Questions

Walking downtown this morning, I passed the home of a good acquaintance, someone I have known since high school. He was doing yard work; I waved as I approached.

Rex straightened up as I came even to his house and, pointing at me, announced loudly, "I wonder how many people in Delaware know you were a majorette in high school?"

I didn't miss a beat in replying.

"None, including me, because I wasn't."

Zora Neale Hurston wrote "there are years that ask questions and years that answer them."

Yeah, and sometimes the questions that get asked are so goofy you don't need a minute, let alone a year, for the answer to appear. 

My sousaphone and I, 1974

Parodies

I have always enjoyed parodies of poems, especially when the parody is not aimed directly at the poet being aped but instead makes use of a well-known poem to poke fun at someone or something else, including the author of the parody. One of my all-time favorites is "Ancient Music," by Ezra Pound, in which he comments scathingly on winter by turning inside out the Middle English round "Sumer is icumen in."

Two years ago, I posted a parody of one of my favorite poems, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," by Wallace Stevens. My work was the result of a frustrating battle with an overstuffed closet in our garage. Two years later, it still makes me laugh.

This year's piece came about as a result of realizing one day this winter just how disheveled our home was. I had come from a car that was muddy and dirty from too slushy, wet days. The front hallway was dirty with melting puddles and the tracks leading from them. Neither of us had swept the kitchen floor or even wiped off the table that day. As for vacuuming the carpet or clearing the coffee tables, that thought was beyond our scope. For a brief moment I was overwhelmed, and then I remembered Carl Sandburg's poem, "The Grass." 

******** 

Dirt

Rugs, floors, towels, windshields.
Leave them alone and let me work.
    I am the dirt; I cover all.

The windowsills, curtains, baseboards,
The mat at the front door;
Don't do anything and let me work.
    That Sandburg guy aiming for immortality?
I covered him too.

I am the dirt.
Let me work.

The 3¢ Solution

Was it only yesterday I was lamenting my clothing dilemma? (Yes, it was.) Well, here's the bottom line: the problem is solved.

Yes, you read that right. The problem is solved.

My friend Cindy - my friend since infancy - read my post yesterday morning and immediately emailed that she loved the analogies. (Cindy is a horse person, so she would.) Then she emailed back a little later and said if I was thinking of going to the Marion Salvation Army in Marion, she was free and we could go together.

I jumped on that offer as soon as I could.

Warren and I then went out last night, looking for a pair of shoes for me, and the more we looked at the gigantic mall just south of here - you know - the one that starts with a "P," the more discouraged I grew. No shoes, no skirts, no service. I had earlier struck out at our local Goodwill, as well as another smaller one that Warren and I had stopped at together. I was already thinking ahead to next week and whether I could cobble together enough clothes to make it to Friday again. So when I pulled into Cindy's driveway at 10:00 this morning, my expectations were low.

But my spirits were high. They always are when I am with Cindy. This is the friend I have always had. This is the friend with whom I learned to swim, and to shoot a camera, and a whole bunch of other stuff. This is my wonderful friend of a thousand sleepovers and a million memories. Before we got out of her driveway, we were laughing and talking.

That mood carried into the Salvation Army store, where Cindy announced "we'll need a shopping cart! Here." She then steered us straight to the dresses and we started to cull jumpers from the racks. 

I soon learned Cindy's technique: flip through the rack quickly, pull any possibilities and toss them into the cart to try on. She worked one side; I worked the other. Sometimes she would hold up something: "What about this?" Sometimes I would hold up something for her nod. Twenty minutes later, I was headed to the dressing room with a cartful of clothes. Thirty minutes after that, I had three jumpers, one dress, and soaring expectations.

"Okay, shoes next," Cindy said, leading me in another direction. I protested mildly: shoes are hard to find for me, I can't wear anything more than a low heel, my feet are really touchy because of the neuropathy. No matter, let's look. Fifteen minutes later, I had a pair of dress shoes that I had tried on and then worn while walking up and down the shoe aisles. They felt fine. (I would have had a pair of casual office shoes as well, but they were just that much too big.)

"Now what?" Cindy said. Well, could I find some skirts? Anything was possible. We worked the skirts rack with the same efficiency we had applied to the dresses, then I went and pulled a few men's shirts (which I prefer to blouses) to try on as well. In the meantime, Cindy picked up some pieces of her own.

Another twenty minutes in the dressing room, and I was ready to go. Not because I had given up in despair, but because, thanks to Cindy's enthusiasm, my new wardrobe had come together.

Cindy checked out first and paid for her purchase. I then checked out: one dress, two skirts, three jumpers, three men's shirts, a pair of socks, and the dress shoes. Yellow tagged items were 50% off; pink tagged items were 99¢. I had several of each. (The dress shoes? 99¢.) Grand total? $34.51.

