RENTER MADNESS

It's hard not to think of the "before" picture-fists bashed through dry wall, cat diarrhea matted to the filthy carpet, food rotting in the refrigerator, closet doors completely gone.

That's what the renters  left.  Anger doesn't come close to how I feel about that. But now that I've been working five weeks at clean-up, I'm sick and tired of the anger. I want to Lysol it, sponge it away with Fabuloso, and follow that with a strong dose of Clorox. This anger is not serving me, is it? I'm the one who's hurting, certainly not them. So I'll dump the anger down the toilet and flush it away with the dirty water that remains from scrubbing the walls.

I have the "after" picture to think about-popcorn ceiling gone, freshly painted taupe-neutral walls, all new lighting and ceiling fans, new flooring and new appliances. You'd never know that those college boys had been there.

I asked the universe for a good tenant this time. It would be great to find a nice professional family that will appreciate the 70's style of the place. A family that will smile at the Buddha garden spot I created on the side of the house after the storage unit was torn down. I want them to love the short commute to ASU and being close to South Mountain and the REI store. I want them to live in the house for five years and then we can retire there when it comes time to downsize.

Anger-what anger? I'm moving on!

And you know what? The universe provided!

NOT THE INDY 500-FLASH FICTION

The call came around dinner time.  I was frantically sautéing onions and peppers to throw into the turkey enchilada mixture while two ravenous males sat at the table watching me, nearly drooling. Of course, they didn't bother to  answer the phone so I picked up.

“Pack your bags ‘cuz you’re going to the Indy 500,” a  male voice chattered in my ear.

“Excuse me?” I said, nearly dropping the spatula. I wondered if my husband was playing a joke on me. I looked over at him but he simply drooled so I thought this might be legit.

“You and three lucky friends will be off to spend an all-expense paid weekend in Indianapolis in a motor home right on the track.  Dinner with Al Unser Jr. is part of the deal.”

I wondered when I had entered this contest. I wondered who Al Unser Jr. was. Usually I enter every contest I can with the dream of quitting our jobs, but car racing I would have passed on. Car races are nothing I’d care to see. In fact, I’d rather have a mammogram or a root canal before standing in a crowd of drunks watching a race.

“Are you offering any alternatives?” I asked, hoping for some cash instead of the trip.

“No, ma’am.  You can’t put a price tag on this opportunity. It's the Indy 500.”

Of course I can't, I thought. Car racing is the largest spectator sport in America.  Which means we're gonna be surrounded by every Tom, Dick and Bubba on the planet, all of whom probably have a six-pack of Bud tucked into the folds of an Indy 500 T-shirt. Nothing like drunks and fast cars to really liven things up. Wonder if that is what makes the sport so fascinating?  Guess we’ll have to find out.

 

Over those turkey enchiladas, I say to my husband and son, “Gentlemen, start your engines.  We’re going to the Indy 500.” Let's hope it lives up to the hype.

BEAUTY-FLASH FICTION

Madeline excused herself from the kitchen where her two older sisters sorted through the coffee cakes and casseroles overflowing their deceased mother’s Formica counter top. Condolences came in the form of food in the Midwest and the flood gates had opened after the burial just four hours earlier.

When she reached her mother’s bedroom, Madeline could hear the sisters bickering about who got what, this time the focus was the Haviland china. Madeline didn't care about that. She knew exactly what she wanted and there would be no discussion about it. 

She opened the cream-colored  leather jewelry box sitting on the blonde wood dresser and scavenged through the mounds of costume jewelry  her mother had amassed over the years.   Memories of  childhood enveloped her and Madeline remembered the long summer days playing "dress up" with her friends, showing off  her mother's finery. She  pulled a rhinestone choker from the blue velvet shelf in the jewelry box and clasped it around her neck. It made her smile but she had to stay focused since her sisters might come looking for her once they tired of cataloguing the casseroles. She rummaged deeper in the jewelry box searching  for  the key to the cedar chest which held her desired object.

The treasure was her mother's slip, the one thing Juliette brought to the US after  the war. This wasn't just any piece of lingerie. It was an exquisite creation with a Parisian Maid label, fashioned of pink silk charmeuse with sexy black lace scallops around the bosom and a flouncy hem of the same lace. Madeline's father may have liberated her mother's hometown of Bayeux after D-Day, but he must have been Juliette's prisoner after one look at her in this chemise.

Madeline remembered  the day her mother discovered  her foraging in the cedar chest for more "dress up" clothes. Mother had made a strange noise before she rushed over to take the slip from her daughter's hands. She caressed the silk and reverently folded the garment before placing it back into the tissue paper and the Maison Chantelle box from which it came. "This is our secret," Juliette had told her. "You are my one daughter who appreciates true beauty."

Madeline found the key in the far corner of the second shelf of the jewelry box. She grabbed it and flew across her mother's room  just as the door bell rang.  Madeline was certain  it was another casserole delivery.  She'd have to go out and make an appearance with her sisters to accept the condolences and offer a cup of coffee. Quickly, knowing she had little time before they came looking for her, she opened the cedar chest and found the box her mother had hidden so many years ago.

