Dress Appropriately

I wore shorts to the grocery store the other day. I had been playing pickleball after school, and hey? 77 degrees said don't even worry about it. Still, I felt a little odd shopping in shorts and a hoodie on February 23rd. And when I ran into a neighbor, I sure wished my legs were a little less flabby and a little more tan. 

Somehow, the gradually warming days of spring into summer make the transition from one season's wardrobe to another more graceful.

Even so, I needn't have worried about it, because this afternoon? As I walked Lucy through the snow, shorts were the farthest garment from my mind.

Unreliable Sources

I introduced the 100 Day Writing Challenge today, and as inspiration, (and a bit of a brag, I guess) I told the young writers, as I always do, how many days in a row it has been that I've written (5,109). At this point, the number is beyond their life span and hence beyond their comprehension, but they, like past groups, become fixated on finding my blog. "It's public," I tell them, "But it's also my personal writing, so you are welcome to read it, if you find it."

Over the years, I've done a pretty good job of scrubbing any searchable connection with my name and this blog. Not perfect; it's been found before, but not easily. Today the search took on familiar outlines of years past. "Is it your facebook?" someone asked.

I shook my head.

"Your pinterest? Your Twitter? Your Instagram?" 

"Is it this?" They show me a picture of myself from the school website. 

Then a kid raised his hand. "I'm only telling you this for your safety," he reported quite seriously. "Here is your address! And your age! And people you know!" The identity website he had found astounded and alarmed him.

"That's just a website based on public records," I told him. "You could probably find similar information about your parents. Stop looking for my blog and start writing."

A little while later, while kids were supposed to be composing their first slices of life, I noticed a girl staring at her screen, both hands covering her mouth in horror. "Is this true?" she asked in a low voice. "How could it be?" and she began to weep.

I stepped behind her to see what she was looking at. It was an identity website with the name of a woman who shared this student's last name. Her age was reported to be 93. "Is that your great-grandmother?" I asked. 

"My aunt," she told me, "but I thought she died! How can she be 93?"

Both I and the girl next to her tried to reassure her that the site was a mechanical gathering of information. It didn't really know anything, but we were unsuccessful. That kid left her half-believing that a woman who died in 2016 was alive and well somewhere.

"Talk to your parents about that website," I told her as she walked out the door.

"Oh, I will, she said. "I sure will."

There Once Was a Boy

Now that it's been nearly a month since I started working out downstairs with Treat, we have found that the pickleball court is not always as open as it seemed to be the first week or so. In fact there is a regular group of players, who, if they are already playing by the time we get down there, will not likely give up the court before it's time for us to leave. Oh, there's a system for signing up, but unfamiliarity with both it and the game itself have kept us from anything but practice games between ourselves when the court is empty. 

A couple weeks ago, we talked Emily into going to play with us, and as the three of us smacked the pickleball around, sometimes wildly, sometimes with accidental precision, a woman approached with her middle-school aged son. "I noticed there are only three of you," she started. "Would you mind if my son joined your game? He really just wants the practice."

We shrugged, and welcomed the kid into our game. His mom seemed pretty experienced with her equipment bag and court shoes, and as she handed him a racquet from the three or four in her bag, she reminded him not to swing it too hard. "It's light and powerful," she warned, and with that he bounded onto my side of the court.

What's your name?" I asked.

It was Pierre, and he was an eighth grader at our school, although he had never been in either my or Emily's class. Pierre was a curious dude; self-assured and light on his feet, comfortable talking to adults, with some solid, but uneven pickleball skills.

"Shall we play a game?" he asked, and proceeded to teach us the rules and etiquette for pickleball doubles. He was good enough to carry a team, and the rest of us had our moments, so it ended up being a fun and fair match up.

I was disappointed this afternoon when I glanced through the safety glass on my way to the locker room. The courts are taken 😩 I texted Emily and Treat, in case they wanted to change their workout plan.

It's only Pierre Emily replied a few minutes later when she got in there. The two of sat in, yes, folding chairs and watched Pierre give his friend a lesson in the basics. As they volleyed, Treat came and told us he had a call at 3, but would join us after. 

"Do you want the court?" asked Pierre a few minutes later.

"Do you guys want to play a game?" I asked in return. And so we did. It was fun. Emily got her serve down, and when Treat came out it so happened the other kid had to leave so he joined as our fourth. Pierre was a bit pedantic, and still far from a pro pickler, but one could never say he doesn't care.

Journey to June

The first set of commercials are due tomorrow, and the film festival is all set for next Monday and Tuesday. To be honest? I'll be happy to pack away the costumes and props; it's been fun, but like any holiday or vacation, the sparkle and novelty are wearing thin, and it's time to get back to writing.

And write we shall! The 100 Day Writing Challenge starts one week from today! Who knows what the next 107 days will bring? 

Resilience

It happened in slow motion. 

I was watching out the window while a group of kids set up a shot for their commercial. They were in that zone of both productivity and fun, and their faces were beaming as they rehearsed and gestured about the blocking. Just then, a gust of wind caught the iPad on the tripod like a sail, and lofted it up and then let it smash on the ground. Their jaws dropped as they bent to retrieve the device, and then their faces crumpled as they saw the screen. 

The class was almost over, and so I met them at the door as they came in. "I saw," I told them, as they tried to explain. 

"But the whole commercial is on that iPad!" one of them pointed out in dismay. We gingerly laid the device flat on the table, and through shattered glass I carefully selected all the video clips and uploaded them to the student's Google Drive. Then I shared each one with me, and later, after they went to their next class, created a folder and shared it with the rest of the group. Then I put a repair ticket in for the iPad and turned it in.

It was a much more somber end to the day than we expected, but I predict that their enthusiasm will be back even before the iPad is.

Nothing's Promised

"Those are young people's dreams," my friend told me at breakfast the other morning.

She had been catching me up on the plans of another of her friends. Our age, this woman had recently retired from the State Department and enrolled in law school. "She wants to work for the Innocence Project," my friend said, "but the average case there takes 15 years. She'll be in her late 70s by then."

Another of her friends, also our age, was working on developing an investment property he had purchased. His plan was to build a sustainable community. "He's having trouble with the permitting, though," my friend told me, "and he won't even be able to break ground for another ten years." She shook her head in dismay.

Her advice to both friends was to find something that they could do now. "We do have a shelf life, you know!"

I can see both sides. 

By some accounts, 60 is the new 40. A more comfortable life and better health care have combined to put off some of the classic complaints of aging. Sure, I and my contemporaries have a few more aches and pains, and several have even had knee and hip replacement surgery. But such procedures are so commonplace precisely because they promise to get those folks right back out there, as mobile and pain-free as ever. Since aging might feel as dramatic a decline as it once did, there's a temptation to continue operating as if we have many decades ahead of us, instead of just two or three.

My friend is right: we're not going to be around forever., and it is better to focus on the now. But that's always been the case, hasn't it?

The Check

I went to breakfast yesterday with a friend of mine. We spent an hour catching up, and at the end of the meal when our check came we owed 33 dollars for breakfast. 

We agreed to split the bill evenly. "I have cash," said my friend. "I'll leave the tip." She put seven dollars on the table. 

"I'm going to put my half on my card," I said.

"Do you want me just to give you cash?" she asked.

"That works," I shrugged. 

"Half of 40 is 20," she noted, and handed me a twenty dollar bill.

I nodded and accepted the cash, and then paid with my card at the counter. 

It wasn't until this morning when I saw the twenty on my nightstand that I realized I owe my friend seven bucks!