There Is A Voice Inside Of You
That Whispers All Day Long,
"I Feel That This Is Right For Me,
I Know That This Is Wrong."
No Teacher, Preacher, Parent, Friend
Or Wise Man Can Decide
What's Right For You--Just Lisen To
The Voice That Speaks Inside.
--Shel Silverstein
Everybody who goes to the Y in the morning is old. I don't mean the nobody-in-their-right-mind-should-even-be-awake-yet time of the morning. I mean the slept-in-had-a-cup-of-coffee-and-read-the-paper time of the morning.
Old people at the Y love to play pickle ball. They are crazy for pickle ball. There are benches of old geezers sitting in the gym just waiting for their turn to play pickle ball.
Until three short weeks ago I did not even know what pickle ball was.
I do not want to play pickle ball now.
When I play pickle ball I will know I am really old.
Having more time doesn't mean I clean more often.
Everybody who goes to the dog park during the daytime is old.
The dog park is to old geezers what the bar scene is to the young.
I’ll bet you didn’t know Dean and I can communicate without uttering a word. We can. That’s what happens after you’ve been married longer than you’ve been alive ... or maybe it just feels that way. Anyway, one of the things that happens when you've been married as long as we have is that you know what the other one is thinking without them saying a word. That’s why when Dean says “Ah!” I know he’s spilled a hunk of meat or some other chunky type of easily removed food on his shirt. (I'm not sure how to write the Ah! other than to say you should be pronouncing the A the same as in cat but also down in your throat; say it out loud now … Ah! Got it?) When Dean says “AAAAhhhhhh!” I know he’s spilled some tomato sauce or salsa, or something that will require soaking, on his shirt. When he says “AAhhh! … come here Shadow,” I know he’s spilled something on the kitchen floor while he’s cooking. When he says “AAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!” I know what he’s spilled is even too much for Shadow to handle and I’ll be wiping down cupboards and mopping the kitchen floor.
So today, while I was cleaning the house, vacuuming up the cat fur, dog fur, flakes of dry skin (which increase exponentially when winter strikes) and other miscellaneous chunks of dirt, and I yelled, “AhhhhhOhhhhhhhhh!!!!” really loud (pronounced just like it’s written) our nonverbal communicative skills told him exactly what I was saying. “Suck up your earring?” Well, nonverbal communicative skills and the fact that earlier I had said to him “I really hope I find my earring today.”
I’d been searching for my earring since we’d gotten home from Edinburgh. It was one of my favorite pairs of earrings and I’d worn them every day we were there. When I got home, after 11 hours of flying and a four hour drive home, as I walked through the kitchen on my way to the bedroom, I took off the earrings and laid them on the kitchen counter. Why? Who knows. I blame jetlag. I could have easily worn them 15 seconds longer and taken them off in the bedroom and put them away but I didn’t.
The next morning, when I got up, only one earring remained on the counter. Apparently the kitties thought I’d brought them a shiny new toy. They probably felt they deserved it because they didn't have as many toys as they used to. I'd been noticing some of their toys had gone missing but I figured they’d just gotten thrown into the bins of toys we keep for the grandkids. If I’d been a little less lazy and looked for those toys earlier, there might have been other things on the counter more tempting to them than my earring. Come on, don’t wrinkle your nose. You know your cats are also walking around on the kitchen counter, sleeping on the kitchen table, and licking the butter. Maybe your cats are sneaky and don’t do it when you’re around, but you know that cat fur in the butter had to get there somehow.
I looked everywhere I could think of for that earring ― under the rugs, under the bed, under the couch. I even pulled out the refrigerator. I half expected to see it fall out of the sheets when I did the laundry last weekend because we regularly wake up with kitty toys under the blanket ― but no earring.
So, I decided while I was cleaning the house today I would also inspect and vacuum all the hot air registers in the floor just in case while they were playing floor hockey with my earring, it slipped down the grate. I stuck my nose down 11 holes in the floor searching for a silver earring and then listened carefully for a rattle in case I sucked it up with over a year’s worth of dead spiders, fur balls and grit. No earring. I knew it had to be somewhere because it had not appeared in the kitty litter ― not yet anyway.
As I was cleaning our bedroom floor I decided to move the dresser away from the wall, just in case my earring was hiding there. I didn't find my earring, but I did find the mother-load of kitty toys.
Turns out searching the toy bins for kitty toys wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, and if it wasn’t for my missing earring we wouldn’t have clean hot air registers which I’m sure will keep us much healthier this winter because we won’t be breathing in all the small particles of fur and skin that would have been blowing out of the vents, so we’ll be able to do more skiing, which will make us even more healthy and fit, which will give me more energy, so I might feel like cleaning the vents more often, and cleaning under the dresser more often, and hey … do you think the kitties hid my earring on purpose so I’d do a better job of cleaning and find their toys?
Anyway, I pulled out the toys and swept the pile of dirt over into another growing pile of dust and dirt so I could vacuum it up. Somehow during all this sweeping I unknowingly swept up my earring. I think it must have been so covered in fur balls that I didn’t see it until just before I moved the nozzle of the vacuum in front of it and swwwoooooped it up. The good thing is it was just a little too heavy to make it all the way to the bag but was lying in that place where the bag attaches to the vacuum so I didn’t have to sit outside on a snow-covered deck sorting through all the dead spiders and dead skin and fur and really, really gross stuff I’d been vacuuming up.
And now the kitties think it’s Christmas, I have my earring back and everything is peaceful. At least until the kitties learn to open drawers with their tiny little teeth ...
or I hear “AAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!” from the kitchen and I have to dig out the mop again.
It's always a challenge to think of new things to do with my Dad when he comes for his yearly visit. After 30 plus trips out here, it's getting harder to find something he hasn't seen or done yet. And even though it's hard to imagine anything more interesting and stimulating than just hanging out with me, I feel I should make the effort to give him an alternate choice. Once again this year I amazed even myself with what I came up with.
It had been raining for days before he arrived, so the first day he was here we drove him out to see the rising river and allowed him to stand in the gentle rain (which softened his snowy white hair) and watch his breath form delicate clouds each time he breathed out.
As we were viewing the nearly flood-stage river, a train load of wind turbine blades went by.
Ever since they showed up on the horizon I’ve wanted to see the wind turbines up close and personal, so I took that trainload of blades as a sign that it was time to do it. I figured my dad would want to also. I felt pretty proud that my Dad thought I was a good enough photographer to take all the pictures.
Or hmmm, maybe he just thought the rain had softened his hair enough by then.
I couldn't believe it when he mentioned to me that in his 79 years and 348 days of life, he had never been to a rodeo. 30 plus trips to WYOMING, the COWBOY state, and we’d never taken him to a rodeo?! How did that happen? It just so happened that the College National Finals Rodeo was being held here...another sign. So the second day of his visit we picked up the grandkids, and make a beeline for the rodeo. I volunteered to stand in the ticket line, in the rain, but I think my dad felt his hair needed to be softened again because he said he would do it. So he waited, in the rain, at the end of a fifty foot line of wrangler jeans, cowboy hats, and pointy-toed cowboy boots while the kids and I huddled under an overhang, waiting. After ten minutes of watching the line go nowhere I figured his hair was soft enough so I called him over and told him we were going to do something even more fun than sit in seats with no leg room, peering over ten-gallon hats.
We went to the movies! Five bags of popcorn, four boxes of candy and four drinks later we were settled in. An hour and a half later we emerged with popcorn bits down our front and decreased hearing, but we were dry.
The one thing Dad is guaranteed to do when he visits is take a trip to the mall. Normally my dad likes to buy a coat. The only person I know who has more coats than my dad is Abby. Hey...........wait a minute.........is coat-buying ... genetic? But this time he surprised me and bought an iPod Touch. Yes, even though he is older than dirt, he is rippin’ cds, surfin’ in a tiny window and his e-mails are "sent from my ipod."
His last day here we decided to attempt the rodeo again and this time there was no line. We got our tickets, found some good rodeo watchin’ seats and settled in. It wasn’t long til I realized Dad and I probably should have tried harder to fit into the cowboy crowd. I do have boots but they definitely don't look like these.
And I didn't wear them anyway.
I don’t think I could make my hair do this even if I wanted to.
Dad did have a white hat but not like these.
I guess these guys didn’t get the memo. "White after Memorial Day, guys."
The local newspaper had been interviewing rodeo participants and one of the questions they would ask was “what is your least favorite college class?” One cowgirl said her least favorite class was Geology because “rocks are boring.”(I ... am .... not .... laughing ... trying not ..... to ........snort). One cowboy answered “English. I already speak it, so I shouldn’t have to learn it.” His future plan was to “own bulls, get married, and start a family.”
Seriously, cowboy? You don’t think you might need to be able to read the fine print in the sales agreement you’re going to sign when you buy those bulls…or write your own sales agreement if you want to sell the bulls you raised? Or gosh, maybe after you’ve done this
or this
one too many times, you might need to write a resume to get a job that doesn't require you to beat your body to a pulp. You might have to sit at a desk and write memos and reports so you can feed that family you want to start. Think you’ll wish you would have learned it then? I think it would be kinda funny if that cowboy and cowgirl got married and raised a child who learned to love geology and rock collecting through hours of practicing words for the spelling bee.
After the rodeo we took our inappropriately dressed bodies to Leslie and Ryan's and helped Pierce celebrate his third birthday. This celebration involved some pool time, a treasure hunt for a present, cake and ice cream and kite flying. For more birthday photos you can go here.
The next morning Dad headed home. I’m sure he was tired but his hair was soft. Don't worry Dad. I'm working on activities for your next visit.......that kite flying gave me an idea ... how are you with hot air balloons ... ?◦
