We humans are creatures of habit. We sit in the same section
in restaurants, churches and movies theaters. We take the same routes to the places we go routinely. Our lives have a rhythm even when we’re
retired with no job crying out for our time and talents. After all these years
of not being in the work force, I still do my laundry on the weekends, water
my house plants on Sundays and at five o’clock
daily the dog gets his denial care stick. The senior hall and Red Hat Society sets the
monthly rhythm of my life but if my world was perfect, the activities I like doing
with these two groups would be spread out across the month. Instead, the third
week of the month will always find me going to a luncheon on Tuesday, a Red Hat Society
tea on Wednesday and a lecture on Thursday.
The food at the luncheons is always good and at a bargain
price. The entertainment comes free after the meal and on rare occasions that's all it's worth. This week, it was a gray-haired singer
whose pink paisley tie ended half way between his belt bucket and the beginning
of his inseam. How could someone of his advanced age not know how to buy or
wear a tie? Not that I’m a fashionista but it was distracting---or maybe at my
advanced age I just needed an excuse to stare at a man’s crotch? While the
others around me were swooning over his voice and the Jesus-is-the-answer song
he was singing, I was wondering if he stood up straight and tall would his tie
issue be resolved, or would a pair of scissors be in order. Lord help me if the filter in my brain that keeps me
civilized ever gives out and I start acting on my old person thoughts.
The following day at the Red Hat Society tea we packed bags
of chocolates, cookies and Valentines for 65 nursing home residents and employees, then we
planned a day trip via chartered bus to wine country up north to take place this
coming June. It will fall in the same week the senior hall is planning a day
trip south to a Shipshewana garden quilt tour. Woo-is-me, if I do both the
dog will have to be in a kennel four nights because both trips leave too early in
the morning for me to check him in the same day as the trips, ditto on
getting back too late. I'm so torn, but I can't do both and live to tell about it! Besides the kennel issue, my bones and bladder are too old for back-to-back bus trips. And did I mention a third day trip
that is calling my name? It’s to a prison that was once the biggest one in the
nation. Nothing to fear. It’s closed now and has been re-purposed into an artist colony.
The tour comes with lunch and a lecture on the history of prisons and would cost a $100 plus
$54 for Levi to spend two days in doggie jail. Summer promises to be a good one
this year. My niece is also talking about organizing a family weekend at her cottage. I'm totally geeked up about that idea.
The lecture I went to this week was interesting for anyone
who has ever spent much time in my home state of Michigan. It was about the history
of M-22 and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Shoreline. M-22 starts at Manistee and
travels north 116 miles along Lake Michigan and up the west side of the Leelanau Peninsula
and back down the east side ending at the bottom of Grand Traverse Bay. (That’s just a
hop-skip-and-a-jump from to wine country). My husband would have loved all the vintage photos of gas stations, maps,
lighthouses, camps, resorts and businesses, and seeing all those slides made me
homesick for doing the M-22 tour again. They churned up good memories of Don and I taking the Corvette up along
that highway. It was one of our favorite weekend trips and we
always stopped at the Gravity Hill near Arcadia---there are two in
Michigan and only 31 in the entire USA. I know Gravity Hills are just an optical
illusion but it’s still fascinating to see balls and out-of-gear cars appear to
roll up hill.
I hesitate to mention how happy I’ve been without the massive
snow falls, ice storms and blizzards we experienced here in Michigan the past
two winters. Bless the gods of normal winters. I haven’t been snowed in once and I haven’t had to shovel snow
three-four times a day just to keep up. I hesitate because I know so many
people in our country are facing a monster storm as I write this. If you’re
reading this from the land of snowzilla, I hope you were able to stay safe and warm! ©
