From Sinful Pleasures to Stubborn Streaks

My most sinful pleasures in life have always been simple. A good piece of dark chocolate, a medium rare steak, a summer afternoon spent at an art-in-the-park show, an occasional day trip along Lake Michigan with the t-tops down on our classic '78 Corvette that wasn't a classic when we had it. It was just old back then. Now that I'm on a fixed income I have to think about where I'm at on my monthly budget before I can indulge in a gooey chocolate dessert or a steak. The Vet is long gone and even if I still had it, it was built too low to the ground for me to get my old bag of bones into it now. And I haven't been to an art-in-the-park show since Ring was a pup.

I’ve never had a dog named Ring but that phrase was a favorite of my husband’s to denote that something happened a long time ago. Don didn’t have a dog named Ring either. He picked the phrase up from his dad who got it from Don’s grandfather who---family folklore claimed---actually did have a dog named Ring that resided in the back pasture with a rock rolled over the grave to keep wild animals from digging up his childhood dog. I love family verbiage like this and wish I had another generation to pass it down to. A few years ago, out of curiosity I googled 'since Ring was a pup.' (Or maybe it was suspicion that made me want to fact-check three generations of males who were all gifted storytellers.) I found ten listings for the phrase, three of which were links to my own blog entries, four to other people’s blogs and three appeared in newspapers dated 1911, 1914 and 1922. I wish I could break that little tidbit to my husband! He would have laughed and loved to have one of his grandfather’s tall tales get exposed after so many years of blind faith in its accuracy. 

Digging even deeper in the google weeds today I learned that the 'since ring was a pup' phrase was derived from another phrase widely used in the 1860s---'As Dead as Hector.' According to the Historically Speaking website, 'As Dead as Hector' "was a reference to Hector, the son of King Priam of Troy...and one of the chief participants in the tale of the siege of Troy by the Greeks in Homer’s epic The Iliad.  King Priam, as we all know," the website wrote, "was killed in single combat by the Greek champion Achilles." Maybe you, dear blog readers, know the storyline of the The Iliad  but it's all Greek to me. I could go on like this all day drifting from one idiom to another. But I'll bet half of you already know that the phrase 'it's all Greek to me' was coined by one of the conspirators who assassinated Julius Caesar. <end of history lesson> But first I've gotta predict that Taylor Swift's lyric line 'just shake it off' will probably still be in use hundreds of years from now.

Yesterday I spent the entire day in my nightgown writing. It felt good and decadent and I produced a book report for book club, a poem, two writing prompt assignments for my creative writing group and a blog post. The latter of which disappeared into the jaws of my writing app never to be seen again. So here I am trying to reconstruct it and not doing a very good job of it. In that post I was mourning something that hasn't happened yet and may never happen but I've always been good at borrowing trouble from the future. I was poking fun of this foible of mine regarding if and when I get moved into Assisted Living or Memory Care and I won't be allowed to hang around in my nightgown all day long. The powers that be in geriatric care assume an old person is depressed if the don't care about getting dressed. Down in those buildings they wake you and and help you get dressed by 8:00 when breakfast is served and because it's the morning shifts duty to see if anyone died in their sleep.

Recently, in one of our morning emails here in Independent Living we got word that a woman who used to live in my building but was moved to Memory Care four months ago died in her sleep. We'd just been talking about her the night before and the general consensus was she had adjusted remarkably well and seemed to be happy and content with the extra layer of care. She had a room across the hall from where my brother was when he was still alive so I saw the change in her firsthand. She no longer had a panicked look on her face, no longer looked lost and afraid.

Change of topic: I downloaded a new audible book to listen to on the recommendation of Bill Gates titled How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Seen by David Brooks. (And that should tell you volumes about what I see as a character flaw that I can may be improve on before I die.) I like to listen to books while I'm getting ready to face the outside world. But usually it's a book we've picked for our book club. This coming month we're supposed to read Just like that by Gary Schmidt, a book written for ages 9 through 12 by a professor at a near-by faith-based college and is a friend of our retired art professor. I have a stubborn streak and I refuse to buy a children's book for book club---we usually get them free from the library. I'll probably be sorry I'm sitting this month out because Ms Art Professor is going to get the author to come to our discussion. We won't be discussing the book until July so I have time to change my mind. I've been known to do that from time to time.

Speaking of book club, in case you're wondering why I wrote a book report for the club: One day a year we pick a year's worth of books to reserve. The popular books in the Book Club in a Bag program get reserved very far ahead. This year we're asking everyone to review a favorite book to campaign for it to be added to our reading list so we don't get one or two people's choices dominating the list---that's how we got the children's book. I'm campaigning for You Before Me by JoJo Moyes which on the surface is a little too chick-flickest for this group to pick but is actually a good segue into a discussion of assisted suicide.

Until next Wednesday. ©

"I live in my own little word, but it's okay…they know me here."

quoted from a beverage coaster