Nyel’s Workbench

As we get older and more doddery, we spend increasing amounts of time looking for things.  Not just our keys or my coffee cup or the second section of the paper, but more serious items like Nyel’s cane (no comment!) or that stack of bills I was going to pay today.  So, yesterday when Garage-Guy Nyel came into my office and said, “Guess what I found!” all sorts of possibilities flashed through my mind.

I was hopeful that it was my Grandmother’s doll, Myrtle who disappeared ten or more years ago, but that seemed unlikely.  Nyel had been working in the garage most of the day – painting pickets, I thought, for the everlasting Fence Project.  I couldn’t imagine that Myrtle was the type to be hanging out midst the tools and tires and other ancient-but-too-good-to-throw-away-stuff in the garage.

I did know that Garage-Guy had been “puttering” while waiting for the primer to dry.  “Sorting screws and nails and stuff,” he had told me a few days before.  I understand that situation completely.  There are always things to clean-up, arrange, or put away in the garage just as there are in my office.  It’s a never-ending process.  But the possibilities of what he might have found seemed limitless.

In answer to my “I can’t imagine!  What?” he said in a voice brimming with satisfaction, “The top of my workbench!”  I followed him out to the garage, and there it was!  VERY impressive.  I think it’s been buried for several years at least.  Plus, there wasn’t a big pile of “stuff” with no place to go.  Tools were hanging on the pegboard; nuts and bolts and screws and nails were sorted and in all those jars he’s been hoarding, bits of sandpaper were in a see-through plastic bag on a nearby shelf.  Wow!

Growing a Salad

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Farmer Nyel has been growing lettuce, sort of from scratch.  He read in the AARP magazine in one of those “99 Ways to Save Money” articles that you can take the core of a head of romaine lettuce, put it in a half-inch of water, and grow another head of lettuce.  So, being a penny wise kind of guy, he’s trying it out.  And it’s growing!  Fast!

All of this positive activity with these fine results should make me want to organize my files or clean off my bookshelves.  Or at least make plans for a salad…  I think I’m immune to suggestibility, though.   Too busy hunting for my spectacles.