When Patriotism Feels Broken

This past Fourth of July weekend was a whirlwind of activity around my continuum care campus but in between the fun stuff I’ve been quietly grieving the loss of the country I once thought I knew and understood. So I skipped the band concert of patriotic music and a pizza party organized by a 45/47 MAGA supporter. We’re (and by we’re I mean the current administration) has been breaking presidential norms all over the place, not to mention the laws of our democracy. America, I’m tired! I’m tired of the flag waving 45/47 supporters and the greedy, spineless politicians who just voted to put the next generation into so much debt they’ll never see the light of day. And God help us if Japan, who owns a good share of our 36 trillion dollars of debt, calls in their loans. And that 36 trillion doesn’t include the 3.9 trillion the so-called Big Beautiful Bill will add over the next decade.  

I’m also tired of ICE and their cruel and illegal acts being committed against our immigrant population. I’m tired of people thinking it’s perfectly okay to snatch people off the streets, out of labor & deliver rooms, etc., without due process of the law, and put them in detention centers. I’m tired of overhearing fellow residents at the next dinner table talking with glee over Alligator Alcatraz and how fat and happy those alligators will grow while at the same time being served their dinner by the son of immigrants. Did they assume the poor kid doesn’t have ears to hear their disgusting remarks? By the way, the photo up above was posted at the official website for Homeland Security. Let that sink in.

I did go to our fourth of July picnic because it’s not often we get barbecued chicken and corn of the cob and if any of us wanted to eat that day, it was sign up for the picnic or forage for your own meal out in the community. I wasn’t born yesterday so I opted to stay off the busy roads on the third—yes, holiday parties around my CCC are usually the day before the actual holiday so that most of the staff can spent it with their families. Our picnics, band concerts and other outdoor events host all residents from all three buildings and our  townhouses in a fenced-in area between the Assisted Living and Memory Care buildings known as The Park. It’s a pretty place that keeps the inmates from walking away while still giving them access to be outside under a canape of trees with a lake view on one side and a wooded view opposite. A few people from my Independent Living building don’t like to go there because they see their futures and it scares them. I get that but as I tell them, seeing how kind and attentive the aids are with the residents from the Assisted Living and Memory Care buildings is comforting and helps diminish the fear of ending up down there. And after living here in IL for over three years, we all know people who've had to move into AL and MC. 

On the Fourth itself the temperature was supposed to get up into 90s so an outdoors pizza party that was planned by residents from our townhouses followed by watching the firework ended up getting changed. (They have their own outdoors area to gather around a fire pit.) The pizza part got canceled and we were to meet later when the sun was setting and it wouldn’t be so hot. But when one of the 45/47 supporters (who laughed over alligators getting fat) heard that he sent out a text message that he was going to take charge of ordering pizza and we could sign up with him. There were some hurt feelings between the townhouse organizers (who originally had invited everyone in Independent Living) because they didn’t get the text invitation to join in at the IL building where the second pizza party was being planned. A day later that oversight was corrected but by then the damage had been done and a boycott began. I was one of those who skipped pizza but I did hang out with the townhouse people at the fire pit. Originally they had forty people signed up but without the pizza that got whittled down to twenty-five for fireworks. But only six people got together for pizza. The whole planned and canceled then planned again was too confusing for some.

Last winter the MAGA guy who decided to organize the second pizza party caused another turf war over the Bridge Club. At one time they had three tables that played twice a week but he caused so much trouble over rotating players—he didn’t want to play with slower players—that several couples dropped out. Then he poached off the fast players and started a second bridge group. So now we have two clubs run by two different people. Sometimes it can be a regular little soap opera around here which I’m sure is true with all places where people get to know each well. Sometimes personalities clash.

The highlight of the long weekend was Saturday when I got to play four extra Mahjong games. Two of us from Independent Living and two ladies from the townhouses played at one of their homes. Let me tell you playing Mahjong where you didn’t have to be careful not to talk too load or edit which topics you bring up was different than playing in our regularly scheduled games in our pubic bistro. We had fun! I wish I had a table suitable to set up the game to I could invite people to play extra games in my apartment in addition to the weekly games where we usually have three tables. I wish I hadn’t given my card table and chairs away when I moved. I also wish I hadn’t given a folding camp chair away. To watch fireworks I had to bring the walker I used when I broke my ribs to sit on. There have been other outdoor occasions down at the fire pit when we've require we bring our own chairs. With all the planning I did before the move, I didn’t see those needs coming. ©

Until next Wednesday.  

