Keep the Coffee Comimg

The morning is pretty. It is already warm at 72˚. I’ve opened windows. I love the smell of the morning air and the songs of the birds. The breeze is sometimes strong. It moves the tall oak branches sending the leaves waving rhythmically back and forth. They need their own song.

My leg still hurts. I am so tired of this. I’m beginning to bemoan my fate. I even whine out loud. The dogs have stopped listening. They are both having their morning naps.

When I was a kid, I loved this time of year. Heavy clothes were finally stored away until next winter. I got to wear my spring jacket. I skipped to school on sidewalks shadowed by the tree branches hanging over the walk, branches filled with leaves. Sometimes we’d jump from shadow to shadow in a game of sidewalk hopscotch, a game we made up with ever chasing rules. The school yard was loud. We didn’t need to huddle in groups to keep warm. We hated when the nun rang the bell, and we had to line up in twos by classes to walk into the building. It was a long time until recess.

Finally the day got longer and the streetlights came on later so we got to play outside almost until supper time. We played games like red light, green light, red rover and hide and seek. Sometimes we drew hopscotch on the sidewalk then went looking for the perfect rock before we played. It had to be flat. Once the streetlight came on, it took only a minute or two for us to run inside. If we waited even the shortest time, my mother yelled out the door for us. The other mothers did the same.

Supper seldom varied, only the vegetable changed. We’d have potatoes, usually mashed, and meat, often ground beef. I liked peas but not many other veggies. I’ve mentioned before how my mother often mixed carrots in with the potatoes. We were never the wiser despite the orange flecks in the potatoes. I think my mother must have explained them away and we believed her. Mothers didn’t lie!

Every day the swelling goes down, and the pain decreases. It doesn’t disappear which is disheartening. I so want a miracle, one of those middle ages miracles where I throw my crutches to the ground and walk while the crowd falls to their knees and yells halleluia! My mood today is better, not great but better. I’m watching Killers from Space, a black and white movie from 1954. Few movies are better than old black and white science fiction, those grainy films of my childhood. This one has bug-eyed aliens from Venus hoping for world domination. But don’t they all?

I’m wearing my cozies every day. I haven’t been clothes dressed since last Wednesday when I drove home from the hospital. The repairman is coming to fix my fridge today so I may dress in my cozies but add a constricting garment for the sake of propriety.

When I was a kid, I never stayed in a hospital. Whatever ailments I had were taken care of at the doctor’s office, but those ailments were few, just the typical 1950’s kid diseases and maybe a cut or two needing stitches.

When I was young, my mother always used to say beggars can’t be choosers. Mostly that was when I carped about the vegetables.

When I was in the Peace Corps, in the town where I lived, most beggars stayed away from me knowing I lived in town and was not going to be forthcoming with money. If I gave money once, the beggars would descent on me en masse and expect money all the time. They’d harass me if I didn’t give them any. One beggar was especially persistent. He had had leprosy and was missing some finger tips. I used to give him a blessing. My language instructor Lawel said you could never let a beggar leave empty handed so giving a blessing, instead of money, was appropriate. I’m not so sure the beggars agreed. My favorite beggar was an old lady. She would follow me from store to store and beg and beg. She wasn’t content with a blessing. I remember being at the post office where I had parked my moto under trees. She followed me, grabbed a stick then screamed and started to attack me and my bike. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I didn’t want to be attacked either. I turned the front of my bike toward her and revved the motor. The threat was enough. She took off and never bothered me again.

The morning is perfectly lovely. The sun is bright and glints through the branches of the trees in the backyard. A few white clouds dot the blue sky. The big branches at the tops of the pine trees sway in the now and again wind. Leaves on the smaller branches twist in the wind. It is warm, already 67˚. It may even get into the low 70’s. It is a delightful Sunday.

