Gratitude

Amid the chaos and confusion of planning to move after 49 years in the same digs I often fail to remember to feel and express my gratitude.  Its so easy to let frustration take the  reins.
Last Friday was the exception.  Lee's great niece Julie was in town from Virginia both for work and to run her first ever marathon in San Francisco on Sunday, which she accomplished in a little less than four and a half hours. She treated me to a luncheon at the Concord Hilton the likes of which I have not seen since France. Served in a beautiful patio with a cadre of staff cooing over us, each course surpassed the one before.  My eyes were bulging before I finished the first one of four. In turn, I treated Julie to the inheritance gift of her great grand-mother's sterling. (Unfortunately the air lines required she ship it; table knives are considered a lethal weapon.) I sure wish the NRA felt that way about assault weapons, don't you?

Here is the latest photo of dear Julie and her son Jordan, a full time volunteer, at an Obama rally in DC this week. Jordan will be going into his senior year at PennState and hopes to be a full time politician. I'm so proud and entranced with them both.
As you may recall, I have a fractured rib so packing is a painful chore I'm trying to delegate.
On Monday five good elves from my WCC water color group brought lunch and tenderly packed all my little figurines. They are already toted to my storage locker, thanks to my Guatemalan gardener.  Tuesday friends Gayle and Marilyn helped tote about 300 books into the San Leandro library.
The whopper example of a dedicated helper arrived at 11 today to take another load for me.  When I met Marta at the gate she was holding a compress over her mouth and talking like this: "Bahney, I ha.. a..accident th.. morn...." The compress was to stay the bleeding.
She had fallen picking peaches this morning and not only split open her lip but cracked off a third of a front tooth. This afternoon was to be spent at the dentist's and at Kaiser getting her lip stitched. She insisted we proceed with the task.  The kind office manager at the Storage Place supplied her with more compresses as the bleeding continued.  Now that's dedication! Or is it love? In any case, I'm so grateful for all my helpers.