Big Parties in the Post-Trump, Post-Covid Era

One of my great-nieces on my husband’s side of the family is having a large surprise, 70th  birthday party at a pricey venue for her mom who adored my husband and who was always lots of fun to socialize with. Don used to be Amy’s and her two brother’s babysitter back before I entered the picture, and her parents hosted most of the many family parties after we became a couple. Because of the pandemic and her having some serious heath issues I haven’t seen Amy in nearly two years. We’ve talked on the phone but, of course, that isn’t the same.

 

Don was brought up on a farm where the work never stopped. There were always cows that needed milking, fields to plow, crops to bring in, machinery to fix and fences to mend. There came a point, after the farm was lost to a tornado that his brother needed a part time babysitter and Don was drafted. Never having had much time for fun when he was kid, my husband became the good time uncle, always in for playing games, going to the beach, to county parks or taking those kids for rides in his yellow convertible. And this playful relationship with Amy never stopped. At family parties the teasing and jokes were always flying back and forth and Amy never failed to tell us that she loved us…even to this day she ends all her phone calls with those three little words. She’s one of the easiest people in the world to love back. Always upbeat with a self-depreciating sense of humor even when she’s rattled and being perpetually rattled is one of her most endearing qualities.

 

With the boys, they had the same relationship with Don. They were close and the oldest even lived with my husband at one point in time. At parties the jokes, teasing and swapping stories were always on tap. None of us ever had a cross word or falling out until Trump came along when the oldest and his wife both unfriended me on Facebook. Last I heard he and his wife were also anti-vaccers which made the decision to go to this party doubly difficult.

 

I’ve never had anyone since high school call me ‘stupid’ until Trump came along and these two did it multiple times. Why? Because I (respectfully) pointed out falsehoods when Old Nephew and his wife were posting daily support for Trump’s Big-I-won-the-Election-Lie. For example once they ranted on about how that no one ever investigated voter fraud after the election and I posted an in depth article outlining the 60-something cases that Trump's legal team brought to court all across the country and were dismissed for lack of evidence. I never posted anything without backing it up with a creditable source. But I was the stupid one for not seeing that the media was "making that shit up." Lesson learned. Note to Self: I was stupid for thinking brain-washed people could be deprogrammed with easily proven facts. 

 

I seriously thought about not going to this party and feared walking into it because of the way these two treated me on Facebook before they unfriended me combined with Covid concerns. But our county Covid numbers have been low recently so going or not became more about facing the potential of getting or giving the cold shoulder. Never in my entire life have I been in a situation like this. Finally, I decided to go and just act like the unfriending never happened, be as warm and open in greeting them as I've always been in the past and let THEM set the tone for what happens after. If they avoid me so be it, if they make any kind of remark about politics I plan to smile and say, “We’ll have to agree to disagree” and then walk away. Life is too short to be baited into discord at a family party when there won’t be many opportunities for me to see this side of the family in mass in the future. The graduations, weddings, baby showers are all behind us and only one person is left in the older generation to have a memorial service for.

 

Added After the Party: Old Nephew and his wife must have had the same game plan for running into me as I had for running into them. They saw me before I saw them and they went out of their way to greet and hug me with genuine warmth and friendliness, even invited me to sit at their table (which I didn’t do because I'd already had a place with others) but we stood and talked for probably fifteen minutes catching up on each other’s lives. 

 

They’d both caught Covid and she spent two weeks in the hospital at death’s door and now they tell everyone to get the vaccinated. Scared the crap out of them both to learn the virus was real. At least nine people at the party also had Covid and one of my favorite nieces-by-marriage was at home in quarantine… all of which was scary since it was the first big event I’ve been to in two years and no one was wearing a mask. (Our state dropped that mandate recently.) Everyone was hugging each other because it a huggy-kind of family and we were all so happy to be together again. Germaphobic me could have done without the hugs but I'll breathe easier about them at the end of the week if I'm still feeling well.  

 

Amy’s daughter hired an Elvis impersonator who was super good and he had the crowd dancing and singing and laughing. It was good to have so much fun with old connections and to see the fences that were broken by the Trump train got mended as if by magic.  ©

 

His name is Ron Short and he did an Elvis act for 7-8 years in Hawaii at one of the hotels. Not sure what he was doing in my area but he was good.

