Lost the Netflix Series, Card Making and Other Summertime Activities

 Summer has been busy here in the land of old people living in harmony on a lake where we can't swim or put a boat or canoe in the shallow water. The only time we see a canoe on the water is when students from a near-by college are taking samples as part of a water quality study or when the DNR is trapping and tagging geese or ducks. The latter is stressful because one time they accidentally trapped one of our swans as well and it got injured trying to get out of the wire cage. People with views of the lake had to watch it suffer for days while trying to get it help but because they are mute swans, that supposedly compete with native waterfowl for food, wildlife preservation organizations aren't allowed to help them. We had two pair and now we're down to one pair and their two juvenile off-springs.

I can't believe summer is almost over! It's been so busy around here between lectures, book club, mahjong, music-in-our-park events, various parties on campus and I don't even do the exercise classes. Last night it was a 'Blues and Brews' night and soon we're having a Hoe-Down---whatever that is.  Plus I've had a lot of off campus doctor appointments---mostly routine check ups by the various specialists we seem to acquire as we age.

Speaking of which I acquired a hand specialist this summer and by the time this post goes live I will have had surgery on a 'myxiod cyst' on my dominant hand index finger. My dermatologist didn't want to touch it because they have deep roots and it takes an expert not to do nerve damage to get it all out, or so he said. The way it was explained to me is that all the fluid that is normally in the joint of the finger finds it was up to skin level and forms the cyst. It looks awful, can burst and get infected and it can effect the shape of the nail-bed if it's not removed. Typing is no fun either. By the time this post goes live I'll be 12 hours into a 72 hours recovery protocol. That entails doing 50 fist pumps an hour while awake, keeping my surgical arm elevated above my heart and keeping an ice pack in my armpit. I also have to keep it dressed for five days. The biggest problem is going to be wiping myself with my other hand. An 80-something year old habit is hard to break.

New topic: I took a card making class here on campus. Not that I wanted to learn how or will even use the three cards I made. I just like being around people who do crafts. It's fun and it brings out my competitive nature as I strive to be the best which is kind of easy to do around here. But when I can't be the best I fangirl the person who is and I try harder the next time a creative project presents itself. I will fit right in when I have to move on down to assisted living or memory care where the activity directors put on their happy faces and help you color or paint or glue pop-cycle sticks together and feel ever so useful when they get you out of your room.

The cards we made didn't take much creativity. It was mostly gluing and cutting paper. My biggest take-away was a fascination with the paper cutter. I have been missing my old paper cutter that I bought back in the 1960s and I didn't know you can buy smaller cutters that don't take up much room and for dirt cheap. Mine was the old school guillotine style that could cut art paper up to two foot wide. After class I typed my way over to Amazon and bought one that will suit my current needs. I'm going to sleep with it under my pillow so my family will know it's important to me, should they have to move me on down the road. My paper cutter was one of the few things I'd

downsized out of my life that I wish I hadn't let go of. 

All kidding aside, I think my creative side is coming back and that's because the Life Enrichment Director scheduled a twice a month gathering of people wanting to do handcrafts together. So far, not many of us show up but I've decided that I'll use the time and space for a big project. For a long time I've thought that I have another quilt in me bursting to get out before I died. Yesterday at the 'gathering' I was able to use one of the large tables to plan and cut out quilt pieces. Last night I started hand-piecing them together while binge watching Lost on Netflix.

I loved the first three seasons of Lost---the eclectic cast of characters and the flashbacks to their lives before the plane crash that put them on an island was brilliant writing. But once they got into the time travel stuff it just seemed like the writers were trying too hard to keep the series going and they'd already exhausted all the good stuff in their writers tool boxes. Now that I'm on the sixth (and last season) I want it to end sooner rather than later.

While searching for an image to go with this post I found a review of Lost in The National Catholic Report, of all places. The author of the review---John Dougherty---put a whole new spin on what I've been watching when he called the series 'spiritual' and most of the examples he used I didn't process the same way he did. I could, however, see his point once it was pointed out. His main take-away is worth sharing and it sums up the premise of the series and our lives in general: "Life is mysterious and frightening. We don't have all the answers, and we never will. It seems reasonable to hold ourselves apart, every person for themselves. But if we want to make it through this life at all, the only way is together." If you are a fan of the series his review is well worth reading. ©

 Until Next Wednesday. 

Sayid aka Naveen Andrews, my favorite character and actor in Lost. The range of emotion he can achieve without saying a word is amazing. He plays an x-soldier from Iraq whose job it was to torture prisons to extract information from---a complex, multi-sided character to say the least and not bad eye candy either.