DB Goes to MD

So yesterday, my Dearly Beloved had an appointment for a physical with his new doctor.  DB liked the doctor he had in Wilmington, so he hasn’t had one here until now.  Since we sold that house, he needed to find one locally and decided to try mine.

He came out, ready to go,  all shaved and spiffy, wearing one of his best shirts,  and … JEANS!

“You’re not going to wear jeans to the doctor!” 

“I certainly am.  These bluejeans are comfortable, they’re clean, and besides, I’m going to take them off as soon as I get there anyway.”

The man didn’t wear jeans for years.  I don’t even think he wore them in high school.  He claims they were too tight on his thighs because of playing so much football.  Years later,  our daughters started giving him jeans for his birthday or special occasions in an attempt to make dad cooler.

They’re fine around the house.  They’re fine going to the hardware store or the soda shop. But when he’s going for an appointment, I wish he’d wear some of those pants taking up space his closet.   What’s he saving them for, anyhow?

An hour later, he called from the car to give me the doctor’s report.

“They wouldn’t examine me.”

“WHAT?  Why didn’t you have an examination?”

“The nurse said to tell you that it wasn’t because of the bluejeans.  It was because my underwear had a hole in it.”

He’s lying, of course.  The nurse DID say that, but only because he told her that I hadn’t wanted him to wear jeans.  (“Bluejeans,” as he insists on calling them.)  But he did keep his pants on.  It turns out this appointment was just to go over lab reports; his physical isn’t until October.

They got along quite well.  The nurse asked him the usual general health questions… did he smoke… when was the last time he was hospitalized, etc.

“I just answered all those questions on the forms they gave me to fill out in the waiting room,” he said.

“Oh, nobody reads that stuff,” she told him.  “I need to write it on your chart here.”

“Well, then why did I fill out all those forms?” 

“That’s to get your blood pressure up.”

I suppose the underwear comment was meant to raise mine.

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My doctor gave me six months to live, but when I couldn’t pay the bill he gave me six months more.
Walter Matthau

No Pot to P. In

One of the things I refused to leave behind when we sold the beach house-not-on-the-beach was a very large planter that sat in the front yard near the bay window.  I loved that pot.  At first it was planted with red geraniums along with a little spiky plant and a little drooping plant and was quite striking.  Because we weren’t there regularly enough for me to keep it watered steadily, the geraniums soon succumbed and the spiky plant kept spiking and the drooping plant kept drooping and the two have remained in the pot for more than a decade, with no help from me, thank you.

When we moved, the heavy pot arrived here intact, although I’m not sure the movers’ backs were as lucky.  I could hardly wait for warm weather so that I could put something pretty in it and give it a prime location in the garden.

I’ve had flowering plants from the nursery waiting in the wings for a couple of weeks now and I decided that Sunday was the big day. I got out my little trowel.  Hah!  I couldn’t cut through the roots enough to even get past the surface.  ”Root-bound” doesn’t begin to cover it.  Root-bound and determined.

I pulled Dearly Beloved away from all of his new power tools to enlist his help.

What I said was, “Will you get those plants out of that pot so that I can plant something else in it.”

What he heard was, “Get that plant out of there, whatever it takes.” 

He turned the pot on its side and cut the roots that were growing out of the bottom.  He yanked and tugged.  The plant didn’t move.

“Don’t worry about the plants, just don’t break the pot.”  I said nervously.  

He grabbed a shovel.  Not a trowel–a full-size shovel.

“Don’t break the pot,”  I said again.

He gave me an expression just two degrees short of an eye roll and began chopping at the plant with the shovel.

“Don’t break the pot.”

A small chunk of the pot rim flew off.

“DON’T BREAK THE POT!”

The plant suddenly pulled free.

Hey, all was not lost.  I still have this “lovely” plant without so much as a broken root.

Feel free to make an offer.

Splendor in the Grass

Have you ever watched The Pioneer Woman on the Food Channel?

At the beginning of every show, Ree Drummond tells us, “Here’s what’s happening on the ranch today” and it always proves to be something that necessitates the preparation of several fabulous beefy, buttery, or sugary dishes wherein calories or fat content are not a consideration.

Shortly after our youngest daughter got me hooked on the show, I read an article in The NYT about the editor of one of the glossy women’s magazines being so inspired by The Pioneer Woman that she quit her job and moved her family from New York to an English farm in her husband’s family.  I’ve never hankered to live someplace that it’s best not to name the farm critters and I’m perfectly content to answer, “Not much” when anyone asks me what is going on at the Lee house.   But perhaps I should bring out the butter because much has been happening around here in the past two weeks or so.

