Musings

Some garbage cans stink so grossly on garbage day, I muse, as I ride my trike in the early morning before the truck comes around; and some don’t stink at all.  The ones that don’t stink have pizza boxes overflowing and other signs of fast prepackaged food. You learn a lot about your neighbors by noticing their garbage on garbage day. Since we have a compost bin and a recycling can, our garbage smells like kitty litter, dried tree branches, and weeds.

I feel sorry for people who don’t swim, I think every time I go to the pool. I don’t mean swim, swim or swim fast or good; I mean move around in the water, stretching and pulling, rolling and curling. It’s an openness and looseness that is felt in no other venue.

Today we made a new friend. She has been a fixture at the pool for as long as I can remember. Until today all she did was scowl at us. She’s likes to swim with “Mr. America” (as we secretly call him because of his amazing physique and swim prowess), who has been our advocate since day one. He admits he looks out for us and will save a lane for us while being aggressive with others. She won’t relent. When he suggests they let Eddy swim by the edge in the lane he likes, she hisses, “We were here first.” It’s like she’s our #1 enemy at the pool. Today Dr. Wall gave up his lane so we could swim together which left him and our enemy swimming in the next two lanes (Mr. America is back visiting his folks in the mid-west this week). They are competitive swimmers; they swam hard and fast today. At 1:40 when they close all by one lane for lap swimming, she moved over into our lane. We were through and got out. She smiled at us. I smiled back. “Did you have a good swim?” she questioned. Did she talk to us? “Perfect today,” I reply, “you two sure looked good.”  “We had a ball,” she admitted as she dove in. And that was our first conversation in ten years. Friends are better than enemies. They make your heart dance.

Ed says vehemently that he will not go swimming today as he reluctantly goes up and puts on his swimming suit. He’d already been over that way for a doctor appointment and he did not want to go back.  After our swim, he says, “Now to the bad part” insisting he does not want to go home where he asserted he would never leave in the first place.

In other good news, August 1, and I’m feeling very encouraged about my knee status, even though we paid too much, didn’t have professional care, with no follow-up (oxygen shots, laser, massage). When I stop and feel, I realize my knees don’t hurt (much). I’m getting more mobility. I practice going up the stairs with one foot in front of the other. Slowly. Holding on. It doesn’t hurt, even though I think it’s going to. I think I’m convinced that stem cells are as miraculous as they claim. Those undifferentiated gems are doing their job. I love this day and age and research and medical miracles.

  

Happy Brent & Amy got home from their river adventure, each taking over 2,000 pictures of full rainbows, rivers, otters, blue herons, camp sites, canoes, hieroglyphics, granaries, sheer cliffs; not to mention their own watercolors.

Brent's Outhouse at Ruby Ranch

A New Repairman on the Block

“I fixed your toilet for you this morning,” Ed brags as we are playing board games, “in case you didn’t notice. It just kept running and running and running. It was stuck so I had to get it unstuck.”

“Good for you, Ed.”

Later when I went into the bathroom downstairs, he called: “I think the toilet is plugged.”

“Crap.” (I figure I can say it if the honorable Senator Hatch can.)

Now, if he would just learn to use the plunger, we could retire in peace.

And Other Things: 

A bottle fell out of the cupboard crashing on the dishes waiting to be put in the dishwasher.

“Damn it!” I exclaim quietly.

“Heavenly Father’s watching us, you know,” Ed, who has sharp ears, reminds me.

“Why’s He watching us when He’s got Trump to look after?” I ask earnestly.

“Don’t be picking on our President,” Ed admonishes.

Wouldn’t you hate to be God sometimes?

As we walk into the weight room at the gym after our swim, Ed tells the woman at the front desk that he’s mad at her. When I walk by, she says, “Does he say that to you?”

“Oh, no, he only says nice things to me. He knows who fixes his meals.”

“Sometimes he asks if I love him and sometimes he says he’s mad at me,” she reveals

“Yes, and either one is just ‘Hello, how are you?’”

“That’s what I think,” she smiles.

I love it when people get it; rather than being condescending.

I Wonder

1. I wonder, when he comes again,

Will herald angels sing?

Will earth be white with drifted snow,

Or will the world know spring?

I wonder if one star will shine

Far brighter than the rest;

Will daylight stay the whole night through?

Will songbirds leave their nests?

I'm sure he'll call his little ones

Together 'round his knee,

Because he said in days gone by,

"Suffer them to come to me."

