“My romance doesn’t need a castle rising in Spain.

Or a dance to a constantly surprising refrain.

And wide awake I can make my most fantastic dreams come true.

My romance, doesn’t need a thing but you.”

Written by Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers.

Father Time You Need a Haircut.

World Book Encyclopedia, The Merriam Webster Dictionary and The Thesaurus– versus Google, Kindle, Amazon Prime, Tik tok, Facebook,
Instagram, and a myriad of search engines plus. A.I. give it a try.

Our days of licking our finger to turn the pages are virtually over. Although we still pick a hard cover over a battery operated read. Can you easily bring to mind memories of brown paper bags with pencil calculated totals of grocery store purchases? How much were a dozen eggs? Anyone else struggle thru trigonometry? Specific functions of angles and their applications to calculations- no comprende.

How about looking up Ticonderoga and cutting out pictures from National Geographic Magazine for a cut and paste project on Africa? Oh, and who doesn’t remember carrying that elaborate science project to school hoping it wouldn’t spill or rip?

What happened to Ed Sullivan on Sunday night, Tom and Jerry and a deeper meaning to Bugs Bunny then we ever knew (google him) Saturday mornings. Yes to the the guilty pleasure of Luke and Laura’s General Hospital Wedding? Would you “Bet your Life” on Groucho, if he threw in the swinging Duck? How bout (pie in the face) Soupy  Sales?

Our days now where we are going at a slower pace with the absence of having to re-boot anything is high up on our “only if” list. We have finally come to learn when you call customer service you have to press #1 and scream loudly #9 times. Ugh!

When we step back and chronicle the speed at which life has reinvented communication it is mind boggling. Ironically we miss the days of waiting on line to buy tickets to a Grateful Dead Concert. We brought our lunch and a snack and sat through 3 hours and 42 minutes of loving Lawrence of Arabia.

The palpable, heart beating energy waiting to get good seats can’t be replaced by choose your seats on Ticketmaster on-line. We look back at memories of being careful not to touch chewed gum under our seats. We could come in the middle of a movie and watch it again for the same price of admission. A couple of cartoons thrown in. A box of bon-bons please.

Missing slower paced times. Some days we jam pack activities to avoid suffering from FOMO, ( fear of missing out.) Of What we ask. 

Euphoric recall sets in as we exhume the days of the smells of home cooked meals. Very well done baby lamb chops, baked potatoes, canned le sueur peas and fruit cocktail with Entenmann’s toasted pound cake. Yes, two n’s.

We miss getting hand written letters, and saving them in our memory box, scented envelopes and all. I repeat – “Can it be that it was all so simple then, or has time re-written every line?” Hit it
Barbra with an A.

So just for today, pay less attention to the frequency of sound with every e-mail or text coming in. Explore some hand written behaviors. “I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter. And make believe it came from you.” Fat Waller’s piano version is fun.

Perhaps on demand old episodes of Dr. Kildare or Ben Casey -our original Mc Dreamy’s. Have a nostalgic Saturday!

Dear Ordainer of Weddings and Funerals. Would we still have tried as hard? Perhaps overlooked more.

Please stand on that long line over there. That’s the one that says “Weddings and Funerals only.”

You don’t see it? It’s the longest line in the room. The shared celebrations and the pool your sorrows with tones of mandatory invites and holiday seats filled.

The terms Kismet, Destiny and Beshart suggests- the prophetic,
the meant to be’s.

How much does luck or chance factor into who we go the distance with? Does forever mean until the holiday meal is over, the card game is finished, or when someone moves off the block?

Early on we come to learn Holiday Anxiety can exist all year long .The uncomfortable dread of the “do we have to” kicks in.

As social media has connected us to our past, we have become voyeurs into the lives of the people we met through our “chance” encounters.

Reunions, cousin clubs and catch up events offer the second time around opportunities. If we try hard can we champion our first time around defeats and turn our once in awhiles, into the more oftens?

Our primordial worries of will we be liked, accepted, invited back have subsided with time. Some of the people…

So we learn back to the future isn’t always in the canasta cards. The surprise of the well blended double date shows up. We walk away, look at one another and think yes, a take two would be very nice, indeed.

We spoke with the pharmacist at CVS yesterday about waiting until October for our, as he referred to it “upper classmen” flu shot. What a gentle way of saying senior discounts accepted.

So as a member of that category we took our senior day discount on our over the counter Nexium and went home and took a nap.

My take away is, we can dwell on missed opportunities and bemoan our fate about who has stayed and who is gone, or we can accept that our time with them was inscribed as exactly what it was “meant to
be.” Make it a reach out to someone you love day. I just did.

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We woke up on the good side of Grateful. The years, like the bouncing dots of a text message being replied to are quickly flying by. 

Resplendent with wonderful and some not so wonderful remembrances that have marched along with us, like dutiful soldiers.

Luckily, we have built lovely little corners for them in the attic of our minds. We call upon them. Reliable, friendly and filled with warmth. Likened to a movie we’ve watched before.

We know what’s coming and still look forward to the race of our hearts and the a-ha moments.

The cost of admission-down memory lane every penny (heads up) that we’ve saved to gain entrance, worth it. 

Through very little provocation we tap into them. We share our euphoric recall thru vivid pictures that we carry with us in our eyes only. Those moments in time that brought pink to our cheeks and offered a warm halo like glow. How bout those big smiles when the kids see you for the first time after camp ends. Yes, please.

And then, like the fleeting moment of the Robin Red Breast sitting upon your lawn who just stopped by to announce, Spring -it goes.

You start another project, read another book, or spend the day perfecting the new recipe you got for osso bucco. Lucky to have a new day to create a new moment. We Polaroid the feelings that having lunch with our childhood friend offers.

