Yep. I’m Still Here!

Whoa. The last time I published a blog was in mid-July of 2025. And the last time I wrote a blog was in mid-August. I never published it because I never finished it. Bad writer! Bad!

 

In my defense, I think in the last year I’ve been completely focused on my Total Knee Replacement surgeries, or TKR – and, since the first surgery was my right knee, the appropriate acronym is RTKR.

 

This happened on September 29^th 2025.

 

Never had surgery before – unless you count the removal of four impacted wisdom teeth at age eighteen.

 

Never stayed overnight in the hospital before. Unless you count the waiting time in the Emergency Room on multiple occasions, which could, I suppose, count as an overnight stay.

 

Nevertheless, I had two for-real overnight stays – one in September, and then my LTKR for my other knee in December.

 

As it’s now February of 2026, I’m (hopefully) done with knee-related surgeries – for which I’m extremely grateful! Now all I’ve gotta do is hope that the scars retreat to faded barely-discernible vertical lines and my legs continue to get stronger.

 

To that end, I’m doing well. I just returned from a trip to Florida, which included a 6-day Caribbean cruise with my friend Susan that was just lovely and much-needed for both of us.

 

According to my handy-dandy Apple watch, I evidently walked anywhere from 5,000-7,500 steps a day. That’s a LOT of steps in Jane’s Domain where I’ve spent much of the last year hobbling around. And post-surgeries, while I was still (at times) hobbling around using either a walker or a cane, I wasn’t walking that much at all.

 

The only downside of taking that many steps per day was that my legs (knees, ankles and feet) got swollen. And I didn’t have my ice packs handy to reduce the swelling on the daily. Had I brought them, I would have needed an extra suitcase - and I overpacked enough, per usual.

My physical therapists had told me to expect swelling for six months to a year after knee replacement surgery. Oh, joy.

 

On the other hand, it was only a small nuisance and didn’t really cause any major problems. (With the exception that I didn’t want my puffy feet and ankles to be seen in my resort wear!)

 

Even better, I didn’t have any issues with airplane travel this year as I had last year. And…I just realized I wrote three (count ‘em – THREE) blogs about my trip last year to Florida. But I never published them! Don’t ask me why. They weren’t bad.

 

So I’m thinking that after this, I may go ahead and publish them. Why not? I’m only a year behind…!

 

Anyway, it’s good to be back in touch. It’s good to be sitting in front of a keyboard.

 

And I hope you’re still out there willing to give my blog a read!

 

Oh, but before I go – I wanted to talk about a couple random acts of kindness that happened at the airport.

 

The first one was when it came time for me to order an Uber to take me home from the airport. I had only used Uber a couple of times – and neither had been airport-related. So I wasn’t sure when to reserve it because I knew I needed to get to Baggage Claim and collect my bags before I could get to the pickup spot.

 

Well, this was my first error. I was standing at the carousel once it started up when I requested the Uber. I told the driver that I just needed to get my bags and would be right out.

 

Yeah, right.

 

Turns out that five planes had arrived around the same time so there were five sets of bags that were being thrown on the same carousel. Ugh. I watched that thing spin around spitting out all sorts of bags – but not my Aqua blue suitcase and carryon bag.

 

Then the carousel stopped. For seven whole minutes, we all stood around losing hope that we’d ever see our bags again. The guy next to me guessed that every single baggage handler had gone on a simultaneous coffee break.

 

Meanwhile, my Uber driver is sitting out there waiting for me to show up.

 

I kept texting her and apologizing and said I didn’t know what to do. Cancel the ride? Order another one when my bags did show up on that blasted carousel?

 

She assured me that it was fine and that she’d wait for me.

 

But what I later learned is that there is a fee incurred if they have to wait too long. Only she didn’t know how long before that extra fee kicked in. Five minutes? Ten? Who knows? All I know is that it was an expensive Uber ride with extra fees tacked on.

 

Oh well. She was a very nice person and we chatted the entire drive home. And she gave me some tips for future Uber rides – including the one I’ve been most fearful of – reserving an Uber for a very early morning airport run.

 

And the second random act of kindness happened as I was dragging my heavy suitcase toward the Uber driver’s car. A young airport worker in a yellow vest saw me puzzling out the signage and asked me if I was meeting an Uber driver. I said yes, and told him the make, color and license plate of car she was driving. He knew right where she was and he took my heavy suitcase from me and said he’d be happy to help. He then lifted my bags into her trunk and opened the back door for me to enter the vehicle.

 

When I tried to hand him a tip, he gave it right back to me and said, “No charge, ma’am! It’s my pleasure. We should all just do nice things for each other; I believe this world will be a better place!”

