Column: Every birthday is worth a week-long celebration

(I'm not ready for the ol' rocking chair just yet. In fact, I'm giving it away (hopefully) to someone who really needs it.)

By Margi Washburn

It takes seven days to celebrate my birthday. Most everyone who knows me understands that, and I’m guessing the delight I have for the occasion has a lot to do with mom, sis and Grandma Daisy. We made a big deal out of birthdays, even during lean times, and I never want to lose that feeling toward turning another year older.

On Monday, I sent off a book proposal to a New York agent. It takes me far too long to send out things like that, and no doubt it’s because I’m afraid the whole package will come flying back to my mailbox at warp speed with a standard rejection letter in it. It’s not back yet, so I’m hoping for the best.

Tuesday was the United Way kickoff campaign. It started with a piping hot delicious breakfast that I thought about for a long time after it was over. What started off as a feature assignment turned into an eye-opening experience of how many folks are helped by the 19 agencies that make up this organization.

Wednesday was a day for tears. I belong to a group called Henry County Freecycle. We give away nice things we no longer need to those who could use them, and that keeps a lot of stuff out of our homes and out of the landfills. I had an easy chair that I hadn’t used in over a year. A man expressed interest in it, and he emailed a note saying that he would come over later that day to pick it up. Hubby lugged the chair downstairs and helped the man load it into his truck.

Less than an hour later, I opened my email to find a photo of a very happy young boy, shoes kicked off to the side, sitting in his new chair. He was giving the camera a thumbs-up, a grin spread from ear to ear. This was one happy little guy, and so I cried.

Before I got off the computer, I heard a knock at the door. It was the little boy who lives down the street, along with his dad. I saw a plastic sack. “Can I pick some peaches, please?” he asked. I knelt down, told him he sure could, then looked at his dad. “I try and have him ask every year,” he said, and of course I remembered the two of them from previous Septembers. I closed the door, went inside and cried – again.

On Thursday, Sarah the pup got sick. Once again, this being a morning newspaper, I’ll refrain from giving the details, but suffice it to say that I had to cook a bland diet for the dog for three days.

Friday morning I found myself at the tennis court with hubby and two friends. The two guys played against us girls, and even under those conditions, hubby plunked his partner in the head with a ball. That alone was worth the price of admission, as they say.

This was also the day that Sarah’s appetite came back with a vengeance. She was only allowed two bland meals per day, for three days. No treats, no table scraps, no exception. We tried to find things to do away from home to avoid being shadowed from room to room to room.

On Saturday, the dog was hungrier than ever. I started giving her little bites of carrot and some plain bread. We decided she could start on real food the following morning; she did and she was fine.

Sunday was my day to do whatever I wanted. We went out of town, and the first thing I did when we got to Moline was to walk into IHop and legitimately order off of the senior menu. That was such a blast for me, though everyone I tell seems to think I may be a little touched in the head.

I visited a few favorite stores, got a screaming good deal at a favorite grocery store and we headed home. That night we had delicious cake, ice cream, coffee and lots of laughs around the kitchen table.

We never know how many birthdays we’ll be blessed with, so I plan to celebrate every single one of them. I hope you will, too.

Column: Creating memories over coffee, toast and conversation in the morning

(This is a bench in Veterans Park, just across the street from home. It's where hubby and Sarah the pup sit and watch people and other doggies walk by.)

Most of us have favorite things, like movies, books, ice cream, candy bars, soda, chips, seasons, relatives.

My favorite movie, at the moment, is Fargo. I can’t pass a wood chipper without thinking about that weird guy using it. I’m not going to describe what he was doing because this is a morning newspaper, and you might be having a bite of toast right now.


I love butter pecan ice cream, diet Coke, Lays potato chips, dark chocolate Milky Way candy bars and fall. Some of my relatives read this column, so I won’t say here who’s my favorite and who isn’t.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my favorite time of day. When I worked full-time, I couldn’t wait until the day was over and I was pulling back the covers to go to sleep. There were too many bills to juggle, work-related headaches and not nearly enough time to just relax and stop the worry-o-meter. Sweet sleep was the answer. Thing is, when I worked eight hours a day I would at least sleep through the night. Of course maybe the problem now is old age, because it seems I’m awfully busy for someone who doesn’t punch the time clock.

More than a few years ago, my favorite time of day was Saturday morning. The kids and I would watch Looney Tunes cartoons and even if we’d seen Bugs versus Daffy or Yosemite Sam a hundred times, we’d sit and laugh and watch them again.

There were a few years when my favorite time of day was Sunday morning. That was when we attended the Evangelical Covenant Church on Williams Street. It took us a while, but we eventually got involved with various committees, choir and such, and even taught Sunday school. Sunday mornings like that started the whole week off on the right foot. Then our church closed, and my favorite time of day was gone.

