Stand Up For Thyself
Bill has been having a bit more trouble getting up out of the La-Z-Boy recliner we have in our living room. We have talked about getting one of the recliners with the electric mechanism that lifts you out of the chair, but they are very expensive. Yesterday, while checking for our mail, Bill noticed a flyer on the corkboard onto which residents can post things for sale, etc. Someone was selling a very gently used electric recliner for a mere $300. Bill went to look at it, and when he came back, we were the proud owners of said chair. I think it will be very helpful for him. The man does like playing with toys after all. I am not sure what we will do with the chair it is replacing. One day at a time.

Cool Down
We have had some sweet weather as of late. Highs in the low 50s. Unfortunately, the temperatures are supposed to drop — plummet is the word that the weather forecasters used — today. Actually, I’m not sure that plummet is accurate, as the temperatures will be above freezing, or so they predict. Plummet, to me, implies a drastic change, like from mid-50s down to -2 overnight. What do I know? That’s why I’m not a weather forecaster on television. I’m not quite dramatic enough for the job.

Doggone It
I will tell you this much: whether the temperatures are in the mid-70s or the low ‘teens, the doggowners around Wind Crest are faithful and true. When it’s nice outside, the dogs and their humans are out taking long walks, the human wearing a light jacket or heavy sweater. When the temperatures, (ehem) plummet, the humans are wearing stocking caps and heavy coats. Many of the dogs are also wearing sweaters or coats. I even saw a dog wearing little boots one day. I don’t hear much complaining, at least from the humans. The dogs, well, I can’t vouch for them.

Super Sunday
I have been surprised to notice that there are no organized activities for Super Bowl Sunday. I’m sure there will be many ad hoc gatherings and a lot of chicken wings being eaten privately. Bill and I have no plans for Super Bowl Sunday. I guess I should root for the Chiefs because they’re AFC, but I’m not sure I can. Admittedly, Mahomes is an amazing QB. However, the Broncos and the Chiefs are rivals, so I might have to cheer a bit for the Eagles. After all, they haven’t been to a Super Bowl in some time. Still, I can’t seem to forget that the fans booed Santa Claus.

Ciao.

Of all of the roadblocks that Bill has had to face since he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in April 2009, undoubtedly the most difficult one for him to handle has been giving up driving.

I’ve mentioned before that Bill doesn’t complain about having PD. That isn’t true for me; I whine about it all of the time. It isn’t that I have a problem with being his care partner. I take my wedding vows very seriously: for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer in sickness and in health. He would do — and has done — the same thing for me. I just find myself getting frustrated for him.

He is patient when he works on projects that involve handling small objects. I watch him and want to scream. He just patiently powers on. If he drops something, he picks it up. He doesn’t cuss. Much.

“Why don’t you have one of the kids do that for you?” I will ask him when he has been working on something for hours and hours.

“Because I like doing it myself,” he will explain, again and again.

Bill is 80 years old, and has been driving since he was 16. That’s 64 years, friends. (And don’t laugh because I had to use a calculator.) We will be married 31 years in June. For the first 28 years or so of our marriage, he was the primary driver. When we took our road trip through the southern part of the United States, he drove every single mile. When we were on our Big Adventure in Europe, we put 6,000 miles on the car in three months, and he drove every single mile. Not once did I take the wheel.

He likes to drive. At one point in his life, he considered becoming a long-haul truck driver. His parents gasped, and he went to law school instead. I’m glad about that because I likely wouldn’t have met him if he was always on the road driving canned goods and toilet paper to Walmart.

I have been the main driver for a couple of years. I have been the sole driver since one of the doctors he sees told him he shouldn’t drive. The risk of lawsuits is too dangerous.

And then, his neurologist/movement disorder doctor suggested he see a specialist who assesses people’s driving abilities. As you might imagine, I was less than thrilled at the doctor’s suggestion. Still, he told us his goal is to keep his patients as independent as possible for as long as it makes sense. If the woman gives him clearance, why shouldn’t he drive? I saw his point, but I was/am still wary.

Yesterday morning, Bill looked at the forms he had to fill out before the assessment could take place. In the nearly 14 years since his diagnosis, I have never seen him frustrated about anything related to his disease. As he read the forms, he was frustrated. Mad, really. I thought he was going to throw the very expensive iPad I bought him for Christmas across the room.

