WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Today I saw this hot-pink bike on a country/folk art site I follow on Facebook. I decided this delightful work of art would be the picture for the blog du jour. I love creative stuff like this and about ten years ago I spent a few months painting unfinished furniture and country yard ornaments in colonial blue complete with tole painting using a hearts-and-flowers motif. It was a painstaking effort, and after all that hard work I decided I would not leave a single one of my treasures out to rot in the elements and spoil my handiwork. So, I tucked them all away under the patio roof every night and whisked them into the garage when it rained or got very windy. That was alot of bother. Eventually I quit putting them out at all, and opted to cover them up and keep them in a corner of the basement. Well they won’t get ruined that way. I suppose, though I hanker after a project like this pink bike and its treasure trove of flowers, I will pass on it for now and perhaps it will be a project for me once I am retired. One caveat however: I’d buy a bike chain, and paint it to match the bike, then hook it up to the fence, because Heaven forbid, I’d put it out front and it would get stolen. The bike’s bright color and the beautiful blooms made me long for Summer. With merely 22 days ‘til Spring’s arrival, I have decided we will just bypass that season this year entirely since Winter will no doubt linger until it morphs into a stinkin’ hot Summer. As I write this post, the wind chill is -5 and the wind is gusting at 30 mph thus rattling the metal blinds. I sure feel that 13-degree temp inside, and with feet ensconced in my mukluks, I still shivered while here at the table in a kitchen that is far from cozy right now. Buddy’s cage is swaddled 3/4s of the way around, but he is front and center, trilling away, and thrilling me with his singing. The kitchen comes alive with Buddy’s beautiful melodies, not unlike when songbirds congregate in the tree near an open window on a Summer’s day. If only it really was Summer …. I am disenchanted with Winter just as everyone else is. On Sunday, the last of the ice that surrounded my house for over a month finally melted, enabling me to back my car out of the garage after 5 ½ weeks. However, after the last snow storm, the City snow plow finally came by, after a three- or four-week absence, and dumped a large pile of snow all along the bottom of my driveway. This snow pile was soon pelted by freezing drizzle leaving me with an icy mound of snow which is virtually unmovable. I know that because during last weekend’s little thaw, I kicked the icy mound with a booted foot and thought I broke my toe. So much for taking the buggy for a ride until the weather warms up. Thank goodness for my friend Marge who will not see her favorite neighbor and godson, Buddy, going without their groceries, so I’ve tagged along whenever she goes grocery shopping. Today a WWJ reporter was polling people about their impression of the last 100 days of cold and snowy weather. Well, I guess their answers were to be expected, and, of course, no one said they embraced the Winter of 2013-2014. In fact, if the truth were to be told, I’ll betcha WWJ probably had to discard or bleep out most of the responses. Good thing Mike Campbell didn’t interview me.

As I tumbled into bed last night a long rumble of thunder seemed to roll right behind my head, and then rain came pouring down from the Heavens above. I listened for a few minutes before I drifted off, all the while musing about the Winter weather smorgasbord. We have also picked up some new seasonal vocabulary as well, including Polar Vortex, thunder snow and frost quakes. I missed the thunder snow event on Monday, but I understand alot of people in Monroe called to WWJ after the evening sky lit up with big blue streaks and it was thundering like a Summer storm. I went to get the mail mid-morning yesterday and I finally saw thunder snow for myself … unbelievably massive snowflakes and loud thundering simultaneously. The snow put down a quick coating in my driveway just while I was standing at the door. The appearance of frost quakes this Winter fascinated me as I had heard very weird and inexplicable booming noises outside, yet saw nothing out of the ordinary in the back or front yard the next morning. Then, our local meteorologists explained the phenomenon of frost quakes, or mini ground disturbances, as a result of the sub-zero temps we experienced in the Polar Vortex . There have also been an abundance of creaks and squeaks in the house, more obvious when the radio is off and Buddy is taking a break from singing. In fact, as I was writing this post, my corner cabinet startled me when it made a loud creaking sound, then a bang. I thought perhaps the door had opened and hit the table leg, but nothing was amiss. Hmmmmmm. I am thinking that cabinet needs a good coat of furniture polish since the furnace has been running nonstop 24/7 since November; it is rebelling and saying “please wax me” or, perhaps I have ghosts. The wind is raging out there right now at nearly 25-30 miles per hour and the rest of the house is emitting a host of peculiar noises as well. Hopefully, Buddy and I are not destined to end up whooshing away to parts unknown like Dorothy and her faithful companion, Toto. I am so thankful that I’ve not lost power and I am keeping my fingers crossed that we remain that way while awaiting Mother’s Nature next episode of wacky weather.

