Long Island Lavender

 One of the delights of a vacation for a curious (nosy) person such as myself is meeting people who have a passion.  Everyone is usually proud of 'their town', but passionate people are usually attached to and passionate about a very particular place or event.  On Sunday we ran into one of those people when we visited the Lavender Farm.  A woman about my age told me everything there was to know about lavender.

I learned their farm is in two parts:  A 17 acre parcel (see above), and a 31 acre parcel.  Even with all the lavender harvested, the scent was pervasive.  There was no doubt what kind of farm you were visiting.  At the farm store they were selling lavender plants (most of which were still blooming) in the size pot in which you would buy a geranium.  And, the bees were busy at work on those blooming plants.  They were also advertising their once a year lavender honey was now available.  In addition to lavender, the farm has its own bee hives.   

There's French Lavender and English Lavender.  Generally, French Lavender has one bloom per stalk while English Lavender usually has two blooms.  "F" (French) is for fragrance, and "E" (English) is for edible.  Thus, you would make a sachet out of French lavender and brew your tea with English lavender.  The lady I chitchatted with confided she drinks a cup of lavender tea every night right before bed as her sleep aid.

In July, harvest begins as the sounds of chainsaws rip through the air.  One man wielding a chainsaw can harvest one acre a day.  Prior to gas driven chainsaws, lavender was harvested using scythes.  It was a much slower harvest, and less noisy.  If you notice, the lavender plants look like domes.  That's the preferred method of harvest.  Apparently, you never harvest lavender close to the ground

19th century scythe

 The woman I talked to demonstrated how to harvest a geranium sized lavender plant you would buy at their Farm Store.  She thrust her hand into the plant about halfway between the tip end of the plant (where the bloom grows) and the soil.  Then she spread her fingers and mimed snipping the plant just above her fingers in an arc, so you would be left with a dome shaped plant.  To successfully grow lavender, you need six hours of direct sunlight and good drainage.

The store was chock full of an array of lavender products.  I was thrilled to find one of my favorite ointments for dry skin.  It is a bees wax/oil pressed with lavender oil, and I seek it out every chance I get.  I use it at night on my hands and feet since lavender is used to calm angry skin as well as promote sleep.  This store had sachets, neck wraps, bath salts, hand lotion, soap, plants, tea, honey, mugs, aprons, t-towels, and my personal favorite:  a purple t-shirt advertising the Lavender Farm.  I also bought harvested lavender in a four ounce pouch.

I plan to add that lavender to my own rose petals I brought to Brooklyn from my rose bushes in Arizona.  I'm going to be making some sachets out of the Korean silk Marilyn, my mother-in-law, gave me.  (She and Norm, Drake's Dad, spent two years on an American Air Force base in South Korea in the 1970's, and Norm's employees had full Korean ceremonial dress costumes made out of silk presented to both of them.)  Forty years later, I was the happy recipient of the silk.  Since the clothes were floor length and 'full', there was a lot of salvageable material. 

Once again, readers, you now know more about a subject than you ever realized you wanted to know.  

The Intrepid Pigeon Fighter Makes a Plea

 

Staring Down the Humans

The Intrepid Pigeon Fighter, whose fame was enhanced by several blog entries [1/30/12;  2/5/12/; 2/21/12] ,  retired from competition many years ago after winning his gold medal.  He defeated an entire flock of the rat birds on behalf of his mother.  He vanquished these pests from nesting in the eaves of her house.  He entertained thousands of pigeon fighting admirers with his intrepid battles against roosting by these vermin on his mother's front porch.  And, when the field was won, he passed on his winning techniques in the Intrepid Pigeon Fighting School he founded using his sponsorship $$.   

