Smiles on a Rainy Day

Yes, it rains in the desert.  Not often, but enough so that plants actually green up and flowers bloom.  We're usually very happy to see the rain.  The smell of creosote, the happy plants, the water reflecting off the leaves as the sun sets..... I'm usually smiling pretty hard.

But it's been non-stop raining for the past two days, and I've had enough.  

Every joint in my body hurts, except my mechanical hip.  My bent finger is screeching at me every time I hit the h or the y or the b.  TBG's dropping barometer migraine sidelined him for the day; it was just too much on top of a major reaction to the shingles vaccine.*

I had plans to blow dry my hair, finish my holiday shopping, and attend the Cornell Club's Holiday Luncheon.  The rain put the kibosh to the first two parts of my day, but did nothing to diminish the beauty of the venue.  Tucson has some very nice public meeting spaces, most of them with delicious food.  This fell right in line.

The last Cornell Club event I attended was a year ago.  We ate outdoors seated at many long tables set on uneven pavers at the cafe in the garden at Tohono Chul park.  I was President of the Club; I felt it was my duty to greet everyone, to chat at length with some, to make sure everything ran smoothly.  

My hip was so bad that I was holding onto the backs of the folding chairs as I made my way from table to table.  I spent a lot of time leaning against whatever was available, trying to silence the discomfort.  Soon thereafter Big Cuter told us that it was time to get our bodies repaired; he was of the opinion that it was well past time but he'd waited long enough to insist.  The combination of the two and the decreasing COVID infection numbers were what propelled me to have surgery in May.

I missed the May Cornell Club Picnic because I was still recovering.  Today was the first time most of these people had seen me in a year.  

A poet cried.  A pilot grinned from ear to ear.  Old friends giggled as I did my I'm Fixed dance, appreciating that twitching my repaired hip without a grimace or a groan was remarkable progress. 

It put the sunshine into a cloudy day.  It's nice to make people smile just by showing up.