Brain Games and Christmas Wishes

This post will publish on Christmas day, but will anyone read it then? I would guess not. Still, I have to write one because writing posts is one of those brain exercises I do that I'm afraid to stop doing because my geriatric brain might seize up like an old motor left out in the snow all winter. I also do the New York Time's Wordle, Quiddler and a game or two of Solitaire every morning. In the evenings it's online Mahjong---the real game where I play against three computer bots, not the matching tiles game where people think they are playing this ancient game, but they aren't. 

A surprising number of the residents here in my continuum care facility do Wordle, too. Once in awhile if the Wordle word-of-the-day is especially hard it will become a topic of conversation at the lunch table and every time it comes up it generally leads to everyone comparing their starting words. Everyone but me because I'm ashamed that I have three of them that I use and that almost always gives me enough correct letters that I can guess the word on the forth line---an unorthodox way to solve it but it works for me and my dyslexia. For example, recently the word of the day was 'flash' and after entering my starter words of 'pearl' then 'stick' followed by 'found' it was easy. Another example when the word was 'blade' I got 'pearl', 'stick' and 'found' using my three-word starter method.

Quiddler is more challenging but I'm able to solve it as often as I can't. And Solitaire? When I was growing up there would be times when my mom played Solitaire over and over again. She’d pull up a red leather footstool, top it with a TV tray, deal the cards and play the tricks, until I would go daffy watching her. I didn’t play the game myself until after my husband had his stroke. That’s when I bought a tiny deck of cards at a hospital gift shop and I carried it everywhere we went for the next 12 years. Spouses of disabled people spend a lot of time in waiting rooms. I became my mother only with a twist that, I thought, set me apart from the woman I didn’t understand growing up. I bought a book titled 101 Ways to Play Solitaire. Yes, I played the game that drove me daffy as a kid but I was learning 101 new ways to numb my brain, to turn it off so I didn’t have to have think about the serious issues going on in my life. True Confusion: I suspect 2025 will bring on a few sessions of binging on Solitaire and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they will be 45/47 related.

It's been a busy and rather pleasant holiday season for me despite what's going on in the national and world news. Like so many others, I've given myself permission to take a holiday break from worrying about what "President" Musk and "Vice-President" Trump are doing. There will be time enough to hop back on the Worry Bus in 2025. 

On Christmas day here at the CCC many of my neighbors will gather in their robes and PJs by the fireplace for coffee and a potluck breakfast at 8:00 AM. I don't get out of bed that early except for surgeries, but I'll be going to the White Elephant gift exchange later in the day. We don't get food service on Christmas day and no employees are on duty except for a security guard. Our concierge's desk will be manned by volunteer residents doing two hour shifts. I refuse to do one on principle---not that I've ever been asked. I should say I refuse to answer the call when they ask for volunteers. We pay a lot of money in fees to live here and they are spreading some of their employees too thin. On the other hand, with so many of us taking on self-appointed roles around here it has a homey feel, like we really are in charge of our own lives. At least the volunteer concierges will have a lot to do because a fair amount of people are having families coming over for gifts exchanges and home cooked dinners. 

There's about a dozen of us (out of 75) who will not be with families this year and our resident social committee has invited those of us who will be alone to bring our own lunch down to the (closed) cafe` where we can eat together. I won't be doing that. We spend plenty of time together already and I will not de-solve into a pity party if I spend dinner on Christmas eating alone.

Whether you read this post on Christmas day or a few days after, I hope you're having as nice of a holiday season as I am. The next time I'll see you it will be New Year's Day! Until then I'm sharing a message that was in the Hallmark Christmas cards I sent out this year. I LOVE the wording and the sentiment. ©

"Christmas keeps us believing in goodness,

 in kindness, in the wonderful dream of Peace.

May Christmas always have the power

 to remind us of the connection between us all

 and to renew our wish for a more peaceful world.

And this year, especially, may Christmas bring you joy."

 A Christmas tree from my youth, 1951.

I named that doll 'Jimmy' because a grandfather figure/neighbor

used to call me that. I recently purchased a briefcase for my mahjong stuff and it's the made of the same pink cabbage roses and tan fabric as the drapes in this photo. I loved it the minute I saw it but didn't make the connection until a few days later.

