24 May 2014: Saturday ... Brunch at the Hayman/Eakin home ... Dancer's doppelganger ... riding bikes with Katia ... 81-year-old pushing a crippled pug ... working together to assemble bike rack ... documentary of wild child & Jill Bolte Taylor (hope and peace)

Dancer & Buddy are the same coloration, exactly, and
seem to mirror one another. Amazing likeness in two dogs at Bob and Alice's brunch and conversation.


Katia got to attend to both Goldens in the passageway
between the kitchen and the sun room of the Hayman/Eakin home.


The wonderful outdoors of the Hayman/Eakin historic home site across from Mt. Pleasant HS, where Caleb will be staring in the baccalaureate program this fall as a freshman.


Bob was smitten, as I knew he would be, with Katia.




Hayman/Eakin/Buddy Family portrait at end of brunch and visit this Saturday, early pm, 24 May 2014.


Katia communes with Buddy before our departure from the Hayman/Eakin household after brunch/visit.


After brunch at the Hayman/Eakin home, we traveled back to Limestone Gardens to feed and converse with mom. Afterward, we drove back to north Wilmington and rode bikes for the evening until time to head back to LG and get dinner and meds for mom. All in all, an enchanting day. 

5 March 2014: Wednesday ... walked the trail (about 2 miles) to the Mill Creek and back ... takeout and Flyers at the Hayman/Eakin home (concern for Bob) ...

22 February 2014: Saturday ... I found Maude Carey or she found me at the Y at the coffee station ("Rudy Nyhoff?") ... dinner at the Farmhouse with Gail tonight ... bowtie bought for annual event starting tomorrow (courtesy Gordon Roth) ...

FROM THE ANNALS OF ADVERSITY: I saw it coming and could do nothing to stop the spillage of many of the pills from mom's 7-day, 4-chamber pill case, all over the floor of my bedroom closet. Oh, the feelings of anger and the words but it was cleaned up easily, especially when the small flashlight, held in my mouth, illuminated corners where a few Vicodin hid, but from this adversity, this pain-in-the-butt accident in the morning led to me finding a nice sweater, something lacking in my wardrobe. From an irritant to a delight, one must see through the anger of the moment and see what light might be revealed by moving forward and taking care of business. 

I was accosted, not really, by a woman, who I did not recognize initially, who queried ... "Rudy Nyhoff?" ... at the coffee/tea station in the main hallway of the Western "Y". When I took a closer look, she said her name, ***MAUDE CAREY***. What a revelation this morning and such a joy. 

She has been married since just after graduation from U of D to another graduate, Buddy Niedzielski (5 years her senior), and they have lived in the same home in Montclare, just behind Dickinson High School, ever since. The have one daughter, Anastasia, who is a 3rd year med student at the University of Michigan. Her husband is recently retired attorney from the Justice Department, a graduate of Widener, before the era of Professor Hayman. Maude is also a law graduate but did not pursue it. She is in the insurance industry.
                        WHAT A JOY TO SEE HER AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!!!!

I hold within me hatreds that can come to the surface and it is so difficult to look within and evaluate oneself honestly. I cannot separate from myself, stand away and look back at my actions and determine whether my path is correct. Judgmental is a state that is common in my being and tonight at dinner I displayed it in earnest. Our dear friend spoke of her experience in Australia in a godforsaken town (Oodnadatta, in the Australian state of South Australia) far out in the Outback with a couple hundred residents, far from civilization. I felt she disrespected the Aborigines by calling them "Abos" (sic). What right did I have to play the role of judge and jury. They say you should stand up to injustice and racism, but what do I know of her true intentions. Why do I have to judge? 

On the drive home it is so easy to say things that are hurtful but at the time of their utterance, feel so right. Why do we have to feel as though we are so in the right that our own declarations salve our needs but pour lemon on the open wound we have created in our loved one. It is passing fast this life of ours and like the African-American woman minister spoke, so eloquently, last Sunday -- compassion is love's companion, it's most critical and vital one. May it be so.