Programing Gadgets and Walk-Abouts

I’m sitting here waiting for the irrigation guy to come fix my springer head that got broken by a friend of my new neighbor. I can’t use the system until it’s fixed because water gushes up like a decorative fountain in a park. I don't mess with the control box enough to know how to isolate and close down just one of the ten zones so I turn the whole system off. It’s been raining off and on so the lawn didn’t suffer with my stubbornness to get tech savvy with Toro. People in my generation are going to have a hard time keeping up with things like this as we age. It used to be so much simpler for my parent’s generation when all they had to do is drag garden hoses around and then remember to turn the water off before their lawns look like marshlands.

On the same topic of keeping up with programmable things, this week I managed to change the batteries on my electric tooth brush and reprogram the darn thing in less five minutes and it even gives me orders in English. One time it took me a half hour and a Google search to do it. And I also figured out one of the big mysteries of life...at least my life. I’ve figured out why one of cable TV’s seemed to have mind of its own. When the cable boxes were installed last July I was told that the 57 button remotes are not interchangeable which turned out to be a lie. I just figured out that when I’m in the bedroom, the remote marked ‘bedroom’ controls not only the bedroom TV but also the one in the kitchen. If it's aimed just right, yes, the signal goes through an open door and across two rooms. I’m not forgetting to turn off the darn thing when I leave the kitchen! I’m not going bonkers. It’s not possessed by a spirit. Now if I could figure out how to get my CD player not to come on, then turn off five minutes later every day at 10 PM I’d been a happy camper. Actually, I do know why it does that and what I’d have to do to reprogram it but the icons I need to see on a screen to fix the issue are so tiny and low to the floor I physically can’t do it. People with grand-kids don’t know how good they’ve got it. Kids are fearless about programing gadgets and I'd rent a kid to do it if I could.  

New Topic: I’m not a woman who enjoys shopping, never have been unless I was in an antique mall. Even that has lost its charm since Don died and I went into downsizing mode. But this week I needed stuff. Printer ink for one and a Culver’s North American cod filet sandwich for another and I knew I’d die soon if I didn’t get them. (Those darn late night Culver’s TV commercials work!) If Amazon.com could drone drop a hot sandwich at my house, I could happily order most of my ‘wants’ online. But that’s a few years in the future so off I went to shopping roe---a five lane street full of malls and nationally branded restaurants and stores.

Wednesday I went on a Red Hat Society walk-about but I wish I had stayed home for a sit-about. We went out to the boondocks to a farmer’s barn-turned-sandwich-shop and produce stand. Lunch there was slow and so-so, the conversation was so-so and I didn’t need any asparagus or Michigan made jam which is all they had besides tomatoes from Canada. After leaving that place we went to another place that was an apple orchard/ice cream shop/gift shop/wine shop and bakery combo---oh, and a cross-country skiing location in the winter. The gift shop had quality made things but after fifteen minutes I’d had enough of looking at scarfs, jewelry, purses, pop-up greeting cards and other stuff no one knows they want until they see it. Between the shopping, wine tasting, eating ice cream cones and donuts it took FOREVER to get all twelve us on the same page to go back to the car pool lot so we could head on home. We were like red and purple ants going every which way. Oh, well, you can’t win them all. What I’ve got lined up for the end of the week will more than make up for the uninspiring walk-about. My Move and Lunch Club on Friday is going to see a film billed as, “A widow and former songstress discovers that life can begin anew at any age.” And I got invited to a Father’s Day cottage party where my nieces and nephew and their families, my brother, and assorted others will be. So, out to the boondocks I’ll go again but this time I know I’ll come back high on stimulating conversation and yummy food. ©

A Widow’s First World Problems

It was raining on Friday when my house cleaner came for my monthly appointment. I’m to the point where I’m thinking it’s more trouble than it’s worth to have someone clean. The service charges me $27 an hour but the girls who actually do the cleaning only get paid $10 so there isn’t much incentive for them to work, should they want to take a long weekend off and lately I’m getting a different girl every month. Having a cleaning service was one luxury widowhood brought into my life that I really enjoyed at first. The girl who was assigned to me was a college kid studying to be a social worker and we had the best conversations while she worked but she’s moved on and all I’ve gotten since is a string of strangers. Can you believe I’m sitting there getting all bitchy, old person cranky about a first world problem? The strangers have done a passable job cleaning and I have no right to expect them to be able to carry on a decent conversation, too. But I do. Are humans ever truly happen with what we have? When we have luxuries not everyone can afford, most of us still want more. And that admission reminds me that all roads lead back to gratitude. When we don’t have gratitude, we become sourpusses. When we do have it we’re on the Zen Lane of life, seeking and often finding the fragile balance that keeps us happy.

