Oh Yes, It’s Gonna Hurt

For the most part I’ve been able to placate my children this year, although they chewed my ears for driving while I had my episode of double vision, but vegetables that needed canned couldn’t wait. This year I didn’t have the problem of open heart surgery or the problem of vertigo for them to be upset about me driving my car. I know my limitations and would never operate a vehicle if I was concerned about causing an accident.

To date this jolly old fat man has even avoided climbing on my roof to clean the chimney. My family has berated me for playing Santa to keep the chimney clean. As frugal (cheap) as I am, I hired a father and son team to climb onto my roof and run a brush up and down to scrape off the accumulated creosote from the wood-burner’s chimney. The pain was I had to pay for it of course. And yes that hurt.

That means I have less to spend for Christmas gifts and with inflation, they may get lucky and get an orange, some candy, and nuts in their stockings. In past years I threatened to save time and money by spray painting gifts instead of using wrapping paper. I keep several cans of various colors of spray paint in an old nonworking refrigerator in the basement. Why should I buy a metal locker to store flammables in my home when I can recycle an old refrigerator?

Sunday evening after church services were over a handful of guys decided to play a game of volley ball. It wasn’t to keep score, winners and losers, but just for exercise and laughs. Only six people were crazy enough to stay, three on each “team.” The game actually consisted of getting the ball over the net and occasionally returning it. There was a lot of floor space in the gym to cover for just three people on each side. All of the people were about half my age or less, but it was fun. With my arthritic knees it was sure it would hurt in the morning, but it’s less than I thought.

We hung around for pizza and a sliver of apple pie. The guys were still laughing from the humor we found in the game, then shared stories as we ate. The laughter continued. One young man said that he laughed so hard that his sides will hurt in the morning.

Because I had a late night snack, I’ll have to walk for a longer period to work off the extra calories this morning. If it was like my last walk when I went farther than I planned yes, my feet will hurt.