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 |  A Baby-Boomer STILL alive and living in senior housing...
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The random thoughts of a Baby-Boomer STILL adjusting to life in senior housing (after five years)... Almost exactly nine months after World War II ended, one historian writes, “the cry of the baby was heard across the land.” More babies were born in 1946 than ever before: 3.4 million, 20 percent more than in 1945. This was the beginning of the so-called “baby boom.” In 1947, another 3.8 million babies were born; 3.9 million were born in 1952; and more than 4 million were born every year from 1954 until 1964, when the boom finally tapered off. By then, there were 76.4 million “baby boomers” in the United States. They made up almost 40 percent of the nation’s population. - www.history.com |
| Ugh! For the past several months, I’ve awakened to songs being sung/performed in my head each morning. The list is eclectic; for example, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “How Great Thou Art,” “Pomp and Circumstance,” “Bali Hai” (from South Pacific), “Dancing Queen” by Abba (don’t ask – I’m clueless, too), “America, the Beautiful,” “Money, Money, Money” from Cabaret, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from “Funny Girl,”etc. There appears to be no logical selection going on…it begs me to wonder what the heck I dream about to wake up to these songs. As disturbing as it is each morning, the songs stay stuck in my head for HOURS! And I have a heckuva time getting rid of them. This was today’s wake-up call: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns. That will just be added to the list of inexplicable elements of my existence. (I remember seeing the film ONE TIME, MANY years ago.) I’m wracking my brain, trying to determine why. Why this “Kids” song this morning? I like Dick van Dyke’s, Anne-Margaret's, and Paul Lynde’s performances; and Maureen Stapleton steals the scene – what a classy actress; yet she crouched down and stuck her head in the (electric) oven AND stayed there for take after take after take – too funny. She’s a favorite of mine. But those thoughts did not play into *why* I got this song stuck in my head. The only reason I can come up with is last weekend my niece, Emily, and nephew, Joshua attended their prom…not together – Yikes! That would be too weird. No, they each had dates (Emily with Mike; Joshua with Annie) – their prom was held on a boat in New York Harbor – the Circle Line Cruise. And I classify them as "kids" even though they're rapidly approaching young adulthood... It was a far cry from my high school proms MANY years ago. I attended two in my life: 1) I asked Lois to the junior prom (there was no senior prom then) two weeks before the date of the affair. I asked her in German class on a Tuesday: “Lois, go to the prom with me?” (In German, but I can’t recall how that goes at this late stage of my life) (I just used Google translator; apparently, this is somewhat what I said, “werden Sie zum Abschlussball mit mir?”) She probably thought I was telling her her hair looked nice. Nonetheless, she nodded assent and the deal was sealed. I knew I was gay and I also knew no one had asked Lois to the prom – she was a little ditzy. The night came and I picked her up in our family’s big, blue station wagon – the blue whale. We went to dinner (but I can’t remember where) and then to our prom which was held at the Elks Club in town. It was a “nice” evening. When it came time to select the prom queen we all knew Susan H. was going to win: she was pretty and sociable – and she did win. When it came time for our yearbook’s publication in spring of our senior year, it was discovered Carl forgot to take the lens cap off his camera on prom night so there are NO pictures from our junior prom. The pictures that appear in my yearbook are the queen and her court posing, in their prom get-ups on a hill outside school…in autumn (the opposite of spring) with dead leaves falling down behind them, 2) I took Hannah S to her prom when she was a junior in high school, and I’d been out of school for two years. Her father, Dr. S (minister, professor of geology and religion at MC), wanted pictures of us. We posed in their yard; Dr. S kept saying, “…a little more to the left…a little more…” all while looking through his viewfinder… “…a little to the left…” shuffle “…a little bit more…” shuffle “…almost there, just a little bit mo-“ And Hannah fell into the bushes. I tried to pull her clad-in-her-yellow gown out, but she was, umm, let’s say, hefty. Yes, let’s go with that...Hannah was able to become upright after a struggle. Dr. S laughed along with his wife Gertrude. After that fiasco, Hannah and I ate at a restaurant. Eating our salads, Hannah tried to halve a cherry tomato – it didn’t work: it shot off her plate half-way across the dining room. She guffawed; I was mortified; she continued her guffawing; I eventually laughed with her (and greatly feared wetting my pants – Hannah had/has the MOST infectious laugh I’ve ever experienced) – looking back now, so many years later, it was funny and cringe-worthy at the same time…no one was injured. I recall her prom was held in the high school gym. The Elk’s Club or the gymnasium are far from an evening cruising around Manhattan with young love (or what they “think” is young love) on board. Romances and relationships are fleeting – they’re here one day and gone the next. I haven’t contacted my niece, nephew, their mother (my sister) in person...but thanks to technology, I was able to view pictures of their special evening online. I can’t imagine how expensive it is to attend prom these days. I seem to remember my junior prom cost me $15 for the ticket, $12 for tux rental, $20 for dinner, $5 for Lois’s corsage – pretty steep prices for a boy with a paper route…I’m willing to bet my entire $52 outlay barely paid the bus fare for my relatives to arrive in NYC. In any case, prom season is coming to an end for another year…the gowns are in moth-balled closets, the tuxes have been returned to the rental outlets, and the limos have been washed and cleaned in preparation for wedding season. And boys and girls will have memories of their own to cherish (or forget) when the topic of “prom” comes up in conversation with others. By the way, when I delivered Lois back to her house after our junior prom, I went to kiss her good-night (I thought that was required – the proper thing a date should end with)…she kicked my leg and said, “Get out of here, you goof.” Ahh, springtime for adolescents or maybe adolescence…I remember it well. Happy prom season to everyone. Life is good. |
