So now it’s Thursday night and I just fished ironing some shirts. The long sleeved ones go to the closet in the garage for cooler weather. Monday saw me at the nursing home and Tuesday we traveled to Eau Claire, where Marina spoke to a good crowd on “The Effects of Trauma Growing Up In Berlin During World War II”. She had a large attendance; they gave her the large auditorium with a sound crew up in the sound booth. Per usual, she captivated the audience and took 15 minutes of questions in addition. I fielded the questions and repeated them so everyone could hear, including Marina, at whose cochlear implant ear I stood. Gretel and Andy, the Seeing Eye Dogs, were very good, even with four hours of driving and large crowds and shuttle buses. I think it did a number on Andy’s stomach, though, since he had diarrhea early in the morning that I duly stepped in when I went to my “stretching place” (a Persian rug) and in my office. I think I spent an hour cleaning up.
We got home in time for me to tune into WPCA-FM to hear my pre-recorded reading of “The Great Experiment”. The station has me scheduled to read a story every first Tuesday of the month until I run out of stories to share. What a privilege! On top of it, a bunch of my kids stopped everything to listen, too. The station streams online so anyone with a computer and modem can pick it up. (WPCAradio.org and the website will take you from there.)
The cleaning up after Andy was Wednesday morning. I made it to my piano lesson–something I wanted to do after I retired was to take piano lessons–a bit late and then I headed to the Osceola Seniors Club meeting, where I was formally elected as their group’s president. It’s a two year stint and I believe in term limits, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ve been promised strong back-up and I’m counting on that. The Club is looking forward to moving into its new space in the now-under-construction civic center and that should help us gather new members and undertake more programming and activities.
Oh, did I tell you that we bought a pontoon boat? It’s a 25 foot Premier and has been almost directly across the lake from us since it was new. It’s in good shape and I should be able to find time to pick it up in two weeks and get it launched and to our dock. I rolled in the 70 feet of dock myself; it’s something I still can do. (Taking it out is another matter: there is a ridge pushed up by the ice and John, my son, has had to help me the past three seasons.) I was at the cabin today and adjust the ramp to the dock, brought down a ladder to facilitate getting to the dock from the water (instead of having to wade to the shore to get on the dock) and then I mowed the beach and our 2 acres. That meant I never got to some other tasks like taking out some baby trees growing in the wrong places, ensuring no leaks in the fifth wheel roof, and gathering things like anchors and dock lines from the Glasspar Sedan that will go on the pontoon.
Tonight I timed the reading of “Shall We Dance?” (20 minutes) that I’ll read next week for WPCA. think I’ll also record “Sinner Ella”, the latest mangled fairy tale.