That Good Part

I spent a good part of today in relative silence.  I say relative because I was on the back of a motorcycle which most people wouldn't consider silent.  It sort of is for me, because I'm a white noise person, I like a single sound that drowns out all others.  A more than 1350 cc engine on the open road is a perfect white noise.   That noise helps my my mind rest, and my thoughts become ordered.   Lots of the people we ride with have bikes with more technology than NASA, or they ride with an iPod or Bluetooth. There's nothing wrong with that.  For me, the bike is one of the few times I can resist the temptation to answer a phone, write an email, clean something or run an errand.  It is forced relaxation.   Years ago, like 25 of them, my office overlooked a railroad track. Every day when the afternoon freight train came by, I would stop, turn away from the computer and force myself to watch the train go by until I couldn't see it anymore. T...

I had forgotten how much I loved Fanta Orange soda until one hot day at a McDonald's in Barstow.   It wasn't an enjoyable trip that day, we were on our way to Bullhead City in Arizona so Dave could do a memorial service.  It was a service for the sister of a close friend of ours, a woman younger than me who shouldn't have died as she had.  I wasn't looking forward to it.  We had stopped for a quick lunch amid a forest of fast food places and as I stood before the soda dispensers, I saw that they had Fanta Orange. Maybe it was because of the then recent loss of my dad and the fact I was on my way to a memorial that triggered the memory. Since my dad died I realized I have a lot of fond, food related memories, and most of them centered on something I did with my dad.  5th Avenue candy bars as we watched Adam 12 every week.  Bologna sandwiches and a thermos of hot chocolate on the winter time weekend drives.  Fanta Orange during football games. ...

This could be the demise of my goal of posting for 31 consecutive days.  My husband is on vacation this week, and I am too busy enjoying myself to write about it.    I actually struggle to enjoy vacation, because I have a tendency to see every free moment as an opportunity to get something done. I've spent the last two days biting my tongue in an attempt to keep from saying to my husband "Hey, you know what we have time to do?"  He on the other hand, keeps saying "Hey, do you know where we could go?"   So Monday we did a little doing, and Tuesday we did a lot of going. Tomorrow we will probably do a little of both.   But for the rest of the week, it'll be some of this: And then it'll be some of this: Time flies when you're trying to have fun.  We're going to eat up some highway this week, and enjoy every minute of it.  I love a road trip! 

My husband has been doing pre-marital  counseling with a young couple who intended to have someone else perform the actual ceremony.  After spending some weeks meeting with the Amazing Dave, they decided they really wanted him to do the ceremony. Oh, did I mention the wedding was in two days? And the Amazing Dave was leaving town, and wouldn't be home until about 12 hours before this wedding?   He called me on his way out of town, with instructions to make sure his suit was clean, and to pray.  I did, and today, under a brilliant blue sky I watched a bride I don't know walk down the aisle to meet her groom.   You don't have to know the couple to catch their joy.  The moment the bride appears, there is hardly a face without a smile in the place.  Among the women, some remember when she was a little girl and can't believe how beautiful and grown up she looks. Some remember that day when, with a mixture of nerves and excitement, the door opened for th...