| Ugh! There is an early bird residing in one of the flowering pear trees outside my apartment windows here at The Home (I'm referring to a REAL bird; not one of my neighbors who, through confusion, ended up perched on a branch. It could happen!). Like clockwork, at 4:15 each morning I hear eight cheeps (I’ve been counting them; not one less, nor one more – it’s always EIGHT chirps; could it be an avian version of OCD?). Then there is silence for about 20 minutes; followed by multiple cheeps from others en masse in the other trees. Not sure how birds live, but that seems to be a pretty good waking-up routine – almost like a snooze alarm: the buzzer goes off, you hit the snooze button for 20 more minutes of slumber, then you get up to start your day. I often wonder what birds do to fill their days. It’s not an obsession – don’t get me wrong – I just wonder how they spend their time. And how they know where their home is when they come back to roost. Is it sight? Is it smell? Does Momma bird have a "welcome" mat outside her nest? Is it intuition? All trees look the same to me; I’m pretty sure I’d be lost if I was a bird. Scratch that thought; I KNOW I'd be lost. How do WE know where to return to after each foray into the world? Things like that wonder me (my Pennsylvania-Dutch grandmother used to say, “…it wonders me…” a lot. The expression works for me – it’s whimsical and smart at the same time; good for you, Gram) – and I got to thinking how do *I* know to return home when I’m out and about (I always return home after my errands are complete; that, or I have to go pee REALLY BADLY). First off, I know where I live because I have to pay rent (that outflow each month keeps reminding me where I live)…birds don’t have that restriction. Heck, they could roost in any available tree in town, but they return to the same flowering pear trees outside my apartment every early evening. At least I think it’s the same birds…perhaps there are feathered squatters infiltrating my neighborhood? Yikes. Secondly, I have a key on my key ring to open the main door here at The Home in case my card pass doesn't function properly, and a key to open my apartment door...so my keys "remind me" of what to do at the end of each trek. Third, where the heck else would I return to sleep each night? It must be intuition…a word that I never quite understood, but half-heartedly trusted. I grew up reading and hearing about “women’s intuition” but never quite grasped the concept…when it came to Mom and other women in my family, and they “knew” something intrinsically, I chalked it up mostly to luck (70% and intuition comes in at 25% - the other 5% is up for grabs - sue me!).. Maybe I was wrong, and THERE IS such a thing as intuition. If so, us males were robbed of something life-worthy. Why were we denied this power? I’m pretty sure my early bird is female – she has a beautiful chirp – and it’s loud, as in, she means business…you don’t wanna mess with her. I’m not going to lose sleep over this, unless that mother bird continues to intrude on my slumber...then we'll have a sit-down talk. Sliced turkey breast, provolone cheese, and whole-wheat bread with hot peppers and Dijon mustard on the menu for today. I woke up to “George, George, George of the Jungle” this morning. I have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE where that came from. Here’s a YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4hXdsVUnp4 the only thing I can think is I heard it growing up when my younger siblings watched it on TV. How it infiltrated my psyche is questionable, except I have on my to-do list to contact my baby sister over the next few days. Our minds can be whacky at times. Sleep affirms that thought. In the meantime… Life is good. |
| Ugh! The Ides of May – that is today’s date: the 15th of the month. We all know the expression “…beware the Ides of March” from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” I wonder why he didn’t pen 11 other plays/stories to fill up the year…you know, “…beware the Ides of January…” “…beware the Ides of February…” etc. Writer’s block? Laundry? Play-date conflicts with his children? Mayhaps W. Shakespeare was a slacker when it came to carrying something to fruition… (It could be true!) He had a good idea with the “…Ides of March…” but he dropped the ball. He could have had 12 best-sellers at the same time on the book list in the local newspaper…sad. Nevertheless, beware the Ides of May on this day. Pork and sauerkraut and cranberries in the Crock Pot as I peck this out on my keyboard…it smells REALLY good…to one of Pennsylvania-Dutch heritage. Your mileage may vary. Yes, Connieann - I'm still cooking/baking... For the most part… Life is good. ____ carlton607 - looking to free-up brain space |
