Busy Week of Firsts

I couldn’t decide what to write about for this week’s post. I had narrowed it down to two themes. 1) About all the ‘firsts’ that happened in my life since I last wrote or, 2) how busy my week was. After mulling it over in my mind I came to the conclusion that if I wrote about the ‘firsts’ that would, by nature, include a lot of the stuff that kept me so busy. I kid you not, every single day I had at least four things on my day planner. I don’t like being that busy but sometimes you have no choice.

I’ll start with a day when I drove a 40 mile round trip (which is a LOT for me to drive) up to the electronics recycling station near where I used to live to dispose of my old printer. There are closer places if you want to pay to drop electronics off but I was invited to have lunch with a couple of old friends at a place nearby, so it was easier to go up there where I know my way around than to cart printer through Best Buys or Staples, assuming I could wade through heavy traffic to find the places. I had boxed that old printer up in the new printer’s box and have been riding it around in my back seat for three weeks, hoping someone would steal it but either I shop in an honest part of town or car pirates of opportunity know that trick.

I used to have lunch with these women twice a month when I lived up in that neck of the woods. Long time readers might remember we called ourselves The Gathering Girls and it sure felt like old times being back at the Guyland Cafeteria. They and the place hadn't changed a bit. This was the first time since I moved that we all sat at the same table laughing like we used, we even ordered the same specials we always did in the past.

After lunch I swung around to the cemetery where my husband’s and my tombstone is located and half of his ashes are buried. I had come with a shovel, whisk broom, garbage bag and gallon water all prepared to dig out the quack grass that usually is attempting to cover over the inscription in the marble, but for the first time since Don died in 2012, it didn’t need my help. I couldn’t help wondering if it died out because the last time I was there, I sprinkled the ashes from my dog, Levi, closely to the footing of the stone. Maybe he killed the quack grass by marking the stone with magic, ghost urine.

Also close by was the house that I designed and had built in 2001 and was sold before moving to my continuum care campus. It was my first time seeing it since the day I moved out and I wish I hadn’t. When I lived there the lawn and yard was the best on the street and it was the best kept yard I’ve ever had in my life. But the new owners let the grass burn up and it looked like a kid with no clue for how to mow grass was doing the job. It’s never seen a weed wacker or an edger and the shrubbery hadn’t been trimmed since I left. I doubt they can even see out the library window anymore. And the back yard where my nature strip should be blooming with wild flowers is completely overwhelmed with invasive sumac. I had my lawn care guy take it out every year. I looked the house up on Zillow to see if it’s changed hands since I sold it but it hasn’t. They place a value on it that is $69,000 more than I sold it for! Anyway, it’s true that you can’t go home again. I’ll never drive by the place again.

Another day I had to take my car in for its thirty thousand mile servicing which included a tire rotation. The dealership is new to me and they had trouble getting a lung nut off because it was cross-threaded so they had to drill it out and replace some stuff on the wheel and it ended up costing me an extra $150. What was supposed to be an hour job ended up being  all afternoon because they didn’t have the part in stock, and they said it wasn’t safe to drive the was it was. So the next first time I have to write about was they gave me a loaner car to drive and it was the kind with a button to push instead of a key. Took me awhile to figure out how to start the silly thing and it beeped warnings and was a zippy little thing t drive. The service department manager told me to contact my old dealership to get reimbursed for the $150 and I’ll let you know how well that works out. 

Another day I had an appointment for my annual eye exam. I’m two years out from my cataract surgeries and I thought for sure I’d need the laser treatment to remove a new cataract forming over the fake lens they put in one of my eyes. Turns out that eye changed enough that I need a new prescription for the left lens while the other  eye remained the same. That’s the first time that’s ever happened in my life. I felt good leaving the office after ordering just one lens and more importantly, after hearing that my macular pucker hasn’t changed significantly. That sound you're hearing is a sigh of relief. I've been worried about that pucker.

And last but not least, the best first time of all makes me very happy. It was the first time an ex-president was indicted in a criminal court and on espionage charges and they look like they will stick.

 Until next Wednesday….  ©

 * The photo at the top is of my old back yard before the new owners let the sumac take over.

