Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Tag: writing

• All You Can Enjoy

  Posted at 9:28 pm by kayewer, on April 11, 2026

  Today was a girls’ day out, and I spent an enjoyable day with two long-time friends at a huge smorgasbord and gift shop. Some of it I spent eating, a lot of it sharing conversation, and a little shrinking my paycheck funds. This is the kind of outing that is becoming rare, but we find time to spend with each other whenever possible, and this was one of the nicest Saturdays this year.

  The three of us arrived in time to have an early pre-dinner packed with everything an empty stomach could wish for. Utensils are one set per person, but plates are dutifully taken away as we went to get fresh ones and fill up with as much food as we could hold. None of us had eaten so much before, being seniors and watching our waistlines as they grow in spite of dieting.

  I started reasonably enough with seafood: salmon served at a cooking station, followed by helpings from hot trays brimming with fried shrimp, cod, crabmeat stuffed fish and plenty of sides. The next plate was piled with vegetables, including broccoli, peas, Brussels sprouts, carrots, mushrooms and mixed beans. The one thing I avoided was salad, since I ate salads all week. Plate three included chicken tenders, baked potato, crab cakes and more sides. Finally, the meal ended with plentiful desserts of key lime and apple pie, chocolate cake and specialty puddings.

  Then we shopped. The gift shop is the size of a department store emporium and populated with collectibles and local crafts. We each have a favorite artist, and we grabbed a cart to take a tour around the building and choose our bounty to take home. I looked at wind chimes and found the pricing a bit steep, so I made a few choices of my favorite collectibles, and my companions narrowed their selections down to some much-desired items. By the time we left, we had hands filled with bags (and one large box for an oversized collectible that had no bag to fit in).

  The best part of the outing was the camaraderie and conversation, which I’ve lacked for most of the past three months. Bad weather and my return to the office have upended my life this winter, but we were able to make time at last to spend together, and the April weather didn’t make it difficult. The drive was calm, the crowds reasonable, and the overall experience was pleasant.

  It’s nice for once to not have a negative thing to say, and we should find ways to bring such joy into our lives as we move from a brutal winter into a (so far) promising spring. Fill your plates with happiness, let your tummies gurgle with delight and your soul sing from the enlightenment of interactions with others.

  And it’s okay to burp.

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• Hearts and Flowers

  Posted at 5:03 pm by kayewer, on February 14, 2026

  Today is Valentine’s Day. For me, it’s a Saturday like any other. I’m not going to complain about being single, because that got old a long time ago and accomplishes nothing. What I will do is be pragmatic about what this holiday means for not just me, but for a variety of people.

  In the good old days when I took a train to work, I would see men going home on the 5:00 express with balloons and roses in their hands. Sometimes they seemed happy about it. Sometimes it was difficult to read their emotions. They did make the effort, and I imagined the women they went home to and the joy that came with the simple act of remembering the love sparked between them.

  On the other hand, I just read earlier today about a man who, upon hearing a random stranger’s compliment about how pretty his girlfriend was, went home and argued with her about it, and ended up breaking her eye socket.

  Why this particular holiday has turned into such a polarizing event is unclear. One thing is certain, and it’s that love and interpersonal relationships are not what they used to be.

  Once upon a time, love was simple. One person found the presence of another to be a thrill beyond measure. They met, they dated, they possibly became close friends or even partners, leading to marriage and a future filled with all the things life is made of.

  For some people, there is no simplicity to love. Back when it was an elementary school tradition to decorate shoeboxes with colorful applications and cut a delivery slot in the top for the big day, there were always one or two students whose boxes were empty. It was accepted. No effort was made to fix it. It was a fact of life that some people were simply not eligible for the basics of human compassion.

  Somehow the evolution of women also meant that men grew to resent us somewhat. We went from Rosie the Riveter who stepped up to do abandoned jobs when the men went to war in Europe and the Pacific in World War II, to the perfectly put-together housewife in a dress and apron with dinner, alcohol and a smoke ready for the hard-working man of the house upon his return. Then came the era of “free love” and rebellion, but human sexuality was still mentioned with restraint, followed by the evolution of openness about everything. It seems now that both genders have access to more information (and misinformation) than before.

  And we get stories about the father-to-be playing video games while the mother is in active labor or passing out when they show an interest in the process and realize how much actually comes out from something they, um, put in, nine months ago. And they get annoyed about it and lose respect for women. On the flipside, new mothers dealing with gaming addicts for fathers are not in any better situation.

