No, Thursday's Out....

We hired a guy to install a handrail on our stairs back in February, and ... long story, but it is now July, and the project is not done, and the guy had nearly stopped returning my texts or calls. But I got ahold of him yesterday, finally, and when I asked him when he might get to our project, he said, "Can I be honest with you?" He is abandoning the project, which I think is for the best. I was VERY GRUMPY about it yesterday, but today I'm finding it funny because "Can I be honest with you?" is SUCH a dumb question. It belongs in that list of Things You Shouldn't Say, next to "Don't hate me for saying this, but...." and all its friends. Also, I'm laughing (wryly) because I'm remembering an even better home improvement failure/great line. My friend hired a guy to extend the heating system to a side room of her house that had no heat. Came the cold months, that room still would not warm up. So she looked into the crawl space, and there ...

In December, I volunteered for an Alzheimer’s study at OHSU, where they are gathering data on aging, both in people with no diagnosis (yet, haha), and in those who have been diagnosed with dementia. All participants are over 65. A bunch of my friends volunteered too. The study involves baseline tests in ten areas – verbal, memory, visual, spatial, organizational, and daily-life financial, bureaucratic, attention, and problem-solving skills.   Participants are tested once, then a week later, and then a year after that. If you did better after a week, will you also do better after a year? If you did worse, will you do worse yet, a year later? The comparison is only to one’s age mates. So I might decline in some ability, but if most of my age mates suffer that same decline, my score will stay the same. I could start the year being better than 57% of 68-year-olds, and if we all slip in parallel, then we all do worse than before, but I can STILL be better than 57% of 69-year-olds!...

Steve Bannon began serving his sentence for contempt today, said contempt being his failure to show up when summoned by Congress.   In my ongoing quest to enjoy every small win, I'm savoring this tidbit of justice. (I broke open a nonalcholic G&T in a can  in celebration, and I'm here to tell you - it's awful. But I didn't know that when I bought it, and now I do. So there's that!*) I've never envied Steve Bannon anything, but after reading this BREAKING NEWS short, I began to wonder if my supporters would show up for me, waving flags and ringing cowbells, should I have to go to prison.  I don't want to appear needy and greedy, nor to impugn my friends' devotion, but I'm not sure they'd do it. And I really don't think it's asking too much.  Just please bear this in mind, should the occasion arise.  * "That" in this case is just new information - now I know to avoid at least one brand of canned, nonalchoholic, G&T. You mi...

Today wasn’t ot or humid in Portland, and all the flowers were glowing, that perfect, overcast-June day. I missed my late friend Mary, a Midwest transplant, who used to complain whenever we had cool and cloudy days during what she thought should be summer. She would have complained, and I would have rolled my eyes.  Today was gorgeous. On my unambitious neighborhood stroll, I saw a tree that “IS CLIMATE ACTION.”   I know that, because it said so. It’s the tree-owner’s version of those “IN THIS HOUSE WE…” yard signs! Congratulations!Your t ree is doing what trees do, and in your house, you’re doing what decent folk do. These are not accomplishments that must be announced, or bragged about. (But then again, thanks for being decent in your house, and thank YOU for your contribution, little tree.) Things are reminding me of things a lot just now, like the climate action tree and the IN THIS HOUSE WE yard signs. Loose-association brain always happens when I haven’t had enough s...

School goes a few more weeks, but today was our last day for my volunteer reading gig for SMART. We always end before school does, probably because classroom activities peak at the end of the year.  My reader was a kindergartner we'll call Olympia (not her name, but it works). Olympia was a nice human, but she didn't particularly care about reading. She did have a lively inerest in art, which meant she noticed telling details in picture books. (She strongly objected to books without pictures, would sometimes pick one because of an intriguing cover, and then put it back, annoyed.) Mainly she liked to talk about colors, and to keep a straight face while detailing her unlikely escapades, for instance, riding bears. This is a picture of me waving excitedly to greet her as she comes into the room each week. As you can see, she favors dresses with large skirts. She's a twirler. And this is us reading together. Both drawings were on her Thank You card to me at our final session to...

After our visit to Washington, D.C., last month, we went to Philadelphia, and we had an equally great time there. As in DC, people were super helpful. One of us would unfold a map (our phone map apps had trouble finding us in Philly, so: paper maps). And inevitably, passers-by would stop and offer assistance. It came to me that we are now a Cute Old Couple, which is not entirely a bad thing Basically, the trip was a love fest. A dear friend took the train in from New Jersey and met us for an uproarious evening of beers. I obliviously cut in front of a guy at the bar and he was gracious as could be. Fellow guests joshed with us in the weird hotel elevator.  A waitress even inexplicably complimented my outfit. (I was in Haute Touriste : tennis shoes, a bag bandoliered cross-body, a huge (suddenly unneeded) rain jacket tied around my waist, a second, bulging bag over my shoulder, a strange hat. She said, “Oh, I LIKE your STYLE.” I mean, come on.) The only friction we saw was at ...

I ran into a former dance class friend at the grocery store last week, and asked what she was up to.  “Nothing,” she said. I asked if she had been dancing anywhere. She said, “Not yet. COVID. And the flu.” Turns out she lives with her mom. Neither of them has had COVID, nor the flu. And she believes this is because they go nowhere, do nothing. I sympathized, “Oh, is your mom not able to get vaccinated?” She said, “There IS no vaccine.” Ah. Mostly, I wanted to get my potato and go home. But I wanted to be cordial, so I asked what she meant. She meant that people who got vaccinated still got COVID. She didn’t care about “mild” versus “severe.” Besides, the bug was constantly mutating. It was such a flashback. I’d forgotten about that brief stretch when we thought a COVID “vaccine” meant something that would protect us completely. After a bit more discussion, we parted amicably. But I’ve been thinking about her and her mom.   I hope they are equally happy holed u...