| Ugh! Mother Nature has blessed us in this part of Pennsylvania this springtime – the pinks are pink-er, the yellows are yellow-er, the purples are purple-r, the whites are whiter – could this be a reward for last year’s Hurricane Sandy? We had one snow storm this past winter…lucky for me – I used to love winter; not any more – now it’s a hassle. I don’t mind the cold or the snow when it’s falling (few things can be compared to the beauty of softly falling snowflakes); it’s the aftermath: the shoveling, the slush, the white-turning-black mounds lingering in the neighborhood and around town. One bright spot I noticed: Larry is covering himself up more in spite of rising temperatures each day. Gone are his penchants for semi-nudity…he even wears shoes these past few weeks. YAY! (I woke up to "Pomp and Circumstance" in my head this morning..maddening - it must be because we're coming into graduation season.) Life is good. |
| Ugh! It's been 549 days since I've offered a blog entry... I'm still here at The Home. Every night before I go to bed, I read my blog entry from two years ago to-the-day and attempt to find out if I've changed any since then. No. Sad. So much for progress! Changes have occurred in some arenas, though: Doom-and-Gloom Earl passed away (replaced by Bombastic Bill - he was one of DandG's co-horts in spreading malicious news); Complaining Connie is still complaining when we meet beneath the plumes of her cigarette smoke as she puffs away and her neighbor "friend" ("friend" is in quotes because I'm not sure their actual relationship), Angie walks Rascal, CC's mangy dog (who still jumps up and down when he sees me - I fear he may be crying out for attention and appreciates my scritches and scratches); Mrs. Roper continues to fill our hallways with her patchouli scent (where does she buy it? I have NO clue...) and her muumuus; Larry continues with his cringe-worthy actions: semi-nudity, outlandish colors when he does wear clothing in the lobby or outside; Heidi Hitler persists in her grunting when I wish her a good day; Edie and Beadie are seen every now and then - they tend to be more private with their lives (something I do moreso than ever). Silent Connie continues with her ignoring me. Calamity Cleary has been keeping to herself of late; she ROAMED the hallways last fall as Hurricane Sandy bore down on us: "Keep your windows shut. We must seek shelter!" We heeded her advice, and after five days with no power, phone, Internet, security we survived relatively intact. We got new management here at The Home...they seem more corporate than caring, though: the new manager Scotch-taped pieces of paper over the window in their office door and they keep the door locked; if one wants to meet with her, one must shout LOUDLY one's mission - thank goodness I live on the third floor - I don't have to experience the madness. I fear sometimes for the fates of us passengers on this Carnival-Cruise-line trip to Hell. (although, at least our toilets continue to operate correctly...) I stopped walking through town late last October when I jammed a toe (probably broke it, but I didn't go to the ER) by stumbling into my computer chair early one morning...I thought it'd be a day or two for rest, but my "rest" has now entered its seventh month - and I've gained back almost all the poundage I'd lost. Double ugh! I wouldn't mind gaining weight if it was distributed fairly (like arms, legs, head, lips, hands, chin, forehead, cheeks) - but, no! My weight all appears around my belly, as in "...are you hiding a basketball under your shirt?" - a direct quote from one of my (now-dead) neighbors, Sam. All it's going to take to get back into my old routine is for one day, waking up, thinking positively and going out for a walk to improve my existence. I keep waiting for that day - it's soo much easier to make up an excuse than it is to actually perform. Ugh. Ugh. Not sure if I'll come back here to relay my thoughts and experiences...time will tell. I felt compelled to write something here today. Who knows why. I like challenges, so, by the end of the week, I'll decide whether or not to blog. My life is not exciting, so I'm not sure what I'll write about. I might set a goal to write something every day - like the first year of this blog: my goal was to write something every Monday to Friday for one year. I'll nap this afternoon and make up my mind upon awakening. And, through it all,.. Life is good. |
| Ugh! This is my 250th post…Monday will be the one-year anniversary of “Life at The Home” – my original goal was to post an item every Monday through Friday for one year. I almost accomplished that – I took a week off in June and another week in September…but I managed to get something up the other 50 weeks. The discipline was good. I enjoyed relating the goings-on here at The Home and sharing parts of my life. But it’s time to move on to other interests. The comments I received were a source of encouragement…I never learned blog etiquette, though: do I remain silent? Do I respond to each comment? What to do…do know, however, that I did read them all. So, as I bow out and continue my existence with my neighbors: Gloom-and-Doom Earl, Mrs. Roper, Angie, Complaining Connie and her mangy dog Rascal, crazy Diane, Edie and Beadie, Silent Connie, the ever-entertaining Larry, the bygone Vera the Activities Director, Heidi Hitler, and Calamity Cleary, I’m confident life will always be hectic and a challenge…and hopefully fun along the way. My new goal is to find enjoyment each and every day as I move forward. It’s important that I can end each day in bed with my Kindle and think… Life is good. |
