Memorable Library Patron---Shot By a Jealous Husband

I worked at the library all day today as I do every Saturday. It was for the most part a usual day there, but I did have one particularly memorable library patron visit.

An older gentleman brought a couple books up to the desk to check out. I got his card and his items scanned for him and handed him back the books and the date due slip. As he took the books from me, he leaned over the desk and suddenly and unexpectedly gave me a very awkward bear hug across the counter.

Mind you, I know this man's name but only because it pops up when I scan his library card. I did recognize him because he does come to the library occasionally although not as frequently as many of our patrons do. I don't know him personally. I certainly wasn't expecting him to suddenly give me a hug.

Noticing my reaction, he laughed and said, "I always told myself when I was a young man that I wanted to get shot by a jealous husband before I turned the age of 80. Well, I've only got two years left to do that so I'm trying as hard as I can to get there."

Then he grinned a big ornery grin at me, told me to have a good day, and left with his books.

Well, gee whiz!! I just never know what is going to be coming at me in my day.

I hope that if any surprises come your way today that they are good ones.

Track Meet

Friday night, we drove to my son's college to watch him pole vault at his indoor track meet.

I had never been to an indoor track meet before. All the track meets before this that I have attended have been outdoor events. The sports arena was a busy place with events happening at different times and in different areas on the track floor.

From where we were sitting in the stands, I couldn't really take very good photos with the camera that I have, but that didn't stop me from trying, of course. I took a few to show the size of the arena and so that you could see all the different events going on. Click on the pictures to get a close up view of things.





This is my younger son (closest to the camera), his girlfriend, and a neighbor friend of my sons sitting on the right side of me.

My husband was sitting on the left side of me.

Front and center and holding a pole for pole vaulting is my son talking to one of his former coaches. You can see him a little better in the second photo.


Here he is with the pole in the air and getting ready to start his run before vaulting. (I drew a blue arrow on the photo to help pinpoint him for you.)

This is one of his vaults. He didn't make it over on this one.

Here he is on his way up in the vault. I believe this is one of the vaults that he was successful with, but I'm not sure. I didn't really catch any very good photos of him vaulting, unfortunately. At this particular meet, his best pole vault height was 12 foot.

When it wasn't his turn to vault, he had to do a lot of waiting on the sidelines. The blue arrow points him out to you again.

When his teammates were vaulting, he helped catch the pole after their vaults and also watched to help them mark and count their steps to help them get their timing right when planting the pole. He also helped with measuring and setting the standards at the right places.


After the meet, we brought my son back home with us. He is here now for a few days on his spring break. It will be good to get to see him for a little while before he has to return.

Fire and Ice (Cream Trucks)

Chris from the blog, At Home At Last, recently wrote about her first memory. I thought it was an interesting thing to blog about, so I thought I would write about mine here.

* * * * *

Until I was around the age of three, I lived with my family in a house in the town of Marion, Ohio. I have two main memories from that long ago time in my life.

The first memory was of a fire that we had there. My mom was cooking something on the stove in the kitchen in a big iron skillet.



I don't remember what she was making, but she must have been frying something in the skillet in oil. The oil got too hot and caught on fire. (With three children all under the age of five at the time, I imagine she had gotten distracted by one of us which kept her away from the stove too long.)

I was in the living room and heard my mother let out a sort of half scream, half yelp kind of noise in the kitchen. I wandered in there to see what was going on. My brother and sister showed up there, from wherever they were, at about the same time. Mom hustled us three kids to the door as fast as she could telling us to go outside in the yard and not come back in the house. All the while she was trying to get us outside, she was yelling and calling out to my Dad about the fire. Dad was upstairs and unaware of what was going on. I remember seeing just my Dad's legs coming down the stairs as Mom ushered us out the back door to the yard.

We three kids huddled outside wondering what was going to happen next. In just a few seconds, Dad came hurtling through the back door holding the iron skillet by the handle with the fire still a-blazing in it. He ran down the back steps and quickly flipped the skillet, fire and all, upside down into the grass in the yard. This immediately smothered the fire since it cut off the oxygen supply to it. He told us everything was going to be OK, but that we should not touch the pan because it was very hot.

This would have happened around 1961 or 1962, so that was a little early for my Dad to have seen this video.

He went back in to help my Mom clean up the grease spatters and to try to air the smoke out of the kitchen. Luckily, no one was injured and the kitchen suffered no permanent damage.

I can remember a few days later, though, when some kids from around the neighborhood were over to visit. My older brother and sister (with me tagging along, of course) immediately took our visitors out to the back yard to show them the circle of blackened, burned grass where the skillet had been flipped to put out the fire. It was quite an impressive thing to see for the under eight crowd at the time.

* * * * * *

The other main memory I have from living at that house was a much happier one. It was watching and listening for the ice cream truck to come down our street. Mom would give us money to buy a cold treat from the big white truck that drove slowly up and down the streets of our neighborhood broadcasting a tinkly musical jingle in the summertime. It looked a lot like this.

