Whew! I can finally take a little breath!

The Hip Housewife has been busy the last couple of days!  I apologise for not updating for the last two days, but, I've been running around getting ready for the fine winter holiday to come.

Thursday, I went to the holiday Senior's Day Out tossed by the organization I volunteer with. I like going to Senior's Day Out.  I sit with a group of ladies and play cards and ask them about their grandkids.  Miss Roxie has told me she'll teach me how to play dominos one of these days. There's a style called "Chicken Foot" she says is fun.

For the party, I picked up Miss Sadie, a wonderful 74 year old woman who worked assembling bombs at the armory in Kansas for 35 years.  She's awesome.  It was too cold for her to stand outside, so I let her smoke in my car.  She can smoke a cigarette without actually touching it with her hands.  She can keep it dangling on her lip, talk, inhale and exhale all without touching it. 

She also tosses stuff out the car window without a second thought about it, butts, tissues, gum wrappers, it all goes out the window.  When the 'Don't Litter' campaign began, they may have been targeting Miss Sadie specifically. 

There's another woman I usually take to the Senior's Day Out but she's in the hospital right now.  Miss Dorothy had bronchitis not long ago and I'm worried it's turned into pneumonia or something like that.  I miss seeing her.  Miss Dorothy also smokes but ashes into her hand and puts the ashes into a tissue to throw away later. 

Both of them hide their smoking from the sons they live with, which cracks me up. 

When we arrived, all the other volunteers at the party were wearing Christmas sweaters and jingle bell necklaces and they handed us bingo cards as we came in, vintage ones with the little plastic slidie things to mark the squares.

I like to play bingo.  I liked it as a kid in school and I like it now.  I'm lucky at it too.  Scott and I went on a cruise in 1999 where I won $500 at bingo, cash in my hot little hand.  It was no different at the party.

While the numbers were being called you could have heard a pin drop, it was so quiet.  Every other time I've been to the Day Out parties there's a lot of hub-bub.  There are two tables that call themselves "The Talk Tables" because they don't play cards or cribbage or listen to a volunteer read, they just talk.  And because the ladies are all older, they talk pretty loud. 

When I was helping clear away coffee cups and plates during the break, I told them I was surprised they were being so quiet.  They told me they were too.

We were told right up front that the volunteers couldn't win anything, just the clients!  Well, fine!  I decided that if I got bingo, I'd give it to Miss Sadie. 

I hit bingo on the third game!  Then I hit again soon after and gave it to the lady on my other side.  By the time bingo was over and we were going to serve lunch, I'd gotten bingo five times, sharing them all out with the ladies around me.  They all went home with nutcrackers or other holiday decorations.  Then I'd swap cards with them so I'd have different numbers to work with. 

The other volunteers said when they saw me start moving around, talking to clients, they knew I'd won again.  This made me laugh heartily.  I really should start going to the real bingo games where I can win money or at least a turkey.

I wished all the ladies a happy holiday and took Miss Sadie to get some more smokes before I took her home. 

Then I went home myself to clean a couple bathrooms before I fetched Will from preschool.

And now, I will be dashing throught the house in my one pocket apron over the floors and stairs, sweating all the way.   Ha ha ha!

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  If you're short on time getting ready for a party to which you'll be wearing open toed shoes, just paint the nails that show.