Calendar and Curmudgeon

Calendar and Curmudgeon

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My friends roll their eyes and tell me they think I am nuts. I don’t argue. Every year I draw out a calendar by hand, a page for each month, an empty box for each day, in which I can note in cryptic form those things which I wish to remember, such as CBD80 (Crin’s birthday-80) or Lola-rabies or annual water bill due.

When I draw my new pages, I review the old, plug in necessary annual items and leave blank the other boxes to be filled in as each day passes. My year-end review is bittersweet. I note the day we went up to La Mesa. I note the day Al died. The day I moved my bed and stove and dog into my new casita.

And so it goes. Ah, yes, that was a good book that came in June. Oh, do I ever recall the day my rotary clothesline finally arrived. Mundane, yes. Some days stay blank. But most days bring up memories.

I grew up on a farm with the kind of calendar, free from the Farmer’s Coop or State Farm, each page with a pocket into which one stuffed monthly bills, also with space on each day to write important notices. Few of my notices are important. My calendar marks time.

My friends have all their information on their I-phones. I watch them scroll through hundreds of apps. I prefer my piece of paper in its stand next to my computer. We each use what works for us.

Usually I dread Calendar Day, in which I gather pencil, papers and ruler, ready to draw lines, horizontal and vertical. I generally look for distractions, ways to procrastinate prior to and during the process. Some years my calendar-making stretches over two or three days. This year I found it sweet, done Christmas afternoon, a gift of memories.

One year my cousin Nancie brought me a beautiful calendar, big blank boxes for each date, just the trick. You must realize that Nancie does love a good bargain. I used that calendar three days before I realized it was for the two years previous. The laugh was on me and I never told Nancie.

Today I am marking in the first blank boxes of my new year, hoping for the sweet to continue.  

The Curmudgeon I speak of is me. I’ve crashed bang against the wall. Surely, I am simply tired from months of packing, purging, making decisions, changing purposes of various furnishings, making the actual move, unpacking, more purging, more decisions, more painting, more building, more, more, more of seemingly everything!

I’m almost to the end of work, almost done, almost. Unless, I have one more storage cabinet built for my bedroom. Unless I re-arrange my under-stairway storage—which I suspect will be necessary before the rainy season.

This entire grouping of holiday days has been filled with friends visiting, pot-lucking, dinners, picnics, nearly every single day. Fun, yes, and I love it. But, whew!

Never have I been so popular. Certainly, I saw my friends frequently at the rancho, five minutes here, ten minutes there, sometimes an hour over cups of tea. I’m still the same me, not prettier nor richer nor more powerful. Older. Yes. Older.

Ah, the alure of change. My new setting. No longer a neighbor next door, now I’m the hostess. I’ll best be the hostess with the moistest while it lasts. Soon I’ll be old-hat again, rumpled and crumpled and comfortable.

Today, however, I am a curmudgeon and turn away all comers.

Happy New Year.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 2 in the New Year

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Ring my bell!

 

                Ring my bell!

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I’d been out of bed five minutes when I heard the clang-rang of my gate bell.

We respect each other’s boundaries. When neighbors visited, they stood out by the gate and yelled, “Sondra, are you home?”

I’d lived here a year when I figured there must be a better early-warning system. At the tianguis in town I bought a goat bell. I had a welder make an arch and attach it to the gate so the bell would hang free.

When I hear the bell, I go out to the gate and open it for my guests.

But this morning I’m not dressed. It’s too early for visitors. I hope nobody is in trouble. Needs help? I throw open the bathroom window and look out. The bell is swinging but there’s not a soul in sight.

However, standing on the metal arch from which the bell tolls, is a rain bird. I’ve no idea what the bird’s real name is. Might be Homer, or Tilda, or Mergatroid, for all I know. I’ve trawled through my Birds of Mexico bird book and found four or six kinds my flighty friend might be.

Normally, the rain bird shows up about a month prior to the rainy season, like the cicadas, the annual kind we have every spring. Hence, I call them rain birds, perhaps driven down to Mexico early by northern winds. 

I hope Bell Bird doesn’t make this a habit. As it is, I awake to bird song every morning. After the donkey’s bray, that is. The donkey lives across the canal. He might as well be tethered in my yard; he is that loud, and with a voice like he’s had too much whiskey and smoked too many cigars.

Donkey. Then the birds. Then the sun. A progression.

Man does not live by bird alone. I use the word ‘man’ in the old-fashioned, all-inclusive way. At my age I can’t be bothered with PC that changes daily. Man, woman and chittlin’s.

