Play Dates

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I’ve decided you’re never too old for play dates. John’s date to go to the train club had been on the calendar for weeks. He left early one morning and planned to return late the next day. From something he said, I think the men were changing the track and had to deal with a large tree root. That would not be pleasant in high heat and equally high humidity. My weather, on the other side of the mountains, was much cooler. We found out after we moved here that East Tennessee tended to be hotter than Western North Carolina. What a year-round blessing that turned out to be!

I met neighbor Marla as she was walking Albert, and I opted to stay with them. I did two laps of the street instead of going to the creek. Marla claims morning is not her best time of day, but she always has interesting things to discuss. For some reason, we got on the subject of war movies. She knew a lot more about them than I did. I was very happy to hear about them without having to sit through one.

Marla happened to mention to her mother (Connie) that I was alone. Connie called, and we had a spontaneous play date for coffee. We went to Panacea, a roaster in Frog Level. (You can tell you are in the South when you see area names like that. I grew up in West Tennessee near Frog Jump.) We chatted about many things, including technology, siblings, cell phones, and grandparents. I was very interested in hearing about her weight loss – 50 pounds since spring. Isn’t that marvelous? Of course, I wanted to celebrate that with a photo and she graciously obliged.

092218 Connie and me.jpg

Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

Published

28 thoughts on “Play Dates”

  8. I love those names – Frog Level and Frog Jump. I just read another friend’s blog about a porch frog. I must look that totem up today… there’s a frog message somewhere in this!! ha ha!!

    Play dates are wonderful. I love the smiles in your image.

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        1. A flower frog might work for someone who is good at arranging flowers. That lets me out. I hope I saved my mother’s turtle frog, but I have no idea where to look. Would you try a frog if you had one?

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  10. What a fabulous, blessed day, Anne! Great photo, and what an incredible weight loss in such short time! Well done to that lady.
    Incredible post Anne, Filled with love and joy, threaded throughout each line.
    Sending much love ~ Cobs. xxx

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  11. Anne,
    Frog jump, play dates, good weather and a happy friend- what could one ask for.
    I love your new hair style. 50 pounds ? Amazing- I wish she would share her secret through a guest blog post. Laying tracks around a tree- sounds like a real railway issue to me.
    Susie

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    1. Connie is using the Nutri System approach — getting all her meal packets delivered to the house once a month. She has three meals and three snacks a day and says she is never hungry. She told her husband and daughter that she would buy snacks for them and make desserts for them, but she would ask them to serve themselves.

      Thanks for noticing my hair. I had it cut Friday. I laughed that John has been back home almost 24 hours, and he didn’t notice. Two neighbors noticed, as did one woman at church.

      Connie and I had a lovely time together. She was the one whose husband Dave died a few weeks ago. It was the first time we had been together since the funeral, so we did have a few tears. She is doing very well, but is still amazed at the mountains of paperwork involved.

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    1. I should look to see what other states have towns with frog in the name. It’s fun having crazy names, isn’t it?

      One of these days I’ll look up some pictures of trains. Packed away in boxes in our house are trains in Z gauge, N gauge, G, HO, and Lionel. Those at the train club are ones that people ride on, so they are BIG. They laughingly call it the hernia gauge. John’s engine runs on a car battery, but there are others that are coal fired. People shovel coal into them, and a boiler makes steam to move the wheels. They can be a bit tricky to run.

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      1. You mean real trains ! My grandad was a ticket agent in Canton,Mississippi for the Illinois Central. We would walk to the station to watch the City of New Orleans come through . Back in those day he used morse code and tick.tick,tick.

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