| Ugh! Thank goodness Election Day is over for another year. Yesterday my phone didn’t ring once. Despite being registered with the national Do-Not-Call list, each year around Election Day my phone is bombarded with robo-calls from wannabe political winners. It’s aggravating, it’s senseless, and it makes me irate. If the politicians aren’t appearing in TV ads or newspaper ads, they’re invading my mailbox with flyers and letters, and they’re tying up my phone lines with asinine messages about how “good” they are or what they propose “to do” to help me. Here’s how you can help me: LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE! There! Now I feel better… Only 364 days until the next election…yes, next year is a leap year, so we have an extra day of inanity to put up with. Ugh! Homemade pierogies (from a local Polish Catholic church) on the menu for dinner tonight…yum. They’re not the healthiest food to eat, but, boy, are they ever good! And, by buying them, I’m supporting the nuns and their habits. :) Life is good. |
| Ugh! Mother Nature rewarded us for the past eight days with beautiful weather…I wonder if she was feeling a tad guilty about the freak snow storm she delivered at the end of October. I’ve had to cut back on my walking regimen…a few months back I reached my goal weight – that’s the good news. The bad news is that my routine almost became an obsession and I lost another 15 pounds: getting close to concentration-camp-weight territory. I used my walking twice a day as more of a time killer than anything else. My doctor mentioned concern when I last visited with her, so instead of doing over seven miles a day, I’ve lessened the mileage to a little over five a day, in the hopes of maintaining a healthy-looking appearance. And now I have a bit of breathing room to play with as it pertains to weight management. Since the clocks changed this past weekend, I’m back to my early morning walks…for the past six weeks or so, I’ve had to wait until nearly 8 a.m. to venture out – part of my route entails no sidewalks and I was fearful of being run down by a car or truck as I plodded through the darkness. Besides, walking past the cemeteries at the top of the hill became creepy in the early morning darkness – Halloween notwithstanding. The crisp air is invigorating and allows for a brisk step. I kind of miss my twice daily showers that were part of my routine during the hottest weather, but I don’t miss the rivulets of sweat dripping into my eyes or the clinging clothes. Autumn’s falling leaves provide picturesque scenery; I enjoy the crunch as I plod along. I no longer can identify the different leaves…sadly, but I do appreciate the myriad colors wafting down around me. Thank goodness the maintenance staff here at The Home is responsible for leaf disposal – but I long for the days when that chore was performed with bamboo rakes rather than the LOUD wind-blowing apparatus they use now. I ponder whether or not some of the younger members of staff ever had the chance to savor the scent of decaying leaves as they clear the grassy areas…or raking the leaves into a pile and getting a running start to plop into the pile with satisfied cries of joy…or, if safe enough, to light the pile on fire and relish the smell of smoke and charred foliage – ahh, wonderful autumnal memories. I’m lucky to recall them… Just for fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2s2tPORlW4 Life is good. |
| Ugh! Weird: one of the tenants here at The Home recently acquired a computer and has been hanging computer-generated signs in the lobby. For the most part, they mention holidays and the author wishes everyone a happy one. On Saturday morning of this past weekend, a sign was posted: “Remembering Irene G-------- who passed away October 27, 2011 Rest in peace You will be missed” I was saddened to read the news because I’d just seen Irene recently as she waited for a bus to take her to senior day care, which she enjoyed very much and often talked fondly of her time spent there. So, imagine my surprise when I returned from my walk yesterday and saw Irene sitting in the lobby waiting for her bus ride. I was flustered, to say the least. When I asked her how she was doing, she muttered, “Well, I’m not dead despite the sign hanging at the mail boxes,” then she laughed and I joined her. HAHA! Yesterday afternoon, a new sign appeared: “Remembering Irene M-------- who passed away October 27, 2011 Rest in peace You will be missed” The story, according to Gloom-and-Doom Earl (who knows all) is that the author heard the news third-hand and got the names mixed up. Oops… Life is good. (Especially for Irene G--------) |
| Ugh! So over the weekend here at The Home, I got an email from a girl/woman I went to first grade with – more than half a century ago! Initially I couldn’t place the name - it was an odd name; but when I thought about the message: “It’s been so long…we should try to catch up. Arlinda M--------“ I remembered her as Arlinda K------- (she’d probably married), the brown-haired girl who sat in the desk by the door to our classroom. She sat there in order to be close to the little girls’ room. You see, Arlinda had, umm, err, uh, bladder-control issues…she pee’d on the floor beneath her desk EVERY afternoon in first grade. Without fail, we’d come back inside after lunch recess…Miss Mantz instructed us to “take a nap” (which was really us kids resting our heads, face-down, on our desks – she gave a little animal-shaped eraser to the student who “took the best nap” – Betty W-------- always won BECAUSE she actually NAPPED! ‘Twasn’t fair!), and during our enforced rest period we all giggled as soon as we heard water pitter-pattering on the floor underneath Arlinda’s desk. Near the end of that year of our first foray into formal education, we tykes returned from lunch recess one day in May and noticed that Miss Mantz had spread newspapers under Arlinda’s desk – perhaps in the hopes of paper training her? I don’t know… why she waited nine months to experiment is questionable now when I think about it. (It didn’t work, but the clean-up was snappy: no need to call the custodian into class.) I do recall that we were allowed bathroom breaks once in the morning (at recess), after lunchtime (at recess) and once in the afternoon (at recess) (seems we had a lot of recesses back then when