One morning this past week was spectacular because of the sun and clouds. Here are a few views I enjoyed, plus a mule deer in a neighbor’s yard and quail in my backyard. Enjoy!
Have a great week. Are you cooking for Thanksgiving or visiting friends?
Sunrise view from my back yard.
It was my senior year of college at the University of Washington. I worked as a cocktail waitress at the Tally Ho, which were restaurant lounges in three hotels in Seattle. I had worked my way up from hostess to breakfast waitress to cocktails during my years in school.
One night at work, I got a phone call from a suicide hotline. (I need give a shout out to LA from Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50 for her post about her burn and reminding me of a scar I still carry.)
The person on the line said they received a call from a family member of mine who attempted to end their life. She refused to give me any more information and quickly hung up. I called back and learned the phone call was an error. They were not allowed to give out confidential information of any kind. They weren’t supposed to call me in the first place and could give me no further information.
My parents were going through a messy divorce. I remember feeling like gravity had disappeared and at any moment I would fall off the Earth.
I left work and drove home to Snohomish to our family home, which was 45 minutes away from Seattle. I remember commuting to school and staying home with Mom as much as possible. She was the person who called the suicide hotline and gave them my work number after slitting her wrist.
Weeks later, we were at Nordstrom downtown Seattle and Mom wanted make up for her scar on her wrist. I was mortified when she approached a woman at a counter and asked for help. She showed her scar on her wrist and the woman behind the counter after an initial shocked look, was gracious and found something for my mom to cover up the scar.
Unfortunately, my internal scar never went away.
I was taking a class at the UW in radio broadcast and I had to splice together a recording. I chose the Beatles song “Help” and wrote a piece about the suicide hotline. My professor was very concerned and wondered why I had chosen that specific topic.
I am amazed I made it through the quarter and graduated.
Speaking of scars, which ones do you carry with you physically or internally?
Every single day I get emails like the one above. Plus, I get texts from “UPS” or other delivery services that say they can’t deliver my package. It’s being held until I make a payment.
Of course, I don’t fall for them. But I wonder how many people do? Especially senior citizens, our youth or naive.
When I get the daily half dozen fake PayPal emails I forward them. Here are the instructions from PayPal — the real PayPal.
Phishing email/message
Received a suspicious email, or message or been directed to a fake website? Forward it to phishing@paypal.com and then delete it. We’ll investigate it for you.
Don’t reply, open links, download attachments, or call any listed phone number.
https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/what-are-common-scams-and-how-do-i-spot-them—help201
My friend in Santa Barbara does lots of errands for her next door neighbor who is older and has sight issues. My friend began to worry when she’d take her mail to the post office and realized she was mailing out dozens of letters each day addressed to sweepstakes. She discovered her elderly neighbor was mailing dollar bills to “win prizes.” She called the neighbor’s daughter who lives in another state and they finally put a stop to it. She would pick up the letters and pretend to mail them, but hold onto them, eventually returning the money.
Another scam I heard about happened during my daughter’s last year in college. One of her friends, who is book smart and was high school valedictorian, got a phone call from the “IRS.” He was instructed to buy Apple gift cards and mail them to an address that was supposedly the government agency.
He emptied out his college account, which had his last semester’s tuition of $1,200 and bought gift cards at the local grocery store. (Yes, he had several scholarships is why his tuition bill was so low.)
The cashier questioned him but he insisted on buying the cards. Then he mailed them.
You can only imagine the teasing he received from his college mates after that! Today this young man is a doctor. Yikes.
What scams do you see in your inbox? Have you heard of any other ones I didn’t mention? Are you worried AI will lead to more scams?
A page from my parents wedding album given to me by my aunt who visited last week. Mom and Dad were 23!
A strange thing happened during my aunt’s visit. I glanced over at the sofa and Olive the cat was sitting next to my aunt licking her fingers! Now this is a first. Olive has never let a guest touch her or vice versa. Olive does sleep with my daughter, but that doesn’t count because she was my daughter’s cat until college took my daughter away.
My aunt and I did most of the things on my list and we found ourselves very compatible. We both got hungry at the same time, wanted quiet time in the afternoons to ourselves and went to bed early to read. Having a house guest doesn’t get much better than that!
It cooled down considerably, we lit the outdoor fireplace and cooked s’mores. We hiked in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. We went to the farmer’s market in Carefree and explored consignment stores in Cave Creek. We had some delicious lunches and dinners out, plus I cooked. We visited the Musical Instrument Museum and to my delight, they changed up a few exhibits so there were new things for me to enjoy.
You might wonder what would be exciting about visiting a museum of musical instruments.
From the MIM, here’s the Artists’s Gallery experience:
ARTIST GALLERY
Celebrate music’s most influential artists.
In every time and place, there are musicians whose art deeply touches the lives of many. MIM’s Artist Gallery highlights these personalities with ever-changing exhibits that span sound, style, and era. Through generous partnerships, MIM features historic instruments owned, played, and loved by the musicians who have created a shared soundtrack to our lives for generations.