2. I wonder, when he comes again,

Will I be ready there

To look upon his loving face

And join with him in prayer?

Each day I'll try to do his will

And let my light so shine

That others seeing me may seek

For greater light divine.

Then, when that blessed day is here,

He'll love me and he'll say,

"You've served me well, my little child;

Come unto my arms to stay."

Words and music: Mirla Greenwood Thayne, 1907-1997

What if He has already come again? Maybe he is living in your home. Maybe he is one of the General Authorities. The Pope? (Verla's suggestion.)  Maybe he lives in Africa or Syria. Maybe he’s homeless. Or in a wheelchair. Maybe he’s rich. Royalty? When He came the first time, even with the miraculous signs, most of his countrymen didn’t recognize him or they wouldn’t have crucified him.

I only think of this because one still and shadowy night, I caught a glimpse of Ed rounding the corner from the bathroom back to his bedroom. It looked like he was in a robe. He wasn’t. He only wears pajamas but in the eerie darkness of the night, it struck me that it might have been Jesus. Just for a fleeting second. Long enough to imprint it on my memory so that when the choir sang “I Wonder when He Comes Again” on Christmas day, I looked at Ed sitting in the pews and wondered if He were already here in anonymity and obscurity. Somewhere. Maybe not here. Makes a person want to honor and respect the divine and teacher in everyone. Just in case.

Tit for Tat

I go out in the car on Tuesday morning to get my broken lock for DeRay to put back together before we go to the gym; traipse it upstairs where he is at the computer then go back down without taking it.

“Ed, would you please run upstairs and get my lock while I do up the dishes so we can go?”

He pulls a face and growls and carries on like I have asked him to climb Mt. Everest without an oxygen mask.

I hobble up the stairs like an 80-year-old lady with arthritis and bone-on-bone knees.

On the way home from the gym, I remind him that he is not a 2-year-old, that he is a grown man, and one thing we do as adults is help each other out. If you don’t want to do a simple thing for me then, of course, I will not want to do anything for you, like fix your meals, wash your clothes, and drive you to the gym. So don’t plan on lunch today, for like you, “I do nothing for no one”.

“Don’t worry about the garbage can,” he says as we park in the garage, “I’ll get it in, just to make up.” The garbage can is in a snowbank. Even though it’s his job ordinarily, he never does it when it’s cold, slippery or inconvenient.

True to the faith, I fix his lunch.

Because of the weather and other things, we don't go to the gym again until Friday. As he is eating breakfast, he says magnanimously: “If you forget something, I’ll go up and get it;" adding this disclaimer, "even though it’s not my forte.”

Sunday's Sermon

Sunday morning 7 AM and Ed’s door is closed,

indicating he’s up and not wanting to disturb us.

Ordinarily, he doesn’t get up until around 8.

“Why are you up so early?” I query as I peek in his door.

“Thou shalt not intrude,” he warns emphatically.

What was he in a past life?

Where does he get his vocabulary and wisdom?

He loves aviation and astronomy.

Maybe he was an astronomer.

Something scientific for sure.

Or maybe a preacher.

“You’ll have to deliver your invitations this afternoon,”

I tell him as I fix his tie for church.

“Not when it’s raining cats and dogs.”

“I don’t see a cat or a dog.”

“It’s just an expression –

of the moisture,” he explains.

“I don’t think I’ll have nightmares after watching Deep Impact,”

he chatted while getting ready for bed last night.
“It had a happy ending.

I sure love that movie.

Morgan Freeman was in it.”

“You sure look good, Mom.”

“I’m so fat I can’t stand myself.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself down.”

Las weekend when Verla was staying overnight,

Ed comes into his dad’s bedroom, asking,

“Mind if I use your facility?”

 “OK, but you owe me one,” Dad says,

“I can use your bathroom sometime.”

“Nope. It’s for me and ‘Guests’ only.”

Ed was getting ready for church last Sunday morning

when the top button fell off his shirt.

“Do you know where your button is?”

I asked, attempting to help him solve the problem.

”OH” his eyes light up,

“Do you remember when we used to play that game?

It was kinda lame.”

You can tell he hadn’t thought about it for a long time.

He goes home teaching to the Stuarts in the home we used to rent.

I asked him if he remembered when we lived there 29 years ago.

