From Fire Works to Letting it All Go

My weekend was out-of-the-norm starting with Friday when I had to stay home all day because a power washing company was cleaning my deck, the eaves, driveway and sidewalks. The deck had to be done in advance of a staining crew that showed up on Saturday and will come back later for a second coat on the flat areas. I’ve never seen anyone stain using mitts like you’d use to wash a car and, boy, did they get the job done fast and neat. The two man crew did my huge deck with its 250+ spinals in half the time that it’s been done before. One of the past crews sprayed the stain and another used rollers and brushes. I was impressed with mitt staining. And for the bonus round points the guys didn’t have radios blasting at full volume to annoy me and the dog.

The eaves troughs had to be cleaned well in advance of the 4^th of July. You would not believe the amount of dry pine needles they took out of my eaves. Still, I always make sure my hoses are hooked up this time of the year because I live in a neighborhood of people who are in love with fireworks and I’m afraid they’ll start my house on fire. I’m constantly picking up fireworks debris between the 4^th through Thanksgiving. Here, they are legal on ten designated holidays plus the day before and after---not that anyone follows the law all that closely---and, yes, I’ve even seen them on Christmas. Praise the Lord, do you think He likes things that go boom at midnight and lights up the night? 

Since I was stuck home two days in a row, I re-read my 2014 blog entries, checking for typos and glaring sins against the rules of punctuation. I’m way behind the time when I had scheduled myself to slurp them all up into a hard copy book. I’ve been doing that every year with my blogs so I’ll still have access to my blog entries when I get too old to remember how to turn on the computer, but not so old that I don’t want to glance back at my past from time to time. Reading through my 2014 misadventures it became clear that in the third year of widowhood my social life got more and more wrapped up in the activities at the senior hall. Not sure if that’s a bad thing or a good thing. It’s just something to put in a jar and re-exam later on. But the scary part is some of the stuff I did last year had already slipped off my memory radar. What next? Will I finish peeing and not remember if I wiped myself? Oh, well, as long as my bladder still holds out and I make it to the bathroom each and every time, it’s all good. 

Speaking of which, am I the only person on earth who is sick of seeing so many ads for Depends Adult panties/diapers on TV? If I believed their surge in the marketplace I’d have to believe half the women at the senior all are sitting around peeing their pants as we speak. The ad that annoys me the most shows a woman at a theater and she’s laughing hard and a voice-over is talking about just “let it go.” I’m surprised they didn’t use the voice of Queen Elsa from Frozen to belt out a verse or two of the Let it Go Disney song. They probably tried but couldn’t get the rights. The commercial probably bugs me because when I go to my monthly Movie and Lunch Club I’m the only one who has to get up during a film to use the bathroom. I’ve often wondered why I'm the only one. Ohmygod, it just dawned on me! Maybe I’m not! Maybe I’m sitting next to a dozen plus women wearing Depends! How am I going to get that visual out of my head before next Friday when we meet again? I don’t mean to make light of people who need them, but do we really need the Depends Underwareness Campaign encouraging every man, woman and child in the world to show off their pee-in-me skivvies? I say, “Hell no!” and I rest my case hoping a jury of my peers agrees. 

Growing old has so many sink holes we all hope to avoid, but deep within we each fear one of them will swallow us up if we don’t keep ever so vigilant. Keeping my brain sharp worries me more than the other sink holes of aging. If one day I’m wandering up the street talking to myself and the neighbors are worried that I’ve finally punched out of reality, I hope I’m reciting the following dialogue from The Help movie: "Every day you're not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: 'Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?'" And if my answer is “no” then I’ll know I'm sharp enough to go back home and find something to do that doesn’t involve training my bird watching binoculars on the neighbors. I’m quite sure that’s listed as a no-no in every etiquette book published in the Western Hemisphere.  ©

 I can't find the commercial in the theater but here's another one for Depends. They have a 5-6 of them. 

Bootie Calls, Grandsons and Pickle Jars

I met my new neighbor. He’s in his mid-twenties and is getting married in August. Until then he and his fiancée will be cleaning and painting and be-still-my-heart his future brother-in-law is going to take down the two story deck that I’ve hated looking at since it was built. He said his insurance agent told him it was a liability---no kidding---and “it makes no sense without the above ground swimming pool,” he added. It didn’t make any sense with the swimming pool either but I was too busy yelling “hallelujah!” to tell him that. I’m thrilled I’ll have my long-range view back again. Mr. New Guy seems like a nice kid. He was chatty with an old person---that would be me---and that’s a good starting place to judge his personality. At least it is in my world where too many young people would rather pretend old people don’t exist than to talk to us. Perhaps they think wrinkles and saggy skin might be catching if they stand too close? Not to mention we’re boring since so many in my peer age group can’t converse in gigabits, acronyms and hashtags. Forget the Botox, ladies. Sew an Apple iPhone 6 to your hand and you'd look twenty years younger!

