Thursday, January 17, 2013

Does eating a sandwich count as having a plan?

So I have a new customer who will remain nameless because he's named after the hero from a manly western frontier story, and I'm pretty sure, based on the unusualness of the name and the date of the book, that he's changed his name to have the name of this character.  Right?  It would be like if I were named Scarlett O'Hara, but GWTW were written in 1982.

Life is a bit dreamlike these days: night flows into day flows into night with a sprinkling of yoga and podcasts punctuating the moments.  It's been lovely and cold here but it seems too hard to go outside.  I called my sister, who told me she couldn't go to work today because she couldn't figure out how to put pants on.  I can relate.  She is my people.  I couldn't figure out what to do today either.  Just one long day, one gun-toting manly customer, a yoga class at each end, and a blank spot in the middle.  I took a little nap, and when I awoke, I was invited by the Cake Boss to go for a ride-along while she got her blood drawn.   You can see why I figured out how to put pants on right away.  It's not often you get invited on that kind of thing.

This part sounds like a dream, but it isn't.  My new hero/customer called five times during my one hour yoga class, each message increasingly frantic, with the penultimate message (do you like how I slipped that word in?), "I can't find your office.  I'd like to come by your office."  And then the final message, "I'm going to find a business in town and just leave some things there for you."

Right?

So the next day, there I am at the vet.  "I'm here to pick something up."

"Is it a cat?"

"Um, no.  I think it's maybe an envelope?"

"Did the vet leave it for you?"

You get the gist.  How to explain, no, its nothing to do with animals although you're a vetrinary office.  Someone whom I've never met left something for me, and, based on what I know, he may have been wearing a ten-gallon hat?  Did someone like that leave something for someone like me?  It wasn't my idea, I wanted to say.  And no, I don't have a cat, though it looks like I'm getting closer every day.

When I met Cake Boss for the ride-along, she was scolding the dog.  "No!  Don't chew on that!  That was for Betsy."  And she retrieved something from deep in the jaws of the dogs' mouth and gave it to me, and I was happy about that because it was a horse chestnut, which I have in my pocket right now.

So I go to the blood draw place, and I'm waiting in the waiting room, which is what you're supposed to do there, right?  And this nurse comes up to me, or at least a woman in blue scrubs, and asks me if I'm okay.  Where to begin.  But I lied for the second time today and said I was fine, I was just a guest.  She asked if the person I was with was okay.  It went like that for a while until she realized she had the wrong person, and then she acted irritated with me, as if I were an impersonator.  I wanted to explain a few things, like, really, woman in blue scrubs, you approached me.  I was just reading the paper.  I'm just on a ride-along.  But I kept my mouth shut.

When Cake Boss dropped me off at my car, she said, "I think you should probably have a sandwich."

I hadn't even considered that.  So I called my sister.

"Should I have a sandwich?"

"I don't know.  I'm trying to fix my dryer, but it's hard and complicated and I don't know how to do it.  I swear a lot.  Grief is weird."

"You should lie on the couch more," I suggested.

"That sounds so hard.  I'd have to make a cup of tea and find something to read, and then I'd be stuck there.  On the couch."

"If I were going to have a sandwich, do you know what kind it would be?"

"I'm not so sure about the sandwich."

"Do you have pants to wear tomorrow?"

"Do I need to wear pants tomorrow?"

"Not if you don't feel like it.  But it's always good to have a plan.  Egg salad?"

"Does clean pants count for a plan?"

"Of course it does, honey."

That's it for today.










5 comments:

  1. I barely forced myself out of bed today so I think I know where you're coming from.

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  2. Maybe an even better question is: Must there be a plan every day?

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  3. In some strange and elusive way, I do believe I'm following you. Not in a literal way (with a 10-gallon hat and bookend yoga classes)but more figuratively. But just maybe.

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  4. Grief is so very weird - there is no manual. You do it however you can. Thinking of you and wishing you well in these surreal days of piecing back together your reality, and finding your footing.
    xo

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  5. Pants are definitely a plan. One day at a time, right? I suppose I should probably wash my pants. Washing pants is a plan, too.

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