We always bought the orange push-ups on a stick. They were actually made of orange sherbet, I believe, rather than ice cream, but that was the only thing I remember us ever buying from the ice cream man.



You know I don't like to miss an opportunity to post music on my blog so here is one for the rocker fans reading this. This music is a little more wild than what the ice cream truck man played when he came tinkling past our house all those years ago.

Here's Van Halen with a slightly different take on the Ice Cream Man to get you moving today.

WAAAAAAA!! YEOOOOOOOW!

Lyrics | Van Halen lyrics - Ice Cream Man lyrics

How about you? What is your earliest memory?

Music Monday---Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

Lyrics | Snow Patrol Lyrics | Chasing Cars Lyrics

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Mellow Yellow Monday---Birthday Cake

This is a photo from a few years ago of my Mom holding a birthday cake so that one of my nephews could blow out the candles. This is my brother's oldest child. With both my Mom and nephew dressed in yellow and the yellow walls of my kitchen, I thought it seemed like an appropriate choice for Mellow Yellow Monday.

To visit other bloggers posting for Mellow Yellow Mondays, click on the butterfly badge below.

Snowy Sunday

It was a snowy Sunday. Here are a few pictures from my house today. Great big flakes of fluffy snow fell giving us about three inches of new cover.




It's a bit too early to be thinking about planting any morning glory seeds out here yet.



Weather like this isn't very conducive to walking outside, so I have to take my walk inside. I took some pictures of the YMCA where I go to walk on the indoor track.

The indoor track is on the second floor and looks out over a large gymnasium area that holds two basketball courts. There is a second basketball court on the other side of the large blue and white curtain you see here. In addition to basketball, this gymnasium is also used for volleyball games and for aerobic and step classes.

Twelve laps around the track equals one mile. I try to walk 24 laps to total a two mile walk when I come here, but sometimes it is a little more or a little less.


You can see some of the exercise equipment here on one side of the track. There is more weight lifting equipment off to the side and out of sight in this picture. Also, downstairs in another part of the building is a room full of aerobic equipment: exercise bicycles, treadmills, steppers, and such. A racquetball court and swimming pool and other rooms used for pilates and yoga classes are also downstairs.

It was a full day for a Sunday. I attended church this morning and visited my mother this afternoon. I also managed to get grocery buying done, the checkbook balanced, and income taxes worked on. So after all of that, I think it is time for me to take a little break and dance, don't you?

I bet you can't guess what I want to dance to tonight! Then again, maybe you can. =)

Come on get those arms up in the air with me!

I hope you all had a wonderful Sunday today.

It's Friday Night! Do You Love Me?

It's Friday night! Here's some dancing music to get you up on your feet and ready for the weekend. Oh come on, you know you want to. Get up from your chair from behind the computer and move! You know I'll be dancing here.

Snow Squall

Gabcast! Dancing With Daisy #51 - Snow Squall



Click the play button above to hear me read this poem.
Click the photos below to enlarge them and see more detail.

Snow Squall

Biting wind stirs the falling snow
like an eggbeater
stuck into a bowl of confectioner's sugar.

Spinning it, twirling it,
throwing off clouds of crystals,
puffs of cold, white dust.


Pulling powdery snakes
in wavy lines across the road.

Chasing snowflakes
in dizzy tornadoes of white.

Skipping across the frozen yard.

Dusting the poodle,
who ventured outside black--
but returned white.

Yin and yang, yang and yin.



The poodle
creates a squall of his own
in the living room
as he shakes his fur
and sends the snow on his back
flying and spinning once again.

Yang and yin, yin and yang.

It catches you off guard to see
that what once was black is white;
what once was white is black.





You become aware
that there is much more gray around
than you ever realized.

Just as you have it all figured out,

the wind howls
and stirs it up again.

Rainy Day

It was a rainy day today with even some thunder rumbling around, but I was still smiling. If it is raining, that means it is too warm to snow, and I don't have to shovel the rain or the thunder.

I accompanied my Mom to her speech therapy appointment today and visited with her for a while. I took the camera along on the drive over there. If you scroll really fast through the photos below, you can pretend like you rode along with me. :-)

I was drenched when I arrived. When she saw me, she said, "It's raining cats and dogs out there."

I said, "Yes, I know. I stepped in a poodle."

I know, I know, it's a very old, very bad, very lame joke, but it made my mom smile. That made it worth my while.

Here's what I saw through my car windows today.



The building in the next two photos is the church that I attend. It is on the way to the rehabilitation facility where my Mom is staying.


This is the rehabilitation facility.



Lots of puddles everywhere.

We still have a few ugly piles of snow lying around here and there too.


It had stopped raining by the time I went back home.

Water filled the gutters at the side of the street out front.