Decisions, Decisions!

Decisions, Decisions!

I'm off to a good start this morning. I took my pills, fed Chatterbox, my sick old female cat, cleaned the cat boxes, filled my 7-day pill boxes - one for morning pills and one for bedtime pills, and wrote checks for bills due March 1^st. Now I have make up my mind what to do about a weekend invitation made to me last Sunday.

There is an organization called Congress of History, a group that includes all the historical societies, big and little, in San Diego and Imperial Counties. They are having their annual meeting in San Diego's Balboa Park this weekend, and my friend Rich, who is the museum curator of our local Gaskill Brother's Stone Store Museum, has asked me if I will go to sell books at the table sponsored by our Mountain Empire Historical Society. I have belonged and been an active member since 1993, and it has been a highlight in my life. If I go I will be able to enjoy all the speakers at no cost to me just for sitting at a table and selling books for an hour or two. The theme of the conference this year is San Diego County's military history. That interests me very much.

Since my daughter has moved into a house about seven miles away, and no one else lives near me, I hate to leave my many cats and two dogs alone for as long as the Congress of History event will take. Yesterday I found someone who will baby-sit my animals so that is one obstacle down. I don't think I would have to drive. Rich would probably take me in his car or drive mine for me. Because of my advanced years, I limit my driving to areas where I'm least apt to have an accident, so with Rich along, another obstacle is down.

The last obstacle has no solution until the God recalls me for recycling. It is my looks. I'm really a mess, skinny with my clothes hanging loose, a front tooth broken off a while ago without the funds right now to fix my smile, so I don't really smile at anyone for fear it will show. My pure white hair, of which I still have in abundance, has a will of its own, and usually is blowing wildly in the wind as if it were never subject to weekly 'sets' back when I still went to work every day. Add to that the wrinkles that showed up when I involuntarily lost over 50 pounds a couple of years ago, and you have an old witch that would frighten little children. I don't look in the mirror any more, because I frighten myself. It's hard to believe that the blonde, smiling young woman I once was could turn into the crone I now am. I didn't take care of my looks at all. Now I'm ashamed to be seen in areas of refined and cultured people. I fit right in with the non-conformists, bewhiskered mountain men, and misfits out here in the mountains, but I feel very out of place downtown. Now that I have revealed all this to you, please forget it. Picture me as I was in the group picture in my images of Waves lined up in front of an airplane back in WWII.

One helpful thing I have noticed is that there are quite a few of peculiar looking people in these history groups. They come from diverse backgrounds, and some are passionate about history to the exclusion of everything else, including their looks. Maybe I can pass for a mad intellectual or something like that. Rich must think I'm OK or he wouldn't have asked me. Well, maybe that is not true. He may be scraping the bottom of the barrel. There aren't many people volunteering at the museum and the Mountain Empire Historical Society these days, and I do know more about the local history and the books sold in the museum than most people around here. What shall I do? I haven't given Rich an answer yet, and he may already have lined up someone else, but I think I will go for it no matter what - if he still wants me.