Sunday, August 3, 2008

Class Reunion

It was my high school class reunion. My 40th--yikes! About 70 of us, including 42 classmates from the original 92, met at the local museum (Would that be the museum of ancient history? asked my daughter Kari), where we ate and drank and talked and talked and talked. (Actually, if you want to see where we met, it's here www.miamicountymuseum.com)

I was not a mover or a shaker in North Miami High School's class of '68. I was more of a sitter and talker. But 40 years after the fact, when most of us are a little heavier and a lot grayer--well, some are grayer; many use a lot more hair color, myself included--it doesn't really matter who moved and shook and who didn't. It was just fun to see each other and finish each other's sentences because even though our lives have gone off in a starburst of directions, our beginnings were the same.

The subject matter of conversations was different than it used to be. We used to talk about our kids and now we talk about their kids. We used to talk about beginning new jobs and now we talk about winding down the ones we've had for a long time. Many of of have retired. Many more of us are thinking about it. What will you do? we ask each other, and we are pleased that no one plans to be bored or go quietly into that good night. We made noise and had sometimes raucous fun when we were young and I believe we intend to continue that into our old age. With somewhat less agility, of course.

Do you still write? people asked me. And I shrugged and mumbled and said I didn't know if I really did or not. But I do. Of course I do. Writing's like breathing to me, so I'll always do it. And I want to go to college--which I've never done--and volunteer at this place and that one. But I'm not sure, I told my friend Patty who has suffered such great pain in recent years and still looks wonderful, what I want to be when I grow up.

Some of us know. Nan is going to play more golf. Call me, I said. I'll go along and ride in the cart and drink. No one wants me to play golf--I'm godawful--but I'm a good rider-alonger and I'm fond of margaritas. You know, the frozen kind with very little booze but a lot of delicious slush. Marsha's going to play bridge. Jim's wife Becky, who is not a classmate but is funny and puts up with Jim :-), doesn't know what she's going to do, only that it will be whatever she wants. Many will travel more, will do more on ebay, will spend more time with the kids' kids.

And in five years, we'll meet again. Someone asked if our next gathering would be in the nursing home and Jeann said, No, probably the retirement center--the one after that will be in the nursing home. And that'll be fine. We'll talk and talk and talk and hug each other hello and goodbye and discuss what we want to be when we grow up just as we always have.

Wasn't it Dickens who started a story with, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times..." I'll cut that a little short in reference to the the class reunion. It was just the best of times.

Labels: Class of '68, Class reunion, North Miami

posted by Liz Flaherty # 8:08 AM 0 Comments

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Summertime, and the living is...busy

Someone mentioned that I don't blog much, and she was right. I'm sorry, I moaned back, but the 24 hour days just aren't long enough anymore. And they're not. I'm just so tired all the time, I whined to a friend recently, and she said yes, everyone is. We are.
I remember summers of going to 40-some baseball games when my sons played on two different leagues. I remember the summer I sewed dresses for two flower girls, three bridesmaids, and my daughter the bride. I remember when we had a garden the size of--oh, I don't know, but it was way too big. If memory serves, there were only 24 hours in a day then, too, but somehow they lasted longer.
Well, complaining aside, it's a nice summer here in North Central Nowhere. The days are lovely and warm and the nights are lovely and cool.
I saw Mari, my oldest granddaughter, graduate from high school. I sniffled through the whole thing and I am so proud of her.
My daughter Kari and I went to Shipshewana, Indiana to the biggest flea market I've ever seen. We walked around until my feet were falling off, but I got two sets of sheets and we ate some truly excellent chicken and noodles for lunch.
My third grandson, Connor, played T-ball this summer. He played for the Yankees, and my husband said the Yankees were a big team from New York. Connor gave him a disapproving look and said No, they were from kindergarten.
I hung hummingbird feeders on the front porch as I always do, and was disappointed not to draw the usual crowd of the little birds. Until I realized we'd drawn another crowd. Two pairs of orioles feasted on hummingbird nectar for several weeks. They left as suddenly as they'd come.
Deer congregate in our 3-acre yard. They drink water from the low spot and chomp on whatever deer chomp on. (Last year it was two new trees; they apparently don't like the ones we planted this year.) We sit on the back porch and watch them. They stare up at us once in a while, then go back to whatever they were doing.
Oops, I need to throw a reading commercial in here. Kathleen Gilles Seidel's Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige is a splendid addition to the keeper shelf. Likewise Pamela Morsi's Last Dance at the Jitterbug Lounge.
As I read this, it seems as though I'm spending these summer days watching life rather than participating in it. And maybe I am. But I'm enjoying it, every single too-short day of it, no matter how much I complain.
I hope you are, too.

Labels: Kathleen Gilles Seidel, Pamela Morsi, Shipshewana Flea Market

posted by Liz Flaherty # 4:37 PM 0 Comments

Friday, April 4, 2008

Let it be spring...

PLEASE!!!!

In all honesty, winter in Indiana didn't start in earnest until after Christmas--they need to let me do something about that calendar--but I swear it's lasted for years.

In all other honesty, not much is going on. My job keeps me busy, plus I allow plenty of time for the blahs. I've never watched much television, you know, because I don't like anything that's on the 250 channels we are alloted by our satellite provider. (You can only watch all the movie renditions of Jane Austen books and "Murder, She Wrote" so many times.)

However.

