A new friend and two words of wisdom

 

A truly worthwhile book by my friend, Stephanie

Sometimes serendipity can lead to the nicest things. Several months ago, the neighborhood newsletter that I edit did an article about Ann Darr, the neighborhood representative to the Fort Worth ISD board. I stressed to the writer that it had to be apolitical, following the guidelines for the newsletter, and it came back raving about what a good school board member she is. I sent it back, explained again about no politics, and got an article Ii thought usable (yes, I got some criticism, but not much). A few weeks later, Ann Darr contacted me and asked if we could meet. We had confusion finding a date, and I had to explain I could not easily meet her someplace for a happy hour drink but I would welcome her to the cottage.

Tonight, finally, was our happy hour meeting. I made a tuna spread—not very original, but it was good and she seemed to like it. We chattered like magpies for over an hour and a half. Found out we go to the same church, one of her children is in Jacob’s class at the high school, and one of her sons is at U of Arkansas where Jacob will go next year. We are politically in sync, though her position, like my newsletter, is apolitical. We chattered about education today—charter schools, home schooling, book bans, intrusive parents (she says that has peaked and died down), the necessity of trade school programs, financing, Abbott’s sitting on funds allocated for teachers because he didn’t get his way on vouchers, and on and on.

I have friends I see often and simply adore but familiarity sometimes results in fairly stagnant conversations (I can hear them now—“Does she mean me? Surely she doesn’t mean me!”). I think we tend to know what our close friends think and not dive deep in conversation. But when you meet someone new, in the process of getting to know them, you go deeper—at least that’s what I found tonight. I hope Ann Darr will come back to the cottage, and we can develop a friendship. PS She’s a dog person, so what’s not to love. After welcoming her with frantic barking, Sophie was as good as gold all evening, pretty much stayed on the patio.

Two words of wisdom for the day: resilience and gratitude. My friend, Stephanie Raffelock, posted in her Substack column this morning about her goals to reach by the age of eighty. I misread and thought she was referring to her seventies as her last decade, so I hastened to send a rebuttal from my advanced age of eighty-five. She called to say I had misread and her goals are to prepare herself to live into her eighties and nineties. We talked about aging, and she mentioned a book that is meaningful to her: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. A Jewish psychiatrist, Frankl spent four years in various Nazi concentration camps, and he came to believe that the will for meaning was the single most important factor in survival. He got so he could look at fellow prisoners and almost predict who would survive and who wouldn’t. I probably won’t read it simply because I refuse to read about Nazi cruelty. I find it too upsetting to realize such evil exists in the world. But I like the theory.

Stephanie had written that it was a goal to be pain-free, and I told her that was a pipe dream—as we age we all suffer minor aches and pains. The goal is not to let them grow so big in your mind that they become major. I mentioned that as a doctor’s child, I was taught to be brave about health problems and pain. Doctors, my mom told me, laugh at those who magnify problems or pain. I took it so far that my brother once said he thought I was taking Mom’s advice too seriously. But once when I was in the hospital with a fairly serous health problem, I said to a resident physician that I guessed this would change my life, and she replied, “Oh, I don’t know. You seem to be fairly resilient.” So that, for me, is why resilience is important—bouncing back from major or minor upsets.

Stephanie had just been reading about gratitude, and she proposed that as a factor in aging well. Gratitude takes us beyond ourselves. If you can give up moaning and whining about your present state—or about the state of our country or the world—and look for the positive, your whole attitude toward life will change, and you will be healthier and happier. I try, every night, to thank the Lord for the blessings of my day and those of my life in general. I find I have lots to talk about.

Resilience and gratitude: Try them for a week

A ladies luncheon

 

We may have had a ladies luncheon,
but unfortunately none of us looked like this--
and no cocktails were involved. 

Lunch is not a social time for me. I rarely go out for lunch or invite people in. I’ve got this daily routine down pat and socializing at lunch interrupts it. I work all morning, eat leftovers at my desk, and work until two, two-thirty when I take a nap. But today was an exception: Jean and a young woman I’ve corresponded with but never met came for lunch.

Since yesterday was a busy day, I did not have the meal prepared in advance as I often do. I did make a marinated bean salad yesterday, but when I got up this morning and got going instead of rushing to my computer, I made a chicken casserole. Not a big deal, probably took me an hour to make it and clean up the kitchen. The most onerous part was dicing celery and green onions and chopping up the chicken—a rotisserie chicken which was deboned and in the freezer. Jordan finally convinced me deboning them is not bad if you do it right away when they come from the store, still warm.

