Back in the Olden, Olden Days, when I was a teenager, in Waco, we had three television stations. At some point, we got a big, tall antenna at our house, and were able to get a couple of the Dallas stations, and it seemed great! But, nothing, at all, compared to these modern times, when scores and scores of television stations are available. Twenty-four/seven.

It didn’t seem so awful to us, and, as a teenager, I wasn’t watching television ‘way into the night, on school nights, anyway. And, even on the weekend, there just wasn’t much to watch. And that was challenging, because when it came to baby-sitting on weekends, the little kids would go to bed reasonably early, and then, after the news, there might be old movies.

I haven’t done research on this, but I suspect that older women, like myself, have those memories of watching old movies. And, it seemed as though, when we were baby-sitting, and looking for a movie to watch, it often turned out to be one that we’d already seen.

Several years ago, Jeremy and I were traveling back home to Waco after being at a conference center in North Carolina for three weeks. We stopped for lunch, and, a large, cold, soft drink got spilled into my lap while we were eating. (No need to mention how that happened.) It wasn’t a disaster, and we traveled on. We’d planned to stop to spend the night somewhere in Mississippi, I think. As we started looking for a place to stay, we saw a hotel that boasted laundry rooms. Done. We got some fast food and checked in.

I’d packed up all my clothes and Jeremy’s clothes in suitcases that I hadn’t planned to bring into the hotel, just a small tote with overnight stuff. In our room, I changed into my nightgown and sent Jeremy with my cola clothing and some quarters to the laundry room just across from our room. Then, we began to settle in to have our dinner and watch some television. I ran through several channels and then stopped. I recognized the opening credits of a movie.

“Oh, Jeremy,” I said. “This is a great movie! And,” I went on,”it’s Auntie’s babysitting movie!”

And Jeremy said, “Huh?”

When we were teenagers, and would be babysitting, we’d watch old movies after the kids had gone to bed. And, so very often, it would be the same movie that we’d watched last time we babysat. (I’m not trying to explain how it happened, just that it did happen.) And, parents often came home before the movie was over, so it might take weeks or months before we’d actually seen the entire movie. At one house, we might see the end of the movie. At the next house, we might see the end of the evening news and then the beginning of the familiar movie. It might take many babysitting evenings before we’d seen all the parts of our movie.

My sister’s babysitting movie was Mister Roberts. And I didn’t even ask Jeremy if he was okay with watching this movie. I just said, “It’s a wonderful movie. You’ll like it.” And it seemed like he did. Really, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney, and Jack Lemon, who won an Academy Award for his part.

My sister’s best friend’s babysitting movie was Black Orpheus, set in Rio during Carnival. It’s a retelling of the story of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is visually very dark (as I remember it, because I also saw, at least parts, of the movie). And, the story’s pretty dark, too.

And, my babysitting movie . . .

I sat down this afternoon and looked at the TV listings. Hmmmm. Anything I’d like to see this evening? And, oh, yes, there it was, on the Turner Classic Movies site. An Affair to Remember. I cannot tell you how many parts of that movie I saw over the years of babysitting. Up until a few years ago, I had never seen the opening credits of the movie, and, at that time, I actually watched the entire movie, start to finish, right until . . . well, I won’t spoil anything. You might want to visit some old movie site, or go to your local library and see if they have a copy of the video. Or, maybe you’ll just reminisce about other touching experiences you had as a teenager.

Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you use nothing but stories when you speak to the people?” I use stories when I speak to them because when they look, they cannot see, and when they listen, they cannot hear or understand.

Movies are fun and interesting and emotional, but I am grateful that, when I need encouragement or guidance or discernment, there’s a place I can go that’s a little more concrete than a movie theater.

I used to have music going in the house, years ago, as I did housework or sewed or cooked. Or, I could have music from a radio station on. Or, (do I have to explain this?) records or cassette tapes playing. At some point, I switched to audiobooks. If I was going to be travelling, and driving in my own car, by myself, I’d go to the library and get sets of cassette tapes of recorded books. I’d always take some music tapes, too, because I might get drowsy and need to put that music in so I could sing, loudly, in the car, to keep myself from falling asleep. (And I just can’t depend on stations providing music that I know the words to.) Maybe that’s how the seeds were sown that makes my ears and mind think that I need something filtering into my ears, much, some, or more of the time.

One of my primary activities these days is working in the yard. I listen to podcasts on my phone quite a bit. The problem with podcasts is that they range from 30 minutes to an hour, which means I have to stop, take off my dirty gardening gloves, dig my phone from my overalls pockets, and decide which podcast I’d like to hear next. And I’m usually searching for those that are lengthy, so I don’t have to stop so often.

