This is my second story for Munchkin, our first grandchild. Here is a link to my first story for him if you want to read it first: A Story for Munchkin

Dear little Munchkin,

Today you are 4 months old!

It’s so hard to believe you are already that old, but it’s also hard to believe there was ever a time without you in the world. I’m so glad you are in the world, little Munchkin.

Today I am going to tell you another very special story. It’s a story about the first time Grandpa T. and I met you!

When you were almost seven weeks old, we flew on a plane from Arizona to visit you in Washington. We are lucky grandparents because you were too little to be afraid of strangers, so you didn’t cry when we held you. You smiled at us and made sweet little cooing noises, and it felt so good to have you in our arms.

We went for walks with you, and to the Arboretum and the Yakima Farmer’s Market. We went along on your first trip to Costco. You slept through most of it. We spent one day in Leavenworth. It was your first time there and mine and Grandpa T.’s too! Most of us ate Bavarian brats and pretzels. Someday you will too, Munchkin! Mommy and Daddy picked out a Christmas ornament and a nice lady wrote all three of your names on it. That will be a fun way to remember our first time there!

We also spent a lot of time at your house. We watched you play at Tummy Time and we laughed when you got excited about something and kicked your little legs around. We saw your bedroom and all your books and clothes. We held you when you were sleeping and we carried you around the house when you were awake. You liked to look at the pretty pictures on the walls, the magnets on the refrigerator from all of Mommy and Daddy’s travels, and especially the bright light coming in the windows.

After a few days, Daddy’s brother and his wife, your Uncle Cutie and Auntie Dragon, flew on a plane from Alaska to Washington so they could meet you too. We went on beautiful hikes along the Tieton and Naches Rivers, and spent more time at your house talking and watching you play or sleep. We sat outside and ate delicious meals from the grill and passed you all around. Everyone loved to hold you and kiss you and try to make you smile. It was very special for Grandpa T. and I to have both of our boys, and their wives, and now you too, all together!

When I held you, little Munchkin, I appreciated every second. I wasn’t sure when I would get to see you again, and I wanted to soak up as much of you as I could so that I would always remember the first time I met you and what you were like at that age. I especially loved listening to your little baby breaths and watching the sweet little faces you made as you slept.

When I held you, I also remembered when your daddy was born. He was my little baby, mine and Grandpa T.’s. I thought about what Daddy was like when he was little and I wondered what you will be like as you grow up. How much will you be like Daddy, and how much like Mommy, and how much like your own little self? What will you love to do? What will make you laugh? What will make you cry? How often will I get to see you? What wonderful memories will we make together?

Mostly, I want you to know how grateful we were to hold you and love you up in person, and to do that while you were still pretty small. And since you were too little to remember our visit, we’ll remember it for you, and we’ll show you pictures and tell you all about it someday when you’re a little older.

Our time with you went by in just a blink. When you were just a couple days more than eight weeks old, it was time for us to leave and fly on a plane back to Arizona. It was hard to leave you, especially not knowing for sure when we would see you again and not knowing when we will be able to move close to you and see you more often. Hopefully that happens before you are old enough to remember a time when we didn’t live nearby.

Until then, Munchkin, remember what I told you right after you were born - love doesn’t need a plane to travel far, far away. Whenever we think about you, which is all the time, love travels from us to you just like magic, so you always have our love with you even when we are far, far away.

And we are lucky grandparents because Mommy and Daddy make sure we get to see you on their computer almost every week. We’ve been able to see how you are growing and look at your big, blue eyes, and hear your sweet voice. And you’ve been able to hear our voices, too, even though you don’t really understand whose voices you’re hearing yet. But someday you will!

And you are a lucky boy because you’ve been having lots of your own adventures since we left. You’ve met all of your cousins and your other aunts and uncles, spent more time with Grandma M. and Grandpa J., got sand in your face at the Oregon Coast, took your first ferry ride, camped at Mt. Rainier and the Olympic Peninsula, and yesterday you had your first plane ride!

You are growing up, little Munchkin! You are already twice as old as you were when Grandpa T. and I met you. Mommy and Daddy said your hair has grown back on the top of your head and your eyesight has developed enough to see them across a room. They said you are reaching for things, putting your hands into your mouth, and grabbing your toes. You are looking at the pages when Mommy and Daddy read to you, and this week when we saw you on the computer, you rolled over from your back to your tummy for us!

And sometimes it’s good that time goes by in just a blink, because in only one more week, Grandpa T. and I will get to see you again! We are going to meet you and Mommy and Daddy in Tucson for a few days. And best of all, we are bringing my mommy and daddy, your Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, to meet you for the first time. We are so thankful we get to spend more time with you, and we are all so excited, we can hardly wait!

See you soon, little Munchkin!

Love,

Grandma C.

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On a recent walk, we talked about how someday in the future, when we move to be near our grandson, we’ll miss walking in our neighborhood just west of downtown Flagstaff, or “Flag” to locals.

We decided to start taking pictures of things we see, one or two each per walk, and then someday make them into a photo book to help us remember our “Flag Walks.”

We briefly contemplated bringing his Canon Rebel T3i digital camera along on our walks so we’d end up with high(er) quality photos, but decided to sacrifice quality for simplicity and stick with photos we can take with the phones we’d have with us - old iPhone SE 2016s with single lenses. It’s really all about preserving the memories!

Since early July, we’ve been taking pictures of our neighbors’ pretty flowers …

houses we wished we owned …

iconic Flagstaff sites/sights …

and anything else that catches our eyes …

or has some meaning to us that we don’t want to forget.

Here are our photos from today …

I’ve named this “Flag Walks #1” with the intention of sharing our walk photos now and then.

Thanks to all my subscribers that have stuck around while I’ve been away, and to my new subscribers that haven’t received a single post from me prior to today!

I’ve been enjoying my break and working on a couple of stories about my summer travels. It was fun to dip my toes back in with this short post!

You’ll be hearing from me again soon.

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Apparently, his essay was quite controversial when it was published in Gourmet magazine in 2004. It’s seven magazine pages long, and he uses too many lengthy footnotes in my opinion. But if you’re interested in reading it, it’s well worth your time, and you should then be able to see and hear my imitations as you read my story.

But if you don’t have time to read his essay now, then just read mine, imitations be damned! 😂

This was one of my earliest attempts at writing a story for other’s eyes. I had great fun immersing myself in the topic and then reporting on it, and it remains one of my favorite stories I’ve written! I hope it gives you a chuckle or two. I’m giggling about it right now!

And although I don’t think my essay is as controversial as Wallace’s, it does include a graphic description of what hot dogs are made of. Don’t read while eating, or else skip the third paragraph. Either way, consider yourself warned.

Perhaps this year you will want to tune in to the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th. Or perhaps not.

Consider the Hot Dog

(written August 4, 2023)

The raucous, popular, and extremely well-televised Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest (NFHDEC) is held every 4^th of July at the original Nathan's Famous restaurant in the Coney Island neighborhood of New York City.  Some say it began in 1916; others say that's a hoax.  But most agree it's been held nearly every year since 1972.  Whatever the truth is, the contest is attended by tens of thousands and watched or streamed by millions more.  In preparation for 2023's event, the Nathan's hot dog crew grilled 1,325 hot dogs — 1,000 for the men's competition and 325 for the women's competition.  

For practical purposes, everyone knows what a hot dog is.  As usual, though, there's much more to know than most of us care about — it's all a matter of what your interests are.  Historically speaking, the hot dog has a long, disputed past.  According to Britannica, "Two European cities claim to be the birthplace of the sausage: Frankfurt, Germany, whence the byname frankfurter, and Vienna, Austria, whence the byname wiener. Frankfurt holds that it has been making the sausage for more than 500 years. Whatever its ultimate origins, German immigrants brought the food to New York in the 1860s, where street vendors sold them as 'dachshund sausages,' presumably because of their shape. It is from this that the term hot dog derives, with the implied suggestion that the sausage really was made of dog flesh."   

So then here is a question that's all but unavoidable and may arise at kitchens across the US:  what are hot dogs really made of?  Hemi Kim, in an article of that exact name for Sentient Media, says, "The meat used for hot dogs is known as meat trimmings. Rather than discard the meat that is left over after the most choice cuts of an animal carcass are sent along to be served a la carte, the industry scrapes it to the bone (sometimes including the bone) and cooks it before turning it into a thick batter.  Meat from an animal’s head, feet, liver, fatty tissue, lower-grade muscle, blood, and more can be included in what is described as 'meat trimmings,' or the primary source of meat for hot dogs. If the ingredient list contains 'byproducts' or 'variety meats,' the meat may come from the snout, lips, eyes, or brains."

Regardless of what they are made of, hot dogs can be baked, boiled, pan-fried, air-fried, slow-cooked, or microwaved.  The most common method, though, is grilling.  If you are someone who enjoys having hot dogs at home, this is probably the way you do it, since grilling is so easy.  You need a grill, which you'll heat up.  Place the hot dogs on the grill at an angle so as to create diagonal grill marks.  Grill the hot dogs for 3-5 minutes, longer if you prefer them charred like I do.

In any event, the rules for the 2023 NFHDEC, according to DraftKings Network, were as follows:

• "Each contestant has 10 minutes to consume as many hot dogs and buns of uniform weight and size that they can,

• Contestants provided one plate at a time — each with five hot dogs and buns,

• Ketchup and mustard provided, not mandatory,

• Water provided by event officials, competitors can bring their own non-alcoholic beverages and will be provided a max of 13 cups,

• Competitors can dunk hot dog and bun in cups for no longer than five seconds,

• Hot dog and bun can be separated, can be broken in parts, but if only a portion of the hot dog is eaten, they must eat an equal part of the bun and vice versa,

• No utensils allowed,

• Contestant to finish the most hot dogs in a 10 minute span is deemed the winner,

• If a contestant throws up, which is also known as a 'reversal,' they are disqualified."

The defending champion of the men's portion of this year's contest was Joey "Jaws" Chestnut.  Chestnut, who has now won the competition 16 times, ate 62 hot dogs and buns (HDBs) in the allotted 10 minutes and was awarded the $10,000 prize. [1]

Before we go any further, let's acknowledge that Major League Eating (MLE), which governs and promotes the contest, encourages that, "all sanctioned competitive eating matches take place in a controlled environment with proper safety measures in place," and they go on to say, "with an emergency medical technician present." (Italics mine.)  However, my interests lie in writing an essay inspired by David Foster Wallace's article, "Consider the Lobster," and since I have not attended a NFHDEC in person, I decided to live dangerously and simulate a hot dog eating contest in my home.

I began by watching a video of this year's contest. The contestants don't simply eat the hot dogs but rather shovel them into their mouth with the palm of their hand.  Most of them do dip their buns in water, but I didn't notice any ketchup or mustard being used.  They stand on a raised platform behind a long table and jiggle their body around and shake their head a bit as they are eating.  A scorekeeper stands behind each contestant holding up a number board and flipping the numbers to represent how many hot dogs and buns that contestant has finished off.  I noticed that Joey Chestnut had eaten 20 HDBs in the first 2 minutes. 

Next I needed some hot dog eating strategy.  WikiHow has some tips for pre-contest preparation, including chewing gum to strengthen chewing muscles and chewing more than one piece at a time [2], increasing your water intake [3], expanding your stomach with low-calorie foods such as watermelon [4], and practicing swallowing large amounts of food without gagging and breathing through your nose as you swallow. [5]

My goal was not to beat Chestnut's 62 hot dogs and buns, nor was it to eat more than 39.5, which is how many Miki Sudo ate to win the women's portion of the contest.  My goal was to experience for myself what the contestants were feeling, so I purchased one 6-count package of Nathan's All Natural Uncured Beef Franks [6] and one package of Smart Way enriched hot dog buns. [7]

My husband declined to participate in the contest but commandeered two HDBs, leaving me with 4 HDBs to eat in 10 minutes.  I filled a tall glass with water to dip my HDBs into, which apparently lubricates the bun to make it slide down quicker.  I opted not to use condiments.  With the odds stacked against me [8], I started my 10-minute timer, picked up the first HDB and dipped the whole thing in my water cup.  The bun disintegrated in my hand, but I managed to eat the entire HDB, bun-crumbs and all.  A quick glance at my timer showed that one HDB had taken me 1 minute and 5 seconds.  Way too slow!  I re-thought my strategy and opted to eat my second HD and B separately.  The HD went in first.  Then I rolled the B up into a ball, skipped dipping it in water, and ate that in one bite.  Another glance at my timer showed that 2 minutes and 45 seconds had passed.  Yikes, even slower!  I decided to combine strategies, eating HD and B together but skipping the dipping.  I got .5 of the third HDB down before I felt a "reversal" coming on, and that was the end of hot dog eating for me.  I couldn't swallow another bite.  I had eaten 2.5 HDBs in 3 minutes and 51 seconds (technically 10 minutes, I suppose.)

