With time to spend, we make discoveries

Wandering through Glens Falls

How to spend your days becomes a recurring question after you retire, at least it has for me and Bella.

“What are we going to do today?” she asks, even before she’s out of bed.

I don’t have a comprehensive answer.

Our best days involve wandering from the bedroom to the living room, which we call the library, and out to the lawn to watch the birds and into the car for a drive to Cole’s Woods and a walk when we get there and downtown to Spot Coffee for an hour or so, then to City Park and around the block.

Bella has a favorite light blue leather club chair she tries to sit in whenever we go to Spot Coffee, and she wants me to offer to buy it.

“Do you think they’d notice if I carried it away?” she says.

Bella sits in her favorite chair at Spot Coffee.

Fridays and Saturdays, we sometimes drive around to garage sales. Recently, we’ve been watching a lot of the Women’s World Cup, which is being held this year in Australia and New Zealand.

I’m a fan of the U.S. national team and willing to discuss at length why, despite the naysayers, it is likely to win its third straight championship.

We watched the game against the Dutch, and the first half was rocky, with the orange-clad players pulling on the Americans’ jerseys and ponytails.

But the U.S. showed their mettle in the second half, trapping the Dutch in the netherlands of their own end and firing shots in the general direction of their goal.

So what if only one went in.

We’re watching the games in Spanish on Telemundo, because it’s cheap that way, and it has unexpected benefits. I’ve learned that “la pelota” means “the ball” and “peligrosso” means “dangerous” and “gooooooooooooooooooooooal!” means goal.

Diversity of all sorts is on display at the tournament, but superficial differences fade to insignificance amid the action on the field.

That Dutch player Danielle van de Donk is white, for example, and that she dates women are unimportant. But that she enraged U.S. captain Lindsey Horan with a violent tackle that inspired Horan to respond a minute later by banging the ball into the back of the Dutch net was … wonderful. I hope she does that every time they play.

To return to our wanderings … 

Some days have been so muggy we’ve avoided walks, and I make it up to Ringo by throwing him a ball on the lawn while Bella sits in a chair. He races for it like a footballer after a too-long pass and leaps when it bounces like he’s going for a header.

After a few throws, he circles behind our lawn chairs in the shade, drops it in his hole and digs dirt onto it.

Ringo, left, interacts with a couple of friends — Taylor, bottom, and Luke, right — during a recent walk on Knight Street.

The best part of our peripatetic, serendipitous days is interacting with people we know and don’t know. Ringo draws attention from friends and strangers with his silky fur and amber eyes. You see people at their best when you’re with your dog.

A stroll through City Park recently introduced us to John Terleckey, who was singing old country songs from the gazebo to a small crowd on the lawn. I couldn’t see him as we walked up, because bushes were in the way, and I thought a recording was being played, his voice was so polished.

John Terleckey sings on Sunday afternoon, July 23, in City Park. The concert series continues July 30.

We chatted with Bob Bruno, who has organized a series of free Sunday afternoon concerts in City Park, starting with Terleckey. Most Sundays, the concert will be preceded by a line dancing session from 1 to 2 p.m., although not this Sunday (July 30). But Neal Herr and Georgianna Bull will be performing from 2 to 3:30, then Alan Dunham and Elizabeth Winge from 4 to 5:30. Bruno is sponsoring the concerts himself. 

“I’m trying to provide a service to the community I grew up in,” he said. “It’s all out of pocket. It’s my pleasure and privilege to support this.”

And it’s our pleasure to come across it, finding a way to spend part of another afternoon.