Conversation with my friend Vickie

Vickie: Are you going Thursday night?

Me: I bought a ticket, but it depends on the weather.

Vickie: Oh, I was going to ask if you want to go next Thursday.

Me: Well, if I go at all it will be this Thursday. Unless, you know, the weather. I guess I'm getting old.

Vickie: I know.

Me: Hmph! You're not supposed to agree with that. (Didn't say that out loud. Out loud I said): I'm not too old to shovel my driveway and walkway. I did that yesterday and again today. Good workout. But driving on ice is different, especially at night.

Vickie: I know you've always tried to stay fit and healthy. So have I, but I have so much less energy now.

Me: Oh.

Vickie: I still go the gym, still do the same workouts, but now they seem harder, and I just run out of energy.

Me: And the minute you stop and sit down, you start to lose it.

Vickie: True. There's not much to like about getting old.

Me: I have found one thing.

Vickie: What's that?

Me: You know more.

Vickie: Oh yeah, and you have wisdom.

Me: Yeah, I guess. Wisdom.

Vickie: Yeah. In fact I have so much wisdom that things I'm trying to remember have to wade through all that wisdom before they can get out to where I can actually remember them.

Me: So that's what it is.

Nice to Look At, but

Yesterday was Black Friday, traditionally the universal--like in the whole universe--biggest shopping day of the year. I never go shopping on that day. Don't like crowds and especially don't need to see those sometimes snarling, scowling spreaders of their own brand of Christmas cheer.

You know, the whole bit. I just don't like it, so I don't go.

Now I can't say that. I went yesterday. But only briefly. I got what I wanted, none of it, unfortunately, subject to "tremendous mark downs," and scooted home.

I didn't go at 5 a.m. or even 9. And I was gone about an hour, including travel time.

Like you care.

I went because today, I figured, was going to be White Saturday, and I wouldn't want to go out worse than I didn't want to go yesterday. I was right about the white part. Snow everywhere and snowing. I'm glad my house guests, Sarah and Darron, left yesterday morning and got home before the storm.

But on a day like today, I find reasons to go out. Funny, huh. None compelling enough to make me actually go. Because it's snowing. It's winter, although not officially for another 25 days, and a person ought to stay home by the fire, so to speak, and read and nap and contemplate her blessings. So I will do just that.

As I look out, though, I have to wonder if the rest of the year will be like this. It could, you know. And a person could grow weary of staying in. A person would have to go out or . . . or what? I don't know. Go nuts?

Come on, Carol. It hasn't even been one day yet.

And surely we'll see the sun again and snow will melt and we'll venture away from the house again before the year's end.

Surely. This is Boise, after all.

Hooray!

I wished for it, and I got it.

Today I bought an item made in the USA. I was so excited about it that I spoke to the Winco employee who was loading frozen turkeys into a nearby frozen food bin.

I said, "Hey, this was made in the USA. Not made in China."

He was less excited than I, but he did sort of smile.

It's a foil roasting pan with sturdy wire handles on the sides.

I am really happy.

My Thoughts on the Subject

I am not made in China. I have checked and find no labels anywhere on my person saying I was made in China. Praise heaven for that. And praise my parents, too. Nothing against the Chinese, of course.

I suspect some things are still made in the USA. At least that is my fond hope--to one day purchase some item that has a made in the USA label.

There you have it.

Well, That's Finally Over

Two weeks. That's not so bad. People have had worse things in their lives. All I had, that I'm telling here, was a toilet sitting in front of my house for two weeks. The neighborhood was getting used to it, I think.

I wasn't. Half afraid some joker would come along and use it, I would look out several times a day to see if by some magic it might be gone.

But yesterday they came and got it. Finally. And the broken computer chair, too. Oh boy. I am so glad.

So thanks, Allied Waste.

Oh Dear

I have things to do, you know. I can't sit around watching for the garbage truck.

So I got busy peeling my butternut squash for the soup of the same name. Kept my ears peeled (is that possible?). Each time I heard the familiar loud sounds, I ran to the dining room to look out the front window. Didn't want to stand right in front of the living room windows, you know. Too obvious.

The recycling got picked up first. Okay. That's kind of normal here. And I'm a grown up. I can wait. Just so they take it.

Then I saw the other truck, the garbage one, from my kitchen window. It was down on the street behind ours. Hallelujah. Really. (Maybe I need to get a life.)

I worked. I waited. He came.

And he left without taking my toilet.

My neighbors said they saw me running down the street. Which is not a lie because that's what I did, yelling, "Hey!" and reaching for my phone. I didn't catch him. My neighbor Ron said, "You mean you couldn't catch a big old diesel truck?"

Not a nice question, I'd say.

I called Allied Waste and asked what's the deal. You assured me they would pick it up . . . and so on. I was not nasty.

Tracy told me the deal. It's a separate truck. It'll come later.

Well I certainly hope so.

Some Things Are Important

I keep looking at my toilet. Honest.

Not the one on the sidewalk in front of my house, the one in my bathroom.

It's new. The one in my bathroom. And the one on the sidewalk is there because of the new one in my bathroom.

To say that I love my new toilet, that I'm happy and thankful to have it, would be not saying enough, but I'll let it stand. I mean what I just said. Not the toilet.

It's Wednesday afternoon. At 6 o'clock tonight my new toilet will be two days old.

Monday night Paul and Andrew came, took out the jet-propelled toilet--well, it sounded like a jet; you pushed the button on the top, and you had to push hard, then got out of the way and held your ears. It was a Sloan Flushmate. Then they put in this lovely little Toto (brand name) toilet. It took them an hour.

I never liked the thing, the Sloan Flushmate, but Wayne wanted it, and if its power cylinder had not begun to leak, I'd still have it. I'd still have it if anybody still carried Sloan toilet stuff.

I think some of my grandsons liked it, the Flushmate. Exciting. At least for a while. But I'll take my Toto.

Andrew carried the old toilet, very heavy, out to the sidewalk, because Allied Waste said they would pick it up on my regular trash day--which is tomorrow--as long as it was in two pieces. The toilet. And it is.

So this is the best I could hope for, ask for, and get. The very best. And that is good.

I also love my boys.