The Visit Home

We spent the last week in Cleveland celebrating birthdays and seeing family.   What a good time we had, but as I call 2020 the year of nothing, I have to call this trip, the visit of food.  Between meeting people for lunches and dinners, it's safe to say that we added a few pounds--oh good, just what I need. 

One of the events was "Neighborhood Lunch."  Since I've been on Facebook, I've reconnected with several of our neighbors from West 100 St.  We decided to get together, so 7 of us went to Olive Garden in Middleburg Heights.  We talked for over 2 hours and had a great time catching up.  It's amazing how young we all looked!!

I also reconnected with my best friend from 4th grade, Debbie Onody.  I haven't seen her in 40 years.  She has 5 children and 3 grandsons.  We had a fun time remembering school chums over lunch.  We had "friendship" necklaces when we were young, so I bought us both necklaces that celebrate that bond.  It was so good to see her again. 

Seeing the grandchildren was hard.  That must sound odd, but Jenna and Jon are taking Covid very seriously.  We had to wear masks, stay 6 feet away and not hug the children.  It just broke my heart to be that close to them and not be able to squeeze and love them.  

The last time we saw them, they still seemed small and as I remembered them.  But this time, they all got so big, especially Ben.  He is 5'8" or 9" now and taller than we are.  He stood next to Tony (6 feet apart) and I immediately thought of that little boy who always wanted piggy back rides from Papa.  

The children are all very talented.  Sam played the banjo, Ben played the ukulele and sang, Ellie did some gymnastics and Zach showed us some Tae Kwondo defensive moves.  They are learning how to play tennis and even jump on a pogo stick.  They were not able to be on swim team this year because of the virus.  

Sam is starting to look more like Jenna, although, I've always said he looked like her father, Bill, so I guess that makes sense.  Ben favors Jon and Ellie and Zach favor both of their parents.  Ellie has the most beautiful smile and Zach is sweet and funny.   

I cried so much during our visit.  I cried because they were so big, I cried because I couldn't touch them and I cried because they are so beautiful.  I will post pictures of them soon. 

In the meantime, I have posted beautiful birthday flowers from the Charlotte Swegle's and a picture of our Neighborhood Lunch. 

From left:  Lynn Viancour, Back Row: Earl Melvin, Donna (Viancour) Andrassy, Peggy (Quarando) Szabo,

 Ralph Quarando, Front:  Jan (Viancour) Morgan-Swegle, Gail (Doane) O' Dell

Missing due to health reasons:  Linda (Doane) Yamamotto, Gordon Hathaway

Flowers from the Charlotte Swegle's  for my birthday

Published!

 

Yesterday, I got two copies of the Cape Fear Voices issue that published my story about the snake in our lanai.  It was a thrill to see my thoughts in print again and I'm trying to submit another article before we leave for Cleveland.  

I love writing again, although, I feel a bit hemmed in because the articles are restricted to 700 words.  Anything over that has to be published in installments.

Cape Fear Voices is a new, small paper dedicated to featuring the diverse points of view of the people in the community.  The Leland area is one of the fastest growing in the country and is less "locals" and more east coast/midwest every day.  

I am really looking forward to our Cleveland trip and seeing our grandchildren again.  OK, it will be behind masks and there will be no hugging, but at least I can see them and talk to them.  No matter what restrictions or how long the visit, I am so excited to see them.  

I think this is the first time in a long time that we will have seen most of our grandchildren in a 2 month period (Owen didn't visit.)  The first part of August, Tony Jr., Coleton and Anthony visited and in September, David, Brenda and Alex will be here. It's hard to believe that in a little over 3 weeks, it will be September.  2020, the year of nothing, marches on.  

Dixie will be staying with her Godparents for the week we are in Cleveland.  She will miss barking at people while she's sitting on the back of Tony's reclining chair with him, but I know she will enjoy extra treats and extra love while we are gone. 

Here's my  first Cape Fear Voices entry"

Mother Nature

I'm not sure how I ended up with dots on my text, but I will figure it out  before my next post. 

• One of my favorite commercials of all times is "Mother Nature."  I think the commercial is about selling margarine but everyone thinks it's butter--including Mother Nature.  She's not happy when she finds out she has been fooled, so she raises her arms above her head and says, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." After that you hear loud crashes of thunder and see wicked lines of lightening.  You get the message. 
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• Well, Mother Nature sure likes to fool us.  I think Tony said we have had 4 hurricanes in 5 years--the latest Isaias (which I understand is pronounced E-Sigh-A-Us) made landfall at the South Carolina/North Carolina border last night.   As it moved inland, the eye was 8 miles West of our house.   
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• That sounds pretty scary, but we only had one tree down and the same pot of flowers that went down during the last storm, went down again.  We were very lucky.  One of our favorite cities, Southport, was not so lucky.  Southport is a sea side community, with many residents living on boats--well, actually, they lived on boats, many of the boats in the harbor were damaged to the point of being totaled, as was the pier.  Huge sand slides were all over the roads and lawns of residents and cars were pushed into each other and turned over. 

Jokes about trailer parks didn't seem funny today, as a park was totally destroyed, killing a few people and leaving 2 small children still missing.  

Chunks of bridges in various places are gone, and water damage in the Outer Banks is again severe.  

For a small moment in time, we forgot about masks, our stupid president and the virus.

David, Brenda and Alex were totally missed, as was my cousin and her husband in Beaufort, South Carolina, and for that, we are most grateful.  

Dixie spent most of the time before the storm shaking and hiding under the bed.  We stumbled over something that makes her feel safe--a laundry basket.  Tony just picked her up the other day and put her in one I had on the floor.  She seemed to like having "walls" all around her and being able to see out.  I put one of her blankets in the bottom and she rested comfortably on it and stayed in the basket next to me during the thunderstorm we were having.  

So, that's life in North Carolina.  Critters, snakes, storms and who knows what else.  

But we are well and have once again, dodged Mother Nature.  I will continue to eat butter and not margarine!

Again, sorry for the dots. 

The same plant that went down in 2019

The same tree that went down last  year