Great Summer Social Outings

I’ve been to many places this week where old people conjugate and let me tell you I was a little shocked at how---well, how old we all looked! At the senior hall ice cream social a field of white hair was all I saw when I first walked into the place. Then my artist eyes zeroed in on wrinkled and saggy skin and plump bodies with lumps, bumps and skin tags not to mention knobby knees and puffed up feet in sensible shoes. Of those who weren’t overweight or out of shape there were a few ladies who looked like death warmed over. And if you look that way here’s a fashion tip: don’t wear those god-awful ‘cold shoulders’ dresses! You have to work out at a gym to look good in those. One women who last year at this same event was showing off her new eyelids lift surgery I hardly recognized this year because the skin on her face was like a blow-up plastic doll’s and not in a good way. I don’t know what kind of cosmetic surgery she had this time but it was proof positive you can’t turn back the hands of time. That day and the next at a Red Hat Society garden party they started out by announcing the grave illnesses and impeding deaths of a couple of delightful women. “Send prayers,” they said and I thought, I’ve got to quit hanging around with people my own age! They scare the crap out of me, reminding me that the damn funeral bells could toll for me next!

The garden party was a crack-of-dawn breakfast planned during our recent heat wave but that morning I could have used a sweater. Half the ladies were directed to bring ‘savory’ and half of the group was directed to bring ‘sweet.’ The orange juice was spiked with champagne, the coffee was strong and just the way I like it. There were twelve of us so I was in sweet-tooth heaven with all the cranberry-walnut bread, donuts, date strudel, pecan rolls and baked French toast. I was assigned to bring savory and---surprise, surprise---everyone raved about the mini tarts I made. I’ve been bringing mini tarts to everything that requires a dish to pass since last Christmas and I’m getting pretty good at inventing fillings for them. These were filled with a spinach, artichoke and Parmesan dip that was cut with equal parts of whipped cream cheese and mixed with chopped bacon and dates. I’ll probably make mini tarts again for a summer picnic next month but I’ll have to bring ‘sweet’ to that party so I’ll probably experiment with lemon curd tarts topped with raspberries stuffed with almond paste or blueberries because half the fun of making tarts is testing combinations and eating the rejects.

Somewhere in my busy week I found time to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom which was actually the results of a mistake on my part. A Gathering Girl friend and I had intended to see Won’t you be my Neighbor? in a tourist town near-by, but the listing on the internet I read for an AMC theater was for a showing in a town with the same name in a different state. The ticket seller says it happens from time to time but it was still embarrassing. Jurassic World was the only thing starting soon and tickets in that theater are only $4.50 so we went inside on a spur-of-the-moment decision and had a good time. It had a darker, more sinister storyline and ending than the original Jurassic Park but it was fast paced, scary-as-in-I-screamed-out-loud-a-couple-of-times and the movie had the cutest leading actors who stole my heart with flashes of humor and romance. Chris Pratt was paired with Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter, who I didn’t know was in the business. What a beautiful woman.)

Chris got his start in the TV series Parks and Recreation and in the storyline of the film he and Bryce's character used to date and were thrown back together. My favorite lines came when he was asking about who she was dating now. “A lawyer? A Wall Street guy?” he guessed. “Your skin looks great. A dermatologist?” If they could bottle up that flirty, sparkle in his eyes and the tease in his voice I’d buy a fifty gallon drum of that charisma and wallow in memories of being young enough to have flirty eyes and a voice like that aimed in my direction.

By Thursday all the fun stuff was over for the week and I was in caregiver mode taking care of Levi. He’s always been a wimp about getting his annual teeth cleaning and this time he got three teeth pulled as well and he cost me over $1,000! We’ve gone through this seven times now and it doesn’t get any easier. He doesn’t handle pain well and he’s been known to pass out for unknown reasons. Poor baby. And the patch they shave where his IV line got poked in his leg annoys the heck out of him and I think he blames me for the whole ordeal. Hopefully, by the time this post gets published the ‘mighty’ should be back in Levi my _______ Schnauzer. In the meantime I'll be fluffing his pillow and dispensing his meds. ©

Parties and Conversations

The ski resorts’ loss here in West Michigan is my gain. No snow from Thanksgiving to (hopefully) Christmas, Yeah! I love it, absolutely LOVE it! No snow meant I was able to go to the Red Hat Society Christmas party and the senior hall party plus take the dog to his “party” at Chow Hound. What a difference from the last two years when I was snowbound too often and cancellations kept me as lonely as the Maytag repairman. If you don’t understand that Maytag reference, be happy. That means you had a social life a few years back that didn’t revolve around the family television set.