Upon our move to Brooklyn, NY, he closed his school and considered himself completely retired from the pigeon fighting business.  However, his outrage has been building.  While living here, he's discovered a mutated version of these so called 'rock doves'.  If you are walking on the city streets, these pigeons stare you down.  Expect to be pecked, or even flocked, if you make the unwise choice of trying to 'shoo' these so called 'birds' out of your path.  The IPF thinks these NY pigeons must be a mutation of the suburban version.  They nest on roof tops in a thin oxygen atmosphere.  Intrepid speculates there must be pigeon brain mutation since their diet is totally take-out/delivery. 

The Intrepid Pigeon Fighter is so concerned with the bold attitude of these NYC pigeons, he's willing to share all his pigeon fighting methodology and techniques with any interested New Yorker.  Just send, a stamped, self addressed envelope together with $100 dollars in food delivery coupons to THE INTREPID PIGEON FIGHTER, Brooklyn, NY 11231.  Satisfaction guaranteed!  New Yorkers what do you have to lose?  This pigeon behavior is INTOLERABLE!

Owl Sleeper

   

Social Influencing

 Hasn't life changed!  And the rate of change is dizzying.  Who can keep up?  Not me.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the glut of content, here's the solution of too much information many people have adopted:  Social influencers.  If you are old or wary or have adapted to the information age by opting out, you may not know what social influence is.  Here's a tutorial.

A social influencer is a person with a robust, even mind blowing presence on the web.  They tend to post vlogs (short videos on a topic) instead of writing blogs (a now archaic presence on the web).  Using YouTube, and Instagram, they build hundreds of thousands if not millions of 'followers' (people who watch the vlogs) and 'like them'.  Thus, social influencers tend to be industry specific (beauty, food, parenting, automotive, tech, etc.).  

Now, here's the real kicker:  People trust the opinions of social influencers over information provided by a product manufacturer or government official, or elected official.  In other words, a company can make all the advertisements they desire, a politician or official can deliver information or speeches, but they are not as believed as the vlogger.  Can you already see what's happening?  

Social influencers make $$$$ by accepting advertisements on their vlogs or just outright cash from producers of products or backers of a particular world view, and they vlog about it.  Basically, you're still being shilled even if you think you're getting an unbiased assessment of a product or idea by a vlogger.   These unvetted (who monitors their truthfulness), uncredentialled (what are their qualifications) and uninformed vloggers are the current movers of public opinion, and they are being straight up paid and manipulated by the wealthy and the political fringe.  

So, what will change a person's opinion on a topic or about a product?  Vloggers have to be aware of 'cognitive dissonance'.  This is a psychology term which means how people perceive information which is contrary to their world view.  Let's say you 'follow' one of the leading vloggers on any subject you can imagine:  beauty, parenting, politics to name a few.  One day, the beauty vlogger does a video showing how to use the least amount of make up possible.  Or, the parenting blogger does a video showing how to 'hit a toddler'.  Or, a right wing political vlogger does a video endorsing climate change.  Any one of these would be contrary to the world views of a majority of his/her 'followers'.  How does the follower of a social influencer handle the vlogger's sudden change of heart?  Not only does the loyal follower ignore the influencer's opinion, they begin to actively double down on their own world view rejecting the influencer. 

Back to the question:  How can you change a person's opinion on a topic or about a product?  It's still all about social influence.  People shift their thinking about a topic or product when they hear the contrary view from the outer edges of the social influencer's network. (This is according to a paper from the University of Pennsylvania on social networking.)  If you want to change opinions, avoid the center of a social network.  Instead, look to an influencer on the outer edges of a social network.  Instead of being one of a million, the person who changes opinions is one of 100.  

Social influence is a reality of the electronic age.  Everyone who doesn't live under a rock is being socially influenced.  Pretending YOUR opinions are not being influenced is simply folly.   As soon as information started to be disseminated more globally, people have been influenced.  Think books, newspapers, movies, radio, television, and now:  websites. 

