Mr. Blandings Takes a Fall

 

In a split second I thought of a quote from Richard Ford’s Let Me Be Frank With You, a very funny paragraph about aging:

 What is it about falling? "He died of a fall." "The poor thing never recovered after his fall." "He broke his hip in a fall and was never the same." "Death came relatively quickly after a fall in the back yard." How fucking far do these people fall? Off of buildings? Over spuming cataracts? Down manholes? Is it farther to the ground than it used to be? In years gone by I'd fall on the ice, hop back up, and never think a thought. Now it's a death sentence.

 That moment took place as I landed on the brick pavement in the portico of our relatively new home which we moved into during the pandemic.  Since then we’ve had a number of major projects on the outside of the house – ones rivaling Mr. Blandings’ that involved a workman breaking our main water line, resulting in a monster geyser and a frantic search for the water meter and shut off (buried under a bush!).  That in itself is another story.

 Later on during that work they broke a sprinkler pipe, something I didn’t discover until I saw the tell tale mix of sand and dirt that was blasted onto the sidewalk stones of our home.  It required an irrigation specialist to repair.  He turned the system back on to automatic after testing it.  So, all is well, right?

 No, as we have brand new plantings all along our backyard and it is supposed to run 4 days a week until the new plantings take.  After a couple of days, the system had not gone on, and this is after a few days of no water while the system was turned off.  I made a mental note to manually operate it early the next morning, even though it was scheduled to operate the following evening.  The plantings were starved for water.

 So as the sun began to rise, I was out there in my pajamas to turn on the first zone.  Good timing I thought as the new plantings are in the third zone and by that time I could be dressed and ready for my morning walk while the sun is still low in the sky.  I donned my shorts and got dressed for the walk, all except for my socks and sneakers, as I would still have to go out and turn on the second zone and the timer is several feet from the portico on the side of the house and I didn’t want to track dirt back into the house.  Therefore, I wore flip flops which I could leave at the front door.

 As I went outside to turn on the second zone, still in a sleepy state, I saw an animal approaching me quickly along the side of the house, me wearing shorts and open face slippers.  I thought it was a water rat as we live on a small lake.  I tried to sidestep back to the portico but my right flip flop got caught by a partially underground sprinkler head, and down I went.  This was the first fall in my life since childhood or maybe when I played tennis as a young adult.

 There I am in mid air, remembering the danger of falling at my age and in particular as my Doc said I have the early signs of osteoporosis; wanted to put me on Boniva which I refused.  As I went down I think I saw a squirrel out of the corner of my eye, not a rat, but as soon as I hit the ground, landing on my right shoulder, hip, and knee, I suddenly felt something moving under my tee shirt.  Again, visions of a rat danced in my shocked brain. While on the ground, stunned, I grabbed at my tee shirt and was holding some sort of living creature.  I managed to get up on my feet holding this thing underneath my shirt and by that time I surmised it has a harmless gecko, so once unsteadily standing I pulled the bottom of my shirt out of the way and dropped it on the ground, indeed a gecko.  How it got there during a few moments on the ground is unknowable, but there I was bruised and wobbly, “attacked” by a squirrel and a gecko. 

 My right knee was scrapped and bleeding, as was my right elbow and a couple of toes that were scraped on the brick because of my open toe slippers.  My right shoulder was in some pain, as the brunt of the fall was absorbed by the upper portion of that arm which is still muscular and that, I think, saved me from breaking anything or dislocating my knee cap.  That also mitigated the impact on my right hip.

 I went inside to wash off my wounds and test how steady I was walking.  Not great, I thought, cancel the walk that day.  But I went outside, again in my flip flops, to check the sprinkler heads along the side of my house and there I was accosted by a snapping turtle.  Not my day.  At least no alligators and fortunately no death notice that “he died relatively quickly after a fall in the back yard." 

It’s All Happening at the Zoo

  

“I do believe it, I do believe it’s true”…Paul Simon

 According to the daily New York Times coronavirus report, “without humans around, Sri Lanka’s zoo animals enjoy a pandemic baby boom.”  The director general of Sri Lanka’s Department of National Zoological Gardens, Ishini Wickremesinghe, said “animals are actually having a less-stress and relaxed time with no people around.”  Wisely, the zoo was closed during the entire Covid pandemic, no rushed reopening.