At the Red Hat party my good luck was overflowing because I was bookended by two of my favorite chapter sisters. One “bookend” was an upbeat and busy widow whose husband died within a few days of Don and other “bookend” is a prolific poet. Besides writing, she goes to out-of-state workshops and does weekly readings on open mic nights for poets, song writers and storytellers that take place at a local brewery. In my wildest nightmares I can’t imagine doing that. I'd pee my pants in fear. She awes me with the breadth of her knowledge and her vocabulary alone is beyond any I’ve ever heard coming out a person’s mouth. Several times at the party I said, “I don’t know that word. What does it mean?” The Widow, petite and sweet, I just learned had been married four times! Twice divorced and twice widowed. If the poet had that much personal history to dissect on paper can you imagine the insights she’d be able to articulate? Our three way conversation was fluid and fun and it covered everything from making your own marshmallows to the KKK. 

The dog's party was a fund raiser for the local humane society and when Levi and I arrived at the store, over thirty dogs were waiting in line to get their photos taken with Santa. No problem, they said the line went fast and all the dogs were thrilled to see the others. Levi decided he wasn’t getting enough attention so he made himself memorable by pooping on the floor. And not just a little bit! I bagged up one pile not knowing he was behind me making another which I stepped in and tracked all the way across the store as I went searching for the guy on mop duty. Oops! Thankfully, the person behind me graciously saved our place in line and it was a good thing because another two dozen dogs had arrived after us. Finally, we got near the front of the line where a couple was trying to get a big black Lab donning a red scarf to sit at Santa's feet, but that dog went into wet noodle mode. It was quite entertaining watching them try to get and keep the Lab into a sitting position. When he wasn’t flopping on the floor, he had his nose in Santa’s crotch. Levi, always camera ready, did his photo shoot in under a minute. He was the two hundred and fifteenth dog photographed that day. Afterward, we went to Starbucks so Levi could get a puppuccino and I could get a salty caramel latte and a "controversial" red cup for my holiday collection. 

The senior hall Christmas parties take place at a different venue than our own building, so no one has to be turned away. We had nearly 400 in attendance. (Our regular luncheons are capped at 115.) You never know who you’ll sit next to at a senior hall event and this time I was surrounded by women who all had a volunteer gig going on in their lives. Two work at Red Cross blood drives, another works on the election board, one lady works for Seniors Helping Seniors and a fifth lady volunteers at the sculpture garden where her latest job was to help decorate 40 internationally themed Christmas trees. For entertainment at the party a choir of twenty-two sang some odd-ball songs mixed in with carols like, Coffee in a Cardboard Cup. Maybe you know it: “The trouble with the world today, it seems to me, is coffee in a cardboard cup. The trouble with the affluent society is coffee in a cardboard cup. No one's ever casual and nonchalant, no one waits a minute in a restaurant. No one wants a waitress passing pleasantries. It's rush it through, and don't be slow.”