Hawaii Week and Hard Jigsaw Puzzles

It’s been said more than a few times that living in a Continuum Care Complex compares to being on a cruise ship and not just about this place where I’m at. I toured another facility up by where I used to live and their director used that term when he gave his sales pitch to the group of seniors I was with to tour the place and to have lunch. They have a piano bar and happy hour every night and the bartenders all wore ship captain's hats and white uniforms, trying to sell the happy vibe of the place. Oh, yes, these kinds of places are in competition for our dollars and with 4-5 new ones in town they are all hoping to win over the Baby Boomers by pleasing taste buds as well as keep us entertained. Chefs in these places are getting top dollar now and we have three working here. 

Our most recent newly hired chef is going to fatten me up even more than I already am with his nightly specials. Monday's offering of pork, sweet potatoes, veggies and pineapple had me moaning so often I finally understood the term, food organism. Best. Meal. I. Ever. Ate. The next day they had a coconut shrimp special that I couldn’t eat because I’m allergic to shellfish but I got to listen to a whole table full of woman having food organisms. 

Those two dishes back to back were by design for the complexes’ Hawaii theme week. Every fifth or sixth week they have a theme week which seemed silly at first. Each day we’re supposed to dress a certain way…like Hawaii shirts day for example but eventually you get into the silliness of theme weeks and find yourself at Lane Bryant buying an ugly Christmas sweater for 60% off for next years’ Merry Week. The food and entertainment follows the theme too. Hawaii Week so far is/was my favorite. One day it was free Margarita's Day and another day it was cruise ship bingo with coconut themed food prizes. Another day it was a PBS virtual tour of the natural wonders of the island and the Friday night the movie was South Pacific. 

But the highlight of the week for me was a Live Steel Drums program put together by a music therapist who also belongs to a steel drum band of 100+ members. She goes to Trinidad every year and has for 30 years to take part in a steel drum competition. We saw a ten minute video of the competition but the rest of her time was spent teaching us how to play---or rather six volunteers from the audience and two draftees. I was one of those drafted to play one song because they wanted all the Jean’s on campus to play together with the teacher who was also named Jean. It was harder than I thought it would be to get the drum to play loud enough but we had colored stickers inside to help us cheat on the notes, and the scores were written out and held inside the drum with a magnet. 

One woman from my book club really shined on the drums, learned quickly and played two drums at time; she was kept up front the entire time. Our Life Enrichment Director also put on an enthusiastic show while those of us in the audience tried to keep beat with hand-held percussion instruments. I've loved the sound of steel drums since the late sixties when I first heard then in the Bahamas so this event brought back lots of great memories of the islands cruise I was on, of being happily drunk enough to kiss every taxi cab driver we came in contact with one night and of another night dancing on the beach in the wee hours of the morning with a Italian tourist named Matteo who couldn't speak English. At the time the extend of my Italian was to count to ten and the words: arrivederce (see you later), grazie (thank you), prego (you're welcome), capisci (do you understand), ciao (hello/goodbye) and Si (yes)---all learned from my dad, the son of Italian immigrants.

During Hawaii week I also got obsessed by Charlie the RedCat, a puzzle that is advertised as the “world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle” and it’s certainly the most difficult I’ve every run across and I’ve worked it every winter since 2001. It’s only 15” x 15” and 529 pieces but it took me five days, which is a long time for me. 

What makes it so hard? Several things like it has “the same picture is on both sides, offset by 90 degrees from each other.” And it’s cut from both the front and the back making it impossible to tell one side from the other by looking at the edges. There are only two shapes of puzzle pieces and some pieces seem to be the same front and back but really aren't. You can’t, however, figure that out until you’re down to the last three pieces. Those last three pieces took me an hour and deconstructing parts of the puzzle to figure it out---happens every time I do the puzzle. Even the border pieces are ambiguous; several times I’ve had to dissemble parts of the border pieces and exchange them for others. I only work puzzles in the wintertime so I’m hoping by making this the last for this season I can hurry spring along and maybe use the time for other hobbies. Wish me luck with goal. ©

Routines Past and Present and Scary Dogs

I’m a creature of habit and predictable patterns. I was going to say like no other, but that wouldn’t be true. Birds fly south every fall and come back in the spring. Bees and ants rest in eight hour cycles. Bears hibernate. Every species on earth has its breeding seasons and its sleep times. The sun rises every morning and sets every night and aren’t we happy about that. At least it does for those of us who live in certain regions on the earth. People who live at the top of the earth, however, where they get very little sunshine, how do they know when it’s time to sleep? Here in Michigan we just have a short twilight before darkness falls. In the Arctic Circle it’s completely dark from mid-November to the end of January. The rest of the time they have, according to sciencing.com, one of three kinds of twilight that last 24/7---Civil Twilight, Nautical Twilight and Astronomical Twilight if you want to look them up. And,  boy, did I ever get off track to what I wanted to write about which is the routine I’m settling into here in my new community. 

