Skip to main content

My One Year Anniversary

I didn't exactly move from Appleton to Milwaukee until August 15, 2019. However, I did stay with a friend here starting on the seventh until I could move into my apartment on the fifteenth. It enabled me for that period of time to begin renewing my friendships in the city. One of those meetings was extremely timely. I got together with Whitney Gould. It would be the last time I would see her. She passed away not long after that lunch we had together.

There was a flurry of coffees, lunches, and breakfast meetings as I touched base with as many people as I could. Then it was time for the Milwaukee Film Festival. I know I wouldn't have attended near as many films if I hadn't been in the city. After that, it was seeing some films that were reprieved for a couple of weeks after the closing of the festivals run.

As the theater season began it's run, my efforts to publish my theater preview column were rewarded. I got the opportunity to write for Urban Milwaukee.com. Not only did a great opportunity to write my column, but I also got a great editor, Bruce Murphey.

The holidays were different in that there was no family to celebrate it with however, I made new friends during the season that made it more than worthwhile. 

Back in August, I became interested in writing a novel about the women in a young man's life and how they may affect him, sometimes without even knowing it. The manuscript 26 Women became my hobby writing, I finished the first draft right after the first of the year.

In addition to writing fiction, I began learning how to pencil sketch by watching a tutorial on YouTube and reading instruction manuals from Pinterest. While I still sketch a lot, I'm putting my toe in the water and starting to learn watercolor. I bypassed the trend of people becoming bread bakers. I already knew how to bake bread, make my own granola, and create refrigerator pickles.

The COVID 19 happened. Like many people my age, the economic effects of this pandemic are minimal. My income from Social Security is coming every month and because of the restraint on socialization, my expenses have gone down. However, loneliness is inescapable. I have a list of people that I call on a regular basis. We mainly just check on each other. News is hard to come by and talking about politics is dismal.

The only news that has been good lately is the birth of my new great-grandson Bodon and the announcement that my granddaughter Micka is pregnant with twins.

The theaters closed meaning my column is in hiatus. My opportunity to become a qualified facilitator for The Zeidler Group was stalled until they began holding their events on Zoom. I'm also Zooming with a film club, political interviews, theatrical readings, and instructional events.

Life has been good. I'm happy my decision to move to Milwaukee has turned out as well as I hoped and offered even more than I expected.


Comments

  1. JudgeTWiggleAugust 12, 2020 at 3:07 PM

    Good to hear that things have worked out so well Jeff. You have a varied and interesting life, keep blowin' the harp. Did I tell you I stayed in an intriguing
    B & B in the birthplace of Charlie Musselwhite on the Blues trail in Mississippi?

    ReplyDelete
  2. JudgeTWiggleAugust 12, 2020 at 3:14 PM

    You may know me as Roger the bassist from the Expansion Band.
    Sorry for any confusion

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ring The Bell

 It appears there is a tradition in the radiology department at Ascension Hospital that patients, upon completing their course of treatment, ring a bell. ( We know not for whom this bell tolls.) Ring the Bell with My Sweetheart Jeanne. Jeanne drove me to all but two of the appointments. Pam Frautchi took me to the other two. Today, after being zapped thirty-two times, I rang the bell. This begins a roughly one-month recovery period where the effects of the radiation abate and, I'm assured, a return to normalcy occurs. In my case, I anticipate more energy and greater awareness. Books, Books, & More Books I am simultaneously celebrating the end of the third year of volunteering for the All Saints Hunger Book Sale. Next week, we will wrap up the preparation for the sale and open our doors on August 3 for the public. I ran into this humourous but quite accurate cartoon on a T-Shirt that shows most of the volunteer's sentiments at this point. If you think the printed and bound p...
Post a Comment
Read more
One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's time again.

It started in 2004 when we moved to our condo off Downer in Milwaukee. Then we mover to the Westside of Milwaukee when we rented from Ken Karr, the former landlord, now a current friend on Highland and 29th St. Then we moved to Mandeville Louisiana for a little less than a year. Returning to The Fox River Valley, we rented a home in Fox Crossing, formerly The Town of Menasha. When the tree fell on the roof, and the landlord felt no urgency to fix it, we moved to W. Commercial in Appleton. Here is a shocker. Are you sitting down? We are moving. No, I don't mean off the couch and out to the patio. There are too many damn mosquitoes for that to happen. No, we are packing our stuff, or at least the stuff we unpacked from the last move and moving to a home Maria purchased on Mason and Glendale in Appleton. Let me unpack that last sentence (pun planned for). We are moving at approximately the end of September to a house. The house has been in t...
1 comment
Read more