Can We Talk 2

Getting Back To Normal

         I had my teeth cleaned last Saturday. I went to my normal appointment two weeks before, only to discover it was their first week of reopening and they had canceled my appointment without telling me. They were booking late October or Saturdays in August. I took a Saturday. Turned out it was not even my dentist, but his new partner who saw me. OK, I don't mind. It's really the hygienist I go to see. The dentist told me that this was an attempt by many people to go back to normal-getting the teeth cleaned or getting a haircut. I just wanted my teeth cleaned because I care about the care of my gums and teeth. It wasn't about feeling "normal".

         As far as the haircut is concerned, I'm four months overdue, and don't plan to go to the hairdresser, at least until fall. I have so much yard work to do that I need to keep my hair out of my face and off my neck. That's easier to do with longer hair. Also, I've been highlighting for years trying to hide my sprinkling of gray. I expected a lot more gray to be showing in my roots. It actually doesn't look any worse than it did years ago. Another plan was to figure out my natural shade of gray, and do the highlights in gray instead of blond. I could do a perky new hair cut at the same time. But since I can't figure out what shade, I might just let it go the natural colors. It's time I looked like I'm aging gracefully and not trying to hide my age. I know so many women in their 70's and 80's and still doing that blond hair. We all know they're not blond any longer. They're trying too hard. I don't want to belong to that group, even if brown is my base color. So the whole hair thing is still up for thought.

         What is normal? There's only a few things a retired person like myself is not doing. Church attendance, for one. We have a "virtual tabernacle", but I don't have the means to do ZOOM for meetings. I just watch a service on YouTube. Another one is volunteer work. I'm old and have health issues and I live with my 92 year old father. Too many strikes against going out in public when not necessary, even with precautions. I might go shopping if any department stores are still open when we reach "normal" or go to a movie.

         It was a big issue for us this weekend when one of the kids in the extended family was hurt and taken to ER. I was going to keep the other kids (the young father passed away). The concern came about how the mother and child who had been in ER were going to pick up the boys afterwards without giving potential ER germs to old me and my elderly dad. We worked it out, but then my dad couldn't understand why she couldn't come into our house or why he can't go visit the child and check on her. I'll take him next week. We decided a one week quarantine would probably be okay.

         Some sort of new "normal" will emerge. It's been too long to go back to the old one.