 

I told him I wholeheartedly agreed with him – and thanked him profusely. And I told him he had just erased all those feelings of frustration as I waited for my bags and fretted over keeping the Uber driver waiting.

 

By the time I arrived at my own front door, I was in good spirits and relaxed and oh so happy to be home again.

 

It only takes a moment to make someone feel better about things. Even if it’s just to smile at them and wish them a good day.

 

So here’s me smiling at you – and wishing you a good day. Be well, friends.

 

Until next time.

Juror #2

Last week I was called to Jury Duty in Common Pleas court in Franklin County. 

The last time I received a jury duty summons was around 2012 and I spent the entire week sitting in the jury pool room reading, texting and making endlessly long lists of the things I’d get done if I were not sitting in the jury pool room.

 

I figured 2025 would be more of the same. Don’t ask me why. I just didn’t have a lot of confidence that they’d call me to possibly serve on a jury. Maybe because there was a HUGE pool of people waiting in that jury pool room.

 

But we learned that there were supposed to be five cases that were to be tried that week, so there was a good chance that most of us would be at least called to voire dire and asked questions to see if we’d be selected to sit on a jury.

 

Two of those five cases immediately settled. Maybe the attorneys caught a glimpse of the stellar jury pool candidates and thought they’d be better off settling their cases or something. But the chance that more people would be just sitting around waiting immediately increased.

 

So on that first morning, I made sure to bring my book club book and an extra large drink cup filled to the brim with water, ice and Crystal Lite figuring I’d be in for a long day.

 

After we finally had our orientation about an hour and a half after we were told it would start (there is a LOT of waiting during jury duty service), two large groups of candidates were called and left to go up to the floor where actual lawyering stuff happens. Not surprisingly, my name was not called.

 

But wonder of wonders, shortly before lunch, my name was read along with another large group of potential jurors. We were instructed to take an hour and a half for lunch and then we’d be escorted up to the floor where actual lawyering stuff happens.

 

An hour and a half for lunch? I never got an hour and a half for lunch in any job I’d ever had and, short of me taking a two-martini lunch or an extended shopping spree at the nearest department store, I couldn’t imagine needing that much time. Heck, I couldn’t imagine dragging out eating the container of yogurt and protein bar I’d packed for lunch longer than ten minutes.

 

Nevertheless, when the appointed hour arrived, we were met upstairs by the Bailiff who introduced himself and lined us up to get ready to walk into the courtroom.

 

I pictured a bailiff looking like Bull or Roz from Night Court or…well…I’m not sure I know any other famous bailiffs from television. This guy wore a suit and not a uniform as he wasn’t in law enforcement.

 

But he was funny and made us all feel at ease and, most importantly, told us the process and what we should expect.

 

All the prospective jurors filled up both the jury box and the gallery seats, but I was #2 in the jury box so I felt like I might get asked a lot of questions. And I was right.

 

The judge and both attorneys asked us lots of questions. It was nothing terribly out of the ordinary until they asked one potential juror somewhere behind me (and thus, I did not see who she was), “Do you think you’d make a good juror?” She said, “Well, yeah, because it’d get me out of the house and away from the kids at home.”

 

That could have been funny except she further clarified the situation by saying she had a special needs child at home and she could use a break from him for the week.

 

Whoa.

 

I’m not sure many of us – including the judge and the attorneys – were able to keep our poker faces on straight during her statement.

 

And, no, she did not make the cut.

 

Compared to her, I apparently made a good candidate and I was selected for this jury. Ever after, I was Juror #2.

 

Since most of us in the free world have watched shows like Law & Order, CSI and Judge Judy, we definitely have some pre-conceived notions of court proceedings. And to a degree, it’s the same – but it’s also much different.

 

I learned that there is not always definitive proof and witnesses aren’t as clear-cut with their testimony as the fictitious witnesses we watch on TV programs.

 

I appreciated that whenever we jurors entered the courtroom, the judge asked everyone else to rise until we arrived at our seats and then he asked everyone in the courtroom to be seated. He said later that he believes this is a sign of respect for the responsibilities that the jurors have accepted.

 

When the attorneys wanted a sidebar or there was an objection, the judge called the attorneys to the bench and then turned on “white noise” so those of us in the jury could not hear them. Consequently, I never once heard, “The jury will disregard the previous statement.” (Which I've always thought seemed a little problematic. We heard it. How do we now ignore it?)

 

Also, while I knew that defendants do not have to take the stand, I didn’t also know that the defense attorney has no obligation to put on a case; that it is all up to the prosecutor to build the case with enough proof that allows the jury to vote guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Or not.