Cindy looked at me, her eyes big. "My gosh, I think that is what I just paid!" She rummaged for her receipt and started laughing. Her purchase was exactly three cents less.

It figured. That's what happens when two old friends go thrift shopping together. They come out within pennies of each other.

We drove away laughing. I called Warren to tell him of my success, which caused him to say, in mock sternness, "you spent how much on new clothes?" I gave Cindy a huge hug before driving on home, where I spread the new purchases out for Warren to view. Before this afternoon was over, I had scored a pair of casual office shoes at our local Kohl's. By using a $25 gift card I had received at Christmas, I paid an additional $3.81 for the shoes, which had been heavily discounted. (A note: I went to Kohl's twice in one hour. The first time to try on shoes, the second time with Warren in tow to give me a second opinion, as in "do you think these are okay?" When you suffer from a severe lack of fashion sense, it helps to be married to a man like Warren, who patiently looked, gave a thumbs up, and didn't once question why he was asked to go back to a store I had been in a half hour earlier.)

It is almost 6:00 p.m. on Saturday. The sky is brilliantly blue and clear, which bodes well for viewing tonight's supermoon. I am doing laundry; Warren is working in the shop. I am starting to think about supper. Today's purchases are spread out on the couch, except for the ones already in the wash. I already emailed Cindy about my shoe coup. She wrote back, "you are set for clothes for a year!"

A year? I'm thinking a couple of years at least. But when I am ready or need to go shopping again, I know what to do. Grab Cindy, laugh our way through the store, and come out with totals within mere cents of each other.

The 3¢ solution. It works for me.

Cave Dwellers

A milestone in civilization was when our ancestors began to build structures to shelter themselves from the elements. As they developed building skills, Homo sapiens moved from cave to house. Last night, I think I undid several millennia of progress.

We went the entire summer last year without once turning on the air conditioning. I'm not opposed to air conditioning; I just didn't want to pay the resulting electric bills. Flush with success, Warren and I agreed to repeat the experiment again this summer.

I almost threw in the towel yesterday.

Yesterday was classic Ohio summer weather, meaning it was intolerably hot, humid, and oppressive. By late afternoon, the wall thermostat registered 90° on the first floor. The upstairs was as hot or hotter.

The house was hot and miserable. I was hot and miserable. We ate supper outside on the deck, which was tolerably hot and miserable only because it was in the shade of the house and so was marginally cooler than inside.

A long, hot, miserable evening stretched ahead of us. As we did the supper dishes, I reminded Warren for probably the hundredth time that I really hate the heat.

"The basement is cool," he commented.

That is when Warren and I started popping off projects that could keep us in the basement for a few hours. Laundry, taping music, fixing a broken snare, reading.

I all but dashed up the stairs to get the dirty clothes.

Shortly thereafter, the first of two loads of wash was churning away. I plopped down on a chair and dove back into Coop by Michael Perry. Subtitled A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting, it is a thoughtful, funny, heartbreaking, goofy read.

Warren taped copied music (you tape copies so the pages are in the right order and easily turned). He fixed the broken snare.

I read and hung up shirts. I read some more and matched socks.

Warren moved on to playing the now repaired snare. "What's that?" "Scheherarzade."

One summer when I was a child, maybe nine, I developed what our GP diagnosed as "sun allergy." The prescribed treatment was to spend the better part of the day inside and out of the sun. I remember heaps of library books (admittedly, there were always heaps of library books, allergy or no) and long days spent in the first floor hallway, playing jacks on the cool, smooth stretch of linoleum. Sitting the basement last night, reading the evening away, I felt that long ago summer tug at the corner of my memories.

By the time we ascended into the heat some two hours later, the laundry was done and the house heat had slacked off a few degrees. We spent another hour talking and putting the day to bed before putting ourselves to bed. With the help of cold showers and a floor fan, we soon drifted off. During the night a cold front moved in and today's temperatures were cooler. The house stayed in the low 80s, and as I type this, a light breeze is puffing in the window over my left shoulder. I am comfortable if not cool.

We're not yet out of June and I am predicting a whole lot of basement time in our future. There's always laundry. There's always music to practice; along with a wide assortment of drums, Warren's marimba is also in the basement. There's always reorganization; the basement still holds the detritus of several generations of Warren's family as well as the remaining loose ends from blending our two households when we married and moved here. There's always something to read. In short, there's always something to justify descending into the basement for an evening.

I know, I know. We don't have to go without the air conditioning all summer. Warren pointed out that we even possess a small window unit, so we wouldn't have to turn on the central system if we just wanted to cool our bedroom. We'll see. I'm game to try to best the electric company again this summer. And if that means we become basement people in the evenings, so be it.

I wonder, as humans moved into shelters that they built themselves, if they ever missed the caves?

I would have.