Dearly Beloved decided, after more than a dozen years of having someone else handle our lawn maintenance, that he wanted to do it himself.   He broke the news to the lawn guy and then the fun was on.  While Ree refers to her husband as “the Marlboro man,” mine is the anti-shopping man, so he planned to do it all without setting foot inside a store.

First he ordered a tiller/edger/whatever.  He was ecstatic when it arrived, and assembled  it that same day so that he could till and over-seed all the thin spots in the lawn.  He wanted to be ready for his next internet purchase, a lawn mower.

We don’t have a large yard, so nothing fancy was needed, but still, I would have thought he’d have looked for something in the key-starter, self-propelled direction.  Oh no, he wanted one that would be “manly exercise.”  Not that I’m opposed to that, but it does mean that if he breaks an ankle or gets the flu or something, the grass will have to wait  because The Little Woman won’t be stepping up to the rope starter pull.

A few days after he ordered it, I said, “There’s a UPS truck.  Maybe it’s your lawnmower.”  

He scoffed.  “That baby won’t be coming in a dinky UPS truck.  It’ll be arriving in a SEMI!“

While waiting, he contented himself with buying a chainsaw and, of course, watching the grass grow.  His manly mower finally arrived, not in an 18-wheeler, but still something larger than a UPS truck.  Oh, the joy…!

Manly machine delivery.

Said joy was short-lived when he began assembling it and found that one of the wheels had been damaged in transit.  He called the factory and they promised to send out a replacement wheel that same day.

That wasn’t fast enough. . .  he got out the duct tape.

The new one arrived Wednesday, but so did the rain.  He hasn’t been able to try it out yet with all four wheels, but he’s handling it well.  All this rain is sure to give him more to mow.

When he started looking into chainsaws, he mentioned that he’d better get a gas-powered mower because sometimes it was unsafe to be climbing trees with an electric one.

I called the tree-triming folks yesterday.  They wanted to know was it an emergency.

Could be.

“The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing.” – Harold Stone

Let Me Count The Ways

Since my Dearly Beloved and I are, and always have been, Total Opposites (deserving of capital letters) it stands to reason that we would have different skill sets.  That became more apparent than ever during the recent moving process.   I’ll just say modestly that while I rose to the occasion, Dearly Beloved was often clearly out of his element.

Lest you think I’m bragging, let me point out that I’m not talking high finance or brain surgery, but things like how to arrange furniture, for instance, or color selections… what to keep and what to give away.  In some of the areas, he assumed he had expertise. ( I am speaking of a man who chose navy and mauve furnishings for every office he ever had… and spent less than five minutes making the selections, probably.)  Because I mull these things over beforehand, my decisions are usually more …um… thoughtful.

I know to blot, not rub a stain… to prune azaleas after they bloom… that one can refreeze bread… that a microwave has settings other than popcorn… In blunt terms, I know the same crap other homemakers know because I’ve done it for a long time.

One day we were riding in the car and although I can’t remember the particular incident,  he acceded to my suggestion over something, acknowledging that my idea was better.  The man who never utters a profane word, said in exasperation, “I don’t know SHIT, do I?!”

“You know STUFF,” I assured him.  ”You just don’t know SHIT.”

It has become his mantra.  He tells the neighbors that he knows “stuff.”

Just stuff; no s-h-i-t.   He spells the word in the telling.  Then he points out to the guys that they might be similarly handicapped.

One of the areas in which he is most deficient is the concept of nesting.  He can build a nest egg. but how to nest a cluster of objects clearly mystifies him.

When he retired, he announced that he was taking over the unloading of the dishwasher, something we’ve heard that many retired husbands do.  (Loading the dishwasher apparently requires more advanced skills.)

Emptying the dishwasher is simple.  Putting it away properly has proven to be beyond him.  I even rearranged drawers to try to make it logical for him.

• This drawer is only for utensils I use at the stove:  wooden spoons, ladles, etc….  I
• If it’s an unfamiliar utensil, it’s probably something I use in preparation– rubber spatulas, turkey basters, counter scrapers… so put those in THIS drawer.
• Knives have their own drawer.

It didn’t work.

