Written early January 8, 2016
(Note, I just tried to use the notes I took during my computer tutoring session to put a photo from the phone to this blog, but it keeps saying "the Picasa uploader has stopped" so no success yet.)
Yesterday I did the first of my weekly 8 mile walks, to train for the week long hike I will be doing in May. It was raining lightly when I started out, but heavy, slanted rain started up about half way. I had two stops, one for coffee and one for a sandwich.
I was quite sore (especially the thigh muscles), and cold when I got home. I did not get chilled because I was dry under my jacket and my wet legs were moving all the time.
Dale Sr. was home, sitting reading with a nice fire going. I changed into my nightgown and hung up the damp things in front of the fire.
I was pleased that I now know how to take photos with my phone, but there certainly are still glitches. I didn't know how well the phone would handle the rain. When I did find some cover to stand under, I must have put the phone on video by mistake...at any rate, it used up its entire power so quickly that I couldn't even make or receive phone calls for the rest of the day!
I will be glad when the new photo card is programmed, with Nancy's help, so that I can take photos with my camera again.
After a warming nap under the comforter, it was time to go up to the Boys and Girls Club. Drama Club doesn't start until next week, so I was helping out with an art activity. I wanted to start getting some idea of which kids were interested in the drama club. I'm really impressed with the staff that they have there now.
When the kids were having their snack, I went around and talked to little groups of them about the drama club. There are about five there this year who did the club with me in the spring, and all of them want to do it again.
It's quite daunting to think of starting drama club up again. At the first meeting there are always a lot of kids who don't have the maturity level to learn to be actors. I will have to talk with the staff, before the meeting starts, to have a plan for being able to send these kids out of the meeting.
In the evening we went up to the Handlebar and Grill to hear Hans Olson. We got a table right up front, but right behind us were a group of very loud women, the rudest, loudest table I've ever seen there.
Toward the end of the evening a woman (not one of the party) came up and stood near us, trying to hear, and I invited her and her husband to sit at our table. Unfortunately by then the music was almost over. They were really nice people, who had just moved here from Bangor, Maine. After Hans stopped playing, I told him that these people had come especially to see him, and he came over and chatted affably with us.
They are real music fans, and were very excited to find out how much more live music is going on here, of the type that they like, than in Bangor, Maine. Apparently the few live music venues in Bangor, Maine, feature mostly rock and pop music.
Wednesday afternoon I went for my Arabic lesson. My tutor had a very difficult week because her mother, who is almost 80, fell and got a bad cut on her scalp. There was a lot of bleeding and Hakima called 911. The hospital kept her a week, and Hakima did not give lessons all week but went every day to stay with her mother in the hospital.
The Arabic lessons Hakima gives (mostly to the children of immigrants) pay for rent and food for her mother and herself, but she does not have the ready money to pay for the medicare supplements. She does have a lot of gold jewelry and still owns an apartment in Jordan. I fear that it will be a shock for her to find out that she must sell these things before she is poor enough to qualify for the free health care.
She came from what was once a wealthy soap-importing family in what is now Israel. The large stone house which once housed her extended family when she was a child, is now housing an Israeli court, a cousin found out when he went back to visit.
The family emigrated to Kuwait when she was a child (she says that they were forced to leave by Israel, but I don't know what really happened) and then when Arafat did not support the first Gulf War, Kuwait forced all Palestinians living there to leave, and the US paid for them to resettle here.
On the way home I stopped at Home Depot and got the items which I will need to finish the hangers for the boys' little Navajo rugs: dowels, stain, and hooks.
At Starbuck's I found out that Registration for the Renaissance Festival is the same time as my beading meetup. Six ladies have already rsvp'd "yes" for the meetup. I hate it when conflicts of scheduling happen. I'm sure I can arrange to register at another time, but still!
Love, Lennie
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