Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

I have a number of friends who have recently retired. They have all told me they “just knew it was time.”   I wonder if my beloved 13-year-old blue convertible is trying to tell me it’s time for her to retire. She had a major meltdown on the interstate this week when she completely cut off just yards short of an exit (thankfully). It made me realize I may have been ignoring the signs she’s trying to tell me something.     Two AAA calls in one week. A perpetually lit “check engine” light that my longtime trusted mechanic assures me is just an electrical glitch. A remote that will no longer take a new battery, so I’ve been using the key to unlock the door for months. Cracks in the dashboard. A shredded sun visor. A few holes in the back seat upholstery. If car years are the same as dog years, then she’s 91 and well past retirement age!   Maybe this incident on the interstate is her way of saying “we’ve had a really good ride” (185,000 miles worth to be exact) ...

I suppose part of the art adulting is examining the issue of age. Are we aging or ageless? How old do you have to be before you qualify as elderly, old or middle aged? Is it when you start having those age-related medical tests like a colonoscopy, mammogram and bone density test? Is it when you qualify for the senior discount at the pharmacy? Is it when the server calls you ma’am instead of miss? Is it when those old people cartoons on napkins don't seem so funny anymore? It just gets more and more confounding. I’m closer in age to one 40-year-old friend’s parents, and recently realized I’m several years older than a 31-year-old friend’s mother. A friend two years behind me in high school already has three grandchildren while another friend my age still has four kids in middle school. I’m finding it more and more difficult to look at random people and tell their age. Growing up, I identified “my age” as someone in my grade at school. When I moved back to Columbia ten ...

Published April 13 in MIdlandsLife   We all know “adulting” can be difficult. It’s the job that’s forced on everyone over the age of 21 that could include a daily work routine, personal commitments, health scares, money issues, family responsibilities and unanticipated twists in the road.  My recent post on the idea of just having fun got me musing about how fun fits into rigors of adulting. Over the past few years, I’ve attempted to take some breaks from adulting so hard and tried a few things that revolve around creativity, new experiences, fun, and just slowing down or showing up. These were things I wanted to do just for the sake of doing - not to meet a goal, achieve an end, or prove something to myself or others.    As I took these occasional diversions from adulting, I was pleasantly surprised to discover nothing bad happened. I never missed work deadlines, overlooked paying a bill, forgot to put gas in my car or left the dog out in the rain. Actually...

I’m usually not one to wear a silly sequined fedora and oversized t-shirt while standing in the rain for an hour on a chilly, windy Saturday morning. But on St. Patrick’s Day, I did just that, along with dozen or so other adults and a handful of kids playing music on a parade float gliding down Devine Street toward the rabble in Five Points. It was fun. Period. Just plain fun. The idea of fun is something that’s often lost on us grown-ups. We spend so much time “adulting” - taking care of business, taking care of family, taking care of work, taking care of everything but ourselves – that fun never even registers as a priority. But I’ve been working on finding fun, and on St. Pat’s it came in the form of those silly clothes.   Actually the silly clothes didn’t make the morning fun – they just made me feel more a part of the fun. The real fun was getting caught up in something bigger than just me - something that made people smile, laugh, sing, dance and just have a good time....

This sweet girl quietly left our world Wednesday afternoon. Our beloved Dixie curled up in a sun puddle on the patio and just didn’t wake up. I’m imagining her heart just gave out from the effects of a serious recent illness and powerful drugs she had been taking. While her physical heart may have stopped beating and her physical fluffy body is no longer here, her real heart will always remain a presence in my life. Yes, everyone thinks their dogs are special. And Dixie was. She came to us as a 2 – 3 year old rescue with two sets of vet records. We chose to believe the one that made her younger so she’d last longer. She was probably 13 when she left us. After the death of our beloved Golden, Beaufort, a friend found out about Dixie from a friend. Dixie had been in two families who just didn’t have time for her. We saw the flyer, fell in love and agreed to take her on a week-end trial run. She showed up almost nine years ago with a thick red leash looped around her belly becau...

Today is National Word Nerd day. This might not prompt the same reason for celebration as National Ice Cream Day or National Take Your Pet to Work Day for most folks. But for people like me, National Word Nerd Day is a chance to get your word freak on. In anticipation of today's celebration, I was reading back through some of my previous  posts about my pride in being a "wordie" (I think I like that description better than word nerd) - describing pet grammar peeves , writing poetry about my love of a purple pen or describing the joy of receiving a hand-written note . Who else but a dedicated wordie could write about the relationship between smoking a pork butt and writing ? A quick glance around my home and office illustrates it’s clear I qualify as a world class word nerd. Just a few examples: ·     Your choice of clothes illustrates your word nerdiness. My “grammar police” t-shirt is always on the top of my t-shirt pile when I op...

House concert: (hous KON-sert) - A gathering of friends and neighbors in an intimate home setting to celebrate and support local musicians. OK … so I kind of made up that definition, but that does describe the concept. The practice of house concerts goes back generations to Appalachian traditions. A performer en route between gigs may have had a open night to play at a host’s home along the way in exchange for a good meal and place to lay his head. The host would charge a small ticket price with proceeds going to the performer. So that’s what’s going on November 10 – a house concert featuring the fabulous Danielle Howle. And to make it even more exciting ... Danielle released her new record on November 3 in Charleston, and this house concert will be the first time she'll be performing from it in Columbia. Get a sneak peek in this video.  Or watch this TV interview on Fox 24 Charleston. If you aren’t familiar with Danielle’s work , you need to b...