I’ve got a lot of TicTacs. (Thank God.)

HOLY CRAP! IT’S SATURDAY! Now that I’ve got your attention I can move on to other pressing issues, such why am I awake at this hour of the morning and check out all the exciting merchandise I ordered yesterday from my pals at Amazon.

The lens wipes (120 in teeny foil packets) and FreeStyle Lite diabetes test strips should be self-explanatory. One is for cleaning my glasses, the other for testing my blood sugar, respectively. The platter of dried fruit, however, is for eating, albeit not by me. It’s on the way to a nursing home in Chicago for my mother’s 90th birthday party next weekend. Sam and I can’t go so we’re sending prunes and apricots to represent us.

I should mention that I’m definitely sad about missing mom’s event but I try not to think about it too much. Sam can’t take vacation time in November and I can’t travel alone any more due to health reasons. For instance, I’d never get through airport security with my portable pharmacy, syringes and an ice chest full of insulin, and I’m unable to walk 100 yards without sitting down. In addition: 1) I lose my balance; 2) I can’t shlep my own luggage due to nerve damage in my hands; 3) my feet are numb; 4) I have difficulty swallowing when I get excited; and 5) I’m claustrophic on airplanes. All of which make me a model passenger and a flight attendant’s dream.

Sam and I have no concrete plans this weekend, but if I play my cards right I can probably con him into a restaurant meal at some point ... either Thai Star or Pepe’s & Mito’s. I’m hungry enough right now for both except it’s 5:15 in the morning and nothing’s open except McDonald’s and the local doughnut shop. In the meantime I’ve got a lot of TicTacs. (Thank God.)

Stay classy, people. Thank you for reading this.

Milestones and scrambled eggs.

I can’t think of a graceful way to make this kind of announcement so I’ll just blurt it out … I AM 60 YEARS OLD TODAY.

Let’s be honest about this … even though I still look like a girl of 55, turning 60 is a very big hoo-hah that gets you lots of useful perks. These include 20% off my dinner bill at Denny’s, a free hearing test at the Dunford Senior Center and an invitation to be screened for strokes and artery disease in the recreation hall at Mesquite Baptist Church with free coffee. I also drive around with my own handicapped tag, strangers like to hold doors open for me, I get to threaten sales clerks with my cane for better service and lately it’s gratifying to discover that I’m the same age as Wal-Mart greeters.

And if all this isn’t enough … a couple of days ago I get a card from my dentist offering me a free teeth whitening kit for my birthday. (This would be a swell gift if I didn’t wear DENTURES.)

Later this morning Sam and I will celebrate at Denny’s with our favorite breakfast from their senior menu. We get the Senior Scrambled Eggs (seriously, that’s what it’s called) which comes with bacon, sausage, a nice stack of pancakes and they even have sugar-free syrup. This is an excellent deal for $5.50 and we highly recommend it.

We canceled our order for the new family room furniture we picked out in mid-September. Whenever we called Haverty’s to check the status they’d change their story. First everything was supposed to deliver by mid-October. Then it was the END of October. But when Sam called yesterday for an update they begin the conversation by apologizing that the truck won’t get here until a few days before Thanksgiving. That pretty much ended it.

The good news is, Macy’s is having a huge furniture sale so we’ll give them a shot on Saturday. Stay tuned for further details. Shalom, y’all.

Miscellaneous stuff on a Friday.

First of all, Sam and I celebrated another milestone yesterday! After breakfast at Scrambles (see photo below), our favorite local greasy spoon, we drove around the cattle ranches in Sunnyvale for a few minutes until the odometer on our 2001 Saturn coupe hit 100,000 miles. This was a very large deal, to be sure, but not nearly as much fun as big odometer changes in decades past when it was analog instead of digital and the numbers actually took several seconds to roll over from nines to zeroes. Digital rollovers are so damn fast I was afraid we’d run into a steer trying to watch the odometer. (We didn’t.)

While I’m on the subject of vehicles, has anybody ever seen a Nissan Cube? I spotted one yesterday for the first time on my way to AAA to pick up a 2010 Oklahoma tour book (details to follow). While I seriously hope I’m not offending any of my Howdygram readers, this thing has to be the ugliest car on the road and reminds me of a plastic toy from a Disney Pixar movie. The driver looked like Buzz Lightyear.

Sam has a week of vacation time coming up so we’re planning a three- or four-day driving trip into Oklahoma, maybe somewhere around the Arbuckle Mountains and Turner Falls. This might not sound very exciting to YOU, but we really love road trips and it almost doesn’t matter where we go or what we do, as long as we’re in the car making up songs and eating pretzels. I’ll post pictures when we get back, so stay tuned. In the meantime, don’t forget to floss.

May is a month for milestones.

For Sam and me, the end of May holds a couple of very important milestone anniversaries. I think you’ll agree these are both a super huge deal.

Milestone #1. We’re celebrating three years since Sam accepted a job transfer to Dallas and we spent the four-day Memorial Day weekend here shopping for a house. The one we bought was actually the third house we looked at; the others all paled by comparison. It was easy to make a quick decision because we knew this house was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for us the minute we walked in the door. We moved in 30 days later and just love it here.

Milestone #2. I quit smoking the day after we put a bid on our new house because I didn’t want it to turn into a gigantic, smelly nicotine pit. I quit cold turkey after being addicted to cigarettes for 42 years and smoking a carton of More Menthol every single week. Yesterday I figured out that I’ve saved $6,240 by NOT BUYING CIGARETTES since May 2007. Holy cow.

On another subject altogether, I just ordered a shopping cart from Wal-Mart.com. I desperately need something to help me shlep groceries from the garage to the kitchen because my hands are useless. In my left hand I use a cane for my arthritic knees, and carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand makes it almost impossible to carry anything. The cart I bought is pictured at right. It’s very cute, holds up to 120 pounds and is exceptionally cheap ($17.89 plus 97¢ shipping). It should be here next week.

Smooches to everybody. I’m going to watch an old John Wayne movie now while I wait for Sam to come home from work. I just finished recording They Were Expendable.