Monday Morning This and That

 Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. 

Gloria Naylor

Good morning everyone. Monday has arrived and another week begins.  You'd think I was still working the way I talk, but I have a fairly regular schedule that I try to keep. They are predicting more rain this week, but I am hoping to get at least one clear day to go to Coney Island.  It was beautiful this past weekend, but I know there must have been quite a crowd.  Not only was it the first sunny days of the weekend, but it was opening day for their new roller coaster. They're charging $10 a ride.  Good thing I don't ride coasters.  That is quite a steep price for a ride that only lasts a few minutes.

Didn't do much this weekend.  Went to the fruit stand, of course, and stocked up on healthy foods.  Came home and myself a nice fruit salad for lunch.  Yummy!!!  Made a pot of chili and yellow rice for dinner.  I like to melt some swiss cheese over mine.

On Sunday I went to Church and then came home to place some virtual flowers on my dad's grave via 'Find a Grave'.  Thanks to one of their kind volunteers I finally have a photo of his gravesite. The other day a friend posted a photo of herself as a little girl playing cards with her dad which only served as a reminder of what I never had.  While my mom was out every night, my dad was home with me, but he was never available. He'd eat his dinner and take his six-pack into his room, and that was where he stayed.  The only time I remember him doing 'dad' things was at Christmas when he would make sure there was always at least one boy's toy under the tree for me.  Not that I minded.  I loved playing with cars and trucks just as much as I enjoyed playing with paper dolls, but I sometimes wonder if had I been a boy, would it have been different?  No matter what, though, he was my dad, and as I grow older, I have learned how to forgive.  And I really do miss him and mourn the loss of his presence in my life.

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found

While journeying east and west -

The only folks we really wound

Are those we love the best.

We flatter those we scarcely know,

We please the fleeting guest,

And deal full many a thoughtless blow

To those who love us best.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Speaking of Church.  Across the street from my home, where I wait for the bus, there lives a little old Chinese woman. She lives in the basement of a three family homes, and her windows are covered with the darkest material so that not only can one not see inside, but no light filters in.  It is hard to believe that anyone lives in such a dungeon. I'd be willing to guess she is close to a hundred or over.  Last year she sat outside and watched for my bus with me every Sunday that it did not rain.  She talks my ear off, and I don't know a word she is saying and points out the bus when it is coming.  Winter came, and I didn't see her.  Spring came, and I still didn't see her.  I was beginning to think she had probably passed on until I walked over to the bus stop yesterday, and there she was, standing there with the biggest smile on her face.  She was just as happy to see me as I was to see her, and it occurred to me that despite our differences, and despite the fact that neither of us knows what the other is saying, we can still be friends.

And with that I wish you all a great week.

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

Audre Lorde