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.

-   –  -  -  -

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

Ripples

Already my new gardener (aka My Dearly Beloved)  has the lawn looking lush and lovely, even though he only began his job a couple of months ago.  Every day he is out here, looking for a reason to crank up one of his new power tools.

Our neighbors are placing bets as to what he’ll find to cut down next.  Here’s what came down last week:

That was a holly tree, cut down with my blessings.  The power company butchered it at 3 AM one winter morning after a windstorm blew knocked out power here.

He mimics me in exaggerated gestures for the neighbors: left hand on hip, right arm raised and index finger firing around the yard with laser-like precision (think NCIS opening scene) to show how I’m always pointing out things that need to be done.  As there is some truth to his routine, I’d even considered leaving DB and his chain saw unsupervised–until he removed enough of the softly drooping branches of our specimen Japanese Maple to change it into a palm tree.

Except for that mishap, he has every right to be proud of his efforts.

When DB answered the doorbell one early evening recently, the stranger standing there identified himself as the builder of the condo project on the other side of the block.  In front of our house, an anxious looking man in a bright green shirt waited anxiously by a huge truck which was almost as long as our lot is wide.  The truck held a supply of building materials and would require backing into the small residential driveway of the property for delivery.   The driver was afraid there might be some damage to our yard in making that sharp turn and the builder wanted to assure us that he had his landscaper on call to come and repair it.

Our street is narrow and definitely not suited for commercial traffic, specially not anything this large.  See the driveway between the two end flags?  That’s where the truck is heading.

Pardon the glare–I took it from inside the house.

DB went outside and introduced himself to the driver, who shook his hand and said he was Jurr.

“What?”  DB asked. The guy repeated it several times.

Jurr.

Finally DB got it.  ”Oh. . . JERRY!”  

They had a good laugh and chatted awhile.  DB said, “The lawn can be repaired.  Just  curve w-a-y into the yard so you won’t hit my stone wall.”  

He pointed out the sprinkler heads, then stood and watched as Jerry backed the huge trailer into the small space.  The truck did indeed jump the curb onto our lawn, but Jurr was able to miss the stone wall by a foot or two.  DB came into the house to tell me, “That guy is a heck of a driver.  That was the best maneuvering I’ve ever seen.”  

The lawn did have some deep trenches, but nothing that couldn’t be repaired.    DB said he’d fix the damage himself.

He was surprised when the phone rang early the next morning and the caller said he was the manager of the trucking company which had delivered the building materials the evening before.  DB quickly jumped in, saying, “I’m so glad you called because I want to tell you that Jurr is the best driver I’ve ever seen.  You’re lucky to have him.”

The man agreed, adding that Jerry indeed was their best driver and he got the toughest assignments, so consequently he got the most abuse.  A couple of days before he had knocked down two fence posts on someone’s property on one of those turns.  Even though they put them back up immediately,  the owner berated Jerry at length, then called the company to rage at several of the staff there.

The man continued, “When Jerry came in this morning, he was beaming.  He told me, ‘I ran into the nicest guy in the world yesterday.  You’ve got to call and thank him.  He made my day.’

“That’s why I’m calling, Mr. Lee.  To thank you and to let you know that you not only made Jerry’s day, you’ve now made my day, too.”

The funny thing is, that call made Dearly Beloved’s day and since I was hearing the conversation, it made my day, too.

Later, the builder came over to give DB a gift card to Home Depot.

I’ve thought about that incident often.  DB didn’t invite the guy in for supper or rush out with cookies.  He simply allowed the man to do the job he had to do without giving him grief about it.   I’m glad I witnessed the event.

The fence post owner may have gotten some satisfaction in throwing a tirade, but I’ll take my husband’s handling of the situation any day.  His behavior subsequently caused ripples of kindness.  One day our grandsons may read this to learn how their granddad behaved.

I don’t think they’ll be surprised.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns.  ~Author Unknown

Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.
- Scott Adams

PS.  The gift certificate was nice, but I don’t think it’s ample enough to buy the next piece of power equipment DB is going to need.  Just how much IS a stump grinder?

Postscript from the Ledge

Friend Martha called yesterday to reschedule lunch.  (Read yesterday’s post to make sense of this.)  

We decided to meet on Tuesday at a restaurant we’ve never tried.  Although we can’t remember the name of the restaurant or the street it’s on, we’re fairly certain we’re talking about the same place: the one that the yoga instructor’s son opened.

We talked about my mishaps of last week and I mentioned that I’d even written a blog post about it.

“Then you might want to add a PS.  Remember that I cancelled lunch because a group was coming to tour my garden?”  Martha asked.   “When no one had shown up by 11, I called to make sure I had the time right.

“I had the time right, but the wrong week.  They’re coming THIS Thursday. “

Lunch ought to be fun.  I hope we show up.