“You always complained because it was so dark and dreary –

for a whole year –

so I couldn’t enjoy it,” he remonstrated.

He liked his bedroom.

It was big and had a commanding view of the entire valley and lake
(that used to be).

He came downstairs after showering, saying

“You’re not going to believe this, Mom.

You’re living with two babies.”

He’s right there.

He and his dad are something else.

I don’t know if it’s joking or bickering.

Constantly.

Ed was complaining about emptying the dishwasher as usual,

saying he was sick of doing it.

“I’m sick of fixing three meals a day for 80 years,” I declare.

“You won’t be 80 until October.

I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” he cautions.

Home

For years Ed came home from church saying,

“Now we’re to the bad part.”

All it meant was that he is lonely

and he misses his friends at church.

I knew that.

Still I was covertly offended, so I defied,

“Maybe someday you’ll come home and we won’t be here.”

“Don’t we count?”

“You’re not alone, we’re here.”

“That doesn’t cut it,” he countered.

Today he came home and voiced sincerely,

“I’m glad to be here.”

He told his dad when he got out of the car,

“Now we’re to the best part.”
Home, sweet home.

Timing

     At the gym, Ed slipped into our usual lane in the pool with another fellow. Because it was so crowded, I went clear to the other side. As lap swimmers left, I moved into the lane next to Ed and this guy, who were still sharing a lane.
    “Get in this lane,” he commanded, indicating he wanted my lane. I had it to myself now. I thought, “Just when I’m ready to swim on my back.” 
   Then he explains, “So you can be with your husband.” 
   I was dumbfounded. Do I look that young or does Ed look that old? DeRay & I were married before he was born, for crying out loud - 17 years before he was born, truth be told.
   It doesn’t matter; he made my day. I smiled all the way home. 

We all make mistakes..

That’s what Ed told his dad when he went in to make his bed at midnight last night.

Earlier in the day, I had gone in his room to make up his bed with the clean sheets. I had left my watch downstairs and I needed to know if I had time to make the bed before fixing dinner because I had to leave for club at 5:30. He would neither tell me what time it was nor let me look at his watch. Then he called me a gosh-awful name so I walked out telling him that I wasn’t going to make up his bed and if he ever called either of his parents that again, we would find him someplace else to live. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the day. I didn’t floss his teeth, put oil on his eye and lips, or lotion on his chapped hands. When bedtime came, I went to bed. He was still sitting up when his dad came up at midnight.

“We all make mistakes,” he tells his dad.

That melted my heart. All day I had been thinking about all the mistakes I have made through the years.

When he came in to apologize—“I’m sorry, Mom, do you forgive me?”, he counseled, “If you want to know the time, look in the kitchen.”

It’s true, we have five clocks in the kitchen, but I was upstairs and needed to know if I had time to make his bed before going down.

“We all make mistakes."

Kind Words

A young fellow crossed under three floating lane dividers at the pool today to talk to me. I thought, “Oh, no, what have we done wrong now?” “I just wanted to tell you,” he began, “that I think it is a wonderful thing that you bring your son to the pool. He does so well. I’ve been coming for a year now and it’s so good to watch him swim.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” I blubber.

“I’ll bet it’s good for you too, isn’t it?” he said in parting.

“Definitely.” I wanted to share with him my poem entitled “I thought I was Teaching my Son” but I just smiled. 

You know what? I love kind people. What does it cost?

A few years ago, a burly tattooed man at the pool visited with us telling us that he took seminary with Eddy.

Upstairs at the machines, a woman comes over and says Hi to Eddy. She said she was his bus driver in elementary school (nearly 40 years ago).  Her name gradually came to me: Barbara Ortega. We used to sit on the guard rail out on Fairfield and wait for the bus. We liked to throw rocks into the hollow while waiting.

On the other hand, I’m in Fine Arts Club with one of his old school teachers and she doesn’t remember him at all. Of course, she doesn’t remember her own kids and she asks me who I am three times while we’re talking and she’s telling me her memory is improving. We were in the Ward with her when we first moved out here in 1969 and I’ve been in club with her a couple of times.

From “I Thought I was Teaching My Son”:

I thought I was teaching

my son about health and exercise

as I took him to the gym,

where I got addicted

to aerobics

and sold on swimming.

Found and Lost

When Ed went to check in at the gym

He could not find his coded tag.

The elevator was waiting so he hopped on.

After our workout and swim

I stopped by to check him in

And report his tag lost.