Here's why you should care and think about who is influencing you.  The United States moves socially and politically on PUBLIC OPINION.  You can't legislate people's opinions.  People change their opinions about a subject based on exposure.  Surprisingly, exposure to local influencers are what changes opinions.  However, mega influencers (bought and paid for) drown out other voices.   The question a thinking person asks is:  Who is trying to shaping my world view? 

Letter Writing is Drowning my Blog

 I write letters.  I've been writing letters seriously since 2010.  What is serious letter writing?  Currently, my definition of 'serious' is an average of ten letters a week.  Why would I do that?  First, and foremost is because I was poleaxed for two years (2005 - 2007).  During that time I lost my job, my ability to walk, developed chronic pain issues, had three surgeries, and spent all that time house bound.  I also spent a total of eight months in bed during that two year period.  I battled not just physical pain, but mental issues such as anger and depression.  Thanks to a combination of friends and Pastor Marilyn (pastor at St. Paul UMC at the that time) I pulled through.  When Pastor Marilyn had the temerity to suggest something good was going to come from all my suffering, I cussed her thoroughly.  (Sigh....let me apologize here publicly to her.)  I couldn't imagine how anything good could come from two years of misery.

Well, good things have come from that misery.  I've always been an optimist, but now I do have a greater understanding of faithfulness.  However, that's another blog.  Back to letter writing....  That two year period in my life made me understand how reaching out with snail mail comforts people.  I sporadically wrote cards and notes to people who were ill as soon as I was up and about.  It was when I left the town I'd lived in for twenty years to start vagabonding I realized the importance of letters to maintain friendships.  Paula has written me every week (sometimes more than once) from the week I left Texas.  If we still kept paper address books, my page in hers would be multiple pages since in eleven years, I've had almost twenty addresses.

The number of letters per week I write has slowly evolved over the past eleven years.  First, I realized I should write Paula back.  Second, I re-connected with an uber elderly person (over age 90!) who I thought would like letters since those seemed a lot more natural to her than electronic communication.  Third, since I have a lot of friends older than me, some started getting sick and I wanted to be in touch with them in a meaningful way.  (I dislike sappy 'get well soon' greeting cards.)  Finally, some of my youngest friends seemed to need the comfort and stability of weekly letters.

So, at this point in time I'm writing Paula, the uber elderly, the sick/recovering, friends my age, and young friends.  Here's what I have discovered:  Sick people, even when recovered, were mum about their recovery.  They wanted to stay on the letter list!  Young friends, even when they want to be more connected by responding to my letters, are struggling with the explosion of their careers as the pandemic winds down, but they want the connectivity and don't have time to be responders.  Friends I've been writing fall into two categories - those who write/call/email/text back and those who are silent.  

Now, I was fine writing all these people and adding on to the list by chance UNTIL the pandemic.  That's when I just lost control, and my blog postings suffered.  It IS more difficult to write so many people every week when we are keeping Cedric 40 hours a week.   I'm really mentally tired at the end of the work day, so I don't tend to write during the week.  We had a solid year of nanny time during the pandemic with no breaks.  It was also hard to 'thin' the weekly letter list since we all looked forward to real mail during the pandemic.  And, if that wasn't enough to affect my blog, well, I struggled for writing topics in weekly letters beyond toddler antics, and since we weren't going anywhere or doing anything for a solid year, well blog topics were even harder to find.

If I'm going to continue my blog, I need something to change.  My solution is to move some people who just like to get letters to a monthly basis while continuing to write weekly the sick, the uber elderly, and people who respond to me.  That solution will cut my weekly letter outflow about in half.  That allows me to write a blog entry more often.  Blog entries take much more work to write than weekly letters.  First, you need the idea.  Second, you need to formulate the idea.  Third, you need to polish the formulation.  Fourth, you need to polish again.  Some blog entries take several hours to write, so I can wind up publishing exactly what I want to say.   Hopefully, you will begin reading interesting entries again because they will be better entries than the past year's offerings.

