It is nice to see front porches coming back into vogue once again in new housing.  Life can be so much richer for the simple act of spending an evening porch sitting while as the day unwinds into the night.  I have read several articles touting the benefits of neighborhoods with generous front porch space, but feel that while writing of those benefits that the author really doesn't understand all the subtle and overt benefits of such a change in the architecture back to an older form.  They say it is great to foster a sense of community, but delve no further than that statement.

I have lived in two established and two brand new neighborhoods in my married life.  Only one of the four abodes had what could be considered a front porch.  In my opinion it is much harder to move into a completely brand new neighborhood with no established pecking order or sense of history.  The feeling was much like opening a brand new school, which I did three times in my life.  Without that sense of history it is harder to put down roots.

So this is a story about the things I learned in the gentlest of ways about how communities are built one front porch at a time.  Come sit a spell on this summer evening as I that you that neighborhood of long ago.

My granddaughter is about to acquire her first car and that got me to thinking about many, many years ago when I first got behind the wheel and about the three cars that meant more to me than just modes of transportation.  Those first cars are something special that embed deep in our memories and form a connection with the excitement of freedom and a view we have of ourselves at the time.

I've lived long enough to experience that sometimes you go looking for a pet and sometimes the pet finds you.  In our lives it has been about half and half.  Both ways work, but I have learned to pay attention to cues from the animals to see if they want me, too.

If you read, Alice the Cat, you saw my mention of Rosie, our basset hound in the story.  Her story has to start with a bit of TV trivia that only the 60+ crowd will probably remember.  In the mid-50's there was a half-hour show called:

'The Peoples Choice' that starred Jackie Cooper, former childhood actor as "Socrates 'Sock' Miller, a Bureau of Fish and Wildlife ornithologist, is elected city councilman of Barkerville, a California housing development. Sock secretly marries his girlfriend Mandy and they then try to hide the marriage from her father, the Mayor. In addition, Sock has an unusual basset hound named Cleopatra (Cleo to her friends) who can talk and comment  on her master's actions.  The show aired for three years from 1955 to 1958."

Welcome to another STORYTIME  DUET.  Tonight, possum and I will be taking you along on that grand American tradition, the Family Vacation.  Possum is up first with memories of traveling with his family as a young boy, and then I will tell of the one and only long car trip taken with my husband and toddler in tow.  Possum and I will both be here to respond to your comments.  

If you have a story you would like to tell one Friday evening, please contact me at the address in my profile.  With summertime getting into swing soon I will have some weeks I won’t be able to be here for Storytime.  Rather than let this diary go dark on those weeks I would like to give other storytellers an opportunity with this wonderful audience.  Drop me a line and I’ll be glad to get you started.

The cards have been opened, phone calls received, a delightful meal consumed and many find tributes to Mothers in particular and general read and reflected upon.  So like quite a few people here today, I have been having thoughts of Mothers Day from wistful nostalgia of the days when my children were young to empathic suffering for those that have lost a child.  I know what this day can feel like for them because I have been there too - 14 years ago.

On this weekend of Mother's Day I thought I would explore the mundane life of the apron and the rich stories they often tell about the wearer.  It is a piece of apparel that has almost disappeared from the daily modern wardrobe, however, they have a rich and varied history and I bet you have an apron story somewhere in the recesses of your memories.  In fact, I bet somewhere among your belongings there might even be some aprons that were worn by past generation too imbued with memories to discard.  Every apron tells a story; of the wearer, the time and the countless chores and moments lived.  Follow me over the fold for a few of mine.

I usually try to use this important space to entertain or inform on some level, but lately I am having an equilibrium problem.  I'm coming up on my one-year dkos anniversary and like most milestones in life it has me reflecting on a great many things.  Like a good many people, I lurked for a long time before I joined.  This place ran at a fast and furious pace compared to most blogs I had been reading for some time and it took some getting use to.  The diaries and front pagers were so interesting I felt like I was attending school each day soaking up all sorts of subjects and viewpoints.  It was a very heady feeling to turn on the computer each day and wonder what I was going to learn from this community.

One of the things I enjoy around here is that kossacks really love their animals and share pictures and stories about them.  It is one of those warm connecting experiences we all relate to in one way or another.  At my age I've had numerous pets in my life and I have decided to tackle a series of stories about them to honor their place in our family's life.  I'm not going to take them in any particular order, but this one is about a little feral cat that had a most profound and amusing effect on us in her few short years and the very strange event that happened after she crossed that rainbow bridge.

empathy
noun.
the quality or process of entering fully, through imagination, into another's feelings or motives.  

From WIKI:

Empathy is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's modes of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.

Sympathy is, "I'm sorry for your sadness, I wish to help."
Emotional Contagion is, "I feel sad."
Empathy is, "I feel your sadness."
Apathy is, " I don't care how you feel. "
Telepathy is, "I read your sadness without you expressing it to me in any normal way.

First of all I would like to thank kainah and johnnygunn for lending their voices to this Friday night spot.  I'm feeling refreshed after the break and ready to entertain you again.

