A Day In The Life

Retirement doesn't have to be boring. I mean, it can if you work at it. Or if you're just determined to be bored, or just aren't paying attention. But even a quiet day can have its events. Like today.

I woke up the first time around 7-ish. I don't really need to mark the time most days, but my bladder disagrees. I generally take advantage of it being my first waking to take my thyroid medicine, since I have to wait at least 20 minutes before anything else. Since I'm only about 6 hours into a night's sleep by then, I crawl back into bed for a top-off. But since it's nearly 70 already, I open the bathroom window before hitting the pillow.

The second wake-up is the real one. It includes the rest of my morning pills and, being a week day, my morning mocha caffeine fix while I get a bit of local and national news. Only, not today! Grrrrr! I'm not sure of the DVR is having a breakdown requiring replacement, or if Daylight Savings is screwing everything up with the timer. Since we remain on standard time in most of Arizona, excepting the Navajo Reservation which covers parts of 4 states and keeps to a single time zone, it might be that the machine is too stupid to adjust. Funny, though, as everything yesterday with timers set got recorded at the right time.

By now it's too late. The stations are past news and into game shows. The one show that does record insists on recording the same show 3 times, with  different start times, interfering with anything else. I head through the programming, delete all 3 messed up timers involved, and reset them by selecting them out of the guide for tomorrow's programming, and hope for the best. It worked last time this happened.

Today is a Club day, meaning a shower and changing into outdoor clothes. (My pajamas are loose, comfy, knit items suitable for any gym. In a pinch I can wear them outside while I run out the garbage, but no way where I might be recognized. And of course, I never hit a gym, so they're still just pajamas.)

There is a stray wisp of hair that is getting a bit too long, so a snip fixes that to my satisfaction. I normally let my hair just air dry after brushing, lucky enough to have some curl left and keeping it short enough to get away with doing that. Unfortunately for me, when I later hit the parking lot at the rec center, a mischievous breeze follows me all the way inside with my still damp hair. I choose to pretend it looks normal going 17 different directions and ignore it. But that is later.

Breakfast is generally around everybody else's lunchtime. Today we have a General Membership Meeting at noon, pot luck. I almost never bring anything other than my own whatever. Today it's yogurt. Fat free, sugar free, Greek yogurt, with lemon peel bits, cinnamon, and sucralose. I'd have put in candied pecans too but I ran out and haven't started the process of hammering the nuts to bits, much less the candying bit. I do have the lemon because a friend with a lemon tree shared some and I grated the peels and popped the bits into the freezer to freeze dry. An open bowl plus a bit of stirring to keep them loose does a pretty good job over a couple of days before they go into a zipper bag bag into the freezer. The best part, besides having the grated peels of course, is the wonderful lemon smell which permeates the freezer for days, spreading into the fridge, and spilling out into the kitchen (which can use all the help it can get!) every time somebody opens  either door.

The lemon is not the only wonderful thing in the air right now. The just-rained desert scent from Saturday has dissipated, but orange blossoms are infusing the air. My palo blanco tree in the back yard is full of catkins, but I can't credit them with any fragrance, and the desert willow is still too busy figuring out how to shed its brown winter leaves to have even started to bud, so all the good stuff is wafting in from neighboring yards. And hey, if that fails me, I can just go open the freezer again.

Once dressed and organized, I head out to the club. I plan for time to put a chain necklace in the vibrator so it's dry, polished, and ready to submit for sale, while I finish up the paperwork for all 10 of the items I'm putting in today, 10 being the club limit. When that's ready, I find another member to "receive" my stuff. Usually this  means teaching somebody how it's done. Simple, if you remember to check three things in each of three places and make sure each set matches. They either correct me, or initial and date the card that goes with each item. Then I tear off the front copy, bagging the item and the carbon copy card together, and submit everything to be locked up until jurying.

The first woman I ask helps with the first 4 items but receives a call that her son is in the ER back home with chest pains. She suddenly has other priorities, and I find another member to teach. He happens to be the club treasurer, and I'm surprised to find out that he's managed to avoid learning how to do this simple task during all his years in the club. Now he doesn't have that excuse any more. His wife is amused.

There's time for more chatting before heading down to the room where the meeting is held, one with a kitchen, food table, and tables for members which also contain paperwork for the meeting. Today it's simple: my minutes, the Treasurer's report, and the President's agenda. I have, besides that, notes on a mini speech I have been volunteered to give the members explaining a policy which is, shall we say, less than popular with some few who do not understand it and the reasoning behind it very well. Oh, and a pair of pens so there's no excuse to be unable to take complete minutes.

During lunch, conversation ranges from new great-grandchildren to health issues to a comparison of Arizona and UK traffic laws. Our UK member has some of the same opinions many of the rest of us at the table do about certain laws here, like the one where anything that happens during a left turn is the fault, legally, of the turning driver. No matter what stupid or criminal thing is being done by the idiot who hits you, it's your fault, your ticket. Oh, and current penalties for driving while texting here are over $800 for the first offense, double for the second.

Our resident leprechaun is in attendance, the only decoration giving a nod to the upcoming holiday. It may be rude to call him a decoration, but he is the most colorful thing in the room. He also helped out with last Saturday's Fun Fair by adding the same atmosphere to the event. I presume the costume sits in a closet somewhere next week, waiting for whatever fun he can get out of it next year. (Note: never assume there will actually be a next year for any of our members. Also note: shut up about it.)

The meeting is short and sweet, ending in extra sweetness by my rescue of 2 lonely abandoned frosting-and-walnut-topped brownies withering away on a plate. Mmmmmmm....

