Traveling at the speed of water

 

          Like so many other truths, you really can’t go home again. In my case, there’s no one there anyway and Arlington, VA is unrecognizable now – more like L.A. than the suburbia I remember, now full of traffic and tall buildings.

          Not only did they knock down my high school, they renamed it. Washington-Lee H.S is now Washington Liberty. I wonder what alums Shirley McLaine, Warren Beatty, and Sandra Bullock would have to say about that.

Washington-Lee at Henley

          And I doubt if the school’s boat house on the Potomac still exists; the school dances
there were memorable, everyone stamping to the beat on the wooden floor that sat over the water. I do remember the excitement when the 1964 (a couple of years before my time) crew team went to the Henley Regatta. (The crew guys had a pretty big profile in school, all being over six feet – no pun intended – since when the weather turned, they simply transitioned into the basketball team.)

          They competed there in 1965, too, but it was in ’64 that they won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup.

          Why this rehash of the past?

          Our grandson Gabe just competed on Sunday in the Head of the Charles in Boston. He rowed in a boat of 4 for University of Delaware, and both his and the boat of 8 finished in the top half, which means they’re guaranteed an entry for next year. He’s a senior, but perhaps next year he can compete as an alum. Case in point, the team from Princeton that included members from class of 67 and 73.

Sunday Musings

 

This morning the room contained at least thirty people but the silence was profound until my yoga class was briefly disturbed by a sneeze, followed by a neighbor’s “bless you.”

Yoga offers an opportunity to reflect on life, so my deep thought was, “Does anyone say gesundheit anymore?”

 

          Then there’s the fact that we all get a bit shorter with age, which makes sense- gravity and all. But why do our ears and noses continue to grow? I can’t imagine what evolutionary issue that ever addressed.

 

          And why does an Irish wolfhound remind me of Donald Sutherland?

 

          You can see that meditation for me is a work in progress.

Oral Issues

 

   

       In 45 minutes I’m leaving for an event I’m anticipating with the same dread as my dental appointment on Tuesday.

Limited Outlook

 

          Before we moved to this condo, we lived in a house that we bought – among other reasons – for its many, many windows. Something I later came to regret because each of those windows was mullioned, twelve-over-twelve. And the mullions weren’t inset; they were wooden, which made washing them a tedious, hand-numbing event.

          Window washing never having been my thing, last week I asked around and found a guy, the best friend of the son of a Mahjong friend. Stupendous! Fabulous! And cheap! Now I may not wait such an embarrassingly long time in between cleanings.

         

          Now that we live in the commune, our view is very limited. Even though we’re an end unit, the only first floor window on the side is a tiny one in the bathroom.

          Thus, windows at the front

 and windows at the back.

        

  So, when we woke up the other morning at 7:00 a.m.  to chain saws and woodchippers, I wondered if they had finally decided to take down what My Guy and I call the ‘possum tree. It’s earned its name over the years because while it has glorious blooms in the spring – for about 5 days – the rest of the time it looks like it’s at death’s door.

          The tree sits on the blind side of the house, so after fruitlessly looking for activity out of the front and back windows, I figured I’d just wait till I drove out of the garage to check. (Okay, yes, I could have gone upstairs and peered down but I wasn’t all that interested - or energetic.)

      

    Later, I realized the itzy bathroom window gave a perfectly fine view of the still-intact bare branches of the tree.

        Duh.

Keeping Up

 

In the days of James Thurber, I remember as a child paging through my parents’ New Yorker magazines, looking for the cartoons. When I did find them, I often couldn’t figure out what they were about or why they should be considered funny. I did like the Charles Adams ones, which probably says more about me as a child than I’d like to think about.

Eyes

 

Yesterday at 8 a.m., mine was the lone car (except for staff) in my ophthalmologist’s parking lot. I’d requested this ungodly time since I had an event in the afternoon requiring me to look presentable (i.e. not wearing sunglasses indoors like some kind of faux celebrity) and also be able to read.

Brave new shopping world

 

On a weather note, I put on shoes for the first time (not counting sneakers for walking and pickleball) yesterday.  I’ll happily wear sandals with jeans and a sweatshirt, but I woke up to 44 degrees this morning and I can hear the heat cranking up in the basement. So it’s time, bunion or no bunion.

Oh Nuts!

 I made a Costco run the other day. I was out of calcium, walnuts, and there was a breakfast bar I wanted to scout out. Frankly, I really just wanted to stroll around.

Earthy Endeavors

 

This is just one of those round up sort of posts. No deep thoughts going on here at the moment.

First, though, here’s a golf recruiting photo from Tuesday.

Me versus them

 I thought when every appliance in my kitchen but one went down the drain last year that with all these new shiny stainless steel friends life would be simpler.