I was so far from being Zen-like this past week when I was at my new monthly Write and Share MeetUp that I’m amazed I could even spell the word. At least I think I could. I didn’t try it at the time. Reading out loud freaked me out---again---and half way through the reading I realized I needed to slow down. I was making too many mistakes and I had to let go of the fear if I wanted to live to tell about it. I had picked a blog entry from my old caregiver days to share, one of my favorite humorous pieces that I’m thinking about putting in a book about living with language disorders. I started writing that book last year but quickly decided my widowhood was too fresh to be re-reading what I wrote about my life before Don died. Now, I think I can look back at that chapter of my life using an editor’s eye to hone my blog material into a story without me getting pulled into another round of grief.

When I finished reading to the group a conversation broke out about how people deal with stress. I knew my friends in the stroke community where I was blogging at the time I wrote the piece got my use of humor to convey stressed-out emotions but I wanted to find out if my writing style was strong enough to convey that to people who aren’t familiar with language disorders. The people in my writers group were my guinea pigs and they passed the test, they got me. If you want to see if you’d pass, click on this link to read: You’re in the Dog House Now!

Switching Topics: My new young neighbor guy is like a friendly puppy---energy in motion, feet too big for his skinny body and a perpetual grin on his face like he's been drinking goofy juice. But we might be having “an issue.” Last week a crew of young guys were like honey bees on a hive, swarming all over the hated two story deck in his back yard but in the process of taking it down and moving trucks and trailers back there one of them hit a 3’x3’ electrical junction box on the property line that services the whole the cul-de-sac. The tire tracks to the “crime” were as plain to see as Washington’s nose on Mount Rushmore. They also took out one of my irrigation thingamajigs. The next day I called the power company to report the junction box being off its cement foundation and within a half hour they came out with a boom truck to reset it. “That’s a dangerous situation,” one of the workers told me. He also said their “detective team” will study the photos he took and probably call my neighbor “to get his side of it. He may claim your lawn care service hit it.”

Oh, crap, that’s no way to start out a relationship with a brand new neighbor. (I had already decided to eat the cost of the service call from my irrigation company in the spirit of getting along.) It seems the electric company detectives, though, do their best to find someone to pin the bill on and I’m not going to be happy if it’s me since I’m the one who called it in. Another first world problem. Breathe, Jean, breathe. I have electricity every day. Regularly without interruption. I have enough money in the checking account to pay for a boom truck bill, should I begrudging have to pay it. And I have a new, young neighbor who has already borrowed a wrench which means he’s obligated to open my next new pickle jar. And those are all good things to write down in a gratitude journal. ©

Lemonade at the Japanese Garden

Thursday I got up at the crack of dawn to go to an early appointment at my orthopedic doctor’s office. I’ve been doing daily shots to build up my bones from the inside out and I’m supposed to get a bone density test yearly while I’m on that medication. When I got to the office, the girl at the window said they’d been trying to call me for several days because they had to change my appointment---to June of 2016! “You couldn’t have tried very hard,” I said, “I have an answering machine and caller ID. What number were you calling?” She told me. Right number. Check. Then I asked why they would re-schedule me when I’m supposed to get a bone scan every year, and when I told her that, she said and I quote: “Oh!” So now I have to go back next week and next June both.

Since I was in the area of the Garden and Sculpture Park I decided to make lemonade out of the basket of lemons the incompetent and/or lying girl at the doctor’s office handed me. The park was having a members-only grand opening to see their new Japanese Garden section of the park. Three years to plan and three years to build, the Japanese Garden covers eight and a half acres, has Zen, moss and Bonsai sections, five bridges (including one very cool zig zag bridge), four waterfalls, three islands, two gazebos and a tea house. I walked the entire three quarters of a mile path that circles the lake, leaving the side paths to explore another day. I completely missed the tea house but I’m sure the line to get seated would have been too long for me to wait anyway. The garden is truly a beautiful place with plenty of sweet scents and brightly colored birds, a tranquil place even with the distant sounds of live Japanese music coming from the amphitheater at the other end of the sculpture park. One of the docents said that for the past two weeks they’ve been hosting large groups of people from the orient along with other donator parties. I’m glad I was able to go today before the garden is open to the general population. It felt good making lemonade out of my bag of lemons, and the perfect ending was the rain held off until I was driving out of the park to go home. ©

Below are some photos I took today.

I just realized I didn't take any photos of flowers. And there were beds of iris and many flowering scrubs I don't know the names of.  The sun was reflecting on my camera lens so bad I couldn't really see what I was taking pictures of and then I decided you couldn't take a bad picture there if you tried.