Finally, if you got moved to the monthly letter list, well, it's not because I don't treasure your friendship.  it's because I want to redistribute my writing time.  Of course, you can always fake being sick if you really, really need my idiot letters.                   

I'm Tired of the Tendril Around My Ankle

I don't know about you, but the pandemic feels like this sneaky vine which I think I've uprooted, and then I look down and find new tendrils wrapped around my ankle.  First, and foremost, even vaccinated, I worry about getting the virus.  It's not that I think I'm going to be in that teeny, tiny percentage of the vaccinated which wind up with the virus, but it's that I don't trust the unvaccinated to wear masks and social distance.

Here's what I'm talking about: (These statistics come from COVID-Act Now which has been tracking the virus since the beginning in this country.  Here's the website:  http://covidactnow.org/?s=1075235)  I looked at the statistics in three cities with which I'm the most familiar:  New York City, Phoenix, and  Dallas.  New York City:  54% vaccinated with at least one dose.  Phoenix:  41 vaccinated with at least one dose.  Dallas/Fort Worth:  44% vaccinated with at least one dose.  None of these cities is even remotely close to the magic number of 70% vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.  Why is herd immunity important?  The biggest reason is if we can achieve herd immunity, COVID won't 'linger' in the population becoming a deadly disease which will need to be continually battled year after year.

Have you ever considered WHY people are refusing vaccination?  Here are ideas:

(1)  Vaccine is 'untested' because it was developed so quickly and is therefore unsafe.  FALSE.  The speed-up of the development of the coronavirus vaccine had to do with one critical element:  $$$$$ provided by governments around the world to tried/true vaccine developers.  The vaccine platform was built on significant previous research on coronaviruses which saved years of developmental time.  Multiple approaches to developing different types of vaccines were funded concurrently.  Testing was fast-tracked using thousands of volunteers.  It quickly became obvious among these volunteers their adverse reactions were so minimal the vaccine was safe.  Today, the only people who might hesitate to get vaccinated are:  (1)  People with compromised immune systems.  (2)  Pregnant women & nursing mothers. 

(2)  Getting vaccinated is inconvenient.  It's hard to find the vaccine.  It takes hours to actually get vaccinated.  FALSE.  While both of these arguments might have had credence in the first six months of the vaccine availability, today that is no longer the case.  Here's how hard it is to get vaccinated:  WALK INTO YOUR LOCAL DRUGSTORE or DOC IN THE BOX AND GET VACCINATED.

(3)  I don't think I'm going to get sick, and if I do, so what?  Mostly, it's just inconvenient to get COVID 19.  FALSE.  This twist of the coronavirus was unknown until it began to spread exponentially.  It's taken over a year to collect data about what happens to the body when you contract COVID 19 and how it works inside the body.  What is known NOW is:  (a) more and more long term effects are being documented.  These include stroke, blood clots, cognitive problems, excessive long lasting fatigue, organ compromise, and a host of other problems - including loss of smell and taste.  These adverse effects can last months.  Some variety of long term effects seem to be showing up in about a third of people who contract the virus.  And, these are adverse effects of having the virus among people who 'recovered'.  The effects on the body of having COVID 19 are much more dangerous than effects of the vaccine.  

(4)  There was a concerted effort to downplay the necessity of everyone working together to combat COVID 19.  TRUE.  This pandemic has been the biggest crisis our country has faced since World War II.  It has, in effect, been a world war.  As a country we have failed.  We've failed to protect one another.  (We are approaching 600,000 dead of the virus.)  We've failed to see ourselves as citizens banding together and thus failed in our civic obligations on lots of levels.  (Mask?  No Mask?)  What does wearing one hurt?  Nothing.  If wearing a mask saves one other person from contracting the virus, isn't their life as important as yours?  Masking should never have been politicized.  We have not accepted the idea that we are our neighbors' keeper during this crisis.  It's known there's a significant infection period during which there are no symptoms.  Social distancing protects everyone.   How ironic it is in a nation which likes to define itself as 'Christian' we refuse to protect the people around us because of the cult of selfishness.   Me, me, me and to hell with everyone else.            