  So, once a year we turn all the craziness into a box of candy (which is infuriatingly artificial and overpriced) and a bunch of roses forced in greenhouses and wrapped in pink and red for presentation’s sake. And this is supposed to be an expression of love.

  Whatever happened to human values? Respect and dignity are a part of love as much as that frisson coming from being struck by Cupid’s arrow. The poor woman who had her eye rearranged just because somebody said she was pretty is spending the day recovering. Some will endure abusive relationships, while others may be lucky enough to receive an affirmation of what should be true love.

  Why everybody doesn’t deserve such luck is one reason why I’m spending yet another Valentine’s Day alone. Whatever you’re doing, here’s hoping it at least doesn’t leave anything (including a heart) broken.

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• Free Secretary

  Posted at 3:24 pm by kayewer, on February 7, 2026

  I’m old enough to remember when high schools held typing classes. The business education room consisted of row after row of desks with huge and heavy IBM Selectric (R) typewriters perched on top. They were metal and weighed between 30 and 50 pounds, which was a task suited more to the maintenance workers (no IT back then) than the young women like me to try and move around. Even sliding one on the desk was a challenge.

  The machines came in colors such as blue, black and red, with stationary keys embedded in the top and a “golf ball” style interchangeable font device which snapped in place. The design meant no sideways moving parts, which was a miracle of modern technology then. Other typewriters had a platen or cylinder which moved from right to left as the typist completed each line and required a manual shift up to the next line of type and a return to the right. The type ball/golf ball instead moved internally from left to right and positioned itself to imprint the characters on the page as the keys were pressed, striking the inked ribbon in front of the paper inside.

  Anybody from GenX or younger is probably aware that their mouths are stuck open right about now.

  Young high school women trained in basic typing skills, and we had contests for speed and accuracy. Our grade system gave an A to speeds of 60 words per minute or better. Rumor had it that a nearby high school only required 50 words per minute. By the time I was 20, I had graduated to over 90, thanks in no small part to my high school typing class, and the high bar they set.

  So why did we take typing classes? We were anticipating working in administrative roles such as secretaries or clerks, which required typing letters, meeting notes and corporate materials. IBM had cornered three quarters of the business market by the 1980s, so we were graduating with an almost guaranteed skill we could use right away.

  Of course, clerical and secretarial positions in the workplace are not what they used to be. 96 percent of administrative assistants (the modern job title) are still women, but typing has moved from navigating those toddler-weight behemoths to computers one can carry in a hand. Children in elementary school learn basic keyboarding. The role of the woman professionally dressed in a blouse and skirt clicking away is nearly gone.

  Why do I bring this up?

  I was recently tasked at work with taking customer calls to back up a growing queue during severe weather. One of the incoming call options enabled the customer to receive a callback based on their place in the queue, so they wouldn’t need to hold. In the time many people spend what they consider an annoying amount of time on hold, they might have typed 90 words per minute. Or won a round of the latest video game.

  As I was taking one of these incoming callbacks, I received a voice message asking me to identify myself for the person whom I was calling.

  The person’s phone was the secretary, without the front desk, typewriter or keyboard. The device was screening its user’s calls so they could accept or reject me. A few calls came through like that. One even acknowledged my name when relaying the message, which I found slightly creepy.

  All those years of perfecting my typing skills so I could sit at a desk and interact with people, replaced by a digital entity.

  Makes me regret never having bought an IBM typewriter.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged Books, computers, ibm-selectric, life, technology, typing-classes, writing

• It’s Superb

  Posted at 6:51 pm by kayewer, on January 31, 2026

  The Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots (again?) will face off a week from tomorrow in what I jokingly call the Stupor Bowl, but which some people refer to as the “Big Game” or the “Superb Owl” Party. Amazing what moving a letter B from the start of one word to the end of another can do to dance around title copyrights.

  A match of two winning divisional NFL football teams to declare an annual overall champion will kick off in Santa Clara, California for an evening of tackles, men spouting statistics, Bad Bunny trying for the 19th time since 2007 to be the musical guest to top Prince’s halftime show, and corporate advertisements at eight million dollars per 30-second commercial trying to be the topic at every bar and home party in the nation.

