Trauma and Resilience

In my last post, I wrote about my quick trip up to Chicago.  It was a good thing that both my husband and my daughter pushed me to go.  I have gotten more "hermitty" these years.  I do not think it is the result of the COVID crisis, but when we have PTSD reactions to traumatic events, we really may not realize both the reaction and the cause and may think it is just our brain providing good careful advice.  So, who knows?  I will possibly never know.  But it did reassure me that flights and hotel rooms can go smoothly and I will not be lost somewhere among skyscrapers.  Of course, I was with my well-traveled daughter who uses her phone like a gigantic file cabinet.

Regarding smoothness and trauma, I forgot to mention a discussion we had with our distant cousin in Chicago about EMDR.  This is a technique I had never heard about and you can read up on it in the grayed link above.  Anyway, as I wrote, our cousin is a young woman with her Doctorate in Nursing and takes on private clients to help them with drug addiction.  Yeah, no small thing!

She lives on a lovely tree-lined street just outside the city itself and in walking distance of the city businesses.  Her husband works at Northwestern University which is about a mile from their home.  It is a prime location.

Our cousin said she had used EMDR to help with a trauma that occurred months ago.  Their neighborhood had been without electricity for a day or so and she was in front of her house using her car to charge her cell phone.  (I did not ask, but she must have been pregnant then.)  Someone approached her, put a gun to her head, and stole her car leaving her stunned on the sidewalk.  

She managed to call the police but nothing came from that, except maybe interviewing her.  Doing research, she herself found her car and identified the man (actually a 16-year-old) that had carjacked her and threatened her life.  She reported that to the police, and either due to a tremendous backlog in life-threatening criminality there or Chicago's police bureaucracy, the 'man' was never arrested. ( I have great respect for our law-enforcement folks, but like our medical professionals and our public education professionals, they are overworked and in some cases underpaid.)  I mentioned to her that was awful and since he was young it would just embolden him until he gets killed.

Her response was, "He did get killed weeks later."

Anyway, she found that she could not get over the trauma as she had hoped  (no duh!).  She decided to use EMDR and said it really worked!  I will keep this in mind.  Our brain is a really amazing conglomeration of electricity!

Well, hopefully, my next post will be more uplifting on my other blog about Fred and Ethel as they now have a least one little one!  I have to work on that, after I read some blogs.

Zoom Zoom

On an upswing. My moods are unpredictable these days and I am sure it is because I am full-on into elder mode. My memories keep moving in and out interrupting my days.  The media ads for most useless stuff and concerning medicines, which I do not need, are all directed at people "60 and older". I am starting to move TWO decades past that, and the message is truly clear. I am OLD. I have talked with my doctor, but since I am not depressed or manic or even measurable, he is not concerned.  He has recommended I reduced my nerve/cough dose and while I am doing that, I find the cough sometimes comes back irregularly after over a  year of peace!  

I just returned from a 3-day trip to Chicago with my daughter.  She  has a  strong friendship  with a distant cousin that she met on Ancestry  and over the years we have watched this distant cousin grow from being a bulemic  and very quiet teenager to getting her Doctorate in  nursing and then marrying a  nice young neuroscientist and recently having a precious new little girl!  Such a  journey and I like to think my daughter's support had some role in that.  Daughter and I also took in a spa morning at a fancy old-world place in Chicago, which is certainly not my usual routine.  The weather was perfect!

This cousin we met is even more unusual as she explained that two of her brothers recently came out as  Gay.   I suspected this about one of the brothers years ago when  I met him.  Their mother is a nurse and one can only wonder if she expected this or not and how she deals with it.  Then prior to this her second daughter came out as lesbian!  Four children and only one of them is heterosexual!

Heading off this Saturday to help open a contest for young children to plant  tomatoes in canvas bags and attempt to win prizes at the end of summer based on their growing  skills after they take the plant home.   I will be on my feet 10:30 AM until  3:00 PM and tired when  I  get home.  Sunday I  am off to another gardening event where we staff a booth with activities for children who come to a park to see tractor pulls, bands, craft stuff, etc.  I will be on my feet from 8:00 until 5:00 most likely and totally wiped for Monday.  But we are going out for dinner that night with some new friends and hopefully, that will not be stressful and I will not fall face down into my dinner plate!  I do see old people do that, but it is usually in a rest home.

