Tuesday, August 4, 2026

     After lunch I curl up on the couch under my blue comforter.  Images of the wind gusting through the yard fill the windows. I fall half asleep, in the strange world of being partially awake but not moving or thinking. Timeless until the front door opens and my roommate returns and I become fully awake again.

     So what is the dreadful August car week exactly. Mostly thousands of guys looking at cars, driving cars, talking about cars, showing off cars, desiring better more interesting cars, all while racing up and down the streets. It is not a sporting event or a cultural concert or a festival. It is about looking and talking about cars with other guys and spending money in local businesses. Maybe better than fighting wars or terrorizing our immigrant communities. The appeal is a mystery to me.

     I mention to my roommate that we are out of Ad Astra bread, the best bread in the world. Maybe she will have time to pick up a sourdough seeded loaf. Please, I say. And she does.  I am so lucky. I am limping in the afternoon. I suspect I was too aggressive with my chair exercises. Getting old is a challenge. We are now eating home grown artichokes and tomatoes.

     I am engrossed in the novel, THE SECRET SHARERS by Qui Xiaolong. More books are waiting. In the evening, I watch one episode of THE LAST SHIP while my roommate is on zoom meetings.  Then we watch more of THE CAPTURE, A British mystery story, complex and scary. We forget to take out the recycle bin for pick up. This morning my roommate is on it. Yep garbage day once again. Foggy cold morning.

 

Monday, August 3, 2026

     Cold damp morning. Wearing winter clothes now.  Feeling peppy, ready to do something. Cell phone now beeps with another offer of hundreds of thousand dollars if only I answer some questions. For sure, spam.  I get several of these calls everyday.  It must be because I own my own home so I am a target.  If only they knew my just barely adequate income.

     My roommate is tired yesterday so I get to be in charge. I order groceries, clean up the kitchen. Surely, I did more but now I can’t remember. What does being in charge actually mean. I feel in charge but actually I do what I usually do.

     I am disappointed with the sci-fi book, EARTH 7 by Deb Olin Unferth.  It starts off with a bang and I love it. But then it becomes too technical and difficult to understand. I continue to read THE SECRET SHARERS by Qiu Xiaolong. In the afternoon I sit in the shade outside and do my chair exercise.  Then I listen to an interesting NYT’S BOOK REVIEW podcast focusing on JOHN OF JOHN. A good conversation about a book I enjoyed. I also listen to a bladder cancer podcast to hear about the latest treatments. Protocols keep changing. A difficult disease.

      And then early in the evening we watch TV, the last episodes of the great series, RUN OR DIE. Now we want a second season. The living room darkens as we watch. I turn on the lights and close the curtains and lock up the house. Still only two sun flowers blooming. More coming. Nothing new to say about the national political quagmire. But the very loud and busy car week is coming soon to our community.

 

Sunday, August 2, 2026

     I scroll through the pictures of food on Instacart at Andronico’s. Time to order but it has been months since I placed an order. My turn to shop for groceries. I am surprised at the high costs. I just want to buy everything, the curse of shopping. I have forgotten how to be a careful shopper.

     Saturday late afternoon I sit in the front yard doing my chair exercises. Then I sit and listen, mourning doves cooing, airplanes flying overhead, the steady drone of cars, a single dog bark as my neighbor arrives home, a distant siren. Lots of bees busing though the plants. I can’t hear the bees but I see them.

     I start reading a new book even though I haven’t finished the others. EARTH 7, sci fi novel by Deb Olin Unferth. Really easy and compelling to read.  Not her first book. On line I look for a medical memoir by a gerontologist, my way of learning how medical world really works. What do doctors working with old people really look for.

     In the evening my tired roommate and I watch an episode of SUGAR, and of RIDE OR DIE. I mute the sound during physical fighting scenes. Foggy morning, birds in the bottle bush trees. More people are tackled by masked ICE thugs in airports. Sigh.