  Last year, the Philadelphia Eagles won the championship. It was an exciting game for me, and I normally don’t watch football. Being from within eyesight of the capital of American independence (happy 250th to us this year), of course I sing the fight song and have an official jersey (bought when they won in 2018 to commemorate the victory). Some things you just can’t not bother doing, and when your local team makes the final two, even if you’ve gained a few ounces since you had the shirt made, you hold your breath and squeeze it on.

  Football is one of the American “four horsemen” of the sports apocalypse (the other three being baseball, hockey and basketball). Sports were never my thing, and gym class in school was torture because of it. We played a variety of sports, and in one sixth grade class we tried a casual version of football. I somehow got the ball and ran for a touchdown. To the wrong goalpost.

  The jersey is just fashion, folks.

  Anyway, the intensity with which this frozen final stand of the pro season can’t be denied. The grocery stores are already assembling pyramids of snacks, decking out meat sections teaming with ribs and chicken multi-packs and shuffling around pallets of sports drinks and colas from both of the beverage big two (and if you don’t know them, shame on you). Over the next week leading up to the big broadcast, speculation will be which company ads will be the most popular. Budweiser is a big contender each year with their beautiful Clydesdales often appearing. Occasionally a surprise guest ad will pop up, but the trend these days has been to stick to what people expect and then surprise them with something unexpected. I hear a recent embarrassment on a Coldplay concert Jumbotron may be spoofed in one commercial.

  Will I be watching the whole thing this year? No. Last year was enough to last until next time the Eagles go up to, um, bat?

  A friend and I check in on the scores occasionally when it’s not the Eagles playing. We snack and watch other programming we’ve grown accustomed to viewing when we get together. We let the guys work it out for themselves, and we buy what we normally do, without the influence of advertisers.

  The Pats have an advantage, having won an armload of these matches. If last year’s trend holds, the Seahawks may come out the winners this time. Come Monday, every sports network will buzz with the events of the evening before, and the Monday morning quarterbacks will have their time to cheer or gripe about what went right or wrong. The store pyramids will have been depleted, the hype over like a deflated balloon, and sports fans will turn their eyes toward basketball until baseball returns.

  Have I said much of interest here? Maybe not. However, after last week’s post, I’m relieved to say that the worst of the deadly storm system is in the past, and the near permafrost conditions left behind will be around for weeks and unlikely to be melted or dug out. I look forward to Monday, February 2, when a groundhog will hopefully predict an early spring.

  Spring. Baseball. I’m not a sports person, but I’ll take both right about now.

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• 2025 The Year in Review

  Posted at 3:07 pm by kayewer, on December 27, 2025

  We have finally come to the end of a grueling and unpredictable twelve months. Next year America marks its 250th year as a nation, or semiquincentennial, with July 4 festivities and events filling our lives with a sense of hope and unity. Pragmatically, it should not matter what the populace in the capitol are like, as long as we hold to the values that got us through the other 249 years since the founding fathers signed documentation freeing us to be what we dream to be.

  Part of my dream was to be a regular blogger, which I have done for nearly two and a half decades, including here on WordPress. I haven’t taken a break for some time, posting each week on Saturday afternoons, occasionally adjusting when events in my life necessitated.

  In 2025 I posted articles about a variety of topics from South Korean business lunches, circus peanut snacks and how to properly fold paper around a McDonald’s Snack Wrap, to people who died and weren’t found for years, and word from the impoverished city of Camden that nobody died from violence all summer this past year. We looked at dieting and health, including cortisol and the last people using iron lungs to sustain them after surviving polio.

  I shared stories about crafting, decluttering, preparing tipsy holiday drinks, getting my feet too clean (they got blisters), and surviving being attacked by a sharp vegetable peeler.

  We looked at stadium webcam scandals, bullying, crosswalk etiquette, how to enter one’s name on an online form, the need for penmanship in schools and self-restraint in everyday life.

  With luck, some of what I wrote was enjoyable or useful.

  Now that 2026 is coming, it’s time to reflect inward and decide what the next year will entail. I know that I will probably be returning to the workplace, as my job informed me of it back in October. The target date has been pushed back to nobody knows when, but I will do what I have always done: carry on.

  The new year offers chances to make changes or new decisions, and I have quite a few coming up. Let’s hope the course is a smooth one for us all. We deserve it.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, faith, family, life, writing

• Next Available

  Posted at 4:32 pm by kayewer, on November 8, 2025

  People generally do not like to wait in line, yet many of our in-person experiences mandate doing just that. Banks and airports supply quaint rope mazes to make the queue orderly, and theme parks go out of their way to make the wait for an attraction tolerable by winding visitors through well-decorated scenic stand-and-shuffle routes. With the emergence of other checkout methods, we may not have eliminated the lines, but we have given ourselves a choice of what kind of line in which we wish to wait.

