A New Life! Retirement at its Best 2021-100

Amusement in the Waiting Room

When we exited the waiting room of the Wound Healing Center last Friday, we talked for a moment to the two ladies behind the desk. One is a Nurse-assistant, the other one the Secretary. Both are wonderful people. The secretary wears hats, a different one every time, underneath from which pours a river of shiny hair: sometimes black, sometimes brown, this time a glorious red. I commented on the red: “What a beautiful color, Sandy. My mom had red hair like that.”
“Thank you. I like your hair. I wish we could trade.”
“Well, we can’t trade my hair,” and I pulled on the short strands on top of my head.
“You should get a wig, then we could trade.”
“Oh, I have a wig, a long one, to my shoulders. But I only wear it when I dance hula.”
“You dance hula?” They both looked up and started laughing, waving their hands like everyone does when hula is discussed.
“Yes, but not like that. I dance the real hula.”
“The real hula? Oh, you must teach us. We can go in room 3, that is a bigger room, and we can take turns answering the phone.”
“No, it’s not that easy.” People do not realize that Hula is an art and takes many hours to learn.

Then I had a thought: “I can teach you one thing,” I said, and I went through my knees and made the Circle Island motion with my hips, first right, then left. “This motion means going around the island.” The people in the waiting room turned to watch the spectacle, and by that time the two ladies behind the desk were laughing so hard that Mike and I started laughing too. We opened the door to leave. Over my shoulder I called, “Room 3, I will remember.” They were in stitches. The laughter followed us all the way to the car.

Books

When I picked up dinner at the Club last week, after dropping off some Christmas cards at people’s doors, Julia stopped me and told me how much she had liked my short stories. “We should have a meeting every week,” she said, “where people read short stories and then discuss them. Like a Book Club for people who can’t see very well. There are a lot of them.” Julia is the leader of one of the two book clubs in our facility, and both clubs are reading the same book once a month. “I haven’t read a good book in I don’t know how long,” I said. Whereupon Julia commented that the book the club was reading this month was very, very good, a page turner. She asked me to wait at the elevator, went to her apartment around the corner and came back with a book, a second copy she had laying around. “Here,” she said, “you may keep it until the day after Christmas.”

What Julia did not understand was that I have a Kindle library full of great books, but I am lacking the time to read them. I have no time in the day to sit down with a book! It has been so for months. But she meant well, so I took the book, and that night after dinner, I decided to read one chapter. I did, and I was hooked. For that is vital for a good book: it has to have a hook right at the beginning. I read four chapters. But today, there was no time, and tomorrow we’ll see. But reading is something I love, almost more than writing. So, since I am retired from Book promoting, I am hoping I will have plenty of time to settle down with one of my good books in the near future. And then another one, and another one…

It’s a Wonderful Life!

I wish you all a Sparkling, Joyous Christmas.

Until next week,

Ronny