Are we deluding ourselves the virus is fading out just like we did last summer?  I think it's not an unreasonable question so long as there are so many unvaccinated in the population.  Are the unmasked, unsocially distanced unvaccinated currently fueling another big viral 'spike'?  I'm pretty sure those are reasonable questions.  Why is it acceptable to endanger other citizens?   No one answered this to my satisfaction.  

Finally, why is the presentation of facts so threatening?  According to studies done about questioning the veracity of false statements on social media by the presentation facts, people continue to believe the false statements even in the face of common sense must less actual facts.  They simply double down on non-facts, don't change their behavior, and belligerently insist their position is correct when it patently isn't. 

Therefore, if you are among the unvaccinated, I have no illusions you will change your mind after reading these facts, accept your citizenship comes with responsibilities, and make an appointment to get vaccinated.   Now, you are at least risking your health and not mine since my vaccination gives me about a 95% immunity to COVID 19.  Your irresponsibility and selfishness will probably result in continued 'boosters' which will have to be administered because you wouldn't get a vaccination to boost us as a nation into herd immunity.  If I sound angry, well, I am.  I'm damn tired of this green viral tendril clinging to my ankle mainly because of civic irresponsibility, and failure of application of The Golden Rule in our society. 

 

  

Word Power

 We all know I adore magazines.  At one point in my life, our family subscribed to six magazines.  [Time, Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Smithsonian, Real Simple, and Texas Monthly]  Can you imagine how many pieces of 'junk mail' landed in our mailbox each week?  I haven't been able to subscribe to ANY magazines since 2010.  I reasoned as long as we had multiple addresses in a year, the magazines would just never catch up with us.  [Turns out I was right.  We actually had a $17 medical bill which never caught up with us, and even the bill collector it was turned over to never found us.  We only found out about the bill when we had a credit report run!]  In the eleven years we traveled around the country, glossy magazines have bitten the dust just like daily newspapers.  Nowadays, most people read magazines on-line.  

Last year, settled into Brooklyn, we got a birthday subscription to The New Yorker which has been a real joy.  In Sun City my magazines are bought used for a quarter apiece.  Since I'm not picky, my $.25 magazines have included but not been limited to fifteen year old Arizona Highways to ten year old Smithsonian Magazines to Cook's Illustrated to last month's Good Housekeeping, which incidentally was first published in May of 1885.  Since I've been living in old people purgatory (Sun City), I've realized elderly people still 'save magazines' some of which, fortunately for me, wind up in thrift stores.  

When I was twelve, I used to collect old paper and re-sell it.  No, I was not a young entrepreneur, my collection efforts were a fundraiser for my youth church group to afford a trip to the newly opened Six Flags Over Texas in Dallas.   We were motivated!  Our group scoured neighborhoods, accompanied by my faithful father and his pick up truck, knocking on doors and asking for old newspapers or magazines.  Since the paper people paid by the pound, finding someone who saved magazines and was willing to part with them was considered a bonanza find.

My first magazine subscription was Reader's Digest.  I started reading it when I was still in elementary school.  The abridged book at the end of each magazine propelled me into adult books.  That magazine led me into a subscription to Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and from there the leap into checking out full length adult books at the library.  My mother refused all pleas for toys, candy, soft drinks, cookies or other junk foods, but she could reliably be wheedled into book purchases and magazine subscriptions.  I was reading my own subscription to Time Magazine cover to cover by the time of was 12.