May is on its way out?

The weather this morning is quite cool to weed in the garden I need a jacket.  There was a light rain last night and everything is richly green and growing, including the weeds, so well in this perfect spring weather.

My spring flowers are on the way out already.  I have been so busy but I managed to squeeze in a few minutes to capture them with my camera as I do every year and then photoshop a bit for clarity and exposure and contrast. 

 

  I have two good-looking and sweet men from another country helping me cut the roots of my potted citrus so that they can continue in good health without being root bound.  They are chatting on the back deck in another language and will soon interrupt me to see what they need to do next.  It is rare to have gardeners, but I will not complain.

My granddaughter's first birthday went perfectly with the weather in total cooperation since it was outdoors.  (Their house is so small.)  The gal got a small rubber duck at her last Doctor's visit and it soon became the favorite toy and a theme for the party.

She was a delight the entire time and never seemed to get overstressed or our of sorts.  I blurred the little one's face as it seems that is the careful way these days.

Mostly photos in this post.  Hope you weekend is humming smoothly.

Busy as a Bee

I am up earlier than usual. My night was filled with odd dreams. I was working at a new and rather gloomy place. Some government offices had been designed by a bureaucrat who was probably related to a Senator and used that privilege.  They could have been offices in the 1940s.  The people were all gray and autonomic in personality. They didn't really want to get to know me, and I finally gave up and with my head down began my work. Where this dream came from, I do not know.

Anyway, I am now awake around 5:00am and got up for my coffee.  The sky was just beginning to lighten and the lights across the waters (my neighbors all feel that security and decorative lighting is necessary) sparkled golden in the reflection on the river.  By the time I had made my coffee, I saw that the high fog had moved in.  By the time I was drinking my coffee, the fog had lowered across the river and all was milky white.

The birds were just finishing their morning songs.  I like the way the charcoal silhouettes of the trees look like watercolor paintings in the fog.  While sipping my coffee the ghostly silhouette of a solitary buzzard glides every so quietly above my head sailing to the river.  It is beautiful in its grace.

Today will be a quiet day.  Sunday was my granddaughter's first birthday and it was filled with all the business that entails when the party was given by parents who never thought they would be successful in having a child.  She is precious to us all, and hopefully, we will temper our spoiling with some common sense.  But love tends to throw common sense out the window. Some photos of that celebration of a miracle may appear in a future post as I left my camera up there!

This prior Wednesday was a long day of plant work with others for our garden sale.  Then Thursday was plant work for other plants at home for the plant sale.  Friday was baking for the plant sale.  Saturdays were the plant sale and being on my feet from  6:30 in the morning to about 2:30 in the afternoon chatting up buyers!  We are mostly old people and while we raised  10K,  many were hobbling and toddling by mid-afternoon.

Monday was a doctor's appointment for me.  I think it went well and he agrees that it may be possible for me to wean myself off the nerve medicine I had been taking for the cough.  Tuesday was a luncheon with people we had never met.  My sister was on a plane returning from a wine tour in France and she sat across from an elderly couple returning from a Safari and they got to chatting on the long flight back to the States. (Yes, this does sound  like the start  of  some murder movie.)  Anyway, she found that they were living in the same small town that we are!  She sent me their email and gave them ours.  The woman was also a retired librarian!  A package of coincidences that was sort of surprising.  Tuesday, months later, we finally met up for lunch.  They seem very nice and have suggested a dinner soon to meet a young friend of theirs who is trying to get into the marine biology field which is my husband's forte.  After lunch, we had to run some errands and came home exhausted.   Such a busy social week has left me exhausted, the introvert that I am.

Wednesday, today, is a blank day for me although hubby has a dental appointment.  I have some leftover seedlings to get into the yard and some plants to dig up for my son as we are going back up to see him on Sunday after a Mother's Day meet-up with my daughter on Saturday.  Yes, a bit of a busy weekend. again.  You can see many of my seeds failed due to the torrential rains while we were gone.

Well, enough about me.  How about you?

Gathering Thoughts

How can someone who is retired be too busy to write her blog? I am not procrastinating because the Blog is on my mind several times a day, sometimes even before I drift off to sleep. I think of something and then wonder if it would be a good theme for the blog. 