I type it out now). Since Arlinda was a girl and used the little girls’ room, I couldn’t tell if she made use of the facilities or not – the little boys’ room was at the other end of our school; us boys had to march single-file down the long hallway while the girls marched single-file in the opposite direction to their room. I don’t recall Arlinda ducking out of line or anything radical like that. Being all of five and six years of age, us kids found it comical that she pee’d on the floor every day, but there was no teasing on the playground or on the bus rides to/from school – it was just accepted – the same way Timothy M------ was excused from saying the pledge to the flag and he was permitted to color during the Bible readings because of his religion (he also was excused from the May Day pageant, now that I remember, and he didn’t have to learn to skip for the first-grade performance of “Skip to My Lou” - I never learned to skip properly so I was chosen to be the crown bearer for Kathy B-----, the sixth grader who was named May Queen; Cathy C---- couldn’t skip either, so she was the flower girl. She blossomed into the class slut in high school…). So after all this time Arlinda hunted me down through classmates.com (I’m pretty sure I visited the site once way back in something like 1996 and quickly hightailed it away from the site when they asked for my credit card information) where apparently my one and only visit was indelibly memorialized to allow for former (at least I hope so) desk wetters to track me down after more than half a century of no contact. I don’t remember EVER talking with her way back when; in fact, she transferred to a parochial school during second grade and I forgot about her. Until this past weekend… I read her email and deleted it. I miss recess…still – all in all… Life is good. |
| Ugh! Did some housecleaning here at The Home yesterday…I perused my racks of DVDs and decided to thin them out. About two years ago, I sold some of them on amazon, but the hassle wasn’t worth it: checking emails, printing out mailing labels/packing slips/receipts, buying mailing packets, carting them to the Post Office (one at a time – instead of holding a week’s worth of orders and making one P.O. trip, I wanted to be a good seller and dropped the DVDs into the mail right away), paying the postage…in short, too much trouble and time and not enough profit. So I did some digging on amazon and found out they have a trade-in program; I read all about it and decided to try it. I registered a bunch of DVDs to find out how much amazon was willing to pay me (the amounts ranged from a low of 25 cents to a high of $16.25) and weighed that possibility against trying to sell them on my own… The trade-in won – by a long shot. So I boxed them up, printed out the prepaid mailing label and dropped the package off at The UPS Store (who know they existed?) across town and now I just sit back and wait to hear from the folks at amazon. I hope it was worth it. Driving across town afforded me the opportunity to witness the damage left over from the storm last weekend…virtually every neighborhood, street, highway, yard exhibited large tree branches and leaves scattered about or neatly piled at curb side awaiting disposal. Several streets were still closed to thru traffic, so I had to detour. The electric company remains working to restore power to about 10,000 homes as of yesterday – down from a peak of 350,000 outages during the storm last Saturday. It felt like spring yesterday…Mother Nature is confusing me – but it is autumn, so this should be expected. Hope it’s a quiet and “power”ful weekend here at The Home and elsewhere… Life is good. |
| Ugh! My Christmas shopping is done – yay! I spent yesterday here at The Home online at amazon.com and made my purchases. They will be delivered tomorrow. Thanksgiving Day I’ll “decorate” my living space for the holidays. That task entails about five seconds: I go to my kitchen cupboard, retrieve my holly-decorated coffee mug and set it on the counter. I’ll use it until Christmas Day when it goes back on the shelf for another 11 months. Bah humbug! I mean “Fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-laaaaaaa!” Life is good. |
| Ugh! Pretty much back to normal here at The Home: the weather-related complaining of the past several days has reverted back to regular, incessant senior whining (not to be confused with Senor Wences for those who remember from “The Ed Sullivan Show”) – sigh! When I was a kid there were several weather “false indicators” I used to look out for based on old folks’ talk. One was that in winter, if there is a ring around the moon, count the number of stars inside the ring and in that many days snow will fall. In summer if all the cows in a field are faced in the same direction, it means rain is nigh (I always joked about that one: yeah, they’re all facing the same direction – the barn! They’re headed inside to get out of the impending rain – they’re no fools!). In autumn the amount of fuzz on a wooly, black caterpillar foretold the amount of snow that would fall during winter. Another fallacy (at least it hasn’t happened much) was the day of the month of the first snow fall is an indicator of the number of times snow will fall that year; i.e., if the first snowfall is December 3, expect three snow storms. That one has worked at times and blown up at times. What scares me about this past weekend’s freakish weather is that it was our first snowfall and it fell on October 29. Sigh. I’ll be fit to be tied if I’m stuck inside The Home any more than I was last winter. Ugh. I guess I could move… …naaah, I’d miss everyone here. . . . . . . . . . . . HAHA…just kidding. Life is good. |
