Flea Markets and Cardio Drumming

Since the first Monday in July was smack dab in the middle of a four day holiday, I was surprised that all six of us Gathering Girls showed up for our monthly brunch. But it no longer surprises me that we never seem to run out of things to gab about. Our modus operandi is fully developed now which means we’ve mastered the art of laughing at ourselves in that way only a bunch of gal pals can do. 

That was the 3^rd of July, on the 4^th two of us Gathering Girls went to a huge flea market thirty minutes north of town. It’s a mecca for antique collectors who are willing to pay $20.00 to get admitted before the general public comes through the gate for $3.00. We got there closer to noon, avoiding the long lines that are reported close to opening time but my husband was a fan of paying the Early Buyer fees at places like that. Back in those days I usually had to work on market days but we’d meet for lunch and his show-and-tell. After I gave up the wedding floral business we even rented vendor space a few times at that same market where B.L. and I went yesterday. Don and I was selling to downsize my husband’s growing collections but I’m guessing half those vendors pack up at the end of each market and do it all over again in another town the following weekend. That would be a hard life and some of the full timers have hard luck stories to tell. 

At this market, vendor tents and tables are set up under giant white pine trees and seeing them yesterday reminded me of camping overnight with the other vendors. A lot of 'horse trading' goes on that night before the markets open and I still have an Indian blanket acquired in a swap. It’s hard to explain how excited I was about having the opportunity to go back to that market after so many years. I don’t collect anything anymore thus I wasn’t anticipating the thrill of the hunt. The heat, the sun, the dirt, the Porta-Potties---none of which are particularly endearing at my age (or any other) but still it felt like a part of my past was inviting me back for a sentimental visit. I’ve been on both sides of the vendor tables: at low quality markets and at high quality markets where buyers peeled off a stack of hundred dollar bills to pay for what they were buying. Our biggest outdoor market sale was $7,000 and the guy who bought the glass gas globe swore us to secrecy because he didn’t want other globe collectors to know how much he was willing to spend on pieces he wanted. I broke one of those pricey globes once, dropped it on the cement and can you believe it, all my husband said was, “Oops.” 

On the 4^th this year, all I bought was a down-under style hat to keep the sun off my head, a loaf of bread from an Amish vendor---they are growing in numbers in that part of Michigan---a slice of spinach pie and a small wedge of polished, purple and gray stone. B.L. is the only other person I’ve ever known who loves stones and she bought three or four. 

Change of topic: Last week I stopped by the nutrition store where they have the cardio drumming classes, fully intent on signing up. But their instructor is in the hospital with a serious medical issue so they’ve suspended the classes until they can find another certified teacher. Cardio drumming, in case you’ve never heard of it involves using weighed drum sticks on large exercise balls. It combines dance moves, rhythm and it’s a fairly high-energy work out. I was disappointment! What am I going to do without a new class to challenge me this summer? Classes are not that easy to find when you don’t drive downtown (art classes), or you’re bored with hand projects (quilting or knitting classes), or you don’t want to gain weight (cooking classes) or you don’t want your brain “coached” at the Thought Studio although their Mindfulness class would probably do me a lot of good. The Sculpture Park has some great classes but they’re mostly for kids this time of the year and all the Olli classes require a morning rush hour trip through a congested part of town. I don’t do rush hour.

Henry Ford was quoted as saying, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young,” but good old Henry didn’t mention how much harder that is when you don’t have a chauffeur to cart you around in your old age like he had back in his day. Ya, I know, there are books, documentaries on TV and the internet but, for me, nothing holds a candle to learning in groups. ©

A Widow's Bones and Winters Past

The sky was ash-gray and accumulating snow is predicted for overnight but the snow that was falling this morning was so light it rose up in tiny whirlwinds as the car in front of me went down the highway.  I was on my way to my orthopedic doctor’s office for my two week post shoulder surgery appointment. I’m doing well. He offered me a shot for pain. I refused it, don’t need it. He offered me another round of Prednisone for swelling. Oh, boy! I took it. I love that stuff. It makes my bones feel twenty years younger and like I could take up bench pressing in my spare time. He showed me before and after photos of my shoulder joint taken during surgery and I asked him if it’s like playing a video game when he’s moving a camera and two gadgets around inside a person installing a labrum tear patch. “Sort of,” he answered. I have to go back in a month and then he’ll order some physical therapy. Bummer. I don’t like having appointments in the winter.

The photo above is of me and Don and that was the smallest of three front-end loaders that he used to stack snow on the malls we plowed.  We called them Poppa, Momma and Baby. He did his best to get me to love operating Baby and I did try it a few times but I figured if I didn’t put my foot down I’d be running it all the time and it didn’t have “central heat” or a radio and back in those days I listened to books on tape every night we plowed. At one point in time he had four women (and three guys) working for him and a couple of the women really loved running Baby. I’m talking 20 years ago when it was more unusual for women to be driving heavy equipment than it is now. 

