Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)! Grab a cup of coffee and share with us! What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans? Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?

All are welcome! Just add your link to the Linky-List, and be sure to visit others and join in their conversations! The link will be open from Friday April 19 at 7 am (Pacific Time) until Monday April 22 at 7 pm (Pacific Time) to give us a good range of “weekend”! From Eclectic Alli’s Weekend Coffee Share Post: Here. Please visit!

Welcome to my home! We’ve just gotten the Scampers tucked into their kennels for the night. I have yet to pick up the mud trail from the garage into Al’s room. I suspect that he will drop off to sleep in front of the television any time, now. I have had my quota of coffee for the day, and so I’m drinking hot oolong* tea, once I get the hot water kettle plugged in and going, again. Provolone cheese, Gouda, American, and a cheddar with herbs. Ran out of crackers, and haven’t remembered to get more. Maybe next time?

If we were enjoying a visit here, together, I would tell you about the Thursday night Sky Warn training that Al and I attended. Two and a half hours (plus “that clock is slow” run-on time of about 20 minutes), presented by a meteorologist from the regional National Weather Service office in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It’s an annual event that we first started attending in the 90s. We were active storm spotters for many years. Our ham radio club works in conjunction with the NWS regional office. The presentation has been refined over the decades, and it’s fun to watch video of cloud/storm formations in addition to referring to photo and graphics handouts. We used to have our own weather satellite dish that picked up satellite transmissions and ran them through a dedicated computer; we had our own data displayed on a monitor in the front room. Now, we get the same information and more by way of the Internet, and the equipment has been repurposed and the satellite dish, dismantled (and perhaps tossed during some long-ago Spring Clean-up Week).

If we were visiting together, this evening, I would ask you what you’re currently reading, and share the titles of my/our recent purchases. Al and I both wanted to read Sonia Purnell’s A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. Both of my parents served in the Pacific Theatre, but Al’s father was involved in the European efforts. My father read many books about the war, as I was growing up, and passed on the ones that he thought best to me, so I also could read them before they had to go back to the library. (I remember taking The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich with me to read on the bus to Winnipeg, Manitoba, my first year in the junior high-high school marching band. I spent close to all of my spending money in the largest bookstore I’d ever seen!)

I have also ordered Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun: A Memoir and William P. Kennedy’s Toy Soldiers, which I’d only read as the Readers Digest edition, and I had forgotten the details of how the story ended. With the allergy season in full force and summer to arrive after the next snowfall (I wonder if that’s still in the forecast for next week), I have been trying to remember to play music to pick up my spirits. Keep me focused. One is familiar with SAD (seasonal affective disorder); I seem to go downhill as summer approaches in reaction to the allergens, neighborhood outdoor cookery and accompanying smoke, and the warmer weather and bright sunlight. I find myself taking more naps and not wanting to eat anything.  I wasn’t kidding about the various cheeses; I have dropped four pounds because of avoiding food, this past week, and my blood sugar is not happy with me.

A bright spot, actually, was the call from the druggist, telling me that they’d finally gotten their hands on more of the new Shingles vaccine, and so I got my first of two shots on Monday; I must have the second shot between two and six months from now. My parents never mentioned it, but several of Al’s relative had really bad bouts with Shingles, and I would just as soon not go through that.

I was able to replace my broken file cabinet with a wooden table that has a fold-back top. The file cabinet was serving as a bedside (well, a recliner-side) nightstand, and so I have a table for computer, water glass, &c, and a shelf beneath where I can put storage containers for my music CDs. My organization efforts march in lockstep with creating places to put things. So that I can sort through storage boxes and throw away what is no longer needed. There is a free “shredding” event in our town, middle of the week, where we can get rid of all of our old financial papers. I think my husband has stuff back into the late 60s. I dumped a lot of the paperwork when I retired and didn’t need those business records, anymore. 

I am happy to tell you that even though I have had trouble getting to my Weekend Coffee Share posts in a timely manner, I have been keeping up on my poem-a-day project. Written through Saturday, anyhow. The last few poems have been a bit weird (days 24, 26, and 27).

Finally, one last thing I have been puzzling over, this weekend, is how very distant I am/my context is from the cultures that surround me. I recall my late (youngest) sister, many years ago, telling me to please quit speaking with people, that they have no idea what I am talking about. As we go on, I am beginning to think that she shared something valuable with me, there. I would say that I miss her, but she really didn’t like me. Probably a disconnect on my end, considering she wished I were somebody else. I do think it’s too bad that we hadn’t gotten to know each other better, though. I trust that at this point, her perspective and understanding are better than mine….. Until she and I meet again.

I am still not on the “linky-link” and expect that at this point, I probably won’t go back to read the relevant terms of service/privacy materials. I have gotten the links to show up for your posts, now, by switching to a different browser. I look forward to reading your Weekend Coffee Share posts, and I wish you a marvelously satisfying week to come!

Hugs & much love,
Lizl

*Himalayan Shilla Oolong tea that I ordered last September, with a clearance discount due to their dropping that product. Which is disappointing. I am going to have to look around for another oolong without non-tea additives.