Today I’m lamenting the lack of sun on my side of the street. Oh, the sun was out and shining brightly and the temps reached nearly 50 degrees! It felt like a Spring day, despite the calendar which says the vernal equinox arrives one month from tomorrow. I peeked out the window a short time ago hoping all the ice in the driveway had finally melted and perhaps the snow banks might have dwindled and been whisked away down the sewer drain until next year, but no such luck. The snow plow came and left its calling card at the end of the driveway and that was about all. Sigh. Across the street, I saw the cement driveway for the first time in weeks, if not months. But on the shady side of the street, the ice still encircles my house, and with an all-day rain tomorrow, re-freeze threatens and my frustration will escalate. Actually, today’s weather was fantastic, but a little wacky. After all, two days ago it was bitter cold and snowing non-stop. The weather prognosticators keep teasing us with how many more inches of snow are needed to break the all-time record of the snowiest Winter in history since records have been kept. As of now, we only need 16.4 more inches of snow, which begs the question: do we want to beat the record for the snowiest Winter EVER or do we just let it lie? Sometimes less is more.

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it’s turn. ~~Hal Borland

It’s still another Winter weary day as we trudge off to work, school or wherever. Even the expectation of a few “balmy” days ahead do nothing to buoy our spirits, and I suspect that even the Winter sports enthusiasts will quit saying “bring it on” about the snow going forward. Here in Michigan, we got a little boost before this latest round of snow when our very own Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who train at Arctic Ice in Canton, brought home the gold in ice dancing at Sochi. We’ll boast about their spectacular feat for a long time since it was not only a personal best for them, but the first time the U.S. has won gold in ice dancing competition. I’ve watched video clips of the pair’s exquisite skating performance and was left breathless; their graceful moves seem effortless, and they are so deserving of the prize after 17 years of skating together. It seems the Olympics have been going on forever, though it is only Day 11, and now there are but a handful of days until the closing ceremony on Sunday. At that point Winter will lose its pizazz permanently as we all retreat to our mundane muddling through the rest of the season. While our Winter may be for the birds, one clever bird, has created his own bobsled event. This is no birdbrain folks. While his resourceful performance may not have the ooh and ahh appeal of the speeding bullet of a bobsleigh and its occupant as it careens around the icy, serpentine-like tunnel track in death defying moves, this little video will give you a much-needed giggle and get you through our snowy day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpRca_qmc8s

Live in each season as it passes;
breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.
~~~Henry David Thoreau, from “Walden”

Today this Vanilla Ice song kept running through my head since traversing the yard and perimeter is still a perilous trip, though the fresh dusting of snow helped give me a wee bit of traction. I rode three miles on the exercise bike, cooled down a tad, slipped into my warm woolens, coat and boots and then walked around the entire perimeter of the house for a full inspection. My drain spouts are still all jammed up with ice, so pointy mini icicles lined both sides of the house. I took a broom with me to whack ‘em and felt like a sharpshooter aiming at a line of whiskey bottles at the local saloon. None of my icicles have reached monstrous or lethal proportions like some in the neighborhood, so in one fell swoop of my broom these daggers were droppin’ like flies. For a split second, before I waged warfare on the icicles, I stopped to admire the prism effects of the sun as it shot beams of light through their translucent, smooth and stiletto-like beauty. The entire downspout was encased in a sheath of ice as well. No melting was happening on this frigid cold morn. That wind chill was nippy and my fingers were soon cold and my lips felt unmovable, and I was sure they resembled the blueberry sky above. I’m happy to hear the weather folks have taken the freezing rain out of Monday’s forecast since twice the ice would not be nice, even if Dr. Seuss would suggest otherwise. There is a much-touted warm spell the tail end of the week with temps in the 40s and 50s, if we can hold on that long. Of course, then we’ll fret and stew over flooding issues … as Michiganders, I guess we’ll just go with the flow.