“Oh, someone turned it in.

Right here.

In this drawer.

Somewhere.”

She could find it nowhere.

Found then lost.

Sometimes I wish we still poked

Our index finger in a contraption

For identification.

We never lost those.

Dickens, not Charles

Ed has sleep apnea and recently got a new mouthpiece that juts his lower jaw out so he can breathe better while sleeping.

“How do you like your new mouthpiece?” I inquire after the first night.

“Like the dickens,” he answers.

“You love it like the dickens?”

“NO!”

“You hate it like the dickens?”

“YES! I hate it like the dickens.”

Still, the nights are strangely silent.

"Like the Dickens" has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. Dickens is a euphemism, specifically a minced-oath, for the word devil, possibly via devilkins. Shakespeare used it in 'the Merry Wives of Windsor, 1600: “I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.”

Advice

The first speaker at Church began her talk by saying that Eddy came over to her while she was sitting on the stand and asked if she loves him. “Yes, Eddy, I love you.”
     “Well, then be sure you don’t screw up,” he warns.

Every ward needs an Eddy and they probably don’t even know it.

The Chimes of Time

DeRay always tried to think of something

To do on Saturday with Ed;

Even if it was just going to the grocery store.

For years, they stopped by to see Aunt Olive.

Now she is gone.

We are older and slower and

Since we always seem to be behind,

There have been no Saturday outings lately.

“Friday, Gateway to the Weekend,”

Ed routinely announces on Friday.

Today he exclaimed:

“Friday, Gateway to the BORING Weekend.”

Sad.

Zubits

are designed to make shoe-tying obsolete.

 Ed's shoes left; mine right.

   “I can’t do it. I just can’t” Ed wails when we try to get him to use the magical zubits to fasten his shoes. Amy bought a set for me and one for him. I love mine. They are strong magnets and fly together. To take your shoes off, you step on the heel with one foot and bend the other knee.  ZAP they pop open. It is so much fun. But Ed would have nothing to do with them and went into orbit when we mentioned it. He has such a hard time with anything new. We tried to appeal to his intellect telling him they were scientific.

                “You love Bill Nye the Science Guy,

                You are Ed Hugh and you love science too!”

   “I love astronomy and aviation,” he reminds me.

   I did my best but he still maintained he hated them. “I love my new shoes but I hate the magnets.”

   Finally Amy spent a little time with him and now he puts them on and off all day long as he rides his trike and walks the cul-de-sac.

Postscript: We loved our zubits so much that Amy ordered her and dad each a pair. Now we’re all on zubits! No more laces!

Ed Said

“Ed, when you walk,” I say as he’s leaving for church, “put one foot in front of the other one – don’t walk side to side.”

“No. No. I can’t do that. I’m different from the rest of you. Did you forget?”

I find that extremely interesting. He didn’t say he was different from me, a unique individual; he said he was different from everyone.

Before each meal, he now says (as our conditioning experiment),
“Stupid.

I love Las Vegas

I love Idaho

I love California

I love Colorado

I love Texas

I love life.”

And I repeat, “You are not stupid because you love, Las Vegas, Idaho, California, Colorado, Texas and life.”

But he cannot bring himself to say it when Amy or anyone else is in the room. He had been waiting about 15 minutes before lunch today when Amy slipped out on the deck. He blurted out: “Stupid. I love Las Vegas, I love California, I love Colorado, I love Texas, I love Idaho. I love life.”

He was reading over my shoulder as I was writing this. “You don’t have to write down everything I say before every meal. Totally rude.”
    I often think he is more astute than anyone I know.

Addendum:
    At lunch, I was finishing my dessert from last night when we went to a seminar on investments for seniors, and Ed said, "I can't believe you are eating dessert in front of me." He didn't suffer through a 3-hour lecture before he could eat, why should I share my cheesecake with him?
   Breakfast was ready and we were going swimming so I call upstairs to DeRay: "Is he showered?"
    Ed calls down, "I'm getting ready. Be patient.". . .right on the day when we are going visiting teaching and our message is on patience.

Patience is often thought of as a quiet, passive trait, but as President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, said, “Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something … even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!”

President Uchtdorf continued, “Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being ‘willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father’ [Mosiah 3:19]. Ultimately, patience means being ‘firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord’ [1 Nephi 2:10] every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so.”

   I’ve never heard Ed ask me to “be patient” before.