As you may or may not know, Nathan's is arguably the most famous dog eating contest in the US, but it's not the only one.  MLE sponsors hot dog eating contests in several other states prior to July 4 each year, with the winner receiving a seat at the table for the Coney Island contest.  And hot dogs aren't the only food eating contest sponsored by MLE.  You can competitively eat pistachios in California, sweet corn in Florida, burritos in Wisconsin, chicken wings in Philadelphia, oysters in New Orleans, bagels in Las Vegas, ribs in Minnesota, shrimp in Indiana, pumpkin pies in Ohio, pork rolls in New Jersey, banana pudding in Alabama, pizza in Virginia, strawberry shortcake in New York, and donuts in several states.  MLE also sponsors competitive eating contests in England (hot dogs) and Thailand (fish balls).  And don't forget all the locally sponsored food eating contests in parks and fairgrounds throughout the country.  You can compete in contests for eating bacon in Colorado, pickles in North Carolina, spicy sushi in South Carolina, peaches in Georgia, jalapeno peppers in Texas, hamburgers in Washington, watermelon in Mississippi, marshmallow peeps in Maryland, or lobsters in Maine. [9]

Food eating contests are not without their critics, though. Contest sponsors have been accused of promoting food-waste, gluttony, and eating disorders.  In addition, the foods eaten at such contests are often not the healthiest.  And remarkably, food eating contests are also not without their protesters.  At the 2022 NFHDEC, an animal rights activist rushed the state during the competition.  According to USA Today, "(Joey) Chestnut briefly took matters into his own hands – literally. Chestnut, in the middle of his competitive eating prowess with his face stuffed with hot dogs, grew frustrated with the distracting stage rusher and put the person into a mini chokehold."

And there's more unhappy news.  There are risks involved with the binge-eating in competitive contests:  chronic indigestion, heartburn, abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, aspiration pneumonia, perforation or rupture of the stomach, obesity, internal bleeding, and even death.  Wikipedia states that, "Most deaths in competitive eating competitions have occurred from choking," including during pie, pancake, taco, and hot dog eating contests.

While watching the video of this year's contest, I noticed that during the final two minutes, Chestnut was grimacing with extreme discomfort or pain.  According to CBS News, by eating 62 HDBs, Joey Chestnut consumed 18,600 calories, 992 grams of fat, and 29,760 milligrams of sodium.  I consumed about 4% of the calories, fat, and sodium that Chestnut did.  However, I had to take Tums overnight and was still nauseous at breakfast the next morning.  Therefore, my first hot dog eating contest will also be my last.  There are limits to what even interested persons can ask of each other. [10]

[1] Chestnut also holds the title of hot dog eating world champion for consuming a world record 76 HDBs in the 2021 contest.

[2] Gross, I hate chewing gum (both noun and verb).

[3] I can do that!

[4] Gross again, I hate watermelon.

[5] I have a very strong gag reflex.

[6] The "healthiest" hot dog at my grocery store.

[7] The cheapest hot dog bun at my grocery store.

[8] I didn't follow most of WikiHow's pre-contest advice.

[9] A children's event at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine.

[10] Or of themselves.

References

Britannica. (2023).  Hot Dog.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/hot-dog

Chasan, A. (2023).  What does a hot dog eating contest do to your stomach? Experts detail the health effects of competitive eating. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hot-dog-eating-contest-stomach-health-side-effects-joey-chestnut/

Gleeson, S. (2022). Joey Chestnut puts protester in brief chokehold during his Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest victory. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2022/07/04/joey-chestnut-puts-protestor-chokehold-hot-dog-eating-contest/7803526001/

Kim, H. (2022).  What Are Hot Dogs Really Made Of? https://sentientmedia.org/what-are-hot-dogs-made-of/

Major League Eating. (2023). https://majorleagueeating.com

Nathan's Famous. (2023).  The Hot Dog Eating Contest. https://nathansfranks.sfdbrands.com/en-us/promotions/hot-dog-eating-contest/

Sherwin, C. (2023). Rules for 2023 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. https://dknetwork.draftkings.com/2023/7/4/23781367/nathans-famous-hot-dog-eating-contest-rules-2023-joey-chestnut-miki-sudo-time-major-league-eating

WikiHow. (2023). How to Win a Hot Dog Eating Contest. https://www.wikihow.com/Win-a-Hot-Dog-Eating-Contest

Wikipedia. (2023). Competitive Eating.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_eating

Wikipedia. (2023). Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan%27s_Hot_Dog_Eating_Contest

Happy and Safe 4th of July to those who celebrate!

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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In his honor, I’m sharing a few stories that show what makes him special to me, stories that highlight his dedication to family, stories that reveal his love of the outdoors, stories that are an integral part of who Dad is.

Dad remembers having a good life as a child, and describes his parents as “the best” even though he complained every week when he had to mow the grass. His dad taught him his work ethic, how to fish, and how to build and repair just about everything. His mom taught him life lessons on their walk to church and he loved her cooking, especially her chocolate chip cookies. She’s the only one who ever called him Butch, and he suspected it was an old boyfriend’s name, but his mom never confirmed that.

He only remembers a little bit about his paternal grandparents. His grandfather, Edward, was a farmer but also worked for the railroad. Grandpa Ed loved beer, cigarettes, and arguing. His grandmother, Etta, always had peppermint Life Savers and she always shared!

Dad remembers more about his maternal grandparents. They owned a farm nearby and Dad loved spending time there. His grandmother, Minnie, made two loaves of white bread every day and her house always smelled like a bake shop. She often asked Dad to pick apples off the ground for making pie, warning him not to climb the apple tree, but of course he always did.

His grandfather, John, was a farmer, fireman and a town clerk. Dad got his love of hunting and the great outdoors from him. Grandpa John was always good for a wheelbarrow ride, but used the same wheelbarrow that he hauled cattle manure in! He was also the source of the, “Dog named Jack,”poem that Dad told to all six of his grandchildren as soon as they were old enough. Dad’s first great-grandchild, Munchkin, will be next when he’s a little older.

Despite fond memories of childhood, Dad remembers being the “colorful character” in the family. He claims he was smiling in this photo because he had just received his first pair of OshKosh B’Gosh bib overalls - something every farmer and farm kid wore in Wisconsin in the 1940s. But seeing the grin on his face, I’d say he looks like a bit of a trouble-maker!

Once, his mother caught him eating cherry tomatoes out of the neighbor’s garden. She took him home and made him eat 4 large tomatoes until he felt sick. He never stole tomatoes again, and couldn’t eat large ones for years.

When Dad was just 4 years old(!), his parents bought a new house. One day, prior to moving in, his dad was going over to the new house and my dad wanted to go along. His father told him no, but Dad decided to go on his own. He thought he knew where the new house was, so he rode his scooter two miles along busy streets and across railroad tracks to get there. He was very proud of himself when he found the new house, but then a feeling of dread came over him. He hid underneath the front porch with his scooter, but his father soon found him there and was not impressed.

Dad remembers spending the rest of that day standing in the southwest corner of the dining room of the new house, facing the wall. It was the first day he spent in that corner, but not the last - including the time he hit a baseball through the neighbor’s bedroom window and the time he cut up his mom’s butter knives in a failed attempt to make throwing knives.

Dad’s been interested in genealogy for many years. He has an extensive “Family Tree” chart, along with photos and other information he’s been able to collect about his ancestors. This is a photo of his paternal great-grandfather, who sailed from Germany to the U.S. in 1882 and was processed through Ellis Island in New York. When I look at this photo, I can see my dad’s face. Unfortunately, Henry died 7 months before Dad was born.

Dad is a lifelong reader, and passed that on to me. He is also a great gardener, carpenter, and landscaper. He built our garage back in Wisconsin and landscaped the back yard with a garden, including tomatoes! He also built tall privacy fences, a porch swing, and a fire pit. I have many happy memories of sitting in that back yard with friends and family: talking, laughing, and getting eaten by mosquitoes.

Dad is also a lifelong fan of the Green Bay Packers. I remember going to games in Green Bay with Dad and sitting on the cold, hard, aluminum bleachers in all types of weather, but feeling lucky to be there. The sound of NFL football on TV still takes me back to my childhood. The only time I’ve ever seen my dad cry was when the Packers beat the New England Patriots in the 1996 Super Bowl!

The Packers are the only NFL team that is publicly owned. There have been six stock sales over the years, with the last one being in 2021. That coincided nicely with Dad’s 80th birthday, so my siblings and I bought Dad one share of Packer’s stock. He is proud to call himself an owner!

During my childhood in Wisconsin, Dad was an avid hunter. He hunted deer, bear, and small game such as rabbits, squirrels, pheasants and ducks. His friend Ron had a cottage in Townsend where Dad and a group of about 8 friends stayed when they hunted east of Lakewood. I remember that I liked the venison Mom cooked when Dad came home with a deer. Mom remembers the time that her brother and Dad came home from hunting, left several dead squirrels in the kitchen sink, and went out to the tavern for a beer. When they came home, the squirrels were out on the lawn!

In 1971, Dad made a hunting trip to Montana. I remember it being a big deal that Dad was able to go and he was excited. He went with his best friend, Dick, and several other friends, many of whom had hunted in Montana the year before when every one of them came home with a deer. Unfortunately for Dad, the weather was bad the year he went and they came home with only 2 deer for 6 guys.

One of my earliest memories in life happened when I was 5. My parents were renting the upstairs of a farmhouse, and there was a huge Maple tree outside my bedroom window. I have a vivid memory of waking up one morning and looking out my bedroom window to see a black bear hanging in my tree!

Dad worked at the same paper mill in Wisconsin for over 30 years. When my parents were newly married and had 3 kids within 4 years, Dad worked all the time. He worked shift work and often had to stay for a second 8 hour shift in the same day if his partner was out sick or on vacation. Dad started off his career in 1962 as a sheeter-loader but went to school for 5 years, along with working those crazy shifts, and in 1978 he became an electrician. He still has all his certificates from school and an 8x10 booklet from 1967 with photographs of all the paper mill employees that year. There are action photos of Dad at work on several pages.

This is the building Dad worked in for most of those years. He remembers that at Christmas time every year, there was a huge Christmas tree set up in the corner there. One year, he had to climb scaffolding to put the star on the tree and it scared him so bad he never did it again.

Most years when I was growing up, for Dad’s birthday and Father’s Day, which are only days apart, we went to Brick’s Club 47 in Black Creek (pronounced “Crick”) for his favorite meal, tenderloin steak. It wasn’t just any tenderloin! It was the biggest, tastiest, and cheapest tenderloin around. The steaks were 10-12 ounces each and came with a baked potato or french fries, a small salad in a bamboo bowl, and the best rye bread ever. Dad thinks the entire meal cost $3.50. Mom thinks it was $6. But they both remember that Dad ate two steaks one year! I remember it took us about half an hour to get there, which felt like forever to a kid. I also remember that the dining room was very dark and that Dad ate his steak rare. Dad remembers stopping there for steak sometimes with Dick on their way home from hunting.

We used to go camping nearly every weekend in the summer, mostly in the central and northern parts of Wisconsin. At first, we camped out of our brand-new forest green Chevy window van complete with sliding side door. Dad built a platform for the back that rested on the edges of the side windows but also was chained to the ceiling. Us kids slept on top and Mom and Dad slept below.

We often got to take turns bringing a friend along when we camped, but I don’t remember where they slept. And we usually made friends with other kids in the campground. I remember one particular incident when I found a friend, who just happened to be a boy, and went walking around the campground with him one evening. Unfortunately, I must have been away from the campsite too long, because I remember Dad driving around the campground, calling my name through the van’s PA system. I don’t remember if I had to stand in a corner for a day when we got home, but Dad was not a happy camper!

When we got a little older, our parents bought a camping trailer and parked it year-round at Lake of the Woods Campground in Wautoma. We camped there in the summer, but also went up in the winter for cross-country skiing. My grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends often came up when we were there, and we always had hamburgers, hot dogs, camp potatoes, and toasted marshmallows or s’mores over the campfire in the evenings.

But one of the best parts of camping, no matter where we were, was that Dad told stories around the campfire and when we were falling asleep at night. One year, he told a story that he made up and it was such a hit that it’s become a family tradition for him to repeat it to this day to every newcomer to our family - every friend, husband, wife, and grandchild eventually gets to hear, “Purple Fantasy.”

As an adult, I have been grateful to Dad for working, holding down the fort and taking care of the cats so that Mom could come to Arizona to help when my husband had health issues. I’m also thankful for all the things he taught our boys and the things he built for them. I have many wonderful memories of camping and hiking around Arizona, Colorado, and Utah with Dad, and of watching him play with and read to his grandkids.

I’m looking forward to spending more time with Dad learning about our family tree and hearing more of his stories about himself and his ancestors. I’m sure I’ll be writing about those stories someday, including the infamous, “Purple Fantasy,” story!

But for today…

Happy 83rd Birthday, Dad!

❤️🎂🥳❤️🔨🎈❤️🎂🥳❤️🔧🎈❤️

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Tell us what’s special about your Dad! What’s your favorite story about your Dad from his childhood? From your childhood? Once you were an adult?

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Since finishing the five-part story about my husband’s stroke and brain surgery, I felt the need to re-post the other stories I’ve written about his health, which were emailed to only a small portion of my current subscribers.

Below is the story I posted in January about his cardiac arrest in 2014, twenty-five years after the events detailed in my five-part story, “Remembering A Scar.”

My apologies to those who have already read this story. You get one more week off and, once again, my eternal gratitude for being an early supporter of my writing!

Just a Blink will return with new posts the next two Fridays.

I look forward to hearing what you think!

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Since finishing the five-part story about my husband’s stroke and brain surgery, I feel the need to re-post the other stories I’ve written about his health, which were emailed to only a small portion of my current subscribers.

Below is the story I posted in February about his first open-heart surgery in 1987, two years before the events detailed in my five-part story, “Remembering A Scar.”

My apologies to those who have already read this story. You get the week off and my eternal gratitude for being an early supporter of my writing!

I look forward to hearing what you think!

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This is Part V of a multi-part story. It’s a longer read, but it’s worth it, and it’s the final part!

If you haven’t yet, you’ll understand this better if you read Parts I-IV first:

Part I - The First Hour: April 12, 1989

Part II - Everything's Okay, But...

