You walked into a bank – even pre-COVID.

This year my husband and I celebrate birthday milestones. My husband's birthday is in October 2020 and mine is July 2021. To celebrate, we had planned two big trips, the first in October, 2020 and the second in October 2021. The first trip was for my husband’s birthday, ten days in Hawaii. The trip in 2012 would have been for mine, a week in Tuscanny. We choose those destinations, in part, because hotels in both locations were available through our time share, thus making two trips very affordable.

The other day one of my young (yes young) basketball (Our school gym has been closed since schools closed in March and we remain without any word on a possible re-start.) players texted he is part of an outdoor summer “free, socially distant” concert in downtown Jamaica.

A giant art mural located in Warsaw, Poland is helping people breathe a little easier. Made up of sun-activated, smog-cleaning pigments, the mural attracts airborne pollutants and converts them into harmless nitrates that purify the surrounding air equal to 720 trees using photocatalytic paint with titanium dioxide.   

This blog is inspired by my wife Joanne who I overheard riffing “I used to hug my grandchildren” (see photo) and on and on and on...I asked her to Guest Blog, but if you know Jo you know that was not in the cards.

I was waiting in line for the farmer’s market in Great Barrington when a woman nearby said that she liked my T Shirt. I was wearing a T Shirt from Hawaii featuring the Rainbow Drive-In Diner in Honolulu. A big smile appeared on her face as she told me that her grandmother lived a few blocks from the Diner.

One of my favorite broadway musicals is Mary Poppins. An enchanting story about a nanny to an English family, who creates fun through structure and imagination. Practically perfect in every way. As I go through the painstaking efforts of moving into our new home, I’m reminded to find the fun in all of this chaos, “In the most delightful way”. “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun, soon you find that snap, the job is a game.” Maybe I’m just born a positive Mary Poppins type, or maybe I’m completely entertained through routine experiences.

  I really did not enjoy walking – but now I do. When COVID started, like all of us we tried to find activities that checked off a few boxes – safe, out of the house, healthy. For a long time, checking those boxes was not easy.