Sorry, No Calamine Lotion

I went home to my apartment for lunch today. I’ve been doing it all week. For my own mental health I’m going to make it a habit. I want to break up the workday and see the outdoors, at least for a few minutes. I told Dan, my boyfriend, that I would be going home at noon every day, or at least most days.

Today as I was arriving at my apartment a few minutes after noon, I saw a work truck in one of my two parking spots. I recognized the company name on the side of the truck, and then I recognized one of the guys in the truck. It was Dan. He was not alone. He had a coworker with him; his helper on the job. I’m sorry to say that my first thought upon seeing them went something like; Oh crap, what is this about? I thought I might have to come up with three lunches or something.

It turned out that Dan had been working in the area (well, sort of) and he had been stung by bees. Dan repairs and replaces overhead doors, and apparently he had been working at this house that had not been occupied for a while, that is, except for a hive of bees that found a home up behind the garage door. Dan was not going to die. He had been stung three times, on the forehead, neck, and wrist. His helper escaped unscathed. Apparently he runs faster than Dan.

Anyway, Dan wanted to know if I had anything that would help. I told them to come on in, that I had some ointment in a cabinet that would do the trick. Dan said that yes, some calamine lotion would really help. I almost stopped dead in my tracks. It was as if I were hearing my mother. I fun-lovingly informed Dan that I did not have any calamine lotion, nor did I have castor oil, or Vicks Vapor Rub. I did have a small tube of hydrocortisone cream (it had an expiration date of Oct/12, but who has to know?).

Dan and his coworker were due at another job at about 1 o’clock, so I did not have to make three lunches, thank god, just dab on some ointment onto some bee stings. I should add that I was a little startled as to my immediate feelings when I first saw Dan and his truck earlier today parked in front of my apartment. I am not about to complain, still, I guess I am not quite ready for him to show up unannounced at my door, at least not as a regular thing. 

Getting Goofier All the Time

I’ve become goofier with time, at least when alone. I was kind of nutty when I was 18 and by myself, but I’ve only gotten nuttier in the nine years since. I think it has to do with basically living alone for the last few years. When I was living with a guy, I had a lid on my behavioral absurdities. When I would drop a kernel of popcorn while watching TV, I would immediately reach down and pick it up. I still drop popcorn, but I no longer worry about immediately picking it up. In fact, it might lay there for a few hours or, I'm sorry to say; a few days. I will let dishes build up in the sink, what dishes I use, since I dine mostly on packaged, microwave entrees.

When I first lived alone, I would continue to close the bathroom door when I did my business. Then about a month or so later I realized that I was alone in my apartment and so I would have just as much privacy with the door opened. Now when I have company and feel obliged to close the door, it seems kind of odd.

I have become a “doorknob person”. Doorknobs are used to hang everything. I’ve got some workout gear on my bedroom doorknob, a dorky hiking hat on a closet doorknob, and a hair-drying towel draped over my bathroom doorknob. I once used hangers, towel racks, or hooks for this stuff, that is; until I discovered the doorknob worked just as well and requires less effort.    

When I am alone in my apartment I will talk to myself in what is nearly my regular speaking voice. If I do something remotely noteworthy, like toss a wadded paper towel across the room into the waste basket, I’ll congratulate myself. I’ll say “Nice shot, Katie,” right out loud. On the other hand, when I kicked a table leg, dislocating a toe a few weeks ago, I was very hard on myself. I think there were some expletives involved; loud expletives. Nuttiness. A person can’t talk to themselves like that if someone else is there. The other person would find it highly annoying.

Virtually none of these idiosyncrasies are present when I have company. I am a normal person, or at least a little closer to normal. Fortunately, I am happy to depart from my eccentricities and even raise my level of domestic sanitation for a cohabitating companion... but I still might hang stuff on doorknobs.    

Looking Back Over the Weekend

It has been an interesting weekend, thinking back on it. On Friday I went shopping. For Dan, I bought a second brush attachment for my electric toothbrush. I tried to write a “D” on it with a felt pen but the surface was small and irregular, so the “D” looks like a small blotch. I bought V-8 Fusion Strawberry-Banana juice for my guest. I had noticed that juice in Dan’s refrigerator the evening I went over to his apartment for dinner. I bought him some Wheaties, so he would not have to suffer again through another breakfast of Fruit Loops. He must be moving up in the world, well, my world anyway.

Dan stayed over Friday night. He left fairly early Saturday morning, but then returned again on Saturday about 7 PM when we had a Freschetta’s frozen pizza for dinner. It’s very good pizza. In fact, it tasted as though it was a little too good, or at least too healthy. I think the pizza needed some more salt, or preservatives, or maybe it was just a little short of gluten.

Two things took place this weekend that I have not experienced in a while. One was having a romantic overnight visitor two consecutive nights. The second thing came Saturday evening. I had gone to the fitness center late that afternoon after putting off going for hours, as is my habit. Consequently I did not have a lot of time to shower. Then I was struck by a brainstorm. That evening, after the pizza, I told Dan that I had been sweaty and I really ought to take a shower. I then added as an “afterthought” that if it were not too much trouble, he could soap the hard to reach area of my back.

There are many various sexual or erotic activities that do not appeal to me, and there are some that actually puzzle me as to how anyone could find them in any way enjoyable, and there are still others I find outright gross, but to me, showering together is very erotic. The only tiny downside concerning the event on Saturday was that I prefer the water slightly warmer than does Dan. We survived that tiny problem by finding a compromise somewhere in the middle. I do not know when the last time a gentleman stayed two consecutive nights. It was a few years ago, as was a shared shower.

