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A Cup of October
Wait a second! What happened to September? Geez Louise, I haven’t had nearly enough picnics or hikes or beach visits, and not one glass of wine on a patio—and now October is telling me to put the yard furniture away! What’s next? Find all of the rakes and the yard waste bags? Who knows, I might have to give serious thought to Thanksgiving, Pumpkinfest and Hallowe’en. Come on. I’m not really sure if I’m ready to say goodbye to summer. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of the seasons, but I like to do them justice. I don’t feel as if I did all of the summer things I wanted to do. And then?
Well, and then I really do have to put the summer things away. Hopefully I’ll put them away in a place where they’re safe and I’ll remember where that “where” is next summer. Most of the “summer stuff” ends up in the barn. Some of the “summer stuff” gets stored in the house and the cellar. The thing is, this gal never knows when she’ll want to have a mid-January BBQ and I likely won’t have any idea where I’ve put the BBQ accessories or if the propane tank has been filled. And while I’m on the topic of misplacing stuff, please don’t tell me you’ve never misplaced stuff. LOML and I spend a fair portion of our daily lives, in every season, trying to guess where we put stuff for safekeeping, dontcha know. My new mantra is “Let’s start putting things where they belong and they won’t be lost.” I also say something like, “You and I are too old to think we’re going to remember where we put something when we put something down, just for a moment.” You know what I mean. Sometimes I’ll put the keys to the barn on the kitchen table because I’m just going to get the tool box from the laundry room. Then I get the tool box and can’t find the barn keys because I didn’t put them where they belong—either in my pocket because I’m going to use them, or on the key hook in the kitchen. Obviously, I should take a bit of my own advice as I spend a fair portion of my day looking for my reading glasses, my cellphone, the hammer I just had in my hand, the book I was reading, the barn keys or my cup of coffee. By the time I find what I didn’t put away I’ve usually forgotten what the heck I was doing in the first place.
Ah, getting older! I want to say it’s hell, but it isn’t actually. LOML and I, after some tense searches and discussions, have decided to have a good time of losing things. Most of the time we laugh at each other, or with each other. A lot of our everyday conversations can be very deep, inspiring, interesting, informational. We’ve been known to talk about politics, the news, the weather, climate change, our kids and their kids, the neighbours, about things we hope to accomplish, trips we’re going to take and things that need to be done around the house. The interesting part is, quite often we’ll have the same conversation several times over and preface the conversation with, “Did I mention this before?”. Sometimes we roundup the conversation with, “I think we’ve discussed this once, or twice.” I suppose it would help if we actually listened to each other. I’d like to believe we actually do, but—if you’re a bit older—you know listening skills are not exactly stellar. Which brings us to, “I’m sure I told you I was going to buy a hedge trimmer because I couldn’t find the one we got from my brother.” Followed by, “What the heck are we going to do with two hedge trimmers, now?” Who knew we had two hedge trimmers? Obviously, I didn’t. Of course, it helps to have hedges to trim. Am I right? I am right. But, here we are. Losing stuff. And then?
Well, and then LOML and I grow weary of the merry-go-round of losing things, forgetting things and repeating conversations. When we get to that point we give each other a break and don’t really say much to each other for a day or two. Then we hug it out and restart the silliness cycle over a cup of coffee—which I can’t find. Oh look, I had two cups on the go.
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