What comes first, the garden or the writer?  With me they are intertwined.  
Please follow along tonight as I ramble through the gardens in my life.

What is it about Spring that can be so wonderful and so overwhelming at the same time?  No matter what, it seems to be the season with the most intensity in my life.

When I was younger it was as if I could feel the intensity of the earth coming back to life through the soles of my feet.  The power of things turning green and growing rose up through my senses and nearly collapsed my ability to take it all in.  Making me feel achingly alive and enervated at the same time.

I was reminded of that feeling the other day when I happened to walk through the dining room and catch sight of my pussy willows out the window.  What could be so special about that you ask?  Let's see if I can paint you a picture of what I saw in that moment.

A few weeks ago I wrote of my feathered friends and my homemade feeding stations in a previous TC diary.  I'm afraid I have gotten a bit carried away over the weeks much to the delight of the birds and the various seed and feeder supply places.

First, I wanted a clear plastic feeder with suction cups that I could put right on my window to bring the birds up close.  A little googling and I found just the thing.  While I was waiting for it to arrive I purchased a thistle seed feeder in the shape of a mesh tube.  I did this after I found out that the nijer seed has to be heat treated so as not to germinate before it can come into the country.  My orange halves eventually shriveled so I found some plastic cups from a restaurant supply store that my husband drilled holes in for hanging.  I went to the pet store other day for seed and they had some feeders on sale so after buying 8 different bags of seed combinations I picked up two large new feeders.  Is there a 12-step program for bird feeders anonymous?  My husband is staring to worry a bit.

Where Were You - What Were You Doing

Four years ago.  Where were you?  What were you doing?

So here's the thing.  Last week I wrote my essay a day ahead of time and found that I could not use it the day I was responsible for doing the diary.  Today I decided to wait for inspiration while mining (9 diaries selected and 38 comments chosen for tonight - just so you know what you are in for down below ;-).  Various subjects popped in and out of my head but nothing quite stuck around long enough to get me writing.  So for now I will give you a few things to think about while you look at the comments in the hopes that you will share some of what you have learned.

The question is to look at some of the things in your life, large and small, that you have learned and to sum them up in a sentence.  I will  start off with a few from my list.

The past couple of weeks I have taken to writing my essay for Top Comments the day before I post so I can spend the entire day comment mining.  After reading quality diaries all day I felt my little story sounded pretty lame after a momentous day like today with so much action and excitement on the political front.  It was a piece of fluff compared to important issues covered today.  So I set it aside and started over to pay tribute to the talented writers of diaries and comment this day.

Several very excellent diaries where up on the recommended list today and for very good reason.  Two live thread diaries, Walter Reed Hearings Live Thread and Walter Reed Hearings - Panel ll Live Discussion covering the congressional hearings on the Walter Reed mess were helpful for those of us who couldn't watch the live coverage.  

A gentle soul slipped off this mortal coil a couple of weeks ago.  It was the things not said about him in his obituary that rankled me the most.  And those are the things I am going to write about for you tonight.

I grew up reading the Reader's Digest as a child.  I enjoyed the different joke sections, the word power section and the stories.  But my favorite section was the "Most Unforgettable Character" section of the monthly magazine.  After I flipped through all the pages and read the jokes that was always the first story I read.  I often wonder if I would ever meet someone that I could place in that category in my life.  I did and this is an homage to a fine fellow that passed away last week at the ripe-old age of 95 after having lived a full and interesting life.  He had a pleasant obituary in the newspaper that cited his many friends and accomplishments through the years, but I felt missed one important element that was the very essence of Isador (Izzy) Rosenbloom right down to his very bones.

Pruning Lessons: A Metaphor

Tonight I'm going to wander a bit to get to the point of my essay.  Please bear with me for this reflective discourse into the metaphorical.
::

By My Hand

Today I played God looking for the soul of a tree.
Taking pruning shears in hand I studied the artful structure of a bare-branched sumac tree in my garden.
The goal was to enhance the gnarled growth of the tree; to make more of it than it was would be one way to look at it.

But it felt more like a kinship asking the tree to show me where it wanted to go.
Where it was too crowded?
Where it needed to be left alone?
At times the decisions felt immense and took many false starts; other times it was obvious what to do.

Pruning like living is a mixture of skill and experience.

Living like pruning sometimes takes a couple of seasons to know if the results are worth the effort.

That the cuts did more good than harm.
That in the end more balance was gained.

I envy women who can wear hats for I fall into the category of hats that wear women. You know the kind I mean - the type you shake your head at and say to yourself, that is so not working for her.  Since childhood hats have held a strange fascination for me. I remember my mother’s closet shelf stacked high with elegant, glossy round boxes of hats. She bought more each year but seldom discarded any. Sometimes I would haul all the boxes out of her closet and try on her collection.  But the hats always wore me and I knew it.

I love hats.  I love watching someone with flair and style completely as ease when wearing a hat.    Much like jewelry, I don't have the panache or style to carry off the wearing of hats.  I discovered this at a very early age all those years ago and have lived with that knowledge ever since.