community – The Hermits' Rest

Getting there

Today I traveled all day! That makes for a heck of a long slog, but there were plenty of bright spots. And of course there were some challenges that seem more amusing now than when they happened.

I got to Austin airport (thanks to Lee) in plenty of time, which was good, because even the first class check-in was slow (I used points to get it). My carryon bag got inspected, and the woman who looked very hard at my jewelry bag didn’t close the zipper all the way! Luckily I lost nothing after dragging it all across the airport in that state.

At the waiting area, I enjoyed friendly people chatting with strangers, then ended up chatting away to my own stranger. We bonded over our love of Navajo jewelry (she was covered in beautiful silver). That was so much fun! Now she wants to go to Santa Fe together, ha ha.

The first class flight to Charlotte was pleasant and included wine. I needed it to get through the wait for the next flight to Daytona Beach. I met nice (but confused about flying) people while waiting, too. We were delayed due to misrouted luggage. That delay was the catalyst to the longest part of the long day.

There are not enough seats in the area where passengers on tiny planes must wait.

I ended up sitting next to an incredibly chatty elderly woman who was struggling with pain and some cognitive issues. So I listened to her the whole flight. I know a lot about her dating and marriage history and her illnesses and her attractive great-grandchildren. She’s only 5 years older than me! I think I helped her make it through the flight, which I was glad to do.

However, my patience ran thin when we arrived exactly when a thunderstorm popped up, and we had to sit on the tarmac a long time. This got the elders around me all in a tizzy. Why are we sitting here? (it’s dangerous to the ground staff to stand around in a storm). When will it stop raining? (when these here clouds on the radar move off.) Why can’t we stand up and move around the plane? (The wind is blowing really hard.) Plus Debbie (that was her name) decided she was going to die, then began singing and praying. Oh boy. She called her daughter and said she knew she’d be okay because she was sitting next to a meteorologist (me). I guess the Clime app impressed her.

Oh was I relieved to get off that plane. I was effusively complimentary to the car rental lady, just because she seemed so normal compared to my plane companions. I was not thrilled that it was dark before I could go find the condo where I’m staying, but the rental car is a Honda with all the controls where I think they should be. That helped a lot.

I found Ormond Beach at last. It looks pretty in the dark. The condos are not as fancy as usual, but they are obviously improving them to meet the Hilton brand specs. They can’t make them bigger or actually have ocean views, but that’s okay. Why? Because I came to see my friend Vicki, not to bask in luxury. And to do nature stuff, which this part of Florida is chock full of. (I will also work, which should go well with my fancy new fold-out monitors.)

Quirky. There is a weird window looking into the main bathroom.

It feels weirdly good to be in my home state again. Everything seems “right” somehow. Probably the familiar plants, house styles, and street signs help. Florida road signs are easier for me than Texas ones. Strange.

We will see what I think when the sun comes up. Anyway, here are tiny condo pictures.

It’s just great…

Imagine that said in the voice of the boss in The Office. I always use that voice when I see these guys.

And all the things I can talk about are greeeat, too. Work is great. I have a greeeat new orange suitcase for my next trip. And I got this thing that gives a laptop three screens. It will be greeeat for working at condos and in the RV.

Nothing that’s really on my mind is bloggable. So I’ll thank everyone who responded to my last post, remind my family who reads this that I love you, and let the rest of you know I appreciate your kindness to me. You really are great, without any sarcasm.

Basking in friendship glow

We just returned from the 50th wedding anniversary party of our friends Jack and Jennifer S. in Cedar Park, Texas. You’ve seen many pictures of me and Jen acting mushy from friendship when we go camping. There’s no way we couldn’t go to this party (and we also brought Martha with us from Cameron).

Here we are looking mushy from friendship again.

In addition to really good food that I didn’t eat much of, I was just thrilled to see so many of our other old friends from my years at Live Oak UU Church. It’s wonderful that I see so many of them on Facebook still, but it filled me with joy to see them in person.

It was also great to see old friends my kids’ age, like Lindsay, who said I can share this.