The cabinets are even worse.  Some have glass doors, but I keep the junky plastic items– measuring cups, mixing bowls, colanders, and some of my larger Tupperware containers and lids hidden behind solid doors.  Smaller containers and lids go in a deep drawer in the butler’s pantry.  To keep the assemblage neat and functional, one must sometimes take an item out to put a larger, but similar item under it.  That, my friends, is what I call nesting.

Exhibit A.

 

Exhibit B.

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The pots and pans fare no better.  Sometimes a small saucepan lid is lost for weeks in the bowels of the corner cabinet where it’s been dropped inside a Dutch oven or behind the double boiler.

I, who am not known for my neatness,  despaired.  I e-mailed several friends who’ve told me that their husbands unload the dishwasher at home.  Possibly, I could send DB for lessons.

One sent back a photo of pots and lids lined up on the counter–her husband’s idea of unloading.  A second explained that yes, her husband unloads the dishwasher, he doesn’t put the items in cabinets because that requires skill of a level equal to that of loading the dishwasher.  Ahhh.  A third simply sent a photo of a carton of milk in a pantry.  ???

Their husbands, like mine, know stuff.

But–you guessed it… they don’t know shit.

I’ll drink to that!

-             –          -           –           –           -

Happy Valentine’s Day, Dearly Beloved.  I love you.

Autumn

In the opening scene of the old movie, Hopscotch,  Walter Matthau, with his droopy, basset hound mug, looks around an outdoor cafe and strides over to an attractive woman (Glenda Jackson) who is sitting alone at a table.  She shows no sign of recognition, but nevertheless,  he bends down and kisses her lustily.

When he steps back, she asks in her dramatic British voice, “Where have you bee-e-n, you Old Goat?!”

I use that line often (with or without the kiss) on Dearly Beloved and have been advised that some of my blog friends are starting to wonder the same thing about me.

During my own “aging spurt” this summer, the extended service contract on my laptop, Granny Smith, expired.  Within weeks, Granny had an aging spurt of her own.  I would turn her on, only to hear three warning foghorn-like blasts.  I’d quickly turn it off and try again.  She’d eventually start, but a grey shade would fall over the screen and a black box would appear with an ominous warning.  In few words and about a dozen languages,  it advised me to shut down my computer immediately.

I left her with the Genius Bar folks for several days and was less than satisfied when she was returned to me.  The fog horn still blew sometimes, the scary black box still appeared, but now Granny had developed a new tic:  she would drop the first letter of every word.  For instance, when I could finally manage to get her started, she’d demand the assword for ary ee.  

I have bellied up to the Genius Bar several times since then.  The last time she went in for an overnight stay, they either inserted two new sticks of RAM or rammed in two new sticks of something else.  I can’t remember what they said.  Perhaps it was B-12.  At any rate, she’s still ornery, but working better, so here I am.

I’d better write fast.

Miss Piggy, too, is feeling her 16 years.  She can hear only the loudest sounds now and cataracts have clouded her brown eyes.  We have always thought of her as…um… not smart, but are rethinking our opinion.

She doesn’t beg to go out, we have to beg her.  We stand in front of her dangling her leash and gesturing wildly.  Eventually she relents and agrees to accompany us.  Once she’s on the sidewalk, she enjoys it, sniffing the leaves and grass, ever hopeful that someone has dropped a crumb or crust.

We try to get her to go outside frequently to prevent the leaks that sometimes appear on the rug.  Arrgh!  She won’t squat in wet grass for me unless I stand in it with her, as if she is demanding that I realize what I’m asking her to do.  DB is cleverer; he simply gives her a treat whenever she produces.   That dog can duckwalk in a full squat the full width of the front yard, trying to convince him that she’s Beggin’ Strip-worthy.

She refuses the chewable tablets for her leaks and her joints unless we encase them in Pill Pockets, along with a pain pill for her arthritis.  She ignores her dry food unless we serve a sauce, like warm beef broth.  The liquid from a can of tuna is her absolute favorite.

Dramatic as ever, she wanders the house at night, wailing and moaning loudly as she looks for places to hide her chew bones from unseen thieves.   She snores.  She smells.

She melts our hearts.

Dearly Beloved and I have thought this autumn to be especially beautiful.  We smell the roses, crunch the leaves, and enjoy morning coffee in front of the fire instead of obsessing that the house needs painting, the bathroom needs updating, and the shrubbery is reaching for the power lines.

