Miscellaneous of the past week

1.  This morning I turned on a tv that was tuned to HGTV from yesterday afternoon. Cash in the Attic, a show I've never seen before, was showing. An couple in the late 50 or early 60s with a daughter in her early 20s (I'm guessing on all the ages) wanted to raise $3000 for a hot tub. The show came in and went through their stuff to see if they could probably get the money at auction. It's probably my personality, but I was surprised to see people visibly upset about selling something that had meaning to them for a HOT TUB!!!

It certainly seemed ridiculous to me to sacrifice what you value for something so temporal. Their house was average to nice which means they had to have had some money so I thought, "Save the money for a few months and then just buy a hot tub."

Then at the end of the show the family is circled around the hot tub. The mother puts her hands in the water and says, "It has jets." That explained it all why they did the show!

2. Friday night a man down the street rang my doorbell. A friend had parked in the elderly lady next door's driveway which is shared with mine. My friend got to my house before I did and she wanted to leave the way open for me to go in the garage. I should have had her move her vehicle or called my neighbor to explain but I did neither. My neighbor tried calling me to ask about the car in her driveway as she was afraid to go to bed, but my phone was on vibrate in another room so I never heard it. Totally agreed that a car in the driveway would be unnerving no matter how old you are when you are ready to go to bed. She called the neighbor man who came and asked me about it. I called the neighbor and explained everything.

Obviously I felt bad about the situation so yesterday I made oatmeal cookies to give to both neighbors. When I stopped at the man's house, I was talking with his wife. He walked in the room and she explained that I had brought cookies for his inconvenience coming over last Friday night.

His reply: "Hey, I can come over tonight too if it means more cookies!"

3. One of my responsibilities since last summer is ordering supplies for about 50 people. I decided there was too much junk in the drawers that needed to be cleaned out. Not knowing for sure what people do use I put anything I thought we no longer needed on a counter and gave people an opportunity to let me know if they still used any of the stuff.

I sent out an e-mail that began with, "If you need labels for your 3.5" floppy disks we have about 150 of them from the supply drawers." Now, in any other area I'm sure people would have responded with the joke of floppy disks since no one has used those in how many years??? But I work in finance and not only did no one comment about my joke, at least one person took me seriously!

Condo Meeting

I'm disappointed. The first order of business at the condo association meeting wasn't reading off a list of the owners who had died in the last year followed by the new owners.

No wonder people don't like all the change this board is bringing about.

August Mornings in Michigan

Most work mornings I get up at 6:05 (the extra five minutes is hugely psychological for me) to do some form of exercise; currently I'm running and walking to run a 5k in October. It's August, which is still very much summer, and it can be very humid and hot or it can be a bit chilly.

It's always funny to me as most mornings I see someone from my condos going out for a walk. I'm in shorts and a t-shirt and they will have long pants, sweatshirt, and jacket on.

This Will Be Me Someday

Last night I got hope about 8:30 to find my neighbor, her sister, and a friend sitting outside. It was a great night, and although they asked me to get a chair I really didn’t have time to sit down. I chatted for a few minutes with them. You may remember that neighbor is about 88, maybe 89, and her husband died in early April. This is basically how the conversation went. N=Neighbor, S=Sister, F=Friend, Me =Me.

F: You’re phone is ringing.
F: YOU’RE PHONE IS RINGING.
S: I hear something. Is your phone ringing?
S: IS THAT YOUR PHONE RINGING?
N: What, is my phone ringing?
After about 6 rings she gets up to answer it, but the others tell her there’s no point in it as they will hang up before she can get to it. That’s exactly what happened.
N: It’s probably my daughter or my son. But it may be that singles dating service. Milt wasn’t dead two weeks and I got information from a singles dating thing.
F: (Starting to laugh) Yeah, she went out with some guy and didn’t tell anyone.
ME: Oh, that was the strange car I saw in the driveway.
N: Don’t you know it!
I politely left and walked into my side of the garage to get several things out of my car. However the conversation continued. Remember, that through all of this I was about 10-15 feet from them.

S: Is she a good neighbor?
N: Oh yes.
F: Does she come by you and check on you.
N: No, she doesn’t do that. She’s real busy. She’s gone by quarter to 8 and doesn’t come back until late at night a lot of the time.
S: How long has she lived her.
N: Oh, 3 years.
S: That long:
N: Maybe even 4.
F: Has she ever been married?
N: I don’t know. We never asked.

Not only was I standing at my car getting stuff out and heard the entire conversation so did the rest of the neighborhood probably.

I look at my schedule and think, “when this and this and this are over” life will slow down some and be ok. I’ve been in that mode the last couple of weeks: this is the Klopfenstein reunion, this is my CU class, etc. Paradoxically, in my class we read a book called Margin which is about not overcommitting our time, finances, money, selves, etc. so that we can live a more simplistic life that allows us to love God fully, invest in others, and take care of ourselves.

Yet, it seems as if this is just replaced with that.

What’s going on in my life?
•CU class finished last night.
•Tonight is West Michigan Whitecaps game with tickets I won through work. I thought I’d won four which makes inviting people a bit difficult, but I won five tickets which made it perfect to invite two couples.
•Today was the finance year end celebration. The finance leadership team grills burgers and chicken, and there’s ice cream and prizes. I didn’t win.
•Tomorrow night is the 4th annual street cookout. There will be fewer people this year. One is out of town, one has died, one is in a nursing home, one now lives with her children, one couple’s coming depends on how she feels tomorrow afternoon, etc. Such it is living on a street with half of the owners being over 85!

My neighbor died this morning. It's sad when anyone dies, but he was 90 and now he is in the presence of God.

His daughter was with him when he passed on, and the last words he heard on this earth were "Dad, take a couple more breaths and then heaven is waiting."

My mortal mind thinks the next words he heard were, "Welcome home, Child."

A week or so ago I told a story about my neighbor. I also mentioned that just before his 90th birthday, about six weeks ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Last night his wife came over to tell me they are coming today to take Milt to hospice. Of course, that means he is going down very quickly and his time on earth is short.

As I crawled into bed last night I thought about Milt. He would go to bed knowing that it was the last night he would spend in his home of almost 30 years and the next day he would go to an unfamiliar place to live out the few remaining days of his life.

I was awake at 4:00 a.m. and prayed for him.

Visiting

Four days before my next door neighbor’s 90th birthday party, he was diagnosed with advanced stages of pancreatic cancer. For his birthday I gave him two jars of homemade jam and told them to return the jars for more jam when they are finished. Tuesday afternoon the second clean jar was in my garage so I got a couple more jars to take over to him and his wife.

When his wife let me in the house, they wanted me to sit down and visit. However, she said, “You should sit down but you can stay for only a little bit because we have real company coming pretty soon.” I know how I rate.

When their granddaughter (the real company) pulled in the driveway, the wife said, “You can slip out through the garage door.”

OK, whatever.