Routines Past and Present and Scary Dogs

I’m a creature of habit and predictable patterns. I was going to say like no other, but that wouldn’t be true. Birds fly south every fall and come back in the spring. Bees and ants rest in eight hour cycles. Bears hibernate. Every species on earth has its breeding seasons and its sleep times. The sun rises every morning and sets every night and aren’t we happy about that. At least it does for those of us who live in certain regions on the earth. People who live at the top of the earth, however, where they get very little sunshine, how do they know when it’s time to sleep? Here in Michigan we just have a short twilight before darkness falls. In the Arctic Circle it’s completely dark from mid-November to the end of January. The rest of the time they have, according to sciencing.com, one of three kinds of twilight that last 24/7---Civil Twilight, Nautical Twilight and Astronomical Twilight if you want to look them up. And,  boy, did I ever get off track to what I wanted to write about which is the routine I’m settling into here in my new community. 

 

I’m almost as routine-ridge as my mom was when I was growing up when we did the laundry on Monday, ironed on Tuesday, cleaned on Wednesdays, ate left-overs on Fridays and grocery shopped on Saturdays. We only had one car so if my mom had errands to run mid-week on Thursdays she had to take my dad to work early in the after afternoon and pick him back up after midnight. During her menopause years her doctor told her to get a job to help with the symptoms she was experiencing. Ya, like we all know, now, that that was voodoo medicine he was practicing. But she did it and and that meant she had to take my dad back and forth to work every day that she worked. His factory was in a bad part of town so she went down to the humane society and got a big black dog that hated men. 

 

Jody was a purebred, Belgian Shepherd that had been badly abused and it took my dad months before he could be in the same room with that dog. Jody was loyal and protective of my mom and me but she never did learn to fully trust men. She was the perfect dog for woman to have in a car at midnight or to protect your teenager daughter when her older brother had his friends over when our parents weren't home. It only took one boy to try to kiss me and get bit for his efforts for the rest of his friends to see the error in getting in the personal space of “Little Rat.” My brother wore his nickname of “Rat” proudly and at the time I didn’t question how he got it and now that I'd like to know that back story its probably lost forever. But I'll bet my brother still remembers how our driveway was often filled with boys working on cars. The TV series Happy Days could have easily based a few episodes on their banner. Those were fun days, but I digress. Again.

 

Sundays here has evolved in being my housework and laundry days and often I don't-get-dressed because I avoid the campus restaurant and the after church crowd that gathers in the public area with their families and/or off-campus friends. This place has settled into a pattern of having the exercise classes mostly in the morning slots which keeps me from dropping into them. Four-five afternoons a week they have lecturers, entertainment or podcasts on the schedule. We've even had two bus trips to the art museum with another planned to a lavender farm. Every afternoon and evening of the week including Sundays they have something going on in the game room but all my good intentions to take part hasn’t happened yet. The crafting-for-charity get-togethers are usually in the mornings too but I do make an effort to go...it's only on the schedule maybe once a month? And I haven't missed a monthly book club meeting yet.

 

Once a day I eat at the cafe`and once a week I eat in fine dining restaurant, both to get my fix of socializing which usually takes two hours if the mix of people there is to my liking, which is most of the time. If not, I could be in and out with a take-out box as an option. I’ve taken to writing in the mornings like I used to do before the move but the afternoons that I visualized myself painting or quilting hasn't happened yet and somethings got to give for me to correct that...write less, go to less afternoon events and I don't really want to cut either one. Like yesterday afternoon we' had a live demonstration of playing steel drums. (I'll write about that later.)  Throw in a few outside appointments and shopping and the week disappears quickly. My evenings are my treadmill, reading, jigsaw puzzle and my Netflix times. I've never liked crafting after dark.

 

Oh, and it should be noted that I’m trying to ease back into watching the Sunday news shows again and at least a hlaf hour of news every day. But doing so feels like I'm living in a loop, like in the movie Groundhog Day. Everything’s changed, but nothing has changed if that makes any sense. The Pandemic, Trump, supply chain shortages and scary people trying to destroy Democracy here and around the world. Banning a book from high school libraries about the Holocaust because it has a photo of naked lady standing in a gas chamber? Where was the outrage over Mrs. Trump’s girl-on-girl naked photos? As you can see I’m not yet sufficiently decompressed from the long break I've been on from my previous addiction to watching (way too much) news. It still has the power to raise my blood pressure. But its still our civic duty to stay informed, so I'm trying again... Besides being informed before elections get here, what happens in the world could become a question on the dementia test and who wants to fail that life changing quiz.

One of my routines is to stop writing when I hit my 1,000 word quota and I’m 85 words over now so I’m putting a period on this post right here. ©

 

Photo: The dog above was our second Belgian Shepherd, Cindy, but she and Jody looked identical. Both of these dogs and my mom were inseparable. Cindy, however had a sweet personality that could be trusted completely not to bite. My mom could tell that dog to go get the grandkids who were playing down the road and that dog would herd them just like they were a flock of sheep, usually the youngest, my nephew would be crying because that dog wouldn't let him go anywhere but back towards our cottage. The girls were older and understood and didn't seem to mind having a dog come get them when grandma called.