| Ugh! Well, we have lights here at The Home, but as of this morning, no heat. I guess the heating thing has to be reset or something after 2-1/2 days of no operation. Maybe later today things will return to some sense of normalcy around here – if there ever was such a thing here…sigh. I don’t know how Abraham Lincoln did it; I can NOT read by oil lamp. Oh, I tried and tried, but it just didn’t cut it for me. First off, it was difficult to see my Kindle in the flame light; the Kindle is easy to read in bright sunshine (one of its touts), but it’s not backlit so using in darkness is impossible. I used my Kindle during daylight hours. After dark (read late afternoon) I resorted to reading a real, live, tangible book – luckily I found a few lying around here at The Home…but again, reading by oil lamp was a challenge: each time I turned a page, the shadows cast on the walls and ceiling half-frightened me. Ditto with writing – I got out my pen and paper and decided to jot down a few things, but I felt as if I was in a Hitchcock film sans the scary music, so quickly nixed that brain child. Luckily, I had food prepared in advance, so I was set for eating, albeit cold (and as time went on, room temperature) eating. Cold chicken curry isn’t too bad; even the brown rice and broccoli was palatable – if you like that sort of thing. I do, so I was fine. I REALLY missed my morning coffee. REALLY badly. Lukewarm tap water is not, I repeat NOT, a valid substitute for java. Sunday morning I had cereal for breakfast – the power had been off less than a day at that point and the milk was still somewhat cool to the touch, so I doused my fiber with it and relished it, minus the cup of joe. Monday morning, however, I was reluctant to try the milk again; being in the middle of day two with no refrigeration, I was loath to pour milk on my cereal. The expiration date on the container says “use before 11/13” which was still two weeks away. I wasn’t sure if that expiration date meant 11/13 at room temperature or 11/13 refrigerated. In hindsight I’m pretty sure the milk would have been fine; all I had to do was smell it to ascertain its goodness or not – but I wimped out. I didn’t want to add retching to my discomfort. So I had some coconut M&Ms for breakfast…they hadn’t expired. There are (were) 10 flowering pear trees around the perimeter of The Home…each approaching four stories in height. It’s still early in the leaf-changing phase of autumn, so when our freak storm arrived Saturday morning, those trees quickly starting bowing down to the ground with the weight of snow on the leaves and branches…the result was broken boughs. Seven of the 10 trees broke so severely that I fear they will have to be removed permanently. Most of them split in half, with one half falling into the streets and the other half remaining upright but fragile. It was eerie in the silence of the storm to hearing a loud CRACK/POP every 25 minutes or so and see part of a tree come crashing down. I surveyed the damage at one point Sunday afternoon outside the back door while enjoying a smoke and thought that perhaps Mr. Squirrel lost his winter abode…sad. If he relocates he’ll be missed. Perhaps his perch did survive; it was difficult to tell from the mangle of branches, tree residue, leaves strewed in the street. Two of the three streets around The Home were closed because of the damage. The municipal clean-up crews came round Monday afternoon to remove the biggest of the arboreal limbs. I parked in my usual spot in The Home’s parking lot – NOT under a tree, so I was spared any car damage. It was strange strolling the dark hallways and staircases of The Home, made even stranger with some of the passengers trying to make their ways about without a flashlight. Three times I heard someone groping about on my apartment door handle – apparently whoever it was thought he/she was home at their apartment. Doom-and-Gloom Earl was on his high horse about the lack of emergency lighting: “I’m going to write a complaint to management that their ‘emergency lighting’ is no good. The lights turned off after about two hours. What good is that?” He was steamed and groused for two days about it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the emergency lighting is in place in the event of fire and is designed to last about 90 minutes to allow for safe egress of inhabitants, passengers, inmates – what have you – or in this case, freaks. I didn’t venture too far away from my apartment for the duration of the outage…I didn’t feel like listening to the complaints of others. It was doing no good and was a colossal waste of time and energy…not that it was much different from any other day here at The Home – sigh - but being it was dark added a sense of unneeded drama to the gripe-fest. Ah, the aroma of Highlander Grogg coffee is in the air…time for a cup or two. Life is good. |
| Ugh! The title is how long The Home was without power after our freak snow storm on Saturday...the power went out Saturday afternoon at 1:05 p.m. and was just restored at 9:30 p.m. on Monday. It was not fun... Off to check my freezer contents. Despite it all... Life is good. |
