THE CHAIR

SOMETHING NEEDED TO BE DONE. After several x-rays and range of motion tests, it was determined that my shoulders had developed tendinitis. I know what caused it and I'd rather not talk about my weight this morning, thank you very much, but rising from a sitting position was wearing out my arms. When the offspring were all here it was decided that a recliner that also unseats one, would be in order. The trade has come up with the schmancy-fancy name of Luxury-Lift chairs. 

There's a part of me that abhors our living quarters beginning to look like an infirmary and that's exactly what's happening. Prescription bottles here, blood pressure cuff there, oximeter hiding somewhere, the new forehead thermometer at the ready (Mr. Bob took his temperature the other evening. I was more alarmed than he at the reading of 94.4.

It turned out that he'd not removed the cover from the sensor plate........another typical Humphrey blunder......but worthy of dropping into a web log entry.)

The idea of adding an orthopedic chair to our living room decor didn't particularly appeal to me, but the majority won and Susan, Chris and Bob drove to a La-Z-Boy showroom. Tim was working that day, but I would have valued his opinion. From there, they sent me pictures of possibilities and I yayed or nayed them. What was delivered in a few days wasn't at all what I was anticipating and it took me some time to figure out how to work it, much to the hilarity of Owen who watched from his home up north.

Of course, with an audience, I played it for all it's worth.

 With a little practice I did learn to sit in it correctly although I'm suffering with the learning curve  of finding out what makes it go up as opposed to going down, trying to reason with I want to get UP which can be interpreted as I want the chair to go DOWN because I want to get UP. Haven't mastered it yet and I should be ashamed to admit that to you, but at this stage of life there should be no secrets, don't you agree?

I'm getting better at it and my true confession is that I'll have to admit that it's pretty darned comfortable even if it looks like "old folks at home". That's what we are, after all.

"The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years.  Your body changes, but you don't change at all.  And that, of course, causes great confusion."         ~Doris Lessing

CARRY ON

WE USUALLY WATCH the 11 o'clock news, not usually the wisest of bedtime stories, but Mr. Bob is a news maven and I think I watch it just out of curiosity and to see what weather is predicted for tomorrow. After he toddles off to bed, I sometimes linger, usually tempted to explore the Internet. I know it's not referred to as the web because of the complexity of following thread after thread, one thing leading to another without knowing where one will end up and sated, finally turning off the computer.

 A couple of years ago I somehow ended up at the site of Barter Books in Northumberland, England  and was beguiled by the poster which seemed a perfect thing to remind Mr. Bob to chill out when he slipped into a state of agitation. The story of the motto's history was interesting and it seemed an obscure discovery. With the ease that the internet provides, I quickly ordered a copy of it before turning in for the night. 


When it arrived we oohed and aahed over it, before putting the poster aside as is our habit, planning to do something with it when we got around to it. Now, two years later, the motto is appearing for sale in catalogue after catalog. Hardly an unusual thing anymore, it's become a cliché. Did I still want to carry through with my original intent of framing it? Or had procrastination been my enemy? I decided that it was still pertinent to our situation.

Tim came today to do our bidding and I sent him to Aaron Brothers after calling first to see if he could use my credit card. Yes, they said, so we dispatched him, armed with measurements for the British poster and an enlarged photo taken by Mr. Bob years ago at the Reno Air Show which was featured in the news this week. Tim thought it might be poor taste to use it just now, but it had been on my to-do list long enough.

Who knew that I could show you the accomplishments with our reflections showing? The one on the left is highly appropriate for I have an appointment at the hospital at 10 a.m. tomorrow for an
ultrasound and biopsy. I'm doing my best to keep calm and there's nothing for it except to carry on. Damn!

“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.”

Michael Caine

TOO TIDY?

I WILL NEVER, ever be accused of being too tidy. Wherever I am, the area immediately around me becomes littered with "stuff". I can tell, in fifteen minutes, when I've arrived in a motel room. It just happens, even when I'm attempting to be neat, a quality that doesn't seem to be in my genes, although my sibling with the same mother and father lives a nearly monastic existence in his spare surroundings.

I realize that one of the things that leads to such untidiness is having too many things in my life. In all honesty I have to plead guilty to being a gatherer par excellence. With all the recent television exposure about people who hoard, I fear that I may be a borderline hoarder, but I hope it's not that bad. Over the years I think I've read every book written on the subject of de-cluttering and organizing. The time spent reading them was for naught.

This morning I ran across this which gave rise to the subject for this post.

I digress only slightly when I go back to the days before we made the big move to the Manor. I interviewed four recommended candidates to carry out an estate sale for our accumulated belongings. They all had seemingly good qualities and explained how they would proceed with the undertaking. I was assured that everything would disappear, right up to the last potted plant and the final trash can. Or at least I thought that was what I heard. Out of the four, I selected the one who had run a retail store in the area for 25 years. In fact, several of our pieces of furniture had come from her antique shop. No matter that the percentage of sales that she'd acquire was 10% higher than the other candidates quoted. I went to bat for choosing her to be the one we'd work with.