Nearly 40 displays showcase instruments and artifacts from some of the greatest musicians in the world. See and hear instruments played by icons such as Elvis Presley®, Tito Puente, the Carter Family and Johnny Cash, Roberta Flack, Glen Campbell, Joan Baez, Maroon 5, and many others.
https://mim.org/artist-gallery/#
The exhibits not only have the artists’s grammy awards, gold records, costumes and instruments, they have a large screen that plays selections of their songs on the headsets you wear. I think my favorite was “Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison. On display is his hand written lyrics on a yellow legal pad. So not only do you get to sing along with Roy, you get to see how he wrote it, along with a photo of him and his pretty woman. There are many other galleries from all over the world. I haven’t touched the whole of MIM yet.
Here are a few photos from my aunt’s visit:
What is your idea of a perfect house guest? What do you like to do when entertaining company?
Olive the cat sensing change in her daily life.
Here’s the thing that happens when we have guests. Olive’s world turns upside down.
First, her litter box is moved from the casita bathroom along with her food and water bowl. They end up in our bathroom in the Master bedroom. She knows that something is up.
So she disappears, showing her displeasure. Why should we turn her life upside down when everything is exactly how she likes it? Why do we let people into our house when she’s a fraidy cat?
Because maybe our house guests down’t want to share a bathroom with a cat.
She’ll disappear for hours at a time. I look under beds, in closets and then I find her in my closet. Sometimes, it’s only a little paw or a hint of a tail that shows. But today I saw this. She was giving me a look. I have no clue how she gets up to the top of my closet. My daughter is convinced she she powers up “Beam me up Scotty” style.
The only time Olive shows more displeasure is when the suitcase comes out.
Do your pets feel change in the air? What triggers them?
Two pages about Mom from my aunt’s scrapbook. My mom is on the right with her little sister, my aunt.
Today we pick up my aunt from the airport. She’s coming to visit us for the first time in Arizona. I have all sorts of fun things planned including visiting the MIM, the Musical Instrument Museum, where they have an Elvis exhibit (My aunt is a big Elvis fan.) We’ll have time to sit and talk. Also, go out to lunch, drive to the nearby lake and explore the tiny towns close to where I live. I’m also hoping it will be cool enough at night to light the outdoor fireplace and make s’mores. I’ve been all set since my kids visited a few weeks ago, but we had a heat wave!
Here they are years later in 2015 at our family reunion at our riverfront property in Robe, Washington. The fireplace in the background is what remains of our cabin that my parents built more than 65 years ago.
I am so looking forward to spending a few days with my aunt. It certainly helps that she’s my closest connection to Mom, who passed away from COVID this year. Also, that she is the kindest, sweetest person I know.
Who are visitors that you welcome with open arms?
I noticed this large hawk in the tree outside our casita, after I saw Olive the cat crouched against the screen door fascinated. I’ve been looking for it online and in a bird book, but so far haven’t come up with a species. It had lodged something in a branch and spent an hour eating it. Then it stayed in the tree for hours.
Now on to the topic of today’s blog post. The other morning while asleep I dreamed I was invited “spur of the moment” to a neighbor’s house that I don’t know very well for dinner. I was supposed to bring lamb chops and scallops and I had about one hour. I woke up, and was so relieved that I didn’t have to do this “spur of the moment.” Whew!
Those words stuck with me because I enjoy idioms and finding out the etymology of words.
Spur of the moment — in great haste, referring to the use of spurs to urge a horse to move.
That one idiom had me look up other ones including above board, aftermath, ahead of the curve, baloney, haywire, make a clean sweep and pass the muster. The information I found on Idiom Origins was in more detail, but here are my “Cliff Notes:”
Above Board — a gambling term from the 17th century derived from card playing when cards had to be above the table in view.
Underhand — the opposite of above board.
Aftermath — from the 17th century it means the result or consequence of something. In the 1500s it was called aftermowth and meant the second mowing of summer grass.
Ahead of the curve — became popular in the 1980s in business circles referring to a graph and being ahead of trends or in the forefront.
Baloney — means rubbish or nonsense. Two theories are that it came from the Irish immigrants word blarney. Second, it’s Italian based on cheap bologna that is made of bits and pieces
Haywire — when things go wrong or out of control. In the early 1900s haywire was used to describe something poorly constructed. It was based on cheap wire that tangled easily and was used to bale hay.
Pass Muster — a military term from the 15 or 16th century where a soldier passes inspection. Now it means you undergo a review or examination successfully.
Make a clean sweep — now means to win everything but it originated with cleaning or sweeping in the 19th century.
https://idiomorigins.org/
One I couldn’t find was hornswoggle. There was an idea it came from Texas in the 1800s from lassoing a bull around the horns, but there is no evidence.
What are some of your favorite sayings and where did the words originate from?
