A Last Engagement

A voyage to Santa Barbara, to visit Sarah House, a hospice for low-income individuals.  That makes it sound kind of low-rent, shabby.   Eldest sister has visited, and deemed very nice.  At least the ersatz matriarch is comfortable, and surrounded by loved ones.

Ersatz because the erstwhile patriarch is esconced elsewhere, and kept in the loop.  There will be a few days concluding with Christmas, spending time with her beloved children.  What to do, then, apart from feeling horrified at nature taking its due course?  

There will be time, later, for feeling empty because there will never be another email, or phone conversation.  The time is now for comfort, and attention, at the brink of her lonely exit.

In the background is the guilt of not calling every time the occasion demanded, and not being present at the very end.  And fighting for attention, the nagging feeling that all this exercise is just a bit futile.

Auto Parry

The road was very wet yesterday morning.   A light rain was falling.   I left for work a few minutes early, in case there was traffic.  I drive much more cautiously in the rain, turning on headlights, allowing extra space,  and reducing speed.  

Lots of people like to drive aggressively, even in the rain.  Maybe the slick conditions add to their self-satisfaction, since they have brand new vehicles with brand new tires, and think they are smarter in general.  Most people believe they are better drivers than average, which is statistically impossible.

There is a connecter ramp from 125 N to 8 W.  There is always a backup on this ramp, with cars driving on the shoulder, and slowing in lanes, making general hazards of themselves.  This is because there is a signal at the bottom of the ramp, controlling flow onto westbound 8.  A completely unnecessary signal, because there is always excellent traffic flow on the 8, and because there the ramp doesn't merge into traffic, it has it's own lane on westbound 8. 

When I approach the ramp, I always reduce speed, because it's unpredictable.  People are always entering the freeway from Spring Street on the ramp, and this adds to the mess.  Lots of people evidently took this Monday off, because there wasn't a single car on the ramp.  A car pulls in right behind me, probably thinking to themselves about what a slowpoke I am.  I don't care, because I don't want to spin out on the wet 270-degree curve.

The ramp signal was still controlling traffic, and flashed red as I approached.   I almost never stop for a ramp signal if there is no one in front of me.  The freeway I am merging into is going to gain one more vehicle anyway, what does it matter if I stop and wait or not.  I knew I could jerk around my tailgater by pretending to stop.  I tapped my brakes as if I was going to stop at the signal, but then just kept going.   I crack myself up.

Then I gassed it and merged onto the westbound freeway, which was clear of traffic.  I saw my tailgater friend stop for the signal, then punch it.   He closed a two hundred yard gap in less than a quarter mile, rain, wet road and everything.  He signaled that he wanted to get around me, but I was already going for the number three lane, so he sat on his horn, took the number two lane, slowing as he passed so I could see how furious he was.  He cut into my lane,  then back into the number two.  His female passenger must have been terrifed.   

I shouldn't behave like that, but I was still pleased with myself.  I'm probably just jealous of his car, and what I perceived as his exaggerated sense of self-importance.  I was happy that he almost hit my car, because it would have been his fault.  "Gee officer, he just came out of nowhere and hit me from behind."

Amber Chrome

I am surrounded by amber light.  Still feeling the power of a long-ago nap at my father's house, whence I awoke to my nephew's voice and my gaze bathed in the sunlight of Back Bay filtered through heavy amber curtains into my sleeping chamber; the bedroom upstairs next to Dad's.  For two weeks now I have summoned the conscious memory of perfect light surrounding me and penetrating me, each and every cell, buttressing my fortitude.    All because my beloved betrothed  woke me up to some 'nut' on the "Coast-to-Coast" radio program.   And because I have never owned the figurative purple cloak he spoke of, and because the white light he mentioned only rated a weak recollection from a video game, "The Legend of Zelda."

Some paragraph to begin my first impression of Google Chrome, the latest web browser.  That replaces Mozilla, which seemed to lock up and crash on every summons.   That replaceth the ill-begotten Microsoft Internet Explorer versioneth ten point ten or thereabouts, which reeketh mightily of spyware or malware or whatever causes the browser to open three other useless windows each time out.  I just like that Google Chrome has a snapshot of each of the last web pages that I have visited.   I know what a one-tenth sized thumbnail of the Jerusalem Post or American Thinker looks like.   That positive re-inforcement collides with every last visit to EOnline, where I can't see "The Soup" like I used to.   So, there is the need to re-invent my web experience, resulting in finding, again, Hulu.com, and a viewing of the Simpson's Treehouse of Horror XIX in my pre-dawn hazy phantasmagoria.  Random headaches at five in the morning will do that to a person.

Dappled Normalcy

Here I am in the land of self-recrimination.   All because the side gate was left open and the dog got out again.  This is the second time she has escaped.  After the first time, I vowed to put a lock on each side gate.   I didn't, and the inevitable, second fooling of me occurred.  Shame on me.

I thought she was sleeping on her round bed in the other room.   I walked into the living room and looked through the picture window, to see her on the deck.   She was wagging her tail and being petted by the stranger currently sharing Elizabeth's bed.   "Yeah, she was roaming around all over the place," he said.

Trying to catch her added fury to my embarrassment.   She thought we were playing, so she tried to elude me.  I lunged to grasp for her, scraping my knuckles.   I got enough of her to elicit a yelp, and it dawned on her that I was angry.   

I wasn't angry at her, just at myself.   I felt humiliated by calling her to come, while she ignored me and wagged her tail next to the young couple kissing goodbyes poolside.   The sight of which turned my stomach a pale green.

"Thanks for corraling her," I said.  Great, I thought, now they are big heroes, and I am the total loser zero of a pet owner, who lets her prized animal wander the middle of the street.  

A shower yielded little comfort, so I drove over to Long's for a pair of cheap padlocks.  Very small satisfaction gained from putting them on the side gates, knowing that I was responsible for whether that side gate was open or not.   Whether the tenant left it open, or whether my beloved and I left it open capturing a spider web.   Whether the canine herself lifted the latch, exited the yard and replaced the latch herself, totally immaterial.   I wasn't taking care of my own business.  That is the humiliating part.   At least this time I have been saved the torture of actual harm coming to my beloved.   I know that I will still feel the hot sting of anger and it's aftermath, the frustration and sadness.   Achy.