 

One High, One Low and One Strike Out

Guess who I saw for lunch on Monday! Two of my old Gathering Girls pals. I’d tell you how that came about but then I’d have to swear you all to secrecy since it’s no longer my responsibility to organize anything. (Hint: I was looking for ways to fill up time while my house was listed.) Four of them RSVPed to go to a bar/restaurant where an indifferent waitress didn’t even ask us if we wanted to order drink. But at the last minute two ladies bailed out which only confirms what a few of them have been saying about “digestive issues” making the spur-of-the-moment invitations more desirable than the ones from ye olden days when we did fixed dates and times on a calendar. I accept this change and challenge of aging friendships, but don’t get me started on my wish-it-wasn’t-so-isms. I wanted us to be like the characters on The Big Bang Theory or Friends where re-runs would keep us forever together, fun and young and playing off each other’s humor twice a month like clockwork. Not going to happen so I'll take what I can get.

Tuesday I was supposed to have a full battery of screening tests: 1) to evaluate my stroke risk carotid artery plaque build up, 2) get a peripheral arterial disease profile, 3) an osteoporosis risk profile---already know this one but the bundle of tests is cheaper when you don’t pick and choose---4) an abdominal aortic abdominal aortic aneurysm screening and 5) an atrial fibrillation screening. They're not covered by insurance and you don’t need a doctor to order them through Life-Line Screening but for $150 it gives you piece of mind. It didn’t matter because Monday night I got a call wanting me to reschedule the tests to late September---the week before I move---because they were going to be understaffed. I got a little---read that a lot---upset. They threw me this curve ball a half hour before my realtor was due to present the offers I wrote about in my last post so my nerves were already flying higher than a kite in a thunderstorm. I apologized to the poor woman for reacting to her request like a whiny child but I didn't reschedule.

Five years ago when I got those same tests done I, of course, showed the results to my primary care doctor and I asked if they were a waste of money. He side-stepped the question by saying if we had any reason to suspect anything was wrong we could order these tests and insurance would cover them. But my husband had a football sized abdominal aortic aneurysm that was ready to burst any minute that they found while looking at his kidneys for something unrelated. They had him in an emergency, 10-11 hour surgery that same afternoon. People pay more than $150 for something they’ll wear less than dozen times before sending it off to Goodwill, so I reserve the right to get judgy with anyone who judges me for wanting to spend $150 this way when I really, REALLY need a new pair of shoes.

Wednesday I walked out of the Infusion Center after getting my IV bag full of Reclast for my brittle bones and I felt like a puddle of pudding. I sat in my car trying to get warm because they keep that place as cold as a meat locker and even though they give you a heated blanket to snuggle under its never enough to warm me up. Puddles of pudding are not safe to drive so I waited behind the steering wheel of my Trax, the summer sun beating down thru the windshield until I no longer felt like an elder in a tribe that sends their grandmothers off on icebergs to die. It was 11:00 when I left the parking lot and suddenly I was starving. An Atkins shake I had earlier was supposed to keep hunger away for four hours but it failed to live up to its promise. Had I not been driving I might have written the company a stern letter of complaint using lots of explanation points.

On the road my car knew that in my condition it needed to take me to the Guy Land Cafeteria which---surprise, surprised---was filled with old men hence my nickname for the place I will miss after I move. Some of those guys were racks of bones and looked like they should have been at the Infusion Center with me. Others looked like they were hiding bowling balls under their shirts. I ordered the super breakfast because it came with hash browns. Then I wondered if I might be pregnant because I haven’t wanted or ordered hash browns since the ‘70s.

I love people watching but frankly the old men at Guy Land that day were too bland looking with their ash white, paper thin skin and gray hair that matched their muted plaid shirts. (Or was my cataracts telling me that?) Either way, maybe I read too many romance books while my house was being shown because I tried to imagine what some of these old guys looked like in their primes. I got nothing. 

When three guys at the next table started talking about passing kidney stones through their penises I left before I was tempted to over share the woes of having urinary track infections. I’d much rather get my penis talk in fictional conversations in romance books, thank you very much. Although that word rarely comes up in contemporary "hot" romance books---no pun intended---and the euphemisms used in the last century when I started reading the genre are few and far between. Nope, now they go straight for the ‘C’ word and aren’t you glad you came by today to learn that bit of genre reading trivia.  ©

Freaking Out!