Part III - Pizza and a Movie

Part IV - A Sister, a Seatbelt, and a Bake Sale

With my sister gone to Flagstaff for grad school, she no longer wrote in her journal about the details of our days, so I don’t have that to refer back to. I don’t remember when my husband was “finished” with all of his therapies. I don’t remember ever sitting down with him to do homework pages like my sister had done over the summer. I believe daily life became his therapy, and he continued to improve slowly in all aspects of his recovery over the next months and even years!

Fortunately, I didn’t have a complicated pregnancy, but I remember being extremely uncomfortable in the final week. My journal says, “Mom and Tony took me out for drives, but mostly I sat on the couch, exhausted.” Other than for my husband’s medical issues, my pregnancy was normal and easy.

My labor was not easy. I had severe back pain for over 24 hours before the baby started to show signs of distress and the doctors decided to do a C-section. I was, “relieved to know it would be over soon.”

I think my mom, my brother, and his girlfriend were in the waiting room all that time. My husband was with me in the delivery room and in the surgery room when our son was born. My journal says he, “encouraged me, helped me breathe, talked to me, held my hand, and pressed against my back.” He was in the transitional nursery while our son was weighed, measured, and bathed. He was so proud!

Our son was a healthy 9 pounds and 1 ounce when he was born on Monday, September 11, 1989. His 12th birthday was on 9/11/2001, a story for another day. And yes, this is the same son who became a father himself 24 days ago.

We were released from the hospital on Thursday. My journal states, “Tony and Mom came to pick us up from the hospital. After we got home, Tony had to leave for some tests at the doctor’s office. It was nice to be home, but pretty much uneventful.” I’m guessing his tests had to do with his upcoming heart surgery, and I’m surprised that I considered that uneventful.

I remember the next month as being happy and relaxed. We spent our days watching our son sleep, going for walks with him in his stroller, and taking photo after photo. One day, we took him to my workplace to show him off. The only thing I remember from that visit is that one of my co-workers expressed sympathy for the fact that I’d had a C-section. I remember laughing and saying that, other than the fact that it hurt to cough or laugh, compared to brain surgery, I had nothing to complain about.

But our next hurdle was coming up soon. My husband was scheduled for his second open-heart surgery on October 16th, to replace his artificial aortic valve that had been damaged by the infection that caused his stroke.

Shortly before the surgery, his mother flew to Tucson from Wisconsin. I remember I was not excited about that. We were and still are grateful for all the help and support our families gave us. However, we’d had people living in our home for the better part of five months, and my relationship with my mother-in-law was, um, challenging. We needed and appreciated her help, and wanted her to meet her newest grandchild, but it did make things somewhat tense and uncomfortable.

Fortunately, since this was a planned surgery rather than an emergency, it would be fairly routine, if open-heart surgery can be considered routine. The only complication I remember was that my husband had existing scar tissue from his first heart surgery which made things harder for the surgeon.

I remember having our son with us in the waiting room on the day of surgery, and that the presence of a one-month-old baby helped to distract us and at least two other families with loved ones undergoing surgery that day. I remember that we exchanged Christmas cards with those families for years.

I’m sure my husband looked awful in the recovery room and the ICU once again, but I don’t remember any details this time. What I do remember is that, in the evening of the following day, October 17th, there was an earthquake in San Francisco, 6.9 on the Richter scale. Sixty-three people lost their lives, nearly 3800 people were injured, and there was $6 billion in damage. I remember watching the TV in my husband’s hospital room and seeing the live pre-game broadcast of part of the World Series interrupted when the power went out in Candlestick Park.

I remember being in that hospital room, with our new baby and a husband who’d had a stroke, brain surgery, and heart surgery within the past six months, and feeling lucky. Ironically, I remember also thinking what a story the earthquake would make to tell our son about some day.

Meanwhile, I was about to return to work full-time. My brother has recently cleared up some haziness in my memories. He reminded me that I had not gone back to work during the three weeks my husband was in the hospital after his stroke in April. Instead, I used all of my sick and vacation time and spent those weeks with him at the hospital. When it came time for my maternity leave and my husband’s heart surgery, my brother and some other co-workers donated some of their vacation time to me, so I was fortunate to have another 6 or 7 weeks off, from early September to late October. But now, my time was up.

My pregnancy journal tells me that my mom had to go back to Wisconsin at the end of October, but my husband wasn’t supposed to drive, nor lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk, for several weeks after his surgery. Our son certainly weighed more a milk jug by then.

My mother-in-law stayed another month to help, and again, we were grateful. But I remember it as a difficult couple of weeks. Of course, I did not want to go back to work and leave my baby and my husband. Unfortunately, it was harder than it should have been because his mother refused to do things the way I asked her to. But somehow, we managed.

Finally, four weeks after my husband’s second heart surgery, we were alone in our home for the first time in six months, and my husband took over full-time care of our two-month-old son.

He never returned to the job he had been working at when he had the stroke in April. But despite the doctors’ predictions that he would never earn a college degree and never again work full-time, and maybe even partly because of their predictions, he eventually started taking night classes at Pima Community College.

It took about 8 years, but he eventually got a bachelor’s degree in Sustainability from Prescott College, and he has worked full-time ever since. He has worked as a hardware store clerk, a house builder, a park ranger, a Jeep tour guide, and a groundskeeper. Some of those jobs required him to memorize and give lengthy speeches to tourists. In 2005, he was even awarded, “Interpreter of the Year,” from the Arizona State Parks.

I have stories about the birth of our second son, our move to Flagstaff, hiking and camping around the western United States with our boys, my own health issues, and much more. But those stories are for other days.

During the years we raised our boys, my husband had relatively good health, with the exception of a couple of minor incidents including a bloody drive to the emergency room, with two young boys in the back seat, when he lost his grip on his power drill and drilled into his right hand. But life reached a point where everything felt normal. If you had met my husband then, you would never have known everything he had been through.

Then, as tends to happen, life changed again after both boys were grown and out of the house. In 2014, my husband had cardiac arrest and then had an ICD (pacemaker/defibrillator) implanted. I kid you not. More trauma, more scars. But he miraculously survived once again, despite overwhelming odds. And since then, he has had a third open-heart surgery to replace his mitral valve with an artificial one, a kidney biopsy, an ICD battery replacement surgery, and possibly a mini-stroke or two. More stories for more days. Perhaps. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

Ironically, so much time had passed that our older son was living out of state by then. But our younger son was still in Flagstaff attending Northern Arizona University for his degree in Forestry, so he was the son in the surgery waiting room for most of the recent medical emergencies. And my mom, who was retired by then, came to live with us again a couple more times.

All things considered, my husband is doing pretty well today. But he still has limited feeling on the right side of his body, walks with a slight limp, and struggles with his short term memory. And because of the stroke and the cardiac arrest, I worry about the damage his brain has suffered and what it could lead to in the future.

He also still suffers from lingering aphasia now and then. His brain doesn’t express itself exactly the way I or many people would. Mostly, this means that he sometimes has a hard time coming up with the “right” words, but we can usually still laugh about it.

Through it all, my husband has maintained his positive attitude and great sense of humor. Often, when we are climbing into bed at night, he says, “No one’s in the hospital,” by which he means, “It’s been a good day.”

I spend too much time thinking about the past: how quickly time flies, how things can change in an instant, how hard change often is. But I know life is all about change and how we respond to it even when we don’t have a choice.

I can’t help but wonder, though, what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to work on April 12th, 1989, or if we had called 911 on April 10th when he had that horrible headache, or if the doctors had kept him in the hospital that February until the endocarditis infection was gone from his body instead of sending him home with a port and intravenous Vancomycin.

And I wonder if this event that has defined the last 35 years of our lives - this event that was the fundamental reason behind so many of the decisions we’ve made, from how we raised our boys, to the jobs we held on to, to how we’ve approached our retirements - if this event had never happened, would that have been a good thing? Or did most of the good in our lives come about because of what happened on April 12, 1989?

One day last fall, when I was just beginning to think about writing on Substack, my husband and I were talking about something that had happened a long time ago, when our boys were young and still lived at home. I was using phrases such as, “time passes too quickly,” and, “where did the time go?” and, “it feels like it was yesterday.”

My husband spoke up and said, “it’s Just a Blink.” And now you know.

There is one exception, that I am aware of, to the perception of time passing quickly. It’s called hospital time. Clocks have no function in a hospital. Nothing happens on a schedule. You can wait until 2 pm for an 8 am procedure. You can wait until 4 pm for lunch to arrive. You can wait until 6 pm for a morning release. Time is suspended while you wonder how other people can be doing their grocery shopping or picking up their kids from school or going to see a movie. Hospital time drags on like there is no tomorrow, or no today. If you’ve spent time in a hospital, you know.

But in my experience, with that one exception, time passes in the blink of an eye.  Things change, life goes on. It’s been 35 years since this story took place. In three days, on June 2nd, we will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. In three weeks, we will fly to visit our first grandchild.

Many, many years ago, when I first heard the Stephen King quote I’ve used to begin each part of this story, I knew that he was whispering right into my heart. I knew that one day I would write this story about my husband’s physical scars and my emotional scars. It was just a matter of time. Thank you for the inspiration, Stephen. It is an incredible relief to have it written.

But I will leave you with one more quote, an appropriate “ending” for our ongoing story. It’s part of the lyrics from one of my favorite songs by my most favorite storyteller. (Shhh, don’t tell Stephen!) I still struggle to follow this wise advice in the ups and downs of daily life, but if my husband had a motto, this would be it.

If a hurricane doesn't leave you dead
It will make you strong
Don't try to explain it, just nod your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on

                  - Jimmy Buffett

Listen to the whole song here. You’ll be glad you did!

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❤️❤️ THANK YOU!!! ❤️❤️

for subscribing to, “Just A Blink!”

Whether you are a lurker (as one friend described herself) and simply read my posts, or you “like,” share, comment, or recommend my posts,

I sincerely appreciate all of YOU!

The Origin Story:

When I retired in December of 2022, the thing I most wanted to do with my “extra” time was to write.

I wasn’t sure where it would lead. Would I write fiction or nonfiction? Would I write stories for my eyes only? Would I submit articles to magazines? Would I write and try to publish a book? Would I write our life stories just for our children and potential grandchildren?

I started by taking online Creative Writing classes from the University of Arizona. I wrote fiction, nonfiction, and even poetry. The more I wrote, the more I loved it.

But also, the more I wrote, the less enchanted I became with the idea of spending years writing a book and, if anyone would even accept my manuscript, getting it published.

I was already familiar with Substack before I retired, but became more so after. Finally, one day last fall, it clicked!

Why not write on Substack? Why not at least give it a try? I could write whatever I wanted without the need for it to be accepted by anyone. I could write on my own schedule. I could continue to improve my skills as I offered my writing to a wider audience than my family and classmates. What did I have to lose?

Last November, I set up, “Just A Blink,” with just 12 subscribers: my husband, my parents, our boys, their wives, my sister, my brother and his wife, and a few friends. I wrote two posts. Then, life and the holidays happened. I didn’t post in December.

In January, I made a commitment to myself and my 12 “recruited” subscribers. I would post once a week for “awhile” and see how things went. If I could find 100 more people, 100 people who subscribed to my stories by choice, that would mean I was not a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad writer. It would mean that my writing was connecting with others and if I was still enjoying it, I had a reason to keep it up.

The Verdict:

As of this morning, 250 additional people have chosen to subscribe to my stories!

More Gratitude:

Once again, a heartfelt thank you for making my retirement dreams come true!

The Pitch:

And if you have any inkling of a desire to write for an audience, I highly recommend Substack. I’ve found it to be an encouraging and supportive environment, despite the fact that I’m forced to block “Elon Musk” at least once a week.

The Conflict:

However, I am a slow writer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it means a weekly post takes up most of my “extra” time. And as much as I love writing, it’s time to start on some of the other projects I’d envisioned for retirement. Plus, it’s summer! We have friends visiting this Memorial Day Weekend, my sister and niece are visiting in June, and we just bought plane tickets to visit our Munchkin.

The Solution:

For the summer, “Just A Blink,” will be sporadic rather than weekly.

My multi-part story, “Remembering A Scar,” will be completed and posted soon, hopefully next Friday! Be sure to read to the end to learn how, “Just A Blink,” got its name.

I also have a few other posts in progress, and I’ll be writing another story to Munchkin after we meet him in person.

So, “Just A Blink,” isn’t going away, but it’ll be a surprise when you receive a post over the summer. Who knows, I might even go a little bit crazy and send out a post on a day other than Friday!

Meanwhile, here’s a link to my home page if you want to read any of my stories that you missed. Click on “Archive” on the top row to see a list of every single post.

Time passes in the blink of an eye.  Things change, life goes on. But I am having a great time writing, thanks to all of you, and I’ll be back in your inbox on a regular basis before you know it. In Just A Blink really! 

I’d love to hear your thoughts! What wonderful summer plans do you have? What projects have you been meaning to get to, and what have you been doing instead? Any inkling of a desire to start writing yourself?

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This is Part IV of a multi-part story. If you haven’t read the first three parts, please read Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here first. You can read all three parts in less than 15 minutes, you’ll understand this part better, and you won’t have to wait at all after the cliffhangers at the end of each of the previous parts!

When I think back to the summer of 1989, I realize it was probably the toughest summer of our lives, and yet I remember it was also a fun summer. Our days were filled with my husband’s recovery and tough decisions, but he was alive! We also spent time that summer preparing for our first child to be born, and time on “normal” activities like renting movies and swimming at the apartment complex pool.

