A Day In The Life

People, Places, Nature, LIFE!

08/26/2018
DailyMusings

8 comments

FOWC with Fandango: Euphemism

A Euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. There are euphemisms that can soften the blow, such as saying someone “passed away” instead of they are dead. Somehow the word dead just has an awful finality to it, passed away seems to leave things more open to interpretation I suppose. There are also euphemisms used to be impolite. Again in the case of death, one could say someone “kicked the bucket”, “bought the farm” or perhaps. “croaked”. I would think one must really not have liked the deceased person if they were to use those euphemisms, as they do sound rather harsh.

Years ago I was a volunteer in a hospital. I volunteered with Pastoral Care, visiting patients throughout the hospital to sit with them and listen, talk, whatever they wanted. Some of the patients I visited had undergone Stem Cell Transplants for cancer, and were there for months. I often became close with them as a result. I came to the room one of these patients had been in 2 days earlier and found the bed empty.  I inquired at the Nurse’s Desk where she was. The response I received was, “She expired.” Needless to say I was appalled first, then upset, and then really angry. Expired? Like a credit card? This was a person. I was dumbfounded and felt this Nurse must have been doing her job for too long if that was how she referred to the death of someone. I reported her to the Pastoral Care office and recommended she be given some sensitivity training. So much for euphemisms. 

One of my favorite patients-may she rest in peace

08/24/2018
DailyMusings

12 comments

Feathers on Friday

I saw so many wonderful shore birds at the Ocean this week I wanted to share them with you.

Here’s an Oyster Catcher. They seem to always travel in pairs. I think the one in behind in the video might be a baby.

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These are Laughing Gulls

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This is a Stilt Sandpiper. I had never seen one before

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Most seasoned beach goers know not to ever leave their bags open and unattended. Black Back Gulls, the largest of all Gulls will think nothing of helping themselves.

Yes! They’re gone! We can move in on the bags… c’mon guys!

Let me get a better view from up here

Might be something in here, I’ll just nosy around

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08/22/2018
DailyMusings

25 comments

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Music, Guitar, Instrument, Men

I learned to play the guitar when I was 13, a friend sat down with me and taught me a few basic chords, how to strum and pick, and I was off from there.  In High School my BFF Alice and I tried our hand at “collaborating”- she wrote lyrics, then I added music. We called the following song “For Danny,” written for our mutual friend who was heading across country after high school. I recorded the song in 1974 in a friend’s studio, and a few years ago was able to have the vinyl recording transferred to cassette and then transferred to CD.

Age 14 playing for family

Music

08/20/2018
DailyMusings

22 comments

FOWC with Fandango — Neighbor

Neighbor… Oh how I long for the days when I had good neighbors. I am surrounded by neighbors who have cut the branches off my trees that hang over their property- hundreds of feet in the air mind you, but they insist they will ruin their roof(no where near their roof) or their dogs, the 9 they own, might ingest an acorn. The tree cutting man rolled his eyes as this neighbor explained the acorn situation, he tried to explain that cutting some branches would not eradicate the many other acorns on the remaining branches of the 100 year old Oak tree. But never mind. The barking at 11pm that wakes me up is more of an issue, but the township has no rules for how many dogs one can have in a private home. Neighbors. They have a perfectly good driveway but instead park in front of my house EVERYDAY, all day, making it hard for my husband and me to pull in around their car, and pull out because their car blocks being able to see the oncoming traffic. These are my neighbors.

I do try to keep it positive here on my blog, so now I will return to the past, the block I grew up on, where neighbors were real neighbors. You could rely on them to borrow that cup of sugar, doors were always open, my house is your house. I knew my friend’s homes like my own, every nook and cranny. Block parties, where we’d take up the street with folding chairs and the grown ups would chat while the kids all played. We knew everyone on the block, they were all neighbors even if they did not live directly next door.

The block I grew up on…

Neighborhood kids (myself included) in the pool of my friend next door..

The older I get the more space I seem to need- having neighbors whose homes sit so close to mine makes me crazy. I suppose if we were all friends it wouldn’t matter, but when that is not the case, it does. They both have fences, and you know how the saying goes, “fences make good neighbors”- in this case, it’s a good thing there’s a fence!