I remembered my vow to myself. I made sure to tell people who mean a lot to me how grateful I am for them. How often do you get a chance to do that? I even remembered all my friends’ names! It felt incredibly fine to share my true appreciation for those whose words buoy me up and whose humor brightens my days. Sniff.

One such friend is Lyndy. As you can see we were mushy with friendship.

While I was catching up with all my friends and their adult children, Lee made a new friend and enjoyed talking to him. Thank goodness for Jamiel!

I’m so grateful we were able to attend and celebrate our friends along with our other friends. Seeing older friends looking great and younger friends blossoming into adulthood was a privilege. It reminds me to treasure my friends at home now, while I can!

I can’t believe I know anyone who’s been married 50 years! Wow!

Doing hard things can lead to rewards

I rewarded myself for all that closet cleaning I’ve been doing by saying yes to an invitation to meet our friends Mike and Martha at the bakery in town. Lee even agreed to come along, though he was displeased that screeching children were hurting his ears. Nonetheless we all had nice conversations.

The bakery is so cute and GOOD. Visit Shirley Mae’s Bakery if you’re ever in Cameron, Texas.

Since I am the lesser hermit, I enjoyed talking to Martha, my friend Mary who was there with her family, and my son and his partner, who also came in. Then I had to have a good chat with the bakery owner’s dad and their nice employee, who collects Native American jewelry and is a Master Gardener, so she knows some of my friends.

This, dear readers, is why small-town living can be pleasant. I enjoy it much more now that I’m not paranoid about gossip and mean-spirited people. I’m glad I’m better at not caring about people who aren’t nice.

After all that socialization I was fine with watching some TV (finished Hawk and got through much of Ride or Die today) in the quiet house.

Of course, I spent two more hours putting clothing into boxes and moving things around. I almost finished sorting everything hanging up, and I disposed of two garbage bags of plastic hangers from my old house.

This was a mess. It’s my work outfits, dresses, and what passes for dress-up attire.

I still have a big pile of stuff to hang, now that there’s room for it, and plenty of hangers! That shows you how big the purge was. Tomorrow the hanging stuff will be hung, and if I have time, shoes will be culled* and arranged.

The horror! Goal is to have the surface of this island visible tomorrow.

My teeth still hurt but it’s better every day. I think the dry socket is healing. I think I’ll join my sleeping beauties and indulge in my favorite activity, sleep.

Carlton and Benito are doing much better these days. B is healing.

(*Sue, that’s the word my typo was trying to be yesterday)

No more fried foods

Sigh. My lovely meal last night, which featured a cream-based soup, fried oysters, French-fried potatoes, and collard greens swimming in grease was a recipe for extreme discomfort for me, since I no longer have a gall bladder to spurt out extra bile for fat/filled meals. Needless to say, I didn’t have a fun night of sleep, or was I up for another nature day today.

Morning view was not bad. I looked for dolphins.

But Anita and I made the best of it by taking it easy this morning until I felt better. We then went to the Market Commons shopping area, which is like most such places, losing tenants. But we found Chico’s, where I could get a second pair of jeans to make up for forgetting to bring any. Um, and some shirts and shorts. We also enjoyed talking to the staff. They always have such nice old ladies in those stores (in other words, women our age).

We then visited an art gallery for local artists of varying qualities. I enjoyed some of it a lot, and of course, I got to chatting with the two women who were there. One was crocheting some simple dolls that she makes for the gallery (I forgot to get a photo). The other was creating cute coloring pages of the whimsical characters she paints.

The doll lady got me all interested in Sumi-e painting, which she studied after being told she had no talent for watercolor (what kind of teacher tells students that?). I may get a book and practice pad.

These practice pads look cool for any technique practice.

She was starting a doll and when I expressed interest, she told me exactly how she makes the bodies, which is ridiculously easy. But I wouldn’t have figured it out myself. She even sent me out with a crochet hook and some t-shirt fabric yarn to practice on. What a generous soul she was! I even have an idea to make similar items with knitted outfits.

