Eleven Years and Still Counting

When my brother was four or five years old, my mom took us downtown and during the course of our shopping trip the three of us got on a crowded elevator. My brother was never a shy or coy kid and when he had a question to ask he’d belted it out and that day, in between floors, he was curious. “Momma,” he said, pointing to another person on the elevator, “Why doesn’t that lady wash her face?” My mom was mortified but the black lady laughed. It was the 1940s and this anecdote speaks volumes about the times and the fact that a kid from the suburbs could be almost old enough for kindergarten before seeing his very first non-white person.

My second memorable elevator ride was in the Empire State Building---memorable because it was the setting for a full-blown panic attack. Not my first, but the worst one of my entire life. It was in the 1950s, a time when I was in love with art deco architecture and I had been looking forward to this trip to the public observatory at the top. Unfortunately, once I got up there I found out that I had no more love of heights than I did for being locked inside a “windowless box” grinding and groaning its way to the top of that beautiful building.

Twenty-some years later, when Don and I was in Chicago about to get on the elevator at the Sears Tower, I could feel another major panic attack coming on so I made an excuse and refused to get in. My ancestor, Elisha Otis, founder of the Otis Elevator Company, was probably rolling over in his grave because of my behavior. But Don had a different reaction because as it turned out that elevator---which he got on to but I didn’t---got stuck between floors and it took a half hour to free him and the other passengers. When he finally got off he was in awe of me, thinking that I was clairvoyant and saw that event coming. I never corrected that impression. We were newly in love and I wasn’t about to start punching gem stones out of my princess crown.

It was shortly after Don’s stroke in 2000 when we had the next memorial ride on an elevator. Don was being transferred from one facility to another and the ambulance-cab driver in charge of transferring Don didn’t get his wheelchair far enough into an elevator and the door shut on his toes. The elevator car moved several feet while Don’s foot was going upward before the driver realized what she’d done and pushed the emergency stop button. Then it took awhile for us to get Don’s toes freed from the rubber door seals because the door wouldn’t open in between floors.

My last memorable elevator experience happened at the Christian college where Don was taking speech therapy classes. He’d spent the morning trying to teach himself how to swear; specifically to say “Jesus Christ!” to someone who’d cut me off in traffic only it kept coming out as “Jesus Crust.” He knew it sounded wrong but he couldn’t figure out how to say it correctly. Don also rolled the words ‘Jesus Cuss’ around on his tongue a few times and finally went back to ‘Jesus Crust’ all the while giving me ‘The Look’ that said, “Help me out here, woman!”

“Don’t look at me, Buddy-Boy,” I told him. “I’m not helping you learn how to swear.”

Finally, the conversation was all but forgotten until we were in communications building and was waiting for the slowest elevator on the face of the planet when I remarked: “Boy, is this elevator slow.”

“Jesse Crush!” he swore in front of a hall full of students and a few professors.

This January marks eleven years since Don passed and even after all this time I still miss his sense of humor, the way he could make me laugh even after he lost his speech. I miss his looking at me like I still have a few rubies left in my princess crown. He was my best friend, my sounding board for 42 year and that turns everything I do in the January days leading up to the 18^th into a trip down Memory Lane including a simple ride on an elevator.   ©

 

Note: if you got deja vu reading this that means you've been poking around in my archives. I originally wrote all but the last paragraph shortly after Don died. I ran out of time or desire to write something new this week. That switch will flip after the 18th has passed, I'm sure.

Music that Comes with Tears and Laughter

I’ve got to stop listening to old music from the ‘50s through the ‘80s. Once a month they have a birthday party here at the continuum care complex to celebrate everyone who was born in that particular month and the party usually includes a singer/musician. Many have been singer/song writers both young and old and they have something else in common. They try to sing songs fitting the age of our residents. One guy missed the mark and did too many songs from the ‘40s which on paper to a young person probably sounded good since most of us were born in the ‘40s but the music most old seniors like us identify with is the decade of songs from when we were teenagers and young adults. The ‘50s and ‘60s songs usually have us all singing along and having a great time. And I can have as much fun singing as the next person but those songs often make me teary-eyed as well. 

For example when the guy above in the photo ---John D. Lamb sang “Each night I ask the stars up above why must I be a teenager in love?” I felt like I was right back in high school, encamped in my converted attic bedroom with the pink cabbage roses in the wallpaper. I’d lay on my moss green carpet and play that record over and over again until my mom would yell up from the bottom of the steps for me to, 'Turn that damn thing off." I learned it from her---playing records over and over again the way she did when I was a toddler. She had a collection of WWII records that she played over and over again. The Andrew Sisters singing the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy is tattooed inside my head. 

I can’t hear a WWII, gun-ho-to-support-the-war song without remembering the day my dad and I cleaned out our basement and we took her record collection to the dump. We had a good time sailing those records across the field of garbage and trash. She hadn’t played them in years but she was so mad when she found out what we did that it took her a week before she spoke to either one of us. As an adult looking back I know there was a story there I’m missing, probably a love story about a boyfriend who joined the Air Force and never came back. She had a pair silver U.S. Air Force wings in her jewelry box and a photo of her with a guy she dated before my dad that she never talked about or rather I was too self-centered to ask about. Mom’s are moms. We don’t see their lost dreams the way we see our own.

