Here in the Valley of the Old People Sun, most of the grocery stores offer seniors a 10 percent discount on the first Wednesday of every month. For your edification, understand that the definition of “old people” is one day older than me, and it’s moving target. Ha. Actually, I think it’s +55, but I’m not sure since I’ve been +55 for quite some time and lose concentration easily.

Anyway, the seniors here take that day quite seriously. They line up to receive their 10 percent discount, having already determined which grocery store has Manwich on sale. I don’t really blame them with the cost of groceries these days. For my part, however, I pay no attention to what day of the week or month I’m shopping. As such, through my indifference, or simply through bad luck, I occasionally inadvertently stumble into a grocery store on the first Wednesday of the month. I should never be as surprised as I always am. I mean, you can’t miss the senior citizens’ buses in the parking lot.

Yesterday was one of those days. Surprisingly, the store where I chose to shop was not noticeably busier than usual. I did notice that I was nearly run down by a few shoppers, but that happens no matter what day of the week or month it is.

In fact, it wasn’t until I was at the cashier line that I realized what day of the month it was. I nearly always go through self-check, but chose to go to a live cashier (it seemed faster than going to a dead cashier) because among my purchases was a bottle of Tanqueray gin. Sometimes buying alcohol can get complicated at self-check if the person monitoring the area is distracted or disinterested in this particular job. The woman in line ahead of me had a cart full of items. Still, she was the only person between me and my forking over an unprecedented amount of money for my own groceries. Of course, I was watching as she loaded her items onto the conveyor belt, because that’s what I do. In fact, sometimes I try to figure out what people are making for dinner from what they are buying. It’s hard being me.

Anyhoo, I found her purchases interesting because she seemed to have two of everything. Well, she had four or six cans of Campbell’s tomato soup. But most of her groceries were in sets of two. Perhaps she was shopping for a friend, I thought to myself.

Then I heard her tell the cashier that she had laid out all of the buy-one-get-ones first on the conveyor belt, followed by all of the items for which she had coupons. She proceeded to hand her a stack of coupons that was at least a quarter of an inch thick.

I decided to settle in, knowing this was going to be a complicated business. The problem, you see, is that this process never goes smoothly. Some of the BOGOs don’t ring up correctly. Sometimes the coupons are expired or for another brand. I really didn’t get annoyed, however, because I had no where to be, and watching the process was entertaining. She ended up saving somewhere in the neighborhood of $100, what with her BOGOs and her coupons, and, of course, the store’s own items on sale.

Believe me when I tell you that I have nothing against using coupons. In fact, I admire the people who have the patience to search and clip and cut and download coupons. They undoubtedly save a great deal of money. I have had a number of times in my life where I have been determined to use coupons. I have even clipped and downloaded. But not one time have I ever remembered to bring the coupons with me to the store. King Soopers (the Kroger affiliate in Denver) sends me coupons in the mail every few months. Because they clearly monitor what I purchase, the coupons are always for things I buy frequently. Every time I see the coupons (once I have gotten over the creepiness of every coupon being something I purchase), I tell myself that this time I will use the coupon for 75 cents off a bag of chopped Caesar salad and the coupon for 45 cents off Land O Lakes butter.

Never happens. Well, it did happen once. I used a coupon for 25 cents off a can of Rotel tomatoes. I learned that in order to use the coupon, a King Soopers employee had to scan the coupon for me. Maybe that’s changed now, since I now can carry a computer on my wrist. That last attempt was some time ago.

I will admit to enjoying the 10 percent off my groceries yesterday simply for being +55.

Since we are in traveling mode, making our way from Denver back to AZ, I am posting a blog from April 2021. I will be back in the saddle Wednesday.

When I was in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 years old, our family got our first dog. (As an aside, doesn’t it seem like in every single one of my childhood memories, I’m 7 or 8 years old? Either that was the most important year of my life, or my life took a great nosedive at age 9. Or perhaps I just stopped remembering anything that happened after 1960. Yep. A big blank.)

Anyhoo, back to our first dog. Without doing any research whatsoever on dog breeds, Mom and Dad purchased a toy manchester terrier. For reasons I can’t recall, we named him Geno. We chose that dog because my Uncle Jeep and Aunt Cork had just purchased a toy manchester, and we thought he was cute. He was, but only because there is no such thing as an ugly puppy. He was a sibling to my aunt and uncle’s dog. And, because he was a terrier, he needed a lot of exercise.

