Condo Rules, Widowers, Breasts and Pocket Change---Oh, My!

I went to an open house on Sunday of a free standing condo in my target area and price range. Loved the place except for the carpeting and paint which are easy enough to replace. They have a beautiful dog walking path, perfect for Levi and me. Flat as a pancake and it starts within 50 feet from the condo. I asked about the dog policy in the community of 50 condos and found out you can’t even put in an offer on the place until you get approval on your dog from the condo board. You fill out a form, provide a photo and DNA of your dog and wait for them to call you in for a doggie interview. DNA? Okay, I do get why they want a poop sample for residences who might make a habit of not picking up after their dogs but why would you have to pay to provide and process one before you’ve even made an offer on a house? 

I called the condo management company the next day to see if I could get more information on their dog rules like weight and breed restrictions, etc. I know many places have a 25 pound limit and Levi is 27 pounds and he’s got nothing to lose. The woman started rattling off restrictions pertaining to keeping birds inside your condo. Birds! Inside! Only one per condo. In my wildest dreams I never dreamed condo boards would get that deep into your pet business. Then she started in on cat rules but I was still processing that they have a bird rule and I didn’t hear what she was saying about felines. Finally, she got to the paragraph on dogs and it was vague on size and weight saying only words to the effect that everything was at the discretion of the board. You can’t have underground fencing---duh, you don’t own the land---or tie a dog by your back door. You have to walk it every single time. And anytime they want, the board can vote your dog off the island. “Put your condo up for sale or take a trip to the kill-shelter,” they could order. “Last night your dog peed ten feet short of the dog walking trail and we have yellow DNA in snow to prove it.” But the condo board are all lovely people, the manager told me when I balked a little about the each and every time rule. Yes, lovely people who get bent out of shape about someone having a cage full of parakeets.

 

On the way home I stopped at the Guy-Land Cafeteria and an old guy struck up a conversation with me while the cashier was off chasing down change for 100 dollar bill from a customer ahead of us in line. “I see you eat breakfast anytime of the day,” he said. “I do. Especially when I come here.” “Me, too,” he replied. Then he went on to tell me about the wife he lost who always made big breakfasts on Sundays and how he can’t seem to make everything come together at the same time when he tries to make breakfast at home. “Don’t feel bad,” I told him, “I’ve been trying to do that my entire adult life and I still can’t do it.” I visualized him taking out a pencil and crossing me off the list of possible lady friends. Seriously, though, I don’t know how long ago he lost his spouse but it was still painful for him to talk about his loss.

The Guy-Land Cafeteria does get a few women customers and this time there was a table with four generations in attendance. When the youngest one got hungry her mom took her to the bathroom where I found the young mother still sitting on a toilet stool fifteen minutes later. It made me sad/mad to see her there nursing with toilets flushing around her. One of my great niece-in-laws is militant about (discreet) breast feeding in public places and I admire her dedication to the cause. I've followed some of the Facebook discussions on the topic and I can’t believe how much attitudes have changed since I was a kid when I often saw breast feeding mothers. When did it become disgusting to so many people to the point that we have to have a movement to bring back the notion that breasts are not pornographic when used for the purpose they were intended?

After lunch I stopped at the dollar store to pick up some things for a Red Hat Society tea later in the week. We’re packing Christmas gift bags for nursing home residents again. As I paid the cashier she asked me if I wanted my (seven cents) change. “As opposed to what?” I asked thinking there must be a charity box for change near-by and she was suggesting I donate it. “Well, a lot of people don’t want their small change,” she said. This was the fourth time this year that's happened to me and at three different places. One time my change was seventy-something cents! All I could think of to answer back was “Yes,” but I wanted to ask the cashier where all that extra change goes at the end of the day. What ever happened to having retail registers balance at the end of the day and cashiers couldn’t leave until they did? I’m age-challenged to understand why/how this ask-people-if-they-want-their-change thing came about. Wanting my seven cents made me feel both church mouse poor (as if I really needed it) and Mr. Scrooge rich (as if I didn't want someone else to have it) at the same time. I couldn’t decide which but it wasn’t good either way. ©