We love mornings, but bedtime is pretty darned nice these days.  After years of lecturing to me that the bed was for only two things, neither of which was reading,  DB now goes to bed early because it has become his favorite place to read.

I try not to be smug.

Carpe diem?  Of course!

It’s just that now, we also carpe naps.

On Being Mugged

Last week I was watching a TV show on my computer, ear buds in my ears.  Across the room, Dearly Beloved was watching a concert the same way on his computer.

No wonder the dog sleeps all the time.  It’s too quiet around here.

We talk… we don’t talk… we’re comfortable either way.  Still,  I decided we need to get out more, interact with people.  I announced that I was going to try one of the many churches around here.

Becoming more social is not that simple for me.   I may be an e-mailing maniac and yes,  I occasionally start conversations with strangers in checkout lines, but put me in a situation where chatting is a good thing  and I’m quieter than Clint Eastwood’s Obama chair.

Dearly Beloved volunteered to go with me on Sunday.

The decidedly untraditional church buildings sit on a large, woodsy lot almost hidden from the street and they look like a school or small office complex.   The modern architecture was such that even after attending it,  I’m still not sure where the front door is.   We asked a man in the parking lot where to enter and he pointed us to a door between two buildings, then directed us to a visitors’ table, where we were asked to fill out a RED name tag which designated us as visitors.

During the service, visitors were asked to raise their hands, in case the red name tags weren’t visible to all.  The minister invited all visitors to join them for a welcoming coffee and fellowship afterwards.  DB and I nodded to each other, indicating that we would do that.  Social interaction coming right up.

Just inside the entry to their fellowship hall, another visitors’ table awaited.  We were instructed to take a YELLOW coffee mug just for visitors, just in case the members missed the visitor hand raising during the service and the RED name tags we were wearing.

We wandered around the perimeter of the room, sipping coffee from our YELLOW mugs and talking to each other as everyone stood around in groups.  We decided we’d go out for brunch afterwards.  Dearly Beloved asked could I hold his mug while he went to the restroom.

While I was standing there by myself, I  noticed a couple of choir members on the other side of the room.  I headed in their direction to introduce myself and tell them that I enjoyed their music, but they turned and left through one of the doors before I reached them.  (Walking with two coffee mugs is slow going.)  At that point I was standing in the center of the room, wearing  my RED name tag and holding a YELLOW coffee mug in each hand.  There was a 15-ft. circle of emptiness around me.

It felt as if there was a spotlight on me and indeed, as I glanced over at a couple leaning against the wall, I read her lips as she said, “I guess we should go say something to her.” 

She came, he didn’t.  ”Nancy” introduced herself and told me she had two teenagers, rolling her eyes to indicate there was heavy stress involved in that endeavor.  About that time, DB returned from the bathroom and took back his YELLOW coffee mug.  He introduced himself to Nancy and joined the conversation.  Within the first 30 seconds he said, “I have video of my grandson making the winning shot at his basketball game Friday night if you’d like to see it.”

The look of horror that passed over that woman’s face is unforgettable.  In fact, she may have been so traumatized enough to change churches.  DB hastened to tell her he was joking… but of course he DID have the video, just in case there were any takers.

Nancy looked around for her partner, who had furtively slipped past us and was waiting for her by a door.  Could have been the front door.  Darned if I know.

We left by a different one and had to walk around the block to find our car.

Afterwards, we stopped for brunch at a neighborhood cafe.  Shortly after we sat down, DB and some of the other diners began calling out names and years to guess the singers on the 60′s recordings playing on the restaurant stereo.   Our waitress joined in the banter.

The place felt friendly and welcoming, which was odd.  No one was wearing a name tag.

Happy Birthday, Senor Senior

Today is my Dearly Beloved’s birthday, so it is only fitting that it would be a national holiday.

This photo is so typical of the two of us because we usually find that it takes both our brains working together to get through the day.   We repeat ourselves to each other often.  Dementia checks, DB calls them… little tests to see if the other one remembers hearing it before.

His eyeglasses and my watch have become so clever at hiding that it takes a search party of two to find them.   We know each other as well… perhaps better… than we know ourselves.

The grandsons usually come up with some most creative birthday greetings to mark this momentous occasion.

Check out this gem.

Be Gone Ya!

Some years I leave my potted angel wing begonia on the screened porch all year and try to remember to toss a blanket over it on extremely cold nights. The plant always manages to survive, but it does look peaked sometimes.  This past year, it was the summer heat that really did a number on it.  Not knowing what temperatures winter might bring, I was afraid to let it remain out there, so we brought it inside around Thanksgiving and put it in front of a bedroom window.

