St. Augie with the Gals

YAY! It's "bucket filling" time of year. The time when I get together with my Atown homegirls. This year we picked St. Augustine, Florida - an ancient city on the Atlantic side of the state. We stayed in a lovely VRBO house right on the beach. There were seven of us. Such great light and views!

The town is filled with shopping, history, and restaurants, was located just a few miles away from our beach house. We drove in several times and parking in the main ramp. It was a perfect place. When not touristing, we were happy to hang out at our lovely home and did some touristy stuff:

Went to the visitor's center and an ancient Presbyterian Church and college campus
Attended a shell talk
Had supper at Beachcombers
Visited the Castillo de San Marcos - the oldest masonry fort in the US, and chowed at a great biscuit restaurant
Attended an art gallery and went to lunch

In between, we enjoyed our time at our beachy home! Of course, my gals are good cooks. I am on the cleanup crew!

I enjoy the delicious concoctions they come up with during our vacation. We have so many fabulous discussions about growing up, life at 62, work, retirement, health, fashion and more! We decided we should start a Pod-Cast! haha. When I wake up in the mornings - I do love listening to those girls chat as they start their days. 

I posted a few pics on Facebook and classmate Ted let me know that Roger and Connie were in the area too! So I texted him and we arranged an AHS gathering - impromptu in Florida. How cool is that? It was nice to see Rog and Connie. Small world!

All too soon it was time to leave. That's the sad part. It's such fun being with the girls and we text constantly.  But it's not like being together. Hearts across America!  Peace out to my GF!

Cool casseroles

I've written about my recent visit with my fab hometown friends. You may also have seen me write of my beloved Aunt Marty, who lives in Denver. I was thinking about all these wonderful ladies lately.

Marty lives in a really nice retirement community called Holly Creek which has many of the usual amenities like a weight room, a pool along with a nice restaurants and party rooms. It also has something unusual - a radio station.

My Aunt Marty is a radio personality. Link to TV story. She interviews people who live in Holly Creek, asking them about their lives. When we stayed with her just before Christmas she was able to relate to us a couple of the residents' rich journeys. Marty also has a memory like an elephant - she never forgets. I bet the people of Holly Creek enjoy telling their stories to Marty and the other radio personalities and the folks living in the communities like hearing each others' stories.

When I was with my friends in Florida, as we hung out together, we talked a bit about our own lives. Some of us lost track of each other for some time, during our twenties and thirties. We're still catching up with each other on what we missed - happy times and sad, scary and brave. I wish we would have stayed in touch back then - so we could have supported each other as we do now, but that was then. My friends are such interesting people with rich, full lives, just like the ones at Marty's retirement community - less 25 years experience. Think how cool we'll be at that age!

My mom was great at making casseroles. She'd add various ingredients, chicken - noodles or rice, a few spices and the next thing you knew, it was a delectable meal, hot and filling. People are like casseroles, I decided on my lunchtime walk today. The casserole is good that first day - but let it sit for a while. The ingredients really mix and the spices start shining through. I guess I was hungry when I came up with the analogy but you get the picture.

Young people are beautiful and interesting - full of potential. Someday they will be lovely leftovers like me.

Kids These Days

Kids these days...they can't get away with anything. I guess it's kind of their own fault. Or social media's.

Back when I used to walk five miles uphill both ways to school, before the advent of instant sharing of all things, kids did crazy things. It was rare for the press to pick up on the stuff we did and make it front page news. Today, there is no place to hid.

Like the Stanford Band, for instance. Their antics from the Rose Bowl were big news here in Iowa. Stanford Cow

While I wasn't at the game, and ESPN didn't care to show the performance once they realized the gig wasn't a marching band spelling out the word Cardinal. I didn't see it until Twitter links and articles began to show up online after the game. It seems Hawkeye fans booed the performance making fun of Iowa farmers and they began to tweet about it. Some of the tweets were a hoot! Like the guy who said he overheard someone in the crowd say "the cow isn't even shaped right"! Only an Iowan, right?

Soon the real news media was covering "the story". People were pleased to see that the Stanford Band is banned from traveling to games due some other antics having to do with alcohol and some such (not cows and Farmersonly.com). Still, some serious angst went out toward those kids. Iowans wrote columns about how important our state is in delivering food to America. Seriously? I doubt band members were thinking about food when they came up with the routine. (unless they were smoking doobies and had the munchies).

I was surprised that people got so bent out of shape about the band. Can't we laugh at goofy stuff anymore? Why must we be so serious all the time?

When I was in college, there was a terrible tragedy where a cult leader named Jim Jones talked hundreds of people into committing mass suicide at the People's Temple in Guyana. They drank poison mixed with Kool aid.

What did college kids at the U of I do? They had Jonestown parties with liquor and Kool aid (according to my Atlantic Hawkeye friends). I thought it was funny. Did we think about the victims or their families? No. We were self-centered college kids. It was all about us!

a pic of HS friends during college years

Does this prove we are uncaring souls? Not really. Just like those in law enforcement and health care professions - we need to carry on. Life can be stressful - even for supposed crazy college kids. Blowing off steam by being "bad ass" can help.

When we grow up that line gets much finer - we no longer get the "just a kid" benefit of the doubt. Some people say the PC police are overboard. For the most part I like the changes - in our behavior and the way we talk. I admit I'm embarrassed about some of the jokes I told in the past - they were quite racist and sexist. I'll probably continue to tell some sexist ones...

Sometimes I still like being a little bit bad.