My foot is nearly back to normal. Only the top is still swollen which is, of course, where my slipper goes. The toes are back and blue but the dark colors are fading. The redness of the hematoma is shrinking, but the leg is tender to the touch, an ow! ow! tenderness if even cloth touches the shin, and it still hurts almost all the time but in a smaller area. I have a compression bandage to wrap around the leg, but it is a grit your teeth procedure so I’m waiting a bit longer. When I first get up, the pain is shorter lasting, but I still have to grab hold of things on my way to the bathroom. Thank the Lord for door knobs.

When I was a kid, I saw the Roy Rogers rodeo in Boston Garden. We had front row seats so during the parade I could almost pat Trigger as he and Roy rode by us. It was the same with Buttercup and Dale. Pat Brady drove by us in his Nellybelle. I loved watching the horses, especially the bucking broncs. There were covered wagons pulled by oxen, rodeo clowns in barrels and so many horses. It was one of the neatest things I’d ever seen.

When I was growing up, almost nothing was boring. I had woods and a field below my house. I could pick wild blueberries on the bushes near the water tower or chase grasshoppers across the field through the tall brown grass. The paths crisscrossed the woods and field. Horses on the field across the road always came to the fence. I dreamed of grabbing their manes, jumping on and taking off across the field. It never happened which was a good thing.

I went out on the deck right in front of the back door to survey the yard. I noticed paper from the trash and something orange. I realized the orange objects were the socks from the hospital stolen from my bedroom by a marauding thief, the lovely Miss Nala. I decided I didn’t care as I just couldn’t walk all the way there and up and down the stairs, but then…The back door wouldn’t open. It had locked itself. That had happened one other time last winter, but this time I was just fine as I knew the front door was open. I tentatively went down the stairs one step at a time holding on to the rail for dear life. I got through the gate then rested. I got to the grass then rested. I walk a bit across the grass then rested again. I was exhausted. When I got into the house, I unlocked the back door then collapsed on the couch. I think it’s close to nap time.

The morning is cloudy and damp. No rain is predicted, but the clouds are staying around all day. It will be in the mid-60’s. I have an empty dance card. Going out to do anything would take far too much energy, energy I’m saving to walk to the kitchen. Getting out of bed is still painful. Once the blood hits the leg, I started the ow, ow, ows. The dogs watch in amazement. When I can move, I go downstairs to let the beasties outside, make coffee, get the paper then collapse on the couch, already exhausted though the morning has barely begun. I need a nap.

My neighbor made my day yesterday. She brought a basket filled with surprises. There was a lovely card and beautiful flowers. Cans of Coke were there to replace the ones which burst in my fridge. A chicken parm dinner from Nata’s noodles was also in the basket. There were chocolate bars. I can’t think of too many things as therapeutic as chocolate except maybe the chocolate chips cookies also in the basket. Last night I ate one of the Hershey bars. I swear the pain disappeared.

Bad things come in threes. I’ve got a refrigerator freezing everything, a foot and leg in massive pain and now a broken faucet. The hot water side of the kitchen faucet broke off last night. I tried super glue but all it did was stick to my fingers. Now I have to add a plumber to my doctors and to the repairman coming Monday for the fridge. I’m crossing my fingers that nothing else will go wrong, but now I’m thinking maybe those fingers might be in jeopardy. They are now uncrossed. You can never be too careful.

This morning I watched Marjorie Taylor Greene for the laughs. She didn’t disappoint. She said that Bill Gates has developed fake meat in a peach tree dish. That goes with her Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police comment.

The house is quiet. Both dogs are sleeping beside me on the couch. This room is dark. I didn’t turn on the light. The darkness is comforting in a strange way. I have my leg elevated on the table. Everything I need is in arm’s reach. I’m thinking it is a great time for an old movie. I need to be entertained.

Another day of an ugly, painful leg and foot though my foot is getting better, losing all its black and blues. This morning after I was awake for a bit I still hadn’t ventured out of bed. I knew that once the blood flowed to the leg I would be in yelping out loud pain. Finally I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The pain came. I wailed a bit. The dogs stood and watched and wondered. I made it downstairs without mishap. For that, I am thankful.

