| Herself: Grumpy wouldn’t start. Now that G remains employed, several important maintenance items can now be taken care of such as the falling-on-our-heads headliner. Ditto visors and the part that broke Thursday morning at seven. Oooooooo: A marvelous dinner out with the Jims. One is sleeping with everyone…..retirement at it’s best, and the other is sleeping all the time……really needing to be in a nursing home. Double Oooooooooo as OD is up again. A pox on whoever has been targeting our blogs. Food: Peas, 2 donuts….I eat under stress, ½ sandwich, 2 cookies, ½ sandwich for dinner with my slice of birthday cake at the ball park, peas, ½ ham and cheese sandwich with a thousand olives, green beans and one sweet pickle, meat loaf and left over rigatoni. |
I pushed, I prodded, I climbed into the vehicle back down, head up to locate the emergency button, and nothing. No button either tho I knew it was there 14 years ago. I phoned poor G who attempted to guide me through all this from North County. He couldn’t help. Taking the clicker apart and wiggling the battery did nothing to move things forward except lose the clicker buttons.
I was too pissed off to cry. I missed the swimming, but I knew it would be over two hours to go one mile to the Cancer Thrift Store via public transportation. I was beyond grumpy myself, and watched a bus arrive on the hour just as I realized I needed to take the bus.
It’s one mile to work. Yes, suit off, work clothes on, rush out the door, rush back home to turn the high power kitchen light off so the house wouldn’t burn down while I was gone, and rush back just in time to catch the next bus. At the second bus stop, they had posted the times of arrival. There was no bus for an hour. It arrived anyway.
“You cannot take yourself too seriously” became my mantra for the day.
By the time I reached the third bus stop, I thought perhaps I could walk the six some blocks. That didn’t go well, and I devolved with two stale donuts and a book for a few moments of stress relief before getting on the next bus going my way.
Work went fine for me, the Friday Sorter. That lovely 92 year old brought another box of things in. Someone donated three boxes of picture frames, and a daughter donated her ball gowns. Only masses of rugs were unsalvageable. Another man brought a few items in and asked if he could bring everything else in that his wife had owned. She died. She hadn’t worn any of it. “Bring it on in,” I told him. Father Joe has said he can use or sell anything we give him.
A last hour was spent washing glass and cutting pictures from magazines to fill empty frames.
“What’s this,” asked Paul the Friday Pricer glancing at one photo I chose for a particularly grandmotherly, flowery framer.
“That’s a most beloved grandson. He rehearses his Punk band in her garage, and he is the apple of her eye.” I was glad to see my imagination still worked.
To get home, I went the other way….only two busses, only two hours. Only time enough to discover I either sprained a muscle in my back, or a kidney stone chose that moment to take a dislike to me. Later, G hauled me gently to Petco Park where we ate during batting practice. I quietly read a book under the scoreboard while he stood out there with the other fanatics and managed to catch a ball. They are in the cellar……and we lost.
We didn’t lose today. The upholstery guy was closed, but we found his shop. I have an appointment to get Grumpy a modern security system on Tuesday. He’s been washed by folks from a sobriety house, and the two of us will wax him this afternoon. Now that G will keep his job, I can think of the upcoming vacation, think of packing, think of turning off the paper, holding the mail, and getting Grumpy a few other things he needs…..now that we are breathing again.
I am so relieved for you that G's job is safe.
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