The questions dealt with the disabilities he has from PD. The forms were going to be sent to someone in the State of Colorado government so that there is a record that he has that ability should he pass the assessment and then have an accident.

I remember that my dad had a very difficult time giving up driving. I don’t know if it’s a Man Thing. For Bill, I think it’s just a clear indication that he is losing control of his life, a little at a time. Damn it.

We will have some serious discussions about this issue. Pray for us.

Yesterday afternoon I had a couple of hours free with nothing to do. Bill was absorbed in watching YouTube videos telling him how to put together and subsequently fly the fancy-dancy drone he recently bought. I finished a puzzle while listening to an Irish lad tell Bill how to fly the drone without crashing it into elderly residents of Wind Crest or taking off several of his own fingers. I actually heard the fellow say something along the lines of, “You really want to be careful to stay away from the [thus and so]. I had an accident when I first got the drone and while I had no lasting damage, I really warn you to be careful.”

I have little doubt that the [thus and so] will be taking us to the Emergency Room at some point.

Anyhoo, dinner was in the refrigerator awaiting time to put it in the oven and I was between books. So I went into our bedroom and turned on the television. The first thing I need to tell you is that the television screen is BIG. When we purchased the new TV for our living room just prior to moving, the store was having a sale: two 55 inch LG televisions for a bargain price. Before I could say NBC, I was the proud owner of two 55 inch televisions. The television works great in the living room. In the bedroom, it’s a bit like sitting in the very front row of a movie theater. I love my husband.

I wasn’t in the mood for any of my British mysteries, but I didn’t want to start a movie. I was browsing around Hulu and discovered that they offer some of the old television programs that I used to love in the 1980s. I was especially interested in Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. I remember watching those programs while feeding my baby.

I started with Hill Street Blues. Man, I remember loving that show. The one-camera photography was new and different. It gave the watcher the feeling of actually being in the squad room of the lower-income area in the unnamed metropolis. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was smoking — cigars, cigarettes, there was even a pipe. The second thing I noticed was that, though it was 1981 and the women’s movement was in full swing, sexism abounded. I cringed when one of the police officers looked down the front of the woman district attorney’s blouse without her doing anything about it but giving a big sigh. Hmm. Then came the scene in which the two police officers answered a domestic call. A woman was threatening to kill her husband because he was having sex with her 16 year old daughter. The man protested, pointing out that his wife didn’t provide satisfaction often enough. The cops calmly explained that the man must — simply MUST — stop sleeping with the teenager. They then told the woman to make herself available to her husband more often.

I changed the channel.

St. Elsewhere was considerably more palatable. I didn’t remember that Howie Mandel was in the cast, playing a light-hearted doctor. I did, however, remember that Denzel Washington was part of the cast. I also remembered how cute the main doctor was, what with his curly hair and all. While Hill Street Blues is history for me, I might actually watch a few more episodes of St. Elsewhere for old times’ sake.

I sat down in my easy chair last evening to watch the 5 o’clock news. One of the lead stories was the shocking news that members of Congress were acting in BIPARTISAN support for a particular issue. I will admit that I was kind of hoping that perhaps the bipartison support was for something along the lines of climate change or immigration or gun control.

Nope. There are apparently bills being offered by both Democrat and Republican members of Congress to ban Tik Tok on our media devices. I’m sure the members of Congress would LOVE to be working on those issues mentioned above, but there are time considerations. There is no time to work on compromises for those issues, People. We have to worry about Tik Tok.

I have no right to opine about Tik Tok. I know the term. I know some people (eh-hem, Trump and Musk) have been in the news because of Tik Tok. But to me, Tik Tok is the sound that our clock in the living room makes, driving my sister Jen CRAZY from the noise when she stays with us. To hear her talk, it’s like Big Ben is keeping her awake.

I don’t use Tik Tok. In fact, I don’t use many kinds of social media. I check my Instagram every night to find out what my grands and my great-nieces and -nephews are up to. I check my Facebook every night to see what all the Baby Boomers in my life are up to. The only social medium to which I could declare an addiction is Pinterest. I check Pinterest often to find out if they still think I need to know how to build a chicken coop.

