My Hodge-Podge Week

GATHERING GIRLS:  Why do all the bloggable things happen in one week? Monday started out with another long brunch with my Gathering Girls pals. And if I haven’t said it before, let me tell you that with the except using the F-word, I’ve never had friends that I’ve felt so completely free to say or do whatever silly or irreverent thing that crosses my mind. To misquote Sally Fields, "We like each other, we really do!” and that’s all the sweeter because we only met three years ago proving old dogs can learn new tricks. Unfortunately, though, our numbers keep dwindling. We started out with seven but Monday only three of us dined together. One was flying out to Arizona, another won't go to restaurants during the pandemic, a third lady was sick and one of our original gal pals had to drop out of our group for health or eye-sight issues---I don't remember which. Call me 'old'. I can take it.

THE ARGUMENT: Tuesday I had an argument with the dog, both of us speaking at full volume. Here’s the back story: My computer sits around the corner from the laundry room. In addition to what you’ll usually find in a laundry room is the door that leads to the garage and to another door leading outside to the dog’s yard. It’s also where Levi’s water and food dishes sit side-by-side. Yesterday I had my head lost in Facebook and Levi started in on me, acting like he wanted to go outside. Or so I thought. I opened the door to the garage and ordered, “Outside!” He took a leisurely stroll around the car and came straight back inside instead of heading to the outside door. Two minutes later he was begging again with the same results. After the fourth time I yelled at him to go get in his bed and he disobediently ran for the living room couch. And why not. I’ve let him treat the couch like a time-out, no scold zone so many times it’s actually become one. Five minutes later he was back in the laundry room again, this time banging his water dish against the wall and with a demonic look on his face that let me know that he knew my Facebook polluted brain was malfunctioning and not receiving the mental telepathy we usually share. It was so dry my heart sank, knowing he must have been without water all morning long. Levi accepted my apology but he put me on notice that it better not happen again. And don't you dare call the Old People Police! I'll deny the dog neglect ever happened.

HOUSE CLEANERS: Wednesday I lost my cleaning service, or rather I should say they lost me. After my favorite cleaner quit to go back to school the service hasn’t been able to find anyone to replace her who is willing to clean in my neighborhood. If I had a bigger house that took longer than 2 to 2 ½ hours to clean or they had other clients near-by, that might have changed things. But given the fact that they charged me an average of $74 per cleaning and the person who actually does the work only gets $30 of that fee I can see why no one wants to hop on the expressway from their offices to come through the heart of town to get here for a lousy $30 a month. I've all but resigned myself to cleaning my own house again---I did it all but the last 4-5 years of my life, so how hard could it be to get back in the groove?  I'm even warming up to the idea of earmarking the money I'll save for something special for my new home.

PARTY AT THE CCC: Thursday I had to make a $20,000 payment on the unit in the continuum care campus where---with any luck---I’ll be living by this time next year. Their marketing managers usually invent a reason to bring those of us who have already bought into the dream out to the building site around the time when a scheduled payment is due. This time they called their social-distancing party a “Topping Out Celebration.” The construction company brought a large truss up to the sales building and we all got to sign our names on a grid, after which we were supposed to watch a crane haul it up to the third floor roof and ‘top out’ the building. But it was raining so hard they decided to put that part off for later and we ate yummy falls treats instead. If the chef who prepares all the food for these events wasn't so young or me so old, I'd be in lust with the man. The only thing my husband could make was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and even then he go the proportions all wrong. An inch of peanut butter, Don? Really?

THE PORCH CEILING PROJECT: Friday the son-I-wish-I-had came over to paint the ceiling on my porch, to finish off our barter agreement. One of the reasons I can’t wait until after the election is over is because he’s a Trump supporter. I love this guy, have known him since before he got married, had three kids and 12-13 grandkids. We were neighbors for years and he worked for my husband and after my husband’s stroke he helped us more than all my other family and friends put together. I thought I knew him well but Trump has brought a side out of Tim that I’d rather not know about. It makes me sad and we tippy-toe around politics so carefully you’d think current events are freshly laid eggs in a hen house. But his Facebook posts---all I can say is I’m shocked at how much Kool-Aid he’s drank. The election can't come fast enough! No matter which way it turns out the true character of our country will be exposed. God help us all. ©

 Photo at the top was taken on the campus of the CCC.