I’m sending these virtual hearts, flowers and chocolates to wish you Happy Valentine’s Day. I love this picture which incorporates everything that Valentine’s Day is meant to be: hearts, flowers, chocolate and a whole lotta love and don’t forget the pensive-looking, chubby cherub a/k/a Cupid. Growing up, I don’t remember my father buying big, foil-covered heart boxes filled with chocolates, nor flowers, for either of his “two girls” … shame on him because Mom’s birthday was on Valentine’s Day. Guess she got gypped bigtime like anyone who shares a birthday with a significant holiday. But I must state a disclaimer … though chocolate and flowers were absent, no one forgot their little girl on this day of love. I usually got a cute little Valentine’s Day card signed by both my parents with an abundance of XXXs and OOOs trailing along after their signatures. Sometimes I got a piece of jewelry. But best of all … ever since I was very young, my mom would bake a big batch of heart-shaped sugar cookies. She’d put red or pink icing on half of them and the rest would have white icing with lots of red sprinkles. Sometimes she’d outdo herself by baking a batch of those cut-out sandwich cookies with raspberry jam in between. Mmmmmm. Mom baked those Valentine’s Day cookies, as well as other holiday icened sugar cookies, until I was well into my forties, and just like a kid, I’d always look forward to my treats. My own baking skills, however, would find me hunching over the slice-and-bake holiday cookies and hoping I didn’t burn half the batch. That is my kind of baking … easy and breezy – a festive touch without the muss and fuss. My mom was not a chocolate lover, except for an occasional Turtle, that ultimate gooey, chocolate-covered pecan delight. Her big indulgence instead was gumdrops, so she always received a large bag of cherry gumdrops for Valentine’s Day from me. Sweets for the sweet! Whatever works and lends a little happiness for both the giver and recipient. So today … it is all about sharing the love; a little smooch and hold on tight to your main squeeze or those who make you smile.

It seems a gigantic wave of nostalgia has crept over my psyche and stalled there the past few weeks. First, it was the death of Phil Everly at the beginning of the year and the barrage of sound clips of Everly Brothers’ tunes that ensued. Then a few weeks later, legendary folk singer Pete Seeger’s time was up. I hummed along most of the day to medleys of his songs covered by other artists during the 60s that I knew by heart, though I’d not heard them in years. This past Tuesday it was snippets of sweet Shirley Temple songs that pulled at my heartstrings. But, what immersed me into this nostalgia kick the most was the appearance of Paul and Ringo at the Grammy Awards, followed by the 50th anniversary special of the appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. I don’t have cable and I do have a tiny digital T.V. but it freezes up all the time, so I figured I’d catch the performance highlights online after the show. I’ve scoured the internet and pieced together the performance – it seemed to me they just picked up where they left off all those years ago, sadly sans John and George. When the Beatles firmly announced they would never reunite, their loyal fans always had that glimmer of hope it would happen; that is, until we lost John and George. I’ve followed the Beatles since their arrival in the States and their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. My parents never missed that Sunday night show and I used to watch it with them just to see Topo Gigio. The Beatles were not my parents’ cup of tea; they preferred country western singers or Lawrence Welk. But I distinctly remember parking myself in front of the tube and watching them that night. I was only eight years old when the Beatles hit the scene, much too young to be a screaming teenybopper, though I do remember doodling “I love Paul” surrounded by hearts and flowers in my school scribbler. I know in ’64 all the girls in my class loved, loved, loved The Fab Four and we proudly wore tin buttons proclaiming our “love” for our favorite Beatle. Today the word used to describe the phenomenon of the Beatles would be that they are “trending” … but in those days, they created excitement that has never been duplicated since. I am happy to have been part of the throng that was so enthralled with the Fab Four. Our Valentine’s Day cards that we exchanged with classmates in the mid-60s probably were plastered with the Beatles’ faces, although I Googled around and could find no such images. Still further wending my way backward with some more grade school nostalgia … I recall, at the tender age of eight, exchanging Valentine’s Day greetings with classmates that were pictures of little animals or girls and boys with cutesy or corny sayings. The teacher would have a dish piled high with pastel candy conversation hearts on her desk and we’d scoop up a few as we filed slowly past the cardboard “postbox” to drop our Valentine’s Day cards into the slot. Later, our teacher would play “postmaster” and distribute the cards to all the students. I will bet you had such an experience in grade school as well. It was just plain and simple fun. Hopefully school kids still have such activities because I fear they grow up too soon in this age of too much electronics; of course, nowadays they probably text each other “love notes” (or pictures) or perhaps post Valentine’s Day greetings on their Facebook status. I often think I should have lived in another era as the world sometimes seems to be spinning way too fast for me and I would like to jump off and head for the hills.

Today begins my second year of posting on “Walkin’, Writin’, Wit & Whimsy”, my first blog created on WordPress.com on February 11, 2013 (https://lindaschaubblog.net/2013/02/11/walkin-writin-wit-whimsy/).

Yesterday I intended to salute myself on this monumental one-year anniversary of my blog, but decided that my 280th post would be an ode to that cutie-pie Shirley Temple instead. As I entered the blogosphere last February, I must admit I was a little nervous at first, having not engaged in writing anything more than my annual Christmas letters in over three decades. But, here I am, one year later, having amassed 280 posts and used up 11.28 megabytes of my allotted 13.312 megabytes of WordPress space. Who knew I was a wordsmith or that I had so much to say? Granted, pictures do hog alot of space, but when I sometimes scroll through all those blog posts, I am amazed at just how many words I’ve written during the course of the last year. I must buy more space soon as there are many more words to utter, situations to ponder and memories to share, though I’m sure any posts on the main subject matter of walking will have to wait awhile yet. I have walked one measly mile in 2014, but good things come to those who wait so I shall be patient. Hopefully the interjections of occasional “wit” and “whimsy” have lived up to the latter portion of my blog’s title.

My blog is an escape of sorts for me. My fingers fly on the keyboard and I can lose track of time as I relate my everyday encounters with people or critters while enjoying an extensive walk at Council Point Park or just a quick trip around the neighborhood. Blogging has also given me a golden opportunity to recount past events – sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Revisiting and recollecting simple, sweet days of carefree youth and sharing pictures from days long ago has been enjoyable, and at times bittersweet, because I have no family left, except for my little companion, Buddy, my mop-top canary. Reflecting on the past and recording it in my blog posts as to family members, to me is the equivalent of sitting next to a relative at the holiday dinner table and saying “hey, you remember when …”.

