Thursday, June 3, 2010

It's not a great story...

There was nothing earthshaking going on today, but it was just a...pleasant day.

At 11:30, I met my friend Ruth downtown for our regular lunch. We get together usually every other week, a practice we started a few months back and I am enjoying it immensely. She's a woman who has always fascinated me and we have much in common. We discuss books and California history, theater, and politics and just whatever comes up. We meet at a Chinese restaurant that has a reasonably priced all you can eat buffet and we eat too much...

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...and then discuss our respective fortunes.

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(I figure that given our upcoming trip to Russia, this was pretty accurate!)

When we'd said goodbye, I decided to stop at the supermarket (which is also my bank!) to deposit some checks and to pick up a few things. I have been craving fresh fruit and juice just wasn't cutting it.

I was coming up on the potato/onion section of the produce section, waiting for the woman ahead of me to move her cart when she turned around and it was our former next door neighbor, whom I had not seen in about 3 years, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

Her family was responsible for our family getting involved in theatre, when her girls were cast in a production of The Sound of Music and we went to see the show. That show resulted in the formation of the Sunshine Children's Theatre (where Jeri first met Phil) and started our kids on the path that many of them followed into adulthood.

We had a nice chat that went on despite the other shoppers stepping in to get their produce. I learned about her husband getting his pilot's license and learned what was going on with their children and grandchildren.

We eventually parted but passed each other a couple more times as we made the rounds of the store, each time remembering one more bit of news to give the other. It was very nice seeing her again.

Going down the last aisle, I spied the snack size Haagen Dazs bars in the freezer compartment and picked one up to eat on the way home.

My favorite check-out clerk was there with only one older man in her line, who had only a couple of things to buy. But it turned out he didn't know how to work the ATM machine and his purchase had to be re-rung, and then he had lots of questions about store policy, so it took a long time for him to finish up, while I looked down the row of other clerks and discovered that not one had a customer. But I was in no hurry, so I just stood there patiently and waited for him, marveling that in years past I would have been very impatient, but now it just seems too much energy to get upset about it.

It's a hot muggy day, so I sat in the car, cranked up the a/c and sat there enjoying my ice cream bar while I listened to my new audio book (Diana Gabaldon's "The Drums of Autumn"). I watched a woman who may or may not be part of the writing group walking with some young people who may or may not have been her child and a spouse, but I never did figure out if it was her or not.

Finally I decided to go home. I pulled into the driveway 30 seconds ahead of a Prius that pulled in behind me. Valerie. Polly's trainer. I had completely forgotten she was coming at 2 p.m., but fortunately I got here on time anyway, no fault of mine!

She helped me unload groceries and I got the leash on Polly for her. Polly now sits on command (after only a month of training. LOL) She was also somewhat excited about going outside on a leash until she realized I wasn't going to go along. But they had a decent walk and came home to work on "sit" some more, while Itsy climbed all over Valerie's feet and tried to steal treats.

And then she left, I let the other dogs back in, settled in to watch the Glee recording on my DVR, which recorded while I was out reviewing a show last night, and that takes us up to about now.

As I said, it's not a great story, it's just what happened.

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