I save my photos on Google Photos. It’s free and it’s an easy way to keep my phone from clogging up with pictures. One of the things that Google does is feed me photos every day that I took X number of years ago. I enjoy seeing these photos because they are often pictures of our grandkids at much younger ages, or reminders of something fun we did in the past.

These past couple of weeks, Google has been reminding me of where we were 14 years ago: in Rome. Some of you might remember that I wrote a blog during our three-month European adventure. It was on that trip that I became familiar with blogging. To my surprise, people enjoyed reading about our travels. When our trip was over, an astounding number of people encouraged me to keep writing a blog. How could I? I answered them. My real life is extraordinarily boring.

Nevertheless, I started writing about my boring life in August of 2013, and I have been writing ever since. Who’d of thunk it?

Having said all of that, I thought I would repost my blog from June 27, 2008, while we were traveling in Rome. Such good memories…..

Our Neighborhood

I feel really grateful to have had two full weeks in Rome. There are an amazing number of things to see in this beautiful city. We have seen many of them before, but always in a bit of a rush so that we could get on to see the next thing. This time we had the luxury of taking our time and really looking at all of the beautiful art and artifacts, of noticing and looking at all of the old ruins and ancient walls that are spread all around the town. As you walk around town, it isn’t uncommon to see a small bit of ancient wall just sitting all by itself, or to be inside a building and see a piece of ancient wall or ancient floor exposed but covered up by glass. ‘Random ruins’ is what we have taken to calling them.

One of the things that surprised me here in Rome is the fact that they only have two metro lines – the red line and the blue line. The red line, which is the line we took almost all of the time, travels to many of the sights. But surprisingly, there are a number of sights that are very far from any metro lines, such as Piazza Navone. The reason for the rather abbreviated metro system is simple: every time they have begun digging for anything, including underground metro lines, they run into old Roman ruins. There are apparently still so many ruins and walls underground that they just don’t even want to start digging. Otherwise it becomes too much of a headache to go through all of the necessary channels to continue.

Thursday we decided that we simply didn’t have anything we wanted to see bad enough to put up with the heat. I had written a list of everything we wanted to see and do while here, and we checked off the last thing several days ago. That is, the last thing except one. I still want to see the Trevi Fountain at night, but I think we will do that Saturday night, our last night here. So we stayed inside and read all day long, except for a break to go to the grocery store.

So, let me tell you a little bit about our apartment and where we have been living for the past two weeks.

Our apartment, which the owners call Aurelia Den, is located on one of the main streets coming into Rome from the north. As such, we were concerned that it would be very noisy as the street on which it sits is extremely busy and noisy. Instead, since our apartment is in a building way off the road, we have found it to be quite quiet, at least as far as traffic noise. We do hear the sounds of children playing all around us, especially in the evening.

I think I mentioned before that there are no single family homes in Rome. Everyone lives in an apartment, which they may own or rent. So these communities are like neighborhoods back home. Some of the units, especially on the ground or top floors, might have extremely large patios, such as the one pictured here. This particular apartment is directly across from ours.

Our apartment development is gated, and each unit on the ground floor has a gated patio. So the complex is very safe and private. The night that Italy played Spain in soccer, I sat on our little balcony and watched the children play while their parents watched the game. Apparently many of the grandparents, or some sort of close relative, live right in this same development. The children were running around back and forth from apartment to apartment. It had the feel of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. While it seems particularly noisy to us, I pointed out to Bill that the kids really aren’t being any noisier than our grandkids are when they play outside in their own back yard. The difference is that the noise is bouncing off brick walls and cement.

Our apartment is right next to a Catholic Church (there are few other kinds of churches in Rome). So every morning at 7:50, the church bells ring, calling people to come to church. They ring again at 8 o’clock telling us that Mass has begun. The same thing happens again at 6:50 p.m. and 7 o’clock. I’ve grown used to hearing the bells wake me up in the morning.

It doesn’t take long for the Italians to accept you as a part of their community. There is an old man who walks throughout the development every day who now smiles and tells us buon giorno every morning. Yesterday he began a conversation with us, but unfortunately we were not able to understand since he spoke Italian. The maintenance man who takes such wonderful care of the facility has also taken to greeting us cheerily every time he sees us. We see him over at the restaurant across the street, and he is happy to see us every time.

