From birthday balloons to a workout at the Atlanta airport

 One of the things we do on birthdays is look back at some versions of our former selves.

Bob and I will be 72 and 75 in October.  Carlene is sailing smoothly toward 99!  

I'm not sure if I'm bragging or complaining here, but this is what my day looked like after I was delivered to the Atlanta airport two hours ahead of departure: 

My boarding pass was missing essential information: the terminal and gate numbers.  I asked three different security workers; each directed me to look it up on Google or at one of the monitors near the train. Double-escalator #1 took us to the trains.  

I asked a random Delta employee and she looked it up on HER Google.  She told me to go back to Terminal T--gate 5. 

A mile of walking, Luci's carrier in tow, I finally arrived at T-5, passengers boarding for Denver. One of them, a Delta pilot,  kindly directed me to Terminal B, gate 4.  B-4: 

BE-FORE the plane boarded, I hoped, gripping tightly to Luci's carrier in one hand, my bag in another.  (The elevator I needed was out of service--as it was a week ago when we landed.) 

Down two more escalators.  (Here's where I'm bragging.  I surprised myself I had the strength  to balance myself, my dog, and my bags on a long set of descending escalators!) 

Got to Terminal B.  Up two more packed-with-people escalators, holding on for dear life to keep the cart from rolling down as I was going up....

Two hours from drop-off and 2 1/2 walking miles later, we arrived at B-4 mid-boarding!

Ten minutes more and we'd have missed our flight.  Luci curled up in a little ball in her carrier and waited patiently for whatever was next.

Funny how dogs are: they just want to be with their people and they take each moment as it comes.  Bumping and banging around on moving stairs?  No problem. 

Carlene's 98th birthday in Georgia

Luci and I are at Carlene's this week enjoying Carlene's launching her 99th year.  

This morning, I taught her how to play The New York Times word games.  

On Spelling Bee, my personal favorite, I read the letters aloud as she was tightening the elastic in a pair of pants.  Without even thinking  about it, she said, "ABRACADABRA!" It turns out to have been the longest word yet in Spelling Bee history (to my knowledge) and it got us over the line to Genius status.

Jocelyn and Luci at a crafts fair on Friday

       Meanwhile, today in Texas was Elena's first day of sixth grade and Nathan's first day of junior year.  

A Story for the Ages in our family

Yesterday was Marcus' move-in date, and the whole family was set to see him settled into his dorm room, maybe meet some of his dorm-mates.   The car was packed, and he was excited and nervous.  

Since it was also the day Jackson was to return to campus, he needed to move the car he's been working on for a few years, his red classic BMW.  And when he turned the ignition, after replacing all kinds of parts and re-building the entire engine, it was a GO!  The engine started right up! 

Everyone was thrilled--even Day who was holding back tears as her Empty Nest was looming.

But first, they needed to move a few heavy elongated pots, all filled with soil and flowers.  Jackson is a weight lifter--when he's not rebuilding cars--and he moved the first two.  He estimates that each pot weighs 400 pounds.

For the third one, he had to take a break and he said something to the effect of "They are top heavy.  I'll get them."

Because of the time crunch and knowing that the roads to Richmond would be packed with college students and their families. Tom decided to help a bit.  I can't picture this step.  Was Jackson back to help him?  Or was he just testing the weight?

Then it happened, the story for our family lore for generations:

The pot fell on Tom's leg.  He couldn't move.  My heretofore non-athletic daughter, and Tom's superwoman, Day, went into crisis mode.  She remembered my telling her a story of a mother lifting a car to free her child.  And without even thinking about it,  she lifted the pot off Tom's leg! 

"Move your foot out!" she shouted, and he did, just in the nick of time.

And then she did what she does so well: she organized the rest of the day.  She told Jackson to take Tom to the ER that would be quickest to get in and out of.  She gave everybody jobs.  When Day gets an idea, the wheels start moving!

At the ER, while Day and Marcus were finishing packing the other car, Tom's x-rays revealed that he had broken his 5th metatarsal bone, the long bone on the outside edge of the foot.  The doctor said he could still make it to Richmond if he didn't lift anything or attempt to drive.

In two weeks, Tom has a business trip to Portugal; two weeks later, Jakarta.  He will see a foot specialist this week and it's likely he'll be cleared to travel, probably with a cast and a cane.  

Both boys are settled back into their different spaces, Marcus in a dorm, Jackson in a house.  Day and Tom are spending their first day in their "way too quiet" house together.  

This photo is about 30 years old, I think.  That's Mimi in the middle, my dear grandmother who lived to  97. 

As a 3-year-old (while my baby brother was being born) I went to church with Mimi and Papa where I probably adding commentary to the service and conversing with Papa. Mimi sweetly asked me if I'd like to go outside--to which I'm said to have answered, "I stay to church with Papa."

One of the highlights of every summer was spending a week with Mimi and Papa.  For a whole week, I had them to myself, drank a lot of chocolate milk, watched Lawrence Welk, and went to the S&S Cafeteria in Macon with Mimi.  My faves were fried fish, jello and grape juice.  