After my husband was released from the hospital, my mom stayed with us in Tucson for another week or two, but she flew back to Wisconsin in time to attend my sister’s college graduation ceremony in mid-May. My sister, with her bachelor’s degree in psychology fresh in hand and plans to attend grad school at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff that fall, flew to Tucson right after graduation and spent her entire summer break with us.

My husband was scheduled for therapies daily, but he could barely walk much less drive. I had to return to my full-time job, for both the income and the health insurance. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was four years in the future.

I don’t know how We would not have managed without my sister’s help!

She remembers that we took her to the Tucson Mall parking lot the very evening she arrived and gave her a crash course on how to drive our stick shift pickup truck.

She drove my husband to his therapies every single weekday, but that wasn’t even half of what she did for us! Her journal from that summer says, “We had occupational therapy at 9 AM, physical at 10 AM and speech at 11. Then, our afternoons were filled with doctor appointments and other errands to run, or we'd sit and do homework for hours.”

The homework she referred to means that, aside from the therapists, she was the main person helping my husband recover from his stroke, re-learning how to walk, talk, and function in the adult world. On top of that, she grocery shopped, cooked, cleaned and basically managed our lives while I worked or rested my pregnant body.

My sister was 22 years old.

I remember that I spent much of my work days talking to doctor’s offices, pharmacists, and therapists about appointments, medications, and my husband’s progress. My brother worked at the same courthouse, in the same department, so there’s no doubt that he helped me so I didn’t lose my job.

One of the hardest parts of my husband’s recovery was the fact that he struggled with aphasia. Aphasia is described by the Mayo Clinic as, “a disorder that affects how you communicate. It can impact your speech, as well as the way you write and understand both spoken and written language.” They go on to say, “A person with aphasia may: speak in short or incomplete sentences, speak in sentences that don't make sense, substitute one word for another or one sound for another, speak unrecognizable words, have difficulty finding words, not understand other people's conversation, not understand what they read, write sentences that don't make sense.”

I remember his therapists instructed us not to speak for my husband, or to finish his sentences when he couldn’t find the right word. It was hard to watch him stumble over his words, particularly out in public in everyday social situations such as ordering off a menu. But therapy taught him ways to help his brain make new connections, and slowly he began to speak more confidently.

One thing my husband always had going for him was, as my sister wrote, “his positive attitude and great sense of humor.” He did what the doctors and therapists told him to do and worked extremely hard, yet never took himself or his situation too seriously. Neither my sister nor I can remember him ever being depressed or even discouraged. He was grateful to be out of the hospital. He was grateful for the therapists. He was grateful for my sister’s help and she says he thanked her often. He was excited about the upcoming birth of our first child. He believed knew that everything would work out okay in the end.

And he made jokes all the time, and laughed about everything. Sometimes when he misspoke, we couldn’t help but laugh, but we laughed with him, not at him. For example, his nickname for me is, “Sweet Pea,” but once, early in his recovery, he called me, “Seatbelt.” We all laughed about that, often!

One day, my husband, sister and I were doing errands. I don’t remember if I was driving or my sister was, but I do remember we were heading west on either Speedway or Broadway Blvd. The person ahead of us suddenly slowed way down and we had to slam on our brakes. My husband was trying to be funny and meant to yell, “brake check!” Instead, with his aphasia, he yelled out, “bake sale!” This led my sister and I to get all excited and shout, “Where? Where?” Several minutes of merriment ensued while we tried to find the bake sale, and then several seconds of utter disappointment after my husband was able to explain that he hadn’t actually seen a bake sale, and then hours days of laughter at ourselves and the whole situation.

In June, I was six months pregnant and we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. We had an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins which appears to have a bear made of frosting in a swimming pool made of frosting on the top. I have no idea why.

My sister wrote in her journal that our insurance stopped paying for my husband’s therapies after 60 days, so, “now we are on a home program. We only go to TMC (Tucson Medical Center) once a week to check in with the therapists there who have all become like close friends. But, we haven't let that slow us down. Every morning, Tony and I sit with our worksheets and workbooks and go over spelling, math, how to write out checks, how to do crossword puzzles, how to compare prices in a store, how to write a letter, how to fill out applications. We work on long term memory, short term memory, and immediate memory. Last week, I taught him how to tell time again. We take a break at lunch, watch The Flintstones (that's for me, not for him) and then hit the books again. About 5:00, we start making dinner which Tony can do better than me, and then I get Cherie from the bus.”

But in addition to the daily work/therapy grind, I remember that my sister and I enjoyed doing simple things together such as making frosted sugar cookies and shopping, probably for clothes, candles, and Bath and Body Works products.

We also spent time with my brother often. I believe he is the one who helped my husband re-learn how to cook a steak on the grill, one of life’s most important skills.

That summer remains the longest time my two siblings and I lived in the same city as adults.

In July, I was seven months pregnant. We watched the fireworks on “A” Mountain in downtown Tucson from the the convention center parking lot in the back of our pickup truck. I don’t remember if that was one of the years the mountain started on fire or not.

My husband’s doctors determined that his artificial heart valve had definitely been damaged by the infection that had caused his stroke, and it was decided that he should have another surgery after our baby was born.

My pregnancy journal tells me that we made a couple of other big decisions as well. I was planning to take six weeks off from work after the baby was born and then return to work full time. Once his heart surgery was over, my husband would be the primary caregiver for our baby during the day and would begin taking community college courses in the evenings. It surprises me to realize we made those plans so early in his recovery, but it does help to explain how confident we were in his progress and how optimistic we were about the future, despite the doctors telling us all the things they thought he would never be able to do again.

In August, I was eight months pregnant. I have photos from a visit to Flagstaff where we found my sister an apartment to rent in the fall. I have photos from a visit to Kitt Peak Observatory west of Tucson. I have photos of us on a hike in the desert too, so my husband was doing much better physically by then.

And he was driving again! We had traded in our stick shift pickup truck for a used Toyota Corolla, both to have space for a baby car seat and so that my husband could drive with his left foot. Even though he was walking almost normally, with just a slight limp, he still had limited feeling on the right side of his body. I remember we bought a left foot pedal accelerator for the Corolla and he went through a training and certification process before his driver’s license was re-instated.

Somehow, we managed to shop for baby things, get the nursery ready, and take a childbirth class that summer as well.

My sister summed up those three months in her journal by saying, “we worked so hard and it was so frustrating, but the improvements have been so incredible! And his speech is getting so good that he can make appointments over the phone without much help from me. I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to see that all of our efforts are paying off.”

By the end of August, we’d had two baby showers: one thrown for us by my co-workers, and one at our apartment with family and my best friend from high school who had come from California for a visit.

Mom had flown back from Wisconsin to be there before the birth of her first grandchild. My sister was just about to leave for Flagstaff, where she would go on to earn her master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling. I like to think we gave her a little bit of a head start.

I was due to give birth in early September and my husband was scheduled for his second open-heart surgery in October.

Our lives were about to change significantly once again.

To be continued…

Here’s a link to the final part, Part V - Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On”

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Dear little Munchkin,

Today you are four days old!

The first time I saw your picture, you were one hour and twenty-three minutes old. I cried a little bit because I was so happy to see you. I showed your picture to Grandpa T. and said, “Look at that little Munchkin!” Grandpa T. cried a little bit too.

Munchkin isn’t the name your mommy and daddy gave you. They gave you a good, strong name that suits you and will serve you well. But for now, I’m calling you my little Munchkin. I promise to stop before I embarrass you in front of your friends.

Grandpa T. and I weren't there when you were born because you live in a place called Washington and we live in a place far, far away called Arizona. It was just Mommy and Daddy and you at first. Then Grandma M. came to love you up, and soon Grandpa J. will come to love you up too.

We are lucky grandparents because Mommy and Daddy and Grandma M. are giving you hugs from us, and also because love doesn’t need a plane to travel far, far away. Whenever we think about you, which is all the time, love travels from us to you just like magic, so you always have our love with you even when we are far, far away.

And we are lucky grandparents because everyone is sending us pictures and videos of you, and we can see you and hear you through their phones and computers. That’s a little like magic too. Someday, you will learn all about planes and phones and computers, little Munchkin!

And you are a lucky boy because lots of people love you and have been waiting for you to grow and come out into the world. Lots of people have been loving you even before you were born: Mommy and Daddy, two grandmas, two grandpas, two great-grandparents, and lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. And even though some of those people are in far away parts of Washington or far, far away in Arizona and Oregon and Alaska and Nebraska and Kansas and Nevada, all their love travels to you magically, just like ours. And someday you will get to meet all those people that love you.

But today I am going to tell you a very special story. It’s a story about how all of your grandmas and grandpas found out about you!

Eight long months ago, Grandpa T. and I went on a plane to visit Mommy and Daddy, and we decided to visit Grandma M. and Grandpa J. too. Your mommy and daddy already knew that you were starting to grow, and they thought it would be fun to tell your four grandparents about you while we were all together.

So while Grandpa J. was making a delicious breakfast, your daddy went into the kitchen cupboard and found a bottle of poppy seeds. Daddy was lucky that Grandma M. and Grandpa J. had poppy seeds in their cupboard because not everybody does!

When Grandpa J. was done cooking and sat down to eat with all of us, Daddy put one poppy seed into a bowl and said, “What does this poppy seed represent?” Daddy says things like that a lot. You’ll grow to love it.

So all of your grandparents started guessing what the poppy seed represented. We guessed far, far away things like the sun or a star because your daddy teaches people about planets and stars. Daddy said, “No, no, no. It is something in this room.”

That’s when we realized that you were starting to grow inside Mommy’s tummy. You, little Munchkin, were the size of that one tiny poppy seed!

Your mommy beamed with happiness. We all hugged her and were so excited to know about you. We could hardly wait for you to grow big enough to come out of Mommy’s tummy.

Mommy took very good care of you when you were in her tummy. She fed you healthy food, hiked with Daddy, and practiced yoga. You grew and grew and grew. By the time you were ready to come out into the world, you were not a tiny poppy seed anymore. You were a very healthy watermelon!

And soon, Grandpa T. and I will come on a plane to visit you! I can’t wait to hold you in my arms, kiss your adorable chin, gently pinch your chunky cheeks, sniff your little head, hold your tiny fingers in my hand, listen to your sweet voice, stare into your beautiful eyes, and give you lots of extra love. Grandpa T. can’t wait either.

See you soon, little Munchkin!

Love,

Grandma C.

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This is Part III of a multi-part story. If you haven’t read the first two parts, please read Part I here and Part II here first.

Mom immediately called her brother in Phoenix. His partner later told Mom that my uncle got out of bed, put his wallet in his pocket, and walked out the door. It would have taken him about two hours to drive to Tucson. I don’t remember how long the surgery took, but I believe he was with us in the waiting room before it was done.

Mom remembers that Dad had just gone to work. She called him home and also called my sister, away at college. My sister got a ride home in the middle of the night so she could be there to take care of the cats. My cousin booked flights for my parents and Mom says they arrived in Tucson from Wisconsin by noon the next day, about 14 hours after we had called them.

Neither Mom nor I remember which of us called my husband’s mother. I have photos of his mom at the hospital, and three of his five siblings who also came to Tucson, but I have no recollection of when any of them arrived or left, and only vague memories of them being there at all.

Sometime in the 12 hours between when my uncle arrived and when my parents arrived, Dr. Diefenbach came to the surgery waiting room to tell us that the surgery was finished and that my husband had survived. I don’t remember discussing what would happen next except for the surgeon saying, “Now we wait and see.”

I do remember seeing my husband in the recovery room. I don’t remember if he was awake by then or still sedated. I remember thinking that he looked worse than after his heart surgery two years prior, when Dr. Sanderson had replaced his aortic valve with an artificial one. I did not see the upside-down, U-shaped, stitched-up wound on the left side of his bald head until days later when his bandages were removed.

I remember that he was in the ICU for a week but I don’t remember any details about what happened during that week. I also don’t remember how many days it was until we understood the extent of the damage.

I do remember being relieved and hopeful when he was moved to a regular hospital room. Occupational, physical, and speech therapists began visiting him daily. Since the bleed and surgery had been on the left side of his head, he was mostly paralyzed on the right side of his body. He had to re-learn how to walk. He struggled with aphasia and had to re-learn how to talk. He had to re-learn basic life skills: brushing his teeth, doing math, writing his name.

Thankfully he remembered his life and who we all were.

I remember that his nurses and therapists were more than kind to him, and to me too. I remember that my husband was grateful for every kindness; he thanked everyone that did anything to help him, over and over and over again. I remember that he’d recently had problems with lactose intolerance, but that issue seemed to have disappeared. I remember he almost cried with joy every time they brought him a milkshake.

During those next two weeks, we began to get some answers as to what had happened to cause his stroke. But also during this time, the doctors had performed further tests and discovered, “a spot,” on my husband’s artificial heart valve. They were concerned it was a sign of an infection.

What I do remember is that earlier in the year, one of my husband’s legs had swollen up and doctors had determined that he had an infection in his bloodstream. I remember they said it was a bacteria normally found on a person’s skin. I remember my husband had a port inserted into his arm, and I was taught to administer Vancomycin intravenously at home. I remember we had done that for several weeks.

What I had not remembered at all, but recently found in a journal, was that my husband had, “spent a week in the hospital at the end of February for endocarditis and cellulitis.”

