Another bus drive

Today is tuesday. On our Calendar it says that 'Errands' will leave at 9.30 am. I left my cottage at 9 and walked, with my cane, up to my garage to get my shopping cart. Walked around to where we can get let out of the bus on our way home, parked my cart by a bush, and walked down to the place where the bus parks when picking us up. That little operation took exactly half an hour. I am practicing now so I will know how to behave when and if I loose my driver license. The whole event was amazing. And I now know why Park View Villas was voted the best retirement place in Clallam County.

The bus was nearly full. One person in a motorized Wheel Chair got on on the ramp on the back of the bus. Three of four took their walkers along on the bus, four or five used their canes and the rest of them walked on by their own balance and power. One woman who is either 94 or 95 walks as though she is about sixty. I checked her cart when our alotted hour  was nearly up and she had two candy bars in her cart. 

Before we got to Safeway the bus had dropped a couple off, to cash checks in various banks. And one man was dropped off at a dentist's office. One man was left in a Foot Clinic and a couple of women were left at other doctor's offices. Our driver, whom you have met before, is uncomplaining . It was raining and he opened the doors at these offices for everyone who left the bus. When we came to Safeway he handed each of us the carts that were going to hold us up while we were in the store.

The woman with the two candy bars remembered that she had promised a fellow inmate that she would apply a warm damp compound to an aching area of his, and when Keith heard her woe he gave her an early trip back to the home, and then turned around and collected the rest of his flock.

A small world

Today I was invited to play for someone in a Bridge Tournament. I think there were four or maybe five tables. The affair was held here at Park View Villas, my home address, and before we played, we had lunch in our dining room. It was interesting, for I do not eat there normally and my thinking lately has been, Why don't I eat there? I don't know how much it would cost to have two meals a day there, but I think maybe it would be less than I spend in the grocery store. After todays lunch I am glad I still have my independence. We had soup and a sandwich and grapes and for dessert a small container of ice cream. When I see my MD and he compels me to go on a diet, I may feel it would be a good way to lose weight to eat in the dining room.

Something very interesting happened at the table. The conversation around our area of the table turned to 'Have you read'? It was fun hearing what people were absorbed in, and I took a few notes. Suddenly I heard the woman across from me say, Have you read a book called The Daily Coyote? No one responded. So she went into great detail and took a lot of time describing the Vespa Story and the fabulous photographs. When she finished, I said, 'Who was the writer? She searched around in her head, and out came Sh, Shr Shreve Stockton. And then a light rose on her face, and she said 'Is that a relative of yours'. I brushed my nails on my vest, and said.... She is my Grand daughter.

Then I turned my attention to the person sitting next to me. She was talking about a book titled something about a house on a beach. The beach was located in Liberia. I asked, if the author mentioned, had dealt with how her parents or grandparents had settled in Liberia. She said Yes, and that she had gone into great detail about how freed slaves had been allowed to leave USA to go there. I said Commodore Robert Stockton had been instrumental in getting the people who wanted to emigrate from USA to Liberia the passage they needed for the trip. And then I told how Martha Alderson has written a book about that historical chapter. And who is Martha Alderson? Her middle name is Stockton and she is one of my favorite three daughters.

A couple of firsts

Yesterday I joined a TAI CHI class given here at our place. At 8.30 AM. I walked down the hill with my walker. It was sunny even then, so I had to wear my straw hat. (that hat always makes me feel jaunty) People think it is an affectation but my dermatologist insists. Tai Chi was a blast. I did everything wrong. The teacher asked before we began if I am dyslexic and I said I was when I was young and she looked 'Oh, not another one' But all my fellow searchers for balance told me not to give up too soon. For forty five minutes we strove for perfection. I was facing the teacher and when she said 'right arm' I moved my left arm. Next time I will try to sit next to her, so I can copy her better.

At ten I had an appointment to have my nails done. I walked back up the hill when the class was over, got my shopping cart where I had Jane's birthday present ready to mail, maneuvered up the seven steps to the level where my garage is, and realized that there was very little time to get half way to Sequim. So I broke a few speeding laws and made it with only a few minutes over due. And now my second first. At 12.05 I arrived at the Port Angeles post office. There was one human being besides me. The clerk. Never before have I encountered that kind of scene. By the time the clerk was through with me,  there were six people waiting to be served.

In the afternoon I had to call down to the office and ask if we had a nursing service available. There was so I said I would be down directly. Got my walker again and began walking down the hill. Our wonderful office director chased me down thinking I was in need of assistance. I just had an angry looking injury on the back of my arm. Before moving from the house on the beach I had thrown out a bowl full of small rocks that grand children had given me through the years. There were heart shaped ones and round ones and square ones. I needed those rocks for a project Jane had started us on earlier. I drove over, and there by the garage and near the Lilac bushes we had planted in 1983 was the whole bunch of my rocks. So I stole them. Reaching for the best one, way inside the lilac bush, a branch hurt my arm. I needed that very one and pushed harder. I checked for blood, but there was none. When I got home I checked again but only an ugly spot with something protruding. It did not hurt any more so I forgot it. Doing my hair in my sleeveless shirt I saw an even angrier spot with something looking like a part of the bush and a fairly large red area surrounding it. Since it was Friday and I had nothing that would kill germs I felt I needed some one to look at it. The nurse practitioner pulled out what was protruding and put germ killing stuff on it. And finally it began bleeding. Today is Saturday and I think I will live. Or in other words I think whatever kills me, it won't be a lilac bush.

My house is empty

The three girls left this morning and I miss them already. The only sign that they were here, the refrigerator is still full of wonderful food. This morning Martha made an egg omelet and used up a variety of food and it was delicious. But there are so many more remainders. We went out to eat several times but cooked dinner here except last night when there was a request for Blue Flame ribs. We ordered take out, and there are even two ribs that I can have with my Vodka and Tonic tonight. 

Remainders and reminders. My heart is filled with the warmth of their love. I have told you that we have two new families in our immediate neighborhood. Martha said,  'Let's invite people for a quick little coffee hour so they get to know who lives near them and all of a sudden there were ten or twelve people gathered in this little minute room. We had tiny sandwiches with cucumbers and thin, thin ham, and sugar cookies and chocolate covered almonds.  

I was encouraged by the girls to use my walker more. So I walked down to their car, using it, and I have to admit it is much easier to walk. And so another long fare-well. I don't want to rely on the walker too much, for walking with it makes me feel old. I am old, but do I want to feel it?

Who appreciates it when it's there

This morning, at the clinic, while waiting for the blood thinning technician, I was watching another victim. She was reading our local paper. It is so thin and so elongated that she was having to pick up her right leg, putting the heel of her foot on her left leg to prop it up. There she sat, comfortable as can be, occasionally letting her hand scratch the foot resting on her knee. She was wearing go-aheads. (fancy ones) I wanted to tell her to enjoy her youth. She wasn't so young. She was wearing black and probably on her way to her office job. It was a pose impossible for me.

Later in the day I was standing at the counter of our office supply store and when I got the change  after my purchase I dropped a coin on the floor. It looked like a nickel and I weighed the effort of picking it up or the waste of not picking it up. I decided for the latter. Then the customer standing next to me picked it up and it turned out to be a dime. I think I would have made the effort for a dime. But my goodness, it is tiring to go in and out of a couple of stores.