Author Archives: Deborah Drucker

About Deborah Drucker

I am a native of California who lives in Southern California. I have a background in healthcare and Special Education. Writing is a new adventure for me.

Hope For the New Year

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At the start of a new year, it feels like more of the same. Except now we have had booster shots and purchased KN95 masks. A recent NY Times newsletter described it as being in pandemic purgatory. I really liked the description and when I googled it found out it has been used more than once in other news articles. So not sure who to credit the term to. Only to say to whoever it was, good one.

I don’t like making New Year’s resolutions, but I think this year I resolve to do more in spite of the virus. Not talking about running around maskless amongst large groups of people. I want to plan more activities. I don’t want my life put on hold like it feels like it has been.

One activity is to get outdoors and to walk outside every day. So today I took a walk around the complex for about 30 minutes for a start. I was admiring the neighbors’ plants when I spotted a roadrunner perched on a fence. Before I could get my cell phone ready to catch a photo it had jumped down. I thought I had lost it when I saw him again so was able to catch a few quick shots. It’s hard to take photos will the cell phone in the bright sun because I can’t see anything in the viewfinder. But I did manage to get a couple.

Notice the name of the company. Is that a good omen?

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer.

Thanksgiving

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If we were having coffee I would tell you preparations have already started at my house for the coming Thanksgiving holiday here. Busy with the housecleaning, shopping, and our turkey has been ordered. We are expecting our kids, our little grandson, and my brother-in-law to join us for dinner. This weekend we are off on a visit with our son’s family to celebrate our grandson’s fifth birthday. Everyone is fully vaccinated. These are the first bigger family gatherings for us since the pandemic began. Thankful that we can be together and all of us are healthy. Looking forward to seeing our daughter. It has been almost a year since we have seen her.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating it this year. Hopes for more happy get togethers for us all in the coming new year.

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer.

Break Time

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Notes Tied On The Sagebrush is taking the weekend off. See you next week.

It’s How You Put The Words Together

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If we were having coffee, I would tell you I have gotten caught up on my book list. I almost believed I was over reading books anymore. Now I think I just got out of the habit. I have a prompt today from Linda G Hill for Stream of Consciousness Saturday that relates to books.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “close eyes and point.” Grab the closest printed material to you when you sit down to write your post, open it up (if it’s a book, flyer, etc.), close your eyes, and point. Whatever your finger lands on, use that as your prompt.
SOCS

I am getting near the end of ‘All The Devils Are Here,’ by Louise Penny. So I picked up the book, opened it, and my finger landed in the middle of a sentence on ‘hand reached.’ This made me think of people reaching out a hand to each other. Which leads me to something I have been thinking about after reading three other books on my list,

‘The Glass Hotel’ by Emily St. John Mandel

‘The Witch Elm’ by Tana French

‘His and Hers’ by Alice Feeney

There is a thread connecting all three of these books. The last book was one from my book group and some of us picked up on this thread. It has to do with the flaws of many of the lead characters, (protagonists), that you would usually want to root for. Not that characters can’t have any flaws but when they have too many I find it hard to be in their corner. They definitely did not reach out to help each other. What was disturbing is how they almost casually, mindlessly caused harm.

Maybe, the authors are all in a negative mind set from all the bad going on in the world. But when I read a book, I don’t want to be made depressed at the end. Louise Penny does give us characters to root for. Don’t we need that right now?

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer.

Don’t Say Boo

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If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I need an extra cup today because I did not get enough sleep last night. I’m feeling pretty grouchy as well. I woke up in the middle of the night to a pitch black room. It was creepy because I could not see a thing. What if there was someone hiding in the dark? After a bit, I told myself it was more likely the power was out. I turned toward the window on the opposite side of the bed and saw some light coming through the blind. The room was warm and it felt like there was no air, so I decided to get up and crack open the blind and window. I carefully walked over and opened the blind, then slid one side of the window open. I thought I saw a flashing light in the neighbor’s back yard and wondered could it be lightening or a fire. I groped around on my nightstand for my cell phone and clicked on the screen. This gave me some light to go into the living room and check out the house and neighbor’s yard. No more flashes from next door and our house looked normal. No one lurking in a corner or sitting on the furniture. I went back to the bedroom and there was more light in the room now from outside, but not enough to see well walking to the bathroom. I was concerned about my husband getting up and falling. When he did wake up a short time later, I informed him of the power outage and escorted him to the bathroom with my cell phone. He told me the flash lights were in the garage refrigerator. So I thought it best I be the one to go into the dark garage, with my lighted phone, to get the flashlight. It was pretty spooky to be in the dark like that. If someone said ‘boo’, I would have screamed my head off. Another spooky thing. My bedside clock radio was off during the power outage, but after the power came back on several hours later, the clock was showing the right time. Usually, it would have lost those hours, been way behind, and the dial would be flashing. I told my husband we must have a ghost. Or could I have been dreaming?

I plan to have flashlights in both of our nightstands from now on just in case.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday,https://lindaghill.com/2021/10/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-30-2021/ #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill.

Also, sharing with Weekend Coffee Share which is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer

Featured image of cat eyes by PublicDomainPictures on Pixabay.com

Possibilities

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If we were having coffee I would tell you that if I got to sleep earlier maybe I would not sleep in and feel groggy during the day. But I have found that I sleep better if I go to bed later. Another reason I have been staying up is my habit of watching streaming TV in the evening. Lately, I have been hooked on ‘Professor T’, the Belgian version. I mentioned before that I really like police procedurals and mysteries. Professor T, aka Jasper Teerlinck, is an interesting character. He has some quirky personality traits but is a genius at solving mysteries. The supporting characters are good too. I like the secretary, Ingrid Sneyers. She has some very funny lines. I don’t mind reading the subtitles and it doesn’t get in the way of me understanding and enjoying the series.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I have been reading books again. One reason is I joined a book group. I haven’t been crazy about some of the books except for ‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John Mandel. Since I liked that book so much I decided to read another one of hers, ‘The Glass Hotel.’ I like the way she connects each character’s story to others. They all seem to be headed for a bad ending though. I’m about half way through the book so I’ll let you know.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that through genealogy research I got into reading about the fishing fleet of Nova Scotia in ‘The August Gales, the Tragic Loss of Fishing Schooners in the North Atlantic 1926 and 1927,’ by Gerald Hallowell. I began to notice in the death records of some cousins that they were ‘lost at sea.’ One cousin, Warren Knickle, was the Captain of the schooner ‘Mahala.’ Then I noticed others were lost at sea on the same date, August 24, 1927. They went down on the Mahala as well. It turns out there were some ferocious storms in the North Atlantic where many boats were lost. Unfortunately, many of the crews were related to each other, fathers, sons, brothers, cousins. It could take weeks to verify that the ships went down because there was no ship to shore radio at that time. It made me appreciate the hard, and dangerous job they had.

‘Storm at Sea on a Moonlit Night,’ by Aivasovsky

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I saw another roadrunner on Tuesday but my photos were too blurry to share. I did find something interesting today, a collection of fruit pits on the patio. I had seen one of the roadrunners looking up into the Fan Palm in our backyard. I wasn’t sure if it was looking at the date-like fruit or some insects. Now I a pretty confident it was checking out the fruit. It has recently ripened and one of the roadrunners must have snacked on some.