At the same birthday party John D. Lamb also sang Anta Lucia in Italian. His ancestry is Italian like my dad’s was and hearing that love song sang that way reached so far back into my memory vault I had nearly forgotten about all the Italian weddings I’d been to as a young kid. My three great uncles were still alive and they spoke their native tongue and always sang that song to the bride while one or two of them played the accordion.

Another song that nearly brought me to tears was the theme song from Ghost. Remember Demi Moore’s character at a potter’s wheel while Patrick Swayze’s character/the ghost was behind her and the theme song played: “...I've hungered for your touch, A long, lonely time, And time goes by so slowly, And time can do so much, Are you still mine?” Corny, I know but to quote a line from The Holiday “I like corny.” I liked it enough that day to have trouble holding back the tears. But I did. 

Until John D. Lamb pulled out a Tom Jones song. I’ve told the story before but briefly its of the triangle dating thing I had going between me, Don and his friend who looked like he shared the same gene pool as Tom Jones. His first name was even Tom and he was playboy type who took full advantage of looking like the famous singer. “It's not unusual to be loved by anyone, It's not unusual to have fun with anyone’, but when I see you hanging about with anyone, It's not unusual to see me cry, I wanna die.” It was Don who had the staying power, as long time readers here know, who wanted to cry when he saw me out with the Tom Jones look-alike. Cornball, I know but it's my story and I'll tell it the way I want.

At lunch the next day someone remarked that I was having a good time at the birthday party, that she was sitting behind me and could see me getting into the music. “I was,” I told her, “but along with the happiness I fought back a few tears. Old music does that to me.” Others at the table said the same thing happened to them at this birthday party. So either John D. Lamb knew how to play to his audience or all of us had our emotions close too the surface that day and our tears needed a place to escape. I suspect it was a combination of both because the world outside that room, was filled with nothing but bad news. All I really know for sure is by the time the hour was up I was crushing on John D. Lamb and I left in a better mood than I came.  ©

The video below is of John singing a song he wrote about two friends who went to the capital January 6th. He didn't sing this at the party but I love how song writers can turn anything into music. He holds an annual Retreat for Song Writers and is on his 28th year doing so. The second video is a humorous song he wrote and did sing for us. It's for all of us who know what it's like to drive up north in Michigan.

Laughing in all the Wrong Places

 

Look Out for Deer

Life is Perfect, Even When it's Not

Today's post reaches back nearly twenty years to a time when I first started blogging and my husband was still alive. It's always been one of my favorite posts from my caregiver days and I'm hoping you'll enjoy the break from my caterwauling about moving which is the only thing going on in my life right now. With only twenty days left to go before the big move I plan to recycled an older post for the next two Wednesday and (hopefully) real-time posts on the next three Saturdays, then get back into my regular writing routine. In the meantime here's Life is Perfect, Even When it's Not.

At the dentist office today, I took my wheelchair bound, right-side paralyzed husband, Don, to the restroom. It’s a good one with grab bars situated so that he---with my help---can stand up to pee. But first we had to get him out of his coat. Its nylon and is so slippery it would be like holding on to slime, should I have to catch him in a fall. That task accomplished, I got Don’s pants down and held his shirt out of the way while both of us stood side by side waiting for the flow to start. It didn’t. So, I’m humming game show tunes in my head---the kind they play while a contestant is trying to come up with an answer while the clock ticks away. For some reason the wait seemed longer than usual which made me think of our friend who has a ‘shy bladder.’ He can’t pee if someone else is in the room.

“Ron better hope,” I said to Don, “that he never needs help peeing.” Don got the humor in that statement which gave us both the giggles. We were giggling and laughing so hard by the time the pee stream hit the bowl it’s a wonder it found its mark and didn’t cover our shoes instead. The restroom is just a few feet from the receptionist’s desk and heaven knows what she was thought we were doing in there. The look on her face when we came out was priceless. She wanted to ask. Oh boy, did she want to ask but her phoo-phoo manners wouldn’t let her.

As I sat in the waiting room while Don got his teeth cleaned, I picked up an old copy of Real Simple magazine. On the first page I turned to was a Ralph Lauren double-page layout for Polo Black, a men’s fragrance that featured a hot model. And I do mean sexy as in take-off-your-clothes-and-let-me-see-the-rest-of-you sexy! I looked at him, and then around the room trying to figure out if the Thought Police was present. I decided that a dentist’s waiting room was not a good place to have a virtual orgasm, so I quick turned the page. Thanks goodness, the next page was a double-page layout for a Chevy. Cool. Keep those cars selling, we need their pension money. I flipped through a few more pages and came to an ad for Starbucks coffee liqueur which was exactly what I needed after lusting after the Ralph Lauren guy. I’ve never smoked but that guy had me reaching into my purse for a pack of cigarettes and I came out with a stick of gum.