According to the CDC, “Cellulitis is a common bacterial skin infection that causes redness, swelling, and pain in the infected area of the skin. If untreated, it can spread and cause serious health problems.” Endocarditis is, “an infection of the heart's inner lining, usually involving the heart valves. Endocarditis usually occurs when germs from elsewhere in the body travel through the blood and attach to damaged areas of the heart. People with damaged or artificial heart valves or other heart conditions are most at risk.”

The doctors had already explained that they believed the infection in my husband’s bloodstream had traveled to his brain and caused an aneurysm. And I do remember that just two days before his stroke, on April 10th, my husband had the worst headache of his life. It caused him to vomit, but then he felt better. I don’t know why we didn’t call 911. Instead, we went to his primary care doctor the next day, on April 11th. He examined my husband and said if it happens again, call 911. And as you might remember, on April 12th my husband did call 911.

But now the doctors were seeing signs that this infection had also traveled to my husband’s artificial heart valve and may have damaged that valve. Dr. Sanderson, the heart surgeon, and Dr. Diefenbach, the brain surgeon, began to discuss the possibility of a second open-heart surgery to replace the infected valve with a new artificial valve.

I remember that they recommended we not tell my husband about that possibility yet because they wanted him to focus on his recovery. I remember urgent and secretive conversations in the hallway with doctors and family members discussing what to do. And I vividly remember my husband’s younger brother, on leave from the Marines, being a pain-in-the-ass know-it-all. He had all the answers even though the heart and brain surgeons didn’t.

Eventually, we found a way to explain the situation to my husband, but by then the doctors had determined the infection in his bloodstream was gone. They still thought the infection had damaged his artificial valve, but decided it would be best for my husband to continue his therapies, gain some weight, build up his strength, and discuss heart surgery in a few months.

I don’t remember going to work at all during this time, but our health insurance was through my job and I needed to save time off for maternity leave, so I must have gone in some days and then visited my husband in the evenings. I do not remember how I managed to focus on my work.

Three weeks after being brought in with a bleeding brain, my husband was released from the hospital. It remained to be seen, with time and further therapy, how much he would recover. The doctors told us to be hopeful, yet said things like, “He’ll never be able to work full time,” and, “He’ll never be able to get a college degree.”

When we walked out of the hospital that day, my husband was 27 years old, was scheduled for outpatient OT, PT, and speech therapies daily for the foreseeable future, was doing math at a second-grade level, had difficulty speaking, couldn’t drive, didn’t know if he’d ever return to his job, and was facing a potential second open-heart surgery within months.

I was five months pregnant.

But on that first night at home, we didn’t think about any of that. We had pizza and watched a movie on TV. It felt so good to be out of the hospital. It felt normal. It was one of the best days of my life.

To be continued…

Here’s a link to Part IV - “A Sister, a Seatbelt, and a Bake Sale”

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In her honor, I’m sharing a few stories that show what makes her special to me, stories that reveal her strength and resilience, stories that highlight her Mama Bear style love, stories that are an integral part of who Mom is.

Mom has always enjoyed creating - crafting, sewing, cooking, writing. She has spiral-bound notebooks full of stories she wrote when my brother, sister, and I were kids. I have baby scrapbooks with photos and poems she wrote. I have a ceramic Christmas tree and other holiday decorations she crafted. I have needlepoint roses on my bedroom wall. I have felt wall-hangings and ornaments she made, and pillowcases she sewed using pieces of our boys’ childhood clothes.

A few years after she retired, Mom had finished making felt Christmas stockings for everyone in the family who requested one and she wanted a new project. Because she enjoyed making them so much, I suggested she start making Christmas stockings for her great-grandchildren, even though she didn’t have any at the time! She loved the idea and has been making stockings for over 10 years now, along with her other projects. She has over 25 completed Christmas stockings ready for her great-grandchildren, and her first one is due in two weeks! His parents (my son and daughter-in-law) have already chosen a stocking for him; it just needs his name stitched on once we know what it is!

Mom’s early life in Wisconsin was rough, and I often wonder how she survived and how she learned to be the wonderful, loving mom and grandma she is. Her mother, Nettie, died of leukemia when Mom was 6. Mom doesn’t remember much about her mother besides seeing her in her casket.

Mom’s father owned a mink farm, and she remembers that mink are mean animals. She remembers that she and her brother, who was 3 years older than her, had to work on the farm after school and on weekends. She doesn’t remember exactly what they did other than feeding the mink and fixing cages or fences. She does remember that they usually had a deck of cards with them and would hide somewhere and play cards whenever they could. If they heard the gate banging, that was their signal to get back to work before they got caught.

She remembers that the dogs barked in the middle of the night when a mink got loose, and their father would wake up her brother to do something about the runaway mink. Mom always got out of bed and went with him. She and her brother were close. He always looked out for Mom, and she always had his back.

Their father, however, was a mean alcoholic. She does not remember ever being physically abused. She does remember that their father gave money away freely to his girlfriends and bar friends even though they had no running water in their house and their toilet was a bucket with a seat on it which her brother had to empty.

One day when Mom was 11, her brother came to her at school and told her he was leaving home. He asked if she wanted to go with him but she wasn’t prepared and said no. Her brother went to live with an aunt until he graduated high school and enlisted in the Army. He served in the Vietnam War and Mom thinks he was a spy because he never talked about his job and when she asked he would say, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

Mom and her brother remained close, even as adults. They talked on the phone every morning, mostly about the TV shows they both watched and about cooking and about politics. Every day her brother asked her, “What are you dining on today?” Unfortunately, her brother died of lung cancer in 2020. Mom says she still talks to him every day.

About a year after her brother left home at age 14, Mom was ready to leave home too. For several days in a row, she took a few of her personal belongings with her to school and hid them in her locker. She didn’t have much. Mostly clothes.

On the day she was taking her final possessions to school, her father’s latest live-in girlfriend, Jo, gave her money for school supplies. So Mom bought the supplies she needed and gave the change to her friend, Judy. Judy lived down the street from Mom and rode the same bus. Mom told Judy to give the change to Jo and tell Jo that Mom was leaving home.

At the end of the school day, Mom called her sister, who is 11 years older than her. Her sister had crawled out of a window to marry one of the hired-hands at the mink farm 6 years prior, right after their mother’s funeral. Mom doesn’t remember how she knew her sister’s phone number, what phone she used, or who helped her. But when her sister answered, 12 year-old Mom said, “I’m leaving home. Would you pick me up at school?” And her sister did.

Mom never spoke to her father again. She lived with her sister for a year, and then lived with her mother’s sister, my Grandma Helen, until she married my dad. Just before the wedding, her father had one of his friends call Mom. The friend asked Mom if there was anything her father could do for her. Mom replied, “Yes, tell him to drop dead.” Good for Mom!

Mom talks to her sister on the phone every morning now, mostly about the TV shows they both watch and about cooking and about the crafts they are each currently sewing. Her sister will be 90 in July and still lives in Wisconsin, but not on a mink farm. And Mom still keeps in touch with her friend, Judy, who did give the change to Jo after school that day.

Mom doesn’t remember exactly who or exactly when, but sometime before she and Dad moved to Arizona in 1994, one of her relatives gave her a set of cobalt blue glass dishes that had belonged to her mother. Over the last 30 years, sometimes the dishes lived in a display case and sometimes they lived in a box in a corner. Recently, Mom divided them up amongst us 3 kids and her 6 grandchildren, so Nettie’s dishes are now used and appreciated. Good for Mom!

One of my favorite stories about Mom from after I was born happened in 1970 when I was 7. I was in the hospital to have my tonsils removed. My room was at the end of a hallway, several floors up, right next to huge floor-to-ceiling windows. I was not allowed to get out of bed by myself after the surgery, not even with Mom’s help. Mom was instructed to buzz for the nurse’s aid when I needed to use the bathroom. So that evening when I woke up and needed to go, Mom did just that. The woman who came to help was grumpy, but she led me to the bathroom. Of course, I couldn’t go. So the woman got me back into bed and left.

A short time later, I told Mom I had to go again. Mom buzzed the nurse’s aid again. The same woman came back to my room, but now she was angry and mean. She yelled at me, “You are just trying to keep me from sleeping!”

Mom’s mother-bear instinct kicked in immediately. My Mom, who had learned to deal with mean mink at a very young age. My Mom, who had learned to deal with a mean, alcoholic father. My Mom, who had learned how to stand up for herself by age 12. My Mom, who was all of 25 years old at that time and was spending the night in the hospital with her young, groggy-from-surgery, firstborn daughter, screamed at that mean woman, “Get the hell out of this room right now! And don’t come back or I will throw you right through those windows!”

Someone else came to help me. Not surprisingly, she was very kind to me. The next day, Mom had a talk with the hospital’s president. The mean woman was fired. Good for Mom!

When I was young, we had a family doctor named Dr. John Haselow. I recently found a photo of him as a child in my baby book. I can’t explain it! But Mom remembers that my dad’s mother, my Grandma Grace, used to babysit for a young John Haselow.

As an adult, Dr. Haselow delivered all three of us kids. Mom says that when I was born, she said to Dr. Haselow, “Oh, she’s ugly!” and Dr. Haselow didn’t skip a beat before saying, “Yup, she looks just like you.”

One Saturday night before bed when I was 9, I discovered tiny red dots and bruises all over my body and a large, puffy bruise on my arm. Mom called Dr. Haselow and he told her to bring me over to his house immediately. Mom remembers he had friends over and they were playing cards.

Dr. Haselow asked some questions: Has she been sick? Has she been taking lots of aspirin? Have you recently been painting or varnishing? He looked me over and said it could be nothing or it could be serious, and that my parents should take me to the hospital first thing in the morning.

Before Mom walked out his front door, Dr. Haselow said, “Don’t worry, there are other things it could be besides leukemia.” You will remember that Mom’s mother had died of leukemia, but that hadn’t even crossed Mom’s mind yet. Of course, she didn’t get much sleep that night.

At Theda Clark Hospital the next day, I was given a number of tests, had xrays done, and had blood drawn. I was admitted to the hospital and a specialist was called in. The following morning, I was given a bone marrow test. Later that day, October 2, 1972, the results came back.

I had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), which is a fancy way of saying I had an abnormally low platelet count and they didn’t know why. Platelets prevent and stop bleeding. My platelet count was only 10,000 and got down to 4,000 the next day. Normal is 150,000 to 450,000! And that is a long story for another day.

But I did not have leukemia.

An aunt and uncle brought roses to the hospital for me that evening, and Mom has given me roses every single October 2nd for the last 51 years.

I have more Mom stories to share, including the stories behind all of her nicknames in the title and subtitle above. And I bet Mom’s spiral-bound notebooks contain a gold mine of stories! But for today…

Happy 79th Birthday, Baby Kaity-Waity!

❤️🎂🥳❤️🌺🎈❤️🎂🥳❤️🌺🎈❤️

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Tell us what’s special about your Mom! What’s your favorite story about your Mom from her childhood? From your childhood? Once you were an adult?

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This is Part II of a multi-part story. If you haven’t read Part I, please read it here first.

I found my husband lying on a gurney. I think he was just in a hallway. I have a vague image in my head of a tiny space with his gurney, me, and a curtain.

He was conscious and looking at me, but not moving or talking. I peppered him with questions. What happened? Why did you call 911? And I specifically remember asking him if he thought he’d had a stroke. His eyes met mine, but he didn’t respond.

I don’t remember any interaction with hospital staff except for one lady who kept telling me I had to fill out paperwork. I remember struggling to come up with our address when I finally did it.

I don’t remember anyone wheeling him away for any tests or procedures. I kept expecting them to, but they must have done that before the sheriff’s deputy dropped me off.

I don’t remember anyone else being there with us, but my brother says that I called him and he remembers, “breaking a few traffic laws on the way there.”

It feels like I stood in that hallway by his gurney for hours. Eventually someone told me that they were transporting him to a different hospital, Tucson Medical Center (TMC). They said a surgeon was already on the way there.

I don’t remember if they told me that my husband’s brain was bleeding, or if I wondered what kind of surgeon they meant.

I remember riding in the front seat of the ambulance and wondering why the sirens weren’t on. I don’t think the ambulance was speeding because the ride through Tucson to the east side also feels like it took hours. I think my brother got there before we did.

When we finally arrived at TMC, I was led to a waiting room and sat there with my brother until the neurosurgeon, Dr. Diefenbach, came to talk to us. He told us that my husband had had a massive hemorrhagic stroke and that he was going to drill into my husband’s skull to drain the blood and relieve the pressure.

He also explained that the brain surgery would be complicated by the fact that my husband had been taking blood thinners since his aortic valve replacement two years prior. It would be a challenge to reverse the blood thinner enough to stop the bleeding, but not so much that it caused a blood clot to form on my husband’s artificial valve.

I remember asking Dr. Diefenbach how long my husband would be in the hospital, and his reply was, “If he survives the surgery, he will be in the ICU for several weeks, and in the hospital for several months.” I remember wondering if he’d be out before our first child was born in 5 months.

I was allowed to see my husband before the surgery began, and I remember exactly what this room looked like. He was in a bed this time, with curtains on either side of him and all of the normal hospital room equipment on the wall behind him. He was still not moving or talking, but his eyes met mine once again. I remember kissing his forehead and telling him that I loved him, that a surgeon was going to help him, and that I would see him soon.

It was now about four or five hours since I had gotten off the bus expecting my husband to be there to pick me up. Once we were in the surgery waiting room, my brother called our parents. He remembers that he tried to tell Mom what was happening but he couldn’t get the words out. He remembers that I took the phone from him.

My mom remembers getting the call just as she was getting home from work at 11:30p.m. in Wisconsin, and she remembers me saying to her, “Everything’s okay, but they are taking Tony in for brain surgery and they don’t think he’s going to live.”

