I haven’t met Alec Baldwin or talked to him or even seen him on the street, but he’s been a big part of my life’s “work” or should I say “play,” in the last month. Since I was laid off from my job on December 13th, the behavior for which he got thrown off an airplane has now transformed most hours of my waking life into a less-boring non-job, playing “Words with Friends!”
I’ve always been a competitive scrabble player, but this really brings the game into my everyday life instead of a “friendly” game now or then with certain friends. I now know that there are 16 two-letter words that start with “A,” and was surprised to discover there are no 2-letter words at all with a “C,” “V,” or “Z” in them. There are also many more words with a “Q” and no “U” than I ever imagined, and I don’t pretend to know or use more than a few of them. Exciting life, right?
Mainly, what I’ve learned from becoming unemployed again, is that unless I have something to do, a job or a daily to-do list (that I’m getting compensated for), I get little to nothing done with my day besides a bit of brain stimulation!
Yesterday, I got outside to exercise after being cooped up for at least 3 weeks (only by my own lack of motivation to be out in the cold). I scuffed along and slipped over the black ice on the sidewalks, alternating between the crusty snow, the sides of the road near traffic, just to “enjoy” the frigid yet invigorating fresh air. I had managed to survive more than half of my trek without falling, even playing a few rounds of WWF, until “boom!” I went down with barely a nanosecond to recover, landing me on my butt and slightly injuring my wrist. For years I’ve been saying, to no one in particular, that “after 50, we’re just a fall and a hip-break away from losing all independence.”
My wife doesn’t want me to talk about our house because we hope to move someday soon, and having been a Realtor, she knows that any (even imagined) negative review of a property will hinder its sale. I trust that y’all either aren’t in the market for my house nor will you squeal. The problem is, we live on a hill. It’s not the worst hill ever, and since we have a neighbor uphill from us, we know he has it worse, but it’s steep enough that a thin layer of ice will prohibit our vehicles from reaching the top of the drive, causing us to have to slide back down, as we pray that we can move the car out of the way enough to not block other vehicles from reaching the neighbor’s house. We then must cautiously attempt to walk up the dangerous terrain!
Why did we ever buy such a property, you ask? Because, in our excitement to have the many other “good” qualities of this property, we erroneously(or stupidly) believed that owning a snowplow already for our then business would uniquely qualify us to be able to care for our own plowing needs. Five winters, (the first one In which I quickly abandoned all hope in the truck we owned), and four snow plowers later, we’re no better off. We’re either waiting for the plow guy, waiting for a thaw, or throwing caution to the wind and sliding sideways down our drive in an attempt to get our kids to school on time. Yes, and winter has barely even arrived yet!
So back to Alec Baldwin, (who I also love in his character on 30 ROCK), and my love for Words with Friends… I truly am thankful. I may be an addict, and I may be a bit over the top when I try to maintain 7 or 8 games with various people simultaneously, but I’m keeping my mind active, warding off Alzheimer’s, even if it’s only imaginary, and I’ve got virtual company to pass my boring days while I search for a job. It could be worse, I could be addicted to something stupid like The Sims! Please, I have enough drama around me in real life!
So, with a month between my last post and this, I can tell you that I’ve learned that in the Yuan Dynasty, surrounded by my cortege, I might savor tea from quays but probably not from a padouk while I ponder the grok of life and may measure it in okas and pay for it in jias to a yenta while I learn to skate a triple lutz! What have you learned this month?
Rants and musings of a 50-something lesbian mom... 