NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND...or...The Story of My Day

Saturday (?): My cell phone rings. “Remember when you used to answer it?” Hubby asks, from his permanent location on the west end of the couch. “There’s no point. The face-recognition feature no longer recognizes me. I think it’s my neck. It’s gotten crepey.” I didn’t mention the extra poundage that has found its way onto my frame in the last few months. “Maybe it’s your hair,” spouse says. “It’s turned into a wall.” What he means is that my hair has grown upward and outward, exploding like a mushroom cloud. Oh, and it’s now an interesting medley of bleached blond and natural gray. “I notice there is a gathering of ducks in our driveway,” spouse says, changing the subject. “It’s not ducks. It’s the newspaper. Several newspapers.” “Shouldn’t you go get them?” “What’s the point? I’d just have to wash my hands again. I’ll collect them next Friday when I go to the grocery store.” “I guess we can get the news from TV,” he says. D’uh. The ad for Farmer’s Dog comes on the screen and Toby, in his permanent spot in the middle of the couch, doesn't even look up. Normally he’d be jumping up on his hind legs, ripping the paint off the $800-dollar TV stand, and barking at the top of his lungs. “What’s the matter with the dog,” spouse asks. “Is he sick?” I eye the mini-goldendoodle from my seat on the east side of the couch. “I don’t think he can see.” Toby, of course, has not seen the inside of the grooming studio in about eight weeks. I heave myself off the couch, lurch the twelve steps down the hall to my computer and dial up You Tube where I find a relevant video. And that is how Toby and I came to spend TWO HOURS watching a professional groomer shaving a full-sized golden doodle. Toby was fascinated and no wonder. By the end there was enough hair to make a second dog. While he watched, I turned on the dog shaver I’d ordered and experimented. Afterwards, we returned to the mothership (couch.) “What’s that crevice in the middle of his back,” Pete asks. “I can see his skin.” “My first swipe. I wasn’t sure how to hold the razor.” “His ears look kinda short.” They do. “And his mustache is gone.” It is. “But I can see his eyes. Good job!” The dog food ad comes on the screen again a few minutes later. Once again, Toby doesn't react. This time, though, it is because he's focused on consuming the Frosty Paw I promised him for being a good boy in the barber’s chair. “What are going to do tomorrow,” Pete asks, when it finally got dark enough to go to bed. “Hm. Maybe take a walk. As far as the end of the driveway.” “To get the newspapers?” “Sure," I say, still flush with a sense of achievement. "Why not?"

RAMBLINGS FROM THE LOCKDOWN, or Emily Dickinson did it. What is it so hard for us?

Today I awoke to an email message from something called “Pelgrip” (?) which addressed me by name and offered seven suggestions of ways to avoid anxiety during social distancing. Number six is: do a little online shopping. Way ahead of you Pelgrip. My kitchen table is littered with boxes and bags of clothing/jewelry/a breadbox, and shoes that don’t fit/I didn’t like/I don’t have room for/I didn’t need in the first place. Binge-watching shows on Amazon or Netflix is suggestion number three. My husband, who will agree to watch anything if it means I will stop talking, and I are in the midst of the series “Absentia” in which a beautiful FBI agent is kidnapped for six years and returns to find her hunky husband married to someone else. On top of that indignity, she is suspected of much mayhem and has to go on the lam to clear her name. What stood out to me was the scene in which she hopped into a truck, found some random clothes, and changed into them to avoid detection. All I could think of was that, in the same situation, I would never be able to fit in any random clothes. And that brings me to another quarantine universal truth. We are told not to limit our trips to the grocery store and I can see from Facebook friends and acquaintances that some are staying away for weeks at a time. Sunday I shopped during the sacred “seniors hour” and spent several hundred dollars stockpiling food in an effort to stay home for two weeks. Today is Tuesday, and I am beginning to panic about the rapidly diminishing supply of fresh fruit, peanut M&Ms and Entenmann’s crumb-topped doughnuts. Pelgrip’s list does not address what to do when you wake in the middle of every night with a hacking cough/ suspected fever/ pressure in the chest and/or visions of sitting around in a germ-filled emergency room waiting to be told you are too old to bother with. Of course that is imaginary. Probably. To tell the truth, the only hard part of this, for someone like me, is having to stay six feet away from family and, by that, I mean seven-months-old Josie. Missing her like crazy. And our little boys in New York. On a better note, the chalk drawings made yesterday on my driveway survived this morning’s rain. I can still see “Abby” and “Molly” in big letters and just looking at them makes me happy. It’s just those doughnuts…. Stay safe and healthy, friends.

