For the last few years, I've had The King of Rock 'n' Roll marking special occasions.
The physicist had given me the post-its for Christmas - perhaps it was 2017? 2018? - and they had seemed perfect for helping me remember birthdays and anniversaries.
The pink ones would be for birthdays of girls and women, the blue for birthdays of boys and men, in accordance with the color-coding habit begun by the French in the late 1800's.
Anniversaries were marked with the tan strips (though I would have used purple if the stickers had given me that choice, even though some of the couples are both women... which, I guess, could have been denoted with the pink, n'est-ce pas?).
The black strips I reserved for those no longer restricted to planet Earth.
For reasons that escape me now, I only used the black markers for family and friends that have died in the past twenty years.
That means Grandma, Grandpa, Great-Uncle Sam, and a few others were not included.
Even with those restrictions, I had eleven reminders of those I loved who were gone.
Eleven.
As it happened, those were topped by the most somber Elvis, standing and strumming his guitar; all the others featured him in a dance pose.
Each of the past few years since I first received these post-its, I've transferred the strips to the new calendar, updating ages as I did so.
Not so anymore.
While going through the armoire that serves as my china hutch, I stumbled upon mementos of university events, each with a post-it notes in five colors to help us stay organized for a new school year.
One of the booklets of sticky notes read "Armstrong Atlantic State University"; another reflected the name change to "Armstrong State University"; and the third was a bit more informal, reading "Armstrong Alumni".
That just means I've had these languishing in a dark cabinet for years.
No more!
The pink and the blue denote the same as before for family birthdays, though with the addition of the use of yellow for birthdays of friends.
Anniversaries are now shown on the green tabs.
And the purple?
Those now mark the birthdays of those I love who have died.
Ronnie's death has added one more of those.
That means I now have an even dozen.
Still, after two years of pandemic, I count myself fortunate to not have more.
I'm glad I thought to bring this task along on my holiday.
It's given me a good opportunity to take my time putting together this new calendar.
Tomorrow, MOAS will be open and most of the revelers will be gone -
hallelujah on both counts!
(smile!)
1 comment:
I also called Smitty and Tony and wished them a happy new year, making sure they remembered I was away. Smitty and Mary were at a friend's house and Tony was watching football, so all was well with them!
I called Willie, too, up in o-HI-o, and we talked about twenty minutes, but on Gloria's phone. Willie's cell phone was dead, as he doesn't remember to charge it. I think he will eventually need a land line, as he is absolutely not getting the whole cell phone thing.
Hey, he's 83, okay?
I also texted with my first niece, the physicist, and the Peace Guy Rogue up in the ATL.
Had I mentioned that he had COVID? Well, he did, but he's vaccinated and boosted, so it was mild and he was never in need of the ICU.
Princeton never caught it from him, so that's wonderful!
Stay safe, dear ones.
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