blessings so far in 2025!

This dining room wall, with the painting of the Wormsloe Plantation gifted by step-sister Susan (for my wedding to Jeff back in 1992), is where I always begin posting the programs and tickets from events attended.

Amazingly, I paid for only eleven of those events I attended between January and April.

Several of the free ones are from events at the Telfair or Jepson museums, courtesy of my membership to those cultural sites.

Some are free events I found on fb.

And quite a few are from volunteer stints for the Savannah Music Festival (SMF36) or the Savannah VOICE Festival!

Plus, the Savannah Jewish Cultural Arts Festival and the Black History Month events were all free this year, too.

That pink mesh bag?

That's a party souvenir, as well as a memento of my trip to Tallahassee!

This smaller bit of dining room wall, graced with a framed bit of embroidery done by my one-and-only Grandma, has the next set of blessings.

Those events, between mid-April to mid-June, include six that cost money.

Technically, the week-long vacation to Orlando with Christina and her daughters also cost money, but Christina covered the gas and food expenses, so I consider it fairly even.

But that meant I had two trips, in fairly quick succession - hooray!

Then there's my third dining room wall on which I post event mementos.

That's the wall with the painting I bought in Italy for less than ten Euros.

I had actually resisted putting anything up there for almost a month.

I was a bit blue then and thought I'd just forget about that wall.

Then came the second party at Bonnie Blue's little blue house and I taped all the programs and museum lecture notes and such right on up there!

Amazing what that did for my mindset!

Four events had a fee attached, but that was all.

Then I had volunteer duties for eight glorious events with SFV13!

Now, that wall is full... and life is good.

I am surrounded by the proof that I am not missing out on fun!

Hooray for retirement!

Golden years, gold, whop-whop-whop

As I told Robin Eifler, every time I hear the name of that Swiss movie, my mental jukebox cues up the David Bowie song from 1975.

Hey, why wouldn't it?

I heard it all of my senior year of high school...

"Look at that sky, life's begun
Nights are warm and the days are young"...

perfect for an 18-year-old with adventures ahead!

I'm sure that Esther Gemsch and Stefan Kurt were familiar with the song, too, as they would have been teens like me that year.

 

They were the stars in "Die goldenen Jahre", the award-winning 2023 film that Tomasz brought for us to enjoy.

She's 'Alice', the 65-year-old wife (actress was 68) who's been trying to wait patiently for her husband to retire, hoping for more of a sex life.

She sets it up that their two kids will present them with a cruise at his retirement party, knowing that he would not refuse the gift from them.

And he doesn't... but he's not happy about it.

The retirement was hard on 'Peter', a man with no discernible hobbies or interests outside of his career.

Even worse, the company let him know a robot would be taking over his job.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, 'Alice' finds out her best friend had been cheating on her spouse, 'Heinz', for the last fifteen years.

How did she find that out?

As her friend was dying, she asked 'Alice' to remove the love letters from the night stand.

Wow.

Of course, the letters just stir the libido of the lovelorn 'Alice'...

and lead to her abandoning 'Peter' on the cruise...

and having a series of adventures.

I do wish Robin would have been able to go to Cinema Savannah tonight!

What fun it would have been to talk to her about this!

I also would like her take on the appearance of the couple.

The whole time I was watching, I thought, "Do I look that old?"

Or was it the raising of two teens that made them seem older to me?

Yet another question to ask others!

That won't be tomorrow, though.

Last night was Shakespeare, and so shall be Saturday night.

It's been so long since I had two of the Bard's tales so close together!

That was back in November of 2018, with me having "Twelfth Night" on a Thursday, then "King Lear" on a Friday.

Such bliss to have two for my bday67!

(smile!)

sushi in the morning, skyelite at night!

 

Yesterday was the 23rd, which means my SNAP had life to it again!

Yesterday was also Wednesday, which meant $5 sushi at Publix!

It's been a little while, so I treated myself to two trays.

The spicy tuna roll was dinner last night...

letting me have the crunchy California roll to start my day!

(smile!)

Then I popped into fb to wish happy birthdays to friends - real ones, not just the casual acquaintances that the social media site calls "friends".

