Mrs. Teabody Greets the Day

"You can't help getting older but you don't have to get old." Jeannie  celebrating her 95th birthday with family. On Tuesday I looked up from my weekly cleaning at TYF to see the engaging smile of a young man I hadn't seen in easily thirty years. Nonetheless, I knew him and instantly felt the old rapport. We passed a couple hours  catching  up and drinking tea and inevitably our talk turned to travel. That's what happens when you tete-a-tete with a fellow tumbleweed. Later in the evening I tossed a couple items in my "Ireland suitcase" and that started me thinking about journeys past and in the offing, about  meticulous planning, about wanting to put one's best foot forward, about learning, about intelligence and wit and about style.  I thought of Jeannie Greathead Hutchinson. Jeannie looking chic while eating chocolate ice cream outside her cabin on a Bahamas cruise. In 2014 the Teabodys took a little cruise in the Bahamas w...

I Our last happy time together, August 2016   I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. - Tennyson Perspective alters everything. Stand far enough away from a building and many of its imperfections vanish. Stand far enough away from your own personal history and those years between ages 18 and 29,  when all the world was new, seem almost the stuff of dreams, especially when filtered through the sieve of nostalgia. Such is the case this morning as I look back over the years in order to capture the essence of a friendship. “What do you say about a beautiful girl who died . . .” is the phrase which begins the 1970 novel by Erich Segal called LOVE STORY. That question kept insinuating itself into my waking hours following the fateful call from a voice from the past. "Hello? Is this H? Maybe you don't remember me, but this is Laren. . ." I on...

Chez Teabody is a very warm and aromatic place on this rainy February day  because there is a big pot of soup on the stove. The soup was an end product of a troubled sleep night and I shall share with you how that came about. Anyone who so much as dabbles in philosophy has read about the importance of mindfulness . It is no new idea that mindfulness means being totally present in each moment. This requires us to be fully absorbed in the moment, leaving no room for anything else. When we are mindful, we are filled with the momentary happening, whether that may be standing or sitting or lying down, being comfortable or uncomfortable, feeling pleasant or unpleasant. Whichever it may be, it is a non-judgmental awareness, "knowing only," without evaluation. These are not easy times for many of us. Great shifts take place daily and it is easy to be buffeted by these shifts, so much so that we live in a perpetual state of anxiety. Those of us who have lived a few decades k...

January Hell Which maddened me more I cannot say The last button falling off my winter coat Or seeing the flattened tire at the start of my day As the winds blew hard and deadened my hope. At least I’d arrived at the office on time Hung my buttonless wrap on a corner tree My appointment was next, no waiting in line “Good Morning,” she said, “and please follow me.” “How did you manage to gain half a stone*?” Asked the querulous voice barely hiding her scorn. “The election,” I said in my pettiest tone; “My heartbeat’s erratic and riddled with thorn.” She penned my response on my chart in her hand And left me to stew in a small, airless room. I disrobed and donned the garb on the stand Sat down to consider my impending doom: Would the clog in my throat spell my untimely end? Was the spot on my cheek from some fatal cause? That cyst on my hand that just wouldn’t mend? That breathless anxiety that gave me such pause? He briskly arrived with my cha...

Christmas tree teeming with ornaments or·na·ment : a thing used to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose: Synonyms: knickknack, trinket, bauble, bibelot, gewgaw, gimcrack, furbelow . Call it (them) what you will, Mrs. Teabody loves oranments, ornamentation and perhaps you do, too, Gentle Reader? The Monday after Thanksgiving was not one of those blissfully harmonious days during which Mrs. Teabody puttered around engaging in frivolous tasks such as Christmas card writing or Christmas present wrapping or poinsettia fluffing. On this particular Monday, Mrs. Teabody had a serious “to do” list which meant that Mr. Teabody could NOT be left to his own devices in the depths of the house to engage in whatever he does “down there” with his stockpile of no fewer than a hundred wrenches, a trio of band saws, many, many large pieces of machines with heavy electrical cords, wheels, car parts. . . No. Christmas draws on apace and while the front entra...

Good Morning on this chilly Thanksgiving morning 2016, and I hope you started your day by sending up a Thanks to the Heaven who hears you for this day, this food-filled, family-enhanced, traveling-optional celebration of  gratitude. If you slept in a bed with a roof over your head, stopped by indoor facilities as your first stop of the day, and are now finding your way to your computer and your link to the interwebs, you already have PLENTY to be grateful for, don't you?  If you did not send up a Thank You when your eyes opened, do so now. Mrs. Teabody can wait. How will you commemorate this day of Thanksgiving, Gentle Reader? Mr. and Mrs. Teabody will be hosting family who always make all the work lighter and the food better by sharing in the preparation. The first course  will be served an hour ahead of the main event.  This will be some delicious soup made by the culinary genius team of Ross and Elaine from Orrtanna with side nibbles of healthy munchies broug...

“Going on pilgramage without change of heart brings no reward from God. For it is by practicing virtue and not mere motion of the feet that we will be brought to Heaven.” The Book of Lismore Cloister at Ballintubber Abbey Many, many decades ago, Mrs. Teabody sat in one of her upper level college English classes called “Chaucer: Poet and Philosopher.” Great, enduring literature has lost much of its charm for nascent scholars in the twenty-first century, of course, as it can be challenging and opaque. Recent interviews with potential high school English teachers reveal that this current crop “don’t like” Shakespeare or find Chaucer “boring.” In the 1960’s, however, folks still thought of college as a means to learning as much as possible about the world through its history and letters. A college education was not merely some sort of enforced residency and financial exchange for a few letters to place after one’s name on a job resume. Or maybe Mrs. Teabody is just ticked off that sh...