As much enjoyment as I get from my bird-brained friends, I need people.

Ana and Michelle have been regaling me, long distance, with tales of their building/renovation projects that have spanned the entire past year. On the outer edge of Oconahua, they have an incredible stone house they designed, along with land for chickens, sheep, rescued dogs, garden, a soon--to-be-planted orchard, plus a casita for Michelle’s mom, Jane, and another for their friend, Rick.

When they invited me to lunch and a visit, without hesitation, I accepted. It was my first social outing since mid-March, one year past. I was hungry for more than a fifteen minute chat. I was ready, willing and eager for a couple hours of sit-down stories and lies and laughter.

I know these women to be as diligent about safety as myself. We are in agreement that the days of large patio gatherings are past, at least for the next two or three years. So, masked, distanced, in open air on their newly fitted out patio, complete with outdoor kitchen and lots of comfortable seating, we did have ourselves a rattling good time!

While Ana and Michelle rescue abandoned dogs, I seem to have acquired a, er, larger animal.

Two nights ago a loose horse wandered into my yard. I mean, a horse that had gotten loose. I have grass and a lot of flowering bushes. The horse is beautiful, though ultra slim, is shod and obviously has had good care. We put the word around town, hoping the owner comes soon, before I get too attached. Maybe he rang my bell? He left horse apples.

Four-ish in the afternoon, my bell clanged. John and Carol came for a patio visit.

When “my” horse and his owner re-united, I felt sad to see him go, glad he left with a full belly. Perhaps he will visit again. 

The final person to ring my bell this day is Damian, my washing machine repair-person. (I can be PC when warranted.) An hour and a new part later, my machine is fixed and works better than ever. I suspect the poor beast’s veins were calcified somewhere along the line and Damian reamed it out.

Sheets are drying on the line. I love my dryer which seldom goes on the blink and is self-repairing. I’ll crawl into bed that smells like sunshine tonight.

Ring my bell, but not at sun-up, please.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 22, 2021

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From Fish to Furniture--The Three Day Rule

From Fish to Furniture--The Three Day Rule

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I try to be cognizant of the three day rule when I am a guest, whether I'm visiting with friends or family. After three days, fish or guest, one stinks. One notices the speculative eyeball, "When do you think she'll leave?"

There is a slight difference when one is a paying guest, such as I am at the hotel in Hot Springs where I spend hours each day soaking in steaming pools, sleeping, reading, and healing.  Just this morning when I was warming a chair in front of the fireplace, a young man who works here, Willy, I believe his name is, asked, "You still here?"

The day I arrived I committed to three days. One or two would not be enough so surely three would be perfect. However, the second day I found myself thinking about leaving and a mild state of panic set in. Not real panic but pseudo-panic, which feels the same. So I added another day. Then I asked for yet another day, or maybe two--no, let me see the calendar. So will my room be available for another week? Aw, let's just run my stay through a full two weeks. 

So the first three days I am indeed a guest, rather pampered with my needs catered to by the cheerful staff.

Day four segues into an interesting blend of being a guest and being family.  Definitely, I am family the rest of the first week.  I help myself to coffee.  I know where the pot sits on the burner beneath the coffee maker. When I need fresh towels, I know which staff is doing house-keeping this day. Silverware is wrapped comfy in a roomy napkin in the basket on the table around the corner.  I helped a guest get some this morning at breakfast.

Now and then, someone checks to see if I need anything. But mostly we have short conversations. They know my name. I am getting to know them.

And like with any blended family, tasks are shared. The woman taking reservations might also be waiting tables in the dining room, two phones stuffed inside her apron pockets. The maintenance man doubles as the breakfast chef. Job descriptions at the hotel must be either a nightmare of paperwork or everyone simply signs up to do whatever task needs doing. See what I mean--family.

After the first week I feel like furniture, quite comfortable perched in my corner, ignored by everyone. Any day now I expect to be dusted as 'house-keeping' makes the rounds, especially if I've already been to the hot pool and am sitting immobile in my favorite chair before the fire, seemingly comatose but actually in perfect imitation of a Zen meditative state.

I will leave eventually, honestly, I will. Saturday I will be on my way to Washington, happy to have use of my phone once more. Oh, dear, the maintenance man is coming my way with two light bulbs and a lampshade. Oh, dear, do you suppose . . .

            Sondra Ashton

            HDN: Looking out my back door

            October 17, 2013

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