March On

Forget about the daffodils that are starting to bloom. The real sign of spring is when my landscaper, Pedro, shows up with the mulch. And also when Polar Cub ice cream on Route 22 in Whitehouse opens up for the season, which they did this week! It's 72 degrees today. Can we go to spring, go directly to spring and not revert back to winter? Then I can loosen my ban on ice cream that typically extends until Memorial Day.

My biometrics are not working! When I try to use a fingerprint instead of a password, my phone fails to recognize it. Yes, I cover the whole icon. Yes, I press hard. Yes, I try repeatedly and then resort to the password. Life never gets easier, does it?

No woman in the history of medicine has ever been able to relax when instructed to do so by the gynecologist in the office. Nor can we easily “scoot on down.” Trust me on this.

I had such a good hair day the other day and the only people who saw me were at the car dealership where my car was being serviced. 

Lately I have been having trouble swallowing some of the larger pills that I have to take so I bought a pill splitter and now I understand how a guillotine works. Heads – or, in this case, pills – will roll!

Why do we pronounce licorice as lickorish?

I have so many doctor’s appointments, that recently when I had to show my driver’s license to renew my library card, I inadvertently whipped out my United Healthcare card.

I received a “courtesy call” from a doctor’s office telling me to call the business office. The rep explained that the courtesy call was being made to remind me that I owe them $20. But, I explained, I have not received a bill, so how could they “remind” me about something I didn’t know I had? Can’t you just send me the bill, I asked? She said they would be sending me the bill, and it is also in my portal. But why would I look at the portal if I didn’t know there was something there? I can’t even imagine the money they spent to leave me a message to call the business office, to pay someone to remind me to pay a bill I didn’t know I had, to maintain the website where the mystery bill will appear and so on. I guarantee that the cost of all of this administrative stuff far exceeds the $20 I allegedly owe them!

Who is General Tsao and why do we order his chicken?

I have a handyman named Craig who is scheduled to come over to do some odd jobs. I wrote them all down, so now I have my own Craig’s List.

When I leave my name and number as a voicemail I state the information very slowly. It is not just that I am being considerate so the person can get the information, it is also because it takes me a moment to remember by own number!

Even after 4 years of the pandemic and after countless Zoom calls, there is always that one person on every call who has to be reminded, “YOU’RE ON MUTE!”

I love that my friends know me so well that they just assume I am watching whatever they are watching on TV. I got a 7 AM text recently about a tennis match that, of course, I happened to be watching! Not the first time.

I get alerts about local road conditions, school closings and other area news that might be relevant. But if you live in the Hillsborough-Mongomery-Franklin area, you know that 3 drops of rain are enough to close down the Griggstown Causeway and Blackwell’s Mills Road, both of which are antiquated bridges (Griggstown is a one-way, so drivers have to wait for oncoming traffic to clear) that are barely above the branch of the Raritan River they cross. I wish I had a dime for every message saying they are closed and another dime for the next message, saying they are open again. That would be a lot of dimes!

My indoor-outdoor thermometer died, my TV remote control stopped working so I had to get a new one from Xfinity (yes, I changed the batteries – twice) and I have my new phone and smart watch to learn. My elderly mind can only learn so many devices at one time!

I wonder what the lifespan of a box of Girl Scout Cookies is. How I missed eating the ones in the freezer is a mystery, but they have been there for a year and now I am afraid to open the box. Either I will eat the whole thing and gain weight or I will eat the whole thing and die. Any guesses? Follow-up: I checked on Google and the frozen cookies can be consumed for up to a year. They might lose their quality and taste, but apparently, they won’t kill you. Time to buy fresh ones!

For someone who doesn’t drink coffee, I have an enormous collection of mugs. I use them occasionally for tea and in the winter for hot chocolate, but there are so many that I would never have to use the same one twice. Of course, I have favorites. There’s my high school reunion mug(s), the photo mug I had made for my group of girlfriends as their Christmas gift one year, and mugs that have been given to me or which I have bought in my travels. I have them relatively neatly crammed into a corner cabinet and have even put a shelf in there to hold more. Meanwhile, can I persuade myself to purge some of these? Doubtful.

If a woman can be a mother and a grandmother, why should an aunt have to be a great aunt instead of a GRAND aunt? I feel like GREAT describes how one performs that job, not the position itself.

My dear Mercedes was sideswiped while minding her own business in the parking lot at my local ShopRite. It was a bright, sunny day and she was neatly parked within the designated space. I came out of the store, put my groceries in the trunk and noticed white stuff on the driver’s side door. No dents, but clearly, something had happened. A nice young woman came up to me to report that she had seen the car that hit me, wrote down the license plate as the driver left the scene and had already called the police. Ten minutes later, the nice young officer arrived, checked his computer and quickly identified the driver as someone who lives in a senior complex very nearby. It turns out she is an 87-year-old-woman who lives right near ShopRite. She told him that she did not know she hit my car (if that was the case, why did she pull into the spot and then leave?). My New Jersey Manufacturers insurance kicked in and took care of the whole thing – deductible and all, since the driver and I both have NJM. I had to drive a rented Dodge Charger for the week, a car that had a lot more pep in its step than what I am used to (I think I backed out of the garage doing 40!) while my car was getting a beautiful face lift and body work done by a local shop. I kept referring to the rental as my “Tracy Chapman car,” since it was a FAST car! I wondered if the body shop could do some body work on me while they were at it. They did a fabulous job on the car, which looked like it had been reborn! So, all’s well that ends well, but if you see a little old lady in a white car driving into the parking lot at ShopRite – which I now refer to as “the scene of the crime” – beware!

My nephew is getting married in October to a wonderful young woman that my sister and I adore. The site of the ceremony and reception are set, the hotel block has been reserved, the rehearsal dinner booked and even the “after-party,” which is something these kids cannot do without, is established. The bride has her gown on order and my nephew is deciding on his wardrobe. Now, the hard part: My sister Nancy and I have to pick out “appropriate dresses” to wear. We know the color that the bride’s mother’s is wearing, so my sister needs to pick another color. My sister insists that she needs to wear a dress that is “appropriate,” so that means no bare arms, no plunging necklines and no side slits. The wedding is in October and cocktails might be outside, so my sister wants a dress with sleeves. We might as well try shopping in an Amish store, except that the Amish would make their own dresses. Can we find a dress with sequins AND flannel? We need to find something between “Dresses for Sluts” and “Dowdy Dresses.” She is a very petite petite and I am looking for something to address my more ample figure. We spent President’s Day shopping and felt like we were auditioning for “What NOT to Wear.” Remember, Nancy will be in the family pictures (more so than me), so the dress has to fit, function and photograph well. Stay tuned. Much more to follow as we approach October.