I’ll start with the small stuff …

An egret got into our pool cage, apparently through a loose screen at the top. He flounced around batting his wings against the screen, looking for a way out. I propped both doors open, and tried to chase him toward the opening. He would get there, and then scoot right back into the center instead of seeing there was a way out. Dumb bird. He finally got it. I had gotten a towel and was going to throw it over him, but it wasn’t necessary.

I found a dead lizard on the living room carpet, a victim of Ziggy the Champion Lizard Hunter. At least he didn’t eat him. They make him sick. If they are still alive, I put a container over, slide a cardboard under, and take the critter outside and let him go in the grass. I also give him a lecture about the folly of visiting our house.

I had an annual wellness visit from the medical insurance I use – United Health Care Medicare Advantage … A nice nurse named Marguerite. We had a nice chat. She pronounced me “alive” and left.

The bizarre stuff …

I had a brief flirtation on Facebook with a fellow who liked my posts. I didn’t know it was a flirtation until he sent me a message that suggested an interest I was not at liberty to entertain. I waited three days before responding, trying to think of a graceful way to retreat but preserve the acquaintance. I had made several references to Ed, so I thought he was just being friendly. I am always up for new friends who are like minded, especially since many of mine are leaving, as in dying, and I am feeling abandoned. So I decided to be frank and open and told him I wasn’t looking and told him my age, and that was the magic. Whoosh, gone, no goodbye. No okay, sorry, but still enjoyed our chats. No grace at all. Just whoosh. The draft was so powerful, I got wind burn.

The age phobia got me to thinking about my friend, Bella, who died a few years ago. I wrote about her when it happened. I loved her to pieces. She was widowed at 84, reconnected with a childhood friend who had also been widowed. He pursued her. She told me she felt like a teen-ager. They began a relationship. Then she got cancer and remarked that it was ironic that just as she had been awakened to possibilities in later life, she wasn’t going to last to enjoy it. She also had been invited to be the president of the international Mozartium festival in Salzberg and Ed and I decided to go with her and enjoy the music and watch her shine. But she was losing ground and had to cancel out. So it makes me wonder what is in store for me as time wears on.

The sad stuff …

Nadine, My BFF and GTF is taking care of her 92-year-old husband who is under hospice care at home. She is drained and grief-stricken and also taking care of two grandchildren, whose father, her son from her first marriage, has a test to pass for Diplomatic French and then he will grab the kids and take them to his next assignment which is in the country of Georgia. He runs humanitarian programs for the U.S. govt.

His wife, from Finland, gave Nadine a book about the Finnish personality, to explain why she is cold, withdrawn, and has no ability to empathize on even a minor level. Sometimes Nadine and I have conversations that go “what was he thinking??!” Anyway, she is in the wind, living back in Finland, because, you know, life in America didn’t have nannies and servants like what is available to diplomats when they are on assignment. All the glamor was gone when she had to do her own shopping and clean the spit-up. So he’ll take the kids to Georgia where they’ll have this life. And maybe his wife will come back and maybe not. He doesn’t seem to mind. The kids were thrilled to have him around for a few days, on leave to help his mom.

More sad …

My friend, Joan, from Queens, a free-lance editor, came down for a week and we hung out and talked and I took her to chachka stores where she bought earrings and we had lunches. Nothing spectacular, but pleasant. However, she had a dear friend who she just discovered had been hospitalized and her first “must” on getting home, was to go see her. She left on Saturday, and phoned that night to say Kathy had died the night before. I had a friend from years ago, also gone, who used to say “you’re never home free”. I think he was a pessimist, but sometimes his words resonate.

xx, Teal