I can’t tell you whether or not he remained cute as an adult dog. What I can tell you is that none of us was a very good dog owner at that point in our lives. Dad and Mom certainly didn’t have time to take a dog on daily walks. Dog Parks were nonexistent because in those days nobody could imagine taking a dog anywhere outside your back yard, unless it was around the block. I’m sure Mom and Dad nagged us to walk the dog. We occasionally did, but not often. Part of the reason we didn’t like to walk the dog was that he was completely and totally untrained on the leash. Part of it was that we would rather have been playing with our Barbie dolls than walking the dog.

The reason I don’t know if he would have been cute as an adult dog is that I killed him when he was still a puppy. Not on purpose, of course. In fact, I was taking him on one of his infrequent walks. Mom was punishing me because Bec and I had gotten in a fight. While I don’t remember the cause of our fight, I must have been at fault because Bec was taking a nap, and I was walking the dog. I put the dog on the leash, went outside, and started heading to visit my Aunt Cork, who lived two blocks away. We lived on a busy street. The dog, being naughty on the leash, began running. He took off so quickly that he pulled the leash out of my hand. He ran out into the street, where he promptly got run over by a car. He blessedly died instantly.

A few years later, we got the dog that all of us would consider our childhood pooch. Mac was a mutt. We bought him from some farmers in a nearby town. He was purported to be a poodle and Scottie mix. There might have been some poodle, but the nearest Mac ever got to Scotland was in my dad’s glass of Scotch whiskey. Mac was an adorable puppy that grew up to be an fairly ugly dog, mostly because he became quite fat. Unfortunately, we had not become better dog walkers. But we all loved him very much, and my parents were broken-hearted when he died many years later. The kids were al grown up and had moved on to our own dogs.

I have been thinking about dogs recently for a couple of reasons. First, Bill and I enjoyed the time we spent with Jen’s pooch Winston. I still wait for him to run to the door when I come in from the garage. We both miss him. Second, I have recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure, and I think a dog would be a good buddy who would calm me down and force me to walk more.

Unfortunately, there are down sides. One of my grandkids — Mylee — is very allergic to dog dander. I think she’s better now than when she was young. But that’s a big thing. Second, if we have a dog, then we lose a great deal of our flexibility.

Weighing the odds. What do you think?

When I was but a young lass, not yet married, I decided to purchase a cast iron pot. It was a Dutch oven, critical, because you know how often 20-year-olds make soup. Anyway, I’m not sure why I decided cast iron was the way to go since, as far as I can recall, my mother never owned a cast iron pot. As it turned out, I rarely used the pot, and I certainly didn’t care for it in the appropriate manner. I’m sure every time I used it (which was probably about a total of five times) I cheerfully scrubbed it clean with soap and water and left it to dry in the sink. Tsk. Tsk.

Of course, it finally rusted, and as far as I was concerned, that meant it was time to throw it away, which I did. I replaced it with something made out of stainless steel and easy to clean.

It wasn’t until much later that I once again dipped my big toe into the cast iron pond (which actually sounds quite painful), and this time I followed the rules. I started out by seasoning the skillets by coating them in oil and placing them into the oven for the appropriate period of time. Each time I use the Lodge skillets (I now have six — a 6-inch, a12-inch, and a-13.25 inch, as well as a griddle in Denver and a 10.25-inch and a 13.25 inch in AZ — all with cast iron lids), I scrub them carefully with water only and dry them quickly. Every so often, I rub them with oil and put them in the oven again for a bit to season.

In my lowly opinion, Lodge cast iron is the way to go. I have a Paula Deen brand of cast iron griddle in AZ, and every time I make pancakes, they don’t brown properly. It’s not Paula’s fault. She can’t help it if her last name isn’t Lodge. I covet my cast iron. I would save it for our kids, but all of our kids have their own, having heard me sing the iron skillets’ praises. It will likely be among the many things that get tossed upon my death.

Yesterday, Amazon fed me the information that they have put a certain set of cast iron on sale. For a mere $49, I can purchase a Lodge cast iron Dutch oven with a 10.25-inch shallow skillet that — wait for it — doubles as the lid. It regularly sells for $79. I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat when I first took a gander at the set. While I have a Lodge enamel-covered cast iron Dutch oven already in AZ, I’m not always thrilled with the pot. It seems more difficult to clean than I think it should. And I’ve already mentioned that I am unhappy with my Paula Deen griddle and have been considering buying a Lodge griddle. It’s like a miracle. A Springtime Lodge Cast Iron Miracle.