| Ugh! Another week, and almost another month, has passed here at The Home. The passengers were agitated a wee bit yesterday when the weather folks mentioned the “S” word in the forecast for this coming weekend…could we be in for some S-N-O-W so early in the season? Talk about frost on the pumpkin! Seems like days ago we were complaining about the heat and humidity…ugh! I hope I don’t get any trick-or-treaters at my door over the next few days…I get enough freaks as it is – don’t need a scary holiday to bring out the beasts in droves. Nowadays t-or-t is relegated to one time during Halloween week, and it’s during the day – how lame is that? When we were kids we used to hit the neighborhood two or three nights leading up to the big evening…and back then we got the big candy bars – not the snack-size things people toss into bags these days. Of course there was the house that always gave out apples (before razor blades started appearing in them in some parts of the country and then the media jumped all over those rare stories and the poor apple growers lost business during the last week in October each year) or a nickel. The best house was the one with taffy apples (the taffy covered up the razor blades – or so the media heads told us years later) and a cup of hot cocoa – we always saved that house for last; it was worth the wait. And then we lugged our bulging bags home and got sugar highs from all the collected sweets – Mom and Dad didn’t have to sort through our loot back then; we trusted our neighbors with not poisoning little kids with pesticide-laced treats or metal objects inserted inside sure-to-eventually-cause-diabetes tidbits. Halloween and Easter – the two favorite days of the year for dentists and their office staffs… The Anderson Cooper taping I attended on Tuesday aired Thursday. Luckily I TiVo’ed it and got to see myself in the audience. I looked old and uninterested. Sadly, both are true. The new allergy meds my doc prescribed seem to be doing the trick – but they make me drowsy; not cool. However, if they allow my nose to come back to a normal skin shade and not the lead-reindeer-ish red it’s been the last few weeks, they’re worth it. [ding-dong] “Trick or Treat!” “Get out of here, you lousy kids!” [slam] (Just getting in the mood for the next few days…) Life is good. |
| Ugh! I’ve almost regrouped after my foray into New York City the other day…while I waited for the bus home at the terminal, I sneezed about sixteen times – no one said “Bless You” to me; on the other hand, no one ran away from me either, so I guess that’s good news. The whole two-hour bus ride back to The Home was spent blowing my nose…I had taken my allergy meds (OTC stuff) at about 1:30 a.m. – I suppose they wore off after 12 hours. As soon as I got into my apartment I downed another one and that kept my runny nose at bay – at least it was good enough to allow me to sleep undisturbed for a few hours. Walking the sidewalks of Broadway on Tuesday, I was stunned by the number of people who walk with their heads down and their fingers flying away on their handheld electronic devices. I don’t own a cell phone – my landline phone is good enough for me. Seven or eight people bumped smack-dab into me because they weren’t paying attention to their routes. But it seemed like magic: they all obeyed the “Walk”-“Don’t Walk” signs at intersections – maybe they’ve acquired eyes on the tops of their heads? Or they automatically do whatever the non-techno person (read me) in front of them, who actually reads the signs, does: [bump] “Oh, I guess I can’t cross the street.” [type-typity-type] “Okay, here we go.” [type-typity-type] They’re in the greatest city on the planet and they’re stuck in their own little electronic worlds. Sad. I saw a homeless man who set up “shop” in an art-gallery doorway on a street just off Times Square. He was stringy-haired, disheveled, stained, and sat Indian style with a piece of cardboard propped in front of him that read, “I do babysitting.” Yikes! I wondered about his list of references…and on the way home I thought he was doing performance art as a gallery installation. Probably not, though… Late yesterday I threw in the towel concerning my allergies and went to my doctor asking her to prescribe something stronger than the OTC stuff I’ve been swallowing non-stop for the past several weeks; my body might be immune to it by now – that or global warming has spawned a SuperPollen outside The Home. It could happen, you know… My spring allergies lasted about three weeks and I got through that period relatively unscathed (teensy problem with residual fluid in my Eustachian tubes – annoying, but has since subsided). I don’t know what pollen is causing my distress at this time of the year. Hmm, I wonder if it’s dust-related. Uh-oh. This might be God telling me to do a better job with my housecleaning…ugh! Naah, it couldn’t be that – my place was just as dusty during the summer as it is now, so that couldn’t possibly be the culprit because I didn’t suffer during the hottest months. And besides on really windy days, I routinely open my windows all the way and let Mother Nature do her thing. No, it couldn’t be the dust. Or could it? Dum-DUM {eerie instrumental music beat from terror movie} We’ll see how the new pills treat me…or maltreat me. And maybe I’ll clean some around this place… Life is good. |
| Ugh! Well, I did something different yesterday…for me, at least. A few weeks ago I requested a ticket to see a taping of Anderson Cooper’s new daytime talk show, and I received one for yesterday, so I hopped a bus and headed into New York City for the day. It was a long day…ugh! The bus left at 4:05 a.m., which was fine because I’m stuck in a stupid sleeping pattern where I wake up anywhere from 1 – 3:30 a.m. no matter how late I stay up the night before. I was fearful I’d sleep late yesterday, but I awoke, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 1:10 a.m., had my breakfast, did my crossword puzzles, and headed off to the bus terminal at 3:30 a.m. Got halfway there and realized I left my bus tickets on my desk, so I hastened back to The Home and still made it in time for the first bus of the day. I was kind of surprised at the number of passengers – I didn’t realize we had so many commuters to NYC from this part of Pennsylvania. Got off the bus two hours later in New York City! Yay! Spent some time wandering around Times Square – it was even busy at that hour…watched the crew get ready for “Good Morning America” from the sidewalk outside the studio. The guy who does the news, Josh Elliot, always looks impeccably dressed on the air – well, from the waist up he is: jacket, shirt, tie; but, down below he wears jeans and