Just for today

Query: Why does the maintenance man, Oscar, carry a pair of handcuffs in his maintenance cart? And why didn't I ask him? He fixed my shower for me in no time at all, first thing in the morning after I'd called the evening before. That's service, but where do handcuffs fit in?

At the start of a meeting, all rushed from their places around the table to watch the shuttle being carried overhead, piggybacked on a very large airplane. I just caught a glimpse of it over the shoulders of the other glimpsers, and I must confess that I didn't even know it was happening. I thought - seriously - that someone was jumping off a roof. Cries of pride and surprise sound very much the same as cries of horror and surprise. Yes, they were cries of pride in our country. Surprised me.

Went to join the Philosophy Club. It was four or five of us (how hard is it to count to four or five and remember that number for a few hours?) and all that happened was that we watched a neck-bending TV show with Morgan Freeman talking about before the universe started - before the Big Bank. New theory is that the universe is made us of 'branes (short for membrane) and they exist parallel to each other, and they cycle through a gentle bumping of each other which creates the energy to fill a universe, and that universe expands and flattens out (kind of like a sheet of paper on a pond) at the same time as the 'brane next to it is doing the same thing and then gravity (?) pulls them together for another bump which starts the whole thing over again. The gentle bump is important for the exactly right amount of energy. There were terribly obscure and invented equations on a blackboard providing the mathematical basis for the theory. But none of it answered the question of what came before? Disappointingly, there was no discussion afterward. Maybe I'll just have to start talking. Next week we're going to watch another in the series, this one "Can We Eliminate Evil?" Just watching is not enough for me.

Jenny Lind and I met Homer today. I'd seen Homer and hisp.erson, Ron when I first visited here in July (I think it was - maybe August). Homer is a seeing-eye dog, and a shaggy golden retriever maybe - anyway a big shaggy yellow dog. Just the breed that Jenny Lind has had most trouble with in Arnold (where I lived before Murphys). Both dogs were perfectly behaved, and Ron and I chatted for a few moments before Jenny Lind and I went up the elevator. I've got Jenny Lind to sit in the elevator and hope that by so doing, we won't startle anyone else getting in. While I was talking to Ron and Homer, a man, his wife and daughter, came into the lobby, and the man startled yelling, "Dog, dog!" hysterically. Clearly he has a issue with dogs, but it didn't faze anyone except him. Ron later asked me about it - I guess it's not happened to him before.

Today at 4 was social hour. There were maybe 35 to 40 residents in the clubroom and a meal was provided! I was ushered to a seat by Carol, who I met in the Philosophy Club. I was sitting next to Betty, who is the choir director. Oh, dear, I think I've volunteered. It's a group of six or so. During the supper conversation, I started to think of excuses I could pull out of the hat if it turns out to be awful! Thank goodness for Ruby - an instant excuse for anything I don't want to do!

I think I've landed in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.