Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Not too long ago there was a commercial on radio and television that included the music, “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom.” It may still be on, but for me it has lost all its effectiveness after a blitz that I no longer hear it. Until today. When I awoke this morning and began thinking about today’s piece of writing, the only thing that was racing through my mind was, “Zoom, zoom, zoom.”

Why? It’s Friday and another week has “zoom, zoom, zoomed” past. I seem to mention every Friday just how fast these weeks ‘zoom’ by when one hits the senior years. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a senior. My problem isn’t boredom but, like most seniors, the problem is finding time to do all I want to do.

That’s the one aspect of the connection between that automobile commercial and the life of a senior. I don’t like the fact my life is zooming away.

Nevertheless, we have arrived at another Friday. The sun is shining brightly right now, but there are clouds looming just to the south. We might, and understand it is a “might,” get some showers this evening or overnight. The weather lady on Channel Six this morning put that “might” into the popular weather person’s “depending on the track of the storm.”

It won’t be as warm today as it was yesterday. I think officially Portland was in the very high 70s yesterday. Here, on the south side of Route One where I live outside Portland, my unofficial weather station crossed over the 80 mark for the first time this year. It was rather warm. My wife and I had gone out shopping and found conditions more like summertime than spring.

What a difference between yesterday’s upper 60s at this 8 A.M. hour and today’s mid 50s. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get out of the 60s today and our summer day will only be a memory. I hope yesterday wasn’t our only summer day for the year.

Fridays are my days to do some housework to help my wife. Actually, I do some every day so she’ll have something to clean up. She works part time, you know by now, and I must admit it is that little help she brings home weekly that allows us to do things we probably wouldn’t normally be able to do. Unfortunately for us, even that little help won’t give us our annual long vacation away from home. Gas and other expenses have just prohibited a vacation trip for this year.

She does use those extra funds for other good things, though. Yesterday we drove by a jewelry store which had a big ‘moving’ sale. The move is two doors from its present location. I’ve needed a new watch for a while as the crystal on my old one was broken. The crystal I’m talking about is that piece of glass over the face. We checked. It would have cost more to replace it than we had paid for the watch several years ago.

She bought me a new watch. It is a far superior one than that which I had. The date correctly changes all year long. My old watch thought every month was 31 days long, so five times a year I had to manually change the date. “Oh, wow!” you think. “Poor boy!” Well, on this watch, changing the date wasn’t as simple a task as pulling out the stem and turning it once or twice. It was major operation requiring time changes, then the date change, then another time change. Sounds easy, but this is one time my old feeble mind had difficulty.

And all that only after I needed to read the date, like to write a check, and discovered it wasn’t correct. I no longer will have that problem, except when I change the batteries. And, something I couldn’t do before, I can read the watch in the dark. The new one glows. That’s not a big deal, but when we’re on trips, I like to be able to tell time at night.

She also bought a new carpet for our back room yesterday. She has hated the one that’s there now since the very day we moved into this house some 15 or 16 years ago. At last, she’s getting a new one. We both made out on her contribution as a result of that little part time job.

So, we’ll zoom, zoom, zoom through this Friday and probably another week. There is a positive to it for a senior, though. I made it through another week.

GiM