To change subjects radically; late this afternoon I decided to take a quick walk along the Charles River over near Auburndale Park. While strolling along I saw a boy in a tree. He’d climbed up to about the second branch level. However I saw one problem; the tree was riff with poison ivy. Vines two inches in diameter were clinging to the trunk on all sides going up at least 20 feet. It’s not uncommon if there is a water supply in the vicinity for poison ivy to be so healthy that it has woody vines and climb trees .This tree looked to be more poison ivy than tree. I could see by the damaged leaves that the boy had gone right through it.

I calmly call up to the boy that he had almost assuredly been exposed to poison ivy and that he should stay clear of it best he could on the way down the tree. I asked him to tell his mother or father that he had been exposed to a large amount of poison ivy and that its oil could be washed off with a special soap, but that ordinary soap wouldn’t do much good. Hopefully the boy remembered at least most of what I told him. I watched the kid climb down from the tree and ride off on his bike. I got to say; I was totally creeped out. I have long since developed a second sense for poison ivy when I am in a prime habitat for it. Poison ivy can be nasty stuff. Good luck to the kid.  

End of an Era

Tomorrow I am going to visit my parents. I just called my mother and gave her fair warning. I informed her that I was going to bring my laundry with me so I could use her washer and dryer and save myself a few dollars. I stated that I would come over in the afternoon rather than the morning so Dad would be there. My mother said that my father would be home in the morning too.

My father is 62 years old. He played his last basketball game on Tuesday. Tuesday he partially tore his Achilles tendon near the end of a game. According to Mom, the injury causes him to walk with a slight limp. It will take months to heal and he has been strongly advised not to play basketball again.

My dad started playing adult basketball with a group of guys in 1974, shortly after he returned home from Vietnam and got his discharge. Most of them were high school friends. They would rent a court on Saturday morning and sometimes a weekday evening too. The men played year-round. They had a roster of regular players but it was not a league and there were no referees, nevertheless, they kept score and actually competed hard but good-naturedly… well, at least most of the time. Over the decades guys would quit for one reason or another, replaced by friends or coworkers or neighbors who wanted to play basketball. But my father played throughout. In fact, he rarely missed a game. One Saturday morning in the spring of 1981 Dad played basketball, that afternoon he married my mother.

When I was a little girl Dad would often take me with him to the gym on Saturday morning so my mother could have some time to herself. I would sit on some bleachers and watch the men play for a while, but eventually I would become bored and head outside to the playground, weather permitting. But one day when I was about 7 years old there was a steady rain and I was stuck in the gym, playing with spare basketballs along the side of the court. I remember it vividly. That morning I was not paying any attention to the men playing basketball when all of the sudden an argument broke out. I had never heard grown-ups speak to each other in such angry tones. It was actually a little scary. Then Dad stepped over to the two disagreeing men and barked at them something like, “If there are going to be arguments, then we might as well let my daughter Katie play. She can’t shoot or dribble a basketball but she can out-argue anyone here.”

There were a few seconds of silence followed by a couple of chuckles. My father looked over to me and winked. The heated discussion went no further and the men went back to playing basketball. 

About two or three years ago I stopped by the gym one Saturday morning just to watch my father play. I had other things I had to do so I did not stay long, just a few minutes. I sat on the same bleachers I had sat on almost twenty years before. Just like years before, I was watching 30 and 40 year-old men playing basketball, that is, except for my father who was about 60. But he was as slim as anyone, and he did not embarrass himself. He played with a kind of childlike joy that made me smile. My father sometimes comes off as being kind of gruff, however he will at times display joy, but only on a basketball court was that joy childlike.  

I think my mother is secretly happy and a bit relieved by my father’s career-ending injury. She is happy because playing basketball was priority-one on Saturday morning for my father and now she'll be able to get him to do other things. My mother is relieved because the injury is a relatively minor one and not something catastrophic like a compound fracture.

Dad played basketball for almost 40 years and he will miss it. But there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that in a tiny way, basketball will miss my dad too.

A Life of Good Fortune

I don’t think about it all the time, but I never completely forget the fact that I have been extraordinarily lucky up to this point in my life. I was born in the United States. I was conceived by two great parents. I was given reasonable intelligence and a healthy body free of disfigurement. Heck, I’m not even unattractive, as humans go. That’s some amazing luck.

I do not take it for granted. I think it is often assumed that when someone has all the good fortune that I have had that they take it for granted. Well, I don’t. I am writing this nitwit blog entry just to make that clear. If I am able to look back on this writing fifty years from now, I want to be able to see that I appreciated where I am, what brought me here, and everything I have. All the feelings of satisfaction, happiness, amusement, elation, and affection that I have felt in my life are all a product of my good luck and if I were not an atheist, I would thank God for all of it.

I could have been born in Nigeria in 150 B.C., or Cambodia in the year 1710, or in Siberia in 1930. But I wasn’t. I was born in the U.S. of A. in 1985. Consequently I’ve had inoculations to keep me free of serious disease, a government that has kept me free of subjugation, and two parents who for most of my life kept me free of almost every evil and unsavory person I might have encountered.

I have wondered how many people with whom I would trade places. I’m speaking of people who, since the beginning of time, have once walked the earth. The number would be small, the percentage would be tiny. I’m guessing that it would be no more than one in a thousand. It boggles my mind. I do not take it for granted and I want that to be known.