Of course, by morning the only thing on my mind is COFFEE! As I fill the electric kettle I gaze out the kitchen window and see my neighbor's house. When I took this photo the leaves were not on the trees except for the ever-green hollys.  I took it a month ago.  I think about our (mankind's) footprint on this earth when I see that mansion.  The house has another wing behind the big tree trunk on the left, a three-car garage below, a swimming pool, five bedrooms, a dock, and a water view.  There is only one 79-year-old lady living in it.  She does not own a boat.  She bought the house two years ago.  I am not saying she does not deserve to live in a beautiful home, but it seems such a waste of space.  She is a nice millionaire.

When we built our house, we were thinking of only two bedrooms, but then we realized with three grandchildren that would be a mistake and added another as well as a small room in the basement that can be used as a bedroom.  All of these rooms have come in handy over the years.  

The weather has finally been nice enough to get out in the canoe.  

I am learning that getting into a canoe at the beginning of the day is easy, but getting out of the canoe after 4 or 5 hours is very difficult.  I am working on my deep knee bends, but it seems that my body has a mind of its own.

We did go to Emerald Isle, North Carolina for a week with my son and daughter-in-law, and grandchild.  A wonderful, if exhausting, trip.  Granddaughter is that age where everything is interesting and while she cannot yet walk, she crawls like a speed demon.

While it was still spring and the weather cool and cloudy and sometimes rainy, we had the whole beach to ourselves all of the time.  That is peaceful when you have a dog and a crawling babe.

We rented a house and did most of our own cooking to avoid having to deal with an infant in a restaurant.  But we did give the "kids" a few afternoons and nights out: a massage, a movie, a dinner, and a morning of canoeing.

Just before all this hubby had eye surgery.  It seems that if you are an elder you can get an eye lift through insurance if you are having trouble seeing and reading.  He passed that test and got the eyebrow lift.  

It does not make him look younger, but recovery was very fast and the minimal scar is hidden in his Scottish eyebrows.  He also finds reading at night much easier.  On the medical side, my daughter is trying to talk me into a face laser resurfacing treatment which would not be covered by insurance.  She has had it done and loves it.  Sigh!

Now back to the real world.  I will go read your blogs over the coming days and leave comments.

Throwing Out the Best Stuff?

I moved into this house, which we built, almost fifteen years ago. I even wrote a blog about that, printed it out on paper, and then deleted the blog. 

The move itself helped us filter our junk.  There are always boxes of stuff that you save and no longer use.  Also boxes of duplicates or backups of stuff you have never needed.  Then when you empty the drawers and empty the closet shelves you realize that life can get cluttered with so much more "stuff" than any human ever needs.

People who are always on the move, perhaps news photographers or people who work from ships such as international doctors, have just basic essentials and may store just a bit of memory "stuff" in a closet or rental unit somewhere. Their life activity and memories are their "junk".

This line of thinking all started with my search for my wedding dress (really a muumuu) and I have not been able to find it...at all.  Did I get rid of that thinking I would never be able to get into it?  Did I actually give it away??  I have no clue because I can still see it in the box with the tissue.  

I did find the shoe box below with the label:  SEEDS GLASS JUNK

When I took off the lid I saw this below:

In the jar at the very top of the box is a collection of sea glass.  That brown bone-like structure in the upper middle is a piece of really interesting wood that has been worn down.  It looks like a fish skeleton, doesn't it?  Bits of seeds and feathers and all.  And, I will not throw out this box.  I collect stuff like this all the time!  I will leave it to my kids to dump into the bin after I leave this planet. So I guess I clearly lack discerning nature for saving stuff since I cannot find my wedding dress!

On a Roll, Hold Tight!

It seems that the world turns and turns and mankind churns and churns and we are at opposite purposes. I will ignore this black hole collision. 

Instead, I will write about my upcoming schedule, for those who are only remotely interested, which is exhausting in the weeks and months ahead for a woman on the downside of the 70s.