 

 

Holiday Weekends, Skin Cancer and Messy Closets

The Fourth of July weekend seemed to last forever here at the continuum care complex. Except for one security guard none of the staff worked Sunday and Monday in the independent living section of the campus so they packed all kinds of Red, White and Blue activities on the calendar both last week and this week including a lecture given by an Air Force Pilot (my next post), four therapy horses who came to accept all the petting they could get, a pickle ball tutorial exhibition on our new pickle ball court, an outdoor movie that got moved inside at the last minute because it didn’t get dark enough at 7:00---Duh! Who planned that? A five year old who goes to bed at 6:30? We also had two piazza parties and for food we could order and pick that up on Saturday to eat on Sunday and Monday because even our food services were shut down. On the fifth they threw an outdoor cookout of traditional holiday foods---hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and ice cream. Every day they served an alcoholic drink that layered itself in red, white and blue. Some days they were free, other days just $2.00. They wanted to get us drunk and keep us that way. Or so it seems.

In addition to all that, the ‘in crowd’ here put together a picnic for those of us who are widows and not going anywhere on the Fourth. I was invited and was told to bring grapes. Yup, a bowl of grapes which in order to get more than one kind cost me $14. The cost of food in the stores these day still shocks me. I really didn’t want to bring them because I’ve never seen anyone eat grapes at a party, opting instead for the gooey desserts and salty snacks while the fruit and veggie trays barely get touched. I visualized me coming home with a mountain of grapes nearly as tall as I took to the party and then I’d have to watch them rot away in my refrigerator because I’m not that fond of them unless they come in the form of raisins. Apparently I was stressing out about this because after buying them I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and as I walked back to bed the thought that I could freeze any left over grapes popped in my head. I solve a lot of problems on my walks back to bed in the middle of the night. No wonder I never feel rested in the mornings. I ended up bringing some baggies with me and strong-armed as many people as I could to take some grapes home. But I still ended up with enough grapes to last the summer in my freezer. 

I’m writing this while sitting on the piazza giving myself skin cancer because I’m not as smart one of our four adult swans on the lake. She’s hanging out under the bridge with her two remaining babies where its shady.  Speaking of skin cancer the biopsy the dermatologist did in June on the mole that I thought was a tick turned out to be a “hperthropic actinic keratitis” which I was told are precancerous, slow growing cells that can turn into squamous cell carcinomas, a type of skin cancer that rarely kills a person if treated early. Supposedly the doctor got it all and I have nothing to worry about except a gaping hole the size of a pencil eraser surrounded by an angry red patch of skin the size of a quarter. 

I wondered if swans get skin cancers and after googling the question I learned that birds do get squamous cell carcinomas around their eyes and beaks. How in the heck do they stay out of the sun if they don’t have a bridge to hide under? I’ve had dogs with cancerous growths so I’m guessing anything with living cells can get these “mutations.” If you want to scare yourself into buying sunscreen google images of cutaneous horn moles (photo above). In the dark ages before doctors understood much about anything it’s easy to see how people with ‘horns’ growing out of their heads were the stuff of folklore and fear.  

New Topic: I am running out of room in my closet. I need to purge stuff because I bought a few new things and there is no room left or hangers to use for a Landend’s sweater and a pair of Women Within pants nor room left in my underwear drawer for some great panties made out of bamboo. I had every intention of throwing out at least six pairs of panties that are so worn out I’d be embarrassed to be caught dead in them but there’s always something else going on I’d rather do. It dawned on me over the Fourth hat I’m not really living here yet. Yes, it’s been eight months since I moved in but I still feel like I’m on a cruise ship with a schedule to explore if I want to have fun and get fed. I need to make time for normal things cleaning drawers and purging closets. Even though my world has gotten smaller since I moved to this CCC I still can’t have it all. No one can. I need to make choices, prioritize and quit drifting with the wind like I'm going to kick the bucket any day now. I need goals. I need doable goals and the willpower to carry them out. ©

Extra, Extra! My Holiday Trip Back to the Future

This is an extra edition post because if I put it in my scheduler you'd be reading it on July 15th and who wants to read about a 4th of July trip two weeks later. Okay, it wasn’t a huge, all day 4th of July party/trip to my in-laws on a lake like I’ve gone to the same number of times as I have fingers and toes on my aging body. It wasn’t a camping trip like my husband and I loved doing where we’d set up a tent at a state park along Lake Michigan and wake up the morning of the fourth to the sound of waves slapping the sand. It wasn’t even a day trip like when we’d throw the dog in the back of our old Corvette and head for the highway that would take us along the western shore of Lake Michigan, the tee-tops off, the wind whipping through our hair, the air conditioner trying to compensate for the sun overhead. But this year I did take a mini trip that helped to put a little pep in my step, a little giddy-up in my go. 

