happening in one neighborhood in Milwaukee....but again, realizing just how lucky we were to be born where we were born, to have the parents and opportunities we had.

A complex problem....sadly one that may take generations to solve.

Just An Excuse......

Some weeks Dave will buy our local newspaper. The Ozaukee Press brings us up-to-date with what's going on in Port Washington and area communities. He came home with the issue dated April 14th and it sat on the coffee table in the family room for days. Just before tossing it in the recycling I sat down to page through and see if there was anything of interest.

That's when I came upon an article about a young family's tragic loss and how the community was coming together to help them. I saw a photograph of a young widow holding her ten-month-old-son. Her husband died unexpectedly at age 30.

I couldn't help but be touched by the story and by the community efforts underway to help raise funds for the little boy's education. And I couldn't help but think of my own son and daughter and their spouses and their children. Losing a loved one at any age is a blow.....but when your husband is only 30 and your son is so very young. Just how do you cope with that? How very sad that your son will grow up and never know his dad.

The story "haunted" me for days.....so I sat at the computer, tracked down her address and wrote the young widow a letter. I offered to make a memory quilt for her, using her husband's t-shirts. I explained that I loved to quilt and enclosed a photograph of another memory quilt I'd made. I also said that it was completely up to her.....and if she did not want one she could just toss my letter.

Three weeks later I got an email accepting my offer and a few days later she stopped by to drop off two bags full of shirts. And so I began the process and put the quilt together. It's always interesting to begin to get a sense of a person just by looking at t-shirts. Anyone who enjoyed a Miller after eating a bowl of Lucky Charms must have been a lot of fun. I hope the final result will provide some comfort in the months and years to come.

I quilt. It's what I do. I don't need any more quilts.....but I don't intend to stop. And sometimes, creating one for someone else to maybe help heal a hole in a heart makes me feel very good.

The newspaper article gave me an excuse to quilt.....it's what I do.

Proof.....

In December we will celebrate our 49th anniversary. Over the years we've moved back and forth from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic states following Dave's job opportunities.

We've lived in four apartments and nine houses and now enjoy condo living in Port Washington.

I've never had a cleaning lady so while vacuuming the carpet today I got to thinking about the miles and miles of carpet that I've vacuumed over the years, the acres of kitchen floors that I've washed, the hundreds of hours spent dusting, the dozens of sinks and tubs that I've scrubbed.

Now my condo-cleaning is at a minimum. There are only the two of us and one small dog.....so the place doesn't get very dirty. I guess I get around to it once a week or so (unless we have company and then I do a quick surface cleaning before they arrive).

But I do dust - once in a while I even climb into the big tub in the master bath to catch the pictures hanging there. They are hard to reach and don't get done very often at all....easy to ignore. But today I have proof that I dusted....can you spot it?

And the Beauty is in the Details.....

Saturday morning we jumped in the car and drove over to the Ozaukee County Fair in Cedarburg. It's been years since we made it to an event like this, and since the weather was perfect we decided to go check out the chickens and rabbits. Dave took his camera....just in case.

What fun......and what noise! Visiting the chicken barn meant we were treated to echoing rooster crows.....one after another. No sleeping late in that barn! The birds are simply beautiful and there are so many different kinds. Individual feather patterns were just amazing. And the bunnies were darling.
We even spotted a smiling pig.

We couldn't find a cream puff booth so saved a few calories by just looking at the animals. A fun morning.....and yes, some good photos!

Terminology......

It's personal. It's my own personal feelings about using certain words to describe certain situations.

When someone you love has a terminal illness it hits hard. The prognosis may be that your loved one has months or years to live......and there are treatments they can endure that will hold the disease process at bay. For awhile.

But at some point, the disease "wins".

So, personally, I hate it when people say he/she is fighting cancer, or his/her whatever. Because, at the end, when you are faced with the goodbye there is a small voice saying "if only he/she had fought a little harder".

And that's not what happens. That's not reasonable. That's putting the "blame" for a sad ending on the person who "lost" the battle.

I much prefer to think of how the person I loved lived....did everything he/she could do to enjoy another day.....to wake to see the sunrise, to plant a garden, to take a walk, to read a book to a grandchild, to prepare another meal, to have friends come for a barbeque. He/she lived every moment.....and appreciated it.

Certainly strength and attitude come into play and are very important. Giving up would rob the patient and all their loved ones of time they could have spent and enjoyed together.

But don't tell me they didn't "fight" hard enough. I resent that....I know how hard they worked to live another day. It isn't that they didn't fight hard enough....it's just that they were up against a completely unbeatable "foe".