I wish I had $5 for every time I've heard someone say, "They don't make 'em like they used to." Heck, with inflation, make that $10, since $5 doesn't buy what it used to. Add cash for every time I've uttered the words about making 'em like they used to, I'd be rich.
We could start with cars - my daughter, M.H., just bought another car to replace one she'd bought several years ago, which was really on its last legs or tires - but we won't. The only good part about not making cars like they used to is that Yugos are no longer being made. But the rest - the sturdy steel cars from Detroit's heyday - are enough to make one sigh.
Maybe six years ago, I decided to buy a new dining room table and chairs. It was the first time I'd ever had a brand new table and chairs, and they'd be replacing a dining room table a friend had bought for me twenty-plus years ago. That table was still in relatively decent shape (I really should've kept it, but that's another story), but the chairs had fallen apart and been replaced several times. New chairs and table were obviously what I needed to buy.
I found what I wanted on a chain-store's website and ordered away. (Note: This is not necessarily the smartest way to do this, since seeing a picture of something online doesn't quite give you enough info. Turned out that the table is bigger than I'd anticipated for the size of the dining room.)
A week or so later, a delivery truck arrived. The driver and his helper brought in the table and chairs, put them together, and that was that.
Within maybe eight to ten months, the chairs started falling apart big time. I called the store I'd bought the table and chairs from to see if they'd replace the chairs. For what I paid for them, I figured they would. (They did.)
Here's where it started getting a little strange. The customer service person on the phone asked if I'd bought the table with four or six chairs.
"Four," I answered.
"Okay, yeah, I just found that on the site," I was told. "Four chairs. Great, we'll send them on out."
The problem was that they would have to charge me for the chairs, then refund the money back to my account when the old, broken chairs were received back at their warehouse.
"You're kidding, right?"
Nope. I sighed and gave them the card number.
"You'll need to take the old chairs apart, box them up, and put them into the boxes that the new chairs came in," the man from customer service told me. "We'll also schedule UPS to pick up the boxes with the old chairs from your place the next day, so make sure you take care of it right away."
Around 6:00 P.M. the following Monday, a UPS truck pulled up in front of my house. The driver climbed out, went around back of the truck, got a dolly out, then brought four large boxes up to the house. He knocked on the door, then muscled them, one at a time, onto the porch, where my sons and I then muscled them into the house.
After getting the boxes laid out on the living room floor (the dining room is right off the living room, so no biggie), I opened the first box. There were two chairs in the box. I opened the next box. Two chairs in that one, too!
From what I figured out, the guy at customer service heard four chairs and went to type in the correct amount into his computer. As with computers, though, if there are blanks to fill in, you might not get to fill in all the info; it's entirely possible that their computer wanted the number of items, rather than chairs, shoes, what-have-you; just a generic items. Then, whoever pulled the order to send out saw 4 items rather than 4 chairs; this obviously meant 4 boxes with chairs...which came out to (you guessed it) 8 chairs! If it had been a math equation, it would've been:
4 chairs = 4 items;
4 items = 4 boxes;
4 boxes X 2 chairs = 8 chairs; which gives you:
4 chairs = 8 chairs. Guess this is what's considered new math!
I put together four chairs (two boxes' worth), took the old chairs apart, put them into the boxes that the new ones came in, taped up the boxes, flipped the address labels around so that they'd go back to where they'd come from, and that was that.
The next day, I stuck around the house, waiting for UPS to show up to pick up the four heavy boxes, tripping over them whenever I'd have to go through the living room. (Yes, the living room is small enough and the boxes were large enough that they did take up much of the available floor space.)
Just before 5:00, I began wondering if customer service had actually put in an order to have the boxes picked up, so I called UPS and asked if anyone was on their way to pick up the chairs.
"I'm really not sure," I was told. "I'm not seeing anything, but that doesn't mean that we don't have someone on the way."
So, just in case, I made sure that they'd come out the next day for the chairs.
"And the packages are pre-paid?" the woman on the phone asked. They were. "Good enough. We'll be by tomorrow to pick them up."
"But you can't tell if anyone's coming this afternoon?"
Nope, that would have entailed another phone number.
By 7:00, I was pretty sure that no one would be picking up the boxes until the next day. J. and M. and I dragged the boxes into the utility room so that we wouldn't trip over them that evening.
