Hawaii Week or as They say Around Here, ‘Spend it or Lose it'

I had an entire post written but for some reason I failed to save the document and now that I’m trying to reconstruct it nothing I wrote about is busting out of my grey matter far enough to reach my fingertips. All I remember was it was inspired by seeing the Amazon delivery van pull up in front of my building. It had a message written on the side panel that said: “Warning: Contents may bring happiness.” We get deliveries from Amazon two and three times a day. We’re only 6 point something miles away from the main fulfillment center which Google says they can drive in thirteen minutes. I’ve figured it out that all my deliveries are on the last run of the day and that’s probably because I usually wait until I have three things on my gotta-have-it-at-all-costs ‘Wish List’ before ordering. I have a few dozen other things on my Amazon Wish List but those are all things I wanted in the moment but after sitting there overnight---my Carnival Rule for curbing impulse buying---the better side of me wins out and can slap my hand away from the moving them over into my Cart.

I figure when I order three things at once the three products come into the fulfillment center on three flights at the near-by airport before they are dumped into one box to put in the ‘happiness’ van. If I ordered only one thing at a time, there’s no telling  what time of the day they’d get delivered here. One of the neighbors on my floor has appointed himself the first floor mailman so he brings all the packages from our mail room to our doors. Just once I’d like the thrill of pawing through all the deliveries left by FedEx, UPS, USPS and Amazon to find the one my computer just told me was left there. But I don’t bite kindness in the butt so I thank our self-appointed floor mailman when I see him and don’t share my package pawing fantasy with him. 

This week is Aloha Week here on the continuum care campus.  We had a lecture about volcanoes on Wednesday. A sing-along of island music tonight Tuesday, and a very good travelogue about Hawaii was on Thursday. Half the residents are walking about wearing cheap-but-colorful floral leis or Hawaiian shirts. Monday we played Aloha Bingo which was the very first time bingo has been played in our independent living building. We suspect the marketing director has been strong-arming the enrichment director into not allowing it here in the past, but all the apartments are sold now so first impressions don’t count so much anymore. 

Bingo was a huge success with eighteen of us playing. It helped in no small way that there was an ice storm going on outside and we were all cocooned inside with nothing much to do but try to look out windows at the ice and fog covered landscape. It was silly afternoon with lots of humorous jabs going around the room the way it happens with a groups that knows each other well. I won three Almond Joy candy bars that looked like mush by the time they got back to my apartment. Five of the Catholics formed a table of their own and have been begging to play bingo for money for months. They even approached the CEO to ask if there are any laws against it. I don’t quite understand the big deal about playing for money vs just playing for the fun of it, but I may have the opportunity to find out now that the ‘bingo ice’ has been broken. This was only the second time in adulthood that I’ve even played bingo and I have a few things to learn. Playing corners, postage stamps and X’s came easy but we all got confused playing H’s and X’s on the same cards.

For some reason this month I ran out of my food allowance money early---we get $320 to spend however we want---and I made the mistake of mentioning at lunch that I only had $8 left to cover the next three days. So the last three nights of February I had invitations from people to buy me dinner; they all had money leftover in their food allowances. It felt weird being a “charity case” of sorts but people here who cook in their own apartments or travel always have leftover money at the end of the month and it doesn't roll over. “Use it or lose it.” 

I’m generally careful with my allowance so that I end up with only a dollar or two over or under. But I use meals to socialize and apparently I needed more people-contact in February than normal. I didn’t particularly like eating on someone else’s food allowance because felt like I needed to order the specials which is crazy. It’s not dating and two of these people had been out of state part of February and had lots of money left. People with more money than they can spend stock up on pop and ice cream bars the last few days or they fish around for people like me, who ran out so they can buy them dinners or lunches. Still, if I’m ever that short again, I’ll keep it to myself. Like I said up above, I don’t like biting kindness in the butt but I like even less advertising the fact that I can’t manage my money. ©