When I was a kid, I broke my wrist when I was three or four. I lived in a project in South Boston then. Our yard was a mass of metal fences around clotheslines. each clothesline was for an individual apartment. I jumped off the fence gates for fun. I even jumped off backwards. The one time I asked my mother to watch from the apartment, I landed poorly and put my hand down to the pavement to keep me from falling. I complained my arm hurt but still kept jumping. My mother told me she called my grandfather and asked him for advice. He told her to move the wrist back and forth. She did it while I was sleeping, and I didn’t have a reaction, but my grandfather told her to get me to the hospital to check. They found the break and put a cast on. I was quite proud of that cast!

I broke my cheekbone by falling down the stairs. Nothing could be done. It just had to heal. It did, but sometimes I get a pain in my cheek just before a big storm.

That’s it, my list of broken bones. For someone who falls, it is a short list. I did fall down the stairs when I was ten but only needed stitches on my chin so it doesn’t count.

I am tired. It takes a lot of energy to deal with this leg. I even take a nap every day, but I still go to bed early for me. Last night it was just after the news at 11:30. I woke up at 4 in wicked pain because I had neglected to take the pain pill. I couldn’t hobble downstairs because of the pain so I moved my foot around until it hurt less. I fell back to sleep until 8:30.

For many things, I am impatient. This leg is one of them. I do what I’ve been told, but I hate it. It was a week ago Wednesday that this whole thing started. In my opinion, that’s plenty of time to heal, but no, I’m still waiting. I’m thinking enough is enough.

Okay, it is Thursday, but I missed Tuesday so here I am coming to you from home after a two day hospital stay. That infamous leg got far worse so I went to Urgent Care which sent me to the emergency room. I had a lovely room with a view of the ocean. The food was good. The nurses and doctors were amazing.

On night one, I was in the ER until 3 am when a bed became available. From my new room, I was admitted officially after I answered the questions, had my leg looked at and changed into a stylish Johnnie. I hadn’t eaten since the morning when I shared a banana with the dogs so I was given a couple of tasty chicken salad sandwiches and a ginger ale. I thought the ginger ale the perfect drink under the circumstances as my mother always gave us ginger ale when we were sick. I was made to keep my leg elevated and was given a pain pill for the leg and an antibiotic for the finger dog bite. Everything was okay until I had to go to the bathroom. That was a process each time and it hurt, pained my leg and foot. I yelped each time.

My two days were spent in bed with my leg elevated, my vitals checked and visits from my nurse, the nurse practitioner and a doctor. The hematoma was so huge they did not feel comfortable sending me home after the first day so I stayed another day which was the same as the first day except for meals. I got to choose, and the meals were delicious. On morning two, I woke up at 4 with a variety of pains from my back, my shin and my foot. I got a magic pill.

It was decided I could leave but not until the pill was out of my system as I was driving myself. After medical instructions, I was allowed to leave. They gave me a walker as well as a wedge to help keep my leg elevated. A stop at the pharmacy was last. I was wheeled to my car.

Henry barked at me, not the grand homecoming I was expecting. I let them out and patted them until they were content. I was to supposed to have a Chewy deliver but not in time for the dogs to be fed. I gave them some sausage and Spam with their dry food. Just after they inhaled their dinners, the Chewy box arrived.

My friends Jay and Claire and Nancy took care of the animals for me. Nancy even cut up apples for the dogs to have with bananas for morning treats. Jack got clean food and lots of treats. Nancy went over a couple of times a day and Jay and Claire took care of the nights. I don’t know what I would have done without my friends. I can’t thank them enough. To add to that, Nancy brought coke and half and half this morning. Two coke cans had burst in my fridge and the cream was unusable.