On the far right is Nana--to all the grandkids.  Day and Will used to beg Nana and Granddaddy to move to Texas.  Each of them took a day or two off school when they were visiting and spent those days doing whatever they liked. 

Today I was telling Carlene about a book I've skimmed: Outlive, a New York Times bestseller.  She was making pork chops and gravy and dividing it into little dishes to freeze.  

Her 98th birthday is this month and I'll be going to Georgia to celebrate.  "You can't tell anybody how to live a long, healthy life," she said.  

But people ask her all the time, 'How do you do it?" 

Sometimes she tells them she grew up poor and ate homegrown, home-cooked meals all her life.  That included bacon and ham, chicken and pork chops, potatoes and pies.  Not the stuff recommended in this scholarly book.

Sometimes she tells them, "Gratitude." 

Sometimes she tells them she eats an orange every day.  

Until her car wreck four years ago, she walked several miles a day.  Now she rides her stationary bike 20 minutes a day. 

When Papa was ninety, his doctor advised him to stop eating bacon.  "I'll quit after we finish the bacon we have at home," he said--never one to waste good food.

Long and healthy lives--the norm of Papa and the Ogletree girls.  In her early nineties, Mimi used to call herself "middle aged." 

Dolls

Yesterday, five of us went to see Barbie.  Since some friends of mine have loved it, I was curious. I figured I could get past my lifelong dislike of the plastic Barbie, but--though all my companions loved it--it was a bridge too far for me.

As a 1970s budding feminist, I refused to buy my daughter a Barbie--though I did get her a Cabbage Patch, not the original adoptable baby doll, but the mass-produced plastic version. 

I remember stopping to check out Babyland once when we were traveling through Cleveland, Georgia. The originals (developed by a young male art student attending missionary school in North Georgia) were made of cloth, not plastic.  They were not "for sale," but for a hefty price, a girl could adopt one, get a birth certificate, and carry and stroller it around like a real baby.   

Then came Barbie!  At the beginning of the movie, we see little girls smashing their baby dolls in disgust and reaching for the new icon, grown-up Barbie. All those wardrobes, pink cars, pink houses, and a boyfriend named Ken--game changer!

FYI for crafty people

https://www.creativebug.com/

This site, this week only, is offering 60 days of classes for free.  After the two months, the price is about $7 a month.

These classes, the few I've watched, are excellent: quilting, book arts, painting, greeting cards, crocheting, kids' crafts, etc. 

The bookmaking class I'm starting  is a five-hour class.  Each day for 30 days, the instructor demonstrates making a simple book structure. Her explanations are clear and inspiring, for those of you who want to get the satisfaction of making a book in just a few minutes, or those who might like to do easy books with grandkids.  

Different kinds of smart

One of my favorite summer escapes is the daily word games delivered online by The New York Times. 

Wordle is the easiest. I usually get the right word in two or three tries. After years of reading, writing, and teaching English, I'm fascinated by the structure of words. 

NYT also throws a bone to those of us who can't get past Wednesday in the big crossword puzzle: the five by five square mini crossword.  It's easy enough to deserve a tiny pat on the back, but no big accolades.

The Spelling Bee is my favorite.  To play it you get seven letters a day, arranged like a bee hive with one letter in the middle. That center letter must be used in every word you can make using any or all of the seven letters.

As you find new words, you advance from "nice" to "great" to "amazing"--and then, finally, to "genius." I refuse to stop until I reach the pinnacle. 

I am not a genius; that's a solid fact.  But once a day I play one on this screen. This nomenclature is not granted to me in many endeavors:

Like math.  Nothing makes me readier for a nap than numbers. 

Like speaking a second language.  I regret not learning more languages back when my. brain was young and spongy.

Like building a house or fixing mechanical things.  

I'm watching The Bear, a series on Hulu. An acclaimed young chef is trying to turn around the restaurant of his dead brother.  What fascinates me is watching young cooks rise to the occasion when  taught new culinary skills.  

Most of us attended good enough schools to achieve mastery in our native language.  We know how to compose sentences, write letters, and read with understanding.  But English majoring is almost a thing of the past, thanks to artificial intelligence that can spit out essays in a flash.

Not to mention, but I will: Penmanship--once a fundamental value--is relatively nonexistent in the 21st century.  

We've all met smart people who shine in ways we don't.  A man who can't spell automotive but can take a car down to the frame and put it back together.  A person who can barely read but can build a house from foundation to roof.  A kid who can navigate a smart phone or computer faster than most of us can. 

I'm a diehard word lover. An admirer of beautiful original sentences. I'm attracted to other word people,   the nuanced ways they think. Friendships are usually sparked when we find others who play in the same lanes we do.

I run into reminders every day of how much (SO much!) I don't know, but I'll happily borrow the "genius" label for a few minutes every morning.   Not a bad way to start a day.