August Goals and a Question for Other Bloggers

Have I mentioned how happy I am that August is here? I’m old so if I’m repeating myself I’ve got an excuse. Yes, I’m not above playing the Old People Card or the Absent Minded Flake Card or the Woman Card---whatever works for you.

August, for me, means new goals and a break from e-Baying to do Facebook Market Place sales.  Hopefully. I’ve never done them before but others seem to make them work. I’ve got a Hoosier cabinet, a vintage butcher block/kitchen island, my childhood dollhouse, an antique fire hydrant, a dog cage that Levi out grew, a large glass sided showcase and some art I’m hoping to move. I’ve already started ganging this stuff up in my garage so buyers won’t have to come inside, but I have to wait for the son-I-with-I-had to help me move the showcase into the garage. That sucker is big and it held hundreds of tiny things that I’ve mostly sold off over the past year. And you have my heartfelt promise if I ever get married again to a collector he’d better collect classic cars or something easier to dispose of than obscure-but-valuable tiny things that nearly wore my brain and eyes out to research.

August will also include sending another lot of stuff off to a local auction house. With the last load I sent off in the spring I proclaimed it would be the last one and I proclaimed the same thing with the lot before that one. But I keep identifying stuff that I’m ready to let go of locally---lower prices with less work than shipping with e-Bay, so I’m playing the Woman Card here that says it’s our prerogative to change our minds. I’ve got the lot almost ready to be picked up and it includes stuff like my husband’s teddy bear, a WWII helmet, glassware too fragile to e-Bay and some cast iron collectibles too costly to ship and still be a good buy for those who want them. My beloved antique folding chairs are going this time, too, because let’s face it I’m too old and ‘fluffy’ to be sitting on antique chairs created two centuries ago when butts were obviously small and compact. Ditto on the 1854 patented piano stool I’m sending. I’m up to 94 items readying to send off. My goal is 100. Gotta admit, though, that pickings are getting slim and choices are harder. Mostly I’ve got rare books and art left to sell and neither are good candidates for the local auction house where all bids start at a dollar.

August will also bring me something exciting to do---actually two exciting things unless our state slaps another hard, lock-down on us. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen. The first ‘something exciting’ is a hardhat tour of my future home at the continuum care campus that is being built that I have a deposit on. Apparently by mid-August there will be enough progress for us to see to get our excitement level back on track.  Masks, hardhats, orange vests and goggles required plus social distancing and we had to read and sign a safety-on-the-site document. Before the pandemic struck in March, the non-profit building this place was holding monthly get-togethers as part of their marketing budget. I’m hoping they will re-schedule a few of their programs that got canceled. I was just starting to get to know (and remember) some of my future neighbors. The second exciting something I’m looking forward to doing is making a trip out to my oldest niece’s cottage and we’re working on getting my youngest niece to come over too. I haven’t seen either one of them in forever…at least a year. We keep in contact with occasional emails, Facebook messages and text messages but it’s not the same as being in the same physical space where organic conversations take place.  

Okay, I’ve got to ask those who read here who are also bloggers a question. Are you getting a daily dose of a comment that promises a naked photo if you click on their link? I been getting them for a couple of weeks now. They usually come with a meant-to-be-playful line that includes kissing, begging and teasing, short but just as obnoxious as the long, anonymous commenter whose been hitting us all for months with the baby-boomers-are-evil nonsense. Putting these comments in the spam folder does absolutely nothing as far as I tell, not like when you put them in your e-mail spam folder that your provider evidentially finds and stops them from coming. So I pulled out the Delusional Card thinking I could find some help at the (fictitious) Blogger support forums but all they say is to just delete and forget the comments and change our settings to not to accept anonymous comments.

So my second question: if you stopped accepting anonymous comments did that stop the flasher and/or the hates-baby-boomers comments? Some of my favorite commenters use the anonymous feature and I don’t want to shut them out if the juvenile spammers just find a way around that setting change. I double these spammers even read any of the blogs they poop comments on but just on the off chance one is reading this post I liked to say, quit playing the Dumb-Ass Card! You will never, ever get past the moderate comments feature. ©

"I’m a Lazy Slug," Confessed the Widow

If you look up the term ‘Lazy Slug’ you’ll find my picture and this explanation: Lazy slugs can’t be motivated short of using an electric cattle prod. Lazy slugs know there are things to do and places to go but instead of doing and going they live inside their heads. Lazy slugs spend so much time playing on their computers they wear the letters off their keyboards and can't help wishing those keys came with heaters like seats in automobiles. And lazy slugs have been known to erase the word ‘Monday’ at the top of a job list and write ‘Tuesday’ or ‘Wednesday.’ 