No Rest for the Wicked

 

There’s no time for lollygagging here in the Daydreamer’s Den. If I was into walking I could have joined the Senior Walking Group at 9:30. But that’s not going to happen for me until spring, if ever, but at 10:30 I went to a meeting called Game Room Orientation where I was hoping (and succeeded) to whip up some interest in a monthly or by-monthly Monopoly game. They’ve already got a Cutthroat Pinochle group started and one called Mexican Train Dominoes plus a Scrabble group which---with my inability to spell without Alexa at my side---would be sheer punishment. I hate that game with a passion. 

After that I grabbed a quick vegetable panini at the cafe` so I could make it to a Gym Equipment Orientation at 12:30 followed by another class called Appliance Training at 2:00. The latter class was by far the most popular. All of us are having trouble learning the ends and outs of the high tech programmable thermostats and the dishwashers that likes to start themselves if you lean against them. Computer savvy person that I am I learned early on how to use the complex’s app to fill out a work order to have a guy come to cancel the program in the thermostat so I now have what is virtually a manual with only a few things to remember: Press plus or minor to change the temperature and mode to get air conditioning, heat or off.

Also today I put in a work order to get my floor cleaned with a power scrubber so I can order my area rug. There’s a foot wide strip across the floor where the drop clothes the workmen used must not have covered and the normal cleaning crew couldn’t get the film off with normal mopping when they prepped the apartment for me to move in. In the meantime I ordered a two by three foot rug in the same pattern and color as the seven by ten rug I need just to make sure it looks good with my wicker and new La-Z-Boy. It’s worth that extra step to know I wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of returning something that big if I don't like it. And it came today. 'Love' is not a strong enough word for how much I like it.

After a full day of back to back classes I felt like I was in college again and just like back in those days one of the ladies invited 5-6 of us in to see her apartment. Everyone raved about her linoleum kitchen floor that looked like cork that she paired with high pile cream, wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room area. It wasn’t an option for the masses but she hates gray and did both floors as an upgrade. She had that same white and stainless steel kitchen as me but with the light cork colored flooring didn’t look all that good in my opinion and where her carpeting started she had a huge, L-shaped creamy white couch with it’s back to the kitchen, a hard division of space. Where my wicker furniture is probably a tad too small in scale for the space her furniture was without a doubt too big for the space. She could seat an entire football team on her disco lounge style couches. A TV and coffee table completed her decor except for a single piece of art on the wall of a dainty bouquet of flowers that looked like it was straight off the walls of a place like Home Goods.

I told her she’s going to hate my apartment because I love gray. My love affair with that color dates way back to the ‘80s when we started painting houses, buying vehicles and dogs in shades of gray and, of course, my husband’s and my hair turned silver. We joked that we were the Gray Family all matchy-matchy grAy with a little grEy thrown in for variety. It’s going to be fun seeing what each of us has done with our similar space. Someone mentioned we need to set up a tour around the holidays. Sign me up.

After being gone most of the day I came back to clean windows and summer screens installed. And we got a promise of pull cords attached to our blinds because no one is tall enough to reach them without a ladder. I don't get how we're supposed to get them back up again without a ladder, but I don't care because I will never put mine up all the way to the ceiling anyway unless drones come peeking in the windows which is a possibility. I saw one today in the green space across from my apartment.

I also learned more about the painting classes that will on campus. It’s not going to the kind I'd hoped for. They’ll be like the Wine & Painting parties you hear about for bridal showers, where you all paint the same picture only this one is designed to complete a painting in three, one hour long classes rather than one three hour class like with the party painting. (one painting per mouth if you keep them up). I hate to be an art snob but it sounds like a step above paint-by-number ‘art’. Still, I signed up just to get a paint brush in my hands again. On the other side of the coin I have a confession to make: when I was a kid I absolutely adored paint-by-number kits and ten years ago I tried another and found it just as appealing---kind of like meditation or doing jigsaw puzzles, even sold that sucker on e-Bay because collecting finished paint-by-numbers was a thing when I was downsizing. So who knows, with enough wine I might become queen of the painting party concept, and yes, we can bring wine if we want. I asked. ©