Monday, July 17, 2017

Clawing My Way Out

I've been kind of down in the dumps for the last month or so, probably because I planned to and then did retire.  Yeah, yeah, I wanted to retire, I couldn't wait to retire, and then when I did retire I got all mopey and depressed.  I know that change is hard for me, even changes that I desperately desire so I just rode with it, overate sweets, and kept giving myself talking-tos (talkings-to?).  Today it feels like I might be crawling out from under my cloud.  Thank. God.  I'm really getting tired of myself, I can't imagine how Durwood feels.



On Saturday I tried to cure the mopes by taking one of my retirement gift cards and a "25% off everything" coupon to Jo-Ann to get some linen fabric to make pants and a top with.  Look what I found.  McCalls patterns were $1.99 so I found some I liked and bought those too.  Even that only made a small dent in my mopey-tude.



I made it through the design of the birthday cloth and have about 8 more rows of plain crochet before it's done and I can ship it off (belatedly) to the recipient.  I am confident that she won't mind.  She's well-brought up and an all-around nice person.  Also I'm her mom and I'll give her a timeout if she doesn't cut me some slack on it.




Also on Saturday I gathered up my manners and got all 6 thank you notes written and mailed to the lovely people who gifted me at my retirement party.  I know I keep saying this, but I'm so glad that DIL1's mom got me back into the habit of writing these.  Thanks again, HJZ.



Saturday night brought a fast-moving thunderstorm with torrents of rain that fell straight down.  It came through after 7 o'clock and for a while there it looked like night had come early.  Then it got light again, then the sun began to set and turned the whole world golden.  I had to grab my camera and head out into the street to take pictures.  Once again the sky made me wish I live on top of a hill.







July 17--Edouard Vuillard, Le Petit Cafe.  A lawyer and a vicar walked into a bar...  Emma sat in her seat watching the start of the play and couldn't help but think of the first line of so many jokes.  The play was a farce so she fully expected part of it to take place in a bar or some other inappropriate place.  Better plays than this one promised to be had their roots sunk in the bedrock of stereotypes--lawyers were crooked, colonels were stuffy, vicars were randy.  It was as if there was a theatrical warehouse somewhere that playwrights could visit to gather enough cliched characters and situations to fill three acts--and maybe a prologue, if there was a sale.

Durwood and I came up with the perfect grocery shopping solution.  I like to zoom through and he likes to dawdle so one or the other of us is pouting by the time we get done if we shop together so I write out the shopping list (that I keep on the "Our Groceries" app on my phone), he puts the grocery money in his wallet, I drive him there, and wait in the van with my knitting and an audiobook.  Oh, I make sure he has a watch on because the first time we did that he was in there for an hour and forty-five minutes and came out with $17 worth of groceries.  The man loves the grocery store, it could be so much worse.
--Barbara

1 comment:

Aunt B said...

Change is hard. I've kinda surprised myself by not missing Wilmington and our darling house more than I have. But we do have a replacement house -- to make a home -- so that helps. Retirement from a job you really loved can leave a huge hole in your life. Know you'll give yourself a good "talking to" whenever you need it and get on with it. Your grocery shopping solution is a great one for both of you.