Sunday, June 1, 2014

Friends and Family

This first week in June will be one where I get to meet with different friends every day. Monday is for "Girls! called just like that with an exclamation point.  My "Girls!" group is made up of my two friends, Andrea and JoAnn, who were my neighbors when we lived out toward Redland. I've known Andrea for over forty years ever since we were neighbors in Southeast Portland.  When she moved out to the country, she mentioned that the property next door was for sale so after a look at it, we bought it, built a house on it and lived next door to them for 30 plus more years.  That's where we met JoAnn who lived across the road from our two families.  We all spent years of good times together always celebrating the 4th of July with a huge neighborhood BBQ complete with illegal fireworks from Vancouver. Between the two of them, Andrea and JoAnn know where all my bodies are buried.

Tuesday I'll meet with my friends Kristi, Nancy and Karmin.  These are old work pals.  We lived in  the teaching trenches together.  As a matter of fact, Kristi spent her whole 30 year teaching career at Oregon City High School as did Karmin who was there even longer and actually attended high school there herself!  Impressive, huh?  Nancy is our salty witted friend who tried hard to close her classroom door and just teach.  It was always good advice.  We will eat at Babica Hen in Lake Grove.  I always love seeing these women who made my workplace a better place to be.

Wednesday is my day to meet  my Cousin Martha at Gustav's which we do every couple of months.  She is the daughter of one of my mom's sisters of which there were five along with two brothers.  We didn't grow up together but we have lots of fun comparing our lives with what we know about those of  other family members and continually deciding that we had it the best. I love her dearly and am glad to have her in my life.

Thursday I'll travel to the Glockenspiel in Mt. Angel to meet with another old friend, Sarah.  She is the daughter of my great friend, Lee, with whom I taught in the early years.  Lee and her husband Ernst were my mentor teachers.  I learned almost every thing I know about teaching from them.  Sarah is Lee's eldest daughter who went into teaching herself and eventually did her student teaching with me.  That was an a standout time in my career as Sarah and I worked hard to manage a group of tricky juniors who needed lots of specialized academic help because of their low level of literacy skills.  We found several unique ways to present reading and writing lessons so they didn't really seem like lessons but rather like fun ways to while away time in our classroom.

Friday is the day slated for Bobbie, my sister.  She has been asked to speak to an event/conference in Portland having to do with the celebration of the Wilderness Act.  I'm going along for moral support. This will definitely be an adventure.  We haven't a clue about this gathering and are sure to learn a lot.

Friday night will be a birthday celebration for Kirsten of my knitting group.  It will be an out to dinner followed by art work at a ceramic studio kind of event.  I'm not sure I can coordinate the time with my sister to attend this one but it sure would be a great way to wrap up a week full of meetings with friends and family.

How fortunate I am!!!