Movies, Entertainment and Condos

Recently my Movie and Lunch Club saw Ricki and the Flash. If you saw the trailer you may have gotten the impression that it’s a comedy. I did and that accounts, in part, for why I was disappointed in this movie starring Meryl Streep who played an aging hard-rocker singer/guitarist. She’s a fabulous actor, no doubt about it, and her singing wasn’t bad at all. But any humor in the film was all in the trailer and I had a hard time liking her character, Ricki. In her younger years Ricki had left her husband (played by Kevin Kline) with three little kids to try to make it big in the music industry. Instead of achieving that dream she ended up broke and in a 2nd rate bar band. In the meantime her three kids grew up resenting her and by the time she came back into their adult lives they each held varying degrees of ambivalence towards her. Meryl’s real-life daughter plays her on-screen daughter who, in my opinion, doesn’t hold a candle to her mother’s natural talent. Rick Springfield who plays Meryl’s younger love interest, Flash, was believable and his music was just as great as it was in the ‘80s when he was a heartthrob. I’m glad to see more and more older women---Meryl is 66 now---getting leading roles these days but that wasn’t enough to make me like this film. It was worth the price of admission but not one I’m willing to brag up. 

The local sculpture park with its new Japanese garden announced a book club discussion that I signed up for within minutes after reading about it. It involves the book, The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. The lead horticulturist in the park is going to read portions of the book, show us the plants mentioned and share insights on their importance to the story. It’s a monthly book club but they are going to start doing four books a year that relate to the art or landscape of the 158 acre park. That twist was enough to make me decide this club might be worth checking out. I’d been in a book club before but too few of the twelve people in the group actually read the books so the discussions were often lacking. The club at the park has twenty-five people and seems more structured. I’ll have to waiting until the end of September to find out if that's true. Gosh, can you believe how fast time is flying by?

The senior hall had their end-of-summer picnic today. One hundred and ten people each bringing a dish to pass so imagine the hard, cuisine choices we had to make. It was nice, though, as it always is at the hall. That fact is one of the reasons the decision to move to the other end of the county has been so hard. Since Don died, I’ve been dependent on the place for my entertainment and human contact---however shallow that contact has been. This summer I’ve been experimenting. I cut my involvement at the hall in half, to see how I’d fair. Would I feel more isolated? The answer: yes. Would I find other things to do if I move away from my social hub? Researching what’s available down in the small town where I’d like to move, I found a monthly MeetUp for people over 60, a quilter’s club, two book clubs and the sculpture park is no farther away than it is right now. Neither is the theater where my Movie and Lunch club usually meets. Plus my family would all be within a short country drive away. I want to believe the latter would get me more impromptu invitations and visits.

Coming home from my niece’s house after our vacation, I serendipitously found a condo community exactly where I want to be. I detoured through it and called a realtor about a house up for sale. (The one pictured at the top.) It’s almost creepy how many features that house has that I want and it’s in my price range, the first big hurtle. It’s a zero concept, stand alone condo/house with two bedrooms and a small den off the front door and across the street is the entrance to the condo’s dog walking trail. Along the back of the condo is protected wetlands, so the immigrating bird life would be fantastic to watch and would give more privacy than most condo communities have. I asked the realtor if they had an open house coming up, explaining that I wouldn’t want to waste his time on a private showing since I won’t be ready to buy a condo until early next spring. But he seemed like he’d be glad to show it to me anyway and I’m waiting for a call-back after he arranges something with the owner. The web listing is so spot-on perfect, I’m almost afraid to tour the house for fear I’ll do something crazy like I did when I took the car in for an oil change and came out with a brand new car. I want that house so bad but the timing is wrong. I can’t downsize that fast and I need the money downsizing is bringing if I want to stick to my plan of not having a mortgage. I keep telling myself if I found one perfect place without even looking, I can find another when I’m dead seriously looking. Day dreams are dangerous things! ©