My fridge freezes everything. The ice maker has died. I went on line to Sears home warranty this morning but didn’t remember my password. I had to ask twice and neither time did I get a reset e-mail. I called. Twice the call was dropped. I tried again and was lucky enough to get a person who stayed on the line, but the wait to get him was about 20 minutes. I was frustrated to tears. I ended up with an appointment on Monday.

Everything in my fridge is frozen. I will defrost meat which is supposed to be frozen. That’s it for meals until Monday except for toast. I have bread. These last few days need to be erased from my memory drawers.

Memorial Day is a day for reflection and a day to give thanks. It is a day for honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military, those who gave, as President Lincoln once said, their “last full measure of devotion.” This is my annual tribute. 

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. It originated during the American Civi War when citizens placed flowers on the graves of those who had been killed in battle. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead.” While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860′s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Today is brilliant. It is the best of late spring. The sun is squint your eyes bright. The sky is the perfect blue, an iris blue. The wind is slight. The air is redolent of the flowers booming in the front gardens. Birds are still greeting the morning and flitting from bush to bush. The dogs are staying outside in the sun, lying on the deck for maximum exposure.

An injury update: my finger is swollen mostly from the knuckle down. I can bend it only a little, but that’s an improvement. It doesn’t hurt unless I use it without thinking. My leg, though, is worse. It is not a pretty sight. The inside of my foot and all my toes are black and blue. The shin hurts when I move and when I don’t move. Nala has no injuries.

When I ponder my past, I remember amazing places. The first one, way way back, is when we went to Niagara Falls. It was the first time we stayed in a motel, and we ate out every meal. After we parked and settled in, we walked to the falls. The roar of the water was all around us. Rainbows were reflected off the bottom of the falls, off the mist. We watched for a while then moved on. Our next stop was a locker room where we donned ugly yellow slickers and walked under the falls. We were surrounded by water so loud we couldn’t be heard. My favorite story of the trip involved my father. We went into Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. He went up to the cashier’s window and asked for 4 adults and 2 children. He got no response so he asked again. A couple of old ladies were sitting on a bench near the cashier’s window, and they were laughing. My father asked one more time, louder and brusquely. That was when he noticed the old ladies laughing. He looked at the cashier and found out she was wax.

Other amazing places included being at the equator and standing on a dirt spot with a line, straddling that line and standing in two hemispheres at the same time. Macchu Pichu was magnificent. Christ of Corcovado Mountain was massive. His arms stretch almost a hundred feet. From that mountain all of Rio stretches out below including Sugar Loaf and the two beaches, Copacabana and Ipanema. I felt small standing there.

I loved the train ride across the canal. The railroad bridge was lowered over the water. I tried to look at both sides of the bridge at the same time. I was struck by the water, the shoreline and that bridge.

The trains in South America are highlights in my memory drawer of amazing rides. Taking the train to Guayaquil took my breath away. The highlight was the switchback. In Peru, the Cusco to Puno ride was spectacular. It was an every day rail service back then, no luxury train. The ride took about 10 hours. We stopped for a couple of nights in Puno then took a hovercraft across Lake Titicaca to the altiplano of Bolivia.

I took the train in Ghana every chance I got. We whizzed passed small villages, people walking along the sides of the tracks and goats, always goats, just lying by the tracks. At every stop, women offered food for sale at the windows. I always bought fresh bread and bush meat.

I have only the dump on my dance card for today so I’m thinking a deck day with a cold drink, a good book and my two dogs.

The morning is rainy and dark. The wind is strong enough to blow even the heaviest limbs. It is the sort of day to stay close to hearth and home. It is a cozies and slippers sort of day.

Last night the storm woke me. I could hear the wind blowing and the rain on the roof. I listened for a little while then fell back to sleep.

I remember when a Carroll’s opened up in my hometown. Fifteen cent burgers were revolutionary. The parking lot became a Saturday hang-out spot. Kids were all over the place. Cars filled all the spaces.