Madeline wasted no time. She lifted her sensible TravelSmith knit black dress, appropriate for mourning, over her head and slipped the French silk chemise over her bosom, letting the sensuous fabric glide past her waist and travel effortlessly to  her hips. The black lace on the bottom of the garment reached her knees and the fit, to her surprise, was perfect. She tossed her dress back over it.

"Madeline," the oldest sister called. She pulled the choker off so as not to raise any suspicions with her sisters.  "The Sanderson's have stopped by and they brought a lovely tuna casserole."

"Coming," Madeline said as she placed the key and choker back precisely where she had found it. 

"To beauty", she whispered to her mother before she  joined them for coffee.

WHO YA GONNA CALL?

We visited a friend of ours yesterday who's recovering from quadruple bypass heart surgery. This friend suffered a heart attack at 46 years old-not exactly someone you'd expect to keel over in a coffee shop on a Friday morning before work.

"How'd you find out?" I asked the wife.

"That's a long story," she said.

Here's the condensed version of what happened. Wife had taken her mother to a doctor appointment at 9 a.m. Wife is one of those polite people who actually adhered to the sign that said TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES WHILE IN THE WAITING ROOM.

So wife was blissfully unaware that hubby's heart had stopped and the firemen had brought him back before rushing him to the hospital.  In fact, wife and her mother sat in the waiting room for a long time and finally were seen and scheduling another appointment at 10:30 a.m. That's when wife turned on her phone and answered an unfamiliar number.

"Your husband had a medical situation and is in the hospital," the caller from the police department said.

"I'll be right there," wife said. She never even thought to ask what had happened.

She later found out that the paramedics had called the house, her office and her cell phone numerous times. Which begs the question: how did they know all these numbers? I was impressed.

This couple has the same last name. I, however, kept my family name when I got married. Would the police and the paramedics find me if something ever happened to my husband?  I'm sure they have their ways but I'm going to put a card in my purse that gives my husband's name. I want him to do the same. And I will ignore the cell phone warnings at medical offices because you just never know.

DAD DEMENTIA

It’s funny that I can’t remember exactly when my dad had the car accident.  Funny because that is when things started to unravel for him.  I can remember precisely where I was when president Kennedy was shot.  I was in third grade at a Catholic school sitting in a wooden desk with my prim and proper school uniform as the loudspeaker in the room made the announcement.  I remember Mrs. Mayrose crying and I knew something was dreadfully wrong even though I couldn’t fully comprehend.  Perhaps that is the way it was with my father.  The accident was just the start of something none of us could fully understand.

So it is with dementia.  The first glimpses are hard to notice, especially when one is so far away from the parent.  Had things been going wrong for a long time?  Did my mother fail to notice the signs and pass it off as forgetfulness?  For whatever reason, the car accident moved us forward and eventually to the diagnosis of dementia.

I’m not a doctor and still don’t have a working definition of the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s.  What I do know is that it is important to document the demise since so many of us boomers will be dealing with aging parents and the loss of their minds.

But let me go back to that accident, the one I can’t remember. As I did my research, I found out that my dad had the accident back in 2003 on a day when he was driving to church.  After his retirement, he went to morning mass every day at 7:00 a.m.  On this morning, he sat at a stop sign and swears he looked both ways.  When he accelerated, he was hit by a car that clearly had the right of way. He stepped away from the accident with minimal cuts and scrapes. 

On the outside, we all felt grateful that he suffered so little.  On the inside, we had no idea that this event would precipitate the process of going mad.  It was not until his strange emails started coming that I knew something was terribly wrong.  I tried to ignore the clues. Is it because I didn't want to know? Or that I was in total denial?  Now that he's gone, I don't know that it makes any difference.   

WHY I WRITE

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  Back in the days at my Catholic high school when Sister Audrey used my poem in Freshman English to demonstrate good writing, I knew I had found a calling.  In later years, college professors scribbled enthusiastic comments on my papers.  One that I still keep today said “You ought to be a writer.”  And so I am, even though it took years to call myself that.  Husband and child, work and family always intervened to occupy my writing time.

I’d flirt with writing throughout the hectic years, enrolling in half-day classes at book stores and libraries.  I’d vow to get serious about my work.  The flirting sometimes led to a real date where I'd take a full-credit  course at the community college and eventually have articles published, plays produced and an e-published book.

But I remained gun-shy of making a full commitment to writing.  Finally, a despised job pushed me to the brink.  Did I want to continue doing something I hated or find something I loved?   It was then I jumped off the cliff and started writing for real. That lasted for a while, but I let the insecurities get the best of me and returned to a full-time job. However, the dream still lives on.

I now write for those times when the words flow effortlessly from me.  I live for those occasions when I nail a scene or devise witty dialogue because they make me feel like I am whole.  I write because it gives me the chance to dream and the opportunity to reach others. Blogging gives me the best of all worlds to keep that dream alive.