He liked having women snow plowers for several reasons, one of which was he claimed it was easier to teach women to plow because we followed instructions and didn’t try to re-invent the wheel. Another reason he loved having women plowers was for the shock value we brought to the table. It was pretty funny. From what we heard from the snowplow repair places Don was the first person in town to hire women to plow snow, and it put a dent in a few male egos of guys who didn’t believe a woman could or should do that kind of work. He was probably the only guy I ever knew who read Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique back in its day and he took it to heart. But before that, he watched how hard his mother worked feeding and washing clothes for four sons, a husband and two hired hands. She had a hard life. Her garden put food on the table. She raised chickens, sold eggs to the local grocer. She canned and did all the other things expected from a farm wife and with no daughters to help.

I think back to my snow plowing days and I wonder how I got to be such a chicken about driving in Michigan winters. Since Don died, I pick and choose the days I drive and it makes me nervous as all get out when I can’t avoid going out on unplowed roads. I was a good wintertime driver. I could do control skids and bank snow at the end of a runs without even stopping which is hard to master and I won more rat hockey matches than anyone else. Yes, real rats that would venture out on a parking lot in the middle of the night got escorted across the lots with two or three trucks chasing them, turning our plows back and forth to make the rat fly across the icy surface. We’d “steal” the rat from each other when it was sliding and we’d score if you were the one to run it into a snow bank. Rat hockey didn’t happen often but it sure was fun when it did and it’s a wonder none of us ever collided with our silly game. But I lost my wintertime driving confidence after Don died and I sold our four wheel drive Traverse. Cars feel so wimpy after decades of driving heavy, four wheel drive trucks and SUVs. Maybe having physical therapy appointments to force me out on winter days when I’d rather stay home is just what I need to get my confidence back, says the lady who always tries to find the up side of any given situation.

After the doctor’s appointment I went to the first of a series of classes on genealogy research that I signed up for at the senior center. I really don’t need a class but for only $3.00 a session I figured I can get something useful out of them. There were sixteen there today and we all shared funny stories about oddities we’d found while poking around the family bones so I got my money’s worth in laughter. ©

Classes, Old Men and Movies

The dog is a nut case. My lawn care guy was here earlier this week and he put fresh bark down in the yard including in the dog pen. Ever since Levi has been diligently covering up his poop with bark in the same way that a cat does with kitty litter in a cat pan. So now I have to stand guard to pick it up immediately after he’s completed his “duty” and before he gets a chance to play cat imposter. I don’t want poop germs to get a chance to jump ship to where he can bring them into the house. Crazy dog!

This week I restocked my mall booth and did some e-Bay shipping and listing. And I went to a retirees’ union meeting. I haven’t been to one since last fall and I like to go once in a while to keep up on changes and issues involving our healthcare benefits and pensions. It’s also nice, as a woman, to see so many aging men in one place. (95% of those in attendance are male.) Not that I’m looking but with the Red Hat Society and senior hall activities, where 95% of those taking part are female, it’s sometimes hard to remember that men in my age bracket actually do exist. I also like being around people who knew Don both before and after his stroke because that automatically translates into a message about all the stuff that I went through in recent years. We all want to be understood in this world but telling the story of how we got from point A to point B on Widowhood Lane is not acceptable conversation on so many levels. New people in our lives really don’t want to be reminded of the fragile mortality of humans, for one thing, and it’s hard to exchange getting-to-know-each-other chit-chat when you have to gloss over so much of your personal history. At least it is for me and I wonder if that's true for other widows as well. Widowhood is one of those huge benchmarks like getting divorced or disabled. You can say those benchmark words and everyone knows what they mean BUT each of us has a different level of pain that goes with the process and few people want to know the details.

I also took a one and half hour class this week on how to crochet. (I have to be careful how I spell that word because most of the time it comes out of my dyslexia head as ‘crotch.’ “A crotch class? Did I read that right?") Anyway, off and on throughout my life I’ve tried to learn to crochet. Within the first twenty minutes of the class I FINALLY figured out what was causing 80% of my issues with the craft. That night I went home and worked on my first ever dishcloth. Not that I have a burning desire to make dishcloths but it’s a good way to practice keeping my tension smooth which was my biggest hang up. I never would have figured it out on my own that you have to push each loop all the way up to the fattest part of the hook to keep the stitches all the same. After the dishcloth I want to graduate to making flapper style hats with cabbage roses on the side.

I wish I could teach classes of some kind. I paid $25.00 for this crochet class, as did three other ladies. Earning $100 for an hour and a half class sure would supplement your income. While I was taking this class another one was going on for learning how to knit and they had eight people in that class. There are lots of ways to sublimate your income if you’re creative. The woman who taught my crochet class teaches in three different locations around town and she can set her hours to suit hers and the students’ schedules. The art professor who will teach my soon-to-start art classes charges $30.00 for private classes and $20 for group classes that pack in 10 to 12 people at a time.

Tomorrow I’m going with my senior hall Movie and Lunch club to see The Grand Budapest Hotel directly after eating at Fajita Republic, a new Mexican restaurant in town. I’m not sure how that combination is going to work out in that order, but I don’t see me volunteering for the planning committee. So I will cheerfully accept the decisions of those kind souls who do the planning for a group when it is impossible to make everyone happy, every time. ©