Yup, here it is Wednesday and I’m still working on Monday’s job list. Worse yet, it’s almost February and I’ve yet to complete December’s goal list. I had planned to deep clean the entire house this winter and all I’ve gotten done is two rooms with five to go. Or is it six, seven or eight? I can never decide if the laundry room and the dining area get counted as rooms since they’re connected to other rooms with no door to close them off, and since the two bathrooms are small, should they count as one on a cleaning chart?

Lazy slug that I am, I read the words of Sue Kreitzman on a Post-it note above my computer with no reaction. “Be bold, be adventurous. Do profound things, dazzle yourself and the world. Contribute to society, and live large. Life is short, make every moment count. It is never too late to find your passion.” I read those words then I go back to picking lint out of my belly button. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Everyone knows you pick at your belly button lint in the bathroom where you have a magnifying mirror.

I wish I could be bold and adventurous but someone has to deep clean my bedroom closet this week. The only way I’m going to find adventure in there is if I fall off my step stool and break a bone while surrounded with red hats from the box I smashed in the fall. I know why I’m dragging my feet about cleaning the closet. I still haven’t lost the five pounds I gained over the holidays and I’m afraid to play the game of what fits and what doesn't. I still have a box of too big clothes sitting in the garage ready to donate from the last time I cleaned the closet even though I go past Goodwill once a week. I have a serious problem letting go and believing in my ability to maintain the size I'm wearing. Even my Fitbit has lost faith in me. It gives me a weekly report that I’m not meeting my goals. Get in line Fitbit, I’ve got goals all over the place that aren’t being met. If I ever win the lotto---which won’t happen since I haven’t bought a ticket in years---I’d hire a personal assistance to meet all my goals for me. And that day-dream has Lazy Slug written all over it.

In all seriousness, how is it even possible to take Sue Kreitzman’s advice to live large, dazzle yourself and do profound things making every moment count when the mundane chores of life keep getting in the way? If I don’t go to the grocery store, for example, the dog and I would eventually have to eat that back-up box of Bisquick in the cupboard or starve to death, and if I don’t do the laundry I’d be a smelly old lady trying to live large and that won’t work well in this age of grooming products galore, including belly button brushes. (Yes, I have one. I’m obsessed with belly button lint. Where does it all come from and why is it sometimes pale purple?) And if I didn’t take time out to be a lazy slug I’d never hear my inner voices debate the meaning of life and what it’s going to take to make me truly happy. Without my lazy slug down time, I never would have figured out that if I want to paint my niece-in-law's portrait it doesn’t matter if her eyes are hazel or gray because either way I’m going to have to buy a damn tube of Naples yellow to mix both those colors.

Have you ever admired someone but no way on earth would you want to live their life or be them? That’s the way I feel about Sue Kreitzman. She’s an artist who says that “color is like a drug" that she can't live without and "it makes life possible." She’s flamboyant and walks the talk but if I lived in her house or clothes I’d go stark raving mad in a month. I’m the anti-Sue and I suspect that if everyone was like her she’d become as subdued as a Rembrandt painting…all raw sienna, burnt umber, lead white, yellow ocher and bone black. What I admire, though, is she knows who she is and what it takes to make her happy. We should all be so lucky as we negotiate the life changes that come with aging or loss and as we live small while dreaming big. ©

                                                                 Sue Kreitzman

The 'To Do' LIst

I had only two things on my ‘To Do’ list yesterday and I thought, Oh boy! I can spend the rest of the day reading ‘Catching Fire’. (Yes, I got bit by the Hunger Games series.) Anyway, all I had to do was change the filter on the furnace and go to the post office. Tops, I could complete my list in a half hour and play lazy bones the rest of the day.

