Pizza and Potluck

Another Tuesday here at the senior complex means pizza for the folks. In addition, Activity Director being not present last week to arrange for a Father’s Day activity, she scheduled the Father’s Day celebration for today – sandwiches, sodas, whatever other dishes the seniors wished to contribute.

I was in the Community Room earlier catching up with the folks, but headed back to my unit just as the 1:00 celebration was being set up, so I can’t tell you what dishes were served and how many fathers attended, but generally only two or three. That’s not including The Seer and I who consider ourselves fathers as we were both single parents doing the job of father and mother for our children.

Bingo is at 2:00 and since it’s not Activity Director’s boring bingo but an outside agency coming in trying to sell us medical insurance, bingo is likely to be more engaging with better prizes.

I’m trying to motivate myself into heading back down for that, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to tear myself away from the couch, television, laptop and needlepoint.

Notices were finally received by residents via snail mail that the power will be off on Thursday. Instructions are to unplug electronics, just to be on the safe side in case of a surge. As for refrigeration, everyone is hoping things won’t thaw out during the outage and perhaps the outage time will be shorter than the estimated 9:00 to 1:30 p.m.

Hopefully, because I’ve still quite a lot of frozen items in the freezer department I’d like not to lose.

I finally did get around to making that Chicken Curry recipe that beat Bobby Flay. It was barely edible, and certainly didn’t taste like it could beat anyone, let alone a famous chef.

Probably my fault. I’m just not good in the kitchen, even when following a recipe. Consequently, a freezer full of frozen products.

Church Lady was back in the Community Room this morning and, when I left, she was looking forward to bingo. So, I guess she’s over being upset that the Seer and Shadow called her out on talking the church talk but not walking the church walk.

She doesn’t appear to have learned anything from it however, because the Seer has on good authority Church Lady is still spouting venom to anyone who will listen to her here on the complex and in church.

Speaking of never learning, while in the Community Room Loosie Goosey received a phone call congratulating her on winning $9,000. “Sure", I sarcastically said. "Just send us $10,000 and we’ll send you the $9,000”.

“I know”, said she “Because they already got me”.

“What?! How?! When?!”

“I’m embarrassed to tell you …. it was last month”.

Loosie isn’t that old and being the tough from New York with a mouth on her type, she’s certainly not a pushover, but somehow fell for it, rushed over to Walmart and did as the caller was instructing … bought pre-paid cards, something about putting money into Amazon. They even instructed her to try to borrow more money when she ran out. All told, the caller conned her out of $500.

When I asked, “How did you fall for that?”, the answer was “Desperate. The idea of getting $9,000”. And when I asked, “When did you realize it was a scam?”, the answer was “As soon as I walked out of Walmart”.

She was off in another direction before I could get further details as to what it was that caused her to realize she’d been conned (probably because the caller, at this point, having gotten the money, hung up on her) but, inasmuch as the scammers now appear to have her on speed dial and are calling yet again, at least she knew to hang up this time.

I myself don’t even answer my cellphone if I don’t recognize the number. I figure if I don’t answer and it’s important, a message will be left.

Hard to believe, in this day and age, with so many warnings that intelligent people still fall for that particular scam.

Well, 2:00 has come and gone, bingo is in process but, comfortably settled inside, I’m not going back down.