And, of course I have already mentioned how we have become regulars at the restaurant. Our friendly baker talks to us every morning in Italian, despite the fact that he knows by now that we speak no Italian. That fact never seems to faze him. He smiles and chats away. We smile and nod.

There are plusses and minuses living where we are staying in Rome. If we had chosen to stay in an apartment or hotel in the center of Rome, it would certainly have been a lot more convenient. When we wanted to go into the city from here, it was a 30- or 45-minute endeavor. Still, our main goal for this entire adventure has been to get to know the people of Italy and to get a flavor for the country. Since we were going to be here for two full weeks, we wanted to be living with the locals instead of in a hotel. We wanted to shop with the locals and eat with the locals.

Our apartment is the one with the table and two white chairs.

I hope that we find our place in Certaldo to be as happy a place for our last month in Italy. I’m confident we will.

I spent yesterday cleaning out our linen closet. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had found Jimmy Hoffa‘s body in there. It really is one of those closets that, in the rare instance that I had to put something into it, I would give the item a strong shove and close the door before it came flying back at me.

I can’t even tell you how many bath towels were in that closet. For whatever reason, bath towels are one of those things that I can’t seem to throw away. I get tired of the old towels, maybe ready for a new color. So I buy new towels, but can’t convince myself to throw the old ones away. I may have company and need towels, I might think. Or, you never know when one of the grandkids might want to go swimming and need a towel, I’ll think, despite the fact that we don’t have a swimming pool. Hence, a mountain of towels.

Tablecloths. Sigh. Not only do I have a mountain of tablecloths that I will be sending to Goodwill, there are three or four that I was unable to give away. They’re too pretty, and they fit on a small round table, something I’m liable to own when we downsize. The reality is that there was a time when I really did use tablecloths. I entertained. I had dinner parties. I hosted an annual summer formal tea. Our children came to our house for Thanksgiving and Easter and Christmas Eve and New Years Day. Each event required its own tablecloth.

Unlike towels, I apparently am completely comfortable tossing or giving away bed sheets. The other night, I was laying in bed reading, when my foot felt a tear in the bed sheet. Oh oh, I thought. I had no spare sheets. Luckily I had ordered new sheets from J.C. Penney, and they arrived the next day. Though there were no sheets in my linen closet, I had a plethora of pillow cases. Go figure. I threw most of them in the Goodwill bag. However, my mother had embroidered a set of pillowcases for me many moons ago, and those I was unable to give up.

I can only tackle one clean-out a day. It’s too overwhelming if I do any more than that. Part of it is nostalgia. However, quite frankly, part of it is just pure depression over how many things I own that I don’t need, don’t use, and don’t want. How did I let this happen?

Next task is my pantry. I wonder how many cans of expired food I will find in there. Will I find any small appliances that I don’t even remember buying? I’m already reminding myself that I will have far less counter space than I have now, and my appliances all have large footprints. Can I live with a two-slotted toaster instead of the four-slotted toaster we now own? Will my Kitchenaid Pro warrant a spot of my precious counter space?

These are all questions that will be answered in the next few months.

Growing old ain’t for wimps. You’ve heard that phrase said a cajillion times, almost always from someone over the age of 65 whose knees have starting aching every time they leave their recliner or who wouldn’t take a bet on the next time their bowels will move. The word depends has taken on a whole new meaning for them.

I think every adult — particularly a, um, let’s say more mature adult — has a birthday that they dread. It’s almost always a landmark birthday of some sort. Mine was when I was turning what now seems a youthful 30. I reckon I dreaded that birthday mostly because I was in the midst of a divorce coupled with a bad case of strep throat. Forty didn’t bother me. Fifty was easy peezy because I informed all of my coworkers and friends that if I saw even one black balloon on my birthday, all hell would break loose. They apparently believed me, because my birthday cake was decorated in pastel colors and their was nary a balloon to be seen.

Bill turns 80 in October, and it is definitely his dreaded birthday. He keeps saying, “I can’t believe I’m turning 80. How in the hell did that happen?” Eighty is a large number, but Bill is about the most youthful 80-year-old that I know. Not only because he looks considerably younger than 80, but also because, despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease 13 years ago, he has a youthful outlook on life. Who else would decide to take up golf at his age and with his PD diagnosis? He happily plays the game with self confidence and a great attitude. Bill has fun with life.