Enough of the teaser, intro-to-the-subject sentences, time for me to spill the beans. (Jeez, it's going to be a clichés and idioms writing day, isn't it). On the spur-of-moment on the 4th of July I decided that the traffic would be light and it was good time to go down to check on the progress at the continuum care complex where I’ve got money down on an independent living unit. I hadn’t been there since the ground breaking that took place not long before the pandemic forced them to quit working for four months.

I got a bug in my undies---notice how I changed that cliché just enough to keep the writing police off my back? Anyway, I got the bug in bonnet---oops, bug in my undies that I wanted to find out what direction my unit’s windows will face and I heard on the grapevine that the footprint of the complex was far enough along to show its orientation. The house I’m living in gets a lot of light from all four directions and I'm worried that with all the unit’s windows facing the same way it will be like living in a cave where the sun never gets a chance to fill the depths of place. I had planned on taking a compass with me to help me judge the sun’s path outside my future windows.

I have three compasses. One is on the top of a ring, a cereal box top premium that is part of my childhood, secret agent collection. One is an antique pin-on brass compass, circa 1940s, made for deer hunters that hasn’t changed in style since Marbles, Michigan first started making them. Both my dad and husband had one...this compass just happened to be my husband's. It has no real value other than sentimental which is why I keep on my media cabinet to remind me that I'm grounded and never lost when I've got a compass to help me find my past, present and my future. The third compass I discovered while I was prepping my husband’s pocket watches to sell on e-Bay. I had saved what I thought was a U.S. Army, cavalry era pocket watch to sell last, thinking it was the most valuable of the collection. Imagine my surprise when I opened it and discovered it was a WWI military compass. It was made by a well known watch maker but they were made in such a large quantity that they’re only valuable if you consider $65-75 a lot of money. I'm keeping it.

If you've guessed by the bread crumbs I've been dropping---cliché #6---that I left all three of my compasses at home, you’d be right but as my mom was fond of saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a kitty.” (Idiom #2, the writing police are going to fine me for sure!) I lined up the back of my car with the front of my future unit and used the compass on the car’s dashboard to determine I’ll be a facing northeast. Just enough east to get morning sunshine across the planned wildflower garden which will be open maybe the length of a football field away to a tree line. And I'll be facing just north enough to get the perfect Artist’s North Light. My painting easel will feel right at home parked next to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room.

While I was there taking pictures a couple of guys were walking on the road that goes though the new and older parts of the complex and they stopped to talk. They told me where all the walking trails are and not to take my dog on the one through the woods or he’ll give me poison ivy. (Duly noted and appreciated.) They told me about the hawks and owls that will be hunting right outside my windows and the swans down at the lake. I told them about the restaurants that will be in this new section that they’ll also be able to use and about the farmhouse table concept one of the restaurants will have and that led to a conversation about travel experiences.

They asked a lot of questions about the layout of the units and I asked them a lot of questions about the management of this non-profit CCC and they spoke very highly about everything they do. They live in the two bedroom condo part of the complex, one had a wife in the memory care building. When I told them it was going to be like moving in to a college dorm when we all move in at that same time and one of the guys said to the other one, “We’re going to have to watch this one” then to me he asked, “Are you going to be hanging a bra on your doorknob when there’s a little action going on inside? Remember the ties on the doorknobs back in our day?” I laughed and replied, “No way! Bras cost too much these days.” The other guy looked away like he was embarrassed that his walking partner brought up the topic of bras and ties on doorknobs while I tried to decide if these guys were twins or just dressed that way. Twins, I decided. We must have talked a half hour and on the way home I was happy I’d made my 2020 4th of July trip to my future.  

That night, though, was scary. With so many public fireworks displays canceled, way too many of my neighbors were setting them off. On all four sides of my house and as far in the distance as I could see. It felt and sounded like a war zone. And it was like I had strobe lights inside my house---yellow, green, blue and red pulsating on the walls with the loud booming and hissing that also vibrated my floors and windowpanes. Levi, in the past, has not been afraid of fireworks but this year he made his displeasure heard and for awhile I pretended to be one of those thunder-shirts while I wedged him between me and the arm of the sofa. I thought they'd set the house or woods behind me on fire so turned on my wrinkling system just in case sparks fell in my yard and I was grateful I'd gotten my eaves-troughs cleaned out recently. The icky icing on the cake was my house filled up with the eye-watering smell of gun powder smoke. Happy 4th of July from Pandemic Park. I hope I never have have to end another one end like this one did. ©

 It was hard to get any pictures with the chain length fence covered in black plastic, but this photo shows the end of my building in relationship to the lake which is closer than it looks here.

