Category Archives: Friends

A Summer Sunday Evening

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On Sunday I was feeling kind of grumpy. The weather was beautiful, a perfect summer day, but I was stuck inside at my desk working. It was good work, work I enjoy doing, but that weather was so nice! However I persevered until late afternoon, when it was time to head over to our friend Pat’s home for dinner. Now Pat and I have been friends for nearly 30 years, and we always love to go to her home. She has a knack for making things beautiful and comfortable, and she is a great cook. We were looking forward to a few hours sitting at the table in her lovely garden, eating and drinking and catching up on conversation. However I was feeling pressured by the work left undone, and I briefly considered canceling our date. But I knew that was a bad idea, and that I needed a break, and also that she had been most likely working hard getting things together for the meal. So I sucked it up, shut down my computer, and got ready to go.

As soon as we arrived I felt better. There was my friend and her beautiful little home and garden. We took a brief stroll around to see what was blooming. Roses! Honeysuckle! Herbs and ferns and hostas all growing with abandon. The birds were chirping. The neighbor’s dog barked. I felt my shoulders loosen up.

We sat down at the outdoor table, the one she rescued from the trash and re-tiled the top. Bright new cushions made the old chairs comfy. We ate too much guacamole and drank iced tea. After a period of time, just when we were getting ready to go into the house and get the dinner out, we heard the loud rumble of a Harley Davidson pulling into the driveway. Pat looked surprised and pleased. She had invited an old friend that we hadn’t seen for over five years, and he said he would stop by “if he could”. She didn’t expect he would actually come, and she didn’t even think to mention to us that she had invited him too. But just in time for dinner, there he was, a little hot from the ride but smiling broadly. Now there were four of us to sit in the garden and eat the good food and catch up on old times. By this point in time I had not forgotten the work, but realized it would be better work if I was more rested and less grumpy while I was doing it. So it was all good.

The long, slow summer evening wound on, and we brought the dinner dishes into the house. Our friend with the Harley had to get going, he was going to stop by and visit his daughter and her boyfriend and see their new puppy. A “wiener dog”, he called it. We laughed as he pulled away.

And then this happened:

strawberry shortcake

Yes, that’s exactly what you think it is. Homemade strawberry shortcake, with piles of organic strawberries from the CSA, fresh whipped cream, and a homemade biscuit-style shortcake. The best dessert on the planet, my absolute favorite thing to eat in the world. Heaven on a plate. All three of us worked on putting it together, and then we carried it out to the table like a trophy. Right before cutting into it, I said “take a picture!”. And Pat did, and she sent it to me. And so, I am sharing it with you.

Happy summer, everyone.

Smelling the Roses

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“They are not long, the days of wine and roses. Out of a misty dream, our path emerges for a while, then closes, within a dream.” 
Ernest Dowson

 

YellowRoseOne of my goals has been to take time each day to smell the roses. What I mean by that is to notice the small things, the everyday joys that are too often overlooked in our busy lives. However, last week I had the opportunity to literally smell the roses, hundreds of them, during a visit to the Rose Garden in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

Some of the most beautiful roses had little or no fragrance, and some of the plainer varieties were resplendent with old rose perfume. I was fortunate to have a friend with me who was happy to wander slowly through the garden, stopping to sniff at nearly every new rose that presented itself. The yellow rose in the photo above had a fabulous, heady scent, spicy and sweet. I do not remember the name of this variety…shame on me! But I am pleased to have a photo to remember it by.

Two joys in one day! The company of a dear friend, and the opportunity to smell roses to my heart’s content.

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Friends

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“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
Oprah Winfrey

Trailer

My husband started a small business nearly 22 years ago. Well, to be more accurate, he took over a business where he had been an employee. 13 years ago I went to work in the business with him. Fast forward to now, and times have changed, we reached a point where it was no longer economically feasible to operate the business, but that’s not what this post is about.

We decided that the least painful thing was to quickly shut down, and we did so. And now we are emptying out our last store (we had more than one). It was the original location, and it has the most stuff in it. Twenty-two years of accumulated stuff. Files, desks, chairs, tools, calculators and adding machines, computers, printers, outdated merchandise, repaired items never picked up by customers (what is UP with that?), cleaning supplies, retail supplies and fixtures, sign holders, phone system, network, servers, break room supplies, etc. Piles and mountains of stuff. The landlord gave us extra time to clear out this last location. But with only one employee remaining part time, and two other locations that had to be cleared out first it is a lot of work for the two of us. Continue reading →

Why The Original Judester?

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“Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.”
James Stephens

EightFeetSo, I am taking a blogging class, and the main reason for that is because I want to learn about WordPress. So our first lesson is to set up a blog on wordpress.com. And this caused me to think (ugh, who really wants to do that?). What could I call my blog that was unique to me and about me? What could I share that anyone would give a crap about? And so I thought and thought, and I could hear in my head the nickname my three dearest friends call me. Judester. And, of course, that name is already being used, so The Original Judester was born. Because my friends have been calling me Judester for nearly 30 years. And if that’s not original, I don’t know what is. The name led me to the James Stephens quote above, which has given me a goal. I will do my very best to say exactly what I think, even if it’s hard. And I will seek out and share everyday joy with anyone who cares to read this.