SOLSC Day 15: YouTubing

Daughter C. and her partner, R, came over for dinner tonight. I made a West African chicken stew with peanut butter — delicious.

            Between dinner and dessert, we showed each other Oscar-nominated animated shorts on YouTube. C. showed me The Blue Umbrella, which is sweetly sentimental and cleverly shows how many inanimate objects can look like faces.  I showed them Destino, a Dali-Disney collaboration from 1946 that was never completed until Disney’s nephew unearthed it in 1999, had it completed, and it was nominated in 2003. Surreal visuals and a haunting song make this something I could watch over and over.

            These Oscar-nominated shorts, the animated and live action, can usually be seen only if you’re an Academy voter or are lucky enough to live in New York City or L.A., where they are sometimes shown in the weeks before and after the Academy Awards. But YouTube has many of them, either whole or trailers. Check them out.

SOLSC Day 14: Time Passing

We’ve been living in our current apartment building for 45 years. (And is it okay to continue to say “we,” even in the present tense, for describing something that included Jack in the past?) One of the building’s handymen, Luis, has been living in the basement apartment with his family for almost as long as we have lived here. And he is retiring at the end of the month.

            He’s 80, so it’s way past time for him to stop doing the kind of work that handymen do, polishing the lobby floor, sweeping up in the basement, shoveling snow or steering the snowblower, collecting trash from the 15 floors and bundling it out to the sidewalk. I’m sure he’s done way more work that I never see.

            Luis’s cousin Pedro was one of our doormen for many years, and he retired a couple of years ago, moving to Florida. There was a building party for him, and there will be one for Luis.

            Having the people who’ve worked for you for many years retire and move away is one

more mark of passing time. When Jack and I moved into this building, there was a middle-aged couple on our elevator. We never knew their name (New York is like that; and we live on the second floor so didn’t usually take the elevator), but we smiled and nodded when we saw them. Then he died, and then she ... moved away? died?

            Now I feel like I’ve moved into that slot for newcomers in the building. They saw the notice about Jack’s memorial in the lobby, perhaps wondered who he was, may even have seen him going out with his walker to walk around the block. But they didn’t know his name, and they won’t know mine when I disappear. (Unless I make an effort.)

SOLSC Day 13: Glad & Sad

I think I had a burst of energy from the memorial, with all the people and relatives last weekend, and it ran out yesterday. Is that why I forgot about writing my Slice until it was too late?

            Here’s today’s. I’m walking home after shopping and pass a couple roughly our age, he in a wheelchair, she pushing, and she stops. She says, “I can’t push you when you do that.” He says, “But I have to.” As I pass them, I see that his wheelchair does not have foot rests. I remember that it’s hard to get into the wheelchair when foot rests are attached, even when the food pads are flipped aside. I wonder if she’s complaining because he’s using his feet to “walk” along, because I remember that it’s hard to push slowly enough when the sitter does that — and it’s also hard for the sitter to hold his feet off the ground if the foot rests are gone. I wonder about their relationship and how long she's been having to push him in the wheelchair. I hope they have a flat entrance into their building and an elevator. I am relieved and sorry that Jack and I won’t have to face these problems.

SOLSC Day 11: Poetry Underground

The New York City subway system has, since 1992, had a Poetry in Motion program, with a new poem posted in subway cars every so often. I saw the current poem, “Heaven,” by Patrick Phillips, this evening, and it so spoke to me. It was as though someone was tuned in to what I need and have been thinking. I wish I had written this.

Heaven

by Patrick Phillips

It will be the past
and we'll live there together.

Not as it was to live
but as it is remembered.

It will be the past.
We'll all go back together.

Everyone we ever loved,
and lost, and must remember.

It will be the past.
And it will last forever.

SOLSC Day 10: Old Mail

Jack’s first e-mail account was with AOL, back in the days when you had to pay for it — and he never changed it. Of course, I have to close that account so it’s no longer a drain on the pocketbook. But first I wanted to download all of his Sent mail. He used to reread his Sent mail, and I wanted to see what was there.

            It took the computer know-how of my niece and brother to accomplish that last Monday. Today I started browsing. The old mail only went back to 2009 (I guess AOL only saved back that far), and it was fun to read the exchange of e-mails between Jack and our daughter when she was on a solo trip to Glasgow. Also an exchange from an English friend who attended debates organized as the Battle of Ideas; it used to have a New York partner called the New York Salon that Jack and I attended a few times, but it no longer exists.

            But when I opened some e-mails about my mother moving up to New York into an

assisted living apartment, I was overcome by melancholy. My mother had been living independently in Florida, but at 91, she’d decided it was time for more help, and she was willing to move back to the cold weather to be closer to me and my sister. Reading those e-mails only reminded me that she’d been much sicker than I had realized, and just a month after she arrived, she was dead. We had both been looking forward to long talks about memories — we’d even started, with my mother tellilng me her fascination with science began with a college anatomy class visit to an autopsy. There were so many questions that never got answered, one more life ending with an incomplete.

SOLSC Day 9: Bookkeeping

A couple of weeks ago, I got a bill from the hospital Jack was in. Last month I’d gotten what looked like the same bill and paid it. I had to do some comparisons — was the bill exactly the same? was it for different doctors? was it for different procedures? But a couple of weeks ago, I was deep into memorial mindset, and could not face diverting my attention, mental and emotional, onto financial matters. The bill could wait.

            Today I went looking for the bill I knew I had paid. I looked in the file it should have been in (Jack’s medical bills), and it wasn’t there. I looked in the second file folder it might have been (my current to-do); no luck there either. I sat down and determined not to panic. I don’t throw paid bills away. I just don’t do that, no matter how addled my brain is. I only had to think of the places I often stick papers, went to my own “bills paid” file, and there it was.

            Now I pair up the two sets of bills, and on the first page the doctors, dates, