and wonder what’s happening? I’m not a keen observer, but some things get my attention.
Going home after work last night saw a pick up truck sitting across the yellow line, partly in traffic lane, partly in middle/turn lane. Blinker on left side was on and the very small woman in the driver’s seat sat there as if she was waiting. But for what? As I went past I checked her out in rearview mirror; she was still setting there. You have to wonder if she needed help, or help was en route, or she was lost? Guess it could’ve been anything.
As part of my job responsibilities for many years, I have attended meetings of a public body. Our office staffs that body for the process of receiving and reviewing applications for permitting. It’s often quite routine and boring. Sometimes there are issues or controversies that are more interesting than the routine stuff. What can be even more curious is watching this board of elected folk interact. Last night we were wondering why someone’s whities were in a knot, why another seemed to have a chip she felt compelled to balance on her shoulder. Everyone was polite; but there was stuff that wasn’t said and other stuff said carefully.
One of the benefits of knowing you’re retiring is not caring a lot about what the folks in the office or on boards and committees, or members of the public, think about something or what they do about it. Not to say none of it matters; some of it’s pretty important. But I can change little or none of it. And shortly I will no longer deal with it. The responsibility will stay in the office and I will go to the house.
Occasionally I have one of those ‘aha’ moments; you know when the answer reveals itself, or you come out of the haze and realize how to fix something. I did NOT have one of those concerning how to stream movies from my Netflix account to my TV. I called my cable provider and the helpful person on the phone explained I could hook up my laptop to the TV with an HDMI cable and I could watch things from my computer on my TV.
That was a mighty simple fix; and then there was an ‘aaaah’ moment when I sat down and watched the first episode of Downton Abbey. It felt good to be able to do it and it really felt good to have the benefit of having done it. Then I added a wireless mouse to the mix and I am, as I texted to a friend, in fat-ass, lazy heaven.
Clearly, when my post-operative eye is healed, when my trigger thumb is better, I must return to water aerobics. It’s the sitting around that’s killing me and being in the water is so much fun. OF course, I could take walks, go use the treadmill, do strength exercises …. list could go on and on. Yet I’m not doing any of that.
Today at the orthopedist, getting a shot in that sore thumb (BOY is that fun!) one of the technicians in the x-ray section looked at the bag I carried and said she had received an identical bag from her son for Mother’s Day. That was interesting since I received this lovely new bag from my son for Mother’s Day. A very nice Vera Bradley, lively print, practical design and size; a nice gift. As she told me she had been instructed by her out-of-town son to go to B & N and ask for a specified person, she revealed that her name is same as mine.
There are coincidences and then there are coincidences. Same name, same gift on same occasion. True that mine arrived in the mail from NYC and she went to B & N for her gift as her Savannah-based son instructed, but it seemed mighty strange. We looked at each other and almost simultaneously hummed the Twilight Zone theme. Then she had to get back to work and I had to have my thumb x-rayed.
A lovely lady I’ve worked with for several years uses the phrase ‘pieces/parts’ discussing computers and their programming. We have to understand the pieces/parts of what we’re doing; we have to put the pieces/parts in correctly and see that they work correctly, etc.
Several of my pieces/parts have needed work: eye, foot, thumb. And this is just the most recent list. I’m glad we don’t get put on the waste heap when a warranty runs out or parts need replacing or fixing. I could be long-gone. BUT I am on the mend following eye surgery that I would never have thought I’d have withstood. Since the eye has to be open for the surgery, I was given drops in that eye that anesthetized it and then I was given a mild drug to relax me and put me not quite under, or in a ‘twilight’ state.
There I lay on a table, flat on my back, eye wide open (they must have taped it open?) staring up into a distant light and the surgeon peeled epithelial layer off my cornea. Not in the least difficult; no physical discomfort. And pretty peculiar. Couple of friends have been uncomfortable with this description; and I think it sounds creepy. But that’s what it was. The shot in the thumb is a more difficult procedure for the patient.
Truth be told, I’m tiring of this process of being examined, poked, prodded, diagnosed and treated. Yes, it’s beneficial to get help. YES, it’s also uncomfortable, costly and sometimes troubling. I come back to a question I’ve asked many times: what would I do if I had really serious problems? And another truth is I am not sure.
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