My favorite section of Reader's Digest was "Word Power".  It was only two pages:  The first page was about 20 vocabulary words each followed by four definitions.  I picked what I thought was the correct definition for each word.  Then, I turned the page where each word was repeated followed by the correct definition.  I thought it was fun to see how many I could correctly define.  The words were usually organized around a theme.  I got better and better at picking the right definition for each word.  Of course, my accuracy improved because I was now reading during most of my free time.  Nothing improves your vocabulary like reading.  It was my favorite activity as a child.  I learned to 'go away' while reading.  It was a way of getting privacy while living in an 1100 square foot house with three other people.  Nowadays, it's rare when I don't get 20 for 20 on "Word Power".

That is until I picked up the May, 2017 magazine....  What a shock to discover out of fifteen words, I was completely unsure of the definitions of eleven of them!  Was it early (ok - not early, but not senile - yet) dementia?  Were the words newfangled slang?  Nope.  They were words taken from the writings of Charles Dickens, arguably the most famous and certainly the most popular English writer of the 19th century.  Most of them are now either archaic, obsolete, or just totally vanished.  It just goes to show how words fade from usage and therefore existence.  Here's the list of the words.  See how you do at picking the definitions.  

1)  sawbones - (noun):  (a) doctor; (b) magician (c)  old nag

2)  catawampus - (adj):  (a) fierce; (b) syrupy; (c) deep and dark

3)  jog-trotty - (adj):  (a) monotonous; (b) nervous; (c) backward

4)  spoony - (adj):  (a) spacious; (b)  pun-filled; (c) love-dovey

5)  rantipole - (noun):  (a) battering ram; (b) fishing rod; (c) ill behaved person

6)  gum-tickler - (noun):  (a) funny remark; (b) strong drink; (c) wishbone

7)  stomachic - (noun):  (a) winter coat; (b) tummy medicine; (c) wind up toy

8)  sassigassity - (noun):  (a) fancy clothes; (b) cheeky attitude; (c) gust of hot wind

9)  comfoozled - (adj):  (a) on fire);  (b) pampered; (c) exhausted

10)  mud lark - (noun):  (a) scavenging child; (b) court judge; (c) ancient scribe

11)  plenipotentiary - (noun):  (a) housewife;  (b) diplomatic agent;  (c) bank vault

12)  toadeater - (noun):  (a) fawning person; (b) habitual liar; (c) gourmet

13)  slangular - (adj):  (a) oblique; (b) using street talk; (c) tight around the neck

14)  marplot - (noun):  (a) flower garden; (b) meddler; (c) fruit jam

15)  heeltap - (noun):  (a) Irish dance step; (b) scoundrel; (c) sip of liquor left in a glass

Now, we are going to discover the real word people.  If you want the definitions, well drop me an electronic line, or enjoy yourself by looking them up on the internet, but be warned, at least one of these words was made up by Dickens!   [The four I knew are: (1), (10), (11), (12).]  Is now the time to tell you I'm also enthralled with etymology?    

50 and Counting

 On Friday, April 9, 1971, unable to withstand the relentless pressure from my family, Drake and I drove to Gainesville, Texas, stood up in front of an enormously fat Justice of the Peace, and BOOM, we were married.  It was the smartest stupid decision I've ever made.  (I think Drake would concur with that analysis.)  I mean, what do you do when you meet the love of your life when you are 17?  On some level I knew I really didn't want to get married at age 20, but I felt trapped in a situation where it was either fish or cut bait.  So, we just did it.  Here we are on the day after our marriage standing in my parents' driveway.  It's my only wedding picture.  We arrived to announce our marriage.  (I'm displaying the $7.50 wedding band which I'm still wearing.)

Our daughter and son-in-law have showered us with gifts for this anniversary, and I truly loved their card which said, "Marriage is hard, but you make it look easy."  I smiled when I read it.  Oh, my.  Having an easy marriage took so much work and mental effort, I marvel at how much of the time we've been able to achieve it.  To put someone else 'first' is easy to say and difficult to do.  It's a mindset which makes married life run smoother, and the "you first" mindset has to be a two way street.  No marriage is 50/50.  No marriage is always easy or even good.  Even the best marriages can falter.

