Who’s Calling Please?
Yesterday I spoke to a junk hauler, a custom designer, a custom window coverings specialist, a hair stylist, two doctors’ offices, and a partridge in a pear tree. I have a lot of balls in the air right now. It used to be that I wouldn’t answer the telephone if I didn’t recognize the number. These days, I get more phone calls than President Biden (who is making himself unavailable for a phone call from China President Xi Jinping these days: tell him I can’t come to the phone because I’m washing my hair). Me, who would rather do anything than talk on the telephone. I go from figuring out Bill’s prescriptions to figuring out what sort of drapery I want in the blink of an eye.

Is the Doctor In?
Our granddaughter Addie is currently living with my sister Jen is Fort Collins, where she is studying to earn a CNA certificate. She is tentatively planning on medical school in the future, and thus needs to have some medical experience and hours under her belt. CSU doesn’t start for two more weeks, and she needed a place to stay while she took the two-week course. For reasons no one can explain, Jen’s dog Winston is entirely distrustful of my sweet granddaughter. The mild-mannered dog acts like Cujo when she’s around. I texted Jen last night to ask if Winston was being nicer. “I think their relationship is irreparable,” she answered. Naughty dog. Here is Addie in her scrubs…..

Does she look like someone a dog shouldn’t trust?

Heart Attack On A Plate
This past weekend, Bill and I went to Fort Collins to see Jen and Bec, and to dine at one of our favorite restaurants. RARE Bistro is in downtown Fort Collins, and features delicious Italian food. We always start with a charcuterie plate, and then share some pastas. I’m not sure my doctor would be happy to see our appetizer, but it sure was yummy…..

Do My Duty to God and Country
One of the things I unearthed when I cleaned out my cedar chest was Court’s old Cub Scout shirt. He was in scouts for about a year, but didn’t really enjoy it that much. Still, he looked cute in his uniform. I dropped it — along with some other items — at their house the other day. The next day, Court sent me this photo of Cole wearing the uniform. Cutest scout ever!….

When I was a little girl, I remember many Sundays when I would spend the entire hour or so while attending Mass dreaming about what adventures Jen’s and my paper dolls were going to have that afternoon after we got home. Our Betsy McCall paper dolls had been carefully cut out of Mom’s McCall’s magazine, and were awaiting our return to begin doing whatever it was I dreamed up instead of listening to Father Regis’ homily. Perhaps if I had been listening to the homily, I might know why and what Jesus was scribbling in the dirt before telling the folks that they were all sinners, a question that I have always had about John: 8-11.

I’m not sure why that memory of my naughty daydreaming popped into my mind yesterday afternoon. We had gotten home following a morning of medical appointments. I had just laid down on our bed to take a short nap because that morning when I got out of bed, the first number on the clock was a 4. I am not sleeping well these days. Too much on my mind.

But I remembered those paper dolls, which then caused me to go down the childhood rabbit hole of memories. I wonder what I would have thought if someone had told me that 60 years from one of those paper doll adventures, I was going to be spending many of my days traveling from one side of Denver to the other at a variety of physical therapy and medical appointments.

In fact, if I could have seen 60 years into the future, I would probably have taken better care of myself. Perhaps brushed my teeth more thoroughly. Maybe gotten into the habit of drinking more water. Eaten apple slices and a glass of milk after school instead of walking to Potter’s Market and mooching penny candy from my Aunt Cork, who worked there as a clerk.

At the end of this month, I will be attending my 50th high school class reunion. Fifty years since I moved the green tassel from one side of my graduation cap to the other. I haven’t missed a class reunion since that time, and — God willing — I won’t be missing this one. We all went through life in similar manner. We went to college or got a job, many of us married (some of us more than once, unfortunately), we had kids (or perhaps nieces and nephews), we worked hard for our money, we turned middle age, our kids left home, we retired, we started receiving Social Security and Medicare. We had a passel of grandkids, who made everything before that seem worthwhile.

Yikes. Life has a way of sneaking up on us when we aren’t looking.

At this year’s reunion, we will all probably look much older. We will be sharing photos of our kids and our grands. We will complain about what the world’s come to, and can you believe what they put on television these days? We will share COVID stories. We will mourn those classmates we’ve lost. We will eat dinner early because we don’t want to drive in the dark.

I don’t miss those days of playing paper dolls with my sister. Still, you blink, and you’re 68. Enjoy every minute of every day.

I hate housekeeping. Everything about cleaning a house is abhorrent to me. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. There are probably people who like to clean house. They probably say things like, “I love seeing rooms go from messy or dirty to spic-and-span, and knowing I’m responsible for that transition.” They probably say it in a sing-song voice that is typical for people who are losing their minds. I will repeat: I hate housekeeping.

