Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “company.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

We don’t have company often, especially since covid, and I embraced my inner introvert. Who am I kidding. I didn’t have company much before that, though I did enjoy the occasional visit with good friends and have thrown a couple parties in my lifetime. It’s easier for me if there is a specific purpose, like singing or working on a project, not just random, vague socializing.

Dogs are the best company. They socialize by playing ball or getting a belly rub.

I’m thinking about having an afternoon party for my 70th birthday in December. Singing will be a focus. Maybe some Christmas carols and old hippie peace songs. One of the best parties I ever had was over 20 years ago when friends took different parts singing the 12 Days of Christmas in my living room.

Last weekend, David and I went to the annual fundraising dinner for the no kill animal shelter where I volunteer. I participated in the silent and online auction and got this framed print:

We had talked in advance about not staying for the live auction. Last year it was too much noise, and we didn’t want to be out that late. So, we sat at a table near the exit for an easy escape. There was only one other couple sitting at the table – the woman is an artist who donated some artwork for the auction (so did I!)

Did I share the art I donated for the online and silent auction? Here it is:

I painted this specifically for the shelter fundraiser and got it professionally framed in silver. I don’t know what it went for. Doesn’t matter. Someone got it. I hope they love it.

Anyway, I enjoyed talking with this sweet young couple (younger than us and with kids at home) who were very much in love and also loved dogs. I found out the woman had once lived in Pilot Mountain like me. Now they have a small farm. I kept meaning to ask her where she had lived in Pilot but kept getting distracted. Finally, as we were getting ready to leave, I asked her. She said she had lived on the same highway that is now our address. Then she said she and her Ex-husband had remodeled a blue mobile home on a lot that is now overgrown.

“Was there was a reddish-brown house and a barn next door?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said with curiosity.

“That’s my house!”

She had lived right next door to where I live now!

I’d been wondering why the place had been abandoned since before we moved here a year and a half ago and wished someone would clean up the mess around the RV I see every time I walk Marley on that side of the property. The young woman told me she and her EX lived in the RV while they remodeled the mobile home. We told her we might be interested in buying the property if the price was right (especially if there is a mountain view.) She said she could see the mountain if she walked out to the pasture and that she’ll let her EX know implying it would be good for him to sell it. She told us about the original couple who owned our property and the woman, Evette, who was from Peru and planted all the wonderful flowers and herbs here. I’ve been wanting to know more about her. I’d heard she used to sell herbs at the farmer’s market.

It’s interesting that we just happened to sit at the same table as this young woman who used to live next door. Sometimes social events are worth the effort.

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The gallery relates to the marigold seed I planted in late summer near a daisy plant that had been slow to bloom from a pot. The marigold plant got really big but didn’t seem to want to bloom. Maybe it needed more sun, but they can dry out with too much sun. Just in the past month it developed an abundance of buds and is finally blooming as we approach frosty temperatures. Plus, there was a Halloween caterpillar that seemed lost, so I put it in a patch of weeds near a tree after the photo.

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