 On the other hand, the BBC says “for those who thought that lockdown would leave couples with little else to do than procreate, there was a surprise - not a baby boom but a baby bust. Research shows that the US is facing the biggest slump in births in a century and in parts of Europe the decline is even steeper.”

 The animal population of course doesn’t have to deal with the anxiety wrought by Populist Nationalism throughout the world, or insurrections such as the one on Jan. 6, QAnon insanity, and their sophists, including the ex-President and many of the elected officials in Florida. 

 Is it any wonder that fully vaccinated people in Florida lag places such as Massachusetts by a substantial amount (39% vs. 54%)?  The Sri Lanka animals must be high-fiving it, celebrating that DeSantis is not their Governor, and having some fun while at it.

 The birth pattern makes an interesting dichotomy.  Let the animals inherit the earth.  The human species is proving we don’t deserve it, polluting the environment and choosing mendacity over veracity.

 

 “O-rang-u-tans are skep-ti-cal”

Milestones

This past weekend marked a milestone birthday for my wife, Ann.  It was also another milestone; after 19 months of relative isolation, we were able to see our son Jonathan and his wife Tracie, and two weekends before our other son, Chris and his significant other, Megan, celebrated Mother’s Day with us.  All of this was feasible because of the effectiveness of the vaccination.  If only we could pull together as a nation and truly make COVID a plague of the past.

We drove Chris and Megan up to The Dive Bar for their famous lobster rolls their first full day and afterwards we walked along the Juno Beach boardwalk, enjoying a beautiful sunny Florida day while watching all the fishermen casting their lines.  A lot of swimming and sunbathing ensued by the sun starved Bostonians and on Sunday, we all loved a sumptuous Mother’s Day brunch.  Unfortunately, it was only a long weekend visit and they had to return before Ann’s birthday.

Jon flew in a few days before her big day and finally on Friday, Tracie joined us.  As a treat to our daughter in law, we made reservations for a High Tea Luncheon at Teacups and Treasures, an experience Ann particularly wanted to share with her.  Obediently, as Ann made it an unconditional invitation, Jonathan and I accompanied them although we noted we were the only men in the entire restaurant!

It turned out that half the restaurant was dedicated to little girl birthday parties, one very large group gathered together behind some clever screening.  All were in their most fancy party dresses.  Even their squealing and giggling wasn’t the least annoying.  Luckily we were at the entire other end of the room and had our own little corner to enjoy our incredibly delicious meal.  I never knew having a freshly brewed pot of tea, a delectable soup and scones, small tea sandwiches and delicious miniaturized desserts could be so much fun!  Seeing how delighted Tracie and Ann were made it all the more worthwhile.

The following day --  Ann’s big birthday celebration -- found us driving up the exquisitely manicured entryway to The Breakers Hotel, for their Sunday Brunch, ridiculously priced, all patrons unmasked, even when getting up to the buffet (after all, this is Florida), but it was an experience to mark a very special occasion.

A word about Ann, who I love dearly.  What times we have shared during our long 51 year marriage.  She and I remarked that indeed, life is but a dream, we are hardly aware of the day to day details, only the major memories lingering, and suddenly we are here, now acutely aware of our days.  Our son, Chris after visiting two weeks ago, wrote a moving tribute to her upon his return home, and I take the liberty of quoting part as it is a great character study, capturing Ann:

When I arrived home and began my work-from-home life, I realized there was a sadness, one that had taken root since my departure. I missed my mother. I missed her stories she shared with us, her frenetic energies and breadth of conversation. I missed how she charmed hostesses and waiters and her spontaneous laugh, a laugh that said “I’m here and love it, dammit!” She loved my father through thick and thin and put up with my brother and my own oddities. She kept a flock of life-long girlfriends near her chest, loyal and loving.  Literature transmuted their essence to her: she read everything from Jane Fonda to Jane Austin. She traveled and played and cruised across oceans, still short by fifty countries compared to my brother, she joked.

It was a lovely couple of weeks, seeing our “kids” at long last.  May it be only one such incident on the path to “normal,” if that is still feasible in this country.