I don’t remember any of that.

To be continued…

Here’s a link to Part III - “Pizza and a Movie”

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We’d already had a few 100 degree days that April in Tucson.  April 12th was slightly cooler, but not much. Riding home from work on the #16 Sun Tran bus, I was sweaty and uncomfortable.

I remember fidgeting in my seat. For some reason that I couldn’t put my finger on, I felt anxiety building as I rode the five or so miles north along Oracle Road. Despite trying several times, I could not focus on reading my book like I normally did.

The bus made frequent stops. I was sitting right behind the driver, and each time the front doors opened, another blast of hot, dry air blew in.  When we finally got to my stop at River Road, it took me a while to cross the busy intersection. I was irritated and impatient, but after I crossed the street and realized my husband wasn’t there to pick me up, I got angry!

I don’t remember how long I waited in our usual spot, getting more irate by the minute. Eventually I walked over to a pay phone and called home.  I was ready to launch into a tirade as soon as he picked up, but it wasn’t my husband that answered. It was a sheriff’s deputy.

Suddenly, everything became blurry and dark.

I vaguely remember the deputy telling me that my husband had called 911, and that when they arrived they had to bust down the door to get in.  They found him lying on the floor. They found hamburger meat frying on the stove.

I vaguely remember the deputy telling me that the paramedics were just leaving with my husband in an ambulance.  If I had waited another minute to call, no one would have answered the phone.

I vaguely remember telling the deputy that I was a mile down the road, standing under the glaring sun, without a car, and four months pregnant.

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, but I do remember riding in the back of a patrol car and being dropped off at a hospital emergency department.

To be continued…

Here’s a link to Part II - “Everything’s Okay, But...”

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Are you interested in reading the rest of the story, or did the fact that it’s multi-part turn you off? What would you have written about for the prompt, “Suddenly, everything became blurry and dark?”

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I am cheating taking the week off to celebrate my 61st birthday and to get started on the signature assignment for my, “Weather and Climate,” class, so I’m linking to one of my first posts from November when I only had a handful of subscribers. It remains one of my favorite stories that I’ve written, so I hope you enjoy it!

My apologies to the awesome who was my first subscriber besides family/friends, to whose kind words and encouragement were my first reader comments, and to the handful of others that have already read this story. You get a week off, too, and my eternal gratitude for being an early supporter of my writing!

I have not edited the original story, but there are a few updates below.

I look forward to hearing what you think!

Updates: my torn meniscus is healing with physical therapy and no surgery, our grandchild-to-be is a boy (only 6 weeks-ish to go!) and I am now the proud owner of chocolate brown Melmac teacups!

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What is your favorite memory of your grandma?  What’s been your experience of being a grandparent?  Do you have any hard-earned advice to offer?

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That coincidence proved too much for me to ignore, and it led me down a bit of a rabbit hole.  Hmmm, I thought, could/should I figure out what the current International/National/World Day was and use it as a prompt for my writing this week?  Or every week?  Or just the, “I can’t think of anything to write,” weeks?

Writing prompts can be a great tool for getting onto paper something that’s been trapped inside my mind.  During my writing group this past Monday, I was given a prompt that helped me finally start writing about my husband’s stroke/brain surgery.  But it’s a big, important story.  It will take me a while to write it.

And that’s what I’ve been struggling with lately.  I am a slow writer.  There, I said it.

There have been some weeks lately that I have spent more hours writing my weekly post than I ever spent at my full-time job.  I’m not complaining.  I have nothing but gratitude for the people willing to read my stories and maybe even give me a little feedback.  When I retired just over a year ago, writing was the number one thing on my list of what I wanted to do with my free time the rest of my life.

But it’s not the only thing I want to do, and some of those other things are haunting me (maybe even causing lack of sleep?) because I’ve been neglecting them since my January commitment to post a story every week. I’m overwhelmed.

So I have a big, important decision to make.  It’s time for me to find some writing/other fun things/other big important things balance, but I don’t want to stop writing! Perhaps I could/should post only once a month, or every other week? Perhaps I could/should post my stories in a series, taking several weeks to tell a complete story? Perhaps I could/should set a time limit on my writing.  Say three hours.  Not every week. Just some weeks.

So what if I used the Inter/National/World Days topic as a random writing prompt just for today? See if it brings anything to mind that might be worth a short little three-hour story?

That could be fun to explore. It could be fun to read.  Maybe it’s worth a try. A sort of stream of consciousness type of thinking/writing, in a sort of laid back/non-committal kind of way. No pressure. No big, important decisions required just to try.

Let’s go with that for Just a Blink and see what happens.

I am writing this on Wednesday, March 20.  A brief search of the internet tells me that March 20 is International Peace Day.  But it’s also National Ravioli Day, National Macaroon Day, National #DogsinYellow Day, International Data Center Day, French Language Day, World Storytelling Day, Hufflepuff Pride Day, National Proposal Day, National Kiss Your Fiancé Day, Won’t You Be My Neighbor Day, National Snowman Burning Day, and also Alien Abduction Day.

I’m overwhelmed.  Who decides these days?  Who sits in their office or kitchen and thinks, “let’s have a special day once a year to honor data centers”?  That’s a rabbit hole I’m not willing to go down.

Since I want a writing prompt from just one of these special days, I can eliminate most of them in one fell swoop.  I am not fond of macaroons, don’t speak French, and don’t have a fiancé.  Data Centers – meh.  Married almost 40 years, not expecting any proposals today.  Burning a Snowman?  Not I.  Alien Abduction?  No way.  I just wrote about a woman neighbor on International Women’s Day, and there’s no ravioli in my freezer to microwave and write about. #DogsinYellow?  I don’t like days with hashtags in their name.

That leaves just three other special days to consider:  International Peace Day, World Storytelling Day, and Hufflepuff Pride Day.  Not bad choices, but I should figure out my Hogwarts House first to see if that’s even an option.  Wouldn’t want to write about Hufflepuff Pride if I’m a Slytherin.

Would you believe, there are several quizzes online to help me sort myself?  Of course you would.  I chose this quiz mostly because I didn’t have to provide my date of birth and email address to do it.  But it was not an easy quiz to take.  I had to look deep into my soul to answer the 17 questions as honestly as possible.  I’m definitely not sharing my answers to most of the questions.  No one needs to know what I would see in the Mirror of Erised or which Deathly Hallow I would choose.  But I will graciously share that I chose the following as the quote that spoke to me the most:

"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic." - Albus Dumbledore

What writer would/could choose any differently?

And I will also graciously share my results.  It turns out that I am, “31% Hufflepuff, 27% Gryffindor, 25% Ravenclaw, and 17% Slytherin.”

So Yay!  I can write about Hufflepuff Pride if I want to. 

BUT WAIT!  The past two weeks, I wrote about an Inter/National/World Day that fell on Friday, the day I published my post, not on the day I wrote the post. Sigh!

Let’s see what special days we honor on Friday.  March 22 is World Water Day, National Goof Off Day, As Young as You Feel Day, Gryffindor Pride Day, Bavarian Crepes Day, Daffodil Day, International Seal Day, National Donald Day, Talk like William Shakespeare Day, and also Talk Like William Shatner Day.

I’m overwhelmed.  Again.  Many of those could/would/should make good writing prompts.  At just shy of 61, I could easily write about As Young as You Feel Day.  I could write about World Water Day too since I live in Arizona and we are running out.  I could probably go back and re-take the quiz until the results sorted me into Gryffindor. (It was my second strongest house, after all, but it feels like something a Slytherin would do, and I am only 17% Slytherin.)  I might even be able to write about seals, daffodils, or Bavarian crepes.  But I don’t know anything about talking like a William. And I do not want to write about Donalds.  Not I.  No way. That’s another rabbit hole I’m not willing to go down.

So now I have a different big, important decision to make. Which Inter/National/World Day should I write about? …

…

…

…

I have made the big, important decision, and I am at Peace with it. I have decided that I’ve already honored World Storytelling Day.  Hopefully I’ve also honored Albus Dumbledore and created just a little bit of magic.

And my time is up, so now I’m off…

Off to honor National Goof Off Day. (Or have I already honored that Day as well?)

____________________________________________________________________________

I’d love to hear your thoughts! What’s your Hogwarts House? Do you have a favorite Inter/National/World Day? Did you find any magic in my story today? How do you find balance between writing and other fun/big/important things in your life?

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Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes, I see them running too
Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I'm running behind
              - Jackson Browne


I'm pretty tired.
I think I'll go home now.
               - Forrest Gump

Getting a good night’s sleep is important. So important. One of the most important things. Maybe THE most important thing.

We all know that.

It’s hard to function when you don’t sleep well. Lack of sleep impacts mood, diet, memory, focus, exercise, health, patience, and more.

We all know that.

I’ve had a few nights lately where I did. not. sleep. at. all. Not even Just a Blink. Tossed and turned all night. Thought and worried about every possible thing under the sun, above the earth, in the water, and more.

The weird looking rash on my second toe. The new prescription being denied by insurance. The need to finish our taxes. The threat of a flat tire from the glass bottles I dropped in the driveway. The strange noise coming from the washing machine. The package that Walmart claims was delivered to our front porch, but the photo taken for proof is. not. of. our. porch. The busy week of appointments ahead: haircuts, eye doctor, cardiologist, and two physical therapies. The pressing desire to make time for writing about my husband’s stroke and brain surgery, my fibromyalgia diagnosis, the Covid pandemic, my parents’ life stories, and more.

I’m well aware of all the things one is supposed to do to ensure a good night’s sleep. This isn’t my first rodeo. Still, knowledge of, planning for, and execution of all those things doesn’t. guarantee. anything!

We all know that.

One of my go-to methods when I’m struggling to fall asleep is to listen to one of the sleep meditations from the “Ten Percent Happier” app. One of my favorites is Oren Jay Sofer’s meditation called, “Putting the Day to Rest.” In a soothing voice, Oren shares comforting nuggets like, “When your mind is at rest, it’s easier for your body to rest,” and, “Right now, there’s nothing you need to do, nothing that worrying or thinking can help.” He also says, “thinking takes energy, energy that can get in the way of letting go, settling back, and falling asleep,” although that golden nugget is almost halfway through the thirty minute meditation. I’m rarely still awake to hear it.

Unfortunately, even Oren hasn’t been able to stop my mind from running Olympic sprints marathons lately.

My worries haven’t been more serious than usual. Nothing life threatening. Nothing we haven’t dealt with before, as my husband always points out. Nothing I’ll likely even remember tossing and turning about a few weeks down the road.

So why has my mind has been running and running without stopping lately, faster and further than Forrest Gump’s legs in the famous movie scene?

Maybe it’s as simple as what Oren talks about in another of his wise nuggets. He says, “It’s common for there to be particular things our minds get stuck on, that linger, that can be harder to put to rest.”

Or maybe it’s more complicated than that. Maybe it has to do with, like Jackson Browne says, “how crazy this life feels,” and the ever-present feeling that, “I’m running behind.”

Either way, I sure hope my mind stops running in less than than three years, two months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours. I’m pretty tired.

If you haven’t figured out all the connections between the the title, the quotes I began with, the two photos, and “Jackson Browne, Forrest Gump, Meditation, and Me,” (or even if you have figured it out!), watch this entire video. Pay particular attention beginning at the 3:22 mark, and be looking towards the center left above the cars at the 3:30 mark (it’s a little dark).

Be sure to watch all the way to the end!

And if you’ve never seen the whole “Forrest Gump” movie (or even if you have), make time to watch it, even if you loose Just a Blink of sleep to do it!

Spoiler alert: Here’s a short video (dated 2014) with fun details, but watch the other video first!

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Did you make the connections before you watched the video, or after? Or are you still a little lost? Did my sleep-deprived brain make any sense at all?

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One of my favorite things about writing on Substack has been the community of other writers and readers that I have been welcomed into, and one of my favorite ways to feel connected is to join others in writing projects for a specific prompt or purpose.

Today, in honor of International Women’s Day 2024, I am joining women writers around the world to create a “daisy chain” of stories dedicated to women. Thank you to and the others who extended the invitation to this “creative act of friendship, solidarity, reciprocity and connection.” I am grateful to be included!

For my piece of the daisy chain, I want to introduce you to some of the women that have touched my life. I will write more about some of them someday, but let me tell you why I am grateful for them today. (Note to the men: you can likely find yourself in between the lines here too.)

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❤️ My Circle of Women ❤️

I am grateful for all of the women I have met here on Substack. I love reading and supporting their work, and feeling welcomed and appreciated in return. They have helped me find my way, motivated me to be a better writer, and made Substack feel like home! And an extra special thank you to: and .

I am grateful for every one of the women who have subscribed to Just a Blink, read my posts, restacked, smiled, laughed, cried, clicked on the heart, left a comment, or pondered what I’ve written. That you value my stories enough to spend more than Just a Blink of your time with me is incredible!

I am grateful for the women of Big Magic Writing Group whose presence on my screen keeps me awake past my bedtime one Thursday evening per month and helps me to not feel alone: , Vivian, Juliette, Meghan, and Jenny.

I am grateful for the women of my Flagstaff writing group who welcomed me without question and cheered my stories for a year before I even thought of writing on Substack. I miss seeing you on Monday afternoons, but I’ll be back!

I am grateful for my friend LNH (aka Leia) who agreed to be my lab partner in high-school, gave me a kitten, talked about boys with me, and was maid-of-honor at my wedding. If I’m being honest, she also has cuter toes than me.

