morning coffee

Sis and I have been trying to be good about our exercise.  We have been swimming at least twice a week and last week when the they closed the rec pool for cleaning we went to the weight room three times.  Friday sis had a meeting at the rec center after we finished with our weights so I decided to venture over to the coffee klatch table. 

This was a big adventure for me.  Normally I have a book or magazine and just entertain myself.  And am quite happy about it.  But my sister, the social one, has been trying to encourage me to mix.  She will lead me into a group of people and sit down with me and then get up while someone is talking to me and leave me all alone.   Well, except for the people I am supposed to mingle with. 

So back to the coffee regulars.  Am not sure if they really do any walking, weight lifting, or swimming, but there always seems to be a mixed group of oldsters hanging out in the lobby.  There are not really any old time cafes in town so the rec center lobby seems to be the place to be.  We have a very nice coffee shop, but I think the coffee is a little too fancy and a little too pricy for this group.  But, I don’t think you can sit in the lobby and drink their coffee unless you pay your dues.   

I walked up to the table and was greeted with friendly hi’s.  The first topic of conversation was roses.  To trim or not to trim in the fall.  A elderly lady of great self assuredness    stated that she always cut her roses down to about twelve inches high in the autumn, (whoops….fall) and lightly mulched them.  I mentioned that I had just read that you were not supposed to trim roses in the autumn after I had trimmed my climber.  Well, her roses were teas so that was okay.  She did it every year (implying it worked just fine).  The woman with the question had a shrub rose so was quite confused as to the care for hers. 

After the conversation noodled around it settled on canning.  The lady with frizzy dyed hair, “I just put up over a hundred jars of tomatoes.  I had five jars in the last batch but didn’t want to waste the pressure cooker for just five so I put up three jars of chicken.”  I stated I didn’t can because I was afraid the pressure cooker would blow up.  The frizzy haired lady admitted that she was afraid at first but her husband taught her how to can.  The other ladies just stared at me.   In an attempt to change the subject, I asked if anyone made tomato preserves.  I thought they would probably know about tomato preserves as my grandmother always made them.  Again stares.  The frizzy lady knew, but said she did not like them.  To me there is nothing finer than tomato preserves on fresh baked whole wheat bread.   Where are my soul mates?

More people arrived and finally there seemed enough men for them to have their own little pow-wow.

By now I was pretty much silent.  The foray into the use of ancestory.com was thwarted when the newcomer stated, “ they don’t always have the correct information and I don’t want mine changed.”  I tried to explain it would not change your information unless you directed it to do so with no success. 

My last intrusion into the conversation concerned the use of computers.  They did not seem to understand the verb googling, nor did they understand that excel was not just a grid in which to organize information.  The idea of actually manipulating the data was greeted with silence.  It all came to an end when I suggested that instead of putting the time for the pills on the spreadsheet, she could use Google calendar and it would pop up reminders to take the medication.  “Oh, well, that wouldn’t do much good—the computer is downstairs.”  “Well,” said I, “you could put it on your smart phone and it would remind you.”  It sent them over the edge.  I left.