Wandering With Spirit

OVERHEATED

Evidently I wasn’t thinking. Sadly that is happening more and more often to me. I often go shopping and forget what I intended to bring with me — water, a blouse. I have walked out of the house without my car keys and my purse. These days because of Covid 19, I forget my mask. Thankfully I usually have my phone — which contains a listing of the stuff I wanted to buy.

It was a lovely morning — I had been sitting on the front porch watching life go by — cars, bikes, trucks, people pushing strollers and walking dogs. I had noticed the debris collecting on our porch steps. Getting a broom, I was amazed at the dirt that covered the porch. So much dust, that I swept the whole deck as well as the stairs.

Where did my energy come from? Our downstairs floor needed to be swept and vacuumed. Getting out the vacuum I started the process. First the foyer floor. Then part of the stairs — only to the first landing. Proceeding on the hallway — then to the front room. And the phone rang. I explained to the person calling that I didn’t have time to talk. I needed to get the job done while I still had the energy. Front room finished — on to the middle room. The vacuum cleaner came apart. GRUMBLE, grumble, Grumble.

Back together again. Somehow I hit the button and the electric turned off. The part that worked on the rugs wasn’t getting up the assorted bits and pieces. I put the floor cleaner back on. Vacuuming the bathroom, it fell apart again.

Too stubborn to give up — I continued into the dining room, then the kitchen.

By this time my knees were yelling. I HAD TO SIT DOWN . ONCE UPON A TIME IT WAS NOTHING FOR ME TO VACUUM THE WHOLE DOWNSTAIRS. But that was once upon a time. The temperature in the house was close to 90. I OVERHEATED. Things occurred to delay me or cause me to stop. I IGNORED THEM DIDN’T I MENTION THAT I’M STUBBORN.

BOTTLE DAY

Warm weather, sunshine, gentle breeze — it was the kind of day to be put in a bottle and treasure. I planned to go shopping! First stop — Trader Joe’s. I have a truck tire in the back yard that I have used for growing herbs. This year it contained tall, growing weeds. I debated buying some plants but was undecided. Would I be in town enough to use them?

Question was answered as soon as I walked into the store. I saw pots of plants for sale: basil, thyme, rosemary and parsley. The plants I always used. It was a perfect day to plant. I found everything on my list at the store. I had arrived during senior hours. Tents were set up outside. When I asked what was going on sale under the tents I learned they were set up for the line that would soon be forming to go shopping. Rope stretched from shopping cart to shopping cart — to keep the lines from going around the building and into the street.

Next stop Costco. NO LINES TO GET GAS. UNUSUAL! Still senior hours when I entered the store. Sandals had arrived. They were the style I bought two years ago which were very comfortable and wore well. They also had everything on my list PLUS GROUND BEEF CHUBS. Frozen ground beef had been missing since March. Whole chickens were in stock. I was extremely pleased when I cooked a whole chicken in the pressure cooker. Not only did it have a good flavor and was very moist. It was lower in sodium which is very important to me. They even had toilet paper.

Driving home in very light traffic I reflected on the lovely shopping spree I had. That is when I noticed the date — it was my mother’s birthday. Thank you Mom!

I pulled up a plastic chair to sit on when I did the weeding. I brought out a cane in case it was needed. I also brought out an empty cooler to sit on to weed. Sitting on the cooler, I toppled over. Thankfully I tipped rather than fell — but I had a challenging time getting back up. The chair worked much better. It supported my body — the arms gave me leverage to stand.

I’ll have to try a folding chair with arms at the camper — it might help me to safely weed. Finding a place to put it in the garden might be a challenge. How many plants do I want to crush?

SANDALS

Father’s Day — First father’s day without my husband. Temperature had finally lowered from the 90’s. In fact, it was in the high 70’s and very comfortable. I convinced myself to go for a walk. Before going to the camper I tried to walk every day. Although I didn’t see a drastic reduction in weight, it did drop by a few ounces. The scale at the camper reported that I had gained 2 lbs. I continued to walk anyway. I thought it paid off, I was able to walk for over an hour and a half at Wal-Mart without getting tired.

Back home, my weight was down 2 lbs. Since I KNOW I need to lose weight, I try to walk everyday outside. FIRST TIME since last summer I went for a walk in sandals. NO STOCKINGS. FREEDOM. My sandals are heavy duty — they provide a lot of support. My plan for the walk quickly changed when I saw a friend. EXCEPT the person I saw was not my friend but a person who looked like her cleaning her porch.

I talk to anyone whose path crosses mine. I decided to walk a little bit further and check out a place that usually had beautiful flowers. That led me to benches by a church — a lovely place to sit for a minute. I enjoyed a father walking his toddler around and around a four way crossing. The little one enjoyed her father lifting her over a curb. Dad had patience and I laughed when they went around and around for the third time.

I met Barbara, 82 years young, who reminded me to drink water. I showed her the little 8 oz bottle I had with me. She replied that I needed to drink much more than that. She lost her husband when she was 48 and raised her sons as a single mother. Barbara reminded me of my grandmother.

Home again, I started to write a thought ramble. I had a little bit of trouble saving it. Thinking about that — one plus one equaled a solution. Correct? I don’t know. I usually don’t link my thought rambles but there is always a first time for everything. I remembered the dropped spill pan and the trouble with my car going to the camper. I remembered the erased message. I wonder if the dropped spill pan was a warning for the problem with the cars speed. Were they warnings that I didn’t understand?

CONFUSED AGAIN

Now I’m confused. I was texting a message to my family. Sometimes I’m wordy, this was one of those times. I might have written four or five sentences. Since it occurred a couple of weeks ago, I’m not sure what the message was about. My guess was that it was about the car. No sooner had I typed the final period, reached for the send button and the whole thing DISAPPEARED. I quickly remembered this happening to me before. In fact, it was soon after my father passed over. I was writing TO PAP, WITH LOVE. Sentences would disappear as if there was a Packman gobbling them up. Sometimes it was complete paragraphs. But in the messages I exchange in the family, I haven’t experienced this before.

Editing has continued, of course. If when I’m writing a thought ramble, the subject or the content doesn’t pass, the thought ramble doesn’t save. BUT IT DOESN’T DISAPPEAR. I can reread the thought. I have time to fix the problem.

Since it is now apparent that my reasoning has big holes in it, I have decided that instead of crediting a specific person, I’ll just credit my “team.”

Once again heading to the country, this time it was just Robin and I — my son remained home. My car didn’t seem to pick up the speed it needed getting on the expressway. All during the drive, my car worried me. It was not maintaining its speed. It speeded up, it slowed down. I didn’t seem to be putting more pressure on the gas pedal or less. When it really started to slow down, I mashed the pedal a little bit more.

I had convinced myself to call our mechanic out there on Monday. Friday, after driving to the store in town, the service engine light appeared. The I was uncertain about driving it. Thankfully our mechanic was able to fix it on Tuesday. He took it for a drive on Monday, and realized it drove “like a dog.” And FOUND THE PROBLEM. It was a dream to drive on Wednesday.