Today I had to run some errands and since school is out for spring/Easter break, I took Noah with me. One of the things we had to do was go to the Y and sign him up for swimming lessons and summer basketball.

From the front desk at the Y, you can see into the childcare room, where Noah spent many hours when he was younger. He stood next to me today and said, “It’s like looking at my past.”

I thought that was a pretty astute observation for a nine year old and said, “Yep.”

Then he said, “I saw a kid who looked just like me when I was little. We must be on an alternate time line.”

What can you say but, “Yes, I guess that must be it.”

I make rosaries. My Facebook fan page says “I make wizards” because that’s how my son describes my writing.

However, I make rosaries, too. As a convert to Catholicism, there’s something appealing to me about the feel of the beads in my hands as I pray but also the feel as I have to slow down to connect the beads together into a string that will help someone focus their prayers. I love looking at beads and envisioning them as a rosary.

Recently, I found an online supplier for beads and I ordered an assortment to have and possibly make more rosaries with them. Turns out the beads were way too big for that, but they were lovely, so I decided to try my hand at making necklaces.

At this time, our finances are not what we’d like them to be, but then whose are? So, I thought maybe I’d try my hand at putting some of the necklaces I made on Etsy.com so I started my own shop. So far, I haven’t sold anything, but it’s still pretty new.

The thing is, I’m really new at all this. I taught myself how to make rosaries by reading instructions online. The same with the jewelry.

In fact, last night, my daughter was home and she wanted to take the blue necklace I’d made for her back to her apartment so she could wear it today. As she was walking through the kitchen, the clasp on one end of the string came off and we had little beads all over the kitchen floor. I have to figure out a better way of finishing off the ends. Probably other jewelry makers already know this, but again, I’m still learning, and I guess that’s a good thing.

It’s the same with writing. I just finished editing a book for Crescent Moon Press, and when I went back to working on my own stuff, I found some of the same mistakes I found in the editing. The point is, we all have things we need to learn and things we need to get better at.

And that’s a good thing. I think if we stop learning, we stop living.

My husband and I adopted a little boy almost 9 years ago, 12 years after our daughter was born. I was 43, and I understand that’s a little old to have a baby in the house. I have resigned myself to the fact that some of his friends’ mothers will be young enough to be my child.

People, including my mother, told me that having a baby at that age would keep me young and that I will be more patient with him because I am older.

I don’t know about that part – he’s a very different kind of child than our daughter and that has brought it’s own challenges, but the implication seemed to be that as we get older, we learn patience.

Today I saw that that may not be true.

I had to see a new doctor today. My sciatica is beginning to make itself known in small twinges when I stand after sitting for awhile, and as a writer, sitting is one of the things I do best! My previous doctor left the area and his partner wasn’t accepting new patients. So, I found someone else and went to my first appointment this morning.

When I got to the office I was greeted by a roomful of people in a darkened waiting room and a persistent alarm beeping.

The electricity was out along a whole block.

The receptionist told me we were looking at a two hour wait and no computers. She asked if I wanted to reschedule and I said no, I didn’t really mind waiting. I had my computer with me and even with no Internet, I could keep myself busy.

I sat and filled out all the paperwork, but what was most interesting, for me, was to watch the people who came in to discover there was no power.

One man made a joke, asking if they forgot to pay the light bill. The poor receptionist, working in a room with no windows, were understandably frazzled and while some of us in the waiting room chuckled, I don’t believe they dis.

A young woman came in and said she’d have to reschedule as she had to get to work. They told her they’d call her because they couldn’t do any scheduling without the computers.

An older couple came in, the woman using a walker, and were very upset there was no power and there could be a two hour delay. They insisted they had a 10 am appointment with their doctor. The receptionist explained that they were seeing patients as fast as they could given they only had two exam rooms with lights, but the doctor these people wanted to see had to go into surgery at 11 and would be out all day after that. They might not get to see him.

The woman sat down and complained about how inconvenient this was. The man went back up to the window and said they should have been told about this. The receptionist told him the phones were down because the electricity was off and they didn’t know when it would be back. Finally, these people were told they could leave and the office would call them to reschedule. They left, still muttering about how badly they’d been treated.

This kind of scenario was repeated by another older couple who never even sat down. They heard there was a potential two-hour delay and they just left, acting as though this someone how was done to them on purpose.

In contrast, a woman sitting to my left had no book, no computer, nothing, but she sat without complaining, waiting.

Most of the people there were patient and either joking about the whole thing or just waiting.

In fact, I got in to see the doctor only about 30 minutes after my appointment time, and I got a lot of editing done before that.

I don’t think we get patient as we get older. I think those of us who don’t believe the world revolves around us understand that life might throw a few boulders in our path and the best way for us to deal with them is to laugh at them, if we can (or at them later when it’s over) and just relax. It’s only when we believe that we’re “The Chosen One” and the traffic should part to let us through, that we look at situations like that one and believe that it was somehow done just to annoy us.

I just pray that when I’m older and possibly using a walker, I won’t think it is appropriate to bite someone’s head off when an unexpected power outage changes my plans.

I watch a lot of television shows on Hulu and lately I’ve been seeing ads for “The Criterion Collection,” a collection of films that are supposed to be the best from all over the world.

I took a film class in college and since then have been interested in seeing films that other members of my family probably wouldn’t take the time to watch.

I decided to look up the Criterion Collection and see which ones were on the Netflix instant queue. I found a bunch and decided to watch one every Friday and blog about it.

Today’s entry is Unfaithfully Yours with Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell.

If you’re like me and assume, even after taking the film class, that classic movies considered “the best” are, by definition cerebral and dull or slow moving and only for the over educated or elitists – watch this movie.

It’s funny, romantic and surprising.

Rex Harrison plays a world famous conductor and Linda Darnell is his wife. They live a glamorous life, living apparently in a hotel surrounded by staff, family and hangers-on (who live in other hotel rooms). One night before a performance, Rex is approached by the husband of his wife’s sister – a boring bean counter of a man. Rex on the other hand is a passionate, romantic man and his wife’s sister often points this out to her husband.

Anyway, at some point, Rex had gone out of town and asked the sister’s husband to “keep an eye on my wife.” BTW, said wife is much younger, and frankly a little simpering and wishy-washy for my tastes, but whatever.

The bean counter guy takes this request seriously and since he can’t watch Linda Darnell all the time, he hires a detective. He’s come to Rex to give him the report, which apparently has something in it Rex might want to know about.

At first, Rex is insulted and rages against the hiring of said detective and nearly sets the hotel on fire when the house detective finds the pages he’s thrown out and brings them back. In an effort to show that he doesn’t care, he tried to burn the report and ended up burning the curtains.

Suspicion grows, even though Rex isn’t totally sure what’s in the papers, and he decides he has to find out. He meets the man who was hired to tail his wife and finds out that she spent 38 minutes in his male secretary’s room, in her negligee (!), while he was gone.

The rest of the movie revolves around his imagining ways to deal with the situation as he conducts his concert and what happens when he decides to put his plans into action.

I enjoyed this movie thoroughly and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys romantic comedies.