Musings

Some garbage cans stink so grossly on garbage day, I muse, as I ride my trike in the early morning before the truck comes around; and some don’t stink at all.  The ones that don’t stink have pizza boxes overflowing and other signs of fast prepackaged food. You learn a lot about your neighbors by noticing their garbage on garbage day. Since we have a compost bin and a recycling can, our garbage smells like kitty litter, dried tree branches, and weeds.

I feel sorry for people who don’t swim, I think every time I go to the pool. I don’t mean swim, swim or swim fast or good; I mean move around in the water, stretching and pulling, rolling and curling. It’s an openness and looseness that is felt in no other venue.

Today we made a new friend. She has been a fixture at the pool for as long as I can remember. Until today all she did was scowl at us. She’s likes to swim with “Mr. America” (as we secretly call him because of his amazing physique and swim prowess), who has been our advocate since day one. He admits he looks out for us and will save a lane for us while being aggressive with others. She won’t relent. When he suggests they let Eddy swim by the edge in the lane he likes, she hisses, “We were here first.” It’s like she’s our #1 enemy at the pool. Today Dr. Wall gave up his lane so we could swim together which left him and our enemy swimming in the next two lanes (Mr. America is back visiting his folks in the mid-west this week). They are competitive swimmers; they swam hard and fast today. At 1:40 when they close all by one lane for lap swimming, she moved over into our lane. We were through and got out. She smiled at us. I smiled back. “Did you have a good swim?” she questioned. Did she talk to us? “Perfect today,” I reply, “you two sure looked good.”  “We had a ball,” she admitted as she dove in. And that was our first conversation in ten years. Friends are better than enemies. They make your heart dance.

Ed says vehemently that he will not go swimming today as he reluctantly goes up and puts on his swimming suit. He’d already been over that way for a doctor appointment and he did not want to go back.  After our swim, he says, “Now to the bad part” insisting he does not want to go home where he asserted he would never leave in the first place.

In other good news, August 1, and I’m feeling very encouraged about my knee status, even though we paid too much, didn’t have professional care, with no follow-up (oxygen shots, laser, massage). When I stop and feel, I realize my knees don’t hurt (much). I’m getting more mobility. I practice going up the stairs with one foot in front of the other. Slowly. Holding on. It doesn’t hurt, even though I think it’s going to. I think I’m convinced that stem cells are as miraculous as they claim. Those undifferentiated gems are doing their job. I love this day and age and research and medical miracles.

  

Happy Brent & Amy got home from their river adventure, each taking over 2,000 pictures of full rainbows, rivers, otters, blue herons, camp sites, canoes, hieroglyphics, granaries, sheer cliffs; not to mention their own watercolors.

Brent's Outhouse at Ruby Ranch