Wrong! Without going into the details, when all was said and done, we were left with a worse mess than when it all began. Once we'd emptied the full attic, a stuffed garage, and a house full of 46 years worth of "treasures"; once the sales were over, once the seller and her motley crew walked off the job, this is what we were left with. The shot is from the attic window.

Be still, my cluttered heart.................

And that was just a portion of the patio you're seeing. The rest was equally shocking. The clean-up was left to two tired seniors trying to simplify their lives.

Tim to the rescue..........

This
is a
sim-
pli
fi-
ca-
tion
 of the effort it took to finish the job we thought we had hired someone for. Tim did a magnificent job.

The sad part is that I was just sure that I'd be a new person when I moved into the Manor. I'm smart enough to know that "No matter where you go, there you are!" but I thought I could overcome that and change my ways. Alas, not so. There seems to be no end to these battle of the bulges. Closets, storage spaces, surfaces, the body, all too much of a muchness. Soldier on......................

"Everything we possess that is not necessary for life or happiness becomes a burden, and scarcely a day passes that we do not add to it."  
                                              ~Robert Brault

STORYBOOK CHRISTMAS

How to set the scene for this entry? A few of our readers are brand new, knowing little of our background, so I'll start by saying that there is a bookshop in Montrose, CA which is the oldest children's bookshop in the United States. Impressive as that sounds, it's as simple as there having been 2 women and 2 supportive husbands who were willing and honored to work at a job they mostly loved for very little recompense, and thus the store survived through some very treacherous retail times. Mr. Bob and I are the founders of Once Upon a Time, having opened it in 1966. We sold it to Maureen and her husband and 2 daughters in 2003.

Suffice it to say that over the years I collected many things inspired by children's literature. Among the treasures, were a great many Christmas ornaments, made by Gladys Boalt. I discovered them on a quick trip to New York City with a friend (Mr. Bob doesn't DO New York), purchased as many as I could afford, later adding to the collection from a branch of Gazebo in Orange County.

Due to the press of business, we sometimes didn't put up a Christmas tree at home after the children flew the coop, but it was comforting to know that those storybook ornaments were packed away in the attic. I fretted sometimes about the possibilities of an attack by moths. Years went by without the decorations seeing the light of day.

In our hasty move last year as we went through the frantic motions of relocating, I kept an eye out for them.  Where were they? Were they all right? Did they survive the years of darkness? I never caught sight of them or any of the other boxes of Christmas ornaments that had been stored in the attic.

So, we moved from a household of 47 years of accumulation to a retirement home where we have 2 cages in the basement taking the place of a garage and an attic. Our belongings are hugely reduced, but we still don't know just what's in those storage cages. Maybe when our eldest grandson is here, we'll find out if he'll help me inventory the contents of the boxes there.

We moved at the end of July. I'd been vaguely aware that our friends had bought many of the things we parted with.........Nancy got the water jar, Lynne bought the shingle sign from our first shop, Dave took the CocaCola boxes, and so forth, but it was December before I knew that Diane had acquired the storybook ornaments, discovered in a box in the back yard. It provides much satisfaction to know that some of our most cherished things are with friends. But it's absolutely breathtaking to see all of the ornaments together on Diane & Roger's Christmas tree. It's the way it should be and it never was when I owned them. Our life has been full of great potential but there it seems to stop. Thank goodness for friends and the richness they add to our life.

the 2 Pinocchios, before and after lying

Tortoise from Alice, Wendy, Michael from Peter Pan

Queen from Alice, Scrooge, Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

 Dorothy, Tin Woodsman, Caterpillar w/hookah, Little BoPeep

DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS

Usually if you observed that your neighbors were WASPs, it would mean that you thought they were white, Anglo Saxon Protestants. In our situation, the word refers to real insects.

For a while it was a novelty to watch the wasps working on their geometrically constructed nest on the other side of the glass in our living room window. Back and forth they'd fly between the nest and a drain on the overhang. Activity seemed more concentrated in the afternoons, probably when the sun had peaked to the other side of our high-rise. Often it was more entertaining to watch than what was on TV.

Twice during the last few days, a wasp managed to squeeze between the screen and the window frame. As I watched with pounding heart, Mr. Bob managed to get it back out by loosening the screen. Possibly I'm being paranoid, but it seemed to me that the colony had decided it was imperative to gain entrance to the inside of the building through our living quarters.

I had a friend once who, when she'd experienced the last straw would say, "Well, THAT rips the rag off the bush!!!" which is exactly how we felt when Mr. Bob found a wasp crawling on the carpet between our two rooms. He stepped on it (forgive him, God and Albert Schweitzer) but wasps don't die easily. A battle ensued before Mr. Bob won. At my insistence, maintenance was called. Mr. Bob, in his excitement, managed to drop a large window screen down four stories without injuring a resident below and there followed a blurred scene involving a ladder, two men, a spray can of hornet poison and Mr. Bob quivering with the exhilaration that all males in our family experience at times of crisis. I fled to the end of the hall until the exterminators carrying their ladder rang for the elevator. Only then did I return.

I'm not sure the proper procedure was followed. There is still some wasp activity today.

"When you are in politics you are in a wasp's nest with a short shirt-tail, as the saying is."
                                                                                        ~Mark Twain