Tik Tok is apparently quite addictive. I know this because our eldest grandchild Adelaide, who is the most organized and serious person I know told me once that she has to set her Tik Tok on a timer because once she gets on the app, she loses complete track of time. It might be hard for me to imagine that, except that I am that when it comes to putting together a puzzle. I can sit down at the table after lunch, and before you know it, it’s dinnertime.

As I understand it, you watch short videos on Tik Tok. You “like” them or “not like” them. The algorhythm used by Tik Tok then decides what to feed you. A friend of mine told me when she started using Tik Tok, it didn’t take much “liking” and “not liking” before she was getting nothing but videos of dogs.

For me, it would be videos of toddlers doing adorable things that I am sure are being edited and photoshopped by parents, but nevertheless, make me smile.

Or Prince William and Princess Kate.

The moral to this story, of course, is don’t you wish that the fact that Democrats and Republicans are working together on an issue didn’t have to be so shocking?

My sister Bec’s grandkids are not fussy eaters, but they like what they like. Her grandson, for example, will eat hot shrimp, but not cold shrimp. When her granddaughter goes to Subway, she orders (and LOVES) turkey on a white roll. Period. No mustard. No cheese. No mayo. Just turkey and bread.

Their family took Bec out for dinner for her birthday to a Cajun place in Mesa that we all like very much. The food is delicious and they entertain guests with a old man playing blues guitar. Knowing that her granddaughter doesn’t like any kind of seafood, Bec asked her as they were driving to the restaurant, “So, you’re probably going to have a tough time finding something you will eat, huh?” Her granddaugher responded, “Nope. I looked at the menu before we left, and I know what I’m going to get.”

Her choice? Gator bites. This girl who won’t put cheese on her sandwich has no qualms about eating alligator. Go figure. I laughed and laughed when Bec told me this story.

Have a great weekend.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old
Yesterday morning, I had breakfast with one of my neighbors from our Olive Street house. I have spoken of her before. She lived right next door to Bill and me for the entire time we lived there. Many years ago, we took down the fence that separated our two houses, fully intending to pay someone to build a new fence. Weeks went by, then months. Finally, we all decided it wasn’t necessary to have a fence at all. Both of our yards were nicely kept. Neither of us had dogs. She liked hearing and watching our grandkids play. Surprisingly, the new residents of our house haven’t mentioned the notion of building a fence. Maybe we started a new trend. It was nice to catch up on neighborhood news. I’m happy to be making new friends, but I really want to hold on to our hold friends as well.

Great Ball of Fire
After days and days of cold temperatures, intermittent snow, and gray skies, a great big yellow ball finally appeared in the sky Tuesday afternoon. The temperature yesterday was in the high 40s, and is supposed to reach almost 50 by the end of the week. Even better, sunshine is expected all week as well. For the past weeks, as people passed us in the hallway, there were comments like cold enough for ya. Tuesday afternoon, there was a nearly universal sigh of relief. Isn’t it so nice to see the sun is the comment we heard the most often in the hallways.

I’ve Seen the Light
One of the things that wasn’t included in our apartment was ceiling light fixtures. Yep. There are just bare bulbs on the ceilings of our living room and both bedrooms. In my own hillbilly way, it’s taken me four months to finally get around to purchasing some light fixtures from Wayfair. The light fixtures for the living room arrived yesterday, and the fixture for the guest room and the fan/light for our bedroom should arrive Saturday. The best news of all is that Bill doesn’t have to install them. A simple call to schedule someone from our maintenance service and we will have someone installing our fixtures shortly.

The Heat is On
I don’t know if this is a national problem, but the cost of energy in Colorado has skyrocketed. There’s probably a reason for this, but quite frankly, since our gas and electric costs are include in our set monthly fee, I have really paid attention to the news about the rising price of staying warm. The woman with whom I had breakfast told me that her December bill was 200-some. Her January bill was $550. Yoiks. Stay warm, everybody. But not too warm.

Ciao.

I watch a lot of television shows that involve police investigations. I also read a lot of mysteries. I think it’s safe to say that 90 percent of those shows and books involving detectives investigating crimes have had a conversation like this:

Detective Hot Shot: After you get me my coffee, tell me what you’ve learned in our case, Sgt. Flunkee.