Wednesday I went to another Red Hat Society tea that should be renamed a coffee but that wouldn’t fit the image most people have in their heads of old ladies in funny hats and gobs of jewelry sitting around with their pinky fingers pointed upward. There were fifteen of us all talking at once and few of us were listening to anyone else. However, I did pick up the details to our next walk-about in two weeks. We’re going to a huge barn out in the boondocks for lunch and shopping farm products that must be imported from out of state because we don’t have any growing here in Michigan yet. Maybe the barn will be filled with jams and jellies from last year’s crops? Stay tuned; I’ll no doubt write about the experience since it’s probably too soon in my relationship with my new neighbor for me to play show-and-tell with him when I get back. Just think, if he turns out to be a grandson-type who enjoys talking with me over our property line I’ll have no need to blog in the future! 

Now I’ll tell you a story about three widows (my age) who all lost their husbands in the same time frame as I did. One has recently found a guy to sleep with, another is desperately looking for an old dude to marry and the third one found a guy-friend who gives good hugs and has kissable cheeks. Sorry, if you expected a moral to the story or punchline here, I don’t have one. I just thought it was interesting to compare how they are each moving on compared to my journey into the unknown. Two of these women are longing for love to come their way again, though neither one is anywhere near it yet unless you want to redefine a bootie call. The third---if you can believe her, and I do---just enjoys a good hug once in a while and doesn’t want it to go any farther. If I threw myself into the story I’d be a woman longing for a less complicated relationship, a grandson-like relationship with a guy who lives close enough to open pickle jars and who'd laugh at my adventures the Land of Growing Old. If Mr. New Guy Next Door doesn’t fill that bill I’m going to have to buy a jar opener. Man, I’m getting weak! 

“Fill the bill.” I just tried to google the origins of that phrase without any luck. I'm guessing it comes from a point in British theater history when they tried to fill the play bills up with acts. “That last act fills the bill, sorry you’ll have to wait until next month to audition.” It bugs me when Google doesn’t have the answers I seek! I’ll bet if I had the Apple iPhone 6 sewn on my hand Siri would know if I’m guessing correctly. She knows everything. And, yes, I'm jealous of her operating system or whatever it is that makes Siri, Siri. ©

French Kissing on Widowhood Lane

The ‘For Sale’ sign came down on the house next door that’s sat empty and in foreclosure since January. I’m practically giddy over the prospect of having new neighbors. I haven’t figured out, yet, if all the young guys who descended on the place are in the business of flipping houses or if it’s the new owner and some of his friends whipping the place into shape before a moving van shows up. I hope it’s the latter. The first thing they did is cut the lawn. Halleluiah! No more dandelion seeds blowing my way. If I lived closer to one of the colleges in town I’d worry that maybe all those guys with their pickup trucks are frat boys setting up a new fraternity house. Oh, well, I learned a long time ago I’m not in charge of the world, but if they do turn out to be frat boys I’m hand-painting a sign warning them about the dangers of peeing in the cattail bog that separates our two properties. I guess you’d call that a passive aggressive welcome to the neighborhood. Could you blame me? I love the toads that hang around that bog and they shouldn’t have to endure boy-power showers. 

Saturday was the day I had earmarked to work in the garage setting up my eBay station for the summer. But it was dreary out there so I left my common sense behind and went to the second most accident-plagued street in four counties to shop in the driving rain. Thankfully I returned with my car bumpers, doors and body parts still intact plus I found a few more quilting quarters that I don’t need until next winter. Yes, this silly woman had an itch that needed scratching. I did get one thing I’ll actually need next month, a permanent fabric pen so I can sign my quilt when it comes back from the long arm machine sewing service. Poor timing on my part, I should have signed my quilt before sending it off but this will work. I’m writing my name on a fabric block, then I’ll sew the block on the back of the quilt. That way, I can spell-check the heck out of my signature before attaching it to the quilt so I won’t be stuck with a Jena instead of Jean. Jena is a common dyslexia mistake in my world.

Monday I had to go to the dentist. I didn’t have a problem but the guy likes to nit-pick and this time he wanted to remove two of my silver fillings. I hated to see them go. I’ve had them since my teen years but he thought they were worn out and in danger of cracking thus damaging the teeth in the process. He showed me photos of their surfaces to make his case. I told him I was sentimental about those fillings. He said, “Get over it.” And that’s how I ended up on his schedule. Who gets sentimental over a filling? Me. I could get sentimental over a hangnail.

It was the first day of June when I went to the dentist but it was cold enough to wear a winter coat when I got up---in the 40’s. Where is summer? I guess it’s coming later in the week but I’ve heard that story before. It will probably rain and before I know it the trees will be turning colors and frost will be on the pumpkins. Time sure flies by the older I get. I suppose I don’t help myself in that department when I do things like stock up on quilt fabrics for a winter project when June is just tippy-toeing in. I’ve struggled with living in the future my entire life and that served me well in my work-every-day world. But I’m retired now and I should be buying margarita mix and downloading Kenny Chesney songs about sitting on the beach when the sun goes down, drinks in hand, toes in sand.

In one of his songs Kenny sings about “French kissing life square on the mouth.” It’s been a long time since I’ve French kissed life---since I've had that over-the-top passion for doing something fun in the moment. I guess while I have my paints out to make a plaque about not peeing in the bog I should make another one to remind me to go forth and French kiss life full on the mouth. Forget thoughts of quilts and making mittens, for now! I need to plan some summertime fun. Nothing happens without a plan. Well, that’s not true but since when did I ever let facts get in the way of my ramble writing here on Widowhood Lane? ©