Exciting Times (?)

 

I'm moving along at rebuilding the Spring Fling quilt, which one reader suggested I rename to Rainbow Crush, because I didn't want to rename this happy quilt something like "Kill, Crush, Destroy." I like that idea.

I think I'm a bit faster at taking the blocks apart. Here are last three blocks for the fourth row of the quilt. It's not exciting work, but I've got it down so it's pretty mechanical to do.

Last week in the Arthritis Swim class the instructor suggested a leg exercise I had not done before. My right knee did not appreciate it one bit. It swelled up so much I almost fell over when I put weight on it when I got out of bed the next morning. So I tried to rest it and take it easy. It took several days. 

Finally I decided to go back to swim class on Monday, hoping the 92F water would help it. It did. But I didn't go to my normal class at noon. I went to the one later in the afternoon. I must have had something else on my ming because when I got to the Y and parked, I forgot to display my handicapped parking tag.

When I got out of the swim class, and back into the car, I saw that I had a ticket. Because we all know it's illegal to park in a handicapped spot if you haven't got a handicapped permit. The fine is $250.00.

Needless to say I was a little bit freaked out. I had 36 hours to pay the fine or it would increase. There was no telephone number for me to call.

I woke up about 3:30 in the morning and tossed and turned worrying about it until I finally looked up the address for the police station, and then went back to sleep.

I went to the police station and explained my situation to the young lady who answered the buzzer. "I'll have to find a supervisor," she said.

A few minutes later I was explaining it to a police officer. I handed him my handicapped permit, and after examining it, he voided the ticket. I thanked him and told him how embarrassed I was, that I had been going to the Y at least four times a week for the last six or seven months and hadn't forgotten any of those times. "I can't imagine I am the first person who has ever done this," I told him.

He smiled, "It's happened a time or two before," he laughed, "and if it happens to you again, you just come to see me." All righty then!

I may have mentioned I play the Spelling Bee game on the New York Times. Some folks prefer Wordle, which I play also, but it doesn't really sing for me the way the Spelling Bee does. I used to play until I hit GENIUS, which is the end of the official game, but one day quite by accident I got my first Queen Bee, which is when you get all the words in that day's puzzle. Sometime later I discovered they had Hints, and then later I discovered the "Hive," which is a comments section for the game, and realized that several players got up at 3AM Eastern time (when the game is released) so they could not only solve the puzzle, but provide clues to each word. As soon as I figured THAT out, I was able to get to Queen Bee consistently, and that became my daily goal. Somewhere about 2023, the NYT started keeping track of the number of games you played, and how many QB's you got. Yesterday I hit my 1,000th Queen Bee. It was a good day.

The third great thing about the day happened at my hairdresser's, where I got my getting now shoulder length silver hair trimmed. My stylist, who has been cutting my hair for something like 40 years, complimented me on my pink glasses. They look so good with your silver hair, she commented.

A light bulb clicked in my head. "OH! You've just given me inspiration for my next quilt! Silver and Pink!"

Oh and the warm water did the trick for my knee. It's not "normal" but it's significantly better.