I’m in a hurry, a lot.  I think most of society is in a hurry too.  I am in good company being in a rush until I cross paths with a leisurely type, then I grow agitated.  It’s always an individual, slow people are never in packs.  Usually it’s someone analyzing each transaction at checkout or driving under the speed limit.  Last week, I was stopped up three times by the extra friendly leisurely types.  I didn’t accomplish much on the to-do list but I sure did learn a few things.

Practically Lance. No dope.

My eighty-year old neighbor is a sweetheart, like a grandma to my kids.  She “scooters” with her walker I call the Hot Rod because it’s metallic candy apple red with big black wheels.  I saw her at her mailbox one afternoon and walked over to say hi.  Our seventy-year-old neighbor lady was there too.  Within a few minutes we are inside on the couch.  My old-timers are giggling about the silly refinance solicitation calls.  “My house has been paid off for years.  Can you imagine?”  Eighty looks pretty good to me right now.

The conversation turned to Lance Armstrong.  A 1991 picture of Lance, his cycling team and team jersey hang above her brick fireplace.  I’ve looked at the display for years and never asked about it.  “Oh, it was my going-away gift when I retired from private banking.  The “kids” (cycling team) used to call for money when they were on the road and I issued them checks.”  Doping came up.  “Lance never would have won if he didn’t do it,” my neighbor states in modest defense.  You can say anything if you are 80.

The next day I decide to start writing a book I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years.  I looked for a quiet place at a coffee house to write on my laptop.   “You can have my table.  It has an outlet,” a 70+ gentleman offered.  I accepted and he moved to the table two feet from his old spot.

Easy spot. Red tea.

“I noticed we drink the same tea,” he started up.  I actually noticed the same thing when I walked in, a red hibiscus ice tea, easy to spot.  “Are you working,” he asks in his thick New York accent.  I don’t consider my writing work since it’s self-imposed.  “Not really.  Just getting out of the house while the cleaners are there.”  He responds, “You trust them?” And the next thing I know, my book is easily put off again.  I learn he’s from the East Coast by way of Armenia for the next 45 minutes.  His parents moved to America after WWI.   I felt like I was listening to a documentary about the brutality his parents suffered from the war and led to their early deaths.

I mostly listened.  Other times he gave his opinion about the world in a way you laugh because he’s old and has an itimidating gruff east coast accent.  He talked about how girls are stupid for living with a guy before marriage.  “The guy’s got his pick of the litter.  Why do it?”  And then he mentioned Southeast Asians loving to shop.  Iraq was a stupid war.  “Why fight if you can’t win?  Embarrassing for a soldier.” He asked if my husband was tall, for the sake of my swimmer son that he said should stick with baseball, period.  “No.  He’s not tall.”  I couldn’t tell him he was my live-in Chinese boyfriend before we got married.

I was highly entertained.  I always wondered why a couple of my sister’s friends loved talking to my dad so much.  He told stories about life in the 40s and 50s we never heard much about.  Why didn’t I have any interest in my own dad but listening to non-relations is fascinating?

My walking-documentary friend departed.  Now I could work on my book.  “Hey.  You’re a wizard,” comes a happy voice.  I look up, another elderly gentleman dressed in three shades of green, like a leprechaun is asking me for the Dow Jones report from my laptop.  I bite.  “See! You’re a wizard.  I like to work on the computer when I wake up in the middle of the night, see.  Whad’ya  think about that?”  “You should read a book instead,” I suggest. “Yeh. Yeh. You might be right.”   I feel like I’m talking to a 1940s wheeler-dealer salesman.  When he tells me he used to date a lady from the retirement community of Rossmoor and how he leaves his retirement home to eat lunch where the food is better, I know he’s working up to something.

“I better save my document and pack up.” I inform Mr. Pick-up Artist.

“Hey.  What ‘cha writing?  A book?  You should write about me.  I’ll give ya my name.”

“Yep.  I am writing a book.  It’s all about my husband.”

I’m glad I was unproductive for a change even if I felt a little like Lucy and her “doctor is in” booth.  I traveled with Lance Armstrong and to Armenia by way of old-timers. I learned about a pick-up place if I need a lunch date.  Slow is ok sometimes.  I warned my husband he better mind the store, guys are out there to snatch up his best merchandise, ME.