A week ago, at three-thirty
Tuesday morning I was up, dressed and wondering why Friday night, Saturday
night, and Sunday night I slept well and slept well into the following mornings.
The extra time in the sack wouldn’t have mattered except I had laundry to do. To
get the drop on the slug-a-beds who also have laundry, I like to get the
washers agitating by six-thirty.
Monday evening, as Jeopardy
gave way to Wheel of Fortune, I said to myself, “Get thee to the laundry.” A brimming
laundry basket on my lap, I pointed the buggy toward the laundry room, which I
found to be delightfully deserted. By ten-fifteen, my clothes were washed,
dried, folded, and put away. I crawled
into bed a few minutes later, certain I’d quickly fall asleep, which I did. But
not for long. I awoke just before midnight, and the sandman, who must have been
busy elsewhere, never returned. Which is why, in those most wee of the wee
hours, I sat pondering why I slept so well when I had squandered the evenings,
and hardly slept at all when I put the evening to good use.
Karen and Russ had me over
for Easter dinner. It was the first time I’ve been to their place since I moved
down here. That’s because I couldn’t get into their old apartment. It was on
the second floor, and the only way to get there was to climb the steps. I’m no
good on steps. But their new place is on the first floor in a much more
wheelchair-friendly apartment complex. Russ can push me around with the
greatest of ease.
Karen baked a ham, mashed
some potatoes and prepared some vegetables. It was delicious. For dessert,
there was ice cream atop a cookie bar topped with chocolate syrup. But the best
part was just being able to spend a few hours at their place. I enjoyed myself
immensely.
While he was chauffeuring me
about yesterday, Russ talked about moving and leaving the apartment complex
where he and Karen have lived since they came south in 2001.
“I worry about the woman who
lives below us,” he said. “She has two dogs, and we walk them for her some
times. And we give her a hand with some other things when she needs help. She’s
getting up there. She must be in her sixties.”
Her SIXTIES!!!! It’s
wonderful that Russ helps the neighbor lady. And I’m in awe every time he tells
me he has sold another cartoon to a national publication. But, sixties – getting up there? I think not. My
poor demented son. I don’t know where he got the idea that people my age are
“up there.” Then again, maybe he got it while chauffeuring his old man around
on a rainy Saturday morning.
Russ called while I was at
dinner the other day. He asked if I’d be doing anything at six-thirty. I
wasn’t, and he came by to give me two magazines: the current issues of The Saturday Evening Post and The American Legion. The editors of both
fine publications enhanced their products by including a T. Russell Harris
cartoon in them.
As I made my way around the
Covenant Woods’ parking lot the other day, Angie, Jennelle’s daughter, came by
in her car and stopped.
“My mom said if I saw you to
be sure to tell you she says hello,” she said. “She’s been having some problems
and she’s moved in with me.”
I was surprised to hear that
Jennelle was moving, and even more surprised that she had asked Angie let me
know she said hello. Most of our conversations where of the hi-how-are-you
variety and occurred when we happened to show up at the mail boxes at the same
time, which wasn’t often.
As it happened, however, I
had recently thought about Jennelle. There is a small plot for gardening –
about fifteen feet long and five feet wide – behind the C Building parking lot.
Last year, Jennelle, Angie and Pete, Jennelle’s gentleman caller, used half the
area to grow peppers, tomatoes and a few other things. George, a resident here,
had his garden in the other half. One recent sunny, warm, summer-like afternoon,
I saw George hard at work out there, and wondered when Jennelle and her crew
would start their gardening chores. Now I’m wondering if George is going to
double the size of his garden or if another green-thumbed resident will use the
space.
One evening, after we
finished the menus, Al said he had to run to the bathroom. Wednesday morning,
he called to tell me about it. Fearing he wouldn’t make it to his room, Al used
the public restroom down the hall from the dining room. He went into a stall and saw the commode was
plugged up “with shit all the way to the top.” Rather than move to another
stall, Al found the plunger and got to work. The urge that sent him to the
restroom became more urgent. He dropped his trousers, wrapped his left hand
with toilet paper, wielded the plunger with his right hand, and used his left to
catch . . . Well, let’s just say, Al’s bowels were working better than the
Covenant Woods’ plumbing.
While I was checking my mail
and talking with Annie this morning, Avis came by and said she didn’t know my
name. I told her and admitted I didn’t know hers either. Then she spent five
minutes telling me what a pleasant fellow I am and commenting on my beautiful
smile. Three or four other people have told me the same thing in the last
month. “You always look so happy,” they’ll say. “You have the nicest smile, and
you’re always smiling.”
But the truth is I’m not all
that happy these days. Maybe my constant frustration and occasional anger with
my condition is connected with all the rainy days that have kept me inside so
often this spring. Like Greg Kinnear’s character in As Good as it Gets, I have to change my thoughts.
Ironically, the lousy weather
has helped me get some new thoughts – the weather and sister-in-law Susan.
Several years ago, when someone asked me about the weather and I said it was
beautiful, Susan said, “You say that just like your brother Jim.” She went on
to explain that the second syllable in beautiful is not “tee.” The word, she
said, is pronounced byoo-tuh-ful,
not byoo-tee-ful. Then, this
otherwise fine lady from Birmingham, Alabama, had the temerity to instruct us
in the pronunciation of Carnegie. “It is pronounced kahr-ni-gee, not Kahr-nay-gee.”
As if anybody in western Pennsylvania, where Andrew made his fortune and where there
is a town named for him, ever said, “Hey, yenz goin’ over kahr-ni-gee?”
But Susan never mentioned
anything about the devices on police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and other
emergency vehicles that produce a loud sound to warn other drivers of their
approach. Wednesday morning, the Muscogee County Emergency Warning System
activated its warning device to alert citizens to the approach of bad weather.
And all day long people were asking, “Did you hear the sigh-reens this morning?”
Now I’m wondering what the
folks in Dixie call the mythological temptresses who lured ship captains to
their destruction. Do you think there was an Irene the Sigh-reen?