 

All the defense attorney had to do was make opening and closing statements and, in both, he kept calling the relationship between the plaintiff and defendant “toxic.” And when it came time for the Defense to make their case, he said, "The defense rests." Wow. Not sure I was expecting that.

 

I knew that there would be two alternate jurors, but I didn’t know how it was determined who would be the alternates. And I didn’t know that those two people wouldn’t learn that they were alternates until it was time to deliberate. (The two women on our jury who were named as alternates called themselves the “losers” – but were good sports about it.)

 

It made sense, though. I suppose if one knew they were an alternate juror from the beginning, they might be a little less attentive during the proceedings and might, instead, be compiling their grocery list while a witness was on the stand.

We were not allowed to deliberate when the alternates were in the jury room and, if one of the twelve jurors had gotten sick and one of the alternates had to take their place, the deliberations would have had to start all over.

 

I found it interesting that when we were finally given the case and sent back to the jury room to deliberate, one juror kept lamenting that he wanted to see more proof – DNA evidence or fingerprints or something that indicated that CSI had worked the case.

 

The rest of us, of course, given that we were now courtroom experts, told him it didn’t matter that they didn’t have that evidence; that we had to judge the case on what was presented. Period. (Later we learned that there was no disputing that the defendant was the one at the house – so no fingerprints or DNA was necessary.)

 

I was actually proud of our group as a whole. We took our responsibilities seriously and we didn’t discuss the case before instructed to do so. Even though everyone is now so used to looking things up on our phones, nobody did – even to get a full and complete definition of a certain charge. Instead, we did as instructed and sent our request to the judge for clarification.

 

Since our case (which I can talk about now) involved three charges against the defendant – aggravated burglary, aggravated menacing and domestic abuse – we had to deliberate each charge separately. And, again, it was not that easy. 

On the surface, it seemed pretty simple. But the rules of law that we were given clearly stipulated our parameters. And even though (personally), I believed that domestic abuse had occurred, we could not convict since the law states that for domestic abuse to occur, the parties must have cohabitated within the past five years. (I won't comment on what I think about the law itself.)

 

Nevertheless, this is not something I would have known. And, sadly, the plaintiff gave conflicting statements about when they had lived together – and it seemed obvious that it had been more than five years ago.

 

Thus, there wasn’t the proof we needed to convict him of this charge. In the end, we were able to vote guilty for one charge and had to vote not guilty for the other two charges.

 

After we finished our deliberations on Thursday afternoon and the verdict was read in the courtroom, we were released from jury duty. The judge said he’d like to talk to us afterwards if we were so inclined – and both attorneys also came into the jury room.

 

This was unexpected – but also an interesting opportunity as we were then (finally!) allowed to ask pretty much anything. About the case, about the parties and about the rulings.

 

So we spent nearly two hours talking over the case and the law and really learned some things. The judge said it was only the third case this year to come to trial in his courtroom, which surprised me as I’d think these cases would occur much more frequently.

 

By the way, I have no idea what sentence the defendant will get as it is the judge’s responsibility to impose sentencing. Nor did we know what sort of charges they were (felonies or misdemeanors) when we were sent in to deliberate and we did not know what sort of sentence each of those charges might incur should we find him guilty.

 

Given what we learned from the judge and the attorneys, I believe we were all satisfied with our deliberations and our findings. Or at the very least, I’m glad we didn’t learn something that would have changed our minds had we had that information up front.

 

Thus, endeth my time as Juror #2. I was fascinated by the whole process and was glad to finally have been selected as a juror and to serve on a jury.

 

I’m also glad that I’m exempt from being called again for two years and I believe there is even an age restriction that I will qualify for in the future, but it was a good experience to see our court process in action.

 

Now it’s time to get back to my regular life. I’m in the process of making endlessly long lists of things I need to get done since I’m no longer sitting in a jury pool room.

 

Oh, and I’ve gotta give a lot of attention to Miss Maggie Minx who has been a little cantankerous that I left her alone so much last week!

 

Pre-Teen Idols and Other Stuff

Today is the ninth anniversary of my dad’s death. It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around that because I can’t believe nine years has passed since that sad day. 

But thinking about my dad always brings up fond memories of my childhood growing up in Alliance.

 

When people around my age wax nostalgic about their childhoods having had the freedom in the summers to ride their bikes, play in and around their neighborhoods and hang out with their friends with little to no adult supervision (other than to be home at a precise time for dinner), I clearly remember those days as well. Of course, I’m probably putting a sepia-toned tint on the memories because I’m sure my mother knew where we were and what we were doing more than I recall.

