January Mishmash

Over the past few weeks I’ve discovered my tolerance for being without human contact is four days. On my fifth day with no one to talk to but my shadow I was royalty tempted to tackle the guy who walks his dog promptly at ten and three every day. He’s really cute. The little terrier, not the man although he’s not bad either. Levi thinks so too. He waits by the window twice a day for the terrier (not the man) to leave him pee-mail. How in the heck do dogs tell time? 

When I have too much time on my hands, my brain goes rogue and starts obsessing about things like why two large box stores---Lowe’s being one of them---don’t carry light bulbs that fit inside my refrigerator. Granted mine is fourteen years old and granted the power company sends me a tree’s worth of paper trying get me to invest in new, energy efficient appliances but I’m not buying that you actually save money. Is phasing out large based light bulbs for appliances part of a vast conspiracy to sell more refrigerators? What happens if you put a bulb that isn’t meant for cold temperatures? And how many times do you have to open up a dark refrigerator before you quit being shocked? I went to the Whirlpool parts website and could find icemakers for $243.82, trim parts, screws, crispers, bins and shelves but no light bulbs. But get this, my local grocery store had both the small base and bigger base refrigerator bulbs. I bought two. If they last as long as that first bulb I’d be over a hundred before I’d need another. Darn, I should take one of them back.

Speaking of New Year’s Eve…well, I wasn’t but the light bulbs reminded of the afternoon of New Year’s Eve when I was at the grocery store stocking up on yarn, light bulbs and party food for one. They had all thirty-one lanes open with long lines backed up behind them all. Call me crazy but I like being there when it’s that busy. The energy is different when people are last minute shopping for holiday and super bowl parties. People talk to each other. People covertly snoop in each other's carts while waiting in the checkout line. People ask questions like, “Have you had that cheese before?” “Will you push my cart forward when the line moves? I forgot to get sliced ham!” Sure, lady, but only if you give me a slice of ham in the parking lot to go along with my cheese.

I’m so accustomed to associating the Tournament of Roses with having a big brunch on New Year’s Day while watching it on TV that I forgot that every seven years it doesn’t happen that way. The parade never run on Sundays. When the parade was going on this year I was getting a haircut. What a bummer that was until I discovered it was re-run later in the afternoon on the Hallmark Channel. Can you believe it, I’ve been watching those parades since 1949 when a friend of my parents bought one of the first televisions on the market---a large, boxy piece of “furniture” with a small, black and white screen. There were twenty-some people crowded around his living room that New Year Day. 

In my younger years it was on my Bucket List to volunteer to work on one of those flower covered floats. A floral industry magazine made it sound easy for floral designers like I was back in the day to get a volunteer position helping the week before the parade. They listed contact information and said they’d even help us arrange for accommodations in private homes. My boss at the time didn’t like the idea of two of his employees being gone at the same time and neither one of us wanted to go alone. Booboo! 

My personal “running of the bulls” took place yesterday. It’s the scramble to get my RSVPs in for the next two months of events at the senior hall. You can’t register before 9:00 AM (If you try it, your RSVPs go to the bottom of the list) and by 9:02 much of ‘good stuff’ are already filled up and you go on a waiting list to see if enough people signed up to add a second bus or date. I’ll probably regret not signing up for an off Broadway musical salute to Motown and a dinner show with a guy impersonating Tom Jones but I’m looking forward to the twelve events I did RSVP to including a trip to our art museum. I’m geeked up about going to the art museum even though I’ll have to sit through a classic black and white movie first. I don’t get that pairing---I’d rather do lunch and the art museum---but I’m grateful the senior hall director works hard to give us so many choices---thirty-one with this newsletter, not counting the book or movie clubs and all the exercise classes. I wish those classes didn’t take place when the terrier go by the house. I close the library door when I go away cutting off Levi’s window to the world and getting his pee-mail is a highlight of his days. How’s that for an excuse for not doing Zumba, Pilates, tai chi or yoga? ©

* Stock photo, not Levi.