A Day in My Life

 This is  the latest entry to my quinquennial journal, a collection of random thoughts and events which I record throughout the year every five years.  I recorded my first journal when I turned 35.  I'm writing this one since I'm now 70:

A rainy Tuesday which is frustrating since most of the stuff I have to do requires me to be outside—powerwashing, painting, getting my Halloween coffins out of the shed, etc. Maybe it didn't matter that I overslept this morning. When I awoke I thought it was just after six a.m. But it turned out that it was going on eight. Maybe that's why I still recall my weird dreams including one where I was back at college trying to find my way around campus and angry that I couldn't find the free food that was promised.

I forgot to mention here an unusual configuration that occurred this past weekend in the pew section we normally occupy during mass. Actually, we don't sit in the normal pews but in the corner off the altar where padded chairs are set up, mostly for those with mobility issues. That includes Wendy with her arthritic knee. There were only two other couples seated in this section but it was a re-union of sorts. The two other couples along with us attended a church-sponsored married couples retreat near Flint 24 years ago. The retreat was programmed to strengthen the bonds of unity. Since we three couples are still together almost 25 years later, I guess it worked. We don't know the other couples personally but I remember them.

Baby Miles was a real sleepy-head when we babysat him yesterday. Even a rough and tumble stroller ride over hard ground at the park failed to rouse him from a nap. Well, we tried. If he wakes up at 2 a.m wondering “What's up?”, sorry dad and mom. Since he turned two months old this past week, we both tried to produce some Miles smiles, camera in hand. He did manage a couple half-smiles while Wendy sang the alphabet song for him, but it would require instantaneous reflexes with the shutter button to capture them for posterity.

Big trip today to the optical shop at the University of Michigan to fill my eye doctor's prescription for new glasses. I hope they help me to see more clearly. While driving on the way over, I asked Wendy whether she saw this upcoming white line appear as if it were something white gliding across the road.

“Why don't you tell the eye doctor stuff like that?” she asked.

Because if I told them I saw something ghost-like crossing the road ahead, the best possible outcome would be that they'd take my driver's license away. The worst? Maybe men in white suits would accompany me somewhere. Anyhoo, it's going to be ten days before I get new glasses. Maybe then everything will appear sharp as a tack just as it did when I was young. But I doubt it. Not even in my dreams.