Monday Maunderings

If I were far, far better disciplined than I am, I would be working on the outline for the presentation I'm supposed to give at judge camp in a couple of weeks. However, it is a topic on which I have lectured endlessly over the decades, so I am more likely to wait until the last possible moment then tweak it for the audience to whom it is being presented. A bunch of judges at 8:00 a.m. That means that there is absolutely no hope - they will barely be awake at that hour and I know, from past years, that most of them see this topic on the agenda and just sort of groan softly anyway. Might be a good project for the several hours I shall be trapped on the airplane from Atlanta to Houston this weekend. 

The Wonderful Wooly is here today. Originally recommended to me by one of my best girlfriends, he retired from the mindless rigors of the Tennessee Valley Authority with enough pension in his pockets to do only what he wanted to do. For this I am thankful, because what he wants to do is attack other people's "To Do Lists" and fight them to the ground. He is much loved by the women who call him up and say, "I have a list." I added to my List until I could justify a whole day of Wooly and today is that day! It is such a strange and somewhat melancholy luxury to once again have a man about the house, pottering around fixing and changing things. If even for just a day. The erstwhile husband and I remodeled and built the daylights out of a couple of houses and I think of those days with some nostalgia. I am, once again, relegated to carpenter/electrician/plumber's mate and it's almost fun. He has handed me stuff twice and said, "Here, go down to the hardward store and get another one of these." I put my helmet on and zipped down the hill to the store; they know there is a project afoot, so the owner said, "You want us to just leave the ticket open?" It's great to live in a small town sometimes! It took me three days to figure out how to get to the burnt-out bulb in one of the bathroom fixtures earlier this week. Wooly, upon installing the new light fixture in the laundry room, told me to come in there to see how to change the bulb in case he wasn't around. It is deeply humbling to realize that, after all those years of high-falutin' education, it takes me three days to figure out how to change a light bulb!!

A friend, who is only a couple years older than my child, advised all and sundry this week that he is designating this as his mid-life crisis year. That made me think about where I am in this curious life. I started my sixth decade a few months ago. I have decided that this decade will be much better than the previous one. In the fifth decade, my much-loved, beautiful and talented daughter-in-law was diagnosed twice with cancer (and continues to live with the second diagnosis); my beloved spouse decided to leave me after a quarter century; I changed homes; I had some major surgeries; both of my adored parents died. I have had better decades. Somehow, though, I have to believe that if I am still standing, it means that God isn't through with me yet. I find myself just now crawling out into the sun again. A rather different version of myself. An older, chubbier, somewhat more wrinkled version of myself. But a version that is finding it easier to laugh at herself and at the vicissitudes of a life she didn't ask for, but which was given to her as a wonderful gift. I am beginning to find joy in looking back as well as looking forward. As I write today an old William Ackerman album is playing in the background; an album I was introduced to and I loved when I first met the absconded Erstwhile. For the longest time I couldn't listen to that music, or Kate Wolf, or anything else that reminded me of how very contented and sometimes happy I once was. I think I've come out the other side of that tunnel, though. I am finding a way to be differently contented now and, sometimes, genuinely happy. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to share that with someone again? But, isn't it lovely to have it at all? As they say, 'Don't cry for what's over; laugh because it happened!'

The latest "You Did What?!" project is the acquisition of the Vespa. I have thought about a scooter for some years (during that Bad Decade) and finally decided, when I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to pedal my bicycle up the hill to my house again, that the time to act was now. A little scooter shop in Red Bank had a 2009 Vespa LXV150 with only 200 miles on the odometer. To make the deal appear even more propitious, there was an Oregon license plate on the scooter. I still maintain that, while God may vacation other places, He lives in Oregon. Some guy had moved out here from Oregon with the scooter and was now selling it. I looked at it for a long while, threw a pencil on the project (as they say in The South), and thought about all the reasons this wasn't a good idea. Then I bought it. It has been a community project all the way. Friend Kathleen took me to the scooter shop initially. Friend Darrell went to Red Bank to collect the scooter in his pickup truck and delivered it to my house. Friends Darrell, Tim, Jackie, and Frank have been advising me on all things motorcycle (or "that little scooter of yours", as it's called) whenever I have questions. I went to Scooter School for a six month weekend (it felt like that), got the M endorsement on my driver's license, and I now ride my scooter to work as weather and circumstances permit. I park it in the basement of the courthouse and the corrections officers who bring inmates into court through the basement tell them that they will suffer all manner of horrible medieval torture if they even touch the judge's scooter. I have suggested to them that this is probably like painting a target on the scooter, but I think they mean well. I have assured those who ask that I have no intention of any more tattoos, body piercing or leather attire. Alas, I see myself more like Jennifer Patterson of "Two Fat Ladies" on her Triumph Thunderbird ...! My sensitive and considerate child continues to remind me that he stands ready and willing to come get the scooter as soon as I become too old and decrepit to operate it. Meanwhile, what fun!

Jennifer & Clarissa

The bicycles have not fallen entirely by the wayside. I had to take the bike rack off the Cooper awhile back when body work had to be done. I was rear-ended while leaving the parking lot at the DMV by a driving test examiner. A wonderful example of low comedy. The rear bumper and driver side rear quarter panel had to be replaced and the bike rack causes all manner of horror and confusion to those who have not before encountered anything as badly designed. You have to stand on your head, cross your eyes, stick your tongue out the side of your mouth, and continuously pray the Hail Mary while you attempt to install or remove the darn thing. Do I need to say that I usually just leave it on for months at a time when I put it on in the spring? Taking the bike anywhere to ride requires the rack, so it's been a fairly bike-free few months. In any event, it's been so disgustingly hot, I don't know how much riding I would have done anyway. While the Cooper was in the shop for a week, I rode my bike to work (this was pre-Vespa) and was sweating like a horse by the time I got home in the afternoon. I walked the bike up the steepest part of the hill ... . However, now that the weather is more civilized, I may put the rack back on and try to get some early morning rides in. My best riding buddies have moved to Georgia, so finding someone to just poop around with on the bicycle is the next project. Wooly is putting up two new racks on the garage wall for the bikes today (I can't figure out how that big, fancy drill works). 

It appears that my questionable services are again required to hold something, or go get something, or hand something to the journeyman. It is good for my soul and my character to be reminded that there are others who know, oh, so very much more than I do about important things! Be well, do good work, and stay in touch. 

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

                                                                    ~ Will Rogers