For the past several years, the month of November lends itself to another favorite time of day: the night. That’s when thousands of people the world over stock up on munchies and their favorite drinks and hole up for a month while they write the Great American Novel. There’s something about nighttime for me when it comes to writing fiction, so I’m looking forward to that.

My favorite time of day now is every morning I can sit at the table and talk with my hubby over a pot of coffee. We’ve never been able to do that throughout our married life because he worked all of the time. Sure, there was the time he was laid off for a few months, but he always found a way to support his family.

Today we watch the morning news together, sip coffee, eat cereal and toast and figure out what we’ll do that day. Maybe it’s because we’ve crossed that invisible time-line in our lives, but we both seem much more aware that moments and mornings like these are probably the most precious times we share. I don’t know if I ever want to try out another favorite time of day because this one seems to be the best of them all.

Come November, if, as they say, the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll have two favorite times of day. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Extra: just a bit about myself

(The bench at left is one of several where hubby sits while Sarah the pup nibbles on small tree branches. They take a walk in this park two or three times a day, which pleases Sarah no end.)

Officially, I'm a baby boomer, born in 1952 to a mom who left her husband when I was a mere three weeks old. Life could only go uphill from there, right? You know better than that, but you should also know that life is beautiful, something to be cherished, remembered and talked about.

I've always loved to read. When I was in first and second grade, I'd carry home so many books that mom warned me I was going to go blind from reading too much. I responded by reading even more. It seemed to me that the more I read before losing my sight, the better off I'd be.

My sight is still around, mom isn't, but her influence is strongly felt by my younger sister and me. Sis turns 50 this year, and although we live an hour apart, we're much closer as friends than we ever were as kids. As for immediate family, I have a hubby who retired this year and who is "fixing up the house", two sons and two grandsons. Extended family includes pretty much the same group as yours, fiercely loyal at times, and completely frustrating most of the time.

We've had our share of pets - dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters. At one time, we had four dogs and four cats. Now, it's just two older people and Sarah Jane, the yellow lab-mix. She's 18 months old and weighs 83 pounds. So far, she's knocked out one of hubby's teeth and she took me on a romp through the house until I had to let go of her collar so I could fall face-first in a doorway. I now have a broken pinkie finger as a souvenir.

When I sit down to write a column for you to read, I look for common ground, hoping you identify with an experience or a memory of mine. Most of us have significant others, in-laws, friends, siblings, co-workers and probably a few folks who don't like us one bit. All good fodder for a column, which brings me to the title of mine.

"Murder, She Wrote" was a long-running mystery show, that starred Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, mystery writer and amateur old-lady, busybody sleuth. Hubby is fond of the busybody title, and the kids used to call her something else, but I loved the whole idea. Stephen King is from Maine, and this show's locale was Cabot Cove, Maine so I was hooked. In fact, I was so enamored with both King and the show that a former supervisor wrote a piece about my writings, calling it, "Horror, she wrote." Cute. Still, I couldn't be happier with this column's title.

Cute? Maybe, maybe not, but it's me, and I hope you enjoy what I've written. It's my hope that we all connect on some level, as if we've known each for years and we get together for a cup of coffee once a week.

Column: Standing guard at the kitchen window with girlie weapons

(There's the nearly useless flyswatter and my favorite brand of wasp killer. I used them both and I'm not a bit sorry about it.)

At around three o’clock Sunday morning, hubby was startled awake by silence. I know, but stay with me.

Summertime means the air conditioner and the fan run all night. Too often I wake in the middle of the night to find that someone fell asleep and forgot to turn off the TV, so if the electricity happens to quit during that time, the sudden quiet would be noticeable.

Thing is, hubby felt the need to inform me. “Something’s wrong,” he whispered as he nudged me.

I found a small flashlight with weakening batteries and handed it over. I think I hit him in the head with it first, but it was an accident.

We made our way over the doggy gate at the top of the stairs, then down to find a bigger flashlight with even weaker batteries. Hubby peaked out the window at our neighbor’s house and pronounced it dark as well. That led to my comment that perhaps it was dark over there because it was after 3 a.m. This seemed like a good time to stick one’s head out the front door to see it the lights were off all over.

The police department and the new Black Hawk center both had lights, but we assume they also have backup power. Everything else was black.

A quick call told us the whole town was out due to maintenance. We both moaned and groaned about how hard it would be to get to sleep without our fan and air conditioner, then we were out until about 7.

Still, if you’re uncomfortable sleeping, you won’t be well rested. We went about our usual Sunday morning routine which is basically nothing. At least that’s what I was doing, sitting in my comfy chair in the living room when I heard a loud bang from the kitchen.

