Early Morning Fantasy

My first night at Stafford Suites was relatively uneventful. For some reason I woke up at 5:30 a.m., unusual for me as I like to sleep until at least six.  But since I couldn’t go back to sleep I decided to open the blinds and maybe get a glimpse of the sunrise from my new place.

It was still dark out but from the building lights I could make out something standing on the grassy area. It looked like a very short man with an ugly mustard yellow suit. At first I just assumed it was an early rising resident out for a smoke in his ugly pajamas. I peeked around the edge of the blinds and hoped that he couldn’t see me standing there in my favorite pink flowered pj’s.

As it got lighter I began to see the figure hadn’t moved from the spot in about 30 minutes. My neck was getting a little sore from craning to see without being seen.

About 6:30 a.m. it was fully light enough to see what I thought might be a smoker or, heaven forbid, an elderly peeping Tom, was actually a fire hydrant!

I named him Fred after one of the characters in my new book to be published soon in this blog.

Watch for Esther’s Dream. I hope you like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Fred the Hydrant

Rosie Sketches – Autumn 2019

I liked to sketch and draw when I was a child. My teachers took notice and encouraged me to develop my talent. My family did as well and there was talk about sending me to a school with an emphasis on the arts.

That never materialized. I left Chicago at age 15 to live with my Aunt Emma in Bremerton, Washington. I finished my schooling in Silverdale, landed a job at a title insurance company in Bremerton, married my high school sweetheart in Sequim and settled down to marriage and work and raising a family.

It wasn’t until I got the urge to draw pictures again in the l980s that I enrolled in art classes at Olympic Community College.

Most of my married life I was in the business of writing and held jobs at two newspapers close to home. I also submitted and sold stories to boating magazines as we became involved in cruising. We moored the several power boats we purchased through the years at Port Orchard Yacht Club so never lacked for stories.

Now, retired and since becoming a widow,  I am still writing and as some of you know I have two books in print. I have more books in various stages of completion and a couple of manuscripts ready to go. These future books will probably show up on this blog as they are edited and getting ready to publish.

I’m not comfortable publishing my stories online because many of my readers don’t use personal computers. Some of my readers have failing vision as well and purchase their books on Kindle so that they can adjust the print size. I don’t know if they will continue to read what I write if they can’t read them online.

Last month my computer was down and I wasn’t able to use the internet for research. So, I just quit writing altogether for a couple of weeks. It was at this time I found myself drawn to my early artistic urges and began to sketch, mostly in pencil and some with colored pencils.

So far my favorite piece is the apple. Charlie and I enjoyed going to apple cider pressing parties and a large part of his childhood years was spent picking and squeezing apples for juice and cider on his Dad’s farm at Sheridan Heights. One of my recent pieces is from a snapshot of a cider press owned by former neighbors, Gloria and Tom.

This drawing session began with a snapshot I took when Charlie and I spent a weekend in Vancouver, B.C. The vacation was a gift from our kids for our 40th wedding anniversary. One of our daughters has dibs on that one.

I will never be an artist like some of my children and grandchildren are. And I don’t plan to take up oil painting like my mother did in her lifetime. Harry, my brother who still lives in a Chicago suburb, is an accomplished artist with some of his works hanging in the Indiana governor’s mansion.

I am happy to say I won’t be in competition with any of these talented relatives. But it is something I like to do when my internet connection is down, or when I get tired of writing or dancing the cha-cha with the blinds drawn.

Vancouver, BC

 

 

Apple

 

 

Neighbors’ Cider Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 2018

Whoever said “Old age isn’t for sissies”, was right on the money. Now that my children are getting close to this golden threshold, they are beginning to know what their old mom has been going through!

I’ve never seen my calendar filled with so many surgeries and other medical procedures, all dates for my kids!

I can tell I’m getting old when I’d rather be reading somebody else’s stories than write my own! I have a few more projects in the mill (that’s old newspaper talk for stories I’m writing in my Word program and filed under Documents.) Others, like this one, are short pieces about what else I’ve been up to.

Since I don’t use Facebook, except to spy on my kids and grandkids, I use this little vehicle called a blog on WordPress.

My 2018 highlight was to fly to San Francisco to attend my grandson’s wedding. If you are a Facebooker (Facebookie?) You may have already read about and seen photos posted of this event by the bride, Melissa or the bridegroom, Peter, or Melissa’s mom, Kathy.

The wedding took place at the Buddhist Church in San Francisco and a lavish reception at the  Elks Club a few blocks up the street from the Church.

What impressed this Grandma the most was the wedding attire of the bride (layers of it!) and her own artwork displayed in beautifully crafted paper flowers, many of which were set in table centerpieces at the reception. I was honored to meet the lovely mother of the bride, Kathy, and to be seated with the father of the bride, Salvador and wife, Mary, and another honored guest, Elaine, the Buddhist clergy woman and officiant of the wedding ceremony.

We were bathed in a sea of love and romance as the beautiful couple danced the first dance as husband and wife. There was nothing but joy and happiness in that moment that I pray will continue throughout their lives.

My undying appreciation for the DJ in charge of the dance music to play some golden oldies for this old lady whose granddaughter Erin asked her to dance. And yes, we have photos to prove it! Here are a few…

 

November 2016

After celebrating our 68^th wedding anniversary on July 17 Charlie was admitted to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Gig Harbor where he was to have a procedure to promote the healing of a pressure sore on his toe. We waited anxiously after they took him into surgery, which we were told could take a couple of hours. It was only about an hour later the surgeon came out to deliver the devastating news.

He said it was serious, and the infection had spread, but we weren’t ready for the final words of the doctor. My husband who had suffered several strokes and had been bound to a wheelchair since 2008 was being taken from me because of what most people would consider a minor injury. But because he had other health issues, diabetes and a couple of recent heart attacks, the risks were much greater.

Charlie was admitted to Franciscan Hospice House in Tacoma the same day. He passed on August 10, 2016, peacefully and painlessly.

As some of you know if you have lost a loved one, I am going through some changes in my life. Those of you who know me best understand that I will get through this although how long it will take I don’t know. I am getting excellent care, emotionally and spiritually and our beloved children are close by.

Meanwhile, life goes on. The holiday season approaches with new meaning for me. I don’t need to point out to readers the importance of keeping loved ones close to you and to letting them know as often as you can that your love for them is paramount. Happy Holidays to all of you.

Dorothy Schaeffer Williams: A Star is Born!

If you didn’t watch America’s Talent this week you missed a good one! The star of the evening, a woman named Dorothy Williams, age 90, from Hilo, Hawaii, who did a striptease in her audition, is the daughter of a woman who was one of my mother’s best friends in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s.

She is related to the family my aunt Emma Durand married into in Chicago. My cousin, Father Don Durand, Emma’s son, was the one who told me to be sure and watch. He just found out about the striptease Dorothy performed for her audition. He said, “Oh, no! And I told so many people to watch!”

Father Don doesn’t have a TV so will see his Aunt Dorothy’s audition for the first time at a family reunion this weekend. I don’t believe she embarrassed the family. I think she gave all of us a sorely needed kick in the kielbasa!

Go Dorothy!