~Saturday~ I enjoyed a delicious cinnamon and raisin bagel for breakfast. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a bagel, and I do love them. I put butter on one half and reduced fat cream cheese on the other. Surprisingly, I liked the cream cheese half better.
I had lunch with Joe out at the N.C. State Farmers’ Market Seafood Restaurant, where I had intended to get a shrimp burger, but once there decided to try the Cold Boiled Shrimp Plate instead. In retrospect, this was a bad idea on two levels:
- The cold boiled shrimp was a platter, which means it came with steak fries, coleslaw, and hush puppies of which I ate all, of course.
- The plate contained a good portion of shrimp, but most of them had way too much dirt/crap/waste showing in their veins to be appetizing. I actually threw half of them away, only eating the “cleaner” ones. Even though I couldn’t “taste” anything bad, the thought of it just grossed me out.
From there, we drove out toward south Raleigh to the Montlawn Cemetery, where I wanted to visit Jeanie-baby‘s grave, since today was her birthday. It’s been over a year since I’ve been out there, and I had a little bit of trouble finding her grave, but with Joe’s patience and help, we walked around in the general area that I thought it was in, and we found it.
A few interesting things of note about our visit there:
- Someone (or some people) had hung three chimes in a tree not far from Milton’s, Jeanne’s and Marti’s graves, and it made me wonder if they (not the people who hung them, but Milton, Jeanne, and Marti) liked chimes.
- The ground around the perimeter of Milton and Jeanne’s grave marker was what Joe referred to has heaved. I’d never heard this term, so learned something new.
- In looking around to make a mental note of their graves to more easily find it next time, Joe pointed out that the marble bench beside a nearby tree, was in loving memory of someone with the last name of “Martin.” How interesting.
- On the way out, we drove by a lake that’s in the cemetery that neither Joe nor I had ever noticed before. Parked down there, there was a lone car with only one person visible in, sitting on the passenger side, however. Joe thought he saw another head pop up after we passed them.
- As we were exiting the cemetery, Joe noticed two tall headstones, one with the family name of “Ward” on it and right next to it, one with the family name of “Marcom” on it. What was interesting about this was that his boss recently passed away and her married name was Ward and her maiden name was Marcom. We got out and looked at the graves in that family area, but none appeared to be hers.
- As we were walking back to our car, that car that was down by the lake passed us with two guys in it.
Back at home, I sent an e-mail to Jeanne’s daughter, Phyllis, just to let her know that I’d been by the cemetery. I had mentioned the chimes and my wondering if they liked chimes, and I’d mentioned that there were flowers on Marti’s grave. This was her response, which contained an implicit affirmation:
| Hi back at you.
I wish I could be there visiting their graves. I sure do miss those good people. There should have been flowers on both their graves – I may need to call the florist again. Re: the chimes – I know Mom and Milton liked them – they had a huge set hanging on the balcony with a real deep tone. I think that’s why Milton liked them so. I have about five sets of chimes hanging from our grapefruit tree amongst the orchids that hang there too. I remember the Martin bench – we took some photos the day after Mom’s service and the bench was being put to good use. We’re doing fine. If you’re ever in or around the ‘hood you’d better carve out some time for us. We’d love to see you. Thanks for thinking of me, and mine. Love, Phyl |
I took a two-hour nap before dancing in which I had a nightmare about being kidnapped in a van.
I have the ability to “intrude into my dreams,” if you will, when they get too scary. While a bunch of hands were trying to pull me into the dark back of a van, I started screaming (in the dream, and eventually out loud as I woke up), “Wake up! Wake up!”
Dancing was great tonight. We had about eight dancers, and it got quite festive in the place as our 10:30 stop time approached.
Tonight’s theme after dancing was “Underwear Night,” and there were actually people in the bar tonight in their underwear other than the bartenders and whom you didn’t look at and go, “What is he thinking?”
Of course, there were a few about whom you did wonder that.