A quiet life
You know I live a very quiet life. Eve r y mo rning, believe it or not, whatever hour I go to bed the night before, I wake up at 5:45 a.m. Yes, that early. I can’t believe it myself. In my teens I woke up at 2 p.m. if I partied the night before and boogied until 2 a.m. I miss those days. I would love to sleep until 2 p.m. now but my body won’t cooperate. It wakes up at 5:45 a.m. on the dot every day. Boring!
I get up, put eyedrops in my eyes, necessary since my cataract operation, not prescribed by the doctor but my eyes are often dry so I think I need regular eyedrops. But my vision is much clearer now. I can read without glasses but still need them for making jewelry or reading instructions. So my glasses are always on the tip of my nose because if they are over my eyes I get dizzy.
So I rise and reach for the bottle of virgin coconut oil and swish it around my mouth as I walk to my big porch to set the timer that sits on the table there at 20 minutes. That’s how long you have to swish to prevent Alzheimer’s, which my mother had, and visits to the dentist, which I don’t like to do. Then I boil water for my coffee. While that’s happening I prepare the coffee brewer I bought, line it with the appropriate coffee paper, put a tablespoon of coffee powder into it. Then I take a small saucer and pour out my pet capsules and go to the table on my big porch.
Soon the kettle whistles so I go back to the kitchen, pour the boiling water over my coffee and leave it to sit. I write in my journal. Sometimes I cluster – what I teach in my writing class. When I do I get engrossed and by the time I return to the kitchen my coffee is getting cool. But never mind. I drink my coffee black, hot or cold, no sugar, no milk.
Then I water the plants in my condo garden. They are beautiful and they bloom so prettily. Of course I always buy the cheap plants that bloom all the time because I love flowers. After that I shower, get into my house clothes and putter around tidying up my bedroom, the kitchen, sometimes the living room and the dining room, other times not. I don’t have a live-in maid, just a cleaning lady who comes in once a week, so you can imagine the chores I have. But sometimes I’m lazy so I don’t do anything but play computer solitaire or do jigsaw puzzles.
But I am a crafts woman. I have tons of materials accumulated over the years or given to me recently. I need to get them organized so when death comes my children don’t have too much junk to get rid of. So after lunch I work on my crafts in front of the TV set because someone has to make something of all this thread and string. I love watching reruns of Friends and Big Bang Theory, whose wit I particularly enjoy.
Sometimes when my grandsons one 19, the other 25 years old play their computer games on TV. I watch wondering first at the production values the sets, those forests and lakes, the way the main man swims around whatever he has discovered awe me. They are beautifully done. But I don’t understand the fun these two young men get out of kicking gates down, shooting or lobbing grenades at the men who attack them or climbing like monkeys up and down stone walls. I don’t understand the pleasure in that. I wonder how old children are supposed to be to play these awful games. The jacket of the game says teens but I can see it falling into younger hands who in the United States then mail order guns and one day go to school and shoot everyone. These games are definitely alarming. But what can I do?My grown grandsons don’t want to listen to my opinions.
Twice a week I give writing lessons here at home. Not a bad deal at all but it doesn’t get me too far out of the house because I teach here.
Life is so quiet when you’re 70. I stay home more these days because I signed up with Uber to give my driver more things to do. Now Uber is happy, my driver is happy, he’s getting more money than he ever dreamed of. I am not yet making money, just enough to refund the gas, which I advance, but no net profit for me yet. But now with Uber I stay home more, teach more and enjoy my crafts more. Now I lead a very quiet albeit much happier life.
***
Please text your comments to 0917-8155570.