life

Happy 2021!

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

Good morning! And welcome to a brand new year! It’s sunny here in Portland, Maine, a good omen of hopefully great things to come.

I know lots of people are professing their new year’s resolutions this morning. And I am too. Here, publicly, because I don’t know if I can otherwise fully commit to what I intend to do.

Unlike years past, when I had the luxury of slipping lazily back into regular life and forgetting resolutions, my life isn’t regular anymore. As I explained in my last post, my dad has Alzheimer’s. We live 1200 miles apart and with COVID raging between us, finding a way to bridge that distance is challenging. Rather than wait around for my dad to forget me forever, I’ve decided to do whatever it takes to make myself more memorable. And what better way than by entertaining him daily? So I created my own YouTube Channel, dedicated to my folks.

This is my project for 2021– to read, record, and share the stories I’ve written over the years. If it brings my parents joy and laughter and helps my dad remember me longer, it will be time very well spent. Feel free to follow along!

I was born in Ann Arbor.

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I was born in Ann Arbor.  My Texan momma assures me the winters there were bitterly cold, but my only memory of Michigan is of a lake in the summer.  Sitting on a blanket on the beach, I was startled by a daddy-long-legs.  My father gently picked it up and held it out to me, telling me not to be afraid.  I could see how tame the spider was, crawling up and down his arm, and so I asked to hold it too.  My husband told me years ago that daddy-long-legs are the most poisonous of spiders, but their jaws are simply too weak or too small to pierce human flesh.  I’ve never verified that fact, but I like to think of it whenever I see one.

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WHAT IS THAT?! The bumps on the backs on my arms.

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For much of my life I had a weird and unsightly rash on the backs of both my arms.  It wasn’t itchy and it never hurt, but it looked awful.  This strange rash ran from roughly my elbow to my armpits and had the appearance of small raised bumps.  Running your hand along the underside of my arms you could feel them and you definitely could see them.  People would often ask what it was and whether it was catchy.

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