  Some places have cashiers and self-checkout, yet the lines at both can be just as dense. The DIY culture doesn’t make the process any faster, because even if the method of purchasing your things has been established, sometimes the procedure is changed from the last time you visited. For folks who like to set their minds on autopilot and go through the motions (click here, click there, answer yes, answer no), one little alteration in the order of checkout on the part of the programmers of these machines can mean the difference between getting change in coins and rounding up by contributing to a charity (or worse, missing your chance to use your cash back bonus).

  I recently visited a department store which I had not been to for several months. I needed to restock on some things (as in clothing in which to be seen in public), and when I stepped inside I found that an entire section of one department had been removed and replaced with a checkout zone the size of the men’s toiletry section. In one corner was the entrance to the customer line or queue, and along its outer wall opposite the cashiers, whose backs were facing it, was a newfangled self-checkout section of three kiosks. By each station was a stack of handled paper bags (no plastic bags in my state), a touchscreen terminal, and a slot for inserting clothes hangers.

  The queue was already at the entrance of the “cattle chute,” so I decided to take my chances with handling the new self checkout experience myself. Nobody around me was brave enough to make the attempt, so I also burdened myself with setting a good example.

  The process started off simply enough; discard a hanger, scan the barcode, place the item in the bagging area. Which was actually the counter. However, when it came time to pay, no instructions appeared. It took me a minute or so to realize that I had to touch the screen for the department store’s credit card or somebody else’s card (no cash) before the POS terminal would bother to read my card and take my future income away. Imagine that: a terminal that doesn’t register a swipe. At least I know I wasn’t double charged, though if I had, there did not appear to be somebody watching over the terminals to help if there was a problem. This is not only self-checkout, but fix it yourself or go back to college math class.

  I walked away with a bagful of supplies and a receipt. As I continued to shop, I noticed that not every place in the store had gone this new route, but some familiar checkout desks were conspicuously missing, replaced by the three cashier and three kiosk garden of retail delights near the exit.

  After leaving the store, I felt a mixture of nostalgia for the old days and a sense of relief that I didn’t have a meltdown while buying my own things. I don’t even know if all the stores in the chain have the new technology, but as I left the kiosk I did notice that another shopper bravely stepped up to give it a try.

  She had stood in the middle of the bustle, without even getting in a line. Imagine that.

  This may be the start of something better, though introducing it just before the holiday crunch may be premature, I will probably return for more shopping.

  And I’ll know what I’m doing. Spending the same money without the “have a nice day” unless I want to wait in line for it.

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• Mo-Vember

  Posted at 3:17 pm by kayewer, on November 1, 2025

  There are only 61 days left in the year, now that we’re on the first day of November. These are the crazy times when the day after Halloween begins a frenzy of food, shopping, travel and other insanity until we start a new year. This is the month for more of everything. More food, more frivolity, until somebody’s waistline or energy timer says “no mo.”

  Writers–of which I hope to be counted as one–may have started off the day at midnight holding an unofficial version of the event once called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which as an entity went dark earlier this year. The staff were forced to shut the whole operation down, and it suffered an unexpected death at the hands of a variety of evildoers, including criminals trolling the official website for potential underage victims, causing a scandal. Also, they were done in by a business model system lacking in a complete and helpful path of guidance to help the uninitiated navigate the process while protecting the brand from disaster. If you check out YouTube, you will see a video explaining much of what happened to NaNoWriMo; a cautionary tale and warning to others excited about the prospect of becoming a highly visited presence on the Web. Learn to crawl and everything-proof your surroundings before you walk.

  But back to getting November off to a rousing start. Writers are coming up with creative alternative ways to make the month count for something. Heck, I’m doing that myself right now by writing this post. I may not get to 1600 words, but this is a month I am hoping to make more progress on my quartet of novels, of which I am in the draft phase of book two and have some foundations up for books three and four. I have a critique group which is putting up with reading my drafts, because I am writing dark fiction. My critiquers don’t normally read it. Some specialties fare better when read by folks who share enthusiasm for the genre, but they gamely offer the feedback they can, and I love them for it.

