Not that I'm Avoiding Packing, Or Anything . . .

Tomorrow I need to be on a train to Philadelphia at 9:05 for a business trip. A couple of nights ago I had one of those harrowing anxiety dreams about not making it to the train on time. In the dream, not only was I dawdling away the hour or so in the morning that I had left myself to finish packing and get organized, but I realized I had forgotten to pick up clothes from the dry cleaner that I desperately needed for the trip. When I woke up I felt great relief that I wasn't leaving for a day or two and that I had time to get everything done.

Fast forward to tonight. It's 10:21 p.m. and I still need to pack and my energy is fading. Somehow I always forget that packing takes time, too--I think that after I get the laundry done (about ten minutes ago), well, that's it, I'm in great shape. Also, I nearly managed to make my bad dream come true today. It wasn't until I was on the subway on my way to Manhattan (I live in Brooklyn, not too far out but not that close, either, to "the city," as we call it) to buy some, yes, last-minute items that I needed for the trip and also to stop at my office because I had forgotten some papers I need to bring with me, that I looked at the receipt from the dry cleaners' to see what their hours were. It was around 2:30 then and I assumed the store would stay open until 6 or 7 on Saturday. Nope, 5:00. So there was a lot of suspense and drama for me as I dashed to the store I needed near Union Square, then down to the financial district where I work, then subway back to Brooklyn with only 45 minutes to spare. In the rain. I did make it, thankfully. Then I went next door to the nail salon for manicure/pedicure. It was busy and cheerful inside and I sank into a happy lethargy while I got my hands and feet worked on. Then back out into the rain and the wind with my dry cleaning and the umbrella that kept flipping inside out. Dinner. Laundry. And I suppose now I have to stop writing and go pack a suitcase.

Well, just this, though:

Yesterday I was with my family for a small gathering--my sister, my nephew, my father, and me. My father, who is 87 and worries that his mind is less sharp than it used to be, beat me at Scrabble by a clean 100 points. This is a man who never finished high school, playing against his daughter, the PhD. Oh, and, as he always has, he plays with the board facing backwards towards him--he is used to reading letters upside down because he used to be a linotype operator.

Scrabble was a big thing in my family. When we play now, as we do very occasionally, I am carried back immediately to the way it always felt when I played with my parents--a sense of content and shared mental concentration, a putting aside of whatever family tensions there were. Instead, there would be headshaking in lament about too many vowels or too many consonants on one's rack or about the board's not being "open," or goodnatured pleadings to the other person to just go already, stop taking so long, it's only a game (in my mind I can hear my mother saying that last phrase).

At dinner yesterday, there was some conversation about the cabernet sauvignon we were drinking. My nephew, who has worked as a bartender and also owned his own bar for awhile, commented that the wine had "good legs." Then he showed us visually what that meant--how if you slosh the wine around in the class it sticks to the side a little and as it drips down it looks kind of like legs. Then he admitted, "Of course, I don't really know why that's good or what it means, beyond that."

My father piped up with a wisecrack, as he is wont to do.

"Oh, don't be so sedimental," he said.

I think I must have just gaped at my father, I was so impressed. I said, "Daddy, I don't think you need to worry about your mind." My nephew agreed. "Yeah, that one was pretty good."

Okay, now I have to pack. Wish me luck.

In the Kitchen

Yesterday I helped my father with some things around his apartment. He is 87 and still lives on his own, but is not very sure on his feet. His hands, also, have been giving him trouble for awhile--they are puffy and numb, and he has difficulty with many simple tasks. While I was there, he asked me to open a couple of cans of vegetables--using the can opener is tricky for him--and put them in plastic containers in the refrigerator. In the refrigerator, I spotted a cucumber that looked pretty rotten. "Here," I said, "I'm going to throw this away." My father agreed. Then he said, "And look, next to it, there's a potato." I picked up the potato and held it up. It was a little withered. My father said, "Yeah, throw that away, too." Then, with an ironic tone, he said, rolling his eyes ever so slightly, "It's . . .[long pause]. . . seen better days."

My father has an expressive way of talking, and a penchant for drama, and I enjoyed his somewhat comic assessment of the poor potato. But I knew he was referring to himself, also.

Laundry and Other Matters

One of the things I enjoy about the apartment building that I moved to about 8 months ago is that it has many more tenants than the nine-unit converted brownstone where my previous apartment was. It also has a bona fide laundry room, with four washers and three dryers. This is where I have had the most interactions with my neighbors.

Tonight, as I was finishing up, taking my clothes out of the two dryers I had used and loading them back into my laundry bag inside the shopping cart, I chatted with a young woman who was just starting her wash. I warned her that the dryer on the end didn't go at the "high" level, but only at "warm." (Which was why I had needed two dryers.) She seemed surprised. "It's not working? The guy fixed it." I said, "Yes, it's working, but only on low." Then I added, in a jaded way, "It's always something with that dryer."

As I was crossing over into the main part of the lobby (now festooned with an artificial Christmas tree, blinking lights, and those reindeer made out of illuminated wires, accompanied by a repeating loop of very computer-generated-sounding Christmas music that I think must be driving the poor doorman crazy), a couple came in from outside. Or at least I thought they were a couple, but she went off to get her mail and he came straight to the elevator. He seemed friendly, youngish, sort of attractive, so I made the obligatory comment about how cold out it was. At the same time, he was saying "Doing laundry, huh?" looking down at my cart, and I said, "Yup." Then he said, "Smells good." I thought, what does one say to that? Thank you? Was it meant as a compliment? I just said, "Yeah, it's good to have clean clothes."

Great line, yes?

After that we got in the elevator and continued our awkward chatting until I had to get out, a couple of floors before him.

One of the other profound things I said to the guy in the elevator was "Now I can relax." So, I'm going to go do just that. I am recovering from a bout of either food-borne illness or a virus that laid me low for two days and my body is telling me it doesn't want to be sitting up anymore.

More another time.