On school nights, the hang out spot was the library. All the tables and chairs were filled with kids pretending they were there to do homework. The librarians were on alert. They threatened to make even the whisperers leave.

My town had both a Grant’s and a Woolworth’s. I liked the Woolworth’s more. It had a candy section, balsa airplanes, Golden books, comic books and inexpensive toys. I wandered the aisles feeing rich with my fifty cents allowance.

Santoro’s subs were just down the street from my elementary school. About once a month my mother would give us enough money to buy a sub, chips and a small drink. I remember how the shop smelled of onions and tomatoes. The menu was huge and was hung on the wall, but I didn’t need it. On Fridays, meatless days, I’d order a tuna sub with pickles and hot peppers. On other days, it was an Italian sub, also with pickles and hot peppers. If it was a nice day, I’d walk to the town hall, sit on a bench and eat my lunch. If it was cold or rainy, I’d stand at the lunch counter and eat. I loved the subs, but the best part of it all was leaving school for just a little while.

I had a diary, a Christmas present one year. The cover was pink plastic with an illustration of a teen age girl talking on the phone on the front cover. It also had a lock and key. I’d write just about every day and lock it when I was done. I hid the key. Looking back on this, I chuckle a little. I was ten or eleven. Nothing in my life needed hiding behind a lock and key. Little has changed since then.

This morning it rained just a bit. It will rain again tomorrow. The temperature is in the 60’s. The day is a bit ugly with cloudy skies and wind. I’m staying home today. My dance card is empty until Tuesday.

The visit with my friends was almost perfect. (The almost is explained below.) We laughed and remembered, and it felt as if I had just seen them. There is never a gap in our friendship over time. They came bearing gifts as they always do. Bill had made a planter for my deck which looks like a bear. They brought the pot to fit and the flowers for the pot. Peg also brought a beautiful pottery bowl, pot holders of perfect color for my kitchen, a boxer book mark and Peeps. Bill fixed the two things which had been driving me crazy: a kitchen drawer I had to whack every time I opened it so the sides would stay connected to the front and the paper towel dispenser which kept dropping the towels on the floor. Both had been the objects of unleashed cursing.

We had an excursion which took us all the way to Race Point, the end of the cape. We stopped at the Spice House where we did a bit of shopping. It was late afternoon when we got home.

We ate like royalty. I made an apple pie, my seafood casserole and roasted carrots. That was dinner the first night. Peg brought shrimp pesto pasta, kelewele, avocados and garlic bread, our second night dinner. She also brought lemon squares and blueberry muffins. My chicken salad with cranberries and sugared walnuts was a hit. My fridge groaned under the weight of all that tasty food.

I had two awful things happen. The first was the dogs. Nala brought in a dead baby which looked like a possum. We took it away, and she attacked Henry who was innocent. They really went at it. I broke them up but got bitten for my efforts. Finally I got Nala into the bathroom and shut the door. My finger had a long bite which sort of looks like a river on a map, long and snaky. It was and is still painful but looks better and feels a bit better. I had to soak the finger in salty, soapy water so I could get the band-aids off. Henry had a lot of blood around his neck, but I checked, and it was my blood. Five minutes later I opened the bathroom door, and they were fine.

The second thing happened when I was getting out of bed. I have a topper on my mattress. I must have been a restless sleeper as the topper extended beyond the mattress so I slid off the bed to the floor. Nala cried as she too slid. All 60 pounds of her landed on my right leg, on the shin which is now super swollen and black and blue. It hurts even more than my finger. Nala was fine.

Yesterday morning we had blueberry muffins with our coffee. Bill went out to have another but the muffins were gone. Bill had left them on the counter. Nala surfed the counter and found them. Peg checked the yard and found the plastic bag which had held the muffins, all six of them. That theft hurt almost as much as much as my injuries.

I miss my friends already. I’ll visit them in the fall, or rather we’ll visit them in the fall, the dogs and I. I hope the dogs will be better behaved.