Ten minutes later, we heard the rumble of the UPS truck just outside our house. (You saw that coming, didn't you?! We should've, too.) I met the guy at the door - the same driver who'd dropped off the heavy boxes the day before - and asked him if he'd be able to bring the dolly to the back door.
"Sure thing." He also guessed why I'd moved the boxes.
The next day, I was at the grocery store when my cell phone rang. Apparently, UPS had sent the exact same driver out to pick the chairs up again. When he'd arrived the night before, it had been too late to reach anyone to cancel the pick up. When I'd called that morning, I was told not to worry, everything was fine.
"He looked really relieved when I told him there weren't four more boxes of chairs to pick up," J. told me. Well, I guess! Those things were heavy!
We needed to replace the chairs two more times, as they kept falling apart in a matter of months. This huge table came with chairs that probably should have been marked as "perfect for the super-model who weighs no more than 98 pounds; not meant to hold more than 100 pounds."
The last time two of the chairs fell apart, I put them into our spare room, figuring I'd try fixing them. But after a while, I realized that that was not happening, and put them out on trash day. We still have two of the last four chairs here...
Meanwhile, my mom had had a dining room table and chairs that a neighbor of ours in Connecticut had built during the mid-1960s. When she sold the set, maybe ten years ago, they were still a solid, usable set, chairs and all. (The neighbor had had a small furniture building company and put pride into everything that was built.)
Then there's the computer desk I bought and put together. Ditto the entertainment unit. They're both showing much too much wear...and it's not like they're antiques. Just cheaply made. Meanwhile, the desk I'm working on at the moment was made by a late in-law 60+ years ago! It's nothing fancy: desk top, metal strip around the edges, place to sit with plenty of leg room, and three drawers stacked up on the right-hand side. It's not glamorous, but dang, it's sturdy and still in great shape. It'll probably last another 60+ years.
No, they don't make 'em like they used to.
Showing posts with label Connecticut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Connecticut. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Christmas Day
Yesterday was Christmas, and I'm okay with that. That might seem like a strange thing to say; how could anyone not be okay with Christmas? (If you've spent your life celebrating Hanukkah instead, or any other winter holidays, I'm not trying to disrespect you; I'm simply writing where I'm coming from and my point of reference. I'd love to read your writings on the subject.)
But being okay with Christmas: You have no idea how long it took me to be able to say that. Sure, as a kid, especially if you've grown up in a middle-class family, as I did, Christmas was great. What wasn't there to love: First off, there were the presents, the extended family, the food, the lights, the whole ambience of Christmas. We may have had two trees, since I do remember seeing a decorated tree in a corner of the living room by our corner windows, and the big tree - the one where we'd find the presents - downstairs in the playroom.
Most years, it seems, we'd go to both sets of grandparents' places, usually one a day or two before Christmas, the other either on Christmas Day for dinner, or a set would come over for Christmas. Both of my parents had one sibling who lived in close proximity so that whichever set didn't have Christmas dinner with us would have a place to go. All very good.
Of course, these days, with family frequently spread across the country, this is a little more difficult. Thank goodness for phones, though it's still not quite the same. Maybe in some respects, that's not always a bad thing; we all have our weird holiday stories.
But then, life changed, evolved. When we moved to Connecticut, it seemed that one year, both sets of grandparents came one year for Christmas, along with my mom's father's brother and his wife. Uncle George and Aunt Elsie were what could be classified as characters, a nice way of saying eccentric, or at least on friendly terms with it. Of course, I'm not really sure if both sets of grandparents came at once, or if my memory is simply condensing several holidays together. Either way, it wouldn't have been more than one Christmas. I do remember standing around the piano in what my mother called the music room, my mother playing Christmas tunes and hymns Christmas Eve and Christmas night, Broadway show tunes the next evening, while everyone stood around, singing.
(An aside that has nothing to do with Christmas: Off the music room was the downstairs bathroom; that almost deserves its own post: the previous owners painted the entire room in various shades of purple and lavender, including a purple sink and toilet. My mother named the room the purple potty, and the name stuck; forty-plus years later, the term still resonates.)
There were more moves: From Thompson to Woodstock, Connecticut, to Pittsford, New York just outside Rochester, and finally to Florida. There are plenty more holiday memories, mostly good.
When I married my ex, my parents weren't exactly thrilled; somehow, I doubt that it was simply his blue-collar roots. But that's neither here nor there. We did have some pleasant memories, interspersed among the rough spots, and we did have four offspring who I'm proud of more often then not; they're finally at that age when we can have semi-intelligent conversations. My second husband was also a blue-collar man with middle-class roots and enough patience to put up with an out-spoken extravert. He and I had good memories, including holidays.