Neighbor

 

 

08/17/2018
DailyMusings

20 comments

Which Way

On my morning run, the train was passing as I was about to enter the underpass. Come along with me.

I grew up across the street from this underpass, and we were loathe to have to use it. It was damp and dank and stunk, often littered with empty liquor bottles. They have cleaned it up in recent years. (somewhat) When I was a kid there was no fence blocking access to the tracks, so we crossed them when the train wasn’t coming, or waited for it to pass rather than use the underpass. Sometimes we would see the light of the train in the distance and stand waiting for it to come, waving to the conductor, and standing there watching the many cars as they passed, feeling the breeze from the rushing cars.

Which Way

08/16/2018
DailyMusings

4 comments

Timeless

Montauk, New York, is a village at the east end of the Long Island, New York peninsula. It’s known for its beaches, and years ago was a simple village, but over the years has grown to be a “go to” destination like Hamptons, becoming very upscale and trendy, losing that small fishing village feeling.  At the peninsula’s tip, Montauk Point State Park is home to the 1796 Montauk Point Lighthouse. As a child we vacationed at my grandparent’s home in Southampton and always made a trip to Montauk, about a 45 minute ride away.

Chateaux des Fleurs posted a beautiful photo of the Montauk Lighthouse on their blog. It struck me how timeless it is, and remembered a photo I had of my grandparents standing in front of it, probably taken in the 1940’s or 50’s, when they first started spending summers in Southampton.

While going through my photos, I came across a photo of my mother taken in 1989 standing in front of it. 

My grandparents and mother are gone, but the Lighthouse still stands.

 

08/13/2018
DailyMusings

18 comments

One Word Sunday: Selfie

I’ll admit it, I love taking selfies. Not of myself necessarily, but of me and whoever, or if I am somewhere by myself it can be more interesting to have a person in the photo rather than just a photo of whatever. Like last week when I went into NYC by myself and was enjoying the sights in Washington Square Park.

Or if there is a mirrored wall it just seems like fun to capture a selfie of myself with camera in hand

Or when my husband and I are on a day trip and I want both of us in the photo

My nieces and I have made taking a selfie a tradition whenever we see each other.

And imagine my surprise when my niece sent me a photo taken by the wedding photographer at her sister’s wedding, that he had taken of my niece and I taking a selfie!

My all time favorite is the selfie that my BFF and I took using a Polaroid Camera way back in 1983… we turned the camera around facing us to take it, and couldn’t stop laughing… we though it was a hilarious thing to do… little did we know that 30 years later the world would be doing it all the time.

Selfie

08/12/2018
DailyMusings

13 comments

The Freedom of Youth

I wrote a post I titled Perspective a few days ago about how at this stage of my life I am content not flying around the world anywhere, not flying at all, but instead staying in my own comfort zone of calmness and less stress, spending time at the beach or visiting local sights. It made me take a look back, to remember the many summer vacations I planned, traveling with my BFF before both of us got married, the trips to Europe, to Israel, and then I remembered even a little farther back than that, the spontaneity that youth and lack of responsibilities allowed me one weekend. I had completely forgotten about it, until now.

After I graduated high school  I did not go on to college, but instead went to work, just a few miles from home. My BFF was going to college in Massachusetts at Brandeis, a 4 hour drive away. This would be the first time we were “separated”, having been friends since we were 12, and pretty inseparable throughout the 4 years of high school. It was an adjustment. She had been in college for maybe 2 weeks, and I remember being with a group of friends hanging out on a Friday night and calling her. She was still getting used  to college life, I was adjusting to work and it was just a lot of change for both of us. One of our mutual friends said he and I should just get in the car in the morning and drive up for the weekend. Really? Just like that? She couldn’t believe we would do it…. but that is exactly what we did. He picked me up at the crack of dawn, and all I remember is him putting “Born To Run” on in the car blasting, (probably an 8 track) and taking off for Massachusetts. It was just what we needed to do, and we could. What did I pack?  A shopping bag with underwear, sweatshirt,  lens solution and a toothbrush. (These days it takes me 2 days to figure out what to pack for an overnight, and my toiletries alone take up half the overnight bag.) No photos “documenting” the time there-no cell phone cameras, no selfies, no camera even, the pictures only seen with my mind’s eye these many years later. Remembering how good it was and reassuring to see each other like that, spur of the moment. The freedom of youth.