When I began my blog, and often throughout the months when I walked and wrote nearly every day, I secretly wondered if I could sustain the daily posts throughout the long Winter months. At the beginning of 2014, I even issued a caveat that perhaps now the holidays were over, the blog posts may be few and far between. Well I was premature in issuing that statement. Current events, additional holidays, and of course, the WEATHER, intervened along the way, thereby providing plenty more fodder for me to chatter about. Even today, Mother Nature took away the tedium of the trot outside, because as disenchanted as this writer is about the Winter weather, it was quite the sight to see a stand of beautiful, ice-encrusted trees reaching high toward the brilliant blue sky and the Heavens. There was just a split-second ray of sun on those crystalline branches, yet I felt privileged to have witnessed the splendor, because a few minutes later the sun dipped behind a cloud and all that remained were big old trees and a dreary setting of a drab sky and snow everywhere as far as the eye could see. I am not Pollyanna, nor do I wear rose-colored glasses, but I do try to enjoy Nature’s gifts. That said, I am indeed anxious for Winter to skedaddle so that I may begin walking with a spring in my step to embrace life and enjoy Nature’s little treasures during my daily escape to Council Point Park. I am closing this post with this quote which exemplifies what I believe in …

The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures, but in the simple joys.
~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie ~

This morning, like most mornings, the alarm rang, and I reached over to the nightstand to silence it and grab my radio headphones to catch up on the news of the day. I snuggled down under the covers and intended to get up once the news was over. The first sound I heard was the familiar childish voice crooning “On The Good Ship Lollipop” and I knew instantly that Shirley Temple was no longer with us. I listened intently as the newsman said she had passed away last evening of natural causes, her family by her side. I never heard the balance of the broadcast, since the news of her passing instantly took me back to an era of little girls’ giggles – both Shirley Temple’s and my own. Her death evoked a bevy of beautiful memories, almost too many to recount in the space of this blog post. Coincidentally, I just wrote a post about Shirley Temple last April 23rd after hearing an audio clip of her song “Animal Crackers In My Soup” which was played to commemorate her birthday: (https://lindaschaubblog.net/2013/04/23/zoo/. I’ll bet alot of people haven’t thought of Shirley Temple in many years until they heard the medley of a few of her movies and songs on the news today. When I was growing up, I would happily plunk myself in front of the black-and-white TV set in the living room to watch this iconic imp’s antics every chance I could. I especially loved her tap dancing routines with Bojangles Robinson. Shirley Temple’s movies were feel-good stories that made you smile and laugh out loud, unlike the Disney dramas like “Old Yeller” or “The Red Pony” that often made you sad. It seemed for years there were movie marathons featuring her films that could be watched on a lazy Sunday afternoon, followed by “Lassie” or “The Wonderful World of Disney”. My mom grew up watching the first-run Shirley Temple movies and had one of the original Shirley Temple dolls. She often quipped that had she known she would have had a little girl, she would have saved the doll and passed it down to me, Well, I wasn’t hard done by with my Thumbelina or Chatty Cathy, but it would probably be a collector’s item now. When I was a young girl, whenever there was a special occasion or sometimes just for Sunday School, my mom would spend the evening before painstakingly twisting strands of my light brown tresses into pin curls. She’d sit with her container of bobby pins and a comb for nearly an hour, then swaddle my head with its prickly bobby pins in a bandana so the pins didn’t poke my head when I went to bed. The next morning when the bobby pins were moved, each lock of hair was wound around my mom’s finger to make springy tendril curls, or “sausage curls” to resemble Shirley Temple’s hairdo. The picture above was my “Shirley Temple” look circa Christmas 1961 when I was five years old. I don’t know if my mom made me exactly 56 curls like Shirley Temple’s signature do, but alot of work went into lovingly fashioning those just-perfect curls that would bounce whenever I moved my head. Ahh, such sweet and precious memories of my youth and my fascination with Shirley Temple. In my mind I never thought of Shirley Temple as an adult, with a second “career” as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana or as a married mother with the moniker of Shirley Temple Black. She was, and always will be, the precocious little girl who captured my heart as well as the hearts of many generations.

