Aging Gracefully – THE SPECTACLED BEAN

Self-awareness 101: If I Tell You I’m Doing Nothing, This Is What I Mean

OH MY. Cognitive dissonance. I got it.

The other day I realized that I’ve been saying something that’s not necessarily true.

Yes, that would be me, the one known for telling the truth no matter what.

You see, I keep saying that during these last few months of low-key blogging, aka my Summer Hours, I’ve been doing nothing.

That I’ve been a slug, first class, with honors.

That’s what I tell everyone.

BUT the reality is I’ve been doing many, many things behind the scene here in Chez Bean. Things that are decidedly not interesting or exciting or worthy of a blog post.

And that last point, I realized in a moment of self-awareness, is how I divide my life now.

After all these years of writing a personal blog.

For the heck of it.

TO WIT, there are personal stories, or topics, that go into this blog and there are personal stories, or topics, that aren’t worth the time to muse upon, let alone type onto this virtual page.

I wish I could tell you that I knew when I started to divide the events in my life thusly, but I cannot.

I just know that’s how I do things.

Now.

And that when I say I’m doing nothing I mean: I’m doing nothing that would interest you so I won’t even mention it.

While Spring Rain Falls, Musing On How I Feel Now

A prismatic spectrum of colors resulting from last weekend’s sun shining through beveled glass onto neutral chair fabric. Cool huh?

What a wet week it has been so far.

After a lovely sunny weekend that suggested Summer was here, we’ve been inundated with rain. Constantly. The kind of rain that brings flash floods.

Spring is back and says *HA!* fooled you, sucker.

My gardening projects are on hold because I don’t do mud.

Plus I’m a mellow woman so I’ll get to weeding + planting + trimming in due time. It’s not like the flower beds are going anywhere. Even with the threat of flash floods I think our yard is safe. It won’t be washed away.

Thus instead of being outside in the garden I’ve been sitting inside our screened-in porch observing the weather, watching the gray sky above, noticing the monotony of falling rain. This has put me into a contemplative mood about these last few months.

The great pause, as many are calling it.

These long days during which many of us are not doing what we thought we would be doing this Spring.

I find it trippy to realize that everything in society is being transformed around me while I sit at home waiting to see how these changes will affect me and my relationships and my lifestyle.

This colorful and smart graphic clearly demonstrates all the feelings I’ve gone through in these last few months. You too? [Click on graphic to go to source.]

On the one hand I feel completely insignificant. Passive, even. Just waiting, twiddling my thumbs.

However on the other hand I feel *hell to the yes* I’m doing something. I’m actively holding it together in the middle of a pandemic. I’m demonstrating a bit of grace + tact + cooperation while feeling wistful about, but not dwelling on, what was normal.

A normal we’ll never see again.

I accept that life is different now, but what I think it means for me, how I feel about it? Well, my feelings are all over the place while the hours pass and I muse a little more.

Waiting to get into the garden, and my life, again.

~ ~ • ~ ~

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

How are you feeling about these last few months?

Do you find yourself going back and forth, up and down, hither and yon with your feelings?

How do you hope to feel in the future?

~ ~ • ~ ~

Talking About Gratitude: Micheal Miller Has Good Manners

Micheal Miller works for the dry cleaner/laundry service that we use. He drives the van to pick up then return Z-D’s dress shirts once they are clean and pressed with light starch. Nice guy, very reliable.

It’s my habit at the holidays to give a monetary tip to our laundry driver guy, who this year happens to be Micheal Miller. Thus I did that two weeks ago.

• • •

Growing up I was the child of older conservative parents and was taught that one must always send a written thank you note to the gift giver upon receipt of a gift. This concept of proper behavior was ingrained in me to such a degree that for a few decades I judged people harshly who didn’t send a written thank you note.

It seemed like a slap in the face to me. Disrespectful, even.

Of course over the years society has morphed away from Emily Post expectations plus I’ve grown more forgiving. I don’t hold myself or other people to the high standards of my childhood. In fact, I’ve come to reevaluate what matters to me when I give a gift to anyone for whatever reason.

I’ve decided that I like the giving part more than the being thanked part. I do what I do because I think it’s important to do so, not so I will receive a written thank you note.

• • •

Still, when I found a written thank you note pinned to an empty laundry bag hanging from the hook by the door on our front stoop, I was pleased to see it and said out loud to myself: “Micheal Miller has good manners.”

It was a sincere spontaneous remark. A blessing even.

One that put me in a happy place for the rest of the day as I mused on what seemed to me to be a random act of kindness, a throwback to a different era when a written thank you note was the done thing.

Such as this handwritten message of gratitude scribbled on a piece of paper by an almost stranger.

Who I appreciate very much.

Bugged In The Burbs: 3 Things Of Note + My Astute Conclusions About Each

A garden rose with a bug on one petal. The perfect image to go with a post about small irritating things that have bugged me. *N’est-ce pas?*

~ ~ • ~ ~

THE FIRST NOTABLE THING

I GOT A TEXT MESSAGE FROM SOMEONE UNKOWN to me. The message said:

“Hi Jim

Now that the mortar has had time to cure we would like to finish the cleaning of the brick on Monday

Roger”

Being a conscientious person I replied:

“Not Jim here. Good luck with your project”

Roger, who knows how to write clearly as evidenced by his [what I assume to be] erroneous text message to me, has not responded to my succinct polite response. Not even a one-word three-letter *thx* has Roger typed my way.

CONCLUSION? I do not like Roger who is a poopy head. He deserves dirty bricks.

THE SECOND NOTABLE THING

WHILE DRIVING DOWN OUR STREET TO HOME I realized that directly above me, hovering over my open car sunroof, was a medium-sized drone.

I quickly checked my rearview mirrors to see if I could figure who was controlling the drone. I could not, so I did what I thought was best. I looked up briefly, smiled, and waved hello to the drone operator.

I did not give the drone operator the finger, nor did I shut the sunroof. I played along like a kind neighbor, in on the joke, whatever it was.

CONCLUSION? I am a good pre-old person who deserves more praise for such.

THE THIRD NOTABLE THING

AS I WAS WATCHING THE YOUNG CASHIER GUY ring up my order at Kroger, I noticed that he’d made a mistake. He had charged me for .65 lbs of rutabagas instead .65 lbs of zucchinis.

[I don’t know how anyone could confuse zucchini for rutabaga, but he did.]

Now considering the last time I got into a conversation with a young cashier guy about produce and how my pear purchase peeved him [READ FULL STORY HERE], I chose not to say a word about the rutabaga/zucchini mistake.

You understand.

However I realize that rutabagas were $.99/ lb while zucchini were $1.49/ lb meaning that I may owe Kroger $.33 for the zucchini that were more expensive than the rutabagas.

CONCLUSION? I will not lose sleep over this, but wonder how often I get charged the wrong amount for something?

What The Sheriff Saw: A Story About Yours Truly Doing Her Gardening Chores

I want to tell you what happened. I didn’t quite understand what really happened as it happened and it was only after Zen-Den gently walked me to an epiphany that I got what happened.

• • •

THE OTHER MORNING AROUND 9:00 a.m. I decided to water the planters that are on the stoop in front of the house by the front door. I do this using an old Rubbermaid aqua-colored 2 1/4 quarts plastic pitcher whose white lid I lost decades ago.

As I was watering these planters I looked over in the bushes to where we have a medium-sized concrete urn that holds a spike plant. Because it’s been more dry around here than usual the poor spike looked droopy, so I got more water in my repurposed pitcher, now watering can, and stepped into our bushes in front of the windows in front of the house to water the thirsty plant.

I probably should add at this point that I was wearing Stewart plaid flannel jammies, a bright pink fleece jacket, dark teal suede house slippers, and had my curly mess of graying blonde hair pulled up, with a neon orange elastic band, into an off-kilter pineapple-style ponytail on top of my head.

Oh, and I was wearing dark glasses because it was sunny outside.

• • •

THERE’S BEEN A CHIPMUNK hanging around the front of the house all summer and as I was watering the spike I saw it scurry by me on its way to the other side of the front of the house. I do not like the damage that chipmunks can cause so I stopped watering and glared at the little rodent to see where it was going.

And, of course, I yelled a few random death threats at it.

As one does.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling and realized I was not alone. That out on the street in a large black SUV someone was watching me as I stood there.

And who was this person watching me? A sheriff who had happened to notice me as he was driving by. He’d rolled down his passenger side window to get a closer look at me and when I saw him, he waved.

I smiled and waved back while holding up my repurposed pitcher, then started pouring water into the concrete urn to show him I belonged where I was. I wasn’t a burglar hiding in the bushes, I was just the lady of the house doing a chore.

He smiled back, nodded his head, rolled up the window, and went on his way.

• • •

LATER THAT NIGHT I told Z-D what had happened and how funny I thought it was that a sheriff thought I was a miscreant attempting to break into our house.

As if.

Zen-Den listened to my story and conclusion, then quietly suggested that what the sheriff thought he saw probably didn’t register with him as a burglary in progress.

Instead from the sheriff’s perspective what he saw was an addlepated gray-haired senior citizen, perhaps suffering from dementia and jibber-jabbering to herself, wandering around in the bushes in her nightclothes, seemingly confused, while carrying a random kitchen item with her.

And darn it to heck, Zen-Den is right. That’s exactly what the sheriff saw.