-   –   –   –   –   –   –   –   -

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’ - C.S. Lewis

“A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting beside you saying, ‘Damn that was fun!’” - Author Unknown

Calendar Girl

Occasionally, someone will ask if my Dearly Beloved minds that I write about his… um…. missteps.  HAH!

Believe me, his ego remains unaffected.  In fact, he feels that he’s given me plenty of material for additional gems I’ve never written–a mistake on my part, since he considers the ones about him to be my best.   Without him, it’s all squirrels.

My ego not being as intact as his, I’d have to leave the country if he took up blogging.  He’d have to learn to type faster.   For the past week or so, I may have blown any previous record for screw-ups.

I baked cookies and cut up fruit last week when it was my turn to provide refreshments for our library Book Club Meeting.  Since I reside in the State of Panic, I was running late, so DB helped me load the car.

He helped me unload it when I came home 20 minutes later.  I’d been a week early. The meeting wasn’t until this week.

When I brought in our Sunday paper and discovered it didn’t have the comics, Parade, or ads in it, I called the Circulation Department to request a complete paper.  The automated voice informed me, “Today is Saturday, April 13.”   Oh.

On the day of my doctor’s appointment, having not received their usual confirmation call, I phoned them.  Even though I had the appointment slip in hand, I was convinced I’d done something wrong when they said they had no record of an appointment and put me on hold.  I  had plenty of time for mental self-flagellation while I waited.   Was it only my appointment that was missing or was I a goner, too?

Eventually, someone picked up to inform me that their new computer system had lost practically everyone’s appointment and it was a madhouse there.  Could I come next month?

Sure.  Just remind me.

My friend Martha and I had planned for a month to attend a gardening seminar to hear a speaker we both enjoy.  We had spoken and e-mailed about how much we were looking forward to it.  I had my computer calendar send me two reminders.  Nevertheless, Monday night I received an e-mail from Martha asking, “Are you okay?  Where were you?  The program was delightful.”

I shrieked.  I thought the program was Tuesday.

Martha reminded me that had DB and I bought the house next door to them (for sale when we moved back to Charlotte) this wouldn’t have happened.  “We could take care of each other,”  she told me.

We made a date for lunch the next day–so I wouldn’t have time to forget.  When DB asked what time I was meeting Martha, I couldn’t remember if we’d set a time. I  said I’d call her, but I checked my e-mails first, in case she’d written.  She had; she was canceling lunch.

She’d forgotten that one of the suburban herb guilds was coming to tour her garden at 10AM.

Yep, we should have bought that house.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

“All the girls feared their Father less than they did their Mother, because she sometimes remembered things and he did not. Lord Brightlingsea was swept through life on a steady amnesiac flow.” 
― Edith Wharton, The Buccaneers

“Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.” -François de la Rochefoucauld

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

The Life of “I”

Dearly Beloved and I didn’t go to many movies last year.  We’ve seen too many that were  too loud, too soft, too long, too violent, too foul-mouthed, too stupid, not to mention too expensive.  Or maybe it was that we were too lazy.  Our interest began to wane shortly after we swore off movie popcorn because it was so bad for us.

We haven’t jumped on the Red Box bandwagon either.  It’s fine if you know what you want, but it’s not a way to browse, is there?  I can’t even buy a can of tomatoes without reading the cans, so I can’t choose a movie based on the title alone.

Tuesday, I rented Flight and Skyfall from our library and congratulated myself on getting two movies we wanted to see for less than the price of a movie ticket.  While I was out, I ran by the plant nursery and selected a flat of snapdragons and several spring and summer perennials.

Had DB not been interested in seeing them, too, I’d have simply watched them on my laptop, but he wanted to see them on his fancy HD+ TV, so he brought our old DVD player in from the bedroom and hooked it up in the den.

About 15 minutes into the first one, the screen suddenly went blank.  No sound, no picture… just grey screen.  We put in the second movie.  Nothing.

“I think,” DB informed me as he fiddled with a fistful of remote controls, “that it is probably the player. It has died of old age.”

I assumed that we’d watch them on the laptop at that point, but DB had a different solution:  ”We need  a new DVD player.”

At this point, I should probably mention that the man has been sick with a stomach flu–again– for almost a week now.  He has really felt rotten.  That made me the designated shopper.

I headed over to Best Buy, which is in one of those parking garage kind of malls with a Best Buy and Trader Joe’s on the same parking level.  At any given time, there are so many cars trolling for a parking space that there is no such thing as an empty spot.  One waits until she spots a shopper leaving the store and tries to be in the right place at the right time to snag the shopper’s parking space.  When the thin mom with the pony tail, a baby in a car seat, and a cart full of environmentally correct bags headed toward the aisle I was on, I guessed “black SUV” and stopped just short of it, flipping on my turn signal so that the trollers behind me would go around.   I’d guessed right.  I listened to my book on CD while she loaded her baby and her groceries into the SUV, pushed her cart to the side, got behind the wheel and maneuvered her vehicle out of the tight,  perpendicular parking place amid all the circling vulture cars.

