January 15, 2017

Last night, when I came in from walking the dogs, I inadvertently switched off the cabin stairs instead of the light. I fiddled with both before I went to bed. This morning, when I looked at the stair's rocker switch, I thought it was in the wrong position so I flipped it. The stairs did not move because the door was closed. The outside table was dirty and wet with dew so I put my full cup of hot coffee on the stairs. When I closed the cabin door, the stairs retracted and my coffee went all over the mat. Fuck. My new percolator makes two full mugs of coffee, so I poured the remainder into a clean mug and set off with the dogs for our half hour morning walk.

​After I walked and fed the dogs, I gave BOB a bath. "Weekend Edition Sunday" played in my pocket as I washed the coffee off the mat and mulch dust off the chairs, table and BOB. When I finished, I did some interior cleaning, showered, then I rode my bike to Publix.

It was a beautiful day here today and I spent most of it inside after grocery shopping. I did some banking, job-stuff, spoke to a friend, ate lunch, and I emerged after three to walk the dogs feeling as though I had squandered it. At four-thirty, I road my bike to the beach just to look at the ocean for a few minutes because one should always look at the ocean as often as possible. Living in "paradise" creates a psychological burden to spend time outside, but I avoid sun exposure, I have no shade in my site, and there is no shade at the pools or the ocean. So, where does a mole go? Inside.

Sherri and I went to sunset tonight. Her son was already there. We joined him, he left, he came back, and he left again, so we joined Happy Easta and her friend who were drinking chocolate martinis. The Dutch woman, Lena, joined us and I got points for remembering her surname. She told a very funny story about how a diminutive of her real Dutch given name (Fokkeliena) sounds like a swear word in English, and how the GIs who liberated Holland got a big kick out of asking her name when she was a child. The story was charming as she told it, but I was more surprised to discover that she must be in her early eighties to have been a school-age child at the end of the war. I would have guessed her to be in her early seventies. She said her husband is "much" older, so I'm guessing that he is in his mid-eighties. Good for them: they are spry and fit and inspiring and interesting.

President Obama was on "60 Minutes" tonight. I like him per se: he has good intentions, he's a gentleman, he's articulate, he's well-educated, he's thoughtful, etc. My only criticism of him is that he's too much of an idealist to have been as effective of a president as he might have been, which I why I didn't vote for him twice. Donald J. Trump is the antithesis of Barack H. Obama which makes me wonder how a populist, anti-ideologue will spend his political capital.

During the commercials, I learned the names of all the medications I'll need to take when I'm old enough to live here full-time.