Happiness Was Made of This

 I think the term is MIA. That is what I have been for the last week or two, more or less. Medical stuff. I will spare you.

My essay for today. My YD is home from Europe for good. Her household effects there have been packaged and are in transit, her house here in Canada is being renovated and repaired and we have her here with us until the effects and the newly refurbished housing for the same are reunited. I have not looked into her bedroom but she arrived here with quite a bit of luggage and I am glad it is a big room with a table and extra storage. The cats are being boarded by a friend and so we do not have to deal with feline moving trauma.  I am a happy mother. Plus, she brought me a huge box of Belgian chocolates.

And it gets even better. On Sunday we are packing up (minimally except for food) and absconding to a cottage for five days. YD, me and the Scrabble board, although I hope to see both family and friends while we are there. If it is sunny, we have a beach. If it rains, we have the Scrabble board and the chocolate. Who could, as the saying goes, ‘ask for anything more?’.

Unfortunately, I will have to take my oxygen stuff along. And my Rollator. I am quite pleased about the latter, in truth. I hate the idea of being the little old lady who needed a walker. But … I AM a cranky old lady who needs support to walk any distance. Any distance, where we live, is on gravel. The laneway to the mailbox, for instance. And so I decided I needed something to support me that I could use outside. Something bigger than the normal wheels on a walker for a start; very light and foldable of necessity. An internet search found me this thing called a Rollator. As shown.

It is called a Carbon Overland and my bank account hurts. But it does the job. I can trundle along (down and then up) the laneway and I will be able to navigate around the cottage the YD has chosen. I have a portable oxy pump that fits into a bag that attaches to the front and the seat is wide enough for my butt. (It comes in various widths in the lighter versions but only wide in the outdoor one I have.) If I have to be a crock, at least I am a fashionable one.

Eh. That is until we get to what I am wearing. I am (very slowly) purging my closet of garments that either do not (and never will) fit or that I do not need. Do I need four dressing gowns? A whole drawer of heavy socks that I don’t use or even like? Sweatshirts bought online that don’t fit the way I wanted them to? A dress-up outfit in size 12? Our reuse centre is called the Highlands Food Pantry and they run a recycling store where they sell good donated items to raise money for a food bank, the Food Pantry, in our local village. I now I have the YD to lug the bags of stuff into their sorting and staging area that, since it is up a steep flight of stairs, I do not go.

Goodness, this post is first person on steroids. Tsk. In a last comment in this vein, I am typing this in at supper time as a super supper is being prepared by the YD without my having to have planned it, bought it or cooked it. Luxury. Bliss.