Stupidity

 

As I’ve written before, on Sunday, I spent a good 45 minutes that I’ll never get back on the phone with “Cynthia”, a kind and patient lady from LL Bean’s Mastercard customer service. I’d received a letter asking me to update my information but when I tried to access my account online, I couldn’t get there.

Rebellion - Me and James Dean

 

Something about this last birthday pulled a trigger for me. I’ve finally realized at my advanced age, if I don’t want to do something, there’s often no reason why I should.

Cautionary Tale

 

(Back in 1936, when SS#s first appeared, people thought it would be a swell idea to tattoo them onto an arm. )

Susans and Tom

 

It seems like every year I’m newly pleased by my garden, as though nothing had ever bloomed there before.

AI: IB vs AP

 

No, my title isn’t in code. It’s a response to last week’s Boston Globe article by Simon Rabinovitch about the use of artificial intelligence in education.

Lunch and Nuptials

 

         We had a visit from the grand-twins and their parents yesterday, a long overdue visit despite texts and phone calls in between. 

Afternoon date

 I’d just about giving up all hope of getting out to see a movie somewhere other than my living room. I thought that with the endless round of cartoons and superheroes that would always be my fate going forward.

Calling all wanna-be ukelele players

 

          Since I had finished my last batch of library books and was avoiding the one for my book club (like a grumpy 9^th grader, I hate being told what to read), off I went to get more reading material.

Shopping Weirdness

 

Okay, I should stop being dumbfounded by Halloween displays in July, but I recently saw a couple of things in stores that left me scratching my head.

          I was standing in the check-out line at my grocery store when I spotted this:

Dan, Dan, He's Our Man

 

          We had a different yoga leader on Sunday, our usual guy – sweet Dan - being away for a few days. (Really? How much relief from daily life does he need? He teaches yoga, for heaven’s sake.)

A Week of the Long-Retired

 

Okay. Yes, it’s been way too long since I’ve logged in. I wish I could say life has been so jam-packed with exciting events that I haven’t found the time but – nope.

          Last week was typical of the routine of my days:

Wine and Plumbing

 

Today I woke up – and stayed up – at 4:30, thanks to a variety of unhappy joints that now seem to lock up and ache after being immobile overnight. Now I realize the blessing of retirement is so you can fit in an afternoon nap to compensate for the sketchy sleep the night before.

This weekend My Guy and I wandered over to a neighboring small town – even smaller than ours- to check out a winery we’ve passed from time to time. Two years ago, it was a dog kennel, raising German shepherds, but now it’s kind of a trendy spot, offering quite a range of pretty good wine.

 I did a sampler sort of thing, getting small (too small in my greedy opinion) tastings of 5 different ones, while he opted for their Cab. There was soothing live music out on their patio area although we stayed inside with the air conditioning. The place was a pleasant surprise out there in farm country and I picked up some great heirloom tomatoes on the way home.

          I’d spent Saturday morning sorting out what I could of my still-disassembled kitchen, earning that wine in the afternoon, and Sunday continuing the task. There was sawdust and grit inside every one of my lower cupboards, which meant figuring out how to jackknife my body down and into the bottom areas. Another planned change to this kitchen is to install pull-out shelves on the lowest level and this confirmed the need for that. At one point I had to grab the seat from the couch to kneel on. At least I now have clean, better organized shelves.

      

    Today is an interesting mix of electrician at 8:00 (Jump up and move the car so we’re not trapped in the garage by his truck), lunch with a friend at 12:00, then race home for the plumber who’s coming somewhere between 2:00 and 4:00. Betcha can’t guess which end of that time range he’ll arrive at. 

          But it’s worth it. Imagine – a working stovetop and a sink you can actually run water into! There’ve been some close calls when I’ve absentmindedly started to empty my tea down the open hole where it would have landed on the bare wooden shelf below.

Asphalt to Iceberg

 

After a succession of men with measuring tapes last week, and having my kitchen torn apart yesterday, the end is in sight. The new countertops have arrived. Oddly, instead of the linebacker build you’d expect to see, the slim craftsmen hauling, hefting, and positioning these big quartz slabs look more like they were born to ride in the Kentucky Derby.

Beginners and Ageism

 

This morning was another pickleball one. A neighboring senior center offered a clinic two weeks ago in the gym of a defunct school and even though my friend and I have already been playing for a few years, we went to check out the venue and perhaps meet more people to play with.

Hedonism and Reunion

 (Not to leave readers hanging, no - my hair guy is not retiring. He just no longer wanted to pay the fees to the credit card processing service. Phew)

The End is Nigh

 

          Years ago, I did what you’re supposed to do when looking for a hairdresser: I turned to the well-turned out lady in my class at the YMCA and asked her where she got her hair done.

Shopping and heat

        We're having a few things done to the kitchen and in the process I remembered I've always disliked the lights that hang over our kitchen bar. 

