I used to think I was quite intelligent. Who knows? Maybe I actually was intelligent. But I’m so thankful now that I never thought of myself as better than anyone else, because the reality is that I keep being reminded that I’m so much more stupid than I once believed myself to be. I’ll explain shortly.
This morning started with another glorious lie-in, since Walter had the day off again. But once I got up, I had to do something I didn’t want to do. Walter recently found out that we could have been reimbursed for some medical expenses last year, through a program that we knew nothing about. So he wanted me to present proof of all the prescriptions I’d gotten. And the deadline is this week.
Well . . . I didn’t save the receipts, because we don’t have insurance and there didn’t seem to be any point. So the next best thing seemed to be to go to the drugstore where I get my most expensive prescription, and see if they could generate some kind of report showing all of last year’s drug purchases. This is exactly the kind of thing that introverts hate doing, because it means we have to walk into a place of business and interact with someone.
So I gave myself a little pep talk and drove over there and explained my situation. And the perky young girl behind the counter assured me it would be no problem. Ten minutes later, I had a very neat and official-looking printout of all last year’s purchases of that one expensive drug. We should get reimbursed for at least some of those expenses. I hope.
While I was out, I also stopped by the credit union, and topped off the gas tank. Then Walter took the car up to Lowe’s to buy replacement ballast and tubes for our kitchen fluorescent lights. Fluorescent lights were all the rage in the 1950s when this house was built, and the one right over the sink/stove work area has been out for months. It is so expensive to replace the bulbs and the ballast, so we had to save up for a while. It sure is great to have a well-lit work area again, though.
Early in the afternoon, I took off on an adventure. My friend Angela had found out about a yarn circle that meets at the Rusk County Library, and we agreed to check it out today. This involved driving to Henderson, a beautiful drive at this time of year, and one we used to make every week when we went to church there.
Angela was waiting for me at the library, so after I took the last parking space in front of it, we asked for directions. The yarn fest was on the second floor, which I’d never seen and which I immediately fell in love with. Beautiful old building with a tall wide hallway with a line of big pillars down the middle. The yarn people had gathered in a large room with a huge long table.
I don’t know quite what I expected, other than to tell you about a knitting group that my own local library had several years ago. It was run by a rather pretentious transplant from Chicago who I think saw us all as country bumpkins. I think the most we ever had was seven or eight people, and when Miss Chicago transferred to another library, the group died instantly.
Today’s group was quite different. Loud, friendly, and even boisterous. I didn’t do a head count, but I think we had close to twenty people, including a couple of men. All the fiber arts were welcome, though most were crocheters. I sat next to one of two other knitters (Angela is currently working on a crochet project). One of the ladies had brought gift bags full of crochet supplies for those who might be just learning. So thoughtful. And these ladies were all very Texan.
Which brings me to my stupidity. I had brought my cardigan to work on, and even laminated the lace pattern, so I pulled it out and started knitting . . . only to find out less than fifty stitches in that my stitches weren’t lining up properly. Gah! How hard can it be to keep track of a nine-stitch repeat? Don’t answer.
You know how they say that someone can’t chew gum and walk down the street at the same time? Well, I apparently can’t talk and knit lace at the same time. The error almost certainly occurred while I was talking to my friend Jane yesterday. So instead of making progress on my cardigan this afternoon, I laboriously tinked back stitch after stitch, row after row until I needed to leave.
I checked out the book sale on the ground floor, and also visited with my friend Linda, our former pastor’s wife, who happens to work at that library. I was very proud of myself for walking out without any new books. Certainly not the very disturbing encyclopedia of murderers I found.
I arrived at the house to find my husband industriously cleaning the guest room windows until they sparkled. They really needed a good cleaning, but that’s one of those chores it is hard to get around to.
We headed off for an early supper at Texas Roadhouse as a belated birthday celebration, since Walter had been given a gift card. We both ate too much. As in, I was in physical pain because I so rarely have a large meal like that.
When we returned, Walter tackled the living room windows and I tackled some more tinking until I was sure I had removed the offending stitches. By the end of the evening I had knitted back up to where I was before and added another row or two.
Did you celebrate Pi Day today? We were far too full from supper to even think about eating pie!
My Midlife Menagerie 