Swans, Margaritas and Mother’s Day

It wasn’t exactly a beautiful spring day but the temperature was in the 62 degrees range and I’d waited long enough. I was going to walk around to the lake side of the building to see the baby swans. Lunch chatter from the people who’d paid $10,000 more for their units with window views of the lake and an additional $300 more per month in service fees were raving about the little gobs of gray feathers gliding along side the turtles sunbathing on a log near-by. Someone said I’d better hurry to see them before the turtles snatch the babies up for dinner. I knew snapping turtles could do that but while the turtles I saw that afternoon were big enough to drown a baby swan like a swamp alligator does with its pry, the sun worshiping turtles I saw were box turtles. I’m surprised I remembered the difference. I guess spending all my summers on a lake growing up gave me a few useful tidbits of information, like never lick the baby turtles we caught unless you wanted to get salmonella poisoning and spend the night in the outhouse with the spiders.

I sat on a bench by the lake for 10-15 minutes listening to the birds. That’s another thing the lake side people get for their money. Birds singing. Birds calling. Birds fishing. Ducks waddling on land. But the tin dog is doing a good job of chasing the Canadian Geese off the 20+ feet of land between the pedestrian path and the lake. On my side of the building we get to see and hear the Fed-X, Amazon and the US postal trucks coming and going and the only birds I’ve seen from my apartment is a pair of geese who seem to think they are night owls. They strut around in the middle of the night, honking and waking up the light sleepers. The parking lot lights are so strong they probably think it’s still the middle of the day. I get fooled by those lights all the time. I’ll get up to pee in the middle of the night, see the sliver of bright light coming in at the top of my black-out shades and think it’s the sun so I’ll wander out to the living room and see the geese outside acting like they're king and queen of the place.

Some of the rich people on the other side of the building complain about the real sun being so bright in the morning that they can’t sleep in. Others say the birds wake them up and they all fear that mosquitoes are coming. Am I sympathetic? Not in the least. But to keep my jealousy at bay I do remind myself that I was the twenty-forth person to sign up to live here. I could have picked an apartment across the hall if it hadn’t been for the fact I played it safe money-wise and I told myself that not having a good view would give me incentive to walk more. But the walking around the building part hasn’t happen most of the time because I found out I can take the elevator down to the parking garage, go out a pedestrian door near-by and I’m there---just a few feet from a park bench and the sounds of nature at its best.

The Life Enrichment Director loves theme weeks and this week it was all about, Cinco De Mayo. Why we are celebrating Mexico’s victory over the French in 1862 is beyond me, but the holiday here in West Michigan seems to be growing in recent years. Here on campus we had a one-man Mariachi band for entertainment on Wednesday. Then a happy hour featuring free margaritas and homemade pita chips another day. But the happy hour got super crazy because the Enrichment Director accidentally scheduled a woman’s group at the same time who came out to give all the ladies living here five carnations with cookies  and punch for Mother’s Day. We were all having such a good time because of the margaritas and dunking cookies in them that I don’t think it registered what a screwball combination was going on until we all got back home to our apartments.

Also this week was a fancy luncheon for Mother's Day, but I’m not one so I didn’t pay attention to that dress up and look pretty party. I was told I could still go because I did have a mother even if I’d never been one or I could invite a niece to be my surrogate daughter for the event. But an invitation like that to either one of my nieces would be a hardship for them to arrange, given the distance that they live and the heavy load on their plates right now, not to mention they had a mother who has passed away. For all I know they could be making time to stop by their mom’s grave this week. Flower sales for grave-sites ticks upward this time of the year. I’ve never been to my mom’s grave for the holiday---or rather her headstone, her ashes were scattered---but my brother has been known to do it. My mother died in the early ‘80s but Mother’s Day still churns up bittersweet memories. I wrote about my mom once here, so I won't get into the bitter or the sweetness in this post. Besides, I'm guessing those feelings are universal when it comes to mothers and daughters. ©

Photo: This is the bench you'll find me on if I'm not in my apartment. It looks like it's sitting on a road but it's actually a walking path for residents and dogs that also doubles as a fire access road should the lake side of my building ever catch on fire. It goes all around the lake---one mile. One of those low windows behind the bench is at the end of my parking stall and I have a chair parked there. I actually did sit there a few times over the winter.