Wouldn’t you know it, the one day this week when I was
supposed to go on a day trip to a tourist town on Lake Michigan the weather
report included rain, snow, sleet and ice. When the alarm clock rang this
morning I got up and turned on the TV, looking for that crawler at the bottom
of the screen that announces cancellations. There was none for the school
district where our senior citizen hall bus driver comes from. The trip was
still on. But the traffic at my bird feeders was extra heavy, indicating they expected
to be spending the rest of the day huddled under the tree branches trying to
avoid having a crust of ice hanging from their tiny wings. It was snowing hard---3
to 5 inches predicted---and the temperature was creeping up toward the freezing
mark where the snow would turn over to freezing rain. The counties south of
here where our bus would be heading were already reporting soppy sleet and slide-offs.
I made a decision. It might be an adventure to be out in the thick of bad
weather but it was an adventure I could do without. I emailed my regrets.
And that decision makes me wonder why I’m seriously
considering signing up for the 14 days trip to Alaska the summer of 2016. I went
to the monthly travelogue recently and as I sat there looking at slides of
Alaska I got nostalgic over the fact that going to Alaska was on Don’s and my
Bucket List. I’m not getting any younger,
I thought, and going with a bunch of
people from the senior hall will likely be the only chance I’ll ever get to go.
All day long I thought about the
pros and cons of going. I certainly have the time and money to go. On my cons
list I only have three things listed one of which is I have to pee about every
hour and a half. How’s that going to work out on the planes, trains, buses and
cruise ships we’d be on? I could bring a bunch of corks but that would probably
earn me a body cavity search at an airport, if they use one of those x-ray
screeners. Nope, I’d have to quit drinking liquids but that could earn me a
heart attack or stroke. I could try bladder “stretching” again but it didn’t
work when I was a kid, so I doubt it would now.
A bigger problem, though, would be Levi. Fourteen days is a long
time to be at a kennel when we’ve only been separated for two days at a time in
his entire life. I could put him in a kennel for a five day stretch this summer
and see how that goes. I’ve made it a point to take him there every summer for
two days, even when I wasn’t going anywhere just so he’d understand that he
gets picked back up again, should I have an emergency. I started doing that
because of Hurricane Katrina. Seeing all
those stressed out dogs, many who’d never been in a cage before---they said---drove
the point home to me that dogs need to be cage trained. I bought one for Levi but
I never close the door. He goes in there when he takes his afternoon naps, when I leave the house and
when I have workmen around. I’m afraid to close the door for fear I’ll
die and he’d starve to death before I’m found. He’s got a self-feeder that will
keep him alive for five days, after that he can start eating my fingers.
The third con on my list is I wonder if the emotions of
going alone on a trip that Don dreamed about for so many years would get to me.
I’d hate to pay that much money just to see the place through a veil of tears. Would
it even be fun without his spirit of adventure and curiosity mixing us up with
the locals?
New topic: On Super Bowl weekend I had gone to the grocery
store and I wrote about how busy it was and how it would be nice if they’d move
the sample food people over to the checkout lanes to keep us all from fainting
from missing lunch. This week I was at the store again when their cash register
system went down for seven minutes and the checkout lines got back up again. Lo
and behold, a couple of girls walked around those of us waiting in line and
they were handing out sugar cookies from their bakery and sample sized cups of
Starbuck’s cappuccinos. I love that store! If I ever get homeless I’m going to
find a way to live there. They’re open 24/7/365 days a year, it should be
do-able.
I have to be careful about what I wish for...I think I’ve
accumulated some super powers. Recently I was bemoaned that fact that I wanted
a new blender for no other reason than I wanted to change colors. But I couldn’t
justify a purchase for that reason, I’m too old school to start that
mindset. Less than a month later my trusty white blender broke right
in the middle of a making a shake. It wouldn’t crush ice anymore and it made
sick noises on some of the other speeds and it was leaving what looked like
black sand where the top and the bottom connected. To the trash it went and I
now I have the stainless steel model I had lusted after. Hum-mm…what should I
wish for next? I know! “I really do want world peace,” to quote Sandra Bullock
in Miss. Congeniality. Not going to
happen, though, I fear my super powers are confined to things like getting free
cookies at the super market and breaking blenders. ©
