Occasionally, I write a day-in-the-life post. This one is for Sunday, September 15th, 2024; I designated it 20240915 in a year/month/day formula, which makes sense to librarians and computer geeks.
My wife stopped at the gas station and I tend to fill up the gas tank because I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I don’t mind it but my wife doesn’t like to get gas on her hands.
While I was doing this, a guy asked me for change. I waved him off and said, “When I’m done.” The thing about the process is that it’s pretty easy, but I need to do it in a methodical order: credit card in and out, type in the ZIP code, pick the grade of gas, and then place it into the tank. Because he continued chatting, I missed a step. “Do you need help?” “No, I need you to stop talking to me.” I didn’t realize that pumping gas was a bit of a zen experience for me until this guy was harshing my mellow. Yes, when I was DONE, I gave him some change.
The thing is, I LIKE helping people when I can. A couple of days earlier, I was sitting at a bus stop. A gregarious young adult male, 20 to 25, came up to me and asked, “Could you tie my shoe for me?” I replied, “Can you put your foot up on the seat?” because my knees and back didn’t want me to bend over. He said OK; I tied his shoes, and he thanked me, by which time the bus was coming.
Food
My wife and I stopped at the co-op to get sandwiches for a luncheon after church, and then we went to church. I got to attend choir rehearsal, the first week the choir sang since the spring. I missed it terribly. Even though we had a couple of rehearsals it’s not the same as singing in front of the congregation.
After church, we partook in the aforementioned luncheon. I was talking to one of the pastors who is particularly good at remembering names. There were a couple of congregants I could not identify. She said, “Tell me where they were sitting, and I could probably tell you their names. So, I noted that along with a general physical description. She knew their names even though they were newcomers to the congregation.
A couple of people around us were fascinated by this, not that the pastor knew their names but that I knew where they sat. If you’re sitting in the choir loft, you tend to notice where people are. Most people sit in the same place so it wasn’t that difficult for me.
We helped clean up, and then we went home for a couple of hours. My wife visited her mother while I was on a Zoom call with my sisters.
We try to have a lunaversary dinner. It often falls by the wayside, but we still attempt to go out to eat on or around the 15th of the month because we got married on the 15th of May. I checked the website of a nice restaurant in Watervliet, and it showed that it was open, so my wife drove us over there, but it was closed.
More food
We went to an Italian restaurant in Albany where we had been before. There was a football game on the TV (Chiefs/Bengals). A short time later, another couple came in and sat down not very far from us. They looked very familiar.
After dinner, we acknowledged seeing them in this restaurant some months ago. I said, “Oh, yes, it was the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys.” The woman said, “How do you know that?” “Because you hate the Cowboys, and our fathers were big Giants fans in the Binghamton area.”
My recollection was partly aided by my writing about it at the time. Still, the details of that meeting were fresh in my mind even though it had been eight months and a day since that earlier game.
My wife and I went home, and soon, my wife went to bed. About an hour later, a police officer in a cop car was in front of the house across the street directing someone to get out of their car. I brushed my teeth, did some reading, and went to bed.
Sunday, July 30, 2023, didn’t track the way either my wife or I expected. She had awakened with a chill. More problematic: a red spot on the back of her leg near her ankle had expanded around her leg. Moreover, it was warm to the touch.