When we got back from Tucson (our winter place) on May 1 of this year, I had two goals in mind. They were at the top of my to-do list.
First, I planned to study Spanish most days, continuing to learn from the textbook we'd used in the 12-week class I attended each Wednesday from January to March. I wanted to start back at the beginning of the book, review it, do all the exercises and be ready for next year's advanced class.
And I wanted to practice on my electric keyboard most days. I bought one back in January on New Year's Day in Tucson. I played it sometimes as I figured out how to use my iPad software to start from the beginning of piano lessons, as I had when I was six. But it was high season in Tucson then, and I was too busy. When we got home in May, I bought another keyboard, exactly like the one in Tucson. I promised my husband Art I would play during the summer, since it was one of my two goals.
It's been five months now. I studied Spanish half a dozen times, and played the piano on maybe three occasions.
Because life got in the way. This is what I actually did this summer:
- Spent weeks shopping online for shoes, underwear and a bathing suit, and days driving to UPS to return almost all of it.
- Prepared for a 10-day trip to Spain and Portugal, took the trip, and spent 10 days recovering from the trip.
- Ordered new glasses and went to the optical shop three times to complain that none of my eyeglass frames had the right prescription for my computer glasses. Finally realized I had ordered a different frame, with the right prescription, but I took that pair to Spain and Portugal and lost them somewhere - at the airport in Seattle, Dallas, Madrid, Lisbon, Porto, or Newark. Or maybe in the the seat pocket of one of the planes. Or in a hotel in Madrid or Lisbon. Or on a boat on the Duoro River. The resolution was to replace them exactly as they'd been ordered. The three opticians I'd talked to were so relieved when I confessed my forgetfulness.
- Had a conversation most days with my adult son James who rents our upstairs and watches out for us older people living downstairs. He has a residential remodeling business, and in the evening we talk about his day and mine, and, carefully and compassionately, about our differing political views. I am a bit left and he is somewhat right and we inch over and meet pretty close to the middle on most issues.
- Went on evening walks with James and his Aussie Augi and, most recently, with our Siberian Forest cat Dutchy!
- Made and kept medical appointments - nearly a dozen in all, counting eye exams and hearing tests - and was pronounced healthy by the medical people, but - get this - "These things happen as we get older!"
- Tended to my husband Art as he experienced back pain and, after over a week, took him to urgent care where he was diagnosed with double pneumonia. The antibiotics are done but the fatigue lingers, as it typically does.
- Observed Dutchy favoring her left hind leg, took her to the vet to the tune of $1,100 as the examination, x-rays, blood work and urine analysis showed nothing wrong. When we get back to Tucson she has an appointment with a feline neurologist. Fortunately, meloxicam helps, but getting liquid down a cat's throat is a major life challenge. I'm grateful I can afford the vet's bill and that hypoallergenic cats exist so I can have one, because Art is allergic to most felines.
- Continued meeting friends for coffee or lunch - and walking every week with my friend Gail. These women feed my spirit.
- Bought Trustworthy software so I can have all our information in one place for when one or both of us passes. Just about everything is in my head or a safe or a file cabinet or on a spreadsheet. I want to be kind to the offspring who will be responsible for it all after we're gone.
- Appreciated Art's garden, which he planted and tended and watered all summer. It looks like a jungle out there, and we have been the beneficiaries of peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, potatoes, squash, and cucumbers - and one renegade sunflower from a seed that a squirrel dropped into the garden while it was raiding the bird feeder. Plus our usual perennial strawberries, raspberries and grapes.