 

I’m almost as routine-ridge as my mom was when I was growing up when we did the laundry on Monday, ironed on Tuesday, cleaned on Wednesdays, ate left-overs on Fridays and grocery shopped on Saturdays. We only had one car so if my mom had errands to run mid-week on Thursdays she had to take my dad to work early in the after afternoon and pick him back up after midnight. During her menopause years her doctor told her to get a job to help with the symptoms she was experiencing. Ya, like we all know, now, that that was voodoo medicine he was practicing. But she did it and and that meant she had to take my dad back and forth to work every day that she worked. His factory was in a bad part of town so she went down to the humane society and got a big black dog that hated men. 

 

Jody was a purebred, Belgian Shepherd that had been badly abused and it took my dad months before he could be in the same room with that dog. Jody was loyal and protective of my mom and me but she never did learn to fully trust men. She was the perfect dog for woman to have in a car at midnight or to protect your teenager daughter when her older brother had his friends over when our parents weren't home. It only took one boy to try to kiss me and get bit for his efforts for the rest of his friends to see the error in getting in the personal space of “Little Rat.” My brother wore his nickname of “Rat” proudly and at the time I didn’t question how he got it and now that I'd like to know that back story its probably lost forever. But I'll bet my brother still remembers how our driveway was often filled with boys working on cars. The TV series Happy Days could have easily based a few episodes on their banner. Those were fun days, but I digress. Again.

 

Sundays here has evolved in being my housework and laundry days and often I don't-get-dressed because I avoid the campus restaurant and the after church crowd that gathers in the public area with their families and/or off-campus friends. This place has settled into a pattern of having the exercise classes mostly in the morning slots which keeps me from dropping into them. Four-five afternoons a week they have lecturers, entertainment or podcasts on the schedule. We've even had two bus trips to the art museum with another planned to a lavender farm. Every afternoon and evening of the week including Sundays they have something going on in the game room but all my good intentions to take part hasn’t happened yet. The crafting-for-charity get-togethers are usually in the mornings too but I do make an effort to go...it's only on the schedule maybe once a month? And I haven't missed a monthly book club meeting yet.

 

Once a day I eat at the cafe`and once a week I eat in fine dining restaurant, both to get my fix of socializing which usually takes two hours if the mix of people there is to my liking, which is most of the time. If not, I could be in and out with a take-out box as an option. I’ve taken to writing in the mornings like I used to do before the move but the afternoons that I visualized myself painting or quilting hasn't happened yet and somethings got to give for me to correct that...write less, go to less afternoon events and I don't really want to cut either one. Like yesterday afternoon we' had a live demonstration of playing steel drums. (I'll write about that later.)  Throw in a few outside appointments and shopping and the week disappears quickly. My evenings are my treadmill, reading, jigsaw puzzle and my Netflix times. I've never liked crafting after dark.

 

Oh, and it should be noted that I’m trying to ease back into watching the Sunday news shows again and at least a hlaf hour of news every day. But doing so feels like I'm living in a loop, like in the movie Groundhog Day. Everything’s changed, but nothing has changed if that makes any sense. The Pandemic, Trump, supply chain shortages and scary people trying to destroy Democracy here and around the world. Banning a book from high school libraries about the Holocaust because it has a photo of naked lady standing in a gas chamber? Where was the outrage over Mrs. Trump’s girl-on-girl naked photos? As you can see I’m not yet sufficiently decompressed from the long break I've been on from my previous addiction to watching (way too much) news. It still has the power to raise my blood pressure. But its still our civic duty to stay informed, so I'm trying again... Besides being informed before elections get here, what happens in the world could become a question on the dementia test and who wants to fail that life changing quiz.

One of my routines is to stop writing when I hit my 1,000 word quota and I’m 85 words over now so I’m putting a period on this post right here. ©

 

Photo: The dog above was our second Belgian Shepherd, Cindy, but she and Jody looked identical. Both of these dogs and my mom were inseparable. Cindy, however had a sweet personality that could be trusted completely not to bite. My mom could tell that dog to go get the grandkids who were playing down the road and that dog would herd them just like they were a flock of sheep, usually the youngest, my nephew would be crying because that dog wouldn't let him go anywhere but back towards our cottage. The girls were older and understood and didn't seem to mind having a dog come get them when grandma called.