It convalesced, to say the least.

Recently, when I asked Dearly Beloved to put it back on the porch for the summer, he resisted, telling me, “No, no, I think it looks good in here.  I like it right where it is.”   

Really?  

REALLY?

Stoned

It’s been a week now and I’m still bummed about the passage of Amendment One here in North Carolina.

It seems counterintuitive to prohibit two loving adults–regardless of sex–from marrying.   Sheesh!   Put that energy toward preventing little girls from being promised to old men… toward getting rid of child pornography.   We’re among the worst in the nation in the number of children who suffer “food insecurity.”  That means they can’t assume they’re going to have food that day.  Or the next.  Thousands are homeless in our state.

I must tell you, I have never understood the threat of gay marriage and I can speak with some authority.  At one time, Dearly Beloved and I lived in a hip, contemporary urban neighborhood where, for a while at least, we were the only married heterosexual couple on the street.

The day after we moved in, we were welcomed with still-warm chocolate chip cookies from the two men who lived diagonally across from us.  We liked them immediately.  They watered my plants when we were away, Introduced us to their extended families, and invited us to their parties.  They are still a couple two decades later.

The two men next door to us moved in about the same time we did and their relationship is still intact today.   One confided to me that his mother told him she would never set foot in his house.  It was her loss, for they were intelligent, funny, kind, successful guys.

Here is the wording of the NC amendment:

[] For [] Against
Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized by this State.

This wording affects common law relationships between a man and a woman as well.  Already a local commissioner is at work to take away benefits for the families of any city/county workers, gay or straight,  who don’t conform to this definition.

Far wiser people than I have written about homosexuality.  I’ll stay out of that and so should Franklin Graham.  I can, however, report that during the time we lived in the gayborhood,  DB and I never once considered switching teams.

Perhaps our experience may reassure the professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Seminary about two concerns he voiced during the pre-election debate.  Although I dearly loved my Akita, the late Howard Lee, it never crossed my mind to marry him.   Nor was Dearly Beloved inclined to wed the bowl of ice cream he ate every night.

I hope that puts the professor’s mind to rest.

Although I can’t remember the name of the book, a line comes to mind where one of the characters asked the other, “How can you possibly think that??”   Her friend answered, “I don’t have to think.  I’m Catholic.”  

Of course I have thinking Catholic friends.  The point is that too many of “the faithful,” whatever the denomination, let someone else tell them what to believe and I’m not talking Jesus.  

Despite all the fist-pumping preachers and the ecstatic red-suited middle-aged platinum blondes celebrating on the television news,  I can’t picture a jubilant Jesus high-fiving the passage of this legislation.

It feels pretty low here in the land of the moral high ground.

March: Madder Than You Knew

The NCAA Sweet Sixteen begins today and Dearly Beloved is bummed that the first game isn’t until 7 PM.  He’s carping on behalf of our grandsons as well as basketball-loving kids everywhere because they’ll probably be able to watch only one of tonight’s games.

Some of DB’s mutterings are on his own behalf.  He knows he’s apt to doze about midway into the second game.

“Why did they DO that?” he whined when he saw the TV listings.

I’m sure that not everyone feels the same way he does.  There are groups that applaud the schedule.  Take, for instance, the Vasectomites.

The number of vasectomies increases dramatically during March Madness, according to a USA Today article.  The head of the Dept. of Regional Urology at the Cleveland Clinic says that he had them scheduled every 15 minutes… twice as many as he usually performs.

These days, the procedure can be scalpel-free and the anesthesia doesn’t even require a needle, so the sobs should be down to mere whimpering.

Guys who have steadfastly ignored their wives’ pleas for assistance in the birth control department decided the Big V could be an option, provided it was scheduled during NCAA playoff rounds.  A  couple of recuperative days on the sofa are just what the doctor orders.

Good enough!

Not only that,  the ice packs keep them from dozing….

There has been no outcry from the political candidates.  Or Congress.

I suppose it’s only humane to schedule the rest of the games after work hours, as optional appendectomies aren’t that easy to come by.

At our house, DB is making game preparations of his own:  an early nap. beginning now.

If that’s not enough to keep him alert tonight, ice packs are stashed in the freezer.

When creating wives, God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the world.

And then She smiled and made the earth round.  (Unknown)