Needless to say, I’m going to make the purchase just as soon as I return to the Valley of the Sun. Jen will probably not approve, because she has already said that she dislikes cast iron — whether it’s Paula Deen or Lodge — because she thinks they’re too heavy. I won’t argue their heaviness, but I will say that its heaviness is offset by its ability to go from stovetop to oven without missing a beat. Plus, she doesn’t fry chicken, a process which MUST be done in cast iron. I will remind her that when she made Ree Drummond’s mini pizzas, she used my cast iron pans. Just sayin’…..

Yesterday and the day before, Bill and I attended the performance of Circus Olympus. Our granddaughter Kaiya played the part of Medusa with confidence, and, well, snakes on her head. Mylee was backstage support, helping mostly with costumes. It was fun to see them in these roles. I gave Bill the option of not attending the second performance, but he played the role of grandfather par excellence!

My grandkids always make me smile.

Have a great weekend.

Bill and I successfully traveled from Phoenix to Denver yesterday via Southwest Airlines. Travel is never easy, but our day went as well as we could have hoped. Our wonderful Canadian neighbors were nice enough to take us to the airport so that we didn’t have to pay for Lyft or Uber. People say all Canadians are nice, but even if that is true, those two sit right on top of the Nice People Mountain.

We got in and out of baggage check quickly. I will tell you that checking in outdoors whenever possible is the way to go. It is worth the crumpled dollar bills that Bill and I managed to scrape up to give the Southwest agent so that he isn’t annoyed with us enough that he sends our bags to Fargo, North Dakota.

We ran into a tiny glitch when the TSA pre-approved agent told us we had to turn around because our tickets didn’t say that we were TSA pre-approved. I started to push back, but then realized that I really didn’t want my TSA agent making exceptions, even for little ol’ innocent me. Plus, the regular security line actually had fewer people than the line from which we were being kicked out. Sure, I had to remove my shoes, and sure, given that my left foot is still swollen, there was a serious chance I wouldn’t get the shoe back on. But, as it turned out, no harm, no foul. My shoe slipped on with just a bit of coaxing and we were at the restaurant eating breakfast and drinking a spicy Bloody Mary before you could say no-liquids-larger-than-4-ounces. It was the best $17 Bloody Mary I’ve ever tasted. Yikes. And it didn’t even have bacon. Or a celery stick.

The flight took one hour and 17 minutes. I kept track. The man next to me slept the whole way. Actually the men on either side of me slept the whole way. I read my book that is due today and with which I’m not yet finished.

Very little turbulence, and clear skies on both ends of the trip made for a decent experience. We made our way to baggage claim, where the bags didn’t come. And didn’t’ come. And didn’t come. Finally, an overhead announcement told us that we may have noticed that the bags didn’t come. Never fear, she said. The bad news is the bags are not going to come for quite a while for reasons I’m not going to explain. The good news is that they are — most assuredly — going to come at some point.

And they did, in fact, eventually come. Our Canadian friends were not there to take us from the airport to our Denver home, so we took Lyft. The man didn’t say one word to us the entire trip, largely because he spent the entire trip on the phone talking to someone in Spanish. No problem, Juan (his name was Juan). I tipped you anyway. I didn’t feel like talking.

Our house was fine, though of course there is not even a crumb of food in the pantry or refrigerator. So we ate dinner out, and ate our leftovers for breakfast. Nothing says good morning like sausage and peppers over spaghetti.

But I slept like a baby on the most comfortable mattress since people stopped sleeping on straw. Tonight I think I will go to the first showing of our granddaughters’ middle school play.

This, unfortunately, might be the blog post that will make even the most faithful of my readers have a second thought about whether or not they should be reading this blog. You will think that this woman might be certifiably insane. I think I’m perfectly sane, however, and am going ahead and tell you this story.

My mother has been on my mind lately. I have had a number of dreams recently in which she has played a starring role. I often dreamed about her for a while after she passed away, but the dreams ended. Now, here it is, 27 years later, and she’s back, and she hasn’t aged a day since she died.

I think about her as I’m doing things around the house. Turning off lights. Making up our bed. Cooking her broccoli or vegetable beef shank soups. I do those tasks the same way I watched her do them almost two decades ago. I can’t honestly say that a day doesn’t go by that I think of her. In fact, many days will go by without giving her a thought. But when I have a memory, it is so vivid that I can almost smell her fragrance.

