Thursday, December 27, 2012

help a girl out

The therapy by phone thing is working out splendidly except for the fact that people call and beep while you're trying to work stuff out. The only reason it works is that this guy knows me well enough to hone in on an issue and let me work through it in less than hour if need be. Which it needed be today. I found myself in tears recalling how mad my father got when I crossed his invisible line but it was a good cry. It is what it is, and his basic personality as I knew it has only been magnified by dementia. I'm sure I'll be just a little ray of sunshine at 81 myself!

I was out on the front line today and found myself telling some lady that I can't cook much because my oven runs on propane, and of course the heat is gone too except for the electric. She couldn't believe that "some people" live like that. Yes ma'am...and some of them still have collision film over their window on their ancient Camry. She wasn't snooty at all about it..just amazed. Go figure that one. The snow is almost gone, clinging to banks and trees but not much else. It's amazing what a difference it makes in the temperature of the ground and the house itself with ice against the foundation. The window frames in this house are hollow with old iron weights inside that lifted them up and down back in the day. Now they're painted over and the wood is rotting from years of west to east weather patterns moving up the hill.

I found myself remembering Old Hoss today in my phone session. When we first "met" in the blogosphere, he was living in a nursing home with his wife who was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. Their home state of Oregon had made assisted suicide legal and he did the right thing when her time came. I remember sending her a bracelet of orange and white from a Tennessee vol. There were cookies too, which I'm sure were crumbs by the time they arrived. Several years later he took off on a whirlwind tour of the country beginning in Vegas and ending up (not in any particular order) in Texas Michigan and Tennessee. Talk about a girl not knowing what to do! My friend picked him up at the airport and delivered him to a halfway point at my other friend's restaurant/antique shop. A frantic call from his last caretaker advised me that he had been without oxygen on the plane and would need a dose ASAP. Alrighty then! I wheeled over to the respiratory therapy store on my way to Sue's and picked one up. I swear ya'll..it took about 30 minutes to get him ready for the 30 minute ride to our house. We had a nice visit and everybody thought I was freakin' crazy for having this old codger at my house. Maybe I was.

Here's the thing. Had I not reached out and enjoyed the social part of blogging..indeed the very human source of it, I would have never know him or a whole helluva lot of other dear friends. FB I can take or leave. Same with a steady diet of spoon fed teevee programming. Since I cut the cord I've had more fun watching Redbox movies than I ever had with the background chatter. My latest favorite is searching for a friend for the rest of your life. Quite profound in a quirky sort of way. It made me think a whole lot about re-dos and what's ultimately important. Our new fav comedian Amy Schumer was in it doing what she does best.

It's ladies night. Ya'll better watch out ^j^

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