The Angel Triangle

view off deck looking toward the main building

Exciting things are happening here at the Daydreamer’s Den. Let’s qualify that. It’s only exciting if you’re into getting new furniture delivered. The Amish built desk came this week and I have a promised delivery of Monday for my mid-century La-Z-Boy chair. I didn’t expect that chair until closer to Christmas! And you know what that means, don’t you? Yup, you get a Kewpie Doll prize if you guessed that I can finally order an area rug for my living room. It feels like an Angel’s Triangle is coming my way---kind of the opposite of a Bermuda Triangle---because the IT guy (the third angle of my triangle of good things) was here shortly after the desk arrived to hook up the TV, WiFi, printer ad other devices. I’ve been using the guest WiFi and living without cable TV for a week now. 

I do have a 20" TV hooked up to one of those tiny $10 antennas and it pulls down a surprising number of channels, especially if you like all the old shows like Barry Miller, Gun Smoke, Friends, Miami Vice, The Brady Bunch, Magnum P.I., Johnny Carson plus some live court and popular game shows. That TV will be moved to my den and I’ll get a smart TV for my bedroom if they ever get unloaded from the ships parked in the harbors. Apparently the TVs under 32" are in short supply which may or may not explain why I saw a TV get delivered today that was as big as a movie screen. They walked it by a pickup truck and the truck completely disappeared behind the giant box and they would have had to set it on end to get it on the elevator. The day I need a TV that big is the day I buy five acres of land and start my own drive-in movie theater. My picture could be out for a week and as long as the speaker still worked I wouldn’t notice.

I went to an orientation class on Campus this week and found myself in the center of another Angel Triangle of sorts. At first I was alone at a table for four when a woman sat down all friendly and excited to be there like a labradoodle puppy greeting kids getting off a school bus. She introduced herself as one of the pastors for the campus and come to find out she used to write for our local newspaper and I read her column back in my seeking-the-meaning-of-life days. She hadn’t changed her name when she got married and neither had I and she thought she knew me and I’m sitting there trying to remember if I fan-girled her column back in the day. I used to write a lot of letters to the editor back when newspapers were the communication devices most popular.

She knew lots of people coming and the fact that there were five of us named “Jean” in a room of twenty some people. One of the Jeans said, “We’re all going to have to be good or we’ll all get blamed” and my big mouth all on its own accord opened up and replied, “And if we’re not we can deny whatever the gossip rumors said we did and blame it on one of the other Jeans.”

I couldn’t help liking the pastor. She's one of those people who is gifted at getting everyone talking to each other and I want to nickname her Miss Labradoodle but I won’t out of fear that someone who isn’t a ‘dog person’ won’t recognize that as a high compliment. Labradoodles are friendly and sweet and always eager to please. She introduced me to another woman who spent her whole work life teaching art and she plans on starting a class on our campus. If that introduction isn’t enough proof that Miss Labradoodle is really meant to be Ms Angel, she invited two other out-going people to sit at our table---another pastor and his wife, retired and living in the condo in the older section of the campus. So there I was, the self-proclaimed agnostic in the center of a triangle of people who would probably all love to save me if they thought I was a lost sheep. He and I bonded over the fact that neither of us likes to wear our hearing aids in public places so our conversation was---well, perfect for two old duffers waiting for the presentation to start.

After the orientation class which was mostly about how to download and use the campus app to: 1) see what is going on each day, 2) find the staff and resident contact lists, 3) fill out forms to request various work orders we might need, 4) to reach the pastor who was sitting at my table, view her future videos and find out what her Friday Bible study group will be discussing, and 5) too many other things on the app to list here. 

I’m pretty computer savvy so I had already found the app before the class and while I was waiting for the others to download theirs I used it to request my address get corrected in the Resident Contact List. I wasn’t going to fill in the other stuff on my profile but after hearing the purpose for doing so I probably will. For example if I list my hobbies as knitting, quilting and painting those things are searchable in the app and we can message like-minded people to start up a group on our own. Mr. Big Screen TV Guy, however, might find it hard---even with the app---to find others who enjoy the hobby of counting the pores on the faces of people on their wall-sized televisions.  

This post’s photo section is a tour of my tiny laundry room which I’d call the hardest working space in the place but that honor goes to my den closet which I'll include for next week’s blog. The photo at the top shows how close I am to the building where all the action takes place. I'm glad I'm in the quieter building. There are only six apartments on my hall and it's very quiet. ©

The washer/dryer was surprisingly easy to use but I'll be doing laundry twice as often. The dryer I had at the other house was literally large enough for me to hide inside if an axe murderer happened to be looking for me.

This coat rack was not cheap but it functions perfectly for an apartment without a coat closet near the door to the hall. I love that I can hang my clothes up as they come out of the dryer and the bottom shelf is big enough for the three pair of boots that I own.

This family photo collage covers my parents before I was born to my great-nieces and nephews with me and my husband sprinkled in.

Not sure if this pile of old things will stay here but for now the basket holds an old Fuller brush---the travel size---an antique sprinkler top on the 7Up bottle, a wooden hanger from a dry cleaners, a house keeping rooms sign that needs highlight painting and a metal collapsible hanger.

 

The folding hanger was patented in 1906 but I'm too lazy to look up the patent to see what is actually is. I think it might be from a suitcase but it comes in handy for air drying things.