But something particularly strange has been happening as of late. On a number of occasions, mostly when I’ve been laying in bed, I have felt someone sitting down next to me and rubbing my back. The feeling only lasts a few moments, but it’s long enough for me to register that someone is being affectionate.

I will be perfectly honest: I haven’t opened my eyes to see who/what’s there. The fact of the matter is that I don’t want to open my eyes because I might see her ghost. Even worse, I might see absolutely nothing, and that would make me sad. The weirdest part about the whole experience is that I’m not afraid. Me, the one who had to run from the top of our staircase, down our hallway, and jump into bed for literally months after seeing The Sixth Sense.

I tested my sanity waters first with my sister Jen when she was still here in AZ.

“You know what?” I asked her one day.

“What?” she replied.

(Gulp) “I think Mom is coming to visit me and is rubbing my back,” I said.

Instead of thinking I was insane, she told me she isn’t surprised at all.

“You are going through some difficult times right now, and I’m not surprised she’s there to boost your spirits,” she said calmly.

That went well. I decided to mention it to my brother.

“One day I was putting something in the mixer at work,” he replied. “All of the sudden, I felt Dad’s hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, he wasn’t there, but I felt it. I really did.”

Here’s my take on everything: We know nothing about what happens when we die. Even Christian believers such as myself don’t know how everything transpires after we take our last breath. So it’s as likely to me as not that those who love us the most could come and visit us.

Or, I could simply be certifiably insane.

I was born 68 years ago, and a few days after I took my first breaths, I was baptized as a Christian into the Roman Catholic Church. So, for 68 years, I have been listening to the story of the Prodigal Son. Even non-Christians know the story Jesus told his disciples.

A man had two sons. It seems one was a ne’er do well. He was tired of working his butt off on his dad’s farm, and had what he thought was a better idea. He asked his dad to give him his inheritance right then and there instead of making him wait until his death. Likely pretty frustrated and disappointed, the dad gave the son the money and watched him head out into the distance.

The son lived the good life for a several years, spending the money on food and wild women. Finally, however, it was all gone, and he was flat broke. So broke, in fact, that he went to work feeding pigs. About as menial a job as you can get when you’re a Jewish boy. At some point, a lightbulb went on in his head. He decided he would return to his father’s farm and beg his forgiveness.

His father saw his prodigal son from afar, and was thrilled. He ran to greet him. Jesus told his disciples that the son told his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.”

Not only did the father forgive his son, but he threw a big shindig celebration. When the older son — the one who didn’t fritter away his money and worked his butt off on the farm — saw the celebration, he was annoyed, and told his father how unfair it seemed to him. “What am I, chopped liver?” he probably said, being Jewish and all.

Again, Jesus told his disciples that the father responded, “Your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”

Of course, the moral to the story is that as long as we are truly sorry for our transgressions, God, like the father of the prodigal son, will never turn away from us. But I will tell you that for 67 years, that story has gotten on my last nerve. I couldn’t help but side with the older son. The son who felt entirely disrespected.

But as I listened to that story at Mass on Sunday, I suddenly had an epiphany. Of course the father welcomed his younger ne’re do well son back with open arms. As a mother of a son, and the grandmother of nine, I would do exactly the same thing. If any one of those loved ones of mine had gone astray — maybe becoming addicted to drugs or living a disreputable life — I, too, would welcome them back with open arms. I have always told all of them that there is nothing they could do that would make me stop loving them. I might not approve of a choice they make, but I would always love them.

I guess the fact that a story from the Bible can land on me so differently than it has in the past proves that the Bible is, as St. Paul said, “living and active. ….. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

The other night as Bill and I were eating homemade rouladen made by our neighbors Dale and Jan, we got to talking about foods that we like. That, as would be inevitable, led to talking about lobster, and specifically lobster rolls. Dale immediately said, “I’ll make us lobster rolls for dinner soon!” Me, not being shy when it comes to lobster (or really any food that I like), replied, “That sounds great! Why not Friday, because that’s the day we can’t eat meat.”

And so it happened. We bought the lobster tails and they did the cooking. And, needless to say, it was delicious. It made me smile…..

Look at those big pieces of lobster meat. It doesn’t really get any better than that.

Have a great weekend.