Learning to adjust

It’s hard for me to believe, but I have now lived in the cottage for three and a half years. I still love it, am so glad my family made this move possible. But I’ve had to learn to make some adjustments. One of them is that I am now pretty much dependent on other people’s schedules, mostly Jordan.

Jordan doesn’t like me to go to public places—i.e., the grocery store—alone, because she’s afraid I’ll fall getting in and out of the car or that my attention will be so much on getting the walker out and set up that I won’t be aware of my surroundings—and I’ll be mugged. Add to that, the fact that I am not much liking to drive these days. It’s an old fear that I thought I had conquered but has now come back to haunt me, and it’s complicated by the fact that I know my reactions at my age are not what they were twenty years ago. That pretty much means that Jordan takes me to the grocery, although I do curbside pickup at Central Market alone.

We try to make Friday morning our grocery shopping morning, but her business as a luxury travel assistant has gotten busier, and she often has appointments that we work around. One problem, for me, with such indefinite timing is that if I know I’m going to be interrupted sometime but don’t know when, it’s hard for me to settle down to work. Before I can get serious about research or writing I need to know I have a block of time. So on “waiting” mornings, I spend way too much time on Facebook.

Today though it was a momentous occasion—she had to register Jacob for his first year of high school. High school? That kid who used to crawl into my bed to keep me safe from storms? He’s now almost as tall as I am and has this deep voice that I’m still learning to recognize. Yep, he’s going to high school.

As I expected, the process took longer than anticipated. So I waited patiently, knowing she’d come get me when she was through. Oops—she went out to eat, where I thought we’d go  to Local Foods and get tuna for our lunch. (If my kids are smart, they will disable “Find your friends” on my phone—for me, it’s “Find your kids.”) I ate cottage cheese.

We went to Local Foods about 12:30, height of  the lunch rush. Got something for dinner tonight and headed to Central Market, where she realized she had forgotten to get chicken for Jacob’s supper. Got my groceries from curbside pickup and came home.

I have a bit of an ordering problem with Central Market. The website says, for instance, lemons are two for $1, so I thought hitting “Add to cart” put two in my basket. Not so—more than once I’ve gotten one lemon. So today, ordering four chicken thighs for a family dinner, I hit it four times. And ended up with four four-packs of chicken thighs—sixteen thighs is a bit much for an elderly woman who lives alone! Guess what Jacob is getting for dinner tonight while we have turkey burgers with pesto. Central Market was gracious when I called, handled it to my complete satisfaction, and gave me a hint about using the notes section to specify quantity.

Tonight we had a festive Valentine’s supper in the house with a proper table setting, as opposed to eating off the coffee table in the cottage. Jordan used red chargers and water goblets and added a bouquet of red, white, and pink daisies that Christian had brought her. Lots of chocolate for each of us, and Christian and Jacob had a great time guessing what was in various pieces. We found out Jordan does not like coconut!

I’m learning to adjust, and in the long run it was a good Valentines day. And, hey, the sun was shining today. Pretty cold, but it’s sunny.