Our last year of high school

Last year

 

08/11/2018
DailyMusings

33 comments

Perspective

I am friendly with a group of assistant teachers I have been working with for the past few years. They are all between 30 and 35 years younger than me. The difference in age doesn’t seem to make a difference, we have gone beyond having school be the unifier between us, moving on to sharing our personal lives with one another, our day to days, their small past life, my much larger past. I wrote about my experience the first year we worked together here

We have taken “mental health days” off from school together, spending the day shopping and going out for lunch.

We celebrated the engagement of one of the girls 2 years ago in our lunch room

We kidded around in the hallways taking selfies

We have met for coffee when school is not in session 

We have even shown up to school quite unexpectedly wearing the same clothes

Yesterday we spent the day together at the beach. Something came up about the fact that I no longer take airplanes. One of the girls asked me if I feel bad when people say they have travelled somewhere, Israel, Europe, anywhere, and I haven’t been there anytime recently. She brought up the argument that the chances of a plane crashing are so minimal. I explained to her that it is not the plane crashing that scares or worries me, it is both the chaos of the security and the actual plane ride if there is turbulence or worse, that I no longer wish to subject myself to. My nerves are not what they were when I was 25.  I told her I do not live a life of comparison with what other people do and how they live. I am content with where I am in life now, not looking at the choices others make. She was having a hard time understanding it. I realized it was a matter of perspective- she is 25, not yet married, with a future that lies ahead. Many of her friends are married, some with children, and she longs for her life to take that turn. It is hard for her not to compare where she is standing, to look at others and see what they have and she does not yet have. I brought up the point that she has a future spread out before her, and I am on the other end. I told her eight people my husband grew up with, went through school with, died this year- this is the reality of the world I live in. Being thankful for each day, for getting in the car and driving an hour to sit by the ocean, finding calmness and peace rather than getting my nerves in a uproar at an airport and on a plane. That I have reached a point in life where I do what works for me, but that it is something that comes with age, with having lived life. I know at her age I was much more adventurous, or never thought about the possible consequences of doing something, or the “what could happens.” That is part of not having lived yet.

I met someone at a party last year, my age, who was surprised when I told her I stopped flying years ago. I explained my reasons, and she said “I like it, you have chosen to simplify your life, to do what your heart tells you, not bowing to societal pressures or comparisons with others.” She saw it, knowing that life throws enough of its own surprises our way, sometimes keeping it simple is the right choice.

Each of us has to know ourselves, what we can handle, what will make us happy, or what will create a situation of discomfort or unease. It is hard to imagine when one is 25, what it is like to be 60, I know I certainly never thought about anything from my parents perspective until I was in my 40’s. That’s how life works I suppose.

08/10/2018
DailyMusings

20 comments

Look Around You

It looks like a path. Just a path through a park.

But if you take the time to walk along it slowly, and listen to the sounds around you, and look at the bushes and trees, there is more there than just a path.

Have a good weekend

 

08/08/2018
DailyMusings

11 comments

The Seagulls Have Landed

I spent the day at the beach on Tuesday. Big surprise, I know. The temp was 94 but sitting at the edge of the water you didn’t feel it at all. I even went into the water to jump the waves. The Seagulls were in abundance, and many came and sat near me. They are not tame, they will venture near only to a certain point and then retreat. The Great Black Backed Gulls are huge- bigger than a cat, and larger than some small dogs. I brought some bread with me and enjoyed watching them take turns eating, or in some cases fighting over it, which was not my intention.

This guy just hung out by himself next to my blanket. He would cry occasionally, he is a juvenile and I kept thinking had lost his mother. Very anthropomorphic of me. 

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