Red Hats, Camels and Parakeets, Oh My!

It’s been decades since I’ve turned off my alarm clock and fell back to sleep but that’s what I did on Wednesday. An hour and a half later I still didn’t want to get out of bed but I had to pee and when that happens you either get up and take care of business or you might as well check yourself into a nursing home. I was still coonhound tired but I dragged myself out of bed, thankful that I still had plenty of time to get ready to meet the Red Hat ladies for lunch. They’d been on a thrift shop crawl all morning but I knew ahead of time that I wouldn’t be up to that after the busy week I’ve had so meeting for lunch was a compromise. The topic of conversation at the restaurant mostly related to the diets everyone seemed to be on but me and I sat there enjoying my deep fried fish sandwich with the high carb bun and chips while others ate bun-less burgers or salads. After lunch I went with the group to a consignment clothing store near-by where several of the ladies found items to buy. Leaving there, the ladies decided they needed ice cream and headed to a build-your-own-sundae place and I went home. Don’t read anything like self-control into my decision not to tag along. It was on their way back to where they carpooled and it would have taken me ten miles out of my way. But I did feel vindicated for being the odd man out ordering an unhealthy lunch.

The next day I missed the travelogue about traveling across America by train but it turned out not to be my fault. I showed up at the right day and time listed on the flyer that I had taken with me, thankfully, so I called the woman who put these things on. She apologized up one side and down the other because one of their earliest fliers had the wrong time listed. They discovered the error a half hour after setting them out but had no idea who had picked up fliers with the wrong information. As bad as I felt about missing that particular presentation I was glad that I didn’t make an old person mistake. I pride myself on being an organized person and it would have been demoralizing if I had screwed up. Do others look for those hints that one’s aging brain is not keeping all the balls of a busy life in the air? A missed appointment, a lost set of keys, burning the oatmeal. What next, we forget where we live or where we took off and left our underpants while shopping for groceries?

I was on a roll for missing planned outings. The next day my brother called and wanted to stop by on his way through town. He has a cottage up north and lives down in the next county. I was supposed to go to my Movie and Lunch Club but I don’t get to see him very often so I canceled the movie date and just met the group for lunch afterward. The general consistence was that Money Monster with Julie Roberts and George Clooney was worth the price of admission. I love both of them but the film wasn’t one I’d pick for myself so it all worked out. My brother fixed my broken doorbell and I showed him the stuff I bought at a scrapbooking store to use in the large shadow box full of vintage photos I’m going to redo at his house next week.

Saturday I went on an outing with eight of my Red Hat Society sisters. All I knew about our planned destination was we were carpooling first out to breakfast and then to “a farm at lambing time.” The farm is 45 miles north of town and much to my surprise they had reindeer, camels, a zebra, peacocks, wallaby, lemurs, emus, lambs, pigs, goats, deer from South America, various caged birds, a farmer’s market, gift shop and an ice cream parlor. Admission was free but vending machines dispensing feed to give to the animals were everywhere. I felt both sad and intrigued at the same time. Sad to see so many animals in less than ideal enclosures and intrigued to see my first camels up close and personal. The only animals that weren’t in enclosures were the peacocks and we got to see one of the males display his tail plumage trying to entice a female to mate while she played hard to get the entire time we wandered around the farm.

I was totally enchanted by a 25’ x 35’ cage full of colorful parakeets---I’m guessing a couple of hundred. You could buy sticks that were covered in bird seed and go inside with the birds. If you had a stick (and you weren’t allowed inside unless you bought one) your arm would quickly get covered with 15 to 20 birds trying to get their turn at the seed. It reminded me of a scene in a children’s animated movie. If you stayed outside looking in as soon as you started talking birds would gather close on the wire mess to listen. I loved those parakeets! They were the highlight of the day for me. My mom had parakeets when I was growing up and memories of her were an extra bonus I brought home from the outing. ©