 

But it was a good time to grow, to play and to dream.

 

Some of the fun memories I have as a girl were playing in either my basement or my next-door neighbor, Michelle’s basement. We’d create scenarios where we were planning to marry our pre-teen idols. At one point, it was someone in the Monkees.

 

Even though my favorite was Davy Jones, Michelle usually “called him” first. (Calling things – chairs, TV stars, window seat in the car so you didn’t get stuck in the middle – were a big thing in the ‘60s and ‘70s.) But anyway, if I didn’t call Davy first, I picked my second favorite and the next cutest Monkee, Mickey Dolenz.

 

Years later, I was searching for something in the basement and came across a couple of moving boxes decorated with crayons and markers that were our “homes” with Davy and Mickey. Yeesh.

 

After our Monkees phase, and before my undying crush on David Cassidy of the Partridge Family, my pre-teen little heart was captured by Bobby Sherman. I faithfully watched “Here Come the Brides,” which ran from 1968-1970. I don’t really remember any of the episodes, other than I recall that David Soul was also on the show. And Bridget…someone…whose hairstyle fascinated me. I even attempted the corkscrew curls a time or two when Michelle’s mom taught me how to use strips of cloth from a pillowcase to make the curls.

 

Fortunately, she must have let me keep the cloth because there was no way my own mom would let me cut up a pillowcase for my new hairstyle.

 

When Bobby’s big hit, “Julie, Do Ya Love Me” was released in 1970, we sat around the radio (or record player if any of us were flush enough to be able to afford the record), and belted out the words right along with him. Not well, mind you. But volume was seemingly as important as being able to carry a tune. Well, it was important enough – until our mothers told us to keep it down.

 

I read last night that Bobby Sherman died yesterday at 81. I haven’t thought about him in years, but the news still made me a little sad.

 

I do remember reading at some point that he was an EMT, and I thought it was pretty cool that he could transition from teen idol to a career that “regular folk” might choose – and still be happy not being in the spotlight.

 

When I look at photos or old videos on YouTube of all these teen idols, I’m struck by the innocence of it all. No wonder it was safe for little girls to have crushes on these adult men. They had shaggy hair – but they weren’t over-the-top with muttonchop sideburns and beards and mustaches. Most of them did not have hairy chests. I imagine as an 11-year-old, I would have thought a hairy chest was “icky.”

 

So they seemed safe. I have no idea what my parents thought of these infatuations, but I don’t recall them keeping me from watching the Monkees, or the Partridge Family or Here Come the Brides.

 

Sadly, all these teen idols are now gone. Davy Jones in 2012, David Cassidy in 2017, and now Bobby Sherman in 2025.

 

It could make a person pretty despondent thinking about all the losses we face as we age and time goes on. But this is life. It moves with or without us. And as I’m doing in this blog, I’m trying to remember the fun memories these people brought me. Like my dad. And Bobby Sherman.

 

Although…I would never try to compare my dad with Bobby Sherman. My dad didn’t have a lot of hair, for one thing. And he couldn’t sing. So there’s that. But he was an amazing presence in my life. And he was way more significant in my life than Bobby Sherman was. (Which would, frankly, be a little scary if he wasn’t.)

 

I think of you Dad, always, with lots of love. But I’ll probably be having a hard time getting the song, “Julie, Do Ya Love Me” out of my head today.

Rest in Peace, Bobby Sherman. Thank you for the memories.

Until next time, my friends...

Dates and Memories

Today I’m thinking about all the men in my life who have demonstrated what it is to be a good father. Or father figure. Like, for instance, my dad, father-in-law, guy friends, granddads, stepdads, pet dads, and even women who have had to be both mom and dad at times. I have seen so many wonderful examples, and I’m grateful.

 

I know there are a lot of us who are missing our dads today. May we find comfort and peace and remember all those years that we were lucky enough to have had them in our lives.

 

Today would have been my father-in-law’s 95^th birthday. We usually celebrated both his birthday and Father’s Day together even though the two occasions were off by a few days. But sometimes – like today – both events happened simultaneously. So I hope you are being celebrated today, Morris. We're thinking of you here.

 

And, of course, I’m missing my Vince and wishing him a happy heavenly Father’s Day. I hope his kids think of him today and miss him. I know he loved being their dad.

 

June is a month filled with significant dates and memories of my own dad. I’m missing him today on Father’s Day. I’ll be thinking of him on the 25^th as the day he passed in 2016. And then on the 28^th when he and mom would have celebrated their 73^rd wedding anniversary. And then a few weeks later on July 16^th, when he would have celebrated his 99^th birthday. (I think my calculator was working correctly.)