I suppose freaking out is too strong a statement. Maybe wimping out or having a meltdown is closer to the fact? For some odd reason (or many reasons) tears have been close to the surface the past few weeks. One of those reasons is the on-going saga of my getting ready for my move to a continuum care campus---which in turn has caused me: 1) to depend on ambient too much to get some sleep, and 2) to depend of comfort foods to be my new best friend. Keeping the transition saga company on the ‘Things to Worry About' chart is stuff beyond my control---the pandemic, some issues my brother's family are going through, the housing market and worrying that the seller’s market will burst just as my house goes on the market, depending on hired help to get my house ready to list. Wouldn’t you think with so many situations I can't do anything about that I’d focus more on what I can control? Like my diet? My eating is so out of control it would take a baseball bat alongside the head to knock me back into the healthy eating zone. I'm still buying salads and fruits as well as the cookies, ice cream and carbs. I didn’t stop eating what I’m supposed to be eating, I just added my drug of choice to the mix. Sugar. Lots of sugar. I’ve been here before. The only thing that pulls me back from the Sugar Abyss is writing down every single morsel that passes my lips. I guess that's called 'accountability' and apparently I'm not mad enough about myself destructive behavior to go there yet.

You would not believe what I just went thought to get the correct spelling of ‘abyss.’ It involved a google search, my Franklin Word Master and a lot of yelling at Alexa because apparently in my dyslexic brain ‘obelisk’ and ‘abyss’ are pronounced the same. (When I check the spelling of a word, I always check its definition which is how I find all my brain farts in the Wonderful World of Writing.) I even tried to move past my obsession with that word by using the phrase Sugar Brink or Sugar Ledge instead of Sugar Abyss but I can be a stubborn creature when I argue with Alexa. And even that made tears roll down my cheek, wondering if my new neighbors be able to hear me yelling at my virtual assistant. Given all the fights we have over words on a daily basis why do I dream about getting another Alexa that isn’t tied to my Kindle? Some mysteries cannot be solved by applying logic.

Anyway, where was I with my ‘freaking out’ post? Stress. Yes, I’m stressed out and even though Levi my Might Schnauzer died two months ago, I’ve cried over him more these past two weeks than I did right after he passed away. I haven't been this "weepy" in years. My lawn treatment guy left a dog bone in a plastic bag with his invoice hanging on the door. Cue the crying. My cell phone calendar reminded me to give Levi his flea and heart worm medications. Cue the tears. And do you know how many cute dog videos pop up on my Facebook feed? They’ve always been there so why did they start effecting me now, two months after Levi’s passing? Probably for the same reason songs on Prime County have become crying cues again. I need more sleep, less sugar and a couple of huge hugs. Gosh, it's been well over a year since another human and I have touched. Damn pandemic! Makes me want to fake a choking event just to get someone to do the Heimlich Maneuver.

I got invited out to lunch by two of my Gathering Girls pals and found out the group, as we knew it, has reached its demise. We had a good run for nearly four years---meeting twice a month for lunch, but it looks like we’re not going to survive the damage the pandemic did to our good times. Last summer we were meeting in a park since the restaurants were all closed down and I was fully expecting to start that up again once we get past the unseasonably cold weather we’ve been having. But these two women told me they and a third member of the group don't want to meet in the park anymore because the picnic tables are too uncomfortable. Another member has COPD compromised lungs and even though she’s fully vaccinated she doesn’t want to go to restaurants but would do the park and sixth member of our group is afraid to get vaccinated which makes a few of the other ladies in the group nervous to be around her. Restaurants here are still not operating at full capacity and, for me, it isn't fun to linger over lunch when people are waiting to be seated. The handwriting is on the wall, there is no way to make everyone happy. 

I was the person who always sent out the bi-monthly emails to keep us meeting every 1^st and 3^rd Mondays. Even during this past winter when no places were open I still sent out the emails to keep us all touching bases. But at lunch I passed the job of coordinating future lunches and RSVPs on to one of my lunch companions who also had a bone to pick about meeting at a centrally located restaurant we often went to before the pandemic put us in the park. It seems that three in the group want to do spur-of-the-moment lunches instead of on fixed dates and they want to bounce around to different places. We've done a little of that bouncing around, especially in the early years, even tried rotating who picked the restaurants but neither worked as well for getting full attendance like going to our 'default place' did. Sitting at lunch this week, the negativity took me by surprised and I felt chastised which---real or made-up in my sleep deprived head---made me sad, like I hadn't been sensitive enough to the winds of discontinue. And it makes me a little mad that I had to come home and remove a summer's worth of 1st and 3rd Monday luncheons off my day planner. After doing that, I deleted Levi's medication reminders off my phone app calendar. Change is hard but I plan to take Socrates' advice to heart. ©