Tomorrow I have the whole day free to work on emails. I have emails from a florist in Kauai, a photographer in Kauai, and my daughter in the city to the north of us, and they all require attention. My husband and I had planned to go to Hawaii where we met AND married to celebrate our 50th anniversary two years ago. But COVID spread its contagious and frightening germs and we were forced to cancel. 

Hubby and I had met in Honolulu so many years ago with both of us in graduate school at the University. We married there just three months after meeting and headed out to the island of Palau, Micronesia where water and electricity were precious and sometimes scarce for our tiny two-bedroom apartment.  With no supermarkets and incoming mail only three days weekly, we faced challenges.  It was a good match if the first year of marriage can survive life on a remote Pacific island. (Oh my, who are those naive and young people?)

Our children were not happy that we had to cancel this remembrance.  Of course, we had just planned a visit to some old haunts, and visit some friends on Oahu and that would be it.  

Instead, the kids took over and wanted to turn this into a mini-event before we die.  (I mean that very literally)  We will be on Oahu for 3 days visiting old friends and then onto Kauai which is a lovely island to visit.  Our children and their children and one mother-in-law will be joining us.  This simple trip has now morphed into flowers, a photographer, a small renewal of vows, and who knows what else.  I am trying to assist in the coordination of all with my daughter.  This does not happen on the island where we married or even the day or month that we married, but alas, we are plunging ahead.  We are then going on to Maui because that is where my daughter's family wants to spend time.  We will be there for a week, and I am letting them all plan that.  This takes place the first week of  July when everyone's schedules blend.

My upcoming schedule also includes helping my husband plan a PowerPoint presentation at the local library this Saturday on shoreline preservation!  His mild dementia means I have some editing to do.  

Sunday, we get together with my daughter's family to visit the aquarium in Baltimore and eat a family lunch.  A Christmas gift we are just getting around to opening.  Then we drive down to spend the night in Annapolis for an overnight as my husband has surgery (a therapeutic eyelift) on the following Monday!  Are you keeping up?

In the following two weeks as hubby is resting, I may get caught up.  My first job is to help plan a week's vacation with my son, his wife, and their baby at a rental home on Emerald Isle in North Carolina during the last week of April, which is not far away on the calendar.  I have a feeling we will be doing lots of babysitting.

I  realize that I am blessed to be able to afford these trips (barely)  and am blessed to have a family so close that wants to be with us.  But  I am tired and running out of steam.  Send me energy.

Contrast

As we age, the contrast of events in our current life or memories from our past life seem greater or maybe lesser. What do you think? 

For instance, I am so emotionally high with my grandchildren. While I love my children, I do not remember my heart bursting with joy every time I saw them. Perhaps that was, because I saw my children every day and the reality is you see them clean and dirty, calm and emotional, happy and angry, energetic and tired?  They see you the same and are not always willing to share or even want to spend time with you.

My grandchildren, in my case, are seen maybe every other month, and the older ones are  on their best behavior (lucky me). The baby is most times, but even when crying she is precious and vulnerable.  She also changes dramatically from week to week and she now crawls around the room.

As for long-ago memories, I remember bits and pieces while my husband, who has been diagnosed with "mild cognitive impairment", remembers every detail of his youth...or it seems that way.

Also, my personality wants to slow down, and maybe think on past memories, while my husband wants passionately to make new ones while talking endlessly about past events.

We had a visit from a friend this past week who we have known for many years.  She came with her second husband who has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and for whom a two-hour car trip  (which this was) is a big challenge.  He was quiet and pleasant, which is the same as his former peonality.  He is slow and unstable.  She is full of plans, building her next new house and running her small farm with a new chicken house being built, and training her dogs for dog shows, which is the same as her former personality.  Yet, they live happily on these two planes of existence and seem to be able to meet in the middle.

I do think age has given me a clearer perspective on time and the passage o time and my life in that spectrum.  Perhaps.  (These sunsets were taken last night as a big acold front moved in.  That high cloud makes for great light bounce.)

Where Does the Time Go?

One of my kind followers noted that I had not posted in some time. And, of course, since I have been in a mid-winter doldrums slump, there might be a reason for concern. I am still not quite in a happy place. I am older, tire more easily, and have trouble facing challenges with the tenacity that I used to bring to the forefront. It is normal for us agers.