 

Even though he’s not here for me to call and wish him a happy day – I think of him daily. And I thank him for everything he did for me and the example he set for me and my siblings - and all who knew and loved him.

 

The top photo is a blurry picture of my dad and me that I discovered in my parents’ photo collection. Whenever I’d visit them at their cottage on Cape Cod for more than a quick weekend, Dad and I (and any other siblings who were there) went deep sea fishing out of Plymouth, MA.

 

That day we, um, clearly did not have a whole lot of luck. Dad’s mantra of “here, fishy, fishy!” apparently didn’t work, but hearing him say it always made me smile.

 

Anyway, he must have decided that the one puny fish we did catch (and, truthfully, I’m guessing he caught it rather than me since he was the actual skilled fisherman) could still serve as dinner for the two of them. I, on the other hand, was probably offered a hot dog or whatever leftover was hanging around in the fridge as I’m not fond of seafood. So he had the mate on the boat fillet the fish. Even though it's a little hard to see, the fish we brought home was in the small sandwich-sized baggie that we’re holding.

 

I love the wry look on Dad’s face as he’s showing off our “big” catch. It made me laugh then and it still makes me laugh now. Too bad mom wasn’t the best photographer in the world and it’s so blurry. But that’s okay – I still love the memory!

 

As I was looking for the photo under “fishing” I came across lots of photos of us fishing with dad. And lots of photos of dad fishing. They bring up so many happy memories of days gone by.

 

And those are the best memories.

 

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. May you make lots of best memories!

Dad teaching granddaughter Chloe to fish.

And, okay, this is Andrew's big catch.

Proof that Dad caught more than puny fish!

Spelling, Grammar And Punctuation? Who Cares? (I do.)

I was scrolling through Facebook or Instagram or one of those (sometimes) waste-of-time sites the other day. Actually, I was waiting for my mini-bagel to toast without burning. I’d put one in the toaster and then walked away for a minute to start the washing machine. When I came back, the bagel was burned so badly that when I put the two sides together, it resembled a hockey puck.

 

Not exactly appetizing.

 

If I had been my mother (or still living with her when she was paying the grocery bill), I would have scraped all the burned bits off until it was semi-edible and my hands, knife and the kitchen sink were covered in black ash. But I’m not my mother and I’m responsible for my own grocery bill, so I tossed an entire mini-bagel into the trash can and dropped a second bagel into the toaster.

 

I knew I couldn’t be distracted again so I stood rooted by the toaster. Meanwhile, my technological brain had to be entertained for that nanosecond, so I started scrolling. (What has happened to us that we must constantly scroll social media? It’s mind-boggling. And it is a topic for another day…)

 

Anyway, there I was scrolling. I happened to have my air pod in because I’d been on the phone with my brother earlier, so a video started playing. At this point, I was mostly listening to whatever audio popped up so I could keep my eye on the toaster.

 

Naturally, it was an ad. Hey, once we eliminated ads on many streaming services, the ads had to show up somewhere, right? Seriously, though, it’s kind of out of control. Most of the time, I can scroll on by. But there I was, waiting for the perfectly toasted bagel to pop out of the toaster without incinerating, so I was a captive audience.

 

And what I heard made me scramble for the pause button.

 

It started off okay. The male voice asked me if I was single. (I know where your mind is headed – but you can turn back around. It wasn’t one of those kinds of ads!)

 

Turns out, it was for a food service. Their “master chefs” prepare these delicious meals for one – and they ship them to you at your convenience. No dirty pots and pans. No messy kitchens. No food waste.

 

No burned bagels as a meal, perhaps?

 

When I glanced at the meal he was talking about, it was a perfectly prepared delicious-looking meal. In 2025, we call it food prepared by a master chef. In the ‘60s, we called them TV dinners.

 

Nevertheless, it did spark my interest. I’m terrible at food preparation these days. I shamefully toss half-filled containers of mushy strawberries, blueberries and brown lettuce into the trash because I didn’t plan better – or I couldn’t bear to wash and chop and slice and mix up a salad. If the salad is the meal, I rarely think ahead to defrost the chicken in time to add to that freshly prepared salad – so I, oh, I don’t know, toast a bagel and call it a day.

 

I have a friend who calls those dinners her Raisin Bran meals.

 

Are meal kit delivery companies expensive? Sure, they are. But if we factor in the cost of the food I’m already wasting, then they might just be a little more affordable.