It has always helped our close friends from the early years have always identified us as a couple.  That's one of the benefits of getting married when you are still children.  When our 10th anniversary rolled around, some of those friends gave us a blast of a party.  And, yes, my hair is three feet long and curly.  Notice the 'medal' on Drake's tuxedo:  My 'friends' gave it to him for still being married to me after ten years.  (I resurrected the medal for him for our 50th celebration dinner.)  Over the years, I have to admit he's earned that medal.  (Oh, and I still have the dress - it's in my memory clothes bag.)

We had a second blow out party on our 25th.  Sarah Lynn, aged 10 at the time, and I planned it.  We added more friends, toned down the dress code - no tuxedos this time, and invited the parents and siblings.  The picture below is a recreation of one taken at our 10th anniversary party.  This party turned out to be bittersweet.  By our 30th anniversary, some of these friends had passed and we still grieve them.

At the 50 year mark, I'm not really sure why we succeeded in one of life's biggies.  I can speculate.  Our relationship started with a solid year long friendship before sex was added.  Even at 19, I realized a good husband choice would be someone who I truly liked, and who was so smart I'd never be bored.  Postponing children until the marriage was planted in bedrock helped.  Having a common background and culture helped with conflict resolution.  And speaking of conflict, learning how to FIGHT productively early in the marriage was crucial.  Knowing being yourself would never be disappointing to your spouse was also helpful.  

We try every five years to have a deliberate conversation about what we did right in the previous five years, and what we'd like to change.  Then, we project forward five years and set some joint goals.  This has let each of us grow and change over the years.  Your forty year old persona is NOT your twenty year old persona.  This year was one of those deliberate conversation years:  What we did right?  Traveling, traveling, traveling, so we were ready to step in and nanny our grandson.  What are we going to do differently?  Well, we are stepping back from full time childcare in 2022.  We are going to become A-B people.  (In Sun City terms, that means moving back and forth between only two locations.)  In our case, that will be Arizona and Brooklyn.) 

For me, marriage in my 20's gave me the confidence to step out and be successful at whatever I wanted to try.  We've thought from the very beginning that one of the big advantages of marriage was the other spouse always 'having our back'.  In my 30's a solid marriage let me pause a career, become a stay at home mom, and go back to school in order to start a different career.  For my 40's and most of my 50's I was able to concentrate on teaching.  It turned out to be my calling.  Without Drake's financial support, I wouldn't have been able to pursue a career which was a financial disaster.  (After ten years of teaching, I made less money than an Assistant Manager at Jack in the Box!)  When my health failed in my 50's, my career taken away, and we struggled to deal with death and dementia in my family, Drake was a rock.  He never even suggested bailing out even though our struggles during this period of our lives lasted years.  Our 60's were spent executing our joint vagabonding dream which we both relished and enjoyed to the hilt.

Now, at 70, I've struggled with this anniversary.  Milestones are so important.  If we've learned anything from this past year of horrors, we've realized how much we need our rituals.  Anniversary celebrations are one of those rituals.  This milestone comes on the heels of the death of our last living parent.  We are both deep into grief over Drake's mother dying.  She was a pillar in my life for more than 50 years.  Neither of us wanted a big party (even if COVID-19 wouldn't have interfered).  This golden anniversary seems to have black edges.  Our life is more in the rearview mirror than unspooling in front of us.  Those are the facts.  However, with a little help from our friends, I've been able to feel more celebratory this week.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't all due to the two bottles of excellent wine during our dinner celebration.   

Finally, I have a secret box which contains every greeting card given to me by Drake and me to him over the years.  Knowing they are going to be saved and cherished makes us both try a little harder to deliberately express ourselves with these cards on our milestone days.  As they have accumulated, the cards seem to be an endless ribbon of reminders to me of how very good life is when you have chosen the best husband in the universe.

Happy 50th, Drake.  I love you more than you will ever be able to imagine.  Jan.