Yes, I keep pushing through exercise two or three times a week.  About 30 minutes of intense free weights or maybe running over 3 miles on the elliptical.  This assures me my death will be quick when it comes  ;-).

2023 began with a frump or a dump or something that has even less enthusiasm than I do.  2023 was full frontal.  The gal that was a secretary at one of my last jobs passed away from cancer, and I did not know she was even fighting it!  My daughter's father-in-law passed after a long and difficult illness bringing guilty relief to his wife who now has a big change in the hours of each day. Two people from our Master Gardeners group of 40 or so also passed. Hubby was sick for a week with a cold or flu.  Not badly sick, just annoying fatigue.  Son and daughter-in-law visited with the sweet baby who was NOT sick for a change, but their dog did vomit on my carpet!  And they have my carpet cleaner up at their house!  I seem to be having brief dizziness when I move too quickly and I do monitor my blood pressure which does not seem unusually high.  Yes, this means I probably should call the Doc.  This is all in January which is not even past.

Today we are driving up to my daughter's house to exchange Christmas gifts.  It was either this Monday in late January or we wait until the end of March!  Their calendars are terribly full with all three children in activities and hubby involved in golf.  This will all come to an abrupt end in a few years and I hope my daughter is ready for the sudden end to running around!

I try very hard to focus away from the chaos that this world is going to be in for the next ten years, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.  I have been reading Yeats, Mary Oliver, and Elizabeth Strout.  I did not like Olive Kitteridge by Strout as the people in the book are the kind of people that I avoid and possibly why I am an introvert.  I did find Lucy by the Sea and Oh, William! more redeeming.

I have included a few winter sunsets taken from my back deck.  I know, QUITCHER BITCHEN!

May your 2023 be filled with honest love, restorative peace, and forgivable errors.

That is Odd

Do all old people get idiosyncratic or is it just I? 

I find myself counting the stairsteps in my house when I go up or down. Not ALL the time, but fairly often. There are 15 in case you wonder. 

I do not leave discarded clothes on the floor of my closet if I am heading out to town. I at least fold them on the chair that I have in the closet. I think to myself, what if for some reason, a car accident or heart attack, I do not make it home and my daughter has to come down here to get my clothes and then sees how messy I live? (Sort of like that mom telling you to always wear clean underwear in the event you are in a car accident?)

I hate plastic but I still compulsively buy ziplock bags.  Most of my stuff is stored in glass-lidded containers, so why do I keep ziplock bags?  Some day I will make a list of when I use them and think of alternatives.

I put stuff away before the housecleaner comes so that all the surfaces are neat and tidy...it does make it easier for her to clean or dust.

I save all those stupid holiday catalogs thinking I will need them and stack them neatly on the couch near where I sit.  That stack stays unmoved for weeks, and I have never ordered from any of them!

Each night I tell myself that I will be more proactive in getting things done the next day and it happens... about one out of every 8 days. (In all honesty, this is probably not just an old-timers thing.)

Got any unusual compulsive behaviors that others may notice but which are who you are?

Does Anything Stay the Same Anymore?

The older I get, the more I find myself fitting in the mold of an old doddering lady. I always pictured (hoped) that I would become the stylish, skinny, and upper-middle-class grandma; the one that was sharp as a tack and that everyone loved to talk to for a brief time.

Ha!  I wish I was skinny, certainly no longer upper middle class with this inflation, and while some days, I am sharp as a tack, other days I wander around in a fog trying to remember what I was planning on finishing before starting dinner.  Stylish is something I attempt about two or three times a year.  Most days I wander around in old sweatsuits, or jeans and a sweatshirt.

Yesterday we had to drive up to the city to visit our financial advisor at my husband's insistence even though I wanted to wait until after the holidays.  Hubby's dementia meant he could follow very little of what happened at the hour-long meeting, but hubby was right in that we had not met face-to-face in a few years and it did help personalize our relationship with our advisor.  This advisor is the son of our original advisor and has now taken over our account.  His father has retired and is now taking care of his wife through a long-term illness, sadly.  Hubby also was right in that we got to meet up for a quick lunch with our son and his wife.  Sadly we did not see the baby who was in daycare.