socks – no shoes! After watching them for a few minutes, I headed uptown to Columbus Circle where Anderson’s show is taped at Lincoln Center. Long wait…ugh! My ticket said to arrive at 9 for a 10:15 taping of the show. I got there at 7:15 because they issue more tickets than can be accommodated – they don’t want empty seats in the audience. His studio is The Allen Room, on the sixth floor and a wall of windows looks out along 59th Street and Central Park South – the view is breathtaking. It felt strange sitting there after having viewed it so many times on my TV. We didn’t get seated in the studio until 10…ugh! My feet were killing me (I wore my sneakers and my right foot got sore; I’m used to wearing them for my walks, but the longest I’ve worn them in any one stretch was about 70 minutes. By the time we got seated, I’d had them on for seven hours…I have a feeling my walking may be restricted for a few days while my foot heals) and it was a relief to be off them. I got a seat smack-dab in the middle…usually I like a seat in that location (that way I don’t miss any chorus lines entering/exiting from the wings), but it put me right behind one of the cameras, so I couldn’t see most of the guests he hosted…no biggie – I wasn’t that interested in the topic (I’m not supposed to say who the guests were or what the topic was until the show airs next week). I spent most of the time watching the production itself – all the lights, cameras, staff, Teleprompters, boom mikes and cameras, stage changes, etc. His show lasts an hour when it’s broadcast, but the taping yesterday ran over – it lasted two hours…ugh! I imagine they’ll do a lot of editing prior to airing the episode. Anderson is very cordial and quite funny, but he kept his distance for the most part – we were warned about no photos, no autographs, no cell phones, no computers, no videos, no food or drink, and no cameras about 10 times, and thankfully everyone obeyed. Afterwards, I hobbled back downtown to the bus terminal and hopped on the earliest departure. My foot was too sore to do any more walking. Besides, I was beat. So I made it back to The Home still with plenty of daylight. I’m glad I did it…it’s the first time I did NYC on my own; I feel confident now that I can do it again. And, there’s no place like autumn in New York. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl_e7UW-bz8 Even with a sore foot. Life is good. |
| Ugh! Went to a new Walmart SuperCenter yesterday to scope things out…I’ll say one thing: IT’S BIG! Wow! I doubt I’ll be doing much grocery shopping there, though…I’m used to my regular store and the myriad items they carry all the time. Walmart has quantity, but lacks variety – although because of the amount of merchandise, their prices are lower…so it’s sort of a trade-off. If I happen to be in the neighborhood, I’ll probably drop by, but I won’t drive out of my way to do my weekly shopping in the mega-store. When I lived in Philly, I shopped at a store that boasted 53 checkout lanes…that was amazing. This was before item scanning became the rule in retail places, so if a price had to be checked, a light was turned on above the cash register and the “price checker” roller-skated over to grab the item, then sped off down the aisles only to return within two minutes with the needed information. Alas, they experienced labor union difficulties and the store shut down after two years of operation. Sad. I miss main street…you know when shopping entailed an entire day of going from store to store to pick up necessaries. Then came strip shopping centers, which cut down on street walking. Then along came the shopping malls, which pretty much killed downtowns and department stores. And, lo and behold, now Walmarts are springing up all over the place and they keep getting bigger and bigger, putting smaller retailers out on the sidewalk with their price cutting. I feel badly for small business owners, but I live on a fixed income and must watch where my dollars go, so I’m usually standing in line at Walmart when I need to purchase some household items…it’s bittersweet. For now though I’ll continue my weekly forays to my regular grocer with a stop on the way back to The Home at the farmers’ market for fresh produce and meats. Speaking of that, I’ve been aching for turkey breast for the past few months, but the price has been hovering around $4.99/lb – that’s a bit dear for my pocketbook. I asked the stuttering butcher why and he explained “…t-t-t-t-turkeys aren’t in-n-n-n-n season…” at the moment. Looking at the calendar, they should be ripe very soon! Yay! And yummy! Life is good. |
| Ugh! Yesterday afternoon here at The Home I decided to experience something different…for me, at least. I tried to watch “Scream” – I don’t know how it appeared on my TiVo, but there it was. I had scheduled something else to record, but the TV station evidently changed its programming last-minute and I was stuck with it. I’m not a fan of scary/horror movies or books or cartoons (I get enough of that traversing the hallways here at The Home – no need to spend time watching it in high-definition and hearing it in stereo), but decided to live dangerously anyhow. I pulled down my shades to block out the low-in-the-southern-sky brilliant sunshine and create a darkened, menacing atmosphere… (the shade lowering didn’t do much but it was easier to see the TV). Got me some popcorn and hit “play.” I wasn’t impressed as I munched. Wasn’t scared, either… So I hit “stop” and then “delete.” My actual viewing time was about 12 minutes. I suppose I should have given it more of my attention, but I didn’t. Sue me. Checked to see what else was in my TiVo queue and found four episodes of “Mister Ed.” I hit “play.” Happiness on a Sunday afternoon here at The Home... Life is good. |
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no pun intended!