HEALTH CHECK-IN: AFTER A CERTAIN AGE IT'S JUST PATCH,PATCH,PATCH

Among the challenges of relocating are having to learn the location of the traffic circles so as to avoid them, resigning yourself to hours of staring at the packing boxes marked unessential as you contemplate what to do with the set of Christmas plates from your mother, the beer steins from your uncle and the diplomas, pictures, correspondence, yearbooks and other family memorabilia that date back over a century. And, if that weren’t enough, there are the new docs. I don’t mean documents, although there are plenty of those, too. I’m talking about doctors. And, in your golden years, that means, lots and lots of folks. We spent the first months getting spouse set up, traipsing back and forth to downtown Cleveland multiple times, sometimes in the dark, sometimes in the snow, one time we had to trial-and-error our way home without Google Maps as I had spent a three-hour appointment playing Solitaire on my phone. But in January, we began to concentrate on the rest of the family. A couple of get-to-know-you appointments for me resulted in a series of exciting discoveries such as I needed a new crown for one of my back teeth, a bone density scan, a mammogram, a colonoscopy (always my favorite) a flu shot, a pneumonia shot, a shingles shot, blood tests, urine tests, hearing aids and a (suggested) weight-loss program. My new doc is young, delightful and blunt. When I showed her the nails on my hammertoes she said, “that one in the middle has a fungus. These others might be Melanoma. That’s not a diagnosis. I’m just saying. Melanoma can be fatal. You’d better see a dermatologist.” Dermatologists are scarce on the ground here in Northeastern Ohio so I am still waiting on that. Meanwhile, because I am not a fan of dieting or exercise, I made an executive decision not to worry about the weight issue until or unless I get cleared on all the fatal possibilities. I mean, there’s no point in joining weight watchers if the prognosis is negative. As one rebel wrote in her novel (and I am paraphrasing here): “I decided to forget about losing weight. Shucks. When I die they can just dig a wider hole.” Then, last week, we finally got around to meeting our new veterinarian. The biggest issue for Toby? You guessed it. He is out of shape. “You’re supposed to be able to feel his ribs,” the vet said, plunging his fingers into my dog’s sides. “All I feel is fat.” “What should I do,” I asked. (Like I don’t know.) “Well, you have to change the dynamic so that he is using more calories than he is taking in. You can either do that by feeding him less, walking him more, or” he gazed at me over the tops of his glasses, “best case scenario, both.” And that’s why, in between my hearing aid appointments and follow-ups Pete’s cataract surgeries and follow-ups, and all the other medical stuff, I will spend Valentine’s month dragging Toby up and down the streets of Chagrin Falls. Believe me, I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.

DEATH AND CLEANING AND ME

Our first Christmas in Ohio was filled with laughter and tears, the sharing of jokes and some all-too-serious discussions about the future. When it was over and the out-of-town families had returned to their homes, a small, anonymous package appeared on my doorstep, delivered by my current best friend, the Amazon delivery person. Ruth. Intrigued, I opened it to find a cunning little book titled, “The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.” My first thought was that I already owned it. My second, and lingering thought was that my children were trying to convey a message: Get rid of your stuff. It seemed an unfair nudge considering that I have downsized two households (mine of 36 years in Virginia, my mom’s of 60 years in Michigan) during the past year and I’ve gotten rid of A LOT. My 1,300 square foot bungalow is not overcrowded (note I did not claim that it was clean). Then I took the stair chair down to the basement and surveyed the acres of boxes containing model trains, doll furniture, books, cookbooks, family photographs, trophies, sheets and towels used during vacations to the Shore, books, more books and even a few pieces of furniture that I knew, even before the move, would never fit into our new home. “Maybe they have a point,” I said to Pete, who had no idea what I was talking about. “What?” “Cleaning. Downsizing. The kids.” His gaze shifted to the colorful daycare-type cubbies in our living room that contain magnetic paper dolls, crayons, stuffed llamas, a dress-up box of princess items and the solidly built dollhouse my grandfather made for me in 1959. “I thought we already downsized the kids,” he said, referring to the trio of small granddaughters that brighten our days. (He didn’t actually say that. But I’m sure he was thinking it.) “I guess I really should do more sorting and cleaning,” I said, hoping, in vain that he would argue with me. However, I am nothing if not gifted at avoiding any sort of cleaning so I moved on to another topic that had come up during the holidays. “What happens to us after we die?” After a brief pause he replied, “burial?” As if not certain of the answer. “Well, right. But where? I mean we’ve just moved to Buckeye land where we literally know fewer people than there are fingers on my right hand. We’re strangers in a strange place.” “You’re afraid no one will visit?” “It’s not that.” (I am not a fan of visiting gravesites or hanging onto the ashes of dearly departed dogs.) “I just don’t want to be lonely, you know? I mean, you spend your whole life building a community of family and friends because being with people takes away the shadows and makes you happy. You know, it takes a village. Why wouldn’t the same principle apply in death?” “You couldn’t talk to them,” he pointed out, correctly identifying my main concern. “I know. But it would be nice to be surrounded by, you-know, loved ones. Where are your parents are buried?” “Pennsylvania,” he said. “Or, Delaware. There was a tree.” “Yeah. I don’t remember, either.” “Ann Arbor,” he said, referring to my beloved hometown. Of course I knew what he meant. “That’s complicated.” It occurred to me that we must have discussed this sometime during our forty-two-year-marriage but it seemed like a new topic, for some reason. “Many moons ago my paternal grandparents bought four plots at a local cemetery intending to accommodate themselves, and my dad and mom. But then, when one of my brothers died at age thirty-four, they reversed course and decided to go with cremation so there would be room in the remaining plots for my folks and both of the twins.” As I told the story, the old resentment sprang up. Naturally, neither the original plans nor the revised version had included me. It took me back to the days of family vacations and the motel rooms with two double beds and a cot. Guess who always got the cot. Pete had nothing to say to my grievance so I called my brother. “Have you thought about where you’re going to be buried,” I asked him. “Sure,” he said. “We found a cute little cemetery near us. There’s a tree on a hill and the place is lousy with gravestones marked “Emmons.” “What about the Ann Arbor cemetery,” I asked. “Well, I really can’t see the point of having my body – or my ashes- or whatever shipped out to Michigan. Too expensive.” “Maybe you should just stay in Ohio,” The choice of least resistance. He had a point. “Or, maybe, dad’s prophesy will come true. Remember he used to say he thought he would be the first exception to the rule. Maybe I just won’t die at all.” “Forget it,” said my brother, who has seen my basement. “There’s no way around it. You have to get rid of more stuff. That’s why I sent you the book.”