Meme Monday – A Saturday Morning Walk
I didn’t ride through the desert, but I did drive to my old hometown last weekend to take my Great Aunt for her second dose of vaccine. I haven’t spent much time with her since COVID began, for obvious reasons, and it was really nice to have some time together. I spent the night with her, since I’m fully vaccinated, and I wanted to spend the night with her just in case she had any side effects. I didn’t like the idea of her having a fever or aches in the middle of the night, and being all alone. Happily, she had zero side effects. No fever, no aches, no pain, nothing. In the morning, knowing she was well, I went for a nice walk around the neighborhood. The neighborhood I grew up in was somewhat shady when I moved in, and was downright dangerous by the time I left. But my Grandparent’s neighborhood, where my Great Aunt lives, is made of ranch homes. She lives a few blocks from the high school I attended, and right down the road is a lovely group of homes, behind a creek or a pond or whatever one might call it. I had a friend in high school who lived in one of these homes, and I remember stopping there one afternoon and feeding the fish in the pond. It was fun how they came up and gobbled the food. So, without further ado, here are some pictures of my lovely morning walk.
I love these homes…they are generally all very similar looking, at least from far back like this. I didn’t want to get too snoopy, so I didn’t cross the little bridge to get a closer look.
This is the slough or pond or creek. It’s mossy and surrounded by beautiful Valley Oak trees. There really isn’t enough money to bribe me to move back to this stupid town, but if there were, I would use some of it to buy one of these homes.
I like this little free library. We have several around our town as well, but this one was quite charming.
If you look closely, you can see a little statue of some children fishing. 
This is my favorite house on the street where my Grandma lived, where my Great Aunt lives. It’s lovely, and I especially like the oak tree behind it, especially in the morning light.
Aunt Flo has most every surface in the house covered with recipe clippings, so our breakfast was eaten on TV trays in the living room. Pancakes with strawberries that I picked up at a fruit stand on the way, and bacon of course. The cup for my tea was one of my Grandma’s favorite. I’m sure it’s supposed to be flowers, but it looks like fried eggs to me, which is funny because my Grandma hated eggs with an intense passion.
After I left and started my way home, I decided there was no rush, so I stopped at a tasting room for olive oil, and bought a gallon of our favorite oil. We sometimes order it online and have it delivered, but it seemed better to stop and get it without paying shipping. After that I drove across town and bought a couple of bottles of wine. The town next to my hometown has grown wine grapes for a few generations, but the quality used to be much worse. They’ve come a long way. It was a lovely drive home.
10 Comments
nance
What a nice little getaway, and how nice of you to look after your aunt this way. I’m sure she appreciated it.
Love the photos of your hometown and the little lagoon. It looks so peaceful and pretty.
What was it about that time period? All the avocado green and misshapen renderings of flowers! We had similar dishware at home that defied all standards of attractiveness. Fried eggs, yes. Flowers, no.
Your drive home sounds made to order for me–a score of estate olive oil AND wine. Perfect. Tangible rewards for doing a Good Thing, J.
J
One nice thing about spending the night versus just visiting for a few hours, is that you find things that are not working for her. For example, I thought maybe we would watch a DVD that I brought, and discovered that the picture tube on her TV was giving up the ghost. She was basically using it as a radio and had not told anyone. Normally I don’t watch TV when we visit, so who knows how long it had been that way? TVs are so cheap now, my cousins and I chipped in and bought her a new one. I was able to run to Best Buy and pick one up, super easy. And believe me, she was THRILLED.
Martha
It sure looks like it was a nice weekend. I’m glad you were able to spend the time with your Great Aunt and so glad she didn’t have any side effects from the vaccine. The neighborhood is gorgeous! Breakfast looks delicious and I had to laugh about the fried egg cup. Very nice bonuses on the way home too!
J
It is indeed a gorgeous neighborhood, especially next to the water. It was a lovely weekend and I am glad I was able to make it work. I’m also really glad she didn’t have any side effects from the shot, that would have meant spending another night, which I didn’t really want to do because I barely slept at all.
Ally Bean
The photo of the brick ranch house looks similar to Z-D and my first house. It makes me nostalgic. Your breakfast on a tray looks perfect. And visiting a local vineyard seems wonderful, too. Our Saturday was a drab rainy mess here, so it makes me happy to know you had some fun.
J
That is my favorite house on the block, I love brick houses. It’s also bigger than most of the rest, as it is on the corner. So pretty. Sorry you had a drab rainy mess weekend, and wish we had gotten some rain. It’s been about 5 weeks since we had any. Got a little bit yesterday, but not really anything like they were predicting. Water rations are expected soon. Blah! It was a very PRETTY weekend here, though, even though I would of course have preferred rain.
nance
PS–Forgot to mention the hilarious meme at the start of your post. Too funny. And I agree! How could he have spent all that time and not once have spoken conversationally to that horse.
But then again, “in the desert, you can’t remember your name”, so he was already working under considerable disability.
J
Nance, thanks for that, and you are right. If he (has to be a he, a she would have named the horse right away) can’t even remember his own name, he’s definitely not firing on all cylinders. I guess it DID feel good to get out of the rain, though.
Jonathan
Oh my word that bacon just made me so hungry 🙂
J
Bacon will do that to a person! Welcome Jonathan!