Since this filled the whole day, I moved my list of holiday and other things to do, to today.  Unbeknownst to me, hubby had volunteered to give a presentation in February as part of our Master Gardeners projects for the public.  They are given at the library.  I got cc'd in an email from the coordinator since hubby had not been responding to her emails and that is how I learned about the commitment.  I explained to him that I could not help with this before the holidays as I just had too much on my list.  

That was never going to happen as he insisted he had to start the presentation and download the photos from his phone today.  Well, there went the better part of the day!  I started to work on downloading photos from his phone (a different model and make than mine) and then have him attach them in an email to himself since my USB connection did not work with his phone.  I selected 8 or 10 photos and then asked him to go through that list and delete down to four in the attachment since the email provider would not transfer more than that.  An hour later, I thought he was deleting but he had spiraled down to somewhere else and was back selecting photos, or something as he would not show me! 

I am afraid I lost my patience as I had so wanted this day to get myself a little better organized.  I just now left him with his computer and then heard him calling someone on the phone asking how to get emails off of his phone onto his computer.  It may be my busy son who is working from home, I do not know.  But he will patiently take him through screen after screen,... perhaps.  Or he will tell him to call tonight.

Part of this anger is resentment, I know.  Resentment that he does not participate in any of the holiday preparation.  He says he "hates" shopping and therefore, never buys any gifts for anyone and has never done so even before his dementia.   He says he is not able to wrap gifts, either.  He is not a cook, but with dementia, I do not think he should be attempting any of the holiday cooking anyway.  Each year I have asked him to help with the holiday greetings that we mail, although I pull together the card design, and the list of addresses, and set him up at the table.  I have done this for years and he loves writing a message to friends and family.  Fingers crossed this year.

One would think I would be adjusting to this change by now!!  And those of you who are wondering why I am taking time to blog when I have so much to do...who knows...guess it is my therapy for the day.

Well, done venting, thank you for listening and I know...I know...the font is off again!!

Are the Holidays a Wind-up?

I sit this morning in the early dark drinking my strong black coffee with just enough sweetened cream to take the edge off.  I slept over seven hours which is my regular routine. While my sleep is filled with dreams these days, I do feel rested.  Hubby is still deep in slumber and will sleep closer to ten hours.  He is an energizer bunny with projects during the day and that activity coupled with his slight dementia means he will sleep through a long night.

The home across the river and a few houses up from us already has its holiday lights along the dock.  The weather has been cold for days with just enough of a breeze to make it feel much colder.  We have been putting off stringing the outside holiday lights hoping the weather will moderate somewhat.  While we have no snow and do not face the drama and hard work the folks north of us have endured, we are older and feeling it in our bones more each year.

Today I have to plan which pies I will bring to my daughter's house for Thanksgiving.  My three grandchildren and my son-in-law do not like fruit pies and so I am left to make some cloying sweet pies such as an Oreo cookie monster.  I will probably go ahead and make a key lime pie because I have a dozen kafir limes from my tree that need to be used while they are somewhat fresh.  I will also bring a side dish of sausage stuffing which they claim to like and which I make each year with Italian sausage and lots of herbs.  My daughter is ordering the rest from the local grocery.  We seem to be doing it lighter each year.

We cannot arrive the night before since my daughter has close friends that are using their guest room as a stopping place on their way north to visit their own family for the holidays.  So, we will arrive mid-morning and quickly say hello and goodbye to the guests which we know, eat our Thanksgiving dinner with the family, and then head back home mid-afternoon because my daughter and her family are then heading north for Thanksgiving with the in-laws the rest of the weekend.  My daughter's father-in-law has a form of MS which now requires he be placed in a care facility.  It is a sad time for all.  

My son and his wife are spending Thanksgiving out of state with his wife's family this year, so our long weekend will be quieter.

Ooops, my son just texted and said they may not be heading through the nasty snow to Erie after all.  Their little baby is fighting a long-term cold.  I invited them to join us at my daughter's and then come down here for the weekend where I can wait on them.  Seems everything is up in the air.  

I am an old lady and will certainly handle it all with aplomb (that is still a word, right?) as I am not going without electricity like those in Ukraine, and I am not facing grief like those who lost a child, significant other, or brother or sister in Colorado in the recent "mass shooting", and I am not spending the day in a holding shelter like so many that are homeless or those around the world who are refugees waiting for a reprieve.  I am winding up my one precious and privileged life slowly, ever so slowly.

