A butterfly in hand

Today is Friday, 11/11 and the most remarkable thing that happened today was the butterfly that opened in my hand. I was cleaning the house before Diane and Carl and Chava came for dinner. I dusted (yes, dusted!) some window sills on the stairway, and when I went to sweep up the piles into my dust pan, there was a large triangle in the pile. On closer examination, I realized that it was a folded butterfly. I talked to her, oh sweet little butterfly, let's go outside--and then she answered by opening her wings to show me her beautiful colors. I took about 20 pictures, and will attach one here...but not to tomorrow.

This was all to top off a very nice day--and SUNNY all day. Exercise class at the gym, then chatting away in Spanish at the Redwing Cafe.  Frittata was about a C-, but still love the cafe.  Brought my sewing machine into the dining room and worked on quilt for Talia's baby....almost here!  Then at 3:00 off to Uke practice---we really worked hard on arrangements for songs, and sound pretty good. Even Ted sounded good. Ordered a sweet potato pie for Sunday--shhhhh---book group. 

Shabbat dinner with D and C and C with lots of good conversation about books (Sapian, Homo Deux) , whether there will be jobs in the future, whether there will be workshops at the Limmud, dogs we have known. We didn't talk about kids, grandkids or our latest medical breakdowns, or latest movies we have seen.  Nice to be with old friends for shabbat.

birthdays are coming up--Chava on 11/18 and Diane on 11/29

Today was about a 9 on the scale of being busy. Almost forgot about day 2 of my blog, there goes my cinnamon bun!  But here I am.  

This morning was filled with exercise and errands and emails. Then left in the rain and traffic for the Northend--a meeting at Beth Am about an upcoming trip/pilgrimage to Civil Rights sites in the South--Atlanta, Selma, Birmingham, Memphis.  Coincidentally when I was doing my morning errands, I ran into LuRochelle at Grocery Outlet----she had just returned from a similar trip sponsored by UW.   (I hope LR never reads this blog because I'm sure I misspelled her name....)  I think the trips are similar in the places they go, but I'm not sure that I want to have an all-Jewish group.  I think it would be more interesting to have a variety of ages, races, religions, etc. Will have to ponder and research more before deciding.... I thought about my first real experience with an African American person, Phyllis Justice, my college roommate. We never became close friends and  somehow it was a missed opportunity to get to know someone who was coming from a very different life experience.  We didn't talk about race, the riots in Newark, the black power movement, religion, Interesting that I was a sociology major.....

This evening I went to a talk by Cara Driman, a lawyer from Virginia who just wrote a book called "The War on Children" about the criminal injustice system in this country for juvenile offenders. What an eye opening talk, similar to Just Mercy by Byron Stevenson, which I'm reading for my book group. Which is why I went to this talk. One thing leads to another in the quest for understanding.....good to be traveling some new roads. And see where they lead. 






Then drove to Rainier Arts Center for a talk by a

The disappearing post....don't leave me!!

Hello it's me Joan. Today I went to Kaiser Clinic for an annual preventative care visit.  Instead of seeing a doctor for 10 minutes, the new model is to sit and talk with a nurse for an hour. So here I was at 2:00 on a Tuesday afternoon chatting about my health with Shawn.  We talked about food and exercise and mental health and ....oh yes, memory. Or lack of. I said that I was getting pretty scatter-brained in my retirement, if I lost my calendar I'd be really lost. What day is today?  I have random notes all over blank pages of my calendar. What was I supposed to mention to the doctor? I looked at the date of my appointment...and it said "see May 22" and there on May 22 was a list of 4 things to talk about.  Being retired is like being on a scavenger hunt....all the time. Always looking for clues for where to be next.  Shawn suggested I write a blog. Who would want to read my blog??  Sean said that he would. Did he have his fingers crossed--probably--but it was an interesting idea, so I'll try it for awhile. Maybe I should have a personal challenge---with an incentive. Blog every day for a week, and I get a cinnamon roll and coffee.  I can have a new challenge each week. Big ideas, big blogs. Hey Joan, just start small and keep writing.

Thanks for the idea Shawn. If you ever read this, you can tell me at my hour-long appointment with you next year....if you remember! 

I learned one fascinating fact from Shawn today--that dogs can have a litter of puppies from more than one daddy dog. That's why his chihuahua/dashund has long legs and weights 25 pounds. 

OK, that's it for my first ever blog spot. Adios!

Day One.....Today is the first day of the rest of this blog

OK, something went way wrong. I just spent 5 minutes writing all about starting a blog, and it disappeared.  Are you there somewhere in the blog-0-sphere?  Come back! I already forgot what I wrote, grrrrrr. It's the process not the product, right??? Wrong!!