 

Vince and I had tried a few different meal prep companies in years’ past. We liked some of them and weren’t crazy about others. Eventually, we stopped them all. Mostly because it was hard to know ahead of time what our schedule was going to be like for the upcoming weeks. And we’d end up having a stockpile of food that started going bad before we could prepare the meals.

 

After Vince passed, I knew I didn’t want to subscribe to one of these food service companies because they are portioned for two. At a minimum of three meals per week, I knew I wouldn’t eat six of those meals.

 

I know of several other single women who have tried these meal prep companies and they had the same complaint. Too much food for one person, resulting in guilty waste.

 

So this ad had me a bit intrigued. Maybe there is a company that caters to a single person.

 

Once I tossed my slightly under-toasted bagel onto the plate, I turned my attention back to the ad. I pressed “play” again.

 

The narrator was talking about convenience. About carefully crafted meals with fresh ingredients. And then I heard…

 

…“Designed to be ate anywhere…”

 

WHAT??

 

Immediately, I dismissed this food service company.

 

Look, I know I’m not the most proper writer. I frequently use “And” and “But” to start a sentence. I’m fully aware that’s not proper sentence structure.

 

I can never remember what a conjunction or an interjection is, and I seriously doubt I could diagram a sentence with any level of confidence.

 

I am, however, pretty good with most of the basic rules of grammar. The use of past, present and future tense with the correlating verb is a pretty basic grammatical rule. One, I’m guessing, I learned in grade school.

 

So to have a company ad selling what I imagine are pricey food meal kits with such a glaring error in its ad? Well, that is simply shoddy marketing.

 

How difficult would it have been for someone to check their sentence structure? They would easily have discovered that “Designed to be ate anywhere” is incorrect and should instead be, “Designed to be eaten anywhere.”

 

Arrrggh!

 

One of my biggest pet peeves is whenever I hear, “I seen…” Doesn’t matter what he or she saw by that point. I don’t care to continue listening.

My friend Sue was driving behind a truck in Florida advertising Yacht Management. You figure anyone who owns a yacht probably has a pretty good grip on, oh, grammar and spelling - right? The first service they offered was providing a captain to steer the yacht. Only they spelled "captain" wrong. On the truck advertising their services. (Insert eye rolling emoji here.)

Wonder how many clients they've lost without even realizing it? 

 

Other things that drive me a little bonkers are apostrophes in the wrong place (or shouldn’t be used at all), the whole they’re/their/there and your/you’re errors. I try really hard to ignore them, though, because grammar, punctuation and spelling don’t seem to be as important in our text-to-speech and AI Brave New World.

 

I’m trying to be a little more understanding, lest someone toss the derogatory, “Hey Boomer” insult my way.

 

In the meantime, I’m going to toast another bagel for dinner. After all, it’s designed to be ate anywhere.

 

Isn’t it?!

Chasing Maggie Minx

I had dinner with a friend recently where we talked about a myriad of topics – from the mysterious rainstorm that deposited muddy dirt on cars all over Central Ohio – to tax preparation – to our arthritic knees. In between these eclectic subjects, we enjoyed delicious meals and drinks.

 

Somehow our conversation turned to pets that we’ve had through the years and we started talking about our various fur babies.

 

Of course, I couldn’t let a discussion about our pets not include a story or two about Maggie Minx. We laughed about all the times Maggie got loose in the neighborhood and all the lively chases that ensued because Maggie loved to run.

 

She’d take off like a shot if she found an escape route either out of the house or out of her harness. We’d see her pop up at the end of the cul-de-sac and moments later, she’d appear all the way at the other end of the street.

 

Most of the times our little escape artist got free were on Vince’s watch. I know he’s not here to defend himself, but he’d freely admit it if he were.

 

One time he and I were walking her together when he had leash duty. He wasn’t paying attention to her as she was sniffing the ground somewhere behind us, but he was pulling on the leash to keep her moving. She was stubbornly resisting as only Maggie Minx can.

 

I turned around just in time to see the entire harness/leash apparatus come over her head when Vince pulled on it. I think all three of us stood there momentarily frozen with our mouths open.

 

Naturally, Maggie was the first to understand that she was no longer required to trot along at the sedate pace we’d set – and she quickly stepped out of the harness and took off.  

 

We’d chase her. And then the neighbors would get involved. Treats were offered. (To the dog; not the neighbors.) And then another neighbor’s dog – with whom Maggie was best buds – would be brought out to join the chase to entice her home.

 

Nothing really worked until Maggie tired herself out and either came home on her own – or someone managed to scoop her up.

 

It was embarrassing.

