These Are A Few of Our Favorite Things

For Valentine’s week, we thought it would be fun to reflect upon a few of our favorite things. We hope you enjoy this week’s Meeting of the Mayhem Minds, and that you can celebrate Valentine’s Day immersed in and enjoying a few of your favorite things. Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting. We love hearing from you.

Places for the Heart
By JoAnne Young

Years ago, my husband gave me a lighted paper heart, framed in three dimensions and decorated with
white splatters and smiling suns, bought at a long-gone head shop in downtown Lincoln. It’s been a prominent fixture in our living room for decades, kindling my love of anything heart shaped.

 I see no fewer than nine hearts today in this room – a copper heart ornament, a metal wind-blown heart enhanced with a crescent moon, a small heart-shaped wooden box with a tiny silver heart inside. I love them all, but the heart light is my favorite.

 My love of hearts carries over from art and décor to nature. The ultimate natural heart is our own, the original shape of love and utility that sustains us. I was privileged in 1988 to watch a team of surgeons and nurses at Bryan Memorial Hospital transplant a heart into a Nebraska man and then bring his story to Lincoln Star readers. I won’t forget peering into his chest after doctors had removed a more imperfect heart, before slipping in a stronger, healthier one. That place in our chests is a most beautiful fist-sized container of shiny white and red tissue, a jewel box for our heart.

 On a walk on a favorite Florida beach in December, I came across a red heart shape buried partially in the sand. I dug it out and learned it was a sea heart, a seed pod from a liana vine that grows in Central America and Caribbean islands. They can travel long distances, bobbing on the ocean surface. A true gift that endured who knows what mayhem to end up in the hands of a truly grateful heart lover.

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Roundabouts
by Marilyn Moore

Roundabouts….I love them.  I’ll go out of my way to drive a street with a roundabout.  Not everyone agrees with me.  My friend Barbara Jo will go out of her way to avoid a street with a roundabout.  That’s okay…each to her own.  But I love them.

Lincoln’s first roundabout, built more than 20 years ago, is at 33^rd and Sheridan.  Just like the city traffic engineers predicted, the number of accidents decreased, and the dollar value of damage when an accident did occur decreased, also.  That’s because people have to drive more slowly, and since there’s no yellow light changing to red, there’s no incentive to speed up to beat the light.  So, they work. That’s a reason to like them.  And yes, I like the natural landscaping and works of art in the center of many of them…and I know there are those who don’t.  Each to her own….

Now there are dozens in the city, from big ones (think 14^th and Superior) to little ones, like those in neighborhoods such as at the intersection of 11^th and D.  Our roundabouts don’t hold a candle to the really big ones, like those in London, where six (!) lanes of traffic maneuver a roundabout.  We’re good here managing two lanes.

Fewer traffic lights, fewer stop signs, and safer intersections….I just like them.  It seems to me that drivers are more careful, they watch out for other drivers, there’s collaboration and just a moment of community as we yield to one another.  A good metaphor for how we might live with one another in ways other than behind the wheel. 

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Zen and a Paper Mate Flair …
by Mary Kay Roth

I love lists.  Lists of groceries, errands, good books, potential gifts, dream destinations.

But perhaps the true secret weapon for writing a perfect list … one of my very favorite things … is the perfect blend of paper and pen.

For me, that’s a Docket Gold legal pad and a Paper Mate Flair Felt Tip Pen (medium point, never thin tip – and, god forbid, never scented).

I’m crazy weird about this combo.

Admittedly these days I use my laptop for most of my major writing projects.  But when it comes to doodling, scribbling random notes, personal writing and, yes, making lists, I want the real deal. 

I want paper and pen. 

And I’m downright obsessive about the right ones. I want a pen that feels just right in my hand. I want smear-resistant ink that won’t bleed through the page. I want paper that absorbs the ink, effortlessly.

I’ve tested out countless legal pads in my life.  For some mysterious reason I landed on a Docket Gold. 

But I didn’t need to test out pens, because I loved the Paper Mate Flair the very first moment I held it.  With a classic 60’s vibe, this writing instrument is a thing of beauty – meditative – serene – zen-like.

When I buy yet another box of them, my kids shake their heads wondering why I need more – as there are piles of Flair pens scattered around my house.  But come on, you never know when they will discontinue your favorite color.

Because, yep, I’m just as quirky about the hue.  Black and red are forbidden, they are boring. Lime greens and neons are hard to read.  But when I pick up a mocha, scuba-blue, cranberry, magenta – be still my beating heart.

So, if you want to make me happy, if you want to be my Valentine, forget raindrops on roses. Just give me a Flair pen.

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Making Rolls
By Mary Reiman

I love making rolls. I love the process as much as the product. Maybe more. 

The recipe was given to me long ago, in my first year of teaching. It was a perfect Saturday activity because it includes a beginning and an end, with a final product. In teaching, we finish a semester, or a year, and send students on their way, often wondering how they are doing, or where they have landed in life. In baking, I see the result of my work. 

There is no mixer or bread machine involved in this recipe. I use my hands to get the right consistency before punching the dough (OK...maybe there’s a bit of aggression alleviated at that point). The stickier the dough, the better. Watching it rise, getting out the rolling pin, cutting and shaping, and then brushing with butter (because everything really is better with butter). There’s nothing quite like the aroma of freshly baked bread wafting through the house. 

As important as the baking, is sharing with others. Packaging them and rushing off to deliver while they are still warm. It’s my way of letting friends know they are important to me. 

Sharing the love and joy of something made by the hand, and from the heart.

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Riding in Cars with Dogs
by Penny Costello

Boone

I am blessed to live with two sweet, silly, and scrappy dogs named Boone and Idgy. When we go for rides in the car, Idgy likes to stand with her hind legs in my lap as I’m driving and hang her head and front legs out the window, looking down the street, ears flapping in the wind. She also really loves to roll the windows down. Boone likes to sit in the back seat on the driver’s side, and he appreciates it when Idgy opens his window so he can hang his head out, too.

My favorite thing about car rides with my dogs is seeing other drivers’ reactions when we pull up beside them at stop lights. Invariably they smile at the dogs, and conversations ensue.

Idgy

Often I hear “Oh, your dog is so cute!” when they see Idgy hanging out, smiling at them. I respond with a smile, “She knows.”

She has this way of looking at these folks with what looks to me like anticipation, as if she’d like to say, “How cute do YOU think I am?” When the light turns green after those encounters, as we continue down the street, I praise her and tell her she’s doing a public service putting smiles on peoples’ faces and making their day a little brighter. And it makes my day brighter when I have those sweet exchanges with complete strangers at traffic lights.

The same thing happens when we go to restaurants for curbside pick-ups. They brighten the days of wait staff who come to the car with our food, as well as drive-through bank tellers, pharmacists, and baristas at coffee shops. Boone and Idgy LOVE drive-throughs, because they very often score a dog treat of some kind. And it does my heart so much good to see peoples’ faces light up and know we provided a moment of brightness in the midst of their daily routine.

Boone and Idgy are not certified service animals, but in their own wonderful ways, they’re providing a service just the same. And I’m blessed to be their delivery driver.

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