I look for the light because the perception of where we are and who we are and where we are going is dependent upon finding light each day.

And...the Rest of the Story

My prior post on our trip to Pittsburgh provided a quick overview of a city that was once part of "America's Rust Belt". Pittsburgh was referred to as the steel city because Andrew Carnegie developed a process to make steel both durably and inexpensively.  There were many blue-collar jobs available at the turn of the 20th Century.  This is also why it was called the city of bridges which are so loved; produced through locally made steel.  

The steel industry is also why their professional football team is called the Steelers.  Along with this industrial success, there came tremendous water and air pollution.  Today the air is clear to the eye, but unseen microparticulate still causes days when breathing the air is unhealthy and they struggle to keep their air healthy.

The city has moved its economy to self-driving car manufacturing, robotics, and medical advances.

While we were there we stayed in the downtown area next to the convention center.  Our hotel was on a busy street next door to a Charter school for elementary children.  We saw them walking from one building to another on a mid-day break and all were minority children.  Full of energy.  If you want to know what a Charter School is go here.

We took an Uber to the botanical gardens on the second day and upon our return mid-afternoon, the Uber driver could not drive down the block to our hotel.  We waited a few minutes and then he made a U-Turn and went around a block to drop us off just South of our hotel.  It was only a block away, so we had no problem.

As I walked to the hotel, I saw the following:

At first, I thought someone famous must be staying at our hotel which is across the street from this news photographer.  But nope.  When I asked, it seems there had been a couple of shots fired into one of the buildings across the street.  Perhaps the building between the school and our hotel?  Needless to say the local pedestrians did not seem at all concern as they wheeled their toddler into the restaurant and we asked the policeman if we could cross the red tape into our hotel...which he let us do.  City life in America is indeed strange.

Like a Bad (But Shiny) Penny

I returned over a week ago from our Pennsylvania/Michigan car trip. The primary reason for the trip was to help my husband's stepsister celebrate her 94th birthday. They have not met face-to-face in over a decade. Blended families can be that way and since his father remarried (to my husband's mother) they spent little time growing up together. As often happens with old people, reconnection (this time hours by phone) meant they wanted to see each other as the years are getting more valuable. 

Since it was fall, I was looking forward to such a car trip and was rewarded with lovely hardwood trees and bright dry grasses and golden farm fields with traditional barns, and nice weather except for one day of rain.  

We first visited Pittsburgh for the reason that it made a nice stop on the way north.  We were there for three days.  The walk from our hotel downtown made me think that Pittsburgh was nothing but mediocre restaurants and kitschy stalls selling Steelers merchandise.  The small crowds were a bit loud and later in the day a bit drunk.  The service at the mid-cost restaurants was very good, though.  In the beginning, I was not impressed.

I was glad that I had booked a tour for each of the two full days we were there.  Driving around on our own would have meant we missed so much to say nothing of the difficulty in finding parking in a city.  The tour helped me see how rich Pittsburgh was in history and heroes.  

Mr. Rogers

Mr. Rogers of children's TV fame was a native and had his own statue on the river in downtown.  This was funded by Bunny Mellon of the rich Mellon family.  Bunny was a friend of his.  

We toured the city itself to learn that both sports stadiums were horseshoe shaped to allow fans to see the river as well as the game. I learned about the famous "immaculate reception" of player, Franco Harris, which helped the Pittsburgh Steelers win their first playoff game in franchise history in 1972. 

Historian, David McCullough, was also a native with a bridge dedicated in his honor.  

The city is really beautiful despite the few homeless tents along the river walk.  Two rivers come together which helped spur the city's growth in its early history when water was the primary form of transportation for moving and processing steel.  

Taken from the hilltop at the end of a cable car ride.

And then we traveled on to visit the famous Falling Waters house of Frank Lloyd Wright fame just outside the city.  I was not able to get reservations inside, but the outside was inspiring.  There is another architectural wonder, Kentuck  Nob, but that has to wait for another trip.

This is a very short version of the trip but perhaps wets your taste to travel to a smaller city that you do not know enough about and that has a reputation that is rougher than it deserves.