More sun than rain. Another victory.

I took Jan in to physical therapy this morning and she fell coming out, and split her lip. Her therapist came out and told me. She is a very nice, and helpful person and she appeared worried and upset about Jan’s fall. They took Jan to the clinic and kept her there for about forty minutes to make sure she was okay. I’m sure they were worried about their liability but the last thing Jan would want to do is talk about her fall for the next year or so to a bunch of lawyers and then to a jury… Jesus. Hell on earth for Jan. She was perky when she came out to find Dot and I waiting for her eating our French Fries and practicing our sitting.

Jan did come home with a loaner walker though and ordered a nice new one. So begins a new era on this Parkinson’s adventure. Jan felt bad for the physical therapist and blamed her shoes which were kind of sticky on the nice tile floor which caused her stumble. When she came out she said, “It’s nothing, I have had way worse falls than that one.” Which is true. The fall that caused her to come to PT in the first place was a doozy, We were trying to photograph Dot as a puppy and I got tangled in Dot’s leash and fell over and I hit Jan’s legs as I went down and Jan went flying off the deck. Dot made it all better though by licking Jan’s face uncontrollably as she lay on the wet lawn with a torn rotator cuff.

I sometimes don’t know why Jan and I quit drinking.

Actually I do know why I quit, I was terrible at it, it didn’t mix well with my medications and I started feeling sick and hung over after my first drink. Oh I still like drinking expensive French Champagne when there is something to celebrate. It has a nice bubbly head-buzz after two glasses and then if I stop there, I can still manage the fantasy of snappy repartee with Myrna Loy at the oyster bar at a wedding. But how many weddings do I go to anymore anyway? Most funerals serve coffee and tea, and that’s more my speed now.

Quitting drinking was not hard, because I wasn’t devoted to alcohol. I was clinically depressed all my life, I recognized my suicidal thoughts when I was about seven years old. Lord knows why? That’s way too young. I recognized very early on, in fact the first time I got drunk in junior high school that alcohol was not fun for me. I usually ended up crying or worse having some kind of loathsome fit and feeling truly horrible. I never ever saw any upside to drinking, unless I was with other people who were fun drinkers, then I could blend in. Unfortunately my parents were really fun drinkers and my siblings and I could sometimes really tie on a fun drunk, but still there was the depression that came afterwards. Don’t get me wrong I’m not whining about any of it. When I say fun…. it really was fun. My father and mother were masters of a witty good time when drinking. I was in college when my father taught me how to pour my first eye-opener cocktail of the morning by using a necktie to lift the glass to my mouth. We both felt like characters out of The Great Gatsby. But of course we weren’t. We were just depressed and trying to out run suicide. My father wanted to write too. I once asked him what would make a person take his own life, and he said, “Not finishing the book you started.” This statement haunts me still.

My father retired as a rebellious vice president of the largest corporation on earth in 1972, but he never finished his book. We fought up until his death but I have to say that quitting drinking and reconciling with him were two of the best things I did for my emotional health.

Today I had to drop some books off at the Pioneers Home for Nancy Ricketts to sign. She wasn’t at the door at the appointed time. I can’t go in and it’s a hassle for her to come out to visit during this time of Covid. I went and walked with another bundle of books for the the Bookstore. I ran into the P. Home gardner right by the tree I suspected was their famous old Elm Tree. Years ago I had promised to ask about getting a cutting from that tree for Dana Stabenow. But somehow, I never caught him at the right time. Today was perfect. We were right next to the tree and we started chatting about it. Truthfully when Dana first asked me about it the former gardner was not interested in cutting anything from the tree because they were having some “issues” with the tree. The way he said it made it sound like the tree had an STD. But today Brian, the new guy said it had all been worked out and we could “talk about getting a cutting” and sending it up to Dana’s writers retreat in Homer. The talk with Brian felt a little like a drug deal, I don’t know why.

Anyway, Nancy appeared with her walker out in the middle of the street and that conversation came to an end and I gave her the other books and Dot gave Nancy some smooches, which makes the 95 year old girl a little nervous but she always laughs out loud when it happens. We got her back to her door and the nurse scolded her for not having her mask on, then Nancy was upset because she hadn’t planned to go outside but had seen Dot walk by the window and just charged down the stairs to catch us. Nancy was depressed about being kept inside the home and I knew she had been feeling low, from having called her and I could tell she had been crying. Her daughter lives in Northern California and Nancy has been worried about the fires down there with good reason because they have been close to her daughter’s house and in fact had been under an evacuation notice last week. Nancy took her books and went back inside and gave the nurse a little guff on the way by.

On the way to the store I saw an old man from the Home who I will just call N.F. He is somewhere in his mid-eighties. The sun had broken out and N.F. was enjoying the sun. I have given N. several masks to wear and he wears them in my presence then I’m sure he throws them away. N. often says to me when I stop to chat, “Heyya. I’m about to go smoke a bowl, wanna join me? I always decline. As far as I know N.F. smokes pot every day. Friends give it to him as he sits in his wheel chair out on the street. I told him I gave up smoking pot too. He told me, “Yeah? I gave it up too once, for ten days.”

“Oh, yes, N? When was that?”

“Back in 1961. I was working for the Air Force.”

“Ten days?” I asked.

“Yep.”

Now, N.F. is what’s commonly called a scofflaw around the P. Home, and it really fries Nancy Ricketts hind end. Nancy is a genuinely good person. She is kind and honest and she does good for the community at every turn. She sees part of that duty as following the rules. N.F. I think is a good person to his friends, his suppliers, and his family. probably. But he really just doesn’t give a fuck about the rules, and this is what burns Nancy. N. has found every way out of the Home that is possible. He never wears his mask. All the “goody two shoes” (as Nancy calls them) reports him for sneaking out, but he doesn’t give a shit, partly because when he comes back he is nice and high: Happy, joking: Not worried about a thing. Nancy sneaks out too, of course because she “can’t stand being cooped up” but the GTS’s report on her as well and because she doesn’t get high she feels hurt when she gets called on deck for sneaking out. What bothers her is not that N.F. sins is that he doesn’t care.

I suggested she join forces with N.F. and get high herself, and she has considered it but put it that she “would be darned if she was going to let NF dictate what she was going to do for her fun.” Nancy is stubborn about her fun. She likes Gregorian music and coffee with two creams. She also likes well written books with uplifting endings. I have to say, I love Nancy and I get a charge out of N. I see them as two poles of how to approach the end of life. I’m not going to choose sides yet.

Just a few leaves left

on this spindly elm tree.

I’m an elephant.

jhs

Here is a recording from a section of Linda Hogan’s “The Woman Who Watches The World.”