My Favorite City

 I like where I live. I have everything that I need within just a few miles. As long as I have a car and can drive, I'll be just fine here. But, as I am reminded everyday with my mother's condition, I won't always have those luxuries. I hope to be in a different place by the time I reach that point myself. If I had to pick a place to retire to and live out my days, I'd pick Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Yup!
I love the city life. The country is great to unwind in but there's nothing like a city. There is always something to do. Transportation is plentiful. For the most part, people are friendly in Toronto.

For me there's a sense of belonging when I am there. I like the fact that everyone works together to get things done. It seems in the suburbs and even small towns that everyone is out there for themselves and no one else. But when you get on that subway or even take a cab, you know that everyone is trying to go somewhere and we'll all get there just fine if we don't push and shove. At times driving around here, I feel that I am in the way of all the other people. No matter how fast you go, someone is always pushing you faster. I've never gotten that feeling in T.O.

 Their acceptance of gay marriage in 2005 prompted us to get married and send a message back to the States that it is something that we want and deserve and we are willing to go out of the country to do it. We were married at the city hall pictured here. Then had a reception dinner at the top of the CN Tower overlooking the city and Lake Ontario.
The following day was the diversity parade (gay pride parade). I like to say that over a million people came to my wedding.

Church Street in Toronto has a nice village feel to it where there are several gay owned and operated businesses. But you can feel safe anywhere in the city holding the hand of your husband without feeling like you will be beat up.

For now, I have to be content with my visits to the city. But someday, I'd love to live there.


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Morning storm and favorite photo

Sorry about the quality of these shots from my cell phone. They barely show what was happening here this morning as the sun started to peek over the horizon. It was a clear night and a storm started to move in right at sun up. So the Eastern sky was all aglow from the rising sun and the Western sky was black from the night and the impending storm. Lightning was flashing everywhere and thunder could be heard rolling all around me for miles.

The sky was darker than it appears here

Then as I drove the half a mile home from work, I noticed something strange in the southwest night sky. As I wrote, the sky was dark. But there was a glowing column arching  from the ground and rising into the dark of night. My first thought was that it was a tornado being side lit from the rising sun. Then as I was parking my car, I noticed a second one in the northwest sky.
What was it? The sun was throwing a rainbow and as the sun rose and the rain got harder, the rainbow first began to fill in across the entire sky. Then as the clouds moved to cover the rising sun, it disappeared. The whole thing lasted about 2 minutes.



An update for everyone about my mother.... She is not doing well at all. It is difficult for her to even stay awake very long. It's all she can do to eat some days. Over the last four days, she's had four cardiac arrest. She has asked not to be resuscitated so they have not done that. She seems to bring herself out of it. However each time, her condition worsens. I am meeting with hospice today and we are moving her to a private room where she can die in peace. As of today, we are stopping her maintenance medications and no longer checking her blood sugar levels. It's all about making her happy and comfortable right now. We don't know how long she has left. So we want to make it as nice as we can. I am there everyday to sit with her and talk about anything and everything that she wants to. Or just watch her sleep. Obviously when her heart stops, there is pain involved. But the good thing is that she does not remember any of it. She just feels tired.


On a lighter note. The thirty day blog challenge continues as does life. So today I am to show you my favorite picture of me and tell you why. This picture was taken last year on our camping trip around the state of Michigan. By my side during the trip was my husband and my dog. What could be better than that? I really was in a happy place. It is difficult to catch me in a photo with a natural smile and rare that my husband has the camera. So for those two things to come together at a time in my life that I was completely happy, makes this my favorite picture of me, of all time.

Beautiful day for a funeral

Tuesday, it was cold. It was raining, sometimes very heavily. For some strange reason, I didn't take a coat with me. I guess I was thinking that it's May, how bad could it be. There was no line up of cars, so I didn't have to stand outside. We were to meet the family at the cemetery for the burial service. Well, the service at the funeral home ran long and then they went for lunch. They were nearly an hour late for the burial. So I got to enjoy the weather way out in the country where evidently they don't even grow trees to stop the wind, while I waited for them to get there.

Not to freeze myself twice in a week, Thursday I took a sweater and my coat. Wouldn't you know, it was in the high 60's and sun as far as you could see.


If all the days were like that, I'd work every day.

I was supposed to write about nicknames today. But the truth is I never really had one that stuck. Various people would try to give me one but they never really caught on. I'm sure there was something from my baby days, but it was never really relevant. Often teachers in school would get confused by the fact that I only answer to my middle name. But after a day or two, they really wouldn't care. So then I thought I'd do something clever like write about other peoples nicknames, but found that a little corny. So I'll respect your intelligence and let this one slide.

On a different note, I received a phone call last night at 8:30pm. My mother was having what they called a stroke. It turns out that it wasn't a stroke at all but instead, a heart attack. She was stabilized rather quickly but since she has asked not to be resuscitated, there wasn't much anyone could do. I left her side at about 1:30am and she was resting. It was very nice to see that the entire family reacted and showed up to be by her side. We have called and even met with hospice and will follow up this morning with what the plan of action will be. What's funny about the whole thing is that the nursing home called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that they plan on releasing her to go home on the 18th. She has been doing well with her therapy and they felt that she was almost ready. I'm going to try and keep this challenge going. But I'm sure that you will all understand if there is a gap.



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Something that I miss

Today I am to reveal something that I miss. Well, I miss a lot of things. I miss my convertible, I miss my jet ski, and I miss having the time to enjoy those things. But on a daily basis, I am reminded of something that is gone and I just haven't gotten used to it being gone yet. Sixteen years ago, I never thought that I'd still be in this same house all these years later. At that time, I planted twelve shrubs around my newly constructed house. The poor little things were nothing but twigs with a little root hanging off the bottom. But I pulled back the sod and stuck them into the freshly turn soil. I have to admit that I didn't know what I was doing. Some of them got stepped on by people that thought that they were just weeds. And others grew, but way to close to the house. That was the case with this one outside my office window. After sixteen summers of growth, it was taller than the house and took up a huge footprint in the yard. It leaned out away from the house partly because of the prevailing winds that are always blowing in that direction. Partly because one side of it didn't get the much needed sun light to grow and partly because I kept trimming the house side to keep it from scraping the side of the house constantly.



The view from my office window last summer



Being a Rose of Sharron, it always got a slow start to bud it's leaves. Everyone thought it was dead every spring. But when it did start to go, go it did. It's double blooms would weigh down the branches and bend them to the ground causing the tree to take up even more of the yard. It constantly was a buzz with every kind of bee that can be found in Michigan. That made cutting the grass around it very interesting sometimes. It was increasingly more difficult to get to the garden hose on the side of the house. Finally last fall after I had complained about the tree one time too many, Ed went outside, fired up the saw and the tree came down. We are left now with the stump and we are not sure yet if it will try to make a comeback or not. If it does, it will be kept trimmed to a manageable size this time.

Fear not my tree hugging friends. We have two other Rose of Sharron trees in the yard in more appropriate locations. And I'm sure that we will enjoy their beauty all summer. But for now, I miss the tree outside my office window.