By now I was beginning to think that the Real Simple magazine was nothing but advertisements. Duh, aren’t most of them? And sure enough, the next page was a double-page layout for American Express featuring Ellen DeGeneres. She says in the ad that her life is perfect, even when it’s not. Wow, what a nice thing to be able to say about your life! I think I actually know what she means.

Finally, I came across a few articles in the magazine. ‘What’s the Craziest Thing you ever did for Love?’ was the title of one article, and there were some notable answers like: “take skydiving lesson,” “move into a log cabin built in the 1800,” and “eloped 36 days after meeting someone.” Another article was titled, ‘Portrait of a Family.’ There is humor in this, I thought about reading these two articles back-to-back because my family portrait and the craziest thing I ever did for love could be one and the same. Yup, I’m getting out the oils and easel and painting a portrait of Don and myself. We’ll be standing side by side, leaning over a toilet bowl, expectantly looking down and hoping that neither one of us ends up with pee our shoes. Love doesn’t get much crazier than that, does it? ©

The Love and Laughter Memories...

For most of January I've had three posts in my blog scheduler at any given time. I was on a writing jag which has its good and bad sides. Good because I like it when words freely flow down from my brain to my fingertips and magically appear on my computer screen to send out into the world. That a human can do that is a miracle, isn’t it, and it started back in ancient civilizations when they developed language followed by the written word. The miracle continued with the invention of the typewriter and computers followed by the development cyberspace and the blog platforms that I love. Having spent 12 ½ years watching my husband struggle with language disorders after his massive stroke makes me truly appreciate what a complex thing it is to communicate in any form. I won’t get too deep in the weeds regarding the damage the stroke did to the communication center of his brain but for anyone new to my blog I'll just say that his aphasia, agraphia and apraxia speech issues were comparable to a car that has a functioning motor (the brain) and wheels that work (the lips and tongue) but the transmission in between the two is shot thus the car can’t go/the speech and written words can’t flow.

A new month is beginning soon but I'm ending January by torturing myself with CDs. The impeachment trial in the Senate has been on my TV but for large parts of my days the volume as been turned down so low I can’t hear it. I’d listened to every minute of the impeachment inquiry in the House and was pretty sure I wouldn’t be hearing anything I didn’t already know. Still, I wanted to be counted by the powers that be as a household that is ‘keenly interested’ in the coverage. The decision to listen to CDs came with complications. It had been so long since I've done it that I had to google my Sony player to figure out how to use it. But before I could do that I had to get out the magnifying glass and a flashlight to find the model name and number. But before that, I had dug through my downsized folder of small appliance manuals and I couldn’t find the one for the CD/cassette and radio. It must have gotten accidentally thrown out during my filing cabinet purge and I blame that evil Marie Kondo for that! Ever do that? Decide you want to do something and it turns into a big chain of steps that makes you wonder if you really want to do what you thought you did in the first place? 

My husband was into music more than I ever was and one of his favorite recording artists was Joe Cocker. So the torture part of my day came when I put on one of his albums. Unchain my Heart: track one. Then it came, track two, the one that never fails to bring back sweet memories of a playful romp in the hay, as they say. “Baby take off your coat. Real slow. And take off your shoes, I'll take off your shoes. Baby take off your dress. Yes yes yes. You can leave your hat on.” I had come into the house one afternoon just as those words came blasting out of Don’s office and as I took off my coat, he sang along with Joe, “You can leave your hat on.” Our eyes locked and the slow striptease began as the song's chorus repeated and it ended next door in the bedroom. And, yes, I kept my hat on the entire time.

I have no idea how often a couple who’d been together for 42 years has sex or makes love but my memory often picks out four times to replay in my head from time to time, right down to the minute detail. If I’m being honest here I’d admit there are more times I could recount down to the nitty-gritty if I set my mind to it but I’ve got too many things to do and places to go and day-dreaming won’t get them done. And I question if I should even be sharing the top four in a public forum but here it goes, fresh out of their lock box. One of those top four memories I already wrote about up above. Another was outside under the stars at Lookout Park…memorable because we both got covered with poison ivy that we passed back and forth the entire long, hot summer. We both ended up regretting that romp au naturale but it was wickedly fun at the time. The third memory I take out of its place of honor from time to time happened on the evening of the day I label the happiest day in my life. It also happened under the stars but on the bed of our pickup truck out west. Our mamas didn't raise any fools. No more rolling around in unknown vegetation for us after Lookout Park.

The fourth time was actually the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh time all rolled into one night and it was straight out of a romance novel. The kind of love scene/s that starts out hot and sexy and leaves you breathless and spent, then after a while to recover it progresses into deep, passionate sex that leave you in awe of how deeply it makes you feel, followed by a bonding and wordless kind of love making that leaves you both with tears in your eyes, and ending the night with a slow and gentle pairing that comes with whispered words when you both know you've found THE ONE. 

I once read a book on how to writing romance novels that said couples who don’t have those four different kinds of experiences over a short time span might stay together happily but they aren’t bonded together for life in the same way as couples who do experience that kind four-for-the-price-of-one kind of "imprinting" on one another and I suppose that explains why some widows and widowers can jump back into another relationship after their spouse dies and, others like me, find that idea laugh out-loud funny or repulsive, depending on the mood I’m in. ©