The young woman is the daughter and niece of friends of mine, her aunt long gone, her parents recently deceased. Mary Lou was a friend through the years—we met in 1970. Shortly thereafter she lost her daughter tragically, and I was one of the people she turned to. She was a big part of my life until maybe ten or twelve years ago when she retired and moved to Dallas. Through her, I met her brother, Alex, and got to know him because we both served on the board of the Friends of the TCU Library. At board luncheons, Alex and I would sit together and whisper about liberal politics, trying to stifle our laughter like naughty schoolchildren. We knew several people in the room would frown on our ideas, but we always had a good time.

In recent times, Alex’s wife developed Alzheimer’s and was in a memory care facility, and he moved into a retirement facility (not the one I’m so familiar with). Jean and I went to have lunch with him once, were planning to go again, and I was making plans to have him to the cottage for lunch to get him out of what I thought was a cold and unlovely environment. He fell, broke his shoulder, went rapidly downhill, and died about a month ago. I had been in touch with his daughter, Leah,.because Alex had almost no vision left (macular degeneration) and dictated his emails to her, so by the time he died, I felt I knew Leah.

So today she came to lunch, and that young woman (okay, middle-aged) Alex had described to me as an introvert who didn’t like to be around people, was outgoing, frank and open about her family, and talked constantly of how lucky she has been in the people who support her and her family. She seemed thrilled with the prayer shawl Jean brought her. We had a lively discussion and a good time.

And now I have leftovers for a frequent visitor to the cottage who is coming for supper tomorrow night. Meantime I’ve had a slow, lazy afternoon and evening, enjoying the thunder and rain.

Between hearing aids, grocery and social engagements, the week that started off to be a writing week has fizzled. Monday, I wrote 1500 words on my cottage memoir and felt so good about it. Full steam ahead. Since then, I have written countless words in my head but committed nothing to paper. I itch to get to it. Perhaps tomorrow, but Thursday is always the day I post a recipe to my Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog, and I haven’t even chosen the recipe. The road to hell is paved with … but then you know that saying.

Just in case you missed it, I had a guest post today on Lois Winston’s Anastasia Pollock blog. Lois has a spot for recipe blogs, so mine is on Texas caviar, a recipe developed by Helen Corbitt, later of Neiman Marcus fame, way back in the 1940s. It’s still good today. Check it out if you want a good side for a summer barbecue or picnic party: https://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2023/06/cooking-with-cloris-author-judy-alters.html 

 

Every day an adventure

Several years ago I inherited the job of editor of our Berkeley Place Association newsletter, the Poohbah, from a friend and neighbor. It was sort of temporary while Mary, then the editor was on an extensive European trip, but it morphed into permanent, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I don’t mind; in fact, I’m glad to do my bit for the neighborhood because it’s a great place to live.

Along with the job, I inherited the woman who was designing it—a graphic designer, I’m not. We’ve worked together smoothly for several years and developed a nice give-and-take in our working relationship. In fact, she designed my cookbook and did a super job. But I knew nothing about her as a person.

My good friend Subie distributes the Poohbah, and was astounded that I’d never met Amy, the designer. “We must take her to lunch,” she said. And so today, we met Amy for lunch.

I’m not sure what I expected, but I think it was someone older, perhaps a little Bohemian. Amy is a bit younger than my youngest child and looks ten years younger than that. She has a four-year-old child and says she does her best work after he’s asleep. And Bohemian she’s not—she’s a graduate of TCU and would fit right in on that campus today.

We had a delightful lunch, chatted about design work and the Poohbah and probably bored her with too many tales about our families and adventures. We probably won’t meet often, but it’s terrific to have a face and a person to match with the name.

                                                                                          Wednesday morning

Oops. Didn’t finish this last night, because I went to the TCU Scholarship Dinner—a huge and impressive affair honoring scholarship recipients and donors. There are well over 900 scholarships available to TCU students.

The dinner was held in the Ed and Rae Schollmeier Arena, where the usual basketball floor was covered with temporary carpet and filled with beautifully decorated tables. What most impressed me was that TCU knows how to do it with class and precision. Everywhere we turned there was someone to help us—my host, friend and neighbor Mary (she who gifted me the Poohbah), had called ahead to be sure there was a golf cart to take us from parking to the concourse; inside there was someone stationed to show us the elevator, and on the floor level someone  else guided us through halls to the dining area. Same when we reversed, where TCU police gallantly opened doors.

Although I only spoke to a couple of people I knew from my TCU days, I spotted many other familiar faces. As I said to Mary, some of them have aged. Her reply was, “So have we.” There were easily a thousand people there, maybe more.

Fun, briefly, to be back in the academic world, but even when I was there full time I rarely participated in the big, showy events—so it was almost a new adventure for me.

Back to routine today.