This is a podcast I’ve been listening to for a while. Some episodes are longer. This one was pretty short. It’s really interesting, as people learn untold, hidden, deeply hidden facts and stories about their families, such as “I always wondered why everyone in my family was dark-haired, and I was blonde.” Some episodes are longer. This one was was pretty short.

I like to listen to audiobooks in the car, even if I’m not going to be driving for days and days. Sometimes it does take a few minutes of listening (or going back a bit) to recall what’s been happening in the story, especially if I haven’t been in the car for a couple of days. I’m just on disc 1 of this book. And, since I’m not listening continuously, I have to think hard to remember who is who. Who’s the old boyfriend? Who’s the new boyfriend? And who killed that other guy? And why did he kill the other guy? Or was it the girl? It can be a problem. And, on one or two occasions, I’ve actually checked out the print version of the book, to try to figure out what actually happened in the middle of the story.

There are some drawbacks.

One of my favorite ways to listen to a book is a Playaway. Books come in this orange container, and the Playaway contains an entire book. The library checks the Playaways to patrons, and we provide an AAA battery and earbuds. And, no matter how lengthy the book is, it’s entirely contained in that cassette-sized Playaway.

That means I can go outside for a whole day, and never have to stop listening.

The first Playaway I ever listened to was Twelve Years a Slave, (a true story). I’ve also listened to Like Water for Elephants and The Zookeepers Wife, (also a true story, and the whole time I was listening to that book, I’d never realized that it was a true story, until an epilogue contained the facts). Unfortunately, a limited number of Playaways have been produced. Or, maybe it’s just that our library has a limited number of them. I think they’re more expensive than the books themselves, and maybe the budget for them is limited. Too bad, they’re perfect for folks who don’t want to stop every hour or so to locate a new podcast.

And, of course, I still read actual paper pages of real books.Here are the books (I think all of them) that I’m reading right now. I’m behind on reading the fiction Pulitzers. For a few years, I was diligent about it. I even read The Road.  Some were more interesting than others. Some were much less interesting. Re: The Road. I have a couple more to read to be caught up. This present stack of books is larger than it should be because I got a Bas Bleu catalog. They have gift items and lots of books. I read through the whole catalog and made a list of books that I thought might be interesting. Then, I checked the library to see if any of those books were there. Three of them were available, and I put them on hold and now they’re at my house. And, none of them were audiobooks, so, I’m going to have to sit down and actually hold them in my hands and read them.

Not that that’s so horrible.

This is a new book in my library. A church friend mentioned it on Facebook, and I thought it sounded interesting, so I went to my first go-to place for locating interesting books: the library. And, of course, they had it. I checked it out and read several pages, and it very much seemed like a book I wanted to own. I bought copies for me and my sister, and now I’ve thought of a few other folks that might like it, too.

The blurb on the front of the book says: “If you, like me, long for a devotional that is sharpening, witty, and downright real, well then, you must simply read this book.”

The weather has been SO nice. Rain has fallen for the past couple of weeks, so much so, that we’ve had small lakes, many days, at the back of our yard. And, with the rainfall, the crepe myrtle tree has dropped so many of its tiny white flowers that it looks like it’s been snowing.

Last Tuesday morning, it didn’t just rain. It poured. And poured and poured. David stood at the open garage door for quite some time, waiting for a break so he could easily get going to work. Then, as suddenly as it began, the rain let up, and the day was beautiful. Crisp and clear, the clouds drifted away, and I spent quite some time picking up all the small limbs that had been pounded down onto the lawn, after they’d been broken off in months past and been left suspended up in the high branches.

Thursday, for the first time in several days, I’ve been able to walk around in the back part of our yard, which is all dirt. For several days, it’s been much too wet to walk around back there. (There’s no grass growing there because of that big crepe myrtle tree on one side of the yard and the very old, large pecan tree on the other side, which create much too much shade for grass to thrive.)

But it’s quite clear, now, that the good times are over. Summer’s come crashing in. The first week of June, the temperatures ran from 77 to 85. Then, the 90’s happened. The 100’s can’t be all that far away, either. And it will most likely be that way until, oh, October.

So, Tuesday it rained, hard. Thursday, I had some indoor things to do, and didn’t go outside in the back until late in the afternoon. And, look, my plants were all droopy, and, I’m sure, wondering where the nice lady with the garden hose has gone.

EEK! Back to the normal plant care of watering all the patio plants and the front porch plants, every day, to try to keep them alive.

I’ve been trimming lots of thyme plants, to clean and dry the leaves for my sister.

I’m trying to land in the “good” and “right” categories.