Mid-Summer Musings

My Amazon Echo (Alexa) is very accommodating when it comes to playing music or sounds to help me sleep.  But judging how badly I am sleeping these days – unless I am at the movies – I wonder if I can ask her to play sounds of people munching on popcorn, coughing and opening candy wrappers.  Those sounds seem to put me to sleep.

Exactly 10 days after I get a haircut, my hair looks perfect.  Sometimes this even extends to the 11th day.  On any other day, I vacillate between “It’s too long but maybe I should let it grow” and “I need a haircut RIGHT THIS MINUTE!”

Sometimes I think to myself, “If it were up to me,” and then I realize that whatever it is IS up to me.

I think that after coming back from a three-mile walk in the heat, dripping with sweat under my lip like Richard Nixon, it’s only fair that I should lose 6 pounds.  Just sayin’.

If only dieting were a losing proposition, but it has so many ups and downs.

You know when you ask for directions and you listen carefully and nod knowingly but you are sure that after that first right you’re probably going to forget everything you just heard and will have to ask the next person for further directions?  Yeah, that’s me.

I recently hooked up a new, 75-foot stainless steel hose that is supposed to be kink-proof and which has a lifetime warranty.  I give it two weeks.  The hose it replaced must have been guaranteed to kink, because it did – constantly!

If I ever post a picture of a gnome or a fake deer in my yard, please understand that this is code to let you know I am being held hostage and you need to come and rescue me.

Today I heard Martha & the Vandellas (parenthetically, exactly WHAT is a Vendella???) singing “Come And Take These Memories” and sang right along, recalling every word.  But I don’t remember what I had for lunch. 

There’s one reason that I like the song “Baby Come Back” by the Ohio Players (one-hit wonder?).  That’s because of this line: “All day long, wearing a mask of false bravado.”  Anyone who can work the word bravado into a song lyric gets my admiration.

I also love the Eagles song “Best of My Love” because of this line:  “Every morning, I wake up and worry, what’s gonna happen today.”  I can identify with that thinking.

And speaking of song lyrics that I admire, let’s look at Gladys Knight’s “If I Were Your Woman.”  Start with the title, which appropriately uses the subjective “were” instead of the more common – and incorrect – “was.”  And then there is a line which I swear makes Gladys sound Jewish.  She sings,
“You're like a diamond,
But she treats you like glass
Yet you beg her to love you
But me, you don't ask.” 
If that doesn’t sound like Sylvia Gordon herself – “But me, you don’t ask” – nothing does!

FACT:  If your clothes that need ironing hang around long enough, they eventually look better to you and you will wear them without ironing them.

On those occasions when I have to open a bottle of champagne or Prosecco, I can almost hear Ralphie’s mother from “A Christmas Story” saying, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”

As my dear friend Flora points out, wishing someone a “belated birthday” makes no sense.  The birthday has come and gone.  It wasn’t belated.  It took place right on schedule.  It is your birthday wishes that are belated. 

I recently killed a fly with my bare hands.  I really didn't think my reflexes were that good.  I'm not sure whether to be proud of myself or disgusted.

When you buy stamps, do you care what they look like?  I found some “Love” stamps in the drawer and just couldn’t bring myself to use them to pay my dentist bill (there are still some bills I pay by check).  I went out and bought a book of the generic “Forever” stamps so I could use the Love stamps on birthday cards.  The things I take time to consider could drive me crazy!

I recently left this typewritten note to my mail carrier:  “Dear Mail Carrier:  Please do not cram a bright orange envelope from Shutterfly into my mailbox.  It contains photographs, and if they get bent, they will be ruined.  Thank you.”  I taped the note to my mailbox and slipped a $5 bill inside.  When I checked my mail later that day, it was gone.  The next day I found a bright orange envelope from Shutterfly crammed into my mailbox (luckily, everything was perfectly packed).  So much for that strategy.

I go to water aerobics three times a week and afterwards, our group plays volleyball in the pool.  Not only is this athletically rewarding, but the conversations are hilarious.  Most are centered around food.  One woman recently professed her love for powdered mashed potatoes, which she insists have improved since they were introduced years ago.  She likes to eat them with stuffing and cranberry sauce, and even suggested that she would love them as a sandwich.  I couldn’t help pointing out that she was just missing turkey, but she’d rather do a carb overload than consume meat -- except for the ham sandwich she eats every morning before she comes to the pool.  I’m not sure this makes any sense to most of us, but we all have our idiosyncrasies, don’t we?  We also have profound discussions about important issues.  For example, if you are retired and you travel, can you call your trip a vacation?  If you don’t work, do you get a vacation? 

I find myself relying more than ever on closed captioning when I watch television.  First, people mumble.  My BFF says she and her husband will hit the replay button 3 times to see if they can understand the dialog, and, if they can’t, they just move on.  I get that.  Second, if I am watching people with British accents, I NEED closed captioning, because I could replay a scene 10 times and still not understand what they are saying.  Half of the time I’m reading the dialog just because it is easier to read than to listen.

I live in an “active adult” community, which means everyone here is at least 55 but not dead yet.  There are more than 1500 people here, and I swear half of the women are named Anne or Barbara.

When the people in this community go to the pool, no one swims.  They stand in the pool, chatting.  Oh, a few bring “noodles” into the pool and occasionally float a bit, but mainly they chat.  And they all wear hats and sunglasses, both men and women.  The only difference is that while the men wear baseball caps, the women wear all kinds of hats, visors, sombreros – and way too many have been bedazzled. 

This is also the land of OPDS – Old People Driving Slowly.  The exceptions are the few rebels who refuse to obey the community stop signs.  The township has no control over our streets, and, apparently, neither do we, since some people adamantly refuse to stop.  Not that there is exactly a drag strip here, since we are populated by OPDS.  Nevertheless, the failure to adhere to the simple stop command has forced the Board to announce we will soon be subjected to the installation of “speed bumps.”  This decision was met with many comments by residents who think they will slow down ambulances (again, this IS a 55+ community), interfere with snow plows and, generally, slow people down.  Isn’t that the point?