K is for Kindness

Yellowstone National Park

I think people are inherently kind. It's in our DNA because it helped our chances of survival at one point in time. If we were kind, we would be more likely to be included as part of the group that provided food, shelter, and protection. Or some such thing like that. Playing armchair anthropologist is fun.

But I really do believe that most people are kind. Oh, there are times when someone is having a bad day when they aren't showing their kinder side, but I think that is more the exception than the rule. To prove this point, I asked a few people for examples of little acts of kindness that they had done or had had done for them recently. At first some weren't sure they had anything to say, but with more thought, they had a lot to say. I think this means that kind acts are so much a part of our everyday life that it takes a minute for us to remember them. Here are a few of the examples I got. (For consistency, I am writing all of these as if the person were the recipient of the kindness.)

--I was getting ready for my first high school dance and was having a problem tying my tie. My neighbor helped me tie it.

--I had been having some difficult days at work and one of my coworkers showed up with balloons to brighten my mood.

--I was stretching to reach something off the top shelf at the grocery store and a stranger helped me reach it.

--I had been to an auction and a stranger helped me carry my purchases to my car.

--I had my baby in a backpack and his shoes fell off. A stranger jumped in and helped me pick them up and then volunteered to carry some of my other things.

--I was having problems with my homework and my neighbor sat down with me and figured out the whole lesson.

--I hadn't been feeling well for a while and a friend brought a meal to me and did the errands I needed done.

--I had been feeling really down since my husband died, and a friend called.We had a long talk and I felt much better when we were done.

--I couldn't find a quarter to get a shopping cart at Aldi's one day and a stranger gave me one.

--I asked the neighbor to borrow a tool for some plumbing I was doing and he not only lent me the tool, he helped me with the whole job of installing the hot water heater.

--I got a book that I had mentioned once that I would like to have from a friend completely as a surprise.

--"I had been staying with friends for a couple of months while I was recovering from a knee operation. Yesterday I packed up all my stuff drove back to my house. One of the friends with whom I was staying, packed some cookies and raspberries in a container and hid it in my car. This morning when I was thinking, "Woe is me, I have no food in my house! What shall I eat for breakfast?" I discovered the wonderful gift. There has rarely been a finer breakfast than chocolate chip cookies with raspberries."

--There is a remarkable woman and her family who live on my street. The woman is battling an aggressive form of cancer. As a thank you to the neighbors for all of our support, they threw a block party. The party was an example of great cooperation and kindness for all involved.

--I was at a market with my mom and I was really bored. A big guy (teenager) organized a game of tag for us. It was a lot of fun.

Yellowstone National Park

And now an example of my own. A couple of years ago, Ward and I were vacationing in Yellowstone National Park. Besides enjoying the breathtaking scenery, we noted what a good mood everyone was in. Even in the crowded areas, there was no jostling for the best vantage point or annoyance with the line for the bathroom. This good mood extended to helping each other when people were trying to get a picture of their family or themselves with beautiful scenery behind them. In one of these spots, I was trying to get a picture of Ward with a waterfall behind him when a young man offered to take our picture together. We gladly agreed. After he had gotten a couple of pictures, a woman offered to take a picture of our whole family and insisted that the young man join us in the picture. At that point, it was just easier for him to join us than try to explain what was really going on. So we got a nice picture of ourselves with a kind young man who was our "son" for that time. We all smiled as one kind act led to another--with a twist.

Have you done any random acts of kindness recently or had any done for you?

J is for June

J is for June and the rest of the Cleavers

Many of you know that my aliases for this blog are based on the Leave It to Beaver sitcom from the early 1960's. However, some of you new readers may not realize this. My husband is Ward, my sons are Wally and Theodore (Beaver) and I am June. When I chose these aliases for my blog world, I didn't think much about them except there were the right number and gender in the Cleaver family, and they were from a show that made me smile. I remembered that Beaver and Wally always got themselves into scrapes that frustrated their parents but from which ultimately everyone learned a lesson. Since picking the Cleavers, I've leaned a few other things about the show:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver

--The makers of the show wanted to get gentle laughs. If anything got a really big laugh, they changed the script to make it more of a chuckle or smile. 

--June wore pearls and heels when she was cooking and cleaning around the house. This was often made fun of because it was so unrealistic. However once I heard an interview with Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played June, and she explained why those wardrobe choices were made. Apparently the hollow at the bottom of her neck looked strange on film, so they had her wear pearls around her neck to fix the problem. Also, as the actors who played Wally and Beaver grew, they wanted her to be taller than them so she would to still look authoritative as a parent. Thus, they had her put on heels.

-- Leave it to Beaver was the first TV show in which the kids were the main focus and not the parents. 

So there you have it. Leave it to Beaver in a nutshell. Gotta go now because Ward is calling.

But Wait There's More:

 If you read here very often and you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that several other major and minor Leave It to Beaver characters show up in my posts. They are aliases for various other family members and friends.

I is for It's a Second Look

Okay, I know that It's stretching It for today's "I" theme to be "It", but I haven't done a Second Look this week. It's time to get one in.