My Hodge-Podge Week

GATHERING GIRLS:  Why do all the bloggable things happen in one week? Monday started out with another long brunch with my Gathering Girls pals. And if I haven’t said it before, let me tell you that with the except using the F-word, I’ve never had friends that I’ve felt so completely free to say or do whatever silly or irreverent thing that crosses my mind. To misquote Sally Fields, "We like each other, we really do!” and that’s all the sweeter because we only met three years ago proving old dogs can learn new tricks. Unfortunately, though, our numbers keep dwindling. We started out with seven but Monday only three of us dined together. One was flying out to Arizona, another won't go to restaurants during the pandemic, a third lady was sick and one of our original gal pals had to drop out of our group for health or eye-sight issues---I don't remember which. Call me 'old'. I can take it.

THE ARGUMENT: Tuesday I had an argument with the dog, both of us speaking at full volume. Here’s the back story: My computer sits around the corner from the laundry room. In addition to what you’ll usually find in a laundry room is the door that leads to the garage and to another door leading outside to the dog’s yard. It’s also where Levi’s water and food dishes sit side-by-side. Yesterday I had my head lost in Facebook and Levi started in on me, acting like he wanted to go outside. Or so I thought. I opened the door to the garage and ordered, “Outside!” He took a leisurely stroll around the car and came straight back inside instead of heading to the outside door. Two minutes later he was begging again with the same results. After the fourth time I yelled at him to go get in his bed and he disobediently ran for the living room couch. And why not. I’ve let him treat the couch like a time-out, no scold zone so many times it’s actually become one. Five minutes later he was back in the laundry room again, this time banging his water dish against the wall and with a demonic look on his face that let me know that he knew my Facebook polluted brain was malfunctioning and not receiving the mental telepathy we usually share. It was so dry my heart sank, knowing he must have been without water all morning long. Levi accepted my apology but he put me on notice that it better not happen again. And don't you dare call the Old People Police! I'll deny the dog neglect ever happened.

HOUSE CLEANERS: Wednesday I lost my cleaning service, or rather I should say they lost me. After my favorite cleaner quit to go back to school the service hasn’t been able to find anyone to replace her who is willing to clean in my neighborhood. If I had a bigger house that took longer than 2 to 2 ½ hours to clean or they had other clients near-by, that might have changed things. But given the fact that they charged me an average of $74 per cleaning and the person who actually does the work only gets $30 of that fee I can see why no one wants to hop on the expressway from their offices to come through the heart of town to get here for a lousy $30 a month. I've all but resigned myself to cleaning my own house again---I did it all but the last 4-5 years of my life, so how hard could it be to get back in the groove?  I'm even warming up to the idea of earmarking the money I'll save for something special for my new home.

PARTY AT THE CCC: Thursday I had to make a $20,000 payment on the unit in the continuum care campus where---with any luck---I’ll be living by this time next year. Their marketing managers usually invent a reason to bring those of us who have already bought into the dream out to the building site around the time when a scheduled payment is due. This time they called their social-distancing party a “Topping Out Celebration.” The construction company brought a large truss up to the sales building and we all got to sign our names on a grid, after which we were supposed to watch a crane haul it up to the third floor roof and ‘top out’ the building. But it was raining so hard they decided to put that part off for later and we ate yummy falls treats instead. If the chef who prepares all the food for these events wasn't so young or me so old, I'd be in lust with the man. The only thing my husband could make was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and even then he go the proportions all wrong. An inch of peanut butter, Don? Really?

THE PORCH CEILING PROJECT: Friday the son-I-wish-I-had came over to paint the ceiling on my porch, to finish off our barter agreement. One of the reasons I can’t wait until after the election is over is because he’s a Trump supporter. I love this guy, have known him since before he got married, had three kids and 12-13 grandkids. We were neighbors for years and he worked for my husband and after my husband’s stroke he helped us more than all my other family and friends put together. I thought I knew him well but Trump has brought a side out of Tim that I’d rather not know about. It makes me sad and we tippy-toe around politics so carefully you’d think current events are freshly laid eggs in a hen house. But his Facebook posts---all I can say is I’m shocked at how much Kool-Aid he’s drank. The election can't come fast enough! No matter which way it turns out the true character of our country will be exposed. God help us all. ©

 Photo at the top was taken on the campus of the CCC.