This year, things have been tight, financially. We'd hoped that, since M.H., B., and G. now live nearby, we'd be able to see them for Christmas, as they'd had holidays for the past 15 or so years with family in Rhode Island. But life happens: their car died an unhappy death after they'd moved into their apartment nearby (but still requiring two bus routes, which, on the holiday schedule, is interesting, meaning a much shorter day), they now have a scooter to get around on (really pretty much a one-person deal, even if it does have pegs for a second person to put his or her feet), and M.H. had to work yesterday from shortly after noon until a little after 6. Finances didn't include cab fare to and from either way. You know the old joke that goes "How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans"? That's what happened to our first extended family Christmas in years. I could have copped an attitude, but it wouldn't have helped any.
Added to the fun was that our toilet, which has been acting up - but doing better the past few weeks - decided to act up on Christmas Eve day. This year, of course, it fell on a Monday, which means that a lot of places were giving workers a rare four-day weekend. I hated having to call the landlord about it, but also didn't relish the thought of a holiday with a backed-up commode. I'm funny about stuff like that. (And I'm sure you've already inserted something else into that stuff spot.)
The people coming out to fix it arrived just as I was heading out to meet M. at the bus; he had gone out to pick up last minute stuff from the store that we really needed for Christmas dinner and needed help carrying it all home from the bus stop. But J. was here, so that was cool; he could keep Drexie and Karma from making a break for it whenever the door was open.
As M. and I figured out who would carry what from the bus stop, we heard someone shout, "Hey, Robin!" I looked around in time to see Sandy V., J.'s day care lady from years ago. She lives within a mile or two from our place, but somehow, our lives have gotten so crazy that only occasionally see each other, and almost exclusively when we bump into each other. Usually, it's at the nearby Publix when we're shopping.
But she was out for a run in the misty weather. We quickly got caught up on each others' lives. She's married, has three kids, her daughters are now older than she was when we first met, her son older than most of my kids were when we met. Is it really possible that that much time has passed?
After we said our good-byes, Sandy off toward home, M. and I toward our place, I called J. and told him who we'd seen. Then I asked if the people working on the toilet were still there. No, he informed me; they'd plunged it, got it flushing, and left.
It worked fine the rest of the day. Good enough. Then, yesterday morning, I got up, went into the bathroom before starting the coffee and getting to work cooking, and sure enough, the toilet backed up. I plunged it once or twice, but wasn't thrilled.
Several hours later, after I did one load of laundry (when I'm baking and making holiday meals, I go through a ton of dish towels), I heard M. yell that he needed some bath towels NOW from the bathroom. Yup, you guessed it: there was a definite over-flow problem.
After we cleaned up a little and I started another load of laundry (thank goodness for the extra-hot setting on the washer), I called the landlord. When the property manager called back, she sounded as unhappy to be talking to me as I was. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough person, and I'm sure that if we were to meet under other circumstances, there's a chance we might talk over coffee. It's doubtful we'd ever be close best buddies - no BFFs here - but she's a nice enough person. But who wants to have to make or receive a call like that on Christmas? If there's one time of year when most of us want our family time, our please leave me alone unless you're calling to wish me a happy holiday time, it's Christmas.
She said it would be taken care of today, not to flush the commode, etc. This was the scenario we'd both hoped to avoid.
(For the record, she's already mentioned this morning that it will be taken care of today. We both were a little more, well, not okay with the situation, but at least not growling over it; at this point, that's an improvement.)
I finished the preliminary baking - two loaves of pumpkin bread, two pumpkin pies, and a cranberry-raisin pie - before starting the stuffing and turkey. Usually, I bake an apple pie, pouring apple cider into it for extra yumminess (yes, that's the technical term: yumminess), but we were a little short on cash this year. But M. and I decided that a cranberry-raisin pie would be a suitable stand-in. Twice in the past, I tried baking all three kinds of pie for holidays, but have since decided that that was a little much. Once I got the turkey into the oven, I washed a few dishes, had a cup of hot tea, then put my shoes on.
Years ago, when I'd already quit driving cab, and Paul was driving for what he knew was his last holiday season driving cab, I'd taken a walk through the nearby park. This particular park is less than a block away; I can see the back entrance to it from my front porch. It has a playground, horse trails through the woods (there are plenty of stables in close proximity), rings for horse shows, and a rec center which doubles as a local voting precinct. Usually, through most of the year, I walk along one of the horse paths along the edge of the park on my way to other paths during my morning walks/runs. But the Thanksgiving before Paul retired, I'd put the turkey in the oven, watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV (something my maternal grandmother got me into the habit of doing; it still somehow connects me to her), then went through a walk on the horse trails through the woods. It took close to an hour to walk to the end of the trail and back (or, at least, as far as I'd planned to go). I loved taking the walk enough that I did it again on Christmas. (I've been known to walk it on Easter Sunday, too.)
Since then, I've missed a couple of holidays; Christmas, 2004, it rained; Thanksgiving, 2010, I was still sore and nowhere near up for a walk after a fall from a ladder at roof level onto a cement driveway (something like that takes a bit of a recovery, trust me on that), this past Thanksgiving, M. and I went to M.H., B. and G.'s apartment, and so on. Occasionally, I think, This'll probably be the last time I do this for whatever reason; but almost without fail, the next holiday, I'm back out there. It gives me an excuse to walk a different trail, to see the changes since the last time I walked it, and to just let my mind wander along with my feet. One year, I saw a peacock walking parallel to the path. Several years, M. and J. joined me for the walk.
Quick story: the city put lights along the horse path. The path tends to get dark by late afternoon; the lights turn on automatically, making it easier to see the path. They're tall, with an opaque orb at the top. They remind M. of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series. One year, M. walked with me on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the following Easter; each time, he'd spend the entire walk telling me about Narnia, discussing whether I should read the books in chronological order or in the order that Lewis had written them. Narnia and the lights in the park are now one of M.'s and my inside jokes. Every holiday, I remind myself that I really want to read the Narnia series - it's one of those books or series I've told myself everyone needs to read, or, at least, I need/want to. And then life gets busy, crazily busy, and Narnia slips my mind, at least until the next holiday walk.
Yesterday, I walked the trail alone, noticing changes: how a stand of trees that I'd enjoyed was slowly disappearing - a stand of off-white trees with slightly peeling bark, trees that stood huddled together like a lost tribe; the newer houses near the park and how the older new houses - ones that were built in the past six or seven years but are older than the newer new houses; the changes to the stable next to the park; in general, letting my mind wander.
Heading back down the trail, a woman riding a horse approached. Usually, by this point in my holiday walk, I've seen maybe half-a-dozen horse-and-riders in several groups; this time, I was beginning to think I wouldn't see any.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" the rider called, and I agreed. We both wish each other Merry Christmas. Then, as if on cue, the horse nodded, whinnied, and veered a few steps toward me. I'd been around horses as a kid, so it didn't startle me. The woman steered the horse back to its original course.
"Sorry," she told me. "He's just looking for treats." I smiled, and made a mental note to bring carrot pieces on my next holiday walk - after which, I'll start the Narnia series.
By the time I got home, I was in a better mood, one where I could handle stinky bathrooms.
And, in spite of having to work, M.H. apparently had a decent enough Christmas, too.
We still have next year to look forward to.
Note: The path below used to walk through the stand of trees mentioned near the end of this post; enough of the trees have either died or been cleared by the city that the path is no longer there.
But being okay with Christmas: You have no idea how long it took me to be able to say that. Sure, as a kid, especially if you've grown up in a middle-class family, as I did, Christmas was great. What wasn't there to love: First off, there were the presents, the extended family, the food, the lights, the whole ambience of Christmas. We may have had two trees, since I do remember seeing a decorated tree in a corner of the living room by our corner windows, and the big tree - the one where we'd find the presents - downstairs in the playroom.
Most years, it seems, we'd go to both sets of grandparents' places, usually one a day or two before Christmas, the other either on Christmas Day for dinner, or a set would come over for Christmas. Both of my parents had one sibling who lived in close proximity so that whichever set didn't have Christmas dinner with us would have a place to go. All very good.
Of course, these days, with family frequently spread across the country, this is a little more difficult. Thank goodness for phones, though it's still not quite the same. Maybe in some respects, that's not always a bad thing; we all have our weird holiday stories.
But then, life changed, evolved. When we moved to Connecticut, it seemed that one year, both sets of grandparents came one year for Christmas, along with my mom's father's brother and his wife. Uncle George and Aunt Elsie were what could be classified as characters, a nice way of saying eccentric, or at least on friendly terms with it. Of course, I'm not really sure if both sets of grandparents came at once, or if my memory is simply condensing several holidays together. Either way, it wouldn't have been more than one Christmas. I do remember standing around the piano in what my mother called the music room, my mother playing Christmas tunes and hymns Christmas Eve and Christmas night, Broadway show tunes the next evening, while everyone stood around, singing.
(An aside that has nothing to do with Christmas: Off the music room was the downstairs bathroom; that almost deserves its own post: the previous owners painted the entire room in various shades of purple and lavender, including a purple sink and toilet. My mother named the room the purple potty, and the name stuck; forty-plus years later, the term still resonates.)
There were more moves: From Thompson to Woodstock, Connecticut, to Pittsford, New York just outside Rochester, and finally to Florida. There are plenty more holiday memories, mostly good.
When I married my ex, my parents weren't exactly thrilled; somehow, I doubt that it was simply his blue-collar roots. But that's neither here nor there. We did have some pleasant memories, interspersed among the rough spots, and we did have four offspring who I'm proud of more often then not; they're finally at that age when we can have semi-intelligent conversations. My second husband was also a blue-collar man with middle-class roots and enough patience to put up with an out-spoken extravert. He and I had good memories, including holidays.
This year, things have been tight, financially. We'd hoped that, since M.H., B., and G. now live nearby, we'd be able to see them for Christmas, as they'd had holidays for the past 15 or so years with family in Rhode Island. But life happens: their car died an unhappy death after they'd moved into their apartment nearby (but still requiring two bus routes, which, on the holiday schedule, is interesting, meaning a much shorter day), they now have a scooter to get around on (really pretty much a one-person deal, even if it does have pegs for a second person to put his or her feet), and M.H. had to work yesterday from shortly after noon until a little after 6. Finances didn't include cab fare to and from either way. You know the old joke that goes "How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans"? That's what happened to our first extended family Christmas in years. I could have copped an attitude, but it wouldn't have helped any.
Added to the fun was that our toilet, which has been acting up - but doing better the past few weeks - decided to act up on Christmas Eve day. This year, of course, it fell on a Monday, which means that a lot of places were giving workers a rare four-day weekend. I hated having to call the landlord about it, but also didn't relish the thought of a holiday with a backed-up commode. I'm funny about stuff like that. (And I'm sure you've already inserted something else into that stuff spot.)
The people coming out to fix it arrived just as I was heading out to meet M. at the bus; he had gone out to pick up last minute stuff from the store that we really needed for Christmas dinner and needed help carrying it all home from the bus stop. But J. was here, so that was cool; he could keep Drexie and Karma from making a break for it whenever the door was open.
As M. and I figured out who would carry what from the bus stop, we heard someone shout, "Hey, Robin!" I looked around in time to see Sandy V., J.'s day care lady from years ago. She lives within a mile or two from our place, but somehow, our lives have gotten so crazy that only occasionally see each other, and almost exclusively when we bump into each other. Usually, it's at the nearby Publix when we're shopping.
But she was out for a run in the misty weather. We quickly got caught up on each others' lives. She's married, has three kids, her daughters are now older than she was when we first met, her son older than most of my kids were when we met. Is it really possible that that much time has passed?
After we said our good-byes, Sandy off toward home, M. and I toward our place, I called J. and told him who we'd seen. Then I asked if the people working on the toilet were still there. No, he informed me; they'd plunged it, got it flushing, and left.
It worked fine the rest of the day. Good enough. Then, yesterday morning, I got up, went into the bathroom before starting the coffee and getting to work cooking, and sure enough, the toilet backed up. I plunged it once or twice, but wasn't thrilled.
Several hours later, after I did one load of laundry (when I'm baking and making holiday meals, I go through a ton of dish towels), I heard M. yell that he needed some bath towels NOW from the bathroom. Yup, you guessed it: there was a definite over-flow problem.
After we cleaned up a little and I started another load of laundry (thank goodness for the extra-hot setting on the washer), I called the landlord. When the property manager called back, she sounded as unhappy to be talking to me as I was. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough person, and I'm sure that if we were to meet under other circumstances, there's a chance we might talk over coffee. It's doubtful we'd ever be close best buddies - no BFFs here - but she's a nice enough person. But who wants to have to make or receive a call like that on Christmas? If there's one time of year when most of us want our family time, our please leave me alone unless you're calling to wish me a happy holiday time, it's Christmas.