I did buy two coloring books from the other lady, one as a gift for Ruby the goddaughter.

To make it up to Anita for sitting through the craft talk, I took her to a pleasant bistro near the gallery, where I had a sensible salad. She had a crab cake sandwich that she declared was good as one from Baltimore.

We enjoyed a nice beach walk, which I really needed. We wondered what the globs of clay-like stuff on the beach were, but assumed it was from dredging that’s going on. They are weird sights.

I’m reading a lot so I got another book at Barnes and Noble. I finished a book of Steve Martin’s writing, so I needed a longer queue. Eek, I now need to write two book reports! Two in the queue will take a while, Michael Pollan’s latest and Kevin’s history of Americans being mean to Cherokee people in the late 1700s. It’s important to learn these things to remind myself that assholes have been trying to put down others since this country was founded. (And yes, others had great ideals.)

On that note…off to bed in anticipation of fun tomorrow.

Advice to young people

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

Dear younger humans,

You’re fine, even your broken parts. Other people’s negative opinions about you reflect their issues, not yours.

You’re lovable!

Sincerely,

Suna

Long day. Did good work. Someone else didn’t like it. Nonetheless, it was good. Heeded my own advice.

Happiness is fleeting

What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?

I always feel sad when I hear people say their goal is to be happy. Or all they want is for their kids to be happy. All the time? We can’t always be happy.

These incessant hurlers do seem always happy.

I’d be exhausted if I was happy for days at a time. Happiness is a fleeting state of mind, for me. I want to have happiness, joy, and contentment in my life. Yet, all those feelings are sweeter and and more to be treasured when life has ups and downs to compare them to.

So I do not wish my children or anyone happiness all the time, just enough to savor and enjoy. My ideal would be to feel vaguely content most of the time, with sadness during appropriate times and happiness sprinkled throughout the day in little bursts.

The last bit of wildflower color. And many grapes. May have to cut those back.

I make sure to notice when I’m happy, since it comes more often these days. For example, I was happy just now when hugging Carlton.

I do wish that life could have less anxiety and stress. Everyone seems to have an imbalance of that, if they’re paying attention! This became abundantly clear yesterday, as so many friends expressed how good it felt to see the Obama Center opening. Independently, I kept hearing how people had forgotten what it felt like to be proud of a leader, and to hear former political rivals being civil with each other. The constant dread of these times lifted briefly.

Ephemeral. Most happiness is just that. Like catching two dragonflies on the wing.

Little joys for girls and boys

Today was pretty darned pleasant. I got some items on my to-do list done, and enjoyed a day of less bad news surrounding me. Woo hoo!

The knockout roses Lee bought that I thought were doomed are both blooming. One little joy!

I went with Lee and Chris to Lowe’s to pick up supplies for the pool house project behind our house. I remembered to ask them to get a new air conditioner for my she shed, which will certainly improve horse feeding this summer.

I also finally remembered to get an American flag to go by our front gate. I’d been intending to do it for quite some e, but I rarely go anywhere that would have one these days. I want to be clear that everyone on our property has hopes for a better future here, no matter the details of our beliefs.

When we got home I hurried to do barn chores, and the flag was up by the time I got finished! What a joy.

I met an interesting man who builds furniture mostly out of 2x4s at the checkout line at Lowe’s. I enjoyed looking at his creative ideas and techniques. He reminded me very much of the creative builders in my family!

After Lowe’s Lee and I went to the pet store and got some “rosy red minnows” to put in the horses’ water troughs. That’s another to-do item I kept forgetting to do. I didn’t remember to take any pictures before I put them in. Let’s hope enough of them survive to do mosquito and algae control.

Apache and Spice always are fascinated by fish. Let’s hope these hide under their cement blocks well.

We got canna lilies to plant near the pool, too. The variety name cracked me up. My mother’s first name was Canova. Close. No humans by that name are authorized in this property, but innocent sale bin plants are.

