Sophie's Story

      This year I'm not going to be able to do my usual birthday lunch. None of the people I know are available to have lunch with me even with take out. I'm also working on my birthday, something that rarely happens. This year, my birthday is on the Friday of Labor Day weekend and it's my weekend to work. I didn't feel right making someone else take that evening shift since I have to work the next day anyway.    I decided that since our 20th wedding anniversary was last week, the days in between our anniversary and my birthday would be the days of celebration. We would find fun things to do. We'd bake my birthday cake together. We'd go for a bike ride. We'd have lunch together.     Before I started doing birthday lunches, I used to share my birthday cake. For a few years I would bring cake or some kind of treat to work and share it. I'm going to do that this year.     A few days ago we had lunch in St. Paul. We enjoyed a treat at C...

     C and I have a fundamental disagreement about people in general. C believes that most people are good, kind and willing to help. I believe that most people are unkind, mean and unwilling to help. I believe that some people enjoy being cruel and mean. C believes that bullies and those that are mean are just badly hurt people who have not dealt with their feelings.    Our opinions are based on our differing experiences. C for the most part has been treated kindly all his life. The mothers of his friends treated him like another son. (C's mother left the family when he was six years old.) Halfway through his senior year of high school a family took him in when they found out he was boarding with an elderly lady. (C's dad moved and C didn't want to change schools.)   Between the school bullying and working in community pharmacy, my experience has been quite different. I still remember a man that spit at me when I didn't have his prescription ready ( h...

     Twenty years ago today, I dressed in the most expensive dress I will ever own, had my hair, make up and nails done then walked into the garden of a historical house to take some pre wedding pictures.     Less than an hour later, I went from being a single woman with two cats to being a married woman with two cats, five stepchildren and a granddaughter.    At the demand of my mother, we were married in a Lutheran church in the traditional ceremony. I had banned any wedding march music and 1 Corinthians 13. We had a vase with with six lavender roses to honor close family members who had died. The processional was an instrumental piece from a movie. The organist had to learn it from a CD I had since there was no sheet music for it. I was not given away, I did not promise to obey and the words "til death do you part" were not uttered at all. C wrote a song that he sang during the ceremony. We walked up the aisle to "Now Thank We all Our God"   ...

     When I was a teenager, I read a book called The Little Princesses  by Marion Crawford. Published in 1950, it was about the British Royal family, particularly then Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Ms. Crawford was their nanny for 16 years.    When I got older I learned that Ms. Crawford who had left her employers on good terms, was ostracized after publication of the book. I couldn't understand why. It was a good book and gave a glimpse into what was like for the young girl who later became queen and her parents who were not supposed to become king and queen. There were no salacious details, no shocking revelations just a picture of  the family living their lives.    One of the books I've been  reading is, The Housekeeper's Diary   by Wendy Berry. She was a housekeeper at Highgrove House where Charles then Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales lived part time during their marriage. The subject of the book is a...

      I finally went through the box that I picked up  the last time I went to my parent's house. There were cards, school pictures, my books from Girls Scouts and a yellow square of fabric with a black button sewn in the middle of it. My initials were written on one corner of the fabric.     Why would I have saved it?  It wasn't a fancy button. It didn't look like it was cut off a shirt or other garment. There was nothing unusual or pretty about it. I was about to put it with the things I planned to throw away when it hit me. I knew where that button came from.     It was the infamous button from home ec class. That year we were learning to sew and clothing construction. Our class assignment was to sew a button on a piece of fabric.  For some reason the male classmates sitting on either side of me thought it would be fun to poke and pinch  me from shoulders to hips front and back while I did my assignment. I remember doing my ...

         Around the same time that a person running for national office made comments about people without children, it was also reported that he made a derogatory remark about childless cat ladies. I'm not going to write about the childless part, I addressed that last week. I am going to take issue with the use of cat lady as an insult.          I know two other women who are cat ladies. Neither one of them is miserable. In fact both of them are happy and content with their lives. They love the felines that live with them and take care of them. Besides cats, both of them are avid gardeners and enjoy surrounding themselves with plants and flowers. One of them is a talented photographer who takes pictures of landscapes. wild animals and of course her beautiful cat.          I did a quick search of the internet asking if pets make people happier. Most of what I saw was yes, although there were a few articles from s...