Mother's Day gadget~

I just got the perfect Mother's Day gift: A gadget-- a man's gift-- or at least the kind of gift men like to give: a GPS for my car.

Yes! Forget diamonds, flowers, and shrubs to be planted on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Forget breakfast in bed.

I need a GPS.

With my left/right confusion, and inability to visualize directions, I've been lost more times than I care to admit, closer to home than I care to admit.

I have trouble with lefts and rights. If you tell me to go left, I'll invariably head right. It's a glitch in my directional wiring. I've worked around it by excessive use of reverse gear and U-turns.

Add to that my tendency to "zone out," only to discover miles and miles later when I come out of my reverie, that I missed a turn and have no clue where I am.

I once drove by my own driveway, so engrossed in the book on tape I was listening to, that I failed to notice I was home.

My husband has come to expect my phone calls when I'm off on a jaunt somewhere. "Bruce? I'm on 95 S and it says Providence? Now where do I go?"

He always knows where I went wrong and redirects me. Except for the time that I asked, "Should I take Exit 11 S? Hurry!"

Too late. Traveling 75 mph I passed the exit before he could answer.

Today Bruce gave me the GPS before I headed off to visit my mother. She lives an hour and a half away in an assisted living home. I've driven there several times, but that means nothing. I've relied on Google-map directions on the seat beside me.

Today with my Garmin GPS suctioned to the windshield, and my destination programmed, I drove with confidence. I'd traveled .9 miles when I realized I'd left my cell phone at home.

I U-turned. The sweet GPS voice began. "Recalibrating! Turn left. Recalibrating. Turn right." She was anxious to get me to my destination.

I got nervous. I didn't want her to blow some of her digital innards, but her voice stayed calm, and I figured she needed to get used to my foibles.

She has some foibles, too, my little GPS chick. On the way home I stopped at Wrentham Village, a shopping center the size of a small town. She had trouble getting me out of a parking lot full of twists and turns, stop signs and traffic lights. "I trusted her when she said, "Turn left," even though it didn't look promising.

She tried for a while, then went silent, just a gray arrow on a blank screen. I followed my gut and got us both out, and soon she was confidently guiding me home.

Maybe between the two of us, we'll get where we need to go. She'll remind me to turn, and I'll get her out of the tough parking lots.

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

This retirement thing~

This retirement thing . . . it seems like it should be so easy, so effortless, so thrilling, to stop the daily grind. It is thrilling; at least I think it will be come September when I'm not following the school buses to work. But it's not easy. I had a plan book on my desk for 35 years, one I filled in weekly, scheduling new lessons at 45-minute intervals, meetings, parent conferences, and field trips. I knew what needed to be done and when. I got up at the same time everyday (5:45 a.m.), ate lunch at the same time (12:06 p.m.) and watched the kids pack their bags for home everyday at 2:15 p.m. I'm not sorry to give up that regimentation. But three weeks into the summer, I find myself making lists of things I need to do, and there is so much to do that I can't imagine how I managed while I was working eight hours on top of it all. There are the household chores, gardening, exercise (aren't retirees supposed to get fitter?), freelance writing, book reviewing, readin...

Lesson from a Weed~

If dandelions could talk, here’s what I think they might say: " Bloom where you’re planted, sink your roots deep. Smile in the sun, soak up the rain, and let the wind take you to new places." Dandelions are an early spring food for bees. They are often the first flower a young child picks for his mother and they provide a sweet moment for a mother to teach her child to make a wish and blow away the seeds. They speckle landscapes with lemon-colored glory. Common, and often disliked by those in favor of perfect lawns, we trample over them with hardly a thought. All this crossed my mind as I stood in this field of dandelions, most having gone to seed. I had an hour to myself at a retreat at a beautiful family farm on this day of unexpected sunshine and warmth. I was looking for a moment of stillness. I’d watched two swans, visited the alpacas, chatted with the chickens, tried to coax a kit...

~Upstream and Down~

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