It's interesting being "of a certain age" in an industry (and a world, in some ways) that seems obsessed with youth culture and "how do we attract and retain recent college graduates?" I'm now in the strange (for me) world of being one of the oldest people in the company that employs me, and that's…
Month: February 2020
Sisters and seasons
Kelly and Kim, 1967 That’s the best thing about little sisters: They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they’re far wiser than the elder ones could ever be. Gemma Burgess Today is my sister's birthday. We live too far away from each other to see each other as…
Pruning
It's been a warmer winter than usual, so the rose bushes were already starting to show some new growth and the beginning of buds at the end of their straggly winter branches. I hated to prune them and was tempted to just let it go. If I did, we'd have new rose blooms maybe even…
Invasive species
Oh, my aching back. 🙂 Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Yesterday was the day. We had circled the weekend on our calendars. We were going to stay home and tend to our yard. That might sound crazy to those of you still dealing with ice and snow, but here in Texas the average last…
Friends don’t let friends be sheep
It's an election year in the US. I've started thinking more about how much effort is put into influencing our opinions - not just by the political parties and individual campaigns but by all of the intertwined sources of information we consume. It seems like immediately after every debate or televised speech, some variation of…
Keep it to yourself
When I was a kid, I always knew who my dad was going to vote for, because he told me. I presumed my mom would vote the same way my dad did back then. I definitely don't want to give the impression that she would vote the same way my dad did because my dad…
Decompression, Un-depression
"It happens every time I cross the Copano Bridge. I breathe easier, my shoulders drop. I smile bigger."George Strait, "Find Yourself in Rockport-Fulton" campaign Now, I don't know if George actually wrote those words himself, but it doesn't matter. I know exactly the place he's talking about in the ad he did for the Rockport-Fulton…
Featured
Saudade
When I was researching and preparing for our trip to Portugal last year, the word saudade kept coming up. Saudade:a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never…
Well, I can’t do that at home…
I spend a lot of time on the road for my job. Not as much as I used to in my younger days, before I had dogs, or a husband, or a house, or much of a social life, for that matter (more on that in another post.) I do spend more time than most…
“Sometimes I pretend I’m asleep.”
My friend’s candid admission hung in the air between us like an anchor. I hadn’t spoken with my friend, Ann, in almost two years. We worked together for two different employers, and had developed the kind of friendship that sometimes happens when you’ve spent hours and days together over years, dealing with so many of…
Red Chair Reflections 