October...

I realize that it's been a long darn time since I've posted here...I hope to change that long writing drought.

It's October, which has long been one of my favorite months, probably my favorite.

There are several reasons for this. First off, my birthday falls in October. It's already passed (Happy Birthday to me!), and that's fine. Another year older...

Then, there's Halloween at the end of the month. When I was a kid, getting dressed up for Trick-or-Treating was a big deal, especially in the neighborhoods I lived in. There were always tons of kids going out, and every house seemed to have better and better treats. We got to stay out after dark, got plenty of candy, saw most of our friends...all with our parents' blessing. What's not to love?

There was also the fact that the school year was still new enough that I hadn't grown bored with it, but far enough along to already be in the grove of it. The air was crisp (at least in New York state and Connecticut, where I grew up), the leaves were changing colors, we got to eat stuff I loved - stews, meatloaf, and other stuff deemed too hot to cook over the summer - and the days were growing shorter. (Why I considered that a plus as a kid, I'm not sure. Maybe it was the memory of going to bed when it was still light out when I was younger...)

And finally, there were the holidays following Halloween to look forward to, holidays when grandparents, aunts and uncles, various cousins, and anyone else in the family would show up.

Years later, when I'd grown up, here in Florida, there were other things to love about October. Sure, there was still my birthday (some things don't change), Halloween (my kids started trick-or-treating, then outgrew it), during which time I'd pass out tons of candy, and while the weather doesn't get as cold here in Florida, it does start cooling off enough to make it bearable outside. The shortening days, while not as short as up north, are still something I enjoy.

Years ago, I started driving cab in September. By October, I was getting the hang of it, the snowbirds were coming back to Florida, and life was good. I met my second husband while driving cab (he was another driver; by the time he retired, he'd been driving cab for "only" 37 years) and we planned to get married in October. That got pushed back to November, but that was okay.



It was while we were together that the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure held its first St. Petersburg race. That first race, held in April, 1999, was my first 5K. The following year, the race shifted to downtown St. Pete and was held the first Saturday in October. I made to almost every race, with the exception of 2012 and then the last two races. I considered it a happy October event, something to look forward to.

Another October event that I looked forward to was the St. Pete chapter of the Clothesline Project. (Click here for a brief history of the project.)

Clothesline Project, St. Petersburg, early 2000s







Clothesline Project at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, circa 2009 - 2010.





Group at USFSP who worked on the Clothesline Project at USFSP



However, all good things come to an end. The St. Pete Komen Race changed to a night event in 2015. Then, in 2017, it was changed at the last minute from October to February 2018, due to Hurricane Irma; this turned out to be the last Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in St. Petersburg. (If anyone from the organizing group is listening, if the race is changed back to mornings in October, rather than night, that could help with the numbers running the race. Just a thought...)

The Clothesline Project also ended in St. Pete, for the most part (except for an occasional showing at USFSP).

And October now also holds the anniversary of my better half's death, followed in another blog. (And no, don't ask for the link to it. But if you just happen to stumble across it...cool. Legalities, and all.)

So, while I still love October, the disappearance of important stuff makes the month a little bittersweet.

A Royal Wedding

"Are you going to get up early to watch it?" Nancy, one of my co-workers, asked.

It was the upcoming royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and the group of co-workers answering phones at our end of the phone room had been talking about it most of the morning between calls.

I answered no, 4:30 A.M. was too early to get up for anything not absolutely necessary.

For most of that week, it seemed that everyone was talking about the upcoming wedding. And who could blame anyone? Prince Harry was marrying an American who was biracial, divorced, and had worked as an actress. The last time a British royal married an American divorcee was was King Edward VIII in 1936 ("Cheers, Prince Harry! But the last time a British royal married an American, it didn’t go well."), and it cost him the throne; Edward was given the choice of marrying "that woman," as socialite Wallis Simpson was known, or staying on the throne.

For the record, Edward abdicated the throne and married Simpson, allowing his brother George to become king.

But that was more than eighty years ago. Times have changed. Besides, Harry is officially sixth in line for the throne, after his father, older brother, his nephews and niece. So there is no chance (or very little) that he would be given the choice of love vs. throne.

Part of me wanted to watch the wedding. I'd watched Prince Charles's and Princess Diana's wedding back in 1981, and while I hadn't watched William and Kate Middleton's wedding, I'd seen the photos and news stories in the days before and after. I mentioned that to Nancy.

"Diana looked so scared when she married Charles," Nancy said, and I'd agreed. But while Diana had looked a little unsettled, Kate had seemed joyous. Meghan seemed to be following in Kate's footsteps: happy, confident, excited.

The morning of the wedding, I'd gotten up at 5:00 to make sure my son M. was awake. He works on Saturdays, and usually gets picked up by his ride a little after 6:15. I then went back to bed, with my alarm set for six. (I have to run interference so our black cat, Karma, doesn't make a break for it. While he no longer seems to want to run the neighborhood, he still tries to head for the door, just to let us know he's still the boss.)

After Matt left, I went back to bed. But within half an hour, he was calling to ask me to look up something for him on the computer.

Darn, I thought. No going back to sleep for an hour or so...

By this time, it was almost 7:00, so I stayed up, fixed some coffee, and turned on the TV. The wedding was on, so I watched.

My daughter, M.H., and granddaughter had driven to a restaurant that was going to have a party to watch the wedding. But as luck would have it, the only available table left was outside on the sidewalk - with no chairs. So much for hanging out at the wedding party.

I watched through the lovely wedding (it really, really was quite lovely!), and actually enjoyed it. (Yay, Harry! Yay, Meghan!)

Later, after I'd turned off the TV, M.H. and G.H. stopped by. They'd ended up having breakfast at a restaurant that my other half and I'd eaten at years ago. It had been a nice Mom-and-Pop place when we'd gone there, open until 8 P.M during the week, serving home-style food. Now it closes around 2 P.M. and, from what I'd heard, is not nearly as good as it once was (it's no longer run by the two brothers who opened it).

"How was it?" I asked, when M.H. told me where they'd eaten.

"Not that great," I was told. "The food wasn't all that great, and the waitresses all looked sad."

I couldn't help but wonder why.

But for the rest of the day, while running errands, checking out some art at the Safety Harbor (Fla.) Museum and Cultural Center, where my daughter had sold a painting (yay!!!), and just hanging out, it seemed everyone mentioned the wedding. And while I hadn't planned to watch any of it, I'm glad I got to see at least part of it.

Back Again...

After a long unintentional break from Life in the Left-Hand Lane, I'm finally back to posting. Depending on your point of view, that can be either a good or bad thing (or, maybe, simply neutral thing).

There are times when life gets complicated, when one gets way too busy, and some of the things we love doing gets pushed to the side. That's what happened here. A new job, rearrangement of circumstances, general havoc, and, well, you get the picture.

But at least I'm back to posting here.

Will there be my observations of things going on, both in my personal life and/or in life in general that happens to more than my immediate family? Definitely.

Will there be occasional political posts? Most likely.

(Yup, I still don't like a certain person in the White House, one who has followed Barack Obama, but then, I'm entitled to my opinions and reasons. We're still allowed freedom of speech, etc. here in the U.S. I may not agree with you, or you with me, but we're still entitled to our opinions.)

Will my posts still occasionally show my warped sense of humor? Most definitely.

That said, stay tuned, and wander back soon.

I know I will...