Changing the filter on the furnace requires a trip down to the basement which requires a pocket in my clothing because I like to take my phone with me when I go in case I fall down the stairs and I’m still holding on to life long enough to call 911. The sweatpants I was wearing didn’t have any pockets and just holding the phone in my hand wouldn’t do because I’d probably drop it in the fall and it would slide across the cement floor, landing in the sump pump. I hate that sump pump so retrieving my phone from within just wouldn’t happen. I’m always afraid I’ll find a snake inside. You guessed it, I had to change my clothes to go down to the basement to avoid all that happening.

Changing my clothes had already cut into the half hour I had allotted for my ‘To Do’ list but while I was in the basement I checked on my “trap line” of d-con and I breathed a sigh of relief when it looked like nothing had eaten any of the poison pellets. Next I decided I might as well bring some stuff upstairs to decorate for Christmas but color me disappointed when I found all the Christmas things are in boxes up high. With my shoulder still under restrictions from my surgeon there was no way I could get them down without breaking his rule about raising my arm above shoulder height. Briefly, I thought about getting a ladder to take my shoulder up higher off the floor but I nixed that idea because I’d probably fall off the ladder, smashing the phone in my pocket, and lay there until my body was mummified.

Finally, I got on the road to go to the post office but on the way home I saw some Christmas trees tied to the tops of cars and that remained me of all the years Don and I would take Starbucks coffees up to Christmas Tree Corners on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we’d count trees coming from the tree farms in all four directions. That memory made me sad that I’d have to forgo any holiday decorations this year… until I remembered the Dollar General near-by where I could pick up SOMETHING. Something was better than nothing, I told myself. Nearly an hour later I walked out of the place with a small, pre-lighted Christmas tree and some small stuff to decorate the cheap little thing. It took so long because I had trouble deciding on the size tree I wanted. I kept resisting that little one because it looked too much like what people bring their grandmas in nursing homes but on the other hand, I didn’t want to waste money on something larger when I had nicer stuff down in the basement. I had several size trees in and out of my cart and various ornaments to fit each one’s scale, and I’d made a mess of Dollar General's stock before I settled on the nursing home special. That left me with no other choice but to spend more time straightening up their shelves.

The tree was a 14” wide by 24” high fake pine that came in a box that measured 5” square by 18” high so as you can imagine it needed serious plumping up and being an x-florist I was up for the task. In days gone by I would have dipped the branches in a tub of very warm water but these branches weren’t plastic and whatever they were made of didn’t look like they could survive a bath, and since they were pre-wired with lights I didn’t think a fire marshal would approve of the bath idea either. I could electrocute myself lighting a wet tree. So I fused over the branches, plumping each one up before I plugged it in to see the lights. They didn’t work. In the box was a paper instructing the purchaser not to return the tree to the Dollar General. If the lights didn’t work, it said, I should email for replacement parts. I ignored the paper, stuffed the tree back in the box and took it back to the store where I was prepared with a story about not having a computer. I didn’t need it. The clerk probably remembered me from the security cameras as the customer who tidied up after herself, so she did me a favor. Or maybe she just didn't know about the note inside the box.

I got the new tree home and started the plumping process all over again. The lights, of course, worked on that one---we tested them in the store---but whoever strung them didn’t do a very good job and of the twenty lights five of them were bunched in one large clump at the bottom. So I restrung the pre-wired tree while I thought about popping some corn to string on the branches. Then I remembered the potential for mice coming into my basement and I knew I couldn’t store that tree down there after Christmas if it was decorated with eatables. And no way was I going  un-decorate it and go through the stuff-it-in-the-box trauma again. I could almost hear that first, damn little tree crying!

By the time I got my ‘To Do’ list done that half hour I predicted it would take had turned into this afternoon-long saga and I was tired and running out of daylight. And that’s when I discovered how short the cord is coming out from my little nursing home special. There was only two places in the entire house where I could set that tree and still plug it in: on the kitchen counter where I’d been working or on the exercise bike. Neither place would do which meant I would have to take another trip down to the basement to find an extension cord, but by then I’d changed back to my sweatpants without pockets, oh crap! "What do you think?" I asked the dog. "It's not so bad sitting there on the bike, is it?" And I'm quite sure I heard him reply, "Go change your clothes." ©