I returned to the club with a project in mind, but find I've run out of ambition by the time I get back in the room. Stepping outside, I find the temperature is over 80 and the car is an oven. Just another reason not to dawdle on the way. Besides, I spy, at long last, Steve's scooter returned to its place of pride in the driveway after finally getting the right part sent from Pennsylvania to the repair shop so it'll run again. This is about the 4th different day it's been promised to be returned. Yesterday's excuse was the repairman had been rear-ended on the freeway, and suddenly had different priorities than driving that extra 5 miles to our house to drop it off, even though the scooter had survived the crash just fine, as had the repairman. What can you do?

Steve is just happy it's finally here. We chat a bit before our phones get busy with incoming calls. In order to hear my caller I step outside onto the patio since Steve can get a bit loud on his phone, and I can hear every word his callers say too. It may as well be on speaker. I really want to hear my caller, as I know she had a doctor's appointment today that worried her. The verdict is it's not throat cancer, but she may still wind up losing her voice permanently. There will be meds, and requests to change certain habits and make new ones to minimize symptoms. We'll see how that goes. Now, since she can still talk, albeit very gravelly, we have a good chat, ranging from hummingbirds, to orange blossoms, vacation plans, experiences with venomous spiders, snakes, and... oops, she has another call, bye.

Steve and I kill some more time, watching a little light TV, checking out stuff on eBay, going through the mail which includes two packages, but all of it for him, paying a bill. No "lunch", no napping. We are both waiting to head down to the Sun Bowl, an amphitheater  within scootering distance, planning to hit the food trucks once we get there, early enough that I can still find close parking now that I'm walking in from the car carrying a folding chair. Steve, of course, is riding his chair in so that's not an issue for him.

Several things surprise me. First, as early as I arrived, only a very few parking spots were still open, so I had a really long walk. Second, no food trucks at this concert. Every time before there were beverages, tacos, popcorn, and who knows what else. Oh well, I'm not actually feeling hungry, just looking forward to some good kettle corn. Next time. I hook up with Steve who's saving my place next to him in our usual spot, reserved for handicapped folks. We used to scooter in together, but I'm much better now. I join him anyway. We're down in front. So are the rows of chairs for the busloads of folks from the nursing homes. Looking around at the tiers rising behind us, they are already full of folks, with more arriving for another half our or so. I have no idea where they all put themselves. It seems everybody arrived early hoping to get good seats to hear the Navy concert. Real Navy. Not a bunch of half-assed musicians who can play a couple of military songs like the group that came in for last Veteran's Day.

These guys are warming up, checking out voices, floor movements, audio equipment. We hear an introductory few bars to probably everything on the program in our hands.These guys are GREAT! Part of the U.S. Navy Band, they are one of several touring groups called the Sea Chanters, and we are one of their last stops on this particular tour. And yes, everybody laughs when their MC expresses his appreciation for their opportunity to get out of Washington DC for a few weeks.

While they warm up, however, Steve and I worry about them. Everybody is in shorts. Sure, it's still warm, but by the time the concert actually starts, we will be being treated to a spectacular Arizona sunset and rapidly falling temperatures. We all knew to bring jackets, maybe even lap blankets by a few. But they take a break offstage, and once they filter out informally, one at a time, mingling before they come out (again) formally, they are each in full dress uniforms.

We still have time before the concert begins, and Steve spots a staff person from the Rec Centers administration that he's talked with before. He inquires whether free casino-and-bus tickets are still available, and gets a positive response with instructions. While they are talking, I realize I also recognize her from several meetings in my capacity as an officer of my club, including training. So we strike up our own conversation, as she now has a few minutes free. I mention another, former club officer's name, asking whether she remembers her, and hearing she does, asks has she heard her latest news?

When she tells me not to give her any bad news, I remain silent long enough for her to realize there is only bad news. OK, she decides she is ready to hear it. The person we are talking about, one of the sweetest, most welcoming member of the club, has left the state to go live with her son. She's got stage 4 ovarian cancer, undiscovered while she ran through a host of other medical problems, and her doctors hold out no hope. However, the club grapevine, those close few who have been informed of her status, say she will be coming back briefly in April. Her son is not a fan of her service dog. I'm not sure of her "long term" plans, either for herself or the dog, but the RCSC woman I'm talking with cares about both of them, and left the conversation to go find her husband to talk him into adopting this dog when and if she needs a  home.

Our expectations for the concert are greatly exceeded. Many of the selections, stepping past the patriotic, I don't recognize from the titles in the program. As I'm listening, however, I realize most of them are a part of the soundtrack of my youth. I hadn't paid much attention back then, in fact tried not to. It was Beethovan, Tschaikovsky,  and some Peter Paul and Mary or Chad Mitchell. I might even be one of the few remaining people who remember that the Smothers Brothers played some straight folk music along with their comedy. But somehow this other music did filter in. I worked in a Woolworths store that piped in music, rode in cars on dates where the radio was on. I didn't escape it after all. Sure, I couldn't repeat the lyrics or give you the titles, but the music embedded itself despite me. I wound up recognizing more music than Steve did, and he actually listened to the stuff back when.

During the concert Steve pointed out one of the singers to me. He was sure the guy had been in "Jersey Boys". When it was announced that the musicians would be available to meet folks after the concert, He scootered over to find the guy, who confirmed Steve knew what he was talking about. Meanwhile I slowly fought my way back to the car, prepared to wait several minutes until traffic cleared out. We both knew Steve would beat me home.

A little supper with our evening news, and Steve headed off to bed. I decided to stay up blogging, hoping to finish before today turned into tomorrow. I may have just made it.