Perhaps document the look on a young childs face when they emerge from a cool swimming pool, wipe their eyes and plunge back under. Today we will steal a glimpse of another time of life as we skim through old photo albums and use the opportunity to create a place to call our own.

Make it a great Monday. Who knows perhaps secreted in this day you will recognize an opportunity that went unnoticed before.

Pour le Sport ( The Last Resorts) 1956

“We’re having such fun.
We’re going golfing.
We’re having such fun.
And feeling fit.
Isn’t it mad? We’ve never had so much fun—-
Let’s quit.”

— Sondheim—1956

As an apprentice under Oscar Hammerstein.
Consummate wordsmith brought words to the point of a rhyme.
His work spanned theatrical lifetimes.

His sense of rhythm, was simply sublime.

His content dictated the form as a sentence,
Turned a paragraph into a story through rhyme.

Sinatra sent in the clowns and Bernadette Peters took a walk through the park with george.

Ambition only superceded by talent.
Like when “good things get bettter/bad things get worse/Wait—I think I meant that in reverse.”
He took us “Into the woods”

In good “Company” were we.
Every theater lyric a short story, every line the weight of a paragraph you see.
“A funny thing happened on the way to the forum,” with a “Little Night Music”
And a “Gypsy” or three.

With “Passion” he composed the story,
From the “West Side” of the street was the call.
Dear Mr. Sondheim, in our memory, you will always stand Tall.
You threw a lot of spaghetti and All of it stuck to the wall.

It’s 4:45 when we begin thinking about dinner.
We have an hour to get ready.

We put on a new blouse and hope It won’t get a food stain on it. This is new.
We walk out the door.

We’re on line at our go to restaurant of choice. Long line but we are in the door, getting closer to the table.
We grab some after dinner mints at the counter and a couple of tooth picks while we wait. If we order the corned beef and it is stringy the toothpicks will come in handy.
Oy, the beeper they gave us to hold just went off.
We push through the crowd, disregard the dirty looks. We’re in and being escorted to our table. “Excuse me sir maybe you got a booth? My husband has a bad knee, is a lefty and needs to sit on the outside and with his leg facing out. TMI-
Again a dirty look, alas we are sitting.

Here honey have a pickle, it’s a good mix and they have the sour tomatoes you like.
We catch up with out friends about medical stuff and get it out of the way.

I point to my mouth as to signal our friend that a piece of coleslaw is stuck to her lipstick. Yup, not a good look at any age.
So we open the menu of oh so many choices.
Excited that the two sides with our main course we can “substitute” did you ever? A potato knish or potato pancakes instead of baked or mashed.
Glad we swigged a little mylanta on our way back into the house because we forgot oh, well something.
Our orders are in.
Only took twenty minutes for four people to decide. Not like it is ever an easy order going through the book of choices. Unless you had a willy for something. Like you could taste it.
“Saul my friend says to her husband of all the many items to choose from a hamburger deluxe with sweet potato fries is what you are getting.”Saul says to my husband, can you believe with everything going on in the world you would think if I want a hamburger it would maybe, just maybe once go unnoticed and not a gonza magilla. Do I tell her a side of balsamic dressing is not going to matter in her salad if she orders the fried chicken as her main?”
Ok, so we get our food and only one of us returns something- a veritable miracle.

My friend sent her fried chicken back, she only likes dark meat. She says go ahead eat. Your meatloaf won’t taste good cold.
So we talk over one another. We know every detail about their grandkids camp experience and how long they waited at the airport when they went to Aruba this summer.

The table is cleared, a new dessert menu is handed to us. Wait, oh my they have the Boston Cream Pie tonight. I ask my husband if he wants to share, I suggest four forks and one dessert. You would think I was taking their toys away.
No, my friends husband Saul says I am getting my own. Under her breath I hear my friend whisper “ maybe get the jello, you ate every sweet potato fry. Then “ give a kick” he says to her- mind your own sweet potato fries, did I mention that you inhaled the potato pancakes like they were going out of style.

Goodnight, it was great seeing you we yell out the car window. Same time, same place- next week. We took the flyer at the door it says the specials are chicken in the pot or flanken. See you in the morning at water aerobics. Vayismir I am so full.

“These are the days I will remember.
These are the faces I need most.
Everythin’ changes but I’ll keep forever.
These days I will remember, these days I will remember…” Tyrone Wells.

Repost during the dog days of Summer.

“When I was just a little girl I asked my mother what will I be?
Here’s what she said to me.
Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be.
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
What will be will be.”

And then she let go of my hand and “what will be” became what is.

How much easier life would be if we had a crystal ball for which to see.
The future would unfold before it came.
Minus the struggles, our choice of game.
Challenges and misfortunes factored into the mix.
Gave us our backbone our strength to behold.
But just for a moment with a dream in place.
Take away the name, add a new face.
If we could throw our troubles into a pot.
Would we take ours back and be grateful for what we got?
I suppose we would, but just for today.
With a dream, a prayer and a fantasy intact.
We’d like to think of not taking ours back.
With less of that and more of this.
The hardships, the strife wouldn’t be missed.
We have lost so much and gained even more.
As fate unfurled, at our front door.
The cards were dealt, we carried out the plan.
A divine order in place, sensibility kicking in.
We followed the plan.
Kept our eyes on the win.

“When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart, what lies ahead?
“Will we have rainbows
Day after Day.
Here’s what my sweetheart said.
Que sera,sera.
What ever will be will be.
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.”
Make it a great weekend!

• you got this-

When you find your cup of TEE- Your 8 card fit. Grab the last seat at the table- it was meant for you to sit.

HaMotzi over the challah, order a cocktail, lots of ice. One more day of Blessings add Grateful. Double down on Oh, so Nice!