  My other projects for the month of November include shifting the household around and putting things back where they belong. After a year of decluttering and maintenance which was overdue, I have rooms filled with stuff from other rooms. Once I shift it all around, I will have my space back, and some old spaces will have their original purpose back.

  Finally, I plan to pick up my crochet hook this month. I ordered an advent calendar filled with crochet delights for 24 days, and I have supplies of yarn enough to open a shop, but instead I will craft some wonderful things just in time for the holidays and year-end.

  My fridge has some ingredients for tomorrow’s Sunday dinner, and my turkey for Thanksgiving is already occupying a space in the freezer. I’ll just need the mashed potatoes and dessert. Holiday shopping is finished (go ahead and hate me). That gives me some room for taking a deep breath and preparing for whatever comes next. The next word, the next project, or the next trip up flights of steps for restoring order to a home filled with chaotic mismatched items.

  If it isn’t writing month, it’s shifting month. And it’s only 30 days long.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, creative-writing, NaNoWriMo, november, writing

• Redux

  Posted at 8:17 pm by kayewer, on October 4, 2025

  Life is truly a realm of transitions. From the moment of birth, we begin evolving and growing, and as we become sentient, we also make choices and decisions and change them constantly. Occasionally we cling desperately to some ideals and concepts at considerable cost to our sense of self. The changes we make alter the course of our lives from one time to another.

  In my decades of life, I have found a unique niche in writing which has been both a joy and torture. When an elementary teacher first took an interest in my assignment preparation technique, and later when I was sent to an advance creative writing workshop at the high school, the faculty treated me as if I were a burden by having any type of talent. It became clear that I was expected to not succeed, possibly in favor of other students with more desirable, but unspoken, traits.

  It’s wonderful for the ego to have those who are supposed to be shaping your character break it down by shoving metaphorical bamboo shards under your emotional fingernails.

  Occasionally my writing has brought positive responses and rewards, but on others I have lost privileges and my feelings of worth. At present I have had some tests of resolve which I cannot ignore. My current project is a series of novels which are being critiqued, and it’s been a harrowing journey. While I sort out the particulars of my project and try to keep the rest of my personal life in order, my blog may be shorter or more sporadic, though I will strive toward the former to keep my promise of consistency for you, my devoted readers.

  All of the publicity in our world says that a life should be well-lived, and the key is to not leave anybody out of that opportunity, and I include myself in that concept. For all the negativity, isolation, bullying, ignorance and cruelty I have experienced, the balance of positivity, companionship, kindness, knowledge, and empathy have put too much stress on the wrong side of the scale. My health has suffered, and I have felt banned from an essential part of what makes our country great: the pursuit of happiness.

  The process of reinvention can be difficult, but trial and error must eventually lead to success, and that is what I will be striving for in the weeks to come. I hope you will continue to follow my journey with me.

  After all, the year isn’t over yet; it’s only week 40 of 52. Anything is possible in twelve weeks.

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• And Nobody Died

  Posted at 3:12 pm by kayewer, on September 27, 2025

  The city of Camden, New Jersey, just reported that they experienced their first summer free of homicides in fifty years, and overall crime is at a 55-year low. That is something to be proud of.

  My parents lived in Camden for a short time during their early married years, and my mother grew up there in a time when everybody knew everybody else, and you would just as soon see a child bringing home a pack of cigarettes (and exact change) from the corner store as a grownup bringing an open pitcher of beer home to have with dinner.

  Camden is recognized nationwide for its reputation as a center of blight, poverty and crime. The city is situated across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, PA. Residents of New Jersey in other parts of the county can easily distinguish the difference in location by the major highway running between Camden and the rest of the suburbs; on one side are quaint homes, and on the other are abandoned or security gated businesses. The main street running through the heart of Camden becomes more depressing the further West one travels its length. The cemetery where poet Walt Whitman is buried is next to a hospital and abandoned convent, then the journey’s scenery morphs into row homes of varying degrees of repair and rubbish, where the neighborhood has become home to a mixture of the low-to-moderate income and the malcontent attempting to survive.

  Originally Camden was similar to neighborhoods in New York, serving as a melting pot of immigrants and thriving middle-class candidates starting to take root in the opportunities offered by shipbuilding, RCA Victor, and Campbell Soup, which built its headquarters there. Originally a Quaker community, residents in the early 20th century traveled between other parts of New Jersey and Philadelphia with thriving job markets. The decline of industrialization caused people to move away, and new populations moved in with no means of livelihood, leading to an increase in urban decay and crime.