I am grateful for my friend LJC who has a laugh that can be picked out of a crowd, rescued a sentimental footstool for me when she retired, attended both of our boys’ weddings, and made sure we saw Bud one last time.

I am grateful for my friend JM who was my first friend to publish a book, didn’t laugh at me when I said maybe I wanted to write after I retired, and never gave up on our friendship when I had health issues even though I didn’t make it to her daughter’s graduation.

I am grateful for my friend CH who was the best supervisor I’ve ever had and set an extraordinary example for me in how she conducted her life during her husband’s illness.

I am grateful for my friend DW who covered my job duties without complaint when my husband was ill, tells me the sweetest stories about her grandkids, and Jazzercises with me on her day off.

I am grateful for my Jazzercise instructors who keep me strong and healthy and don’t laugh at me if I dance to the right when everyone else goes left.

I am grateful for my friend KRY who invited me into her writing group, gifts me writing books, and trusts me with her life stories, even the tough ones.

I am grateful for my friend JS who makes time to meet for breakfast even during tax season and talked truth with me about grandmotherhood when I most needed it.

I am grateful for my friend JB who made time to meet for breakfast less than 12 hours after returning from Australia and kept our older son on the team until they finally won the coveted National LifeSmarts Championship.

I am grateful for my friend MD who used to greet me at work by saying, “Good Morning, Sunshine!” and whose good side I want to stay on since she’s opening up a mobile halotherapy salt cave.

I am grateful for my friends DC, JB, and MH who were some of the hardest working co-workers I’ve ever had, brought their kids treat-or-treating to work, and laugh with me for hours about the Good Times.

I am grateful for my friend/massage therapist GC who offers hot towels during her massages, always has encouraging thoughts on life to share, and cooked for us the Minestrone Soup that has become one of our go-to meals.

I am grateful for my friend/hairstylist SA who went above and beyond during the pandemic, shares stories about her kids, and keeps us looking our best.

I am grateful for our friend/neighbor JW who was the first to welcome us to the neighborhood, looks over our home when we are out of town, and brings over freshly baked berry scones during every big snowstorm.

I am grateful for women who have passed away: my Grandma Helen who I have written about here, my cousin Nettie who loved our boys like grandchildren before she had her own, and my friend Teal who had a heart of gold and a Plan B.

I am grateful for my Aunt/Godmother PS who talks to my mom on the phone every morning and who sewed me a beautiful flag ornament when someone else wouldn’t.

I am grateful for my husband’s sisters and sister-in-law, DS, MR, JS and JKS, who helped raise him in a rough home situation and have lots of childhood stories to tell.

I am grateful for my brother’s wife MDLK who found my parents a safe, clean duplex when they needed to move, is on-call as backup transportation for their doctor’s appointments, and is a faithful supporter of my writing.

I am grateful for my sister TLB (aka The Best) who plans fun family get-togethers (which always include Michigan Rummy), sends yummy treats in the mail, and provides wise counsel when needed, but who will never own the old family spatula.

I am grateful for my niece LVB who appreciates the little things in life like Kraft Mac and Cheese, and whose good side I want to stay on since she’s in law school and I might need her help some day. (P.S. Gerald says hello!)

I am grateful for my daughter-in-laws’ mothers, MS and LM, who raised their girls to be the wonderful women they are and welcomed our sons (and us) into their families.

I am grateful for my younger daughter-in-law MRHM (aka The Dragon) who spent last Christmas without her husband so our younger son could visit us, spent Covid Thanksgiving dinner outside wrapped in a blanket, and still asks me to make beef enchiladas even though I put in way too much salt once.

I am grateful for my older daughter-in-law MLS who does a jigsaw puzzle with me every time we get together, makes the most amazing raspberry pie in the world, and will be giving birth to our first grandchild (a boy) in May!

Finally, but most of all, I am grateful for my mom/best friend KHK (aka GG) who is the best mother in the world despite losing her own mother to leukemia when she was 6, supports me no matter what I do, provides wise insight for my stories before I send them into the world, texts me every waking hour of the day, helps us through all of our medical issues, and is my emotional support blanket daily. And I really want to stay on her good side so she will make potato salad from scratch when I ask. Thanks, Mom, I love you!

Time passes in the blink of an eye.  Things change, life goes on, but my gratitude for these women will never waiver.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Who are the women in your life you would like to honor and appreciate on International Women’s Day 2024? Reply to my email, tell us in the comments, or write your own IWD daisy chain story! 

Thanks for passing Just a Blink of your time with me!

Respectful comments are welcome. Let’s inspire each other with a little wisdom and a lot of humor, patience, and kindness.

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In a recent Office Party, was interested in hearing about “places to go to escape the summer heat.” I have lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, for 28 years and it is well-known as a place to escape the summer Phoenix heat. But Flagstaff is so much more. We are, “Arizona’s destination for all seasons!”

The reason you can “escape the heat” here in Flagstaff, or just plain “Flag” as we locals call it, is because it’s a high-elevation city, sitting at almost 7,000 feet (compared to just over 1,000 feet elevation for Phoenix.) We are in the Coconino National Forest, the largest Ponderosa Pine stand in the world. Our average high temps in the summer are in the upper 70s and low 80s F compared to well over 100 degree high temps in Phoenix!

June is usually our hottest month, and then temps cool off once our rainy monsoon season starts around the 4th of July. We have an average precipitation of just 20 inches per year, and more than half of that falls as snow in the winter.

Fall in Flag is my favorite, cooler but sunny. We have an average 266 days of sunshine per year. Winter low temps are in the teens or low 20s, and we average 90-100 inches of snow per year. Yes, it snows in Arizona! We usually have our first snowfall around Halloween, and the last one sometime in March, but most of the snow falls in December through February. I remember a few snowy April Fool’s Days, though. Last winter we had a record-breaking 160+ inches, but this winter we are below normal. Warmer temps come again in April and May, but spring in Flag is typically windy!

Flagstaff sits at the intersection of I-40 (east/west) and I-17, and along the southwestern edge of the San Francisco Peaks. The Peaks, as locals call them, are the remnants of a volcano that erupted about 400,000 years ago. It erupted out of its northeastern side, similar to how Mt. St. Helen’s in Oregon erupted in 1980. The tallest peak, Humphreys, is also the tallest point in the state of Arizona at 12,633 feet. This diagram is looking into the Inner Basin of the Peaks from the northeast side.

The City of Flagstaff has a population of almost 80,000 people, not including the metro area surrounding the city limits. These numbers swell during the school year by about 25-30K with the addition of students at Northern Arizona University. Our younger son and his wife graduated from NAU, and my husband works there. But my fun is watching the Starship robots when I drive through campus. Sometimes there are more of them running around than there are students. It’s funny when 5-6 of them are lined up to cross a street, or when one gets stuck in a snowbank!

This website includes a brief history of Flagstaff’s founding. It’s a good read with some historic photos, and there’s a lot of other helpful info on the website, but here is my briefer summary: The Beale wagon road was established in the 1860s, a Ponderosa Pine tree stripped of its branches and bark became a landmark (a flag “staff”) on July 4, 1876, the railroad came in the early 1880s, the Babbitt brothers started a cattle ranch in 1886, the Riordan brothers ran a lumber mill in the 1890s, historic Route 66 arrived in 1926, and Pluto was discovered from Lowell Observatory in 1930.

If you are planning a trip to Flagstaff, you will want to check out some of the many travel websites dedicated to what to see and do in Flag and the surrounding areas, but here you will find my top recommendations.

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Downtown:

Flagstaff has a lively downtown with a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and events year round. Watch for street art (left), buskers, and friendly locals around every corner. Heritage Square (middle) is the site of the Christmas tree lighting, evening star parties, and “Movies on the Square” in the warmer months. Nearby Wheeler Park (right) is the perfect place to attend an arts and crafts show, have a picnic, take a nap, or build a snowman.

Historic Route 66 runs right through Flagstaff. Fans of “The Mother Road” can visit several iconic sites in and around town. These road signs, shown in many Route 66 books, are located at its intersection with Humphreys St (Hwy 180.)

Farmer’s Market. From May through October, Sundays from 8am-Noon, in the City Hall parking lot. Our growing season is short and volatile (late freezes, drought, wildfire, floods, etc.) so local farmers work extra hard to provide us with fresh produce. Nothing from the grocery store is as healthy or tastes as good. Our younger son was co-owner of a local produce farm before he moved to Alaska and I miss their produce almost as much as I miss him!

Theatrikos Playhouse. The 1920s-era building was an Elks Lodge and a library before becoming the premiere theater of Northern Arizona in 1989. We’ve enjoyed every play we’ve attended here. Our younger son performed here often in his school days, in both Main Stage productions and as a member of “Theatrikids,” their excellent kid’s theater program.

Train Station and Visitor Center. Trains are a big part of daily life in Flag. An average of 100 pass through town every day, both freight and Amtrak. Built in 1926, this is an outstanding train-watching location, and the visitor center has many train themed souvenirs (as well as Flagstaff and Route 66 themed items.) They also have many brochures and staff to chat with about nearby places you might want to visit. Be sure to check out the elaborate graffiti on the freight trains thundering by.

The Great Pinecone Drop. The Weatherford hotel is the site of Flag’s version of the NYC ball drop. We drop a 70-pound, 6-foot-tall, metallic pinecone, a MUST if you are here on New Year’s Eve. There is a 10p.m. drop for the kids too.

Freaky Foot Tours. Some people believe that Flagstaff is haunted. If that’s your thing, this tour is another must. Founded by one of my fellow writing group members and her son (Susan and Nick), guides on this evening haunted walking tour will terrorize you with tales about our resident ghosts in historic downtown buildings such as Hotel Monte Vista, The Orpheum Theater, and The Weatherford Hotel (left to right above.) Susan has also written a book, “Haunted Flagstaff,” which you could get on Amazon, but even better, you can get it at…

Bright Side Bookshop …our independent book store! My favorite for new books.

Around Town:

Bookmans. An Arizona legend, founded in Tucson in 1976. My favorite for used books and so much more.

Lowell Observatory Founded by Percival Lowell in 1894. It was here that Vesto M. Slipher first detected the expanding nature of the universe in 1912 and Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. Maps of the moon to support the Apollo missions were created here beginning in 1961, and Apollo astronauts trained in crater fields just outside Flagstaff in 1967. Lowell astronomers were involved with the New Horizons mission to Pluto and helped Flagstaff become the world’s first International Dark Sky City in 2001. Our older son worked here for several years in high school. Their visitor program is phenomenal, with daytime historic tours and nighttime telescope viewing. Don’t miss this place!

Riordan Mansion. An Arts & Crafts style home designed by Charles Whittlesey, the architect of the famous El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon. Built in 1904 for Tim and Mike Riordan and their wives, sisters Caroline and Elizabeth (Metz), who were cousins of the Babbitts. The mansion is two separate two-story homes connected by a one-story common area. It had indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, central heat, and electric lights in 1904! The Riordans managed and then owned the timber mill and were instrumental to the social and economic structure of Flagstaff and Northern Arizona. Guided tours are provided daily except Christmas Day. I am not normally a big fan of house tours, but my husband worked here for awhile so we took many visitors on the tour and it is honestly very good. The inside of the house is incredible!

Buffalo Park. This 215 acre city park is a locals’ favorite. It was founded as a tourist attraction in 1963 with kitschy road-side attractions and live buffalo. Nowadays, it’s wide-open grassland with easy, mostly level hiking trails including a 2+ mile loop. There are restrooms and a picnic area, occasional wildlife sightings (but more local dogs than wildlife) and beautiful views of the Peaks (you can see a hint in the pic.) Hike, bike, run, and so much more. The trails are not paved, so it can be muddy after rain or snow, and it is often windy too!

Festivals. Flagstaff hosts an assortment of festivals year round. Here is the link for the 2024 festivals. There is something for everyone, but I highly recommend our Flagstaff Festival of Science if you’ll be here in the fall.

Thorpe Park Playground. If the little ones need a place to run around and let off a little steam, this is the park I would recommend. It has fun, modern playground equipment and is located on Aspen Avenue west of downtown as far as you can go (south of the similarly named Thorpe Park ball fields.)

While you are in Flag, try to find some (or all) of our mountain lion sculptures. There are apparently 17 of them around town, but even I haven’t seen them all. This one is in Heritage Square downtown and appears to have been inspired by the colors and layers of the Grand Canyon. Each one is painted differently.

And do not miss our unofficial landmark on Milton Road! This building used to be called, “Furniture Barn,” hence the cow. There was an uproar in 2012 when Furniture Burn lost their lease and moved to a smaller location. People didn’t know who was moving into the building and had nightmares that the cow would be painted over. It didn’t help when our local newspaper printed an article stating, “Neither party would say whether the cow will stay.“ Thank goodness, Natural Grocers complied with the locals’ wishes!

Flagstaff undeniably, emphatically, and adamantly does not want to become Phoenix! Other local uproars included our city council approving a WalMart Supercenter, voters rejecting a new hospital south of town, and no less than two uproars about Barnes & Noble - when it was built and again when its lease wasn’t renewed. Stories for another day!

Close to Town:

Hiking Trails. It would be impossible to list all the hiking trails in and around town, but here’s a start. If hiking is your thing, you will find a place to hike year-round!

Fort Tuthill. Camping, hiking, snow park, picnicking, Extreme Adventure Course, live music festivals at the amphitheater, horse races, the Labor Day weekend Coconino County Fair, and so much more.

