Week in review

 I’m not too sure how this will go - I’m avoiding my laptop due to unfriendly incursions and am writing this on my iPad. 

Last weekend we had an extended family event. One of the great-nephews had his first communion. Since this branch of the family trekked across several states to attend our grandsons’ three separate Bar Mitzvahs, the least My Guy and I could was go to mass a couple of towns over. 

I’m a very lapsed Episcopalian so these milestones have been quite the learning experience.  As I grow older some of these rituals don’t always make sense to me, but the church was pretty. Unfortunately I spent much of my time mulling over the medieval need to bring entertainment to the lower orders with fancy icons and impressive pomp  

On Monday I was waiting for an x-ray on my knee when this notice in the waiting room caught my attention  

Somehow messages warning against “aggressive behavior” make me feel less, not more safe.

And today a friend and I went to a very be-flowered tearoom awash in tablecloths and tea cups. They really get into the spirit, offering a trunk full of hats and fascinators for those who feel the need. 

And I found a new friend.

Peaceful distraction

 

          Gentle yoga went well yesterday, a happy change from last week when my knee was still behaving like one of Satan’s minions. On Monday my doctor suggested the possibility of a damaged meniscus and sent me off for an x-ray. Happily, not only did he give a prescription for a super-duper non-inflammatory med, the x-ray results said it had just been arthritis rearing its ugly head. Less happily, my stomach’s not too sure how it feels about this med so I’m treading carefully with that.

          But. . . much better knee so yoga went well.

          Before class began, a friend and I had a big discussion about arthritis and feet. Aging – flat feet – plantar fasciitis, and in no time the lady in back of us scooted over to show us her “barefoot” sneakers. Turns out she’s a waitress and those + orthotic inserts have saved her life.

          We went through our usual routine- stretching, a little down dog, a few warrior stances, and soon we were in the end of the session rest mode, flat on our mats, eyes closed.  I thought I even heard a quiet snore from my friend to the left.

          We began by visualizing somewhere we felt “happy, safe, and at peace.” I always pick the same place I use when I’m having my blood pressure taken (trying to keep my numbers low). I’m lying on our old swim dock on the lake – I’m alone, the sun is beating down, and the waves are gently rocking me. I could analyze the fact that I’m also isolated from anyone else, but that’s for another day.

           Then we were told to imagine a white light scanning over us, toes to top. This always makes me think creepily of an alien examination, probably not the experience our teacher wanted us to summon.

          The room quieted to almost silence which then was interrupted by pot banging from the caterer next door that rents the kitchen from our YMCA. Silence reigned again, although like waiting for the other shoe to fall, I was listening for the next pot bang.

          A little silence, then along came the train that runs alongside the building, tooting out “shave and a haircut, two bits.”

         

Aroma Travels

 

They say smells are strong memory triggers. For me, there are even some that I can recall without even smelling them, like the chlorine smell of the hospital room when both of my kids were born.

Danger Signals

 

This morning I lay in bed listening to the familiar gobble!gobble!gobble! outside. But then I
heard it followed by a sort of continuous clickclickclickclick.

Was this the mating call of a female turkey? Turns out it was another sort of call.

          I must really need more excitement in my life because I got out of bed to look.

No turkeys, but as I stood at the window a bobcat passed by, about ten feet from my window. I think I’ll be taking a good look and a deep breath before venturing out in the backyard to garden.

         

          I’d received a worrisome email from my bank a couple of days ago, congratulating my on my successful change of password. WHAT????

          I immediately called my good friends at the bank’s fraud division. After two different conversations and much entering and re-entering information I entered another ID and password, re-upped the phone online facial recognition check, and changed the connecting email account from Gmail to Yahoo.

          (Since over the winter we had our Verizon account hacked, our bank accounts – 3 X -, our brokerage account, and My Guy’s computer hacked, we’re old hands at this stuff)

          Well, at 2am that night I received another email from my bank telling me I’d been locked out of the online access and I needed to go back in and change passwords. Hmmm.

1.    Even though it looked legit at first, when we compared it to another message from the bank, it was different.

2.    It was sent to my Gmail account, which was no longer the email on record.

Young Love

 

Tom is outside my window at this very moment, proclaiming to the world that he’s got his woman and no one had better mess with her. Or him.

If he could fling his arm negligently over her shoulder (assuming he had an arm and she had a shoulder) in the style of teenage love everywhere, I bet he’d do it.

The non-stop gobbling is pretty impressive, too.

         Earlier today when I was out gardening he and I almost had our own High Noon moment, staring each other down across the backyard.

I sat very still, thoughts of sharp turkey talons on my mind, but he eventually took a left and cut past the garage.

 

Drips and stretches

 

   

      It arrived this morning at 4:30 a.m., and not on little cat feet. More like stegosaurus stumps.

Boob Tube Times

 

I’m grateful to have grown up in a time period when tv was so new, parents didn’t worry about what it might be doing to their kids. Granted, for me it also helped that I was mildly neglected by my mom and so was pretty much left to my own devices.