DB had suggested Best Buy because they were apt to have knowledgeable sales persons  to assist me.  I think they were at lunch.  The very nice young man who assisted me said that he knew nothing about them.  I selected one that was the same brand as our TV.

Much to the disappointment of the drivers lusting for my space, I put the DVD player box into the car and walked up to Trader Joe’s at the other end of the parking level, figuring that I might as well take full advantage of my parking space.  I returned home with three bags of groceries and a DVD player.

DB opened the box and assembled his toys, only to find that the required HDM1 connector was not included and had to be purchased separately.  This time I headed to Target, which is across the street from the Trader Joe/Best Buy mall.

Since I don’t go to Target very often, I might as well stock up on some pharmacy and laundry items while I was there, I figured.  I left with the connector cord and two bags of purchases.

When I returned the movies to the library so that I wouldn’t have overdue fines,  I ran by Walgreen’s to drop off a couple of prescription renewals, then ran into EarthFare because it was giving away free Irish Vintage Cheddar with a small purchase.  What the heck, since I was already in the neighborhood?!  While there,  I bought an corned beef brisket, a couple of crab cakes, and three bags of groceries.

I saw on Wowbrary that my library has ordered Life of Pi, another movie we want to see.  I put it on hold.  Why not?  We have a giant box of Boy Scout popcorn we need to eat.

Look at how much we’re saving!

Floozy

Only the hairdresser knows for sure.

Must be mating season.

Dondi Esta…?

I’ve confessed to being a comic strip freak.  Before I even learned to read,  I’d spread the paper on the living room floor, and lie on my stomach to “look at the funnies.”

Some of the strips our small newspaper carried were, not surprisingly, war-related.  Our nation was at war and the entire nation shared the pain and sacrifice.

There were daily strips centering around children who were either orphaned or had mysterious family circumstances.  Nancy lived with her Aunt Fritzi, but her friend Sluggo had no family at all and lived in a shack somewhere.  Moon Mullins’ young brother, Mayo, slept in a dresser drawer.  Children wandered the streets, for the most part without any adult presence.   Henry had a mother, but no hair and no voice.

Her leap year birthday somehow kept Little Orphan Annie 11 years old for decades.  The child with no eyeballs had already been around since my mother was a child. After the comic strip fell into decline,  L.O. A. was fortunate to find success on Broadway.

And then there was Dondi, the five-year-old tot who was found on the streets of Italy by an American soldier during World War II and brought to the United States.  Eventually that was changed in backstory to the Korean War, since the dark-eyed little guy, like Annie, never aged.

While Annie found her niche on Broadway, poor Dondi faded into obscurity.  In fact, I had forgotten about him myself until I drove past this sign:

I’m taking this as proof that he apparently shed his Groundhog Day time warp, grew to adulthood, found God, and went into the ministry.  I hope you’re relieved, too.

You’re welcome.

Park It Here

We have had more rain in the last couple of weeks than I can remember.  (Don’t go correcting me on that.  I admit to having a very poor memory.)   Our new dog, Scout, is energetic and loves to go for walks, so she has been assisting me in my Walking My Butt Off campaign.

Even though we’ve bought her a raincoat,  today is simply too slushy to venture out.

Our neighborhood was designed over 100 years ago and every time I go for a walk, I see something I never noticed before.  Lately I’ve been concentrating on garages.   Many of them were built with what I assume were maid’s quarters.  Some of the older ones have living spaces on the same level.

Old garage with ground-level apartment.

More likely, the living space is apt to be above the garage bays, like this newer wood frame one with a Juliet balcony.

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

One garage in particular fascinates me because it is so large and lovely in its Tudor style that it doesn’t seem to need the very grand house in front of it.   If it is an in-law apartment, they must be very, very nice in-laws.

As the property has a large wrought iron fence around it, not to mention a barking dog, it’s hard to get good photographs without risking arrest.

Yep, that’s all garage.  The house isn’t in the photograph at all.

Partial view of front.

Side view.

Not that I have garage envy.  After all, we have an eight-room unit above our garage, too.  It’s called “our house.”  We live on a downslope.

On the street behind us, a 50′s Cape Cod home with two-car attached garage has been the object of a year-long renovation by its young owner.  The work has been meticulous and since it looked completed, we were surprised when a structure started rising behind the house.  This is the view from our sunroom.  At first we thought it was a pool house, but there is no pool.

Guess what.

We’re calling it the Taj Garage.