Undercover Sandycove-r

Undercover Sandycove-r

A friend of mine suggested I start a blog about life in Sandycove Acres, aka SCA.  Hmm, I thought, why not?  It’s a good way to pass the time on this hazy, lazy Sunday afternoon.  The sun’s been playing hide ‘n seek most of the morning and fat, gray clouds spread out, obscuring the western sky.  Boredom has flicked here and there since I finished (mostly) unpacking. 

For those of you not in the know about Sandycove, it bills itself as an adult lifestyle (retirement) community located in Innisfil, Ontario, Canada.  After moving here as a young 57 and 1/2 year old, I can attest that the billing is pretty accurate.  Other than visiting grandchildren, I don’t think there is anyone here younger than me.  At least, I haven’t met one yet.  According to my knowledgeable sales agent, Betty Carson (names have been changed or at least thinly disguised to protect the innocent, and the not-so-innocent), you have to be 55 years of age to buy here.  Although, as she explained, if it’s a couple, then only one person of the two needs to be 55 or older.  The other can be a young chick or boy toy, as the case may be.  So, potentially, there may be someone in here younger than me but if so, it seems that they keep themselves deep undercover, or in this case, deep under Sandy Cover.

After being laid off from my job ‘down in the city’, I sold my house and moved here, becoming in Betty’s words, a Sandycove-r.  Of course, being a writer I launched into a rather lengthy discourse about how, when you are a Sandycove-r, you really are a Sandycover, ‘cause that’s the way the word ‘cover’ is spelled.  She listened patiently (I suppose having a lot of experience with lonely oldsters who like to talk, especially when the listening ears are new.  I eventually wound down and Betty started laughing and told me I was funny.  I hope you find me funny too.

I bought one of the new houses, which SCA has started building here, in Sandycove Acres South, which I refer to (natch) as South Park.  When the older mobile/modular homes come on the market (the usual reason being death of the owner or relocation to a retirement home, the step before the ultimate reward), The Park buys it and then demolishes it.  Then it builds a brand new house, a real house.  One with real walls and vaulted 9’ ceilings (almost 3 meters for those of you who are metrically inclined).  Mine is beautiful.  It’s on a sleepy court and backs onto green space.  Pretty well everyone on the court knows everyone else and in Sandycove, people seem to care about their neighbours and keep a watchful eye out for the older ones or those unsteady on their ‘pins’, quite unlike the place I used to live.

I met one of my neighbours, Rich, just a day or two after moving in with my thousand boxes and little else (knowing that I had to down-size from a 1,500 square feet house to one a little less than a 1,000) I had given away a lot of stuff.  A spry 70 (or so) year old, he keeps busy helping his neighbours out by doing lawn care, chugging about on his immaculate yellow and green John Deere, looking for all the world like a pro, pulling his just-as-immaculate utility trailer behind him.  Weed whacking and blowing included in his service-with-a-smile.  How terrific to find such a gem of a neighbour.  In no time he was over at my house, mowing back my new-sod-gone-wild in the front yard to a height that Sofie would pee on. 

Sofie, having grown up (and probably born) in a puppy mill, was used for breeding her whole life.  She’s a funny little dog.  Actually, she’s still learning how to be a dog and that’s after almost 4 years with me.  One of her foibles is ‘making’ on grass that tickles her tummy.  It bothers her and she’ll search for a while to find grass which doesn’t.  She was happy when the grass got tamed.  I was happy to find Rich and told him that I hope he lives forever!  He shares the hope.

After meeting Rich and then his wife, Ally, I find myself a frequent visitor on their generously proportioned front deck, which seems to be ‘The Place’ for people to congregate.  Rich explained that he had built the deck because the grass under the sprawling tree in the front yard became non-existent with all the people who came to shoot-the-poop and spend a few minutes or hours.  Their hospitality is a well-known secret and Rich seems to know-all that goes on in Sandycove.  He’s been dubbed ‘The Mayor of Marlin Court’ and it fits.

On the sturdy deck, two rows of 5 or 6 cheery red chairs face each other and usually contain 4 or 5 bodies at any given time but mostly in the afternoon.  The host and hostess relax in their 2 matching aged-cedar Adirondack chairs, well-seated on the gay white and green striped cushions. 

When you have 6 or 7 people all talking at the same time, the diverse discordance of the simultaneous conversations is bewildering.  It took me a few times before I became adept on zoning in on one, two conversations max, head rolling back and forth, reminiscent of a bobble-head doll.  Rich, a devout drinker of beer, and built like a California redwood, rises to his 6.5” or so height and makes a run for the beer fridge, with a pit-stop at the loo.  Beer in, beer out.  It doesn’t hang around long so I wonder why ‘they’ make a light beer.  Surely regular beer, which has about 150 calories per bottle, comes out too quickly for the calories to have much of an effect on the waistline? 

Rich’s greenish-blue eyes remind me of a glacial lake I saw when I was out west a lot of years ago and I’ve noticed that his eyes tend to flash-freeze when he’s angry or upset.  Luckily, that doesn’t happen too often.  Ally, a smartly-turned out blonde, is quite diminutive (natch!  have you ever noticed that the tall guys usually hook up with a petite little thing, who even has to reach up, waaaaay up to take his arm?)  I have.  Maybe the old saying is true about opposites attracting. Watch for it, and then let me know how many of these (odd) couples you spot the next time you’re at the mall.