The other night, we had dinner with my brother, his daughters Brooke and Jessie, and Jessie’s boyfriend Rob. We began talking about movie star crushes. (You never quite know what topics my family with tackle.) Brooke said that her husband Alexx has a movie-star crush on Reese Witherspoon. I admitted that my crush has always been Rob Lowe. Bill said his crush was Meg Ryan, put only before plastic surgery turned her into looking more like Bozo the Clown than Annie Reed from Sleepless in Seattle.

I always wonder if I had endless amounts of money, would I pay to attempt to look 40 years old for my entire life. I will confide in you all that I have wished I could have my eyelids tweaked once they began closing in on me. But I think at the end of the day, I would leave my face well enough alone. Perhaps had I been smarter, I wouldn’t have spent all those years in the sun with no hat and slathered in nothing but baby oil. But to try and look 40 when everything else about my person SCREAMS You Are 68 Years Old is foolhardy. God meant for us to age with grace. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Watch out. Before you know it, when I’m asked how I am, I will start saying, “Well, I woke up on the right side of the dirt this morning, so I reckon I’m doing just fine.”

Thoughtless
Lo, and behold, it wasn’t until yesterday morning that I realized it was Thursday and I should have posted my Thursday Thoughts instead of a regular blog post. Apparently my brain isn’t thinking well these days. Still, I have as many thoughts on Friday as I do on Thursday, so here goes.

Checking it Out
This past Monday, Bill and I had dinner with a couple at one of the communities to which we are considering a move. The couple was very nice and very informative. As they were selected by community staff, it wasn’t surprising that they had very positive reviews. However, I had a lot of questions answered. As we were making our way to one of the restaurants located in the community (there are 10 in total!), we met a few people. We asked them all how they felt about where they were living. We got glowing reviews. Good to know.

Moving On
Preparing the house where we have lived for 30 years is a massive undertaking. I anticipated the worse, and wasn’t even close. Still, little by little, we are making progress. As I said in yesterday’s post, we got the garage attic emptied out, leaving only the massive cash register that was there when we moved in. Perhaps next I will tackle our regular attic, which contains mostly Christmas decorations. However, that’s what my sister Bec thought when she made her move to AZ. To her surprise, the attic was full of lots of other things that she had forgotten.

Fort Collins
I had a meeting yesterday afternoon, but after the meeting, we headed to Fort Collins. Later this morning, we will be meeting with our financial advisors. It is our most sincere hope that they don’t look at us when we tell them about our prospective move with shock on their faces and tell us that we are insane to think that move makes any sense.

Bill and I had only been married a couple of years when he approached me.

“Hon,” he said sweetly. “What would you think about me buying a motorcycle?”

This question came out of left field as his questions often do. Not one time had I ever heard him express the desire for a motorcycle. I hadn’t heard any comments as one would speed by us, white-lining between cars.

I gave it a bit of thought before I answered him.

“Well, at the end of the day, I guess it’s your decision,” I started out. “But I will tell you that I really don’t like the idea at all. They seem expensive, and where would we store it?”

Here’s what Bill heard: “Well, at the end of the day, I guess it’s your decision, blah blah blah blah blah. I wonder if he even noticed that my lips were still moving as he began wondering what color he should buy.

The very next day, he showed up with a motorcycle. It was small, but since my head didn’t explode, it wasn’t long before he traded that in for a big Yamaha Roadstar and all of the accoutrements. To be honest, I never regretted the fact that he got a motorcycle. He took motorcycle safety classes right off the bat. He always wore a helmet, though Colorado law doesn’t require a helmet to be worn. He was always cautious and safety-conscious.

Over the years, he put 44,000 miles on that big bike. He traveled the length of Route 66. He took the motorcycle on several trips to visit his mother. He rode up into Upper Michigan with some motorcycle friends (who didn’t have prison tattoos on their backs). He rode it into Yellowstone Park, where he nearly encountered a grizzly bear. He rode to and from California.

In the past years since he was diagnosed, the motorcycle has sat in the front of our garage drawing dust and taking up room. While I know he enjoyed his adventures on his motorcycle, I don’t think giving it up is one of the things that he considers a sad result of the disease. He loved it when he had it and he’s ready to let it go.

