Lunch at the Provo Senior Center: Ham with Scalloped Potatoes.

After my morning swim at the Provo Rec Center I stroll over to the other side of the building, which is the Senior Center, to cadge a cup of Bengal Spice herbal tea in the community room, where we have our lunch. There's usually not too many people there in the morning; the Senior Center bus makes the rounds of nearby Senior housing complexes to pick up those who can't walk it and dumps them off around 9:30 -- then they sit around reading or filling in adult coloring books, waiting until noon for lunch. Today's menu of ham with scalloped potatoes also featured beets and for dessert a really outstanding blueberry crisp.

Each week the Utah Valley Food Shelf gives out a bag of canned goods to anyone on a fixed income, like me. My bag today included two packs of chicken Ramen Noodles; one can of dark kidney beans; one can of black beans; one can of pear halves; two cans of tuna in water; one can of corn; one can of cream of chicken soup; and one can of chicken noodle soup. All the cans are slightly dented. I've been using all the canned goods, except the tuna fish. I've got roughly 44 cans of the stuff squirreled away right now -- even my kids won't take it off my hands.

I didn't want to lug all those cans home after lunch, so I waited for the Senior Center bus -- it makes a loop of all the Senior Housing apartment buildings starting at 1 pm. I had to wait for the second round, since the bus doesn't hold more than a dozen people. We waited out in the watery sunshine, neither hot nor cold, sucking ham out of our teeth. Nobody felt like talking, least of all me -- I tried putting some Tiger Balm on the heel of my right foot this morning because it's been throbbing for the last three weeks to the point where I don't like walking anymore. But the ointment was a bit too strong and my heel felt like it was under attack by flaming sandpaper. As soon as I got back home I put my feet up in the recliner and vowed not to get up again until tomorrow. But my former wife Amy and my grandson Diesel came by to give me a loaf of day old Italian bread, and so Amy could look through my storage closet one more time for a white binder full of Norwegian folk music she wants for the next Sons of Norway meeting. She looked for it once already earlier this week -- which ended in us both going to see Disney's Beauty and the Beast as a sort of anti-date. I wanted to hold her hand but wound up holding her purse instead.