Editorial

 

I left my English classroom over a decade ago, but long before that I was feeling the effects of this new-fangled internet.

Back Woes

 

At 3 a.m., after climbing out of bed to slather CBD cream on my right side, while I waited for it to (hopefully) do something, I had time to ponder. Wouldn’t it be nice if our bodies provided some kind of early warning system before misery hits?

Growing and Viewing

 

This fella was outside the window as I wrote.   

Sunday was a bit aimless, although I did get a few things done.

  

        It began with my usual yoga class, which passes in stages - Denial (this is killing my knee, why am I here?), Acceptance (okay, at least this pose doesn’t hurt), Relief (I can do this, glad I came, happy it’s over).

Flowery Fourth

 

The two of us spent the Fourth at our son’s in Providence, R.I.

Independence

 

          Independence is a wonderful thing in its many forms.

There's no place like home

 

In a reversal of the ‘no room at the inn’ motif, My Guy and I booked ourselves into a hotel for the family weekend gathering in New Jersey (which was fabulous, by the way).

Making the moves

 

Tylenol for arthritis – check

CBD cream on my knee – check

A few limbering exercises before I leave – check

 

And I was off to try Tai Chi.

I’m ready to try anything since the Big A has muscled its way into my world this year, bringing all its luggage and showing no inclination to leave.

A History of Heat

 

The heat has finally broken. Not that I’ve been suffering unduly, living as I now do in the blessed world of air conditioning. My Guy and I are endlessly fascinated by recounting to each other all those years we lived without it, and not just in our childhoods. Our first house – a 1920s Dutch colonial – sat under massive oaks in a city lot. They helped a little, I suppose (except for the carpenter ants that fell from them onto our roof), but in the summer I often used to wish the entire back of the house could be hinged up like a dollhouse.

Heat and upcoming travels

 

The heat got the neighbor's "fried egg" 
tree off to an early start. 

Tuesday was predicted to be the start of mind-searing heat – 100 degrees - and what did I do? I hopped in my car and went off to play golf. Not the smartest thing in the world, but we were out there at 8:30 and rode around in carts.

From hot dogs to toilet plungers

 

         In the interest of continuing to grab the goodness of a Massachusetts summer before the tropical heat had fully gotten its shoes under the bed, we took off for another late lunch.

The Great Outdoors

 

Yesterday was a day to be outside, a day of mid-70s temps and downright dramatic winds. When you put aside the knowledge that those winds were blowing in a sledgehammer heat wave, you could really enjoy it.

Random observations/discoveries

 

Thank heaven I’m a relatively tidy person. Maybe not a dust-the-vents-every-week kind of cleaner, but the bed is always made, towels always hung up.

Running Amok

 

We seem to be entering a new phase.

Last week the grocery store had lobsters on sale. After discussion with My Guy, we decided to go crazy. I called up to order two to be steamed and ready for pick-up. Except at the last minute I had a “what the hell” moment and asked for the poundage above the chicken lobsters.

It all comes together

 

Do you remember ever being very little and squatting by mud, mixing in twigs or leaves to create mud patties?

          I remember being about eight and discovering an old chemistry set in our basement in Virginia. It was pretty sparse, and I have no idea who it once belonged to (a misguided gift for my older sister?), but it did have a few test tubes and mysterious ingredients to mix together. Very cool. Although I never did produce any results, never mind blow up the house.

          Due to general familial disfunction, I never had those Hallmark moments at my mother or grandmother’s elbows in the kitchen, but I’ve always been drawn to cooking. I mean, who wouldn’t be if you can stir up your own chocolate chip cookies?

          As a late teen, while visiting my grandfather after my grandmother had died, I fixed several meals for him. Not that I was exactly accomplished. The baking powder biscuits made with baking soda by mistake, which meant they tasted like soap. My sainted Grampy ate them anyway. Or the scalloped oysters that he said were wonderful. I later learned that he was allergic to oysters.  

          So many cooking stories.

Columbus, Georgia, dead of summer, no AC. My in-laws down from Massachusetts to see my husband of barely a year graduate from Officer’s Candidate School. I made a meatloaf the day before and almost poisoned everyone. Fortunately, as it cooked the smell from the oven made it obvious that we’d better stick to just the vegetables for dinner.

          But the years went by and I did figure out how to cut up a chicken, make bread, roll pie crust.

Last night: pork stroganoff on spinach fettucine

  

        Maybe it’s a control thing. Being able to

  choose anything in the world, combining the

  ingredients, and then a result you can eat.

        What’s not to like?

Egocentricity

 

Today being National Selfish Day, today’s blog is all about ME and what makes ME happy.

Friday

 

Today’s philosophy question:

Is it slothful to make the bed while you’re still in it (you know, straightening the sheet, pulling the bedspread back up to the top as you lie there) or do you get points for being so tidy?

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.