From time to time I talk to myself, and usually with a lost loved one in mind, I will mimic what they might be saying to me. With Jay, it would be some of the verbal byplays we shared. But this morning, it was my mother’s voice asking me what happened to your hair? It isn’t as full as it used to be and my eyebrows are thinner. So I spoke to myself as Mom and asked “pethaki mou” (child mine), ti epathaneh ta malia su?” (what has happened to the hair yours?) My parents and our relations also referred to me as “To Hariklaki", the little Hareikleia, or Americanized, the little Harriet. I sure do miss those references as they were the most charming part of my childhood.

Moving on, I am losing my friend Susan, the tailor, from easy contact. She and her two teens are moving back to Wisconsin because she can’t make it with her shop in this area, beholden as it is to seasonal fluctuations. She had a middle-aged couple in her shop the other day, talking with her about taking it over, perhaps maintaining the tailoring business by hiring a sewer. Doesn’t sound too encouraging to me.

When they left, Susan asked me if they were serious, and I said, Do you mean were they schmoozing? I thought, perhaps, they were a little pie in the sky, but that they were interested in taking over, albeit without quite knowing what they were getting into. They would, to make ends meet, also sell clothing on consignment. This was something Susan was being pressured to do by one of her friends, who kept bringing really tacky stuff over. It wasn’t workable for Sus, because she was always sewing and fitting and no one in the middle of being pinned, wants the tailor to excuse herself because she is selling something, and the friend wasn’t prepared to take care of the concession. In other words, Sue would do all the work, and the friend would share in the proceeds. And the friend would pop in now and then and second-guess.

It so happens that friend, Gordy, was in the shop in the rear, hunting something on Susan’s computer. I didn’t know that was her. Susan asked me to tell the couple what I thought of the consignment idea and I repeated that if you didn’t have someone handling that end, it wasn’t a good idea. Gordy heard me and got really miffed. So it goes. Later I told Susan “you suckered me”.

Our pool cage finally got repaired yesterday. One of the large screen panels had totally torn away in a storm, hanging by a thread, and bugs were getting in, and into the house as well when I would open the pool sliders. So I have got bit. We had a fellow, Tim, from years past, whom we called and he said he could possibly get here Monday or Tuesday. I called him Monday, and he said okay, tomorrow, maybe around noon and I waited for him and he didn’t show and didn’t call. He had sounded kind of spacey and I am wondering if he is on something. I never had that impression about him early on.

Anyway, we called someone else and he came the next day and did what was needed and now I can use the pool without providing lunch for the bugs.

If Tim didn’t want the business, why didn’t he say so and we could have had the repair last week already. I was tempted to write him a short, succinct note, but decided not to. It’s history now and he apparently has problems to deal with so why pile on?

xx, Teal