  The state university, Rutgers, grew its Camden campus into a huge compound much different from when I spent a few years attending evening classes. They now have dorms and athletic fields. The Benjamin Franklin Bridge’s lights illuminate a thriving college community, and some of the torn shells of abandoned homes were razed. A high security prison nearby which operated from 1985 until 2009, was also closed down, flattened and given over to open space and a small children’s playground.

  The county formed a police force, and some new businesses (particularly a massive expanded hospital complex near the waterfront) have brought renewal to the area, and crime has gone down by seventy percent or more in some instances. Only seven homicides have been reported in Camden in 2025, and with three months of the year to go, the figures appear to be promising.

  The poverty rate of over 28% still makes Camden a poor city compared to the 12.4% national poverty average. However, loft apartment living, an aquarium, and new business ventures are appearing regularly, bringing a promising future to the city.

  Just a piece of good news when there has been so much of the other type lately. It’s always comforting to see life come back when it lacks for too long. Here’s to completing 2025 on a positive note.

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• Appreciation For the Pen

  Posted at 3:04 pm by kayewer, on August 9, 2025

  We humans spend more time with keyboards than with handwriting implements. Our society has forgone what was once considered a measure of one’s character for what requires little effort. Keyboards can be used by anybody who can hunt and peck at the buttons (those little horizontal raised lines at the bottom of the F and J keys even clue in a user as to where “home row” is for those who have taken typing, itself nearly a dead art). If you could peck, you could produce.

  I took semesters of typing in high school on what was then state of the art equipment: the IBM Selectric typewriter, a metal behemoth perfectly designed for the classroom. It was too heavy to move, and the only loose part was the interchangeable type font ball, which was a miracle of evolution. One could type in Arial or Times New Roman with just a click of an inset black lever and a snap to remove one font and install the other. Our hands flew across the keyboard at the speed of sixty words per minute (that was an A with no errors). A few years later, I tested at ninety words per minute. What a joy.

  My handwriting was a neglected part of my education, but when I sat myself down one afternoon and devised my own unique penmanship method, I was happy to write anything out by hand, but it’s an art going out of favor with the dying Boomer generation, of which I have the distinction of being on the latter end of its run. Writing checks is disappearing, card shops are struggling, and newspapers may soon be replaced by digital only editions. Back in my work commuting days, you could enjoy watching fellow riders filling out crosswords and puzzles in pencil. Or ink. With a pen. Today’s online games are “play as long as you can until you lose,” though I still enjoy Sudoku, Connections and Wordle online.

  People are in such a hurry today that they can’t take a few minutes to actually craft something with their hands and some requisite patience. Before our offices shut down, live interviews were still the norm, and I’ll never forget the first time we encountered an applicant who had never developed a handwritten signature for himself. Imagine that: in the olden days the illiterate would at least mark an “X” on a document, but this person never gave his own name a unique look with a pen.

  My maternal great-grandfather, according to my mother’s story, had an elaborate autograph; he would begin his first name, swirl the ink to the end of his last name and back again to fill in the rest. It likely resembled how our founding fathers signed our first national documents. Quill pens are out of style, of course, but those beautiful letters flourished with elaborate dips and trails are an art today’s youth cannot understand or appreciate.

  Why do I bring this up?

  Today in the mail, among the demands for charitable donations and meaningless junk, I received a small envelope with my name and address handwritten on the front. I had received similar ones for events in which I had no interest, but I opened it to find, to my delight, that it was an actual thank you note.

  Now, this friend who sent the note, and I, see each other every week. We have a regular date during which we eat food we shouldn’t and enjoy each other’s company while watching movies or programs and sharing conversation. She took the time to write out a note because I had attended her surprise milestone birthday party a few weeks ago. I brought a gift I knew she would like, and it was a fun afternoon. She could have just thanked me on that day and been done with it, but we’re both late Boomers, so she kept the tradition alive by actually sending a card to thank me.

  She not only thanked me for the gift, but for being her friend. In her handwriting that she developed for herself in her growth as a person.

  That is what is dying when we don’t do things that require handwriting; not just the act itself, but the human qualities that go with it. Saying please and thank you, and making it tangible. In ink. And it cost a stamp.

  Try doing that in Times New Roman.

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  	Eden on A Good Rabbit Hole
  	Eden on Free Secretary
  	Eden on Getting the Message
  	Eden on The Unasked Questions
  	Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9