Dana's Outdoor Still Life

This area had a built in bench where the pots are that was not very attractive and not at all comfortable. We had it taken out thinking we'd put up a railing, since there is about a one foot drop-off that might be a hazard at night. The railing proved to be both expensive and not quite right either so we just put the three larger pots there. The idea was to plant flowers in them but the ground squirrels had other ideas and ate any flowers we planted there. 

Dana pronounced the three pots lined up on the edge of the deck with decimated plants in them forlorn, dug up some empty pots which we never got around to replanting after the fire, moved the '****heavy' table
from a spot where it just collected random garden tools and junk and created this much more pleasing arrangement, especially after we went to the nursery and picked out plants we hope won't interest the ground squirrels...succulents and grasses. They don't eat them anywhere else,  so there is cause for hope. The final touch will to be to find a couple of metal trivets to replace the bricks and raise the pots to different heights.

In other excitement, we went to Costco, right after Pilates on our office floor to get flu shots for both of us and a Covid booster for John.(We always go there for injections because we like Ashley who administers them)  We sat on the dread red bench where one sometimes feels one is waiting for hell to freeze over. John went off to get his phone out of the car and an older man asked if he could join me. We chatted about hearing aids while he  waited for someone in the hearing aid department next to the pharmacy to check his out. I think he just needed somebody to talk to since there didn't seem to be anything wrong with his hearing aids. He was replaced by a woman who also asked if she could join me, sat down and had her head on the handle of her shopping cart. I asked her if she was ok and she said she had hurt her back and the doctor on a video call  had told her to walk for 20 minutes. I said that a walk was probably a good idea but I wouldn't recommend walking around Costco. She gave me a wry smile and said, 'I just thought I could lean on the handle of the cart, but it doesn't seem to be helping.'  Poor lady did seem to be in pain.

After somebody, not Ashley, gave us our shots  and while John did his obligatory 15 minute wait on the incredibly uncomfortable red bench where we had already waited, I zoomed around the store in search of olive oil toilet paper and paper towels. I came back with olive oil, an enormous container of Tide laundry detergent capsules and large quantities of some other paper products but toilet paper was nowhere to be found. Is there going to be another t.p. shortage? Went back to find John leaning against a 6 foot high pile of cardboard boxes filled with analgesics of various kinds because there were two women seated at opposite ends of the red bench and he didn't think he could maintain social distancing if he plonked himself down between them. 

We decided his fifteen minutes were up. The extra is just one more encounter we had in the wondrous  place that is called Costco on our way out. Going to Costco can certainly be whatever you decide to make of it.