I was listening to WWJ’s “On this Day in History” feature, where it was reported that on this date in 1968 Peggy Fleming was awarded a gold medal in figure skating. That factoid sure took me back a few years. I can still picture her graceful performance and her simple skating costume, with none of the frills and flourish of the modern-day competitors’ outfits. Peggy Fleming was a sheer delight to watch as she swirled and twirled making her routine look like child’s play. Didn’t we all want to take lessons at the local ice skating rink to be just like our idol? I remember, as a pre-teen, I was in awe of Peggy Fleming, especially since as a kid I was clumsy on the double-bladed skates at the Oakville Arena, and in later years my white, lace-up boot skates spent more in the box in the basement, then they ever did on my feet. But a girl can dream … I was surprised to learn Peggy Fleming received the only gold medal awarded to the U.S. at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France.

Other than listening to snippets of the Olympic coverage and the daily medals tally, or watching the occasional video featured on Comcast, I must confess I am not really all that interested in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. I am unfamiliar with any of the athletes who are competing and there are alot of the extreme sports events that I’m not interested in either. My favorite Winter Olympic events were always the individual men’s and women’s figure skating . For years my mom and I followed all the qualifying and championship events leading up to the Olympics, so in those days, anyway, we were familiar with the athletes. We followed the “Battle of the Brians” with Brian Orser and Brian Boitano in the men’s figure skating events, though we vacillated as to whom to root for – our homeland contender or the U.S. favorite. We also liked hometown boy Kurt Browning. Our favorite young women skaters were Katarina Witt, Debi Thomas, Nancy Kerrigan and also Kristy Yamaguchi and we followed their respective careers for years, until all these figure skaters got older, retired or turned pro, then we gradually just stopped following ice-skating competitions altogether.

I suppose now that we’ve finished the third day of the Games, the horror stories of tandem toilets, brownish drinking water and unfinished accommodations are old news. I must meddle into these tales recounting the Sochi hotel accommodations which I found a tad amusing when they first started surfacing a week or so ago. When I booked a 1983 tour, which included Russia, all members of our Maupintour group received countless pamphlets forewarning us of the rather primitive hotel accommodations and that we should be prepared to spend our six days in Russia in a nice hotel, but without any amenities that we were accustomed to in the U.S. We were told that we should purchase bottled water at the hotel to drink or use to brush our teeth since the water was unfit. It was suggested that we take sink stoppers with us as the sinks might just be a ceramic basin with large, open drainage holes. We were advised the toilet paper was scratchy and perhaps we ought to slip a box of Kleenex into our suitcases. Our tour group arrived in Leningrad by way of train from Helsinki and we were immediately taken to our hotel to drop off luggage and freshen up before dinner and a quick bus tour of the City. Though we were forewarned about our rooms, it turned out to be a five-star hotel, with a king-sized bed and large-screen TV (before they were popular) and large buckets filled with ice where bottles of Coke, juice or water were chilling just ready to grab. As to the primitive bathroom … it was huge, with gilded faucets which ran crystal-clear water. There were long, marble-topped vanities on either side of the bathroom with Hollywood vanity mirrors, heating elements from the ceiling and floor to warm you from top to toe, a huge spa-like tub, heated towel stands, soft lights and music piped in. There were no tandem toilets and no toilet paper that looked like rough paper towel either! All the propaganda and hype were quickly forgotten at this hotel and likewise three days later when we arrived in Moscow. What a misnomer from all the info the travel agent suggested when the tour was booked, or the travel “suggestions” we received in advance. It was the most-fantastic leg of the three-week tour which included the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark as well. My mother had a saying that she taught me ever since I was a young girl: “believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear” … good words which still ring true today. Above is a picture of yours truly in Moscow on the day we arrived. I’m glad my world-wide travelling days were done in less-trying times, when the biggest obstacles were deciding how many pieces of camera equipment to tote along on each excursion. Nowadays you can simply take a small digital camera or use your phone’s camera and be done with it. I lugged lenses, filters, rolls of extra film and a bulky camera bag, plus slung a heavy SLR Canon camera around my neck to capture the experience onto film. Now the visitors and athletes in Sochi will tell their tale with “selfies” and phone camera videos for years to come. Go Team U.S.A.!