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...

Countdown! 10, 9, 8 . . .

Retirement is no big deal statistically speaking. Multitudes step out of the working world every year. I remember when my father retired at 63, two years earlier than typical in those days; I remember my mother's retirement party a few years later. But I don't remember either of them obsessing about ending their careers. They just retired--with a big smile and a sigh, I might add-- then went about the rest of their lives. So most likely I'm over thinking my imminent early-retirement at the ripe young age of 57. My husband tells me I think too much, but then for him the reverse is true. In the car he once answered my question, "What are you thinking?" with, "Nothing. I'm driving." Nothing? Is that even possible? He says it is. Friday my good friends gave me a retirement party that they said was so "me." It was perfect. I enjoyed it to the fullest-- laughs, hugs, warm wishes, tears, and so much more-- and breathed a sigh of relief when I got ...

I kid you not~

We're at the part in the social studies book where the thirteen colonies are forming, and Massachusetts Bay Colony, despite being formed by religious dissenters, allows no dissent among its residents. Roger Williams was banished and has headed south to start a colony in present day Rhode Island with Anne Hutchison following on his heels. She has been speaking up as well, in Bible studies for women, later drawing in men. The student book covers 100 years in four pages, so all the juicy details of Anne's "blasphemy" has been left out, but I paused at this part and opened a discussion about the way things were then-- Puritan women were subordinate to their husbands and were not to teach men, among other things. The kids didn't seem indignant, or concerned, or in any way vested in the plight of Anne, or women in general in those days. But they were energized by a conversation about women and men today. Ashley, an earnest student, and smart, raised her hand. It takes a...

~Upstream and Down~

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