While there, I caught this from Patrick Young, down in JAX.

He was looking out his kitchen window and found himself looking right at a deer in his yard...

but, he wasn't.

Upon closer inspection, it was just a dead bush with Spanish moss on it.

As I told him, perception is everything!

He wanted to see a deer... and so he did.

(smile!)

Next was a visit to Sherry Giddens page.

She can be counted on to have a giggle or two posted, and most are puns.

Take this one, with two Star Trek peeps.

The captain says, "A lady asked me if I would help her get a job as a professional Scrabble player."

As Lt. Ryker waited, Picard added, "I put in a good word for her."

Hahahaha!!!

Absolutely beautiful!

(smile!)

Then it was time to go work on the yard.

I chose the side yard by the Sullivans, as I knew the spiderwort had straggled all over that area.

I also had dead sticker vines and thorny things to pick up, plus more sticker vines and thorny things to pull off the side of the house.

I'd thought one of those big paper bags would be too much, but I took one out there anyway... and found that I'd filled it within 90 minutes.

Even with me continually tamping it down, it filled and is ready for the curb.

See, that's perception on my part: "oh, that isn't so overgrown." 

Indeed it was.

There's some kinda sorta dandelion that's sprouted up and it grows up to three feet tall, with at least thirty buds to send spores flying.

Yikes!

Fortunately, those plants are very easy to uproot, but, as they have nice leaves on their thick stalk, they hide in the azaleas very well.

Every time I thought I'd pulled up the last one, I'd see another, lurking in the bushes.

Good thing I had a protein-rich breakfast!

However, clad in long sleeves, long pants, and gloves, I was ready to get out of the sun and into a tall, cold, glass of water!

Instead, I poured two of those into me after I ditched the clothes.

Ah, much better.

(smile!)

Time to cruise over to Savannah Arts Academy for a free jazz concert!

Woohoo!!!

 

The first half was performed by the regular jazz band.

Their program had been arranged chronologically from 1933 to 1963.

"Stompin' At The Savoy" got the blood flowing, then "Bernie's Tune" challenged the saxophone players to get their long solos done.

"All The Way", the Frank Sinatra song, let the trumpets shine!

How about those trombones?

Well, their turn came with 1963's "Doxy" - and it was good!

I liked that it reminded me of "Baby Let Your Hair Hang Down"!

Time to "Take Five" after that while Skyelite Jazz Band took the stage.

(There's a little jazz joke from me to you, dear reader!)

Their program ran the gamut from 1928 all the way to 1985, starting off with "Harlem Air Shaft", guaranteed to blow a skirt up!

(smile!)

That Duke Ellington really knew how to swing, didn't he?

But "Brass Machine", the toned-down version of Mark Taylor's "Scream Machine", written for the Army Blues Jazz Emsemble, has to be my favorite of the concert.

All five pieces of brass was up front and turned up!

And there was cowbell, lots and lots of cowbell!!!

As Christopher Walken said, "I need more cowbell" in my life!

(smile!)

Oh, then there was Kermit's song about "Bein' Green", played with trombone solos in all the right places... very nice.

So far, there had been no singers.

Then, surprise!!!

Truman Nash came up to do a bit of New Orleans' skat for the "Basin Street Blues" and to shake his moneymaker a little bit, too!

Yes, I sure did love that!!!

Living the "Lush Life" while on a "Caravan" is all well and good...

but to dance is the best!

(smile!)

 

I'm so blessed to be retired!

At this time of year when I was teaching, I would not have had such a day as this.

It's unfortunate that five young nurses lost their lives on April 22, 2015.

One of those young women had an uncle who was big in Georgia politics.

Her death was the motivation for the merger in 2017 between Armstrong State and Georgia Southern Universities, obliterating my alma mater by making it the "nursing epicenter" for the larger school.

Those changes are responsible for me retiring in May of 2018, as my teaching position was eliminated by the merger finalization.

i thank You, God, that I am in retirement and have the freedom to script my day as I like, free to attend the many cultural events in this town.

(smile!)Hallelujah!