Hello Dear Cyber Diary! And my precious 4 blog readers! Happy Friday!!

You know that I'm in a book club (I'm the "Dear God, I hope this book is on CD" member most of the time, but they all roll their eyes and put up with me anyways). This summer one of our most loyal members, a sweet little widow lady, had to have heart surgery. It didn't go well. She has been in an assisted living facility for nearly 3 months now fighting infections and who knows what else. It's been rough.

So I told my girlfriends that I'd design a card for her so we could all sign it and go visit her next week.

I took this image back in May. I was driving home from a Navy wives club function, where I was asked to photograph a group of women who have been meeting since the 1960's out in the Mt. Vernon area. I was trying to get out of the neighborhood and was suddenly dumbstruck and had to pull over. Fast! 

There was a house that had a bamboo grove growing all around its back and side yard. I'm not kidding. (OK--This is not a sight you usually see around here in Northern Virginia. At all! In Japan, yes. We saw it all the time. But here? Nope). I screeched to a halt, jumped out of my car with my camera and for the next 8.5 minutes had a wonderful time trespassing in some strangers yard. I was joyous! And the fact that (1) no one called the cops and (2) no one came out of the house to chew my ass and (3) they didn't own a pit bull gave me more reason to celebrate!  {{{High Five!}}}

I just had to show you the bamboo forest growing right here in a suburban neighborhood. I could't get back there if I tried; my GPS took me in circles until I got out to the main roads again.

I love bamboo. I love the idea that something seemingly so fragile is stronger than an oak tree. It reminds me to ~ as I wrote above in the frame ~ to be flexible, yet firm. Delicate, yet strong. And I must say, out of those 4 words, I barely have any of them under my belt. But I'm trying. The top part of the quote is Bruce Lee, the latter is from some articles I have on Bamboo, but I credited him anyway. How else would I have completed the darned card? 

Do you know that during the bombing in Hiroshima only the top 2 layers of the bamboo plants were damaged and that it was the first plant to regenerate itself and sprout new plants afterwards? Even in the contaminated soil. 

Why am I blogging about bamboo anyway? I guess I thought that maybe my little baby bamboo shoot might cheer my friend up and help to make her feel a little bit stronger in this storm that she's living right now. Or maybe she just likes the color green, which in that case she'll be overjoyed. Mainly, we just want to make sure she knows we're thinking about her.

By the way, here is the photograph I took of the lovely (and boisterous!) Navy Wives group from Mt. Vernon. I loved spending the morning with them ~ they fed me great food and a chocolately, ooey, gooey dessert, naturally they are all my new best friends now and they will never be able to get rid of me. Half of them are widows now and as I listened to their stories of all of the places they traveled in their active duty Navy years and about all of their grown children, their grand children and some of their husbands' deaths, I saw what a strong support system they are to one another. I was reminded over and over how lucky I am to be here in the Washington, D.C. area, surrounded by all of the wonderful Military wives that I know and love and how in the end it's your girlfriends that get you through your day.

I'm a very lucky girl and I never take that for granted   ♥