I like cooking. I don’t mind doing laundry. I never complain about paying the bills. But my house is always a mess. Well, except for when the cleaning lady comes by. Then the house is clean and fresh-smelling until it once again isn’t. She and her co-worker speak Spanish, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the word sucia (nasty) thrown around a couple of times.

Since we are readying our house to put it up for sale, some housecleaning is necessary. I’ve been putting off one specific task until I simply couldn’t put it off any more. The cupboard under my sink was a hot mess. I’m talking I-can’t-remember-how-many-years-since-I’ve-cleaned-that-cupboard mess. (By the way, it could very possibly be 30 years. Let’s pretend it wasn’t that long.) My friends, that is the cupboard where we keep our garbage can. Need I say more?

So yesterday, after we got home from our overnight visit to loved ones in Fort Collins, I put on rubber gloves and pulled out a face mask to cover my nose and mouth. I took a deep breath, and opened the cupboard.

I closed it again, and took a couple of deep breaths. I gathered my nerve, and opened the cupboard once again. This time I managed to kneel down and pull out all of the items located inside that cupboard. There were various cleaning products, old sponges, rusty drain stoppers, a box of dishwashing pods that was so old that the pods were all stuck together, plant fertilizer, and Jimmy Hoffa’s body. J/K about JH’s body. It’s still in New Jersey.

I stood up, took some more deep breaths, kneeled back down, and began pulling up the cupboard liner that had apparently been there since Gerald Ford’s administration. I gagged and knew there was only one thing to do.

“Hey Bill?” I sweetly called out to him as he was shoveling rocks. (I’m not kidding. Shoveling rocks.) “When you have a minute, could you come here? I have a little problem.”

About 10 minutes later, he came into the house and recognized the issue. Before I knew it, he was cleaning out that cupboard, just as I knew he would.

“I’ll go to King Soopers and buy some new shelf liner,” I said in my own sing-song voice.

When I came home, he had scraped out most of the gunk that was hiding under the old liners. Unfortunately, King Soopers didn’t have shelf paper. Tomorrow I will go to Ace Hardware, which has everything, and buy some shelf paper. I will practice my sing-song voice along the way. I might even throw in some fluttering eyelashes for good measure.

Since moving to Denver some 45 years ago, I have mostly lived in the southeast Denver area. I have lived in several different abodes, but most in the City and County of Denver. I spent a couple of years living in Boulder while attending the University of Colorado, and I had an apartment in Thornton for a very short time. Other than those two instances, it’s been southeast Denver All The Way.

It’s funny (weird funny, not ha-ha funny) to move someplace where I don’t know how to get to the nearest Costco or where I’m going to have to figure out t,he location of the nearest CVS Pharmacy. There will be new restaurants, unfamiliar street names, and different hospitals. Our go-to freeway will no longer by I-25; instead, it will be C-470. Our light rail lines will be different letters. Our Chinese food will be delivered from a different restaurant, and who knows from whom we will order pizza?

The other night in bed, Bill admitted that he was apprehensive about the change. Me too. But we are both comfortable in our decision, certain that it is the right move for us at the right time. Our skittishness isn’t the downsizing aspect of our move. We have both said many times that one of the things we like best about our house in Mesa is its small size. It’s nice to have fewer places to search when you can’t find your phone. No more having to climb stairs when we leave our iPads in our bedroom. It’s just that both of us have lived in this area for over 40 years (in Bill’s case, over 50, and in this house for 30.

It will be nice to look out our windows and have a different view, though I will miss looking out my kitchen window and watching the squirrels and rabbits steal apples. We will no longer have a place for the grands to ride their scooters. The fact of the matter, however, is that they’re all really too old to ride the scooters anyway. They gave the scooters a good run on our big patio. They also gave the swing we had hanging from our honey locust tree for many years a good run. Every one of our nine grands used that swing, some when they were really too big to do so. It’s true that our youngest, Cole, didn’t spend as much time as the others. Still, he got in a few good swings before we had to cut off that limb that was nearly dead from over 15 years of swinging.

Our skittishness comes from change. They say that change is good for the brain, and I believe that is true. We are both very set in our ways. I read somewhere one time that it is good for your brain to shake things up a bit once in a while. I remember an example was to change the way you dry yourself off after getting out of the shower. Apparently we tend to always dry ourselves exactly the same way. I tried it then, and I have tried it a couple of times since. It really does feel uncomfortable.