The Nature Strip

I have a computer folder labeled “Working on Drafts and Ideas.” But in reality the files within it are mostly a collection of random paragraphs that I’d hoped to build into full blog posts. When nothing much is going on in my life I might look through some of those files hoping I can incorporate one of those topic sparks into a 900 to 1,000 word essay. Too often than not I’ll find those ideas have or will expire soon like the following paragraph if I don't use it before I move:

“Three guys showed up this week to cut down a dead Scotch pine in my nature strip. Good looking and tan guys, not an ounce of fat on their beautiful bodies. (I might be old but I still enjoy eye candy.) I thought the tree was about hundred foot tall but the internet says they usually grow to sixty foot. Still, it was tall enough to come crashing through my bedroom in a storm, so I’m glad it’s gone. You should have seen one of the guy’s shimmy his way up to top of that tree to tie a rope around it. He had monkey-like skills. They took that tree down in four sections, ground it up into wood chips, cleaned up some dead vines along my tree line and were out of here in less than an hour. There goes $450 but it’s a bargain price compared to what I’d pay it if fell on the house and I had to have the roof, master bath and bedroom rebuilt.”

That was two summers ago and it truly was a bargain compared to what I just shelled out to have the vegetation in another part of the nature strip behind my house cut down. I have it done every 3-4 years when it starts encroaching on the yard, looking like something out of a horror film where voices whisper across the red sumac luring virgins within. At least I've been safe on that score, having given my virginity away at 25. (Don't judge. It might have been the '60s but I was old school saving it for marriage. Oops, I didn't make it.) This time it was two guys who showed up to work---boys really, in their twenties---skinny no-butt kids with long hair tied back in high ponytails and iPod buds jammed their ears. Eye candy, no way! If it wasn’t for the fact that they were being paid $500 for the task I would have put on my grandmotherly hat and baked them cookies to serve with milk. The price quote was a hundred more than I paid the last time this clear-cut was done but that last time the outfit that did the work they left too much of the sumac behind and it took them forever and four days of off-and-on work. The skinny-butt crew had it done in two hours!

This past month I’ve been running into all kinds of things that I’ll---hopefully---never have to do again like the nature strip maintenance and getting the trim painted on the outside doors. I also spent an afternoon trimming the shrubs and cutting down perennials, reveling in the fact that I should be out of this house by the time it needs doing again. And here is where I need to look skyward and apologize to my sister-in-law who, several years before she died, told me she was ready to go into a nursing home because dealing with her grass in the summer and snow in the winter was getting too much for her. I was shocked that anyone would willing want to go into a nursing home. “All you do,” I said, “is make two phone calls and write two checks! How hard can that be?” Color me with egg on my face because I’m finding myself often replaying that conversation in my head and I'm not looking like the brightest bulb in the box. Keeping up with service people---finding the good ones, having the bad ones let you down---is more than just making a couple of phone calls and writing out the payment checks.

Another file in my folder of ideas that will expire if I don’t use it before I move also involves the nature strip behind my house. There is a six by twenty foot patch back there covering with wild black berries and this is what I wrote a few summers ago: “I don’t give the wild black berries much thought except when I see the guy who works for my lawn care service picking some (with my permission). They’ve just ripened up and this week I saw something laugh-out-loud funny going on. A young squirrel was jumping up to the top of the raspberry bushes to get at the berries. The branches couldn’t support his weight so he’d ride them down to the ground, eat a few berries then jump up to retrieve another branch. At the same time a cardinal was after the same batch of berries and he was none too happy about the squirrel giving him competition.”

My nature strip does support a lot of wildlife and I will miss it after I move. It runs across the backs of all the lots in my block, ending with a lake at one end. My section of the nature strip is 175 long and varies in width with the widest part in the photo up above. Neighbors on both sides have all trees in their sections while three quarters of mine is more field-like to support birds, bees and butterflies. I’ve seen every kind of birds back there including those big enough to hunt and carry off rabbits. (It's gross but I've seen it happen.) I’ve seen possums, skunk, badgers, raccoons, rabbits, one snake and a couple house cats who seem to think the area is one big litter box and I don’t care because they also like to hunt mice.