Sgt. Flunkee: Black with three sugars, right H.S.?, as he puts the coffee mug in front of his boss.

Hot Shot: Two, but we’ll let it go this time. So what do you have?

Flunkee: Well, it turns out that the victim, Mary Elizabeth, and the funeral parlor owner, who, as you know, we suspect of killing Mary Elizabeth, went to school together in Podunk, S.D. He was the captain of the football team, and she was the towel girl. They were going steady. Then, Mary Elizabeth learned that he was cheating on her with the head cheerleader. She vowed revenge. They didn’t see each other again until 10 years later, when they both ended up living here in Corncob, Nebraska. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it, especially since she ended up being murdered, and her body was discovered behind the funeral home?

Hot Shot: I DON’T BELIEVE IN COINCIDENCES.

For the most part, even though I’m not a police detective and I don’t use sugar in my coffee, I mostly don’t believe in coincidences either. Still, I believe that they do happen on occasion. At dinner the other night, our friend told us a story about coincidences that made me gasp, and then smile.

It seems up until a few years ago when he went to heaven, one of the Wind Crest residents was a 102-year-old man. He was an Army veteran of World War II. While serving, he was shot down from his airplane and placed in a POW camp somewhere in Germany. When he was a few years younger, he met another new resident, a fellow who was about his age. The two men struck up a conversation. In the course of this conversation, the man mentioned to the new resident that he had been a fighter pilot in World War II. The other man said, “Wow. I was also a fighter pilot in World War II.” The first guy tells the second guy that he had been shot down and spent several years in a German prison camp. The second guy said, “My plane was also shot down, and I was also a POW in Germany.

You can see where this story is going. It turns out the two men were in the same POW camp in Germany at the same time. Both men survived, obviously, but lived the entire rest of their lives — up until moving to Wind Crest — in two different states.

Co-inky-dinky.

As an aside, when the man was 102 years old, he was nominated to serve as the honorary captain of the annual Wind Crest car parade held on the Fourth of July. He accepted, but expressed his puzzlement at why he was selected.

Perhaps because you are 102 years old, one of the last remaining veterans of World War II, and survived several years as a POW in Germany.

They don’t make them like that anymore.

Sunday night, the temperature dipped to 4 degrees below zero in the Denver metro area. Yesterday the high temperature was a whopping 10 degrees above zero. It’s too cold to snow, though there was a trace of snow on my windshield yesterday when Bill and I set out to meet with our CPA. We got home around 3, and hunkered down for the night. Bill’s dentist appointment was cancelled so my plans today are to stay warm and cozy and not venture outside.

It’s not surprising that it’s particularly cold and snowy this winter. The weather forecasters have been telling us that because it’s another la nina year, northern Colorado will have a long winter’s nap, cold- and snow-wise. Still, I’m glad I don’t have to trudge off to the office when it’s this cold.

We left for AZ a couple of days after Christmas, so the little shelf outside our door that everyone decorates still held my (and everyone else’s) Christmas decorations. I’m sure I was the talk of WC because I left my reindeer and snowy trees up until we returned in mid-January. As I suspected, Christmas was dead to all the residents who decorate their shelves (which, as much as I can tell, is nearly everyone). What surprised me was that the WC residents go from Christmas directly to spring without passing Go and without collecting 200 bucks. Despite the cold temperatures, spring is busting out all over Wind Crest. There are brightly colored wreaths on the doors and yellow and purple and red tulips cheerfully adorning the shelves. It’s springtime in the WC Rockies.

Not for me, however. Since we are going to be here until the day after Valentine’s Day, I went red hearts All The Way.

I brought out my little porcelain truck from the closet, removed the pumpkins from its bed, and inserted wooden hearts and fluffy red balls where there had been pumpkins. Even Bill commented, “Aha, I see the truck is going to be our theme.”

Hell yes it is. It will be hauling tulips in the springtime, American flags in July, tomatoes and acorn squashes in August and September, and back to pumpkins in October.

Of course, the problem is that we are flying back to AZ on February 15, which means I have to prepare my nook for spring before we go. However, while it may offend my sensibilities, it clearly won’t offend the other residents who have had their spring decorations up since there were still reindeer footprints on the roofs.

These, my friends, are the serious issues that face us each day. Life is good.