Maintenance Fans

The park has a number of maintenance men who fix things around the park.  They were having a meeting in the community center while Barb was down at the community center with the quilting club.

 

Their meeting broke up just as Barb’s quilting ladies were getting ready to pack up and leave.  The maintenance men yelled over to Barb to congratulate her on her pickleball gold medal.  Barb figured that they must have seen her picture on the park’s website.

Pickleball Drama

Barb and her friend Barb D. won gold at the women’s pickleball tournament.  To make it to the finals, they had to beat a team from out of town who were cheaters.  They would miss a shot and call it out.

 

One time they called a shot out, Barb looked at the judge strangely and said did you see that.  He agreed with Barb that it was definitely in.  These ladies had all kinds of dirty tactics.  To break the momentum, they would ask the referee what the score was when they already knew the score.  One lady even faked a leg cramp to take a break during a bad time.  This shook up Barb and Barb D.  Fortunately, they were able to beat these ladies to reach the finals in which they won gold.

 

The next day Barb was playing mixed doubles and her friend Barb D. was watching and cheering her on against one of the cheater ladies.  After Barb’s team won, the cheater lady got into Barb  D’s face and told her she was a poor sport.  Barb D. shot right back that she at least she wasn’t a cheater.

 

Later, Barb saw the cheater lady surrounded by her supporters literally crying about losing and being treated so badly.

Missing Prize

Canada Day is celebrated at the park on March 1^st.  They had a potluck dinner where we had to bring our own plates and silverware.  We played a game of passing around a little flashlight while music played.  The person who held the flashlight when the music stopped got to take it home.

 

Barb won the flashlight.  When we were leaving the community center, Barb gave me the flashlight because she didn’t have any pockets in her pants.

 

We got home. I did the dishes and threw out the bags we brought the dirty plates and silverware home in. 

 

Later Barb asked me where the flashlight was.  I said I didn’t know.  I thought I might have put it in one of the bags we brought home but I didn’t get up to look for it.

 

Barb dug out the bags in the garbage and searched for the flashlight.  She got her hands all dirty from the garbage but it wasn’t there.

 

Then I looked in my pocket. I found the flashlight.  It was in my pocket all the time.

A Good Thing

I usually sleep in while Barb usually gets up early.  That means Barb is often tired before me in the evening.  She often goes to bed and leaves me up working on my computer.  By the time, I come to bed Barb is asleep.

 

One night Barb was in bed but strangely she wasn’t asleep yet.  I finally turned out all the lights and came into the bedroom.  Barb said "Aren’t you going to turn off the radio?"

 

The radio was so normal to me I didn’t notice that I had left it on.  It was a good thing Barb was still awake when I came to bed because surely she would have woken in the night and would have had to get up to turn off the radio.

A Thousand Little Pieces

Barb was moving my pants that were on the chair in the corner of the bedroom.  When she picked up my pants, all my little pieces of paper I keep in my pocket fell on the floor behind the chair.

 

I cut up 8 by 11 paper into 8 little rectangles.  I keep them in my back pocket in case I have a bright idea I need to remember.  I also keep a Bic pen in my front pocket to write with.  I find it quite useful.  In fact, I am writing this blog post from one of my little notes right now.

 

However, Barb thought I didn’t need quite so many little pieces of blank paper at the same time.  She thought I wasn’t going to have that many bright ideas at the same time.

A Not Quite Perfect System

Barb likes to have a smoothie in the morning before she plays pickleball.  She has a Magic Bullet to blend the fruit and yogurt and juice into a nice thick drink.  She also has five cups that fit on the Magic Bullet.  I told her she should make up five smoothies at a time.  Then leave them in the fridge. That way, she wouldn’t have to make a new one every morning when she might be in a rush. 

Barb thought that was a great idea.

 

She buys all different types of frozen fruit by the bag and keeps them in the freezer. She also buys quite a few green bananas at a time and lets them ripen.  One day I noticed she hadn’t made smoothies for a while because the bananas were over ripe.  When I sat down to have breakfast, the over ripe bananas were on the shelf beside the kitchen table.  There were fruit flies all over the place.

 

I guess the system isn’t perfect.

 

Another Battery Problem

I noticed my watch was running slow.  Barb said she would go to Walmart to get me a new battery but when she left the house we both forgot about my watch.

 

Later that night, I was having a Skype chat with Stan.  We usually chat from 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm.  For some reason, we were late getting started.  I was waiting for him to get online and he was waiting for me to get online.  Actually we were both online but couldn’t see each other.

 

Finally after 15 minutes of waiting, I phoned him.  He said his end was working because his son had been able to see him and connect.  So I restarted my Skype and finally I could see him.  We wasted 15 minutes through a lack of communication.

 

During the Skype conversation, I was looking at my watch to check the time.  I thought it was time to go because my watch said 10 pm.  I forgot that my watch was slow.  We had run 15 minutes over our time.  Stan didn’t seem to mind.

 

Afterwards, I reset the time on my watch.  Since then, it has been working fine.  I don’t have to change the battery.