I did it! I took a couple files from my “Working on Drafts and Ideas” folder and was able to weave them together with some current stuff going on in my life to come up with this post. Somewhere out there in the ether of writing instructors and coaches is one giving me a red ink grade for my effort. © 

 Every time I get fresh flowers from the supermarket I save the heads and throw them out in the nature strip in the fall. I never know what will survive but it's always colorful back there from year to year, from month to month. No matter what, I can always count on tiger lilies and queen Anne's lace. The first photo is early spring, the other photos are mid and late summer.

Pandemic Park Promises

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There was a time---before the pandemic---when I tried to balance out the themes of my blog posts. By that I mean I’d alternate what I called arty-farty or deep thoughts themes with sentimental journeys down Memory Lane or play-by-play accounts of my daily routines. Every so often I’d throw in my attempt at writing humor or a current events post because sometimes that elephant in the room is too big to ignore. Before the pandemic I also routinely wrote movie and book reviews and reports on the lectures and travel club presentations I attended, none of which are back on anyone’s calendar since large gatherings still aren’t allowed in my state. Then there’s the dog’s antics that are always good for a paragraph or two. Pity parties, insecurities, widowhood issues, outings with friends and conversations in my head have all made the pages of my blog. And for a while I was obsessed with filling up my biweekly word count with my adventures and missteps in the world of downsizing and e-Baying. Expect a few more downsizing posts because---well, just because moving related issues will still be a major focus in my life for the 6-7 months. I truly miss the things I can’t write about right now because that outside stimulus isn't there to inspire me or anyone else living in Pandemic Park.

“We worry about tomorrow like it’s promised.”

— Anonymous

But what I miss the most is human contact, feeling part of a herd of people all joined together because we had a common interest---if only for an hour or two---in the same subject matter. If the pandemic has taught me anything it’s taught me that I didn’t value causal interactions with others nearly high enough. I need them to feed my soul and hunger for gathering blogger's fodder. It’s also taught me that most humans want to be part of a herd whether it's the selfish vs the selfless, the wise vs the foolish or the kumbaya crowd who just wants to have a unified society vs the arm-chair warriors who want to fight about everything. And oh how I wish I still had my illusions back regarding how I used to believe most people were smart enough to believe the science and logic coming out of world health organizations over the P.T. Barnum---“there's a sucker born every minute”---in the White House. 

 “Each day I have to make a new promise to myself.

To be braver than my past.

To be stronger than my struggle....”

— Chrissie Pinney

I've always known the entire universe is made up of polar opposite energy forces pushing against one another, every particle in space, every human action and emotion. But for just one week, just one day I wish it wasn’t so much work to keep the energy force centered and inching ever so slowly in a positive direction---if in fact historians a hundred years from now will look back and view our current decade as a turning point toward a higher plane of existence. We’ve already had a super-sized, mind-altering turbulent decade in my lifetime. Maybe we only get one of those per lifetime, counted out like candy to greedy children? I hope not. I hope everything we’ve been going through with the World-Wide Pandemic, the Black Lives Matter, Save the Planet and the Me Too Movement turns out to be more than just minor bumps on the timeline of world history. And I sincerely hope Mother Nature is finally getting our attention with her bitch-slapping us with massive forest fires, floods and hurricanes. She needs our help, people!

“I promise you, these storms are only trying to wash you clean.”

— Jessica Katoff

Writing and reading blog posts during a pandemic takes more effort, does it. There are more deep thought posts, more expressions of frustration... and gratitude for the small things we still can enjoy. There are far more political and current events posts, more comparing pandemic experiences across the blog community. Less fluffy, silly stuff. It’s nearly impossible to know how to strike a balance of topics so that we bloggers don’t turn off those who have read us in the past and expect a certain level of whatever we were known to deliver before the pandemic took all those implied promises away. All I can say is that writing blogs is my lifeline. It makes me feel like I’m part of that yin/yang of opposing herds thingie I mentioned up above. All this windup is me trying to say that I can’t always make you laugh. I can’t always make you cry, but I can promise to always show you what’s on my mind. ©

“I don’t have much to offer, but I promise you can have the best of me.”

— Anonymous