All this is to say that it will take some time to get used to new places and things. Heck, it might even take some time to get used to finding the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Yesterday afternoon, we met for the first time with our moving consultant from Wind Crest. I’ve never had a moving consultant before. I simply packed up boxes, moved them into my new home, unpacked boxes, and put things where they fit. Our consultant walked with us around our house, took note of everything we really wanted to bring (as far as furniture), measured each piece, and then took notes.

When we were finished with the chore, she brought out of her magic moving consultant kit a big piece of paper that was our floor plan. She also brought out a magnetic board and a board that contained what seemed like 200 magnetic pieces representing furniture. We then sat together and decided whether our furniture dreams were realistic, and, if so, how to make that happen…..

God bless her. With her guidance, I got everything I wanted, including a little table in the corner of our bedroom for my puzzles. A girl wants what a girl wants.

I’m learning a lot from this experience. And having some fun as well!

Have a great weekend.

While in the late 1960s, women started making progress towards equality, men and women were far from equals in the 1950s and early1960s. Most women were homemakers. While some women worked outside the home, I would guess that many were in traditional “women’s” jobs such as teaching or nursing. It would have been a small percentage of women who were in the jobs traditionally thought of as males’ domains. Like chemistry, for example.

Elizabeth Zott — the protagonist of author Bonnie Garmus’s irresistible debut novel Lessons in Chemistry — is bucking all odds and working as a chemist. She is the lone woman in a sea of men, all of whom think of her as a pretty face who simply doesn’t know her place. That is, until fellow chemist Calvin Evans falls in love with her, and oddly, it’s for her brain and not her appearance.

Elizabeth isn’t trying to be a barrier breaker. She simply wants to be a chemist, and thinks being a woman shouldn’t stop her. She works away steadily, not making waves, but not backing down either. Eventually she and Calvin become a couple, and their relationship is nothing short of wonderful.

Life happens, but then an unexpected opportunity comes Elizabeth’s way. She is asked to host a new television cooking show called Supper at Six. She agrees with the caveat that she can develop the show the way she wants, with all eyes on chemistry. “Combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride” she says to the women eagerly watching the show. She teaches her fans not only how to cook, but also how to think for themselves.

Elizabeth Zott is a character I won’t soon forget. Nor will I forget the rest of her friends and family, including her precocious daughter Mad and her dog Six Thirty (named for the time of day she rescued him). Though I suspect Elizabeth would be considered on the spectrum these days, I cheered for her relentless pursuit to be admired for her mind and to be free to do any job she wants.

I highly recommend this book.

Here is a link to the book.

Treasured Out
I managed to finish emptying out my cedar chest, leaving only a few really special things. There was enough room to put my wedding dress into the chest. By doing that, I am hoping to delay the decision about keeping or discarding the dress forever. My plan is to move the nearly-empty chest into our closet in our new apartment. It will fit perfectly. It will also provide a place to put shoes, and purses, and other miscellaneous objects. If it becomes cumbersome, or either Bill or I trip over it too many times, my decision will be made. I will take out the dress from the cedar chest and hang it in the closet in the second bedroom, just for old times’ sake. At that point I will say bye-bye to the cedar chest forever.

Moving Closer
Yesterday afternoon, we interviewed a real estate agent who works with Wind Crest. I liked her very much. I especially like that she is familiar with people like Bill and me who must sell a house in order to make the deposit on our new home. Plus, she is used to working with seniors who have a lot of STUFF that they are having trouble getting rid of. She didn’t even flinch when she walked in the door and saw all of our boxes and bags ready to go to Goodwill. I invited her to take whatever she wanted, but she declined. From here on out, every visitor leaves with a door prize.

Tweet
I wish I knew a lot about birds. Every morning when I arise with the birds at 5 o’clock, I open up my back door so as to let in the cool air and hear the world come alive. For the past month or so, there has been a bird call that I can’t recognize. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s coming from a single bird. There are four chirps followed immediately by a trill. Yesterday morning the bird (or birds) changed it up a bit. Instead of the four chirps, every once in a while, they would throw in a single chirp followed immediately by the trill. I’m happy this year that, though the crows are still around, they have moved to a different yard and aren’t nearly as annoying. I’ve also observed the squirrels stealing the apples from our apple trees. Normally that would get on my last nerve. This year, however, we will probably be gone — or close to it — by apple harvest.

Next in Line
The next room I will tackle will be my office. Early this summer, I cleaned out the closet in that room, which is actually a bedroom. But I need to go through my files, most of which can be discarded. Who care about hospital bills from 10 years ago? When we move, Bill and I will need to share office space, which will also be a bedroom. It shouldn’t be a problem, because neither of us spend much time at all each day in our office. It’s the files that we will need to address. Bill is a pack rat when it comes to saving files. It’s the lawyer in him.

Ciao.