Our first daffodil bloomed this week and others are following. There are still crocuses and snowdrops blooming, but they are on they are fewer in number. We saw more goldfinches at the feeder this week. Maybe they're here to coordinate with the daffodils. :)

Here are some things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

The first daffodil 

Also new this week, the pieris japonica bloomed.

The deer are enjoying the day lilies that are coming up. :(

The hellebore I planted last fall is blooming.

Crocus are blooming, but not as many as before.

The last of the snowdrops.

Sparrow and goldfinch pair

The female cardinal flew away just as I was taking this picture.

H is for Hellebore

Annie Laurie's Hellebore

I first met Annie Laurie at the library where she had been a long time volunteer--over 30 years. She came once a week and did whatever was needed, and before she left, she picked up bagful of books to read. Reading was her passion. Then she developed breast cancer and eventually she was not well enough to volunteer any more. That's when Beth and I began to take bags of books to her house, mostly mysteries which were her favorites, and stay for a visit. In the comfort of Annie Laurie's home, I learned what a character she really was. She was opinionated, strong-willed, and very funny. We always had a good visit with lots of laughter even when her health was rapidly failing at the end.

One of our most memorable visits was when Annie Laurie took Beth and I on a tour of the flowers around her farm house. Flowers and plants were another passion of hers. Rail thin and hobbling with her cane, she showed us lilies, daffodils, and hellebores. The hellebores were the favorite of both Beth's and mine. Over the years, Miss Annie Laurie had developed a forest floor of them. Under the shade of large trees, she showed us the many kinds she had. I didn't really appreciate all of the different varieties she was showing us, but I did appreciate the unassuming, downward facing, simple blossoms I saw.

After that, Beth and I were both in love with hellebores and wanted some for our gardens. But you know how it is, we never got around to getting any. That is why we were both so thrilled and honored when her sister, Dot, give us some from Annie Laurie's garden after she passed away.

I carefully chose a shaded spot by my front door to plant mine. It didn't seem to take the transplant so well and it's large leaves flopped. However, it seemed to be surviving. Beth and I exchanged letters with Dot from time to time, and she always asked how our hellebores were doing. I said mine was doing fine. I didn't think that she needed to know that maybe I hadn't done such a good job transplanting it and that it was struggling. Then a few months ago, she said that her's were blooming and wondered if ours were. I told her not yet because I didn't have anything more than one small bud forming at the base of the plant. I figured when that bloomed, I would take a picture of it to send to her and carefully crop out the flopping leaves.

Bloom on end of smashed stock

Well, the stalk with the bud grew and grew until it was about 6 inches tall and was ready to bloom any day. And that's when it happened. Workman at the house stepped on it. I was upset, but worried more about what I was going to tell Dot. However, a few other buds showed up and they actually bloomed this week. And the best part of all is that the stalk that got stepped on has a flower on it's end also.

Now I could say something about the tenacity that Annie Laurie had in her life and how that was represented by my hellebore's blooming smashed stem. Or I could say something about the blooms and how they were a sign from her, that she was still with us in a way. However, I would really like to think about my hellebore in the terms of how much Annie Laurie, Beth, and I would have laughed during the story I would tell about the hellebore I tried to plant and how it got smashed. :)

G is for Grammar

I went to school back in the days when we diagrammed sentences and English was a separate subject from Reading. In other words, we spent a lot of time on parts of speech, sentence structure, and grammar in general. Back then, I was pretty good at it. Just give me the rules and I could apply them in almost any situation.

However, time has passed and the rules have changed. Or at least, not many people are following the rules as I learned them. That goes for professionals on TV as well as the newspapers. That goes for books and the everyday educated person. I realize that language grows and changes over time, but this evolution has left me confused.

As I have mentioned in this blog before, I don't understand today's trend of the fewer the commas the better. I'm not sure when this started, but several years ago I was in a seminar with a publisher (and as a geologist, I have no idea why I was there.) and I heard an interesting thing. At that point in time, paper was very expensive and book publishers were feeling the pinch. One of the ways they were dealing with this, besides making the margins narrower, was leaving out all "unnecessary" commas. It seemed rather silly to me but she said in the long run, it was saving them money.

Because I see so many differences in the way language is used today, not only am I unsure, I'm forgetting what I used to know.  For example, when is it that you capitalize a season? When do you use the word healthy and when do you use the word healthful. I used to know. However, today I see seasons capitalized in an almost random way. (I tend to follow this method.) Also, I've observed that healthy is used in almost all circumstances whether it is an adjective or adverb. (I too am guilty of this.) I think that healthful may become a thing of the past as language evolution continues.

A couple of other changes that are on the horizon are take/bring and less/fewer. Have you noticed that no one uses take anymore? They are always bringing something whether the object is coming toward them or going away from them. And the one that is an assault to my ears every time I hear it-people using less when they mean fewer. (Less is an amount that can't be divided into discreet things. Fewer measures something that has discreet things that can be counted.) I fear, too, that these uses as I learned them will become a thing of the past in not so distant future. And the list goes on.

However, in the meantime, I'm happy that this is a conversational, casual blog. I don't think I could stand the pressure of trying to figure out what is the correct grammar of the day every time I post.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's not even get started on the effect that texting is having on our written language. Maybe I'll discuss that with the letter "T".

And yes, I am old. At least old enough, that I wish for the good old days when things were done "right". :)