It’s “Hey Rene J” Today!

Driving across I-80 and the two-lane roads, everything radiated sunshine yellow. The ditches were adorned with wild daisies, sunflowers, goldenrod, a yellow delphinium-like flower. The bean fields were turning. The roads were framed with the gold striping of the lanes.

I told myself I’d turn the radio volume on when Coldplay’s song, “Yellow,” was playing. It was on twice in my last foray to the Midwest, and it’s usually on at some point during the day. However, I forgot to check the radio stations, making it 257 miles or more before I realized I hadn’t turned up the volume on the radio at all! I proceeded to enjoy the quiet for the last 246 miles, never hearing, “Yellow,” just visually enjoying it.

Normally, yellow seems like a riotous color. Today, it was calming and comforting. Just beautiful all by itself.

While making masks, I found pipe cleaners to use for the little nose piece. They were all various colors – way too many to use for my purpose – unless I was sewing for a small nation.

So, I started thinking that we should try to emulate pipe cleaners. They come in various colors like we do. They can be very useful in many situations other than for cleaning out your pipe. (Try explaining why you need a pipe cleaner to your kid while you are telling them not to smoke?) Pipe cleaners are also flexible, bending to their needs.

Since a lot of recent plans have changed, I am committed to being a pipe cleaner – or “fuzzy stick” as they are now renamed with a politically correct moniker. Just bending rather than being bent, right?

Here are two more photos from the “Little Shop.” The first is part of my grandmother’s replanted hydrangea, which my mother ignores as it blossoms and overruns the backyard. I can’t grow hydrangeas. This one is about due for its annual pruning.

Compare these “zinnias from seed” with my wimpy already-grown marigolds.

My mother’s Boston fern is gargantuan. It is beyond anything you could ever purchase at a fern supply institution. (Nursery) The fact that it was her mother’s, now passed down to her, and next to me, is a lovely thing. (Okay…maybe to another sib?) I am honored to prune it when I am visiting. At the same time, I think, “This is truly larger than life. It could eat me?”

Thus, I dedicate this missive to my son, who assisted in the production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” a musical which has never been my favorite, yet I am scrambling to find a theme. A giant blood-thirsty plant? Well, I think I get it. The writers/authors/lyricists had their own mother’s plants to tend.

This fern is absolutely deserving of the entire room it occupies..

When the kids were young we instituted the “Penny Patrol” one summer. All of the coins we found on the ground went in a jar, and then at the end of summer we bought ice cream. We probably collected a whopping 79 cents, enough to pay the tax on the outing.

So while purchasing groceries yesterday, the announcement about a national coin shortage came over the speaker system. All shoppers were asked to use a credit card. That’s when I thought, “I should probably reinstitute Penny Patrol for the nation!” Seriously – we live in a city with one U.S. Mint and we are short on coins? It seems absurd. However, I could start collecting coins for our country – that is something I could do.

Ironically, last summer we sold my father’s coin collection. Who knew we should have held on for another year?

So, those of you reading this blog for any edification are already cognizant of the fact that you are NOT learning a darn thing. However, you are exceedingly important in the chain of communication. If you didn’t read, perhaps my husband wouldn’t read? And then…where would we be?

Sometimes this space is used to communicate important things to my spouse or children. Things that occur to me when they are otherwise occupied and I am not. Perhaps something like, “Oh, and by the way, Mom’s floor is really hard and if you drop an IPad on it – it will shatter.”

To be fair, those of us around the table skimmed what the cost for repair would be and concluded a newer version was really necessary anyway. (After all, I am a professional.)

The good news? My husband does read and learned of my faux pas when you did. Carry on!

The best laid plans of mice and men…

The WiFi was not the problem – rather the lack of a tool for writing on this particular journey. I had to purchase a new Apple product, reload, re-passwordize everything, and pair my keyboard with my new device. Additionally, I had to do it all without the aid of a familial computer geek.

I all know is that my mom’s kitchen floor is extremely solid, unyielding to anything dropped upon its surface. I shall be obtaining some new “grippers” for my keyboard and IPad upon my return.

Anyway…that’s the best-laid plan for now!

Don’t ask me why, but I was thinking about college drop-off days on my adventure through the heartland. I remember I cried after dropping my eldest so far away from home. I missed her before we even said good bye. My son – I looked to heaven and prayed that I could muster tears! I would miss him, of course, but hey, I’d been through this and he was just fine, and I would be just fine, and my house would now stay clean. Even my own mother had no trouble seeing us off after the first one was gone. “There were more of you at home.”

Chatting with my beautiful niece, “Pali,” I asked how the first day of school went for her young ones. She dropped the boys for a half day this week and commented that the littlest guy was not a happy camper, putting on his sad face and getting teary. “Good bye! See you later!”

Good job, Mom! The second one doesn’t always get the same maternal emotions in the same way, do they? Nice to think about back-to-school days.

Let’s say you are heading down the highway going 75 – (Unless of course, one of your graduation years ends somewhere in the high 70’s. Then you are allowed to go that speed.)

You’re plowing along and road construction pops up. The first sign invites you to slow to 65 or risk the fine, then 55, and finally you are “crawling” at 45 mph on the interstate. It seems unbearably slow, even though you are making progress. However, your lane becomes further restricted, construction is occurring on an overpass, and all traffic comes to a halt. You have to sit and wait it out with everybody else.

At this point, you are regretting not stopping at the rest stop previously announced. You are recalculating your time of arrival at the destination ahead. You are suddenly starving and hoping food is on the horizon. Eventually, the flag man a half mile ahead gives the go-ahead, and you pray you get to be in that group.

Analogy time. (or maybe extended metaphor?) This is the pandemic. Some of us were flying along faster than the speed limit. Some of us were driving slower and didn’t feel the halting as quickly. And some of us were stopped anyway, so it really didn’t matter. Eventually we get to move and at some point get up to speed. Perhaps we will even check our speed, increase it or decrease? Throw ourselves into our future, or spend thoughtful time reflecting and enjoying the thorny rose bushes? Take the gifts of the rest stops along the way rather than whizzing by them?

Obviously, I had too much time to think on my drive yesterday! However, I did think this is all about making time good, not about making good time. (Not my initial wisdom. I had to read Robert M. Pirsig’s, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” back in that speed limit era.)

So, just making time good.

Yes…Iam setting sail for other lands. (Those lands being the mother-home and “good life” next door to Colorado.) Thus, I am not quite confident in my ability to write a daily post. Well, I could write it, but I might not be able to post it. So, you receive a reprieve!

Let’s all enjoy the vacation….unless I invade your thoughts with mine. Ahoy!