Mother’s Day in 9 days. We are all separated from people we care about, love, have unintentionally drifted from by happenstance. We can remember them by mail. Buying local and have it delivered. Awe Flowers delivers, as does Convivo Books, check out their shop. If you live in 33460 no problem. We deliver!

Both John and Patti are Lake Worthians this goes for myself. Hand made cards, Mother’s Day custom made to order w calligraphic addressing $10.00 pm me delivered in time to 33460 E

very time I’ve been to Post Office I pass the Revolution Bike Shop. Mike lives but a block away. He has seen a spike in his business. I purchased a much needed mirror to keep an eye on my possie. They fixed a flat for the girls. Support your local businesses.

Don’t recognize some friends behind their masks. I’m wearing my bandana like a precious Tiffany necklace. Never take it off, even when showering. Keeping up via reading the local Face Book pages. Rarely enter individual sites.

We’ve established our beach head in the front garden of my cottage. All the lessons take place outside under the Poinciana Tree. Cottage is way to small and I get my Vitamin D.. today’s Thunder storm threatened then finally forced us inside. We do lessons and one was do a picture for a display at St. Mary Hospital. Note: we do not and have not discussed Corona Virus. My believe is keep them as normal and happy as possible by being kind.

Settling into the sixth or is it the seventh week? Tongue & Cheek, now, signing my letters Corona Virus Detainee. Losing track of time. Writing letters while burning the midnight oil. Becoming a nocturnal creature. It’s 4:30 a.m..

Making progress with the device that PBScools provided. Morning ritual in place. Keep missing the live video chat with teacher. Routine now established school assignments come first, if all goes well treats all around like; bike rides, chocolate pudding (a first) tea time with friend and oh those #Barbie Dolls, I hid them. Had a transatlantic call, when finished 40 min. later, all the dolls were sunbathing in the flower planter, did I mention I hid them lol I hid them!

Good NEWS our Guest Blogger Chris will be returning-reporting from England and sharing life there.

A ride to the Post Office, is a every other day occurrence. #saveups. Heading out to beat the rain. I look back and yell “do you have your mask? . . . . Abort mission. We get caught by the rain. One of the best rides ever with lots of laughter. Who has more raindrops on their tongue. We were soaked when we got back. Not a bad way to end Friday.

4-25 Sat. Did not stir till the sun came out. If she’s not out I don’t need to be out either. Hunger pangs as I stirred. French toast easy and I have everything including the Piece De Resistance. It’s Mango season and I make the topping myself. A Mango recipe I picked up in my travels to the islands. I last prepared it for the Mango Grove NA fundraiser during our Lake Worth Beach Mango Festival. Sad, as for the last two months I’d been hard at work preparing a Mango recipe book.

Good NEWS this coming Monday our friend Chris Gosling will again be our Monday Guest Blogger.

Living my own reality. . Watching the world go by literally. Might just Count the cars that go by in complete anonymity. *.

Someone drove by on bike and circled around and yelled “I love your house”, was it my K Herring table cloth he spotted or the Tyrollean music I fancied xtra loud this Saturday. The Poinciana tree gives me coverage all day long. It was looking for a home and Sam G. delivered it. That was five years ago. No blossoms yet but “your branches speak to me of love”. I stay outside all day, get Vitamin D and eat Moringa each morning from my trees.

My Finnish neighbor Matti left Friday for Canada. We sent him off with lots of Moringa. Always supplied him w 3 days worth on return from his hour walk to Bryant Park. En route he would post my letters at the Post Office.

Water color lesson: I’m the red head I’m told “she wears a skirt” lol they have never seen me in pants, the mermaids are easy Peasy fancy Nancy and I.

With the rain this past week, suddenly I saw more women and babies out and about. Census comes to mind. One learns so much from kids. One house has “lots of doors” on one side Eleven live blended family and four on the other LOL.

Finally we accessed PBC lessons . Say it isn’t so. Reaching out to Tabitha (teacher) there must be more to this. Think self motivation, from what I saw it’s fill in the blanks? My learning curve.

So now we have arrived at Corona Virus Easter

This might well have been a Easter from long ago. Small intimate, only 3 kids, just a few eggs, each personalized with their names, but little trinkets like Bubbles, a spinner and a charm bracelet from a accumulated give-a-way collection. I could not part w rabbit driving car.