Well, there he was on a ladder making a gigantic hole where the window used to be. This was going to be a Sunday to remember.

If any of you are afraid of hornets, wasps, bees and don’t much like the idea of birds flying around inside your home, you’ll understand how I felt. This window is on the south side of the house, and in less than two hours, the sun would be planted in a most appealing spot for stinging insects.

About this time of year, those little guys start to lose their food supply and they get a tad cranky. What joy for them to find a huge opening into a kitchen full of food, and the only thing between them and lunch was a wild-eyed woman holding wasp spray and a fly swatter that had seen much better days.

Hubby must have measured that opening ten times, and I understand that it’s best to be as sure as you can be before hauling out a window and carrying it up a shaky ladder and shoving it in a hole. However, that three foot by four foot space was a nightmare to guard with girlie weapons. I can only pray the neighbors to the south of us weren’t watching, because I’m sure I looked like an idiot.

We decided I would lift the window from the inside and push it through. I had to hold onto it while hubby put in the first couple of screws, and there were some dicey moments when my sweaty hands almost lost it. In spite of me, we have a nifty window that opens and lets in fresh air.

If that was all that happened Sunday, it would be enough. Instead, my modem went toes up and I was on hold for 30 minutes before being told someone would actually come out that night and fix the problem. I was so afraid I’d missed out on important email, I packed up the laptop, drove within the speed limit to McDonald’s, jumped online and found out that no one sent me a thing. By then I had a headache, and all I wanted to do was go back home.

The technician came out as promised, hooked up the new modem and I was good to go. By then, the day that started at three in the morning was about to wind up. We slept through the night with no more problems. I even smiled as I thought of how happy I was we’d made it through the previous day in spite of its quirks.

This morning, the toilet handle broke.

Column: When grocery shopping and home improvement collide

By Margi Washburn

Most times when I’m grocery shopping, I’ll eye what I bought, and see if I might be able to manage getting everything into the house with one trip. It’s often worth some discomfort to avoid that second trip, but it can make for a hazardous journey from the car to the kitchen.

To get to the kitchen with two arms full of bags, I sometimes focus only on avoiding a fall, or not stepping into a hole that Sarah dug fresh that morning. It’s one thing to drive into that hole, and quite another to drop into it without warning.

I’ll also try to avoid asking hubby for help bringing in the groceries. If he’s busy, I get an eye-roll. If he’s not busy, I get an eye-roll. It’s best to make one haul and be done with it.

Turns out he was busy the other day when I lurched up the front steps to let myself into the porch. I was focused on having the key to the inside front door ready, hence I didn’t notice the ladder with hubby on the top of it until I smacked it with the door.

So many thoughts buzzed around inside my head as I took in the situation. First, neither of us was going to fall, so that was good. Second, I wondered if I’d hit the milk against the eggs when I fell back a step, pulling the door with me.

“Sorry,” I said, as I stepped inside, more carefully this time.

“I didn’t fall,” he said, pointing out the obvious. This time I gave the eye-roll.

It didn’t occur to me until I opened the inside door that Sarah was on the other side listening to us. It took all of me and every grocery bag to push her back inside so she wouldn’t bolt out the door and knock over the ladder. There was also a mysterious cord hanging down, and that would’ve been pulled outside, too.

Trips to the store can take the energy right out of a person. You have to haul the stuff into the house, put it away, then look down at the dog who’s wondering why you forgot once again to get her treats. I found a cracker, gave it to her and after she gulped it, she decided it was time for a potty break.

We have a heck of a time getting the dog’s leash on her unless she’s in a confined space, like the front porch. I may have mentioned that someone was on a ladder out there, improving our home, so there was no asking him to take the dog out. One eye-roll a day is plenty.

I chased Sarah around the foyer, got her collar attached, and that’s when hubby came through the front door and went straight through to the back room. I wasn’t about to navigate around the ladder, so I led Sarah toward the back door.

Before I got the door knob turned, I heard a voice on the other side. “Board!” he said, and that’s about when I banged into a long, white board laying across the workbench.

I bit back what I wanted to say, grabbed the leash closer to the dog’s collar and squeezed past the chest freezer to get to the outside door. I figured the rest of the way would be easy enough, until I turned the corner and tried to lead Sarah down the final three steps. Butted up against the bottom stair were two tables, making it nearly impossible to step off the deck.

I’m fairly certain I said something disrespectful at that point, and with no one to see me, I rolled my eyes all over the place while Sarah found the spot she was looking for. We came back inside, a bit wiser this time, and I finished putting away the rest of the groceries.

It’s easy to gripe about hot weather, grocery shopping, home improvement messes and dogs who never grow up. But it’s much more fun to find the humor in it all, laugh a little and hold back on the eye-rolls.