This photo was taken from a different vantage point and you can see the "L" shape of the complex taking form. Those two structures in the distance, right of center are two elevator and stairway towers and I'll be right next to the one at the far end.

 

The photo at the top shows one side of the lake, this one shows the other. All those buildings are part of this CCC's independent living condos, and there is a paved path the entire distance around the lake, a one mile walk. (I was standing on it to take this photo.) I got to see the swans and their babies but they were too far to photograph. I'm going to treat myself to a new camera just before I move in.

Fourth of July Kisses and Misses

When you’re a septuagenarian the 4th of July comes with many memories. For me those memories usually include bodies of water, family potlucks, small-town or boat parades, fireworks and The Kiss. No one could ever forget their very first kiss if it took place with the whooshes, crackling hisses and booms that come with pops of brilliant colors bursting overhead in the night sky. Oh! My! God! I was fifteen and he was seventeen and when he died nine-ten years ago they had to cut him out of his house because he was so obese. I’m glad that teenage crush burned itself out because I would have hated a life that included cooking for a man who ate himself to death.

How did the crush end? Exactly one year after The Kiss he gave me a line of hickeys that went from my ear all the way down to my cleavage. I was so naïve I didn’t even know what they were until my brother told me I’d better cover those up before our mother saw them. Not an easy thing to do at a lake cottage where we spent half our days in the water, but for the next few days I lived in a flannel shirt and if my mother knew why I was bundled up, she never let on. And thus my very first crush ended. On the next 4th of July when he again came to stay at his friend’s cottage, I was no longer drooling over his beautiful face and taken in by his flattering words. 

 

The year of our bicentennial was another memorable 4th of July. You might remember that year we celebrated the nation’s birthday for the entire summer, not just on the fourth. There were festivals and fairs, synchronized church bells, a flotilla of ships like no other on the Hudson River in Operation Sail, a laser beam via satellite cut a star-spangled ribbon here on earth and a landing pad was built for UFOs to come help us celebrate. Red, white and blue clothing, food and product packaging was everywhere that summer. I even stood in a long line to sign a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was buried in a 100 year time capsule. America’s creativity was in high gear.

 

That was 1976 and Don and I went a little crazy collecting every souvenir we could get our hands on. We were sure saving them for the next fifty years would make us rich. The problem was lots of other people had the same idea and all those special edition postage stamps and coins, glasses, cups, hats, jewelry, newspapers, fast food wrappings, Liberty Bells, quilt patterns and dishes are still in my basement, in a souvenir wooden crate put out by the Anheuser-Busch brewery. My husband didn’t drink but that didn’t stop Don from buying two of those boxes of bicentennial beer, the bottles from which got sold off individually twenty years ago. My all-time favorite bicentennial souvenir, though, is hanging in the back of my closet. It’s a long, loose fitting hippie-style dress with a smocked front that I made out of a light weight “homespun” cream colored fabric with small, 1976 dated flags and fireworks printed all over it. I wore it to every weekend festival, parade and bluegrass jamboree we could find that summer of ’76. Like I said, we went a little overboard and we lapped up all the patriotic theme celebrations within a 100 mile radius. My only regret is that I don’t have a photo of me wearing that dress. It was the best summer of my life. 

 

There were lots of other years when my 4th of July memories all blend into one of two categories: 1) the years when we’d lounge around a lake at either my parent’s cottage or at a cottage with my husband’s family. Food, family and roasting marshmallows over campfires after dark. It doesn’t get much better than that; or 2) the years we’d take off on mini vacations, antique hunting at garage sales and flea markets along Lake Michigan on our way up north. When we’d get there the best part was waking up in a tent pitched in a state park and hearing the waves washing the shore and the seagulls calling us down to the sandy beach. 

 

For my entire life, I’ve claimed the 4th of July as my favorite holiday and I’ve meant it. It represents family, fun, apple pie and patriotism. And now I miss it, the way it used to be. I miss the smell of large bodies of water and fireworks. I miss the family storytellers and jokesters, the ladies who made the best dishes to pass and guys who gave the warmest hugs. I miss how the strangers we met on mini vacations had the time for friendly exchanges. I miss having a president who didn’t embarrass me! I miss the certainty I used to feel that the better, most altruistic side of ourselves and others will always rise to the top and guide our nation down the path our Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom, envisioned for us. Hopefully, the checks and balances our constitution promises will kick in with the mid-terms and, like that line of hickeys I got on the Fourth, the current administration’s total lack of credibility and decorum will prove to be an anomaly that will do no permanent damage. ©

 

the beer case, stock photo, mine is in better condition