She said it would be taken care of today, not to flush the commode, etc. This was the scenario we'd both hoped to avoid.
(For the record, she's already mentioned this morning that it will be taken care of today. We both were a little more, well, not okay with the situation, but at least not growling over it; at this point, that's an improvement.)
I finished the preliminary baking - two loaves of pumpkin bread, two pumpkin pies, and a cranberry-raisin pie - before starting the stuffing and turkey. Usually, I bake an apple pie, pouring apple cider into it for extra yumminess (yes, that's the technical term: yumminess), but we were a little short on cash this year. But M. and I decided that a cranberry-raisin pie would be a suitable stand-in. Twice in the past, I tried baking all three kinds of pie for holidays, but have since decided that that was a little much. Once I got the turkey into the oven, I washed a few dishes, had a cup of hot tea, then put my shoes on.
Years ago, when I'd already quit driving cab, and Paul was driving for what he knew was his last holiday season driving cab, I'd taken a walk through the nearby park. This particular park is less than a block away; I can see the back entrance to it from my front porch. It has a playground, horse trails through the woods (there are plenty of stables in close proximity), rings for horse shows, and a rec center which doubles as a local voting precinct. Usually, through most of the year, I walk along one of the horse paths along the edge of the park on my way to other paths during my morning walks/runs. But the Thanksgiving before Paul retired, I'd put the turkey in the oven, watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV (something my maternal grandmother got me into the habit of doing; it still somehow connects me to her), then went through a walk on the horse trails through the woods. It took close to an hour to walk to the end of the trail and back (or, at least, as far as I'd planned to go). I loved taking the walk enough that I did it again on Christmas. (I've been known to walk it on Easter Sunday, too.)
Since then, I've missed a couple of holidays; Christmas, 2004, it rained; Thanksgiving, 2010, I was still sore and nowhere near up for a walk after a fall from a ladder at roof level onto a cement driveway (something like that takes a bit of a recovery, trust me on that), this past Thanksgiving, M. and I went to M.H., B. and G.'s apartment, and so on. Occasionally, I think, This'll probably be the last time I do this for whatever reason; but almost without fail, the next holiday, I'm back out there. It gives me an excuse to walk a different trail, to see the changes since the last time I walked it, and to just let my mind wander along with my feet. One year, I saw a peacock walking parallel to the path. Several years, M. and J. joined me for the walk.
Quick story: the city put lights along the horse path. The path tends to get dark by late afternoon; the lights turn on automatically, making it easier to see the path. They're tall, with an opaque orb at the top. They remind M. of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series. One year, M. walked with me on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the following Easter; each time, he'd spend the entire walk telling me about Narnia, discussing whether I should read the books in chronological order or in the order that Lewis had written them. Narnia and the lights in the park are now one of M.'s and my inside jokes. Every holiday, I remind myself that I really want to read the Narnia series - it's one of those books or series I've told myself everyone needs to read, or, at least, I need/want to. And then life gets busy, crazily busy, and Narnia slips my mind, at least until the next holiday walk.
Yesterday, I walked the trail alone, noticing changes: how a stand of trees that I'd enjoyed was slowly disappearing - a stand of off-white trees with slightly peeling bark, trees that stood huddled together like a lost tribe; the newer houses near the park and how the older new houses - ones that were built in the past six or seven years but are older than the newer new houses; the changes to the stable next to the park; in general, letting my mind wander.
Heading back down the trail, a woman riding a horse approached. Usually, by this point in my holiday walk, I've seen maybe half-a-dozen horse-and-riders in several groups; this time, I was beginning to think I wouldn't see any.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" the rider called, and I agreed. We both wish each other Merry Christmas. Then, as if on cue, the horse nodded, whinnied, and veered a few steps toward me. I'd been around horses as a kid, so it didn't startle me. The woman steered the horse back to its original course.
"Sorry," she told me. "He's just looking for treats." I smiled, and made a mental note to bring carrot pieces on my next holiday walk - after which, I'll start the Narnia series.
By the time I got home, I was in a better mood, one where I could handle stinky bathrooms.
And, in spite of having to work, M.H. apparently had a decent enough Christmas, too.
We still have next year to look forward to.
Note: The path below used to walk through the stand of trees mentioned near the end of this post; enough of the trees have either died or been cleared by the city that the path is no longer there.
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