Each month Karin and I try to find something new to learn. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just enough to keep our brains from forgetting what it’s for. It can be a new use of our computer, a new way to do things we already do – – just something to keep the neurons in our brains awake. That and exercise to keep our mobility working so we can keep moving are number one and two on our must do list.

I’ve read somewhere that running a mile every day will increase your life span. I tried it and I think it worked. I felt a lot older than I ever have and decided that I didn’t want to feel that old anymore and stopped running. Exercise is still top on my list but not to the extent that I feel old now.

We are on the move again now that it’s safer and things have loosened up. We both have our two shots and don’t mind wearing a mask if it makes others feel safe. I don’t understand those who refuse to wear a mask. They are so self-centered that they don’t give a (bad word) about how anyone else feels. I look at this as having a mental illness, or at least having a sociological disorder.

Karin just got back from a trip to visit her family in Missouri. She flew there but took the train home, it was a three-week trip. She’d never taken a long train adventure before. It turned into the adventure when the train didn’t show up in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her daughter, who lives in Flagstaff, drove her to Needles on the Colorado River where another daughter, who lives in Chino Hills, drove to Needles and picked her up and brought her home to Aliso Viejo, to me. Each daughter had an eight-hour round trip to get back home.

During the three weeks she was gone, I flew to Alabama for one week to visit my family. It wasn’t supposed to be an adventure but it turned into one when the plane couldn’t land in Denver due to weather. It was diverted to an alternate airport where we (a daughter was with me) were on the ground for over four hours yet weren’t allowed to leave the plane. The total time we were in that plane was ten hours. When we were finally cleared to fly back to Denver, we couldn’t get a flight to Birmingham. We ended up taking one to Atlanta where another daughter drove three hours to get us and three hours to take us back to Alabama. The total trip lasted 23 hours.

All I can say is thank God for daughters. Between Karin and I, we have five daughters and we needed four of them so we could just make a family visit. I kept reminding myself that even a bad day has good things to learn. I learned that my new hearing aids, which have no batteries and plug in each night to charge them, only last 18 hours, and when they die, I’m totally deaf. That was a good thing for me to know. Karin found out that you can never trust a train to be on time. We both feel much smarter now. Maybe.