THIS I BELIEVE

Yesterday, we had an after breakfast visit with an engineer, lunch with a comedian, and caught up with a couple business women friends of Jim’s.

I have to admire couples who celebrate 59 years of marriage, like Jim and Joan Belluomini. They are rare.  From their home base in Lacey, they are avid ramblers and road warriors.  Jim B. sent  us on a quest for a new telephone, claiming you CAN get good service with the proper equipment. Never argue with an engineer.  We visited an AT&T store in Lacey and learned that newer phones connect to towers that older phones cannot. Jim’s phone does everything but wash the dishes. I expect to quit complaining about my poor phone service, at home and on the road, soon.

Shawn Newman, an attorney Jim met during their Public Access Television days in Olympia gives these Vietnamese sesame balls the evil eye. In fact he came hustling through the door and said, “Do you like Sesame balls?” his prelude to a comic monologue all through lunch. He took his dog to the vet because she had bad breath. So bad that when she sat on his chest in the middle of the night it was a command to get up and go outside.  The vet  handed him a  bag full of dog teeth,  “…they gave me the teeth like a car part?…”  but, it didn’t cure the problem.  Like me, an adventurous eater, we tried White Gourd Tea, and Penny Ginkgo Leaf Tea, (I may be fracturing the name.) . Both good, different. White Gourd tastes like caramel corn. The other more like pumpkin, wheat.

Whenever Jim hits his old hunting grounds, he looks up Kerri Kauffman, a long time friend. He teases her that she is dating the same guy after 13 years with no plans for marriage nor do they  live together. That is unusual in this day and age.

Then over to the CCTV Studio, where Debbie Vinsel has been manager for 22 years. They play catch-up with old friends, where they are, what they are doing  now, as old friends do. However, Debbie and I share a mutual friendship as well, Paul Moeller from CCTV Calaveras County.
I forgot to mention that Shawn reminded me of the program (radio) begun in the 1940′s called This I Believe.  And, I have to say, This I Believe, I learn something from everyone. The program is now available on-line.

CONNECTIONS

My neighbor, Jan Stewart, invited Jim and I over for a second Thanksgiving Dinner with her family. Jan is my friend and neighbor.

Her son, Brian, went to grammar and high school with my youngest daughter.

 

Brian's wife, Debbie Pendergrast and my daughter were best of friends and have children close in age.

Jan's oldest grandson, cammeron, is now married with a child of his own and he lives on the road above me and is also my neighbor.

His mother is Jan's oldest daughter shown here with her first grandbaby. That makes Jan a great grandmother. It sneaks up on you. Suddenly we are the matriarch's of our families and it only gets better and better. When I was growing up, grandmothers and great grandmothers didn't look like these two women, youthful and full of fun. May it ever stay that way.

I like the connections and roots of friends, family and neighbors. But, as Jim prepares to leave, I know that you don't lose those connections by becoming a gypsy and ramblin' about the countryside as we did most of 2009 and 2010. You just gain friendships and connections as you go. How grateful I am to have met and got to know Jim's son and family, cousins, Donna and Bob Parker, the Di Paola family, Diane and Bob Comollo, Jackie and Ray Nichol and their daughter Rebecca, Simone and Pat Purcell. Friends, Dolly Giordano and Arthur, Bill and Loretta Gallagher, Jim and Ginnie Palumbo, Sue and Art Lambart, Ted and Sandy Walden, Leo and Fran Perth, Ted and Judy Price, Al Penta, Beverly Malland, Randy Vining, Bob Gambol, Horst and Margo Schnieder, Barbara De La Fuente, Helga Geday, Jan and Larry Seaberg, Debra Vinsel, Kerri Kaufman, Donna Huffer, Bob Parker...I'm probably forgetting someone. Each has become a connection and gives life that same solidity as the roots of home.

Now I have new names to give to my plants. My wandering jew I'll call Randy...