Woke up happy, got my coffee to sit outside. Did not know if it was Saturday Sunday as I sat in the unusual quiet. Words has gotten out things are getting serious.

The one break I look forward is also theirs. A walk to the Lake Worth High School for their lunch. Sometimes we are 8 those without a mask, I provided w a kerchief telling them they are part of my possie and must wear them. The volunteers no longer hand the food over but put it on a cart and roll it to us from a fair distance.

On the home front we keep studying.

I’m fielding questions left and right. It’s a tactic. To discuss anything but the topic at hand like Mars our red planet. So like a carrot, I push the fun things farther into the afternoon, as the morning is the most productive. I write a letter and she gets to illustrates it and select the appropriate stamp.

This week we painted a bird-house, still no internet. Then I found my backgammon board folded away, with me some 25 years. No dice no problem yet. So how did we do? Well we each secretly wrote down numbers then shared. We need dice, she is good w numbers and will figure this out.

Not sure if I could remember anything from day to day if I did not keep a visual diary. it’s all the same, day in and out.

Perhaps one of them will want to rent it, her words. Oh there are some funny comments. Finally we got WiFi all on the same day ATT and Comcast showed up within an our of each other. Thanks to our Commissioner Herman Robinson who asked who needs what. So I reached out to his email and told him.

So here we are another week detained at home. I subscribe to You tube “ City of Lake Worth Beach” and it notify me of a post. Behold we are able to witness our government in action. Only about 26 people watched this Thursday and has less than 450 subscribers. On a average post I get close to 700 readers. So now that you all know how and where, I hope all the meetings are available to those who care. Next live broadcast mtg. Will be April 21. And of course there is a window on right side that shows live chats. So comments are visible and there was one that wanted to have Omaris baby OMG immediately brought to mind the infamous George Bernard Shaw’s line LOL. “but suppose the child inherited My Beauty and Your Brains”. Wonder what she was offering as her attribute?

Thought to post this letter on the first, but it’s not a joke. It really is “National Letter Writing Month”. Could self isolation free up a promise of sending that letter, (meant to) and take pen and paper in hand. No more excuses LOL.

At the end, I share a letter from Mark Twain to his electric Co worth reading if your a Lake Worth resident. With a sense of humor.

This Friday I shall miss the camaraderie of the regulars who met each first Friday at the Jaffa Center for Book Arts. Presiding over this creative atmosphere is Lake Worthian John Cutrone, who welcomed all with writing instruments, cards, stationery accompanied w themed music, coffee tea and bites.. Then he delivered our efforts to the post Office for swift delivery.

I’ve been a letter writer most of my life as I moved around the world. So one shore-leave I found myself on Espanola Way, SoBe in one of my favorite art shops. Been a few months since my last visit there, where I’d taken one of their cards and mailed it to friends in Texas’s. The proprietor, Star said “wait a moment” as she went into the back and returned with a letter addressed to me, in care of the shops address*. Believing in serendipity, that was the sign that I belonged here in Paradise. .

A letter or card is a gift. Now with our movements curtailed the trip to the mail box becomes even more meaningful, would it be wrong to say the highlight of our day. . No longer the checks in the mail! Challenge. Write a letter a day to your extended family reach out to old friends

. Write me, I’ll engage in correspondence. P.O. Box 46 Lake Worth Beach, Fl. 33460

Now to Mark Twain’s letter, it starts w Gentlemen

Goes into the faulty placement of street lights “ I suspect it was a piece of carelessness on the part of the workmen” Issue was ongoing. . . . . . . . …..” Don’t mind us—out our way, we possess but one vote apiece, and no rights which you are in any way bound to respect. Please take your electric light and go to—but never mind, it is not for me to suggest, you will probably find the way, and anyway you can reasonably count on Devine assistance if you lose your bearings. S. L. Clemens

One of the most delightful illustrator who’s books I have been collecting. Who also had his correspondence of illustrated letters and accompanying envelopes exhibited some years ago at the Norton Museum. Matisse created his own envelopes. You can too! So decorate your envelopes and cheer someone up.

* regarding mail delivery from Norwegian Cruise line they always forwarded our mail to the ship we were serving on but if we changed ships, lagged a month behind.