Ideologues idolized—
Seductive sirens
luring loyalty
mandating mores
destroying diversity
wrangling words
fostering falsehoods
designing doubts
customizing confusion
sanctioning skepticism
fanning fears
attracting absurdity
civilizing corruption
What
is my special treat from the grocery store? Flowers. We enter our local HEB
from one set of doors to purchase groceries. Our route swings us by the plants
and cut flowers at the end of our shopping. A quick evaluation of our cart to judge
whether I’m in budget or not means I may indulge in either cut flowers or a
small plant. The mini roses often draw my attention. First, their inexpensive price
tag means the experiment to keep them alive won’t break the bank. In the past, I’ve repotted the little roses
and successfully moved them to spots outside. Currently, I have one that has
survived for almost a year. It’s not blooming yet, but I’m hopeful it’ll hang
in there long enough to bloom again.
I
feel absolutely spoiled when a dozen roses end up in our cart. Sometimes, the
store has my ultimate favorite—yellow. More often, red or pink bouquets add
splashes of color to our practical grocery purchases. I try to take the time
not only to “smell the roses” but to preserve them through my photography.
Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
Some
months, I worry that I may need to return to substitute teaching to allow us to
build a vacation fund or bank away enough money to remodel the bathrooms and
update the kitchen. Then I remember how illness traveled with me as I went from
classroom to classroom, school to school. Frankly, as I get older I don’t know
if my body can take the pummeling various viruses battered through me. Would
the extra money be worth exposing my health to illnesses that settle in my
chest for weeks at a time?
Frankly,
a trip to the beach or mountains, to another city or another country doesn’t
entice me to return to work. Although the house needs sprucing up
here-and-there, everything works. No reason to gut a room if it also means
picking up a bug that also guts me!
My
determination to remain fully retired took a punch last week when my husband’s
company announced another round of layoffs happening soon. Our goal has been for
him work until he’s 70 to pull in the highest Social Security benefit possible.
If he ends up unemployed at 67, will his retirement income be enough?
We
frantically crunched all of the numbers, remembering that we’d have to pick up
all of his medical insurance, and realized one or both of us would still need
to work at least part-time, or begin tapping into our retirement funds earlier
than we predicted.
How
can this be?
Over
the next few weeks, we’ll see how the dust settles. With luck, his position
will remain untouched during this round of cuts. He’ll get to his goal of three
more years with this company, and I won’t get thrown back to work.
For
now, we’re on alert for possible storms ahead.
My
hearing issues with tinnitus span decades of “that’s the way it is” acceptance.
A few years ago, large groups and noisy classrooms meant I guessed at words and
phrases unless the speaker stood straight before me. Frankly, once I stepped
away from crowded rooms, I stopped noticing the decline in my hearing ability.
Until this
last year, that is. When I sit in the back seat of the car, any conversations
from up front dodge back to me with uncertainty. At first, I excused my
inability to discern conversations because music played around us, and my
family members faced forward. Explanations I chimed to myself to avoid the
inevitable. The other day, I begged my husband to repeat numbers to me as we
worked our monthly budget. “Was that a five? Or a nine?” If he doesn’t turn to
face me directly, I’ll have to ask again.
I know that’s
clearly a sign that things have changed more than I’d like to admit. I need to have a long talk with my physician during
my annual exam this summer. I can convince myself that not having to ask “What?”
a billion times a day will add quality to my life. If hearing aids become my
newest dip into elderly fashion, I will embrace them with cool self-confidence.
After all, it’s still better than all of those years I wore braces!
Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
 |
| Hard and broken men |
Time pauses
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| May 1999 |