So finally, after having talked about it for years, Bill and I drove (in a car) to a place that sells new and used motorcycles. Bill explained his situation, and the man who helped us promised to come on Friday to take a look at the bike. The man himself is 60 years old, and he completely understands how, as one gets older and older, it becomes more and more difficult to manage a two-wheeled monster. Lots of older folks in AZ have three-wheeled motorcycles, but Bill is ready to be done.

Yesterday afternoon after we got back home, I texted our grandson Alastair, asking if he could come by, climb into our garage attic, and bring down his Papa’s motorcycle paraphernalia. He came shortly after, climbed into the attic, and began tossing down all manner of motorcycle and horseback riding accessories. As of now, we have two saddles, various reins and stirrups, three or four motorcycle helmets, raingear for both varieties of transportation, and lots more sitting in our garage. It is piled high, awaiting Mr. or Ms. Got Junk to become one of the many things at which we will point.

If anyone wants, of knows of somebody who wants, motorcycle or horseback riding gear, please let me know. Until then, we will wait for the man who will hand Bill a few bucks and relieve us of the motorcycle, making another big step in our house cleaning.

Before I knew it, the day was over and I hadn’t written a blog. Please enjoy this post from June 2020. It’s always interesting to me to see what was catching my attention in the middle of the pandemic.

I don’t have a bucket list. In fact, nobody had a bucket list before 2007 when the movie The Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman was released. Suddenly everybody has a bucket list.

But not me, because most of the things I would put on a bucket list are things I will never do in a million years. I might offhandedly say, “Wait, what? You’re going to safari in Africa? That’s on my bucket list.” The truth, however, is that I will never go to Africa. I’m not saying that with any kind of sadness; however, the way my life has laid itself out almost certainly precludes a trip to Africa.

Late last year, I watched a series on PBS about the development of country music. One of the episodes featured in the series focused on bluegrass music. I love bluegrass music. In that episode, they showed a number of people — mostly women — playing the dulcimer. I believe I said out loud to myself, “Learning to play the mountain dulcimer is on my bucket list.”

Learning to play the dulcimer, my friends, is another thing that I can’t actually put on a bucket list. I will never learn to play the mountain dulcimer, for a number of reasons. When I looked up dulcimer on Wikipedia, it described it as a fretted string instrument of the zither family. Well, I had no idea what the zither family is, so I looked that up on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, the word zither has historically been applied to any instrument of the cittern family.

At that point, I stopped. I didn’t bother to investigate what in the hell the cittern family is. Especially when I read that the word guitar is derived from the word cittern. Huh?

Not knowing where to even find a mountain dulcimer, or someone who provides dulcimer lessons, sealed the deal. I will have to be satisfied with five years of piano lessons. I don’t think the piano is in either the cittern or the zither family.

Another activity that I believe I have thought might be on my bucket list is learning to water ski. Let’s analyze this bucket list item. I can’t swim. I can’t even tread water. My niece Jessie told me that her dog EDI can’t swim. Seriously, I thought all dogs could instinctively swim. Not EDI. Jessie says EDI isn’t buoyant and promptly sinks. EDI and I have that in common. I, too, promptly sink. It isn’t that people haven’t tried to convince me to learn to swim. Many have, and many have failed. I’m not buoyant.

Nevertheless, I think it would be fun to water ski. I tried once, when I was in high school. We had a cabin on a lake, and our neighbors had a speed boat. They spent weekends water skiing. One Sunday, they asked me if I wanted to learn to water ski. Inexplicably, I said yes. Even more inexplicably, my parents — both who knew I couldn’t swim — said, “Great idea! Have at it.”

The neighbors put a life jacket on me, dropped me in the water on a pair of water skis, and took off. It should come as no surprise that I fell within seconds. Unexpectedly, however, the life jacket slipped off of me immediately, and I began to sink, just like EDI. Thank you to God, who gave me the good sense to grab onto a ski which held me up until the neighbors swung around and picked me up.

“Want to try again?” they asked cheerfully. Oh. Hell. No. Mom and Dad didn’t even get up from their lawn chairs.

Perhaps if I ever decide to have a bucket list, it should contain activities at which I might actually succeed. Making the best whiskey sour. Baking the perfect loaf of bread. Making a lasagna without looking at a recipe.

It’s all a matter of perspective.