Saturday, June 16, 2012

Hmm...

I have realized that I do not have a bucket list.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Second-Hand Happy

It really makes me happy when Baby Rivers is happy.  She now has a special guy in her life who makes her smile. A lot. AND I really like him!  He is smart and funny and so  kind to her, and to me!  He has good manners, a good job and he can fix things. He likes to help this old lady.  His mama raised him right. Yay.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Dental Spa?

I have been going to the same dentist for about fifteen years.  My daughter recommended him because he was cute and charming and his office was interesting.  My daughter was 22 at the time and impressed by cute dentists.

 Dr. Dentist now owns a high tech practice that takes up the top two floors of a downtown building...and he is still the only dentist.  He and all of his assistants wear carefully placed tiny microphones and earphones to keep things running smoothly. While a the technician was prepping me, Dr.Dentist was talking quietly to someone in another part of the office and at the same time making sure that I was comfortable and ready for the procedure.

 I wanted to be upset that maybe these people were distracted from the most important patient (me)  but actually they were giving me very good care. I wanted to complain that the white white walls, fabulous art and views of the city were a bit over the top, but really...it was more like the serenity room at  five star spa.

 I wanted to be annoyed when I had to wait twenty five minutes for the anesthesia to take hold, but when they brought me to a comfy lounge chair in the roof garden, gave me fresh a white blanket and offered me all of the current glossy magazines and a choice of music, I just gave up on complaints.

Dr. Dentist  likes art, beautiful architecture, impeccable design, gardening and comfort.  He also really likes saving teeth, advanced dentistry and technology.  He has invested time and money in learning and implementing  the latest in dentistry, hired great people to work with him and created an environment in which he thrives. I walked in today with a broken tooth and I walked out with a crown fully fit and  fashioned and seated - in one visit.  No need to return unless there is an issue, and there should be none.

It is a far cry from the one chair dentist who yelled at me as a child and filled my teeth with giant gobs of mercury.  Dr. Dentist is still pretty cute.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Marigolds and Popcorn

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - What's Really Important?


A group of British retirees decide to "outsource" their retirement to less expensive and seemingly exotic India. Enticed by advertisements for the newly restored Marigold Hotel and bolstered with visions of a life of leisure, they arrive to find the palace a shell of its former self. Though the new environment is less luxurious than imagined, they are forever transformed by their shared experiences, discovering that life and love can begin again when you let go of the past.

I found this movie totally delightful though I admit I can’t get a handle on what I might have thought of it at a younger age. The theater was full of graying, grayed (and balding) women, and we all loved it!  Who couldn’t love this amazing cast, this whimsical but plausible idea and the constant visual feast offered by the Marigold Movie?  We embraced and identified with  every nuance, insecurity, corny line, and wrinkle.

Sign me up to hang out with such interesting characters in my old age. Please don’t point out the rails along the walls or the monkey dishes of canned fruit cocktail. Don’t show me the “excursion” van for Drs. appointments, or the multipurpose room for popsickle crafts. Show me Judi and Maggie and some fabulous clothes. Show me hopes and dreams I'd never admit I still have. Show me new places to go and new things to learn. Show me the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  Just maybe not in India.