When it's winter for months and months at a time and your current WIP seems to be indefinitely stuck on Chapter Six, it's amazing what you can watch! I watch M*A*S*H reruns, "Reba" reruns, "Andy Griffith" reruns--do I detect a pattern here?

That being said, it's time for all you romance and women's fiction writers out there to turn from the TV screen to the computer one and get going on an entry to PASIC's Book of Your Heart contest for 2008. The contest is a winner every time. Here's the link http://www.pasic.net/contest.html
Don't miss your chance to have your entry judged by booksellers from every corner of the country.

Well, there's a platter of brownies in the kitchen calling my name (I can hear it--"Hey, chubby, come on down..."). I wish you all a happy spring.

Labels: Book of Your Heart, PASIC

posted by Liz Flaherty # 3:26 PM 0 Comments

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello! I'm sorry I'm not a better blogger, really I am! However, the truth is that I'm lazy. Anyway, I hope you're all having a great February and that you particularly enjoy Valentine's Day. I also hope you love somebody special and that they love you back.

Basketball's all over Hoosierland these days. Our high school teams are doing especially well. The girls won their sectional--GO WARRIORS!--and now it's on to regional.

Snow's all over, too, and it's been cold, but at least in February, I get hopeful that spring will come.

Speaking of reading, if you get a chance to read Kristin Hannah's newest one, FIREFLY LANE, don't miss it. She's never written a word that wasn't worth reading.

Have great days and God bless you.

Labels: Go Warriors, high school basketball, Kristin Hannah, Valentine's Day

posted by Liz Flaherty # 1:35 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Romantic Times Nominee!

Well, I'm excited. THE DEBUTANTE'S SECOND CHANCE is a 2007 nominee for a ROMANTIC TIMES VIEWERS CHOICE AWARD for best Silhouette Special Edition. Oh, sorry--I know I'm probably shouting, but...well...I'M EXCITED! You can go here and check it out.
http://www.romantictimes.com/books_awards.php?type=book&level=1&year=2007

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and that you're not having too much trouble getting into the swing of 2008. We got to spend a few days with the Utah branch of our family and it was a great time. (There was a small matter of spending most of a day in O'Hare Airport on the way home that I could have done without, but it was a small price to pay.)

Till next time.

Labels: Reviewers Choice, Romantic Times

posted by Liz Flaherty # 6:39 PM 2 Comments

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Sweet December

I don't remember her name.

She was young, blondish, a wife and mom, a schoolteacher. She was only one of the horde of customers who braved the post office last week. I'm a window clerk there, or a retail sales associate, depending on your correctness quotient, and I almost flinched when I saw her. My feet were already falling off, my smile at half-mast, and I didn't think I could say, "May I help you?" one more time without a mid-afternoon shot of caffeine to get me through. I didn't think I could face a customer with seven boxes, two of which were huge, all of which required clumsy customs labels. As luck would have it, though, I got her at my window.

The parcels were for her brother in Iraq, she said. She hoped the customs labels were okay. Her students had helped her fill them out. Helped her pack the boxes. It had become quite a project.

Seven boxes. Uh-huh. That was quite a project, all right. My back was starting to hurt.

Yes, the boxes were for her brother. And his friends. There were individual boxes inside the boxes that he was supposed to divide up. Wow, I said, how many of his friends are you sending to?

Thirteen, she said.

My eyes watered.

Except for these three, she went on, pointing to three smaller boxes. Those three were sent to three individual soldiers. Because they never got anything. They didn't have wives or moms or girlfriends, evidently, and she wanted them to have their own parcels this time.

My eyes overflowed and I sniffled. I'm sorry, I said. I'm a watering pot. Oh, me, too, she said.

We prepared the packages, putting on the customs forms and Priority Mail stickers and massive amounts of postage. My students said I must be rich, she said, to pay all this postage. I'm not, though; it's coming out of my kids' Christmas money. They're little, two months and five years, and they won't know it's a little on the slim side.

I blew my nose and I said, But they'll know when they're older, and they'll be so proud, because it's such a good thing you're doing and such a great thing you're teaching. They'll be proud to have been a part of it.

I gave her the postage total and took her check and wished her and her family a Merry Christmas. After she left, we re-weighed the parcels so that I could pay the oversize fee that had come up on the computer screen, the one I'd seen but she hadn't. But it didn't come up this time, and my big contribution ended up being 55 cents.

I thought over and over of three soldiers who never got any mail and who would get those three boxes, of the students who learned about loving and giving and addition and filling out forms, and of the pretty young teacher . The one I didn't want to wait on. The one whose name I can't recall.

But I'll never forget her.

Labels: post office, school teacher, soldiers

posted by Liz Flaherty # 10:49 AM 0 Comments

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving...

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, doing what you want to do. The boyfriend and I are going to be on our own and our dinner will be comprised of what we want: one turkey--which equals just tons of turkey sandwiches--and one pumpkin pie. I have to work Friday, and then we're going to spend the weekend with two of our kids' families, eating lobster and shrimp. This is a tradition of theirs that I'm anxious to get used to.

I'm thankful for many things this year: family, health, writing. I lost a dearly loved aunt in September, but she lived a long and--I think--happy life, so it's hard to grieve too much. The year contained the hardest six month I've ever spent in the work force, but I survived and so did the women I work with. I feel like singing "we are the champions, my friends" really loud, but no one ever wants me to sing.

I hope you have a great holiday. Till next time.

Labels: Thanksgiving

posted by Liz Flaherty # 5:53 PM 0 Comments

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