Car Envy

I'm really very happy with the small car I drive. it's a Fiat 500L and it suits me very well at this time in my life.  However, I must admit that when I see car commercials on TV (and they're impossible to avoid) I can't help but think how nice it would be to have a car that parallel parks all by itself. Although, to be honest, I can't remember the last time I actually needed to parallel park. When I was learning to drive, many years ago, a girlfirend who was helping me drilled and drilled me on parallel parking. I was so ready for that part of my test, but when it came time to parallel park the tester had me try it on a quiet residential street with only one car parked on it.  I pulled up beside that car and had the whole block to back up and pull in. So easy. I think what I really need is a totally self-driving car. Until that time the next best thing may be to let my grandchildren drive me around.  They will all be in the driver training years over the next four years. I'm trying to decide if I would be more nervous driving with a grandchild or in a self-driving car. I think it might be a toss up. 

Daydreams

I enjoy seeing sports reports on the local news about women's basketball.  When I was in high school we did not have a girls' basketball team. We barely had any physical education for girls at all, I think it was six weeks. But I'm sure, given the opportunity, I could have been a basketball star. After all I was the tallest girl in our school. Granted, it was a very small school, but 5'10" is tall enough to play women's basketball. I have a friend who is only 5'2" and she played basketball at a much larger high school. When I close my eyes I can picture myself running up and down the court, dribbling the ball, flawlessly weaving around the oposition guards and sinking basket after basket to win the game. The really nice thing about daydreams is that they don't need to have any relationship with reality.  In my daydreams I can completely disregard the fact that in highschool I was clumsy, uncoordinated, gawky, nearsighted and never could dribble a basketball more that two steps.  Ah well, it's my daydream and i will continue to enjoy it. Just listen to the cheeers of that crowd.

Giving Tuesday

Today was Giving Tuesday and I did make a charitable donation. Of course it was a check I had already written to a charity I give to fairly regularly, but I mailed it today so that should count, right?  I was interested to hear the warnings on TV about avoiding scams and had a little scare along those lines.  I had recently charged an upcoming trip on my credit card. I want the points and will pay it off this month but I was surprised to see an email purporting to be from my credit card company telling me that I had charged too much and should make an immediate payment of $1,700.  Or I could call a phone number provided if I had any questions. I checked the number against the customer service number on my card and they were not the same.  After checking on line to see what my current ballance actually was, I called the number on my card and talked with a very nice real person named Melissa. She checked my account, agreed with me on the actual current balance, and said it looked like the charge for the trip had been run through twice. She got it straightened out and it's all OK now but I'm still wondering what happened. I've worked with the same travel agency many times with never a problem. It probably was an honest error, but who knows?  At least it's good to know I can still talk with a real live person when there's a problem. Thanks for your help, Melisssa..

Addison sings on

I managed to resist going on line to buy anything today so no Cyber Monday for me. I also skipped Black Friday, and, in spite of all the alluring commercials, I have not yet bougth a new Lexus. However, I did go on line this evening to vote for Addison Agen, the contestant on "The Voice" from Fort Wayne. I know I'm prejudiced but I do think she's one of the best on the show. Tomorrow we'll see if she has made it through this week's competition. I like this show but they are certainly drawing out the final stages. Last week the 12 best cntestants competed and only one was eliminated. This evening the 11 competed. I'm not sure how many will be chopped tomorrow but I think they could cut half of them and speed things up (as long as Addison isn't part of that half).

Mother really did know best.

Turns out my mother knew what she was talking about when my brothers and I were children and were told to "Go outside and play." It was a daily refrain, especially in the summer months when we didn't have school. Yesterday on the morning news show they had a report on the latest 'medicine' being prescribed by doctors. It's nothing chemical but rather the instruction to spend at least one half hour walking outside in parklike settings. They call it Ecotherapy and it's supposed to help overcome anxiety and depression, among other things. It turns out that seeing trees, hearing birds sing and listening to water (river, ocean, whatever) is good for your eyes and your general health. Who knew? Well actauly anyone with a little common sense knows that you generally feel better if you get outside for a little while every day. In the meantime, I'm not sure if sitting on my balcony counts, but I can see trees and running water and there's lots of bird song when the weather is warmer. It works for me.

Riding the Holly Trolley

My daughter, granddaughter and I rode the Holly Trolley today and enjoyed Small Business Saturday in downtown Fort Wayne.  I did this last year on my own but it was much more fun to have them with me.  It is very convenient that one of the trolley stops is right here at my apartment building. We enjoyed lots of little shops, and some big spreads like the LuLaRoe shop set up in the Grand Wayne Center. I bougth some very comfy tights which I will probably never wear out in public. We tried a new restaurant for lunch. Caliente is a Cuban restaurant across the street from JK O'Donnells. We were actually heading to JK's til we discovered no one under 21 could enter. My 15 year old granddaughter is growing up fast but she can't pass for 21 yet. Anyway the Cuban option turned out to be very good. It was fun to be downtown with lots of people around. It reminded me of "the good old days" when we went downtown to do all of our Christmas shopping. Of course back then there were big stores down town, Do you remember Wolf and Dessauer, Patterson Fletcher, and of course Murphy's. Did you know that Cindi's Diner still sells Murphy's donuts? Talk about sweet memories.

The magic is still there.

For the last many years my grandchildren have come over on the day after Thanksgiving to help me decorate my Christmas tree. Each year we pull out all the old ornaments and enjoy remembering the history of each piece. This year, though, I thought perhaps the tradition had run its course. They are all teenagers now with busy lives. However, my daughter and her two children (ages 15 and 16) decided to come over this afternoon and help with my tree. And just like every other year, by the time we had a few ornaments on the tree the laughter and memories were flowing. We snacked, we listened to Christmas music, we finished the tree and it all felt so right. One more thing to be truly thankful for.