For some time now, I've had a hankering for cabbage and apples. I make them in the slow cooker, add a few seasoning, and enjoy.
So after breakfast, I got my trusty cart and walked to Smart 'n' Final. Got green, rather than red cabbage. Though I like both, green just seems to go better combined with apples. Bought four big Macintosh, plus a few other small items. Bused home and immediately chopped the c., cored and quartered the a., and popped them in the s.c.
Had lunch, then remembered to call Primary Medical. I have rough areas on my nose and a lesion on my forehead, which I believe are Basel cell skin cancers. (I doubt if anyone brought up on Absecon Island can escape it.) I've had them removed twice before, but annoyingly, since I have an HMO, I have to see the primary first. I got an appointment for Thursday, but I know she'll refer me to the dermatologist in Oxnard, which is somewhat of a pain.
Left for the the Stone Fire Grille and dinner with Soaring Spirits. Bused to Telephone Road and walked the rest of way (about a mile and a bit), but got there early and picked up two pints of blueberries at Sprouts. When I arrived, only Vera was there, but soon Gayle and Renee came, as well as four newbies.
One of them was a man I'll call "James," who sat next to me and proceeded to regale me with his life story, including his graduation from Notre Dame and his seven-year stint in the seminary (a French order, oddly enough). He left before ordination and the story he gave me about that was bizarre. He went into detail about the harrowing facts of his marriage (she was in mental institutions several times and tried to kill their five-year-old son). As for his children in adulthood, President Obama called his son to ask him to work at the White House on a computer program he invented. After a career in banking and accounting, Joseph now teaches adjunct at California Lutheran College in both undergrad and graduate school. I looked him up on their web site and he seems to have had a pretty illustrious business career--Price Waterhouse, Morgan Stanley, and others--before semi-retirement (he's 85). I was going to copy his picture and add it here, but thought better of it--maybe not a good idea.
"James" also went on at great length about his out-of-life experiences and how he's destined to live because he was a captain in Vietnam and troops around him were killed and his voices tell him what's happening, plus he recovered from stage 4 cancer and astounded the doctors, and so on and on--oh, mama, preserve me from this!
Vera drove me home and commiserated that "James" monopolized my time. He had been at the lunch meeting two weeks ago and he pretty much did he same with her. She thinks he needs therapy and so do I.
2 comments:
Hard to believe they let him teach. Sounds like he needs mental health intervention. If he joins the group again maybe you'll have to have a flag or something to pass around and when one wants to speak they raise the flag and the speaker must acquiesce....just a thought.
I can't wait to mention the flag idea to Vera--she'll get a kick out of it! No, these are adults, ranging in age from late thirties to middle eighties (that's me, folks) and this isn't a "meeting," except in the sense we get together for a meal. The talk is mostly simply chatting together. New people may be asked the circumstances of their widowhood, but not in any systematic way; "James" just seems to have the need to hang everything out. Anyway, thanks for the comment.
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