Imagine my shock and horror to realize I haven’t written a blog in almost a month, and for no good reason other than I seem to have lost track of time.  The cursed life of the retired person.  We have all the time in the world to do whatever we please, but we decide to waste it and do nothing but look at You Tube videos.  Notice I’m dragging every single retired Boomer into this.

I do have some productive days, such as last week when I took my chiropractor’s sister-in-law thrift store shopping for four hours.  I’ve never shopped that long in those stores before, so it was quite the marathon.  It’s funny because Shelley said she needed to buy clothes, and I certainly didn’t, so guess who came home with three tops and who came home with nine.

Those damned Mennonites had all tops at 50% off so I blame them.  When a Tommy Hilfiger sweater is $4.00 I have to purchase it.  But then when I get home and look at the masses of clothes that I already own I like it quite a bit less.  Obviously buying cheap items whether one needs them or not is some type of mental illness.

And then my time is taken up with cooking for mom which involves shopping, cooking, cleaning and packaging.  Mom currently has a terrible bum leg that’s causing all sorts of agony so I’ll be going in between my usual visits to see if I can help in some way.  I can see that being 97 has its challenges.

Mom loses track of time, too, so when I go to town and return that can be enough time for her to assume I’ve been killed.  Last time I was there I arrived home after a 15-minute visit to town with mom saying she was mentally arranging the funeral and then wondered if my will is in order.  This type of questioning makes me nearly crazy, so I just replied that there’s nothing about my will she needs to worry herself about.

Because Christmas and its attendant tasks can sap any time one may have, I’ve made a master list of cookies, who is getting them, when they must be baked, and by when they’re going into the mail or out for personal delivery.  I plan on making six different kinds so you can see an Excel spreadsheet is probably in order here.

The other day I was in the basement getting mom’s cooler of food ready to take to Osoyoos when George the cat threw something at my head which caused me to scream.  Anyone who’s heard it knows my scream can break glass, but because of his penchant for rodents and because the object was small and gray, I thought he’d thrown a mouse at my head.

Calvin heard the scream (the neighbours probably did too) and opened his door to see if I was hurt, and I explained the situation. As I did I saw a bunch of feathers so realized it was a bird.  We looked all over and finally Calvin spotted it sitting in the window, so he grabbed a towel and took it outside where he reported at first it just laid there, feeling sure its life was over, and then suddenly took flight.

With this cold weather, besides You Tube I like to waste time with shows on Netflix such as Dead to Me, and on CBC Gem I like The Great Canadian Baking Show.  Cry me a river, Millennials, someday you’ll be old, retired people, too.