Lava Tube Cave. One-of-a-kind experience walking inside an emptied out, hardened lava flow shell. It is a long cave. It’s cold inside (35-45 degrees) and damp, so bring a jacket. Hardened lava is not smooth. It is ragged and jagged. You have to scramble down slippery rocks to get in. Hiking shoes or at least closed-toed, sturdy shoes are required. No flip flops. And it is dark pure, pitch-black, dark. As the website states (and I can attest), it is “the kind of dark where you cannot see your hand even if it is touching your nose!” Bring several flashlights or headlamps. And extra batteries. And a helmet if you can. Seriously. I tripped once and landed (in what felt like slow motion) on my elbow and then my hand and then my face. Seriously. It was worth it. Once. Unless you are claustrophobic. Or have an ankle injury. Or are unable to crawl.

Arizona Snowbowl. Hiking, skiing, snowboarding, summer chairlift rides. A popular hike to the top of Mt. Humphreys is another locals’ favorite. My husband and I tried it for our older son’s 18th birthday celebration, but we both had bronchitis so we only made it to the saddle. Both of our boys have hiked to the summit on multiple occasions. From the saddle and summit you can see down into the Inner Basin and Lockett Meadow on the northeast side, but I’ve heard tell of hurricane force winds on the top. And in the summer, you do NOT want to be up there when the monsoon storms begin. And if you are not used to the altitude, go slow and be aware of the signs of altitude sickness.

Sunset Crater Volcano. This cinder cone volcano last erupted about 1,000 years ago. The national monument suffered damage from the Tunnel Fire in 2022, so some areas are still off limits, but you can hike along the lava fields which is very cool. You can not, however, hike to the top of the crater. It’s all been protected since the 1920s when a Hollywood movie company wanted to blow it up to simulate an eruption.

Lockett Meadow. Northeast side of the Peaks, in the Inner Basin. Hiking, camping, fall colors, picnicking, wildlife sighting. One of my favorite places in the world! Often closed in winter, and you need a high-clearance vehicle and lots of patience to get there the rest of the year. In the fall, there are often limits on the number of vehicles allowed in because it’s so popular for leaf-peeping. Go early in the day and take your camera. The aspens are gorgeous!

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Grub:

Coffee - My “Heaven in a Bean” post has four recommendations for liquid gold in Flag, but there are so many more coffee houses here and if they don’t roast their own beans, they probably at least use beans from one of the local roasters.

Breakfast - Biff’s Bagels. There will be a line out the door and around the corner before they open in the morning. They close early in the afternoon, so don’t delay.

Pizza - Fratellis. Simply the best! Three locations. This one is downtown, south of the tracks.

Burgers - Diablo. Made from 100% local, grass-fed, open range-raised, antibiotic-free and growth-hormone-free beef. The most expensive of all my recommendations. Small seating area inside, but nicer to eat outdoors. In Heritage Square downtown.

Mexican - Impossible to choose one favorite. Tres Amigos, Tacos Los Altos, and Oscar’s Burritos Fiesta (left to right).

Craft Brewery - Lumberyard. It is also a full restaurant, and the outdoor seating area is another great place to watch the trains since it’s just across the tracks from the train station. But to be honest, I’m not a frequent beer drinker, so I also recommend our younger son’s favorite brewery, Wanderlust, and our older son’s favorite, Mother Road.

And any day now, our LONG awaited In-N-Out Burger will be open!

Day Trips:

South rim of the Grand Canyon. We often do a loop, traveling northwest on Hwy 180, then north on Hwy 64 to visit the main lookouts in Grand Canyon Village, then hitting all the eastern lookouts along the Canyon to Cameron (still on Hwy 64), and then back south to Flagstaff on Hwy 89A.

Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, and Jerome. Switchbacks, Red Rock Country, and a real Ghost Town. I wrote about our possible last visit to Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona here. Jerome just might be more haunted than Flagstaff.

Williams and Seligman. Two other popular spots along the old Route 66. Be sure to stop at Pine Country in Williams for pie and Snow-Cap in Seligman for ice cream.

Winslow, Meteor Crater, and Petrified Forest. Standin’ On The Corner, meteorite impact, and Triassic trees turned to stone.

North rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s a little on the long side for a day trip, but it can be done. Much less crowded than the south rim and beautiful scenery along the way. Be sure to stop at Jacob Lake Inn for cookies!

Additional Links:

City of Flagstaff. Great videos and info for visitors. Many facts and statistics taken from this website.

Official Tourism Guide. More videos, info, facts, and statistics.

Flagstaff.com. More videos, info, facts, and statistics.

Live Webcams. If it’s inoperable the first time you check it out, try again later. I use this often at night to see the road conditions when it’s dark and snowing, but it rotates among several different views including Route 66 and the Peaks from downtown during the daytime. It used to also show Lowell Observatory sometimes, but that hasn’t been working for awhile.

Train Station Webcam. From Virtual Railfan. Especially fun when you catch the Amtrak “Southwest Chief” stopping in town - eastbound to Chicago in the morning and westbound to L.A. in the evening.

So there you have it, one local’s perspective of what makes Flagstaff a perfect place to escape summer’s heat, and a great place to visit any time of year! There are national monuments, native cultural sites, lively nightlife locations, and an obscene amount of restaurants and visitor accommodations that I haven’t mentioned. There are things I’ve forgotten and things I don’t even know about. Flagstaff is so much more than a place to escape the heat!

But these are the places we have enjoyed. These are the places we have taken our visitors. Twenty-eight years have gone by in Just a Blink. These are the places I’ll miss when we move.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Where is your favorite place to escape the heat?  Have you ever been to Flagstaff? If so, what would you recommend visitors see and do?

If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them. And if you do decide to visit Flagstaff, please be sure to let me know!

Thanks for passing so much more than Just a Blink of your time with me!

Respectful comments are welcome. Let’s inspire each other with a little wisdom and a lot of humor, patience, and kindness.

Leave a comment

For most of my adult life, I was not a coffee drinker. I did not like the taste at all. But I have always loved the smell of coffee brewing, even as a child.

However, about ten years ago, I became a full-fledged coffee enthusiast. Our younger son gave me a bag of specialty whole coffee beans as a birthday gift, the Organic Peru beans from Macy’s European Coffee House, a local roaster here in Flagstaff, Arizona. Shortly thereafter, my mom bought us our first espresso maker.

My husband is our house barista. The first thing he does when he wakes up is grind1 four scoops of coffee beans from whichever specialty Arabica whole bean bag we are currently drinking. Then he brews us each a cup (or a cup and a half) using our cheap, generic espresso machine.2 Our machine has a portafilter and a steam wand, but he doesn’t use the steam wand. Water is forced through fresh grounds in the portafilter and we each end up with a full-size cup of concentrated coffee full of natural flavors.

We’ve been buying specialty coffee beans ever since. Over the years we’ve enjoyed coffee beans grown all over the world, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Bali, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, and Hawaii.

It wasn’t long before we learned about coffee bean subscriptions. We started with Atlas Coffee Club, and then tried Bean Box and Mistobox. Each has their own take on how best to provide coffee on a regular basis. That was fun!

Soon enough, we attended our first coffee cupping class. Coffee cupping is to coffee what wine tasting is to wine. It’s the process that coffee professionals use to evaluate coffee beans after they’ve been roasted. We learned the history of coffee, the coffee varieties, the processing methods, and the types of roasts. We learned how roasting the coffee beans brings out the natural aromas and flavors. We learned about single-origin coffee (all beans sourced from one location) versus blends (beans from multiple locations mixed together.) We were given four different types of coffee to sample and then led through the proper tasting method which includes smelling the dry grounds, adding the water, breaking the crust, slurping, and spitting. That was fun too!

We attended a second coffee cupping class and learned more about how coffee roasters detect flavor profiles in their roasted beans. These flavors are then listed on the bags of coffee beans as tasting notes. Different varieties of coffee beans taste different and even different roasts of the same batch of coffee beans taste different. We also learned that coffee names (especially single-origin coffees) typically include their country of origin, and also can include the coffee variety, the name of the region or specific farm (finca) where the beans were grown, or even the processing method. And again we smelled the dry grounds, added the water, broke the crust, slurped, and spit. More fun!

For awhile we did a mini-coffee cupping at home with each new bag of beans we got. We became experts (well, within our own family) at tasting the same flavors as the roasters of our beans had detected. Then we held our first official coffee cupping contest for family members outside our household. We sampled several coffees to see which beans were the overall favorite, and we had blind contests to see who could identify which coffee came from which bag of beans. Even more fun!

We’ve taken things down a notch in recent years. We haven’t held a second coffee cupping at home, nor gone to any additional classes. But I do still love freshly roasted, freshly ground, freshly brewed coffee! When I am shopping for coffee beans, whether in person or online, time is Just a Blink!

Over the years I’ve learned that I prefer single-origin, light roast, smooth coffee with fruity or floral tasting notes. My favorite coffee beans come from the Mount Kerinci Highlands of Sumatra, especially if they are honey-processed. But they’re not easy to find. A few times a year, I search online to see if any of my favorite coffee roasters have a limited release Sumatra Kerinci in stock, and I consider myself lucky if any of them do.

We buy specialty coffee beans whenever we travel, and get many bags as gifts too - from both of our sons now, and my sister too. My brother once bought us a coffee advent with 24 different single serve bags of beans. That was fun! Our younger son bought us three bags from local Flagstaff roasters before he moved to Alaska last year. That was fun too!

I used to save every empty coffee bean bag so I could remember what beans we’ve tried, but now I just take pictures before tossing them. I can’t tell you exactly why this matters to me, but there you have it. And yes, I did search through years of coffee bean bag photos to remind me of some of my favorites! That was fun!

These are some of my favorite coffee bean roasters (so far):

Press Coffee, Phoenix, Arizona. Home of our first coffee cupping. This is my favorite overall coffee roaster, and also home of my all-time #1 favorite coffee beans (a 2018 Sumatra Kerinci Honey Process with tasting notes of Clementine and Grape Popsicle Cola, bag pictured below.) We’ve brewed many of the single-origin coffee beans here and never had a bag we didn’t like. Other top 10 favorites were a 2018 Ethiopia Chelelektu, a 2020 Ethiopia Bedhatu Jibicho, and a 2023 Mexico Mayan Harvest.

Presta Coffee Roasters, Tucson, Arizona. We’ve never had a bag of coffee beans we didn’t like from here either. We brewed coffee beans from Congo here in March 2023 with tasting notes of Jasmine, Lemon Zest, Cane Sugar, and Grape Jolly Rancher. Top 10! We currently have an Ethiopia Gori Gesha Forest with tasting notes of Raspberry, Dark Chocolate, and Mandarin Orange. If you can get one before it sells out, do so! Top 10!

Macy’s European Coffee House, Flagstaff, Arizona. The place it all began, with the Organic Peru. Top 10!

Late for the Train Coffee, Flagstaff, Arizona. My favorite drink here is an Iced Coconino Mocha, but you’ll have to come to Flagstaff in person for that.

Single Speed Coffee Lab, Flagstaff, Arizona. Single Speed’s coffee truck is often found around town at local events.

Firecreek Coffee Company, Flagstaff, Arizona. Home of our second coffee cupping.

Archetype Coffee, Omaha, Nebraska. Again, we’ve never had a bag of beans from here we didn’t like. Their Kenya Othaya Kamoini AB from March 2019 with tasting notes of Huacatay, Blackberry, and Key Lime Sorbet is another of my top 10!

Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters, Kansas City, Missouri. I’ve had Sumatra Kerinci beans from here. Also, their coffee bean bags are beautiful.

Topeca Coffee Roasters, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The roaster I’ve most recently found Sumatra Kerinci beans.

Pine Coffee Supply, Pinedale, Wyoming. Their Sumatra Kerinci was the favorite at our one-and-only home coffee cupping in December, 2019. It had tasting notes of Strawberry, Rhubarb, Chocolate, and Bell Pepper. Top 10!

Basalt Coffee Roasters, Yakima, Washington. The closest roaster to my older son’s home, so we’ve enjoyed several bags of beans from here.

Kaladi Brothers Coffee, Anchorage, Alaska. The closest roaster to my younger son’s home, although my first bag of beans from here was several years before he lived in Alaska.

Local Farmer at Farmer’s Market, Big Island of Hawaii. Gift from my daughter-in-law’s mother. Sorry, no link, but if you are ever in Hawaii, try some 100% Kona Coffee (don’t bother with a Kona blend.) Beans grown in volcanic Kona soil have a taste unlike any other. Top 10!

Coffee Worx Premium Coffee Roasters, Christchurch, New Zealand. We’ve had the Krakatoa and the Vesuvius!

I do enjoy a latte, mocha, or a Starbucks Frappuccino now and then, but I mostly drink black coffee at home, brewed by my house barista. My husband adds half and half to his coffee, which mutes the natural flavors. Therefore, even though he is the house barista, he is usually not allowed to choose the coffee beans we purchase.

Time passes in the blink of an eye.  So let’s not waste a single day of it without a cup of freshly roasted, freshly ground, freshly brewed coffee! Things change, like which wonderful coffee bean roaster we are currently drinking, but life goes on, and there’s always more good coffee to be had. Although maybe not forever, so let’s enjoy it while we can.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  What kind of coffee do you drink?  Have you ever tried a coffee bean subscription? Have you ever had Sumatra Kerinci coffee beans? And, I’d LOVE to know - where is your favorite place to purchase freshly roasted specialty coffee beans?

Thanks for passing Just a Blink of your time with me!

Respectful comments are welcome. Let’s inspire each other with a little wisdom and a lot of humor, patience, and kindness.

Leave a comment