All and all it felt good to be busy doing things that put me in the proximity of ordinary people with interesting backstories. Like the guy in the Santa line who’s Golden Retriever just got certified as a therapy dog so he could take her into his mom’s nursing home and like one of my Red Hat sisters who used to be a Marine and who is never without tickets or trinkets to sell to help veteran causes. We humans have such different life stories to tell, don't we. If only there was enough time left in my life to collect them all. ©

“Our culture is all about shallow relationships.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop looking each other in the eye and having deep conversations.” Francis Chan, American Clergyman

City of Champions, Red Hats and Pious Women

I was totally wiped out the day after my day trip to the Underground Railroad on Tuesday. And that wouldn’t do. I still had places to go and things to do the rest of the week before I could hang up my walking shoes. Wednesday my Red Hat Society Chapter went to the small town I'd like to move to someday where we had lunch and went shopping at a consignment mall. I didn’t find a single thing I wanted to buy---thank goodness---but a few others did. One sister can always be counted on to buy a purse at these places and she lived up to her reputation this week. Me, I hate the hassle of changing purses and I only do it for motor coach trips like I did on Tuesday. Then, I use a light weight purse that I can hang around my neck and be hands-free for disembarking and boarding the bus. I strip down on what I carry in that purse to: an ID card, money, comb, lipstick, emery board, Kleenex, my cell phone and a nylon bag that opens up big in case I buy things along the way. My every day purse has everything in it but the proverbial kitchen sink. If logic played a bigger part in my purse choices I’d reverse my options and carry my Healthy Back Bag on trips and the stripped-down purse in town where I can always buzz home, if needed. I have so many things in the ‘back bag’ that I could defuse a bomb or sterilize a port-a-potty.  Slight exaggeration, but I could replace a screw in my eyeglasses, change the batteries in my hearing aids, and apply emergency first aid to someone who just lost a finger---assuming I won’t pass out at the first sight of blood.

Thursday I was on the go again. I went to a lecture titled Detroit: City of Champions about the 1935-36 seasons of the Detroit Tigers, Red Wings and the Lions in which they all won their 1^st Championships. The lecturer/author (Charles Avison) was intensely energetic, funny and fun to listen to. I’ve never played sports, don’t follow sports and I was always grateful that my husband and I shared the same level of disinterest. Okay, let’s be brutally honest here; one of my deepest fears is one day I’ll end up in a nursing home with a roommate who follows all the games and she’ll has control of the TV remote. And I’ll be catatonic and unable to scream, “Turn that damn thing down!” That’s how much I dislike hearing games playing in the background. So why did I sign up for this lecture?  If you’re guessing I was trolling for old dudes with thinning hair and pants pulled far up above their belly buttons you’d be wrong. I viewed the lecture as social history and it never hurts to learn something about the hobbies and passions that other people enjoy. 

I got to this lecture twenty minutes early so with coffee and brownie in hand, I sat down a few rows in front of a couple other women who’d just struck up a conversation. Yes, I admit to being an eavesdropper. It wasn’t long before the Woman A asks, “Do you believe in the Lord?” 

“Yes,” answers Woman B and while I’m trying to figure out how I would answer that question in a place where I was not the only eavesdropper in range, Woman A replies, “He’s coming back to earth soon.”

“I know,” says Woman B. 

“I can hardly watch the news anymore,” adds Woman A, “Not since the White House got infested.” I see that phrase often on the website where I go to debate politics and in case you don’t recognize it, that’s code for ‘since a black man got elected.’ In my world you don’t talk that way if you respect the Office of the Presidency. Like Obama or not, like his politics or not, the First Family aren’t roaches that need to be “exterminated from those hallowed halls,” as people like Woman A believe. 

Sensing she may have overstepped a boundary with the stranger she was talking with, Woman A abruptly switched topics to a few years ago when her house burned down and she walked out with just her beloved Bible in hand. “The fire,” she cooed, “was the Lord’s work. Now I have an old lady friendly house that I love.” 

I couldn’t process that her Lord would make a family go through a fire just to give them a new house. My brain was still back on the “infestation at the White House” and I was wondering how someone so pious could be so unaware of her own Sin of Prejudice. To paraphrase the great Sojourner Truth, “Was not the God that made her skin white the same God that made other people’s skin black? Does it not cast a reproach on our Maker to despise part of His children, because He has been pleased to give them black skin?”

I turned around in my seat to take a good look at Woman A. I wanted to memorize every detail of her face, to make sure I never, ever sit next to her on a day trip or at a luncheon or anywhere else that would cause her to ask me, “Do you believe in the Lord?” ©