Plus, I gave my nails a rainbow manicure and finished May on the temperature blanket. April and May were fairly pleasant. June is rather red so far. Red is over 90°, wine is over 95° and hot pink is over 100°. I’m hoping for very little hot pink this summer.

I wish you little moments of joy and much peace. Thanks for reading.

People can be rejuvenating

If you’ve read my writing before, you’ve probably realized I’ve gotten more like the hermit in our ranch name as time goes on. I get pretty drained in crowds nowadays, even Master Naturalist meetings. (Yet I am going to a convention soon, which I may regret.)

However, one-on-one interactions lift my spirits so much! Today I had many opportunities for good conversation. I’m thankful to all!

I’m even grateful for this large bold jumping spider who entertained us this morning.

This morning I spent a good while talking about some complicated stuff with Kathleen over our morning coffee, but soon the topics veered off into what an odd little family dynamic we have over here at the compound. For example, we keep repaying each other similar amounts of money, so it’s just floating around in circles. Much laughter ensued. Penney also found it funny.

Next, Terry the farrier came to trim the horses and Fiona. We had good conversation with him, too. I enjoy learning his stories of his interesting life and his own odd happenings, like someone just giving him a Jeep. He also found a weird thing growing on Spice, near her tests. Our guess is that it’s a skin tag or little melanoma. I need to find someone knowledgeable to look at it.

After a nice, quiet afternoon of work, Terri from Master Naturalists came over to get a blog software refresher so she can help on the Master Naturalist blog. We are supposed to have a backup for all our roles. We fed the horses, looked at all the ponds and outbuildings, and yes, practiced blogging. I tried to explain our family arrangements here, and once again realized how weird it sounds when you say it out loud. I enjoyed her stories of living on a sailboat with young children, too.

I know I share a lot of egrets. But they are so beautiful.

It was a very pleasant time with no deadlines or big agenda. The whole day was like that. Very little negativity and much supportive interaction. I wish you similar days!

It’s nice to be nice

Today was good. One of my friends had asked our chat group if anyone had certain essential oils. I thought to myself, why, I have a considerable amount of essential oils. I could give them to her so she wouldn’t have to spend all the money to buy them. Then I realized I now only use one or two oils, so ten years’ worth of collecting was just sitting there. I decided to give it all away.

I could barely carry the bag full of oils in boxes, bags, etc. into the restaurant for lunch. I laughed as my friends descended on those bottles of oils like magpies spotting shiny objects. The one who needed the oils to tend to her llama went first, and she found all she needed.

I got joy out of everyone’s chatter and discussion of where and how they were going to use their aromatic treasures. It all went to someone, including the boxes, one of which was a humidor. One friend only took a box! I was just so pleased to know that this stuff I’d spent a lot of money on would get used by people who’d enjoy it. I’m so happy for them.

Later in the day, I gave the phone number we’d been using for our late lamented Air Bnb house to my son’s partner, who is about to lose their previous number. I’m so proud of myself for remembering to hold on to the number for just this kind of occurrence. My reward was hugs and smiles, which made my heart soar. All I want is to make life a little easier for them!

A different topic

This still relates to being nice, but in a different way. I finally got an equine dentist to come out and float our horses’ teeth. Kayli at Walking K Equine Dentistry is charming and enthusiastic. She’s also one strong cowgirl.

It’s always fun to watch the horses get worked on. They always feel better with sharp edges removed and irregularities smoothed out.

Dusty wanted to share a story with Kayli.

The best part is when they’re done and recovering from the sedation. It’s pure relaxation. I really enjoyed listening to Spice snoring as she recovered.

I’m glad we found someone who lives nearby to do this work, since it needs to be done yearly and our previous dentist has had trouble with appointments (she’s still very good at the job). Mabel needs to be seen again in 6 months because she has a loose tooth. Or Spice. What a fine memory I have. Good thing Kathleen was with me to remember things and tell fun stories about cattle. We are an interesting team.

I’m thinking that, since I hear often that I need to have fewer objects, I should keep my ears open in case someone else needs something I can pass on. It’s uplifting to think that my unused items could be just what someone else needs!