 

I was pretty careful when I watched her and walked her. I didn’t leave the doors open for anything longer than 2.3 seconds – and, if I did, I strategically placed a leg in the doorway barricading her from possible escape. I didn’t let her back out of her harness – having seen it happen once, I was not about to let it happen again.

 

There were only a couple of times she broke free when she was my responsibility – and I would have to defend myself by saying that they were more mechanical failures than they were user errors.

 

One time was when we were walking and enjoying a beautiful warm, sunny spring day. Maggie was prancing along sniffing her neighbor doggie friends’ pee-mail and I was blithely unaware that a catastrophe was about to occur.

 

She stopped to leave a bit of pee-mail of her own when suddenly I noticed that I was holding the leash, but the other end was not attached to Maggie. It was another case of mouth open in frozen disbelief…but I was able to recover quickly and quietly walk up behind her and scoop her up in my arms before she realized she was not even remotely tethered to me.

 

Turns out the single D-ring on her harness had come apart with enough space to allow the clip on the leash to slip through.

 

Once my heartbeat returned to normal and we arrived home, I promptly tossed that harness into the trash and immediately ordered a harness with two “D” rings.

 

A backup D-ring is never a bad idea.

 

The second time Maggie Minx got loose on my watch was again technically a mechanical failure. I had put her outside on her dog run so I could vacuum in peace. She growls and bites ferociously at the hapless Hoover. Still does. Makes vacuuming ever so much fun.

 

Anyway, I finished my chores and headed out to get Maggie only to see her tearing off down the street with about a foot of plastic-coated cable bouncing merrily along behind her.

 

The cable had somehow snapped in two and, while the stake and most of the cable was still firmly planted in the ground, the hook and the rest of it was now attached to Maggie’s harness.

 

Oh sure - she looks all sweet and innocent

It was at this point that I seriously questioned why we were allowed to own a dog.

 

The facts are a bit blurry now, but I somehow got her back home and disengaged from the cable. How it snapped from the likes of a 10 lb Yorkie, I’ll never know.

 

When I finished telling tales about my little escape artist during dinner with my friend, I knocked against the wooden table and proudly stated that since I had been living at my new place, I’d never lost her.

 

I know I knocked firmly on that wooden table.

 

And then yesterday – not even a week later – Maggie escaped when she darted out of the sliding back door to the patio.

 

Plotting her next escape

It’s all because I’m tattling about Vince losing her so many times, isn’t it?!

 

This time it was definitely user error. I had walked Maggie earlier in the morning when it was still dark (darn Daylight Savings Time). Somehow Maggie picked up a piece of something, uh, no longer living – and promptly ate it before I could try to get it away from her. But, trust me, the Jaws of Life would have a hard time getting something out from between her clamped jaws if she doesn’t want to let go.

 

So I knew we were in for a rough day.

 

We came home and Maggie promptly threw up something nasty that I had to clean up. Which was both good and bad. Good, because I figured it was better out of her system. Bad, because I nearly tossed my cookies myself while cleaning up the mess. And I hadn’t even had any cookies to that point. Haha.

 

The next time we went out for a walk, it was light out and I could at least attempt to watch out for dangers lurking in the grass.

 

But that’s all Maggie wanted to do – eat grass. So, upset tummy it is.

 

When this happens, I let her eat a little grass to settle her stomach – to an extent. She won’t eat the pure pumpkin that I’ve been told will help. So I usually put her on the dog run outside the patio for a few minutes. She can’t get far because it’s not a long one. And I keep an eye on her.

 

Well, I opened the sliding glass door. Then I opened the screen door in order to go outside to fetch the cable clip, but Maggie was out the door before I could block her exit.

 

Since she (a) is older now and (b) was not feeling well, she didn’t go far. Just stood about a foot outside the patio searching for any tender new shoots of grass that hadn’t been decimated by the winter.

 

I was surprised that I didn’t panic. I calmly called her to come inside. She ignored me. I slowly walked toward her, but she kept backing a little farther away searching for grass to munch on. Finally, I got close enough while she was distracted and I was able to pick her up and bring her back inside.

 

So much for knocking on wood.

 

I was hugely relieved that it ended well. Perhaps, however, in the future I will refrain from mentioning who has lost her and simply concentrate on not losing her again?

 

I don’t think my new neighbors would be quite so willing to chase Maggie Minx.

 

Friendships as We Age. Part II.

A couple of weeks ago I had breakfast with a friend. We started talking about friendships and she described an article she had read (or maybe it was a podcast she listened to) about how difficult it is for older people to develop true friendships. That when you’re young, it’s easy to make friends.

 

Think about it – when you’re young, you meet kids in school and you become friends. Sometimes they’re lifelong friends and sometimes they may be just your friend from the third-grade.

 

But several things need to happen to make friendships “stick.” Some of these are: 1) shared interests or common ground, 2) continuity and consistency, and 3) similar priorities.

 

Kids are all in the same environment – they’re relatively the same age, they have school all day and homework to do and tests to study for. They’re all in the same boat, so to speak. They consistently see the same group of people every day for months at a time – long enough to build on budding friendships. And they may play the same sports after school or get together for play dates or birthday parties. So they’re together long enough to know who they want to become friends with.

 

Also, kids are in the same “stage” of life – they don’t have differing priorities. They need to discover how to diagram a sentence or learn the definition of photosynthesis. They don’t have spouses at home and they don’t have bills to pay. (And if they did, that would be a little creepy…)

 

Anyway, this is why it is sometimes difficult to build true friendships with workmates. Even though you are in the same proximity day in and day out, you need all the other elements to work together.

 

You can be friends at work and even meet for dinners or happy hours to unwind after the workweek, but if one goes home to a spouse and kids and the other goes to a quiet apartment, they’re in different life stages and may not develop true friendships.

 

Also, when one person leaves the company, they don’t have that same day-to-day interaction and their friendship may fizzle out.

 

Notice I’m using a lot of “mays” and “sometimes” here. There are occasions when true friendships are built with a workmate after only a few short months. It depends on the people and it depends on the circumstances.

 

This is where I’ve been lucky. I was in vastly different life stages than some of my work friends. Some of them were older, had kids, were married and had to deal with helping their children with their homework and putting dinner on the table. I, on the other hand, was single with few responsibilities other than to feed my cat once in a while.

 

Fortunately, I worked in a department where we enjoyed each other’s company and we had many outside activities, including department rivalry softball games, general get-togethers and holiday gatherings. I believe we named the first Friday of every month as a holiday that warranted a happy hour and dance party.

 

And, okay, by the way, I’m kidding about my cat. I took very good care of Tux – fed her every day and even cleaned her kitty litter box on the regular. She was apparently getting me trained to be a true servant to Maggie Minx several decades later – even though she probably would have been horrified to learn that I would be so devoted to a d-o-g.

 

Anyway, I digress. Somehow we built those work friendships into true friendships – and I cherish them even today.

 

I met one of my best friends on our first day at Ohio State. We had the components of shared interests (Elementary Education majors), continuity (many day-to-day classes together) and similar priorities (getting college educations).

 

Sue interrupted her schooling after our freshman year to get married, go to work and start a family. Interestingly, our friendship continued to flourish even though we were in vastly different stages in our lives. I couldn’t imagine being a wife and a mom. I couldn’t imagine worrying about paying the electric bill every month or making dinner for a spouse every night. Instead, I was still interested in meeting friends at the Thirsty-I and playing pranks on the guys in the dorm across the way from us.

 

A few years later, Sue and her young daughters moved to Florida and our friendship could have fizzled out then. But we made the effort to keep in touch by writing letters to each other. Yes, Virginia, there was a time before we had Instant Messaging and communication. Hard to believe now. Even calling each other didn't happen often because we were girls on a budget and long-distance calls were a luxury.

 

Eventually, Sue moved back to Columbus and remarried. And when I met and married Vince, the four of us became great friends, which is wonderful because it made traveling and hanging out together so special.

 

So it takes extra effort to maintain friendships as we go through life. But I, for one, think it’s worth it.

 

The friend who brought up the topic of making friends as we age and how it becomes more difficult? She told me about her own experience in this regard. Several couples who were close friends moved to other states and, while she and her husband were able to maintain those friendships long distance, getting together for a meal on a random Saturday night became problematic.

 

So they decided to explore other ways to meet people. They joined a pickleball league and play several times every week. Eventually, a small group from the league started meeting for happy hours or meals that didn’t include the actual playing of pickleball – and these people became friendly and started socializing more often.

 

Now, after 3-4 years, Susan would call some of these folks real friends. And that’s because all those elements – shared interests, continuity and similar priorities – are all present. They see each other on a regular basis, they all have common interests (besides pickleball), and they are all in the same stage of life – retired/no young kids to raise.

 

So while it takes some work to forge new friendships as we get older, it can be incredibly rewarding.

 

I’m grateful for the circle of friends I have. But I’m never averse to making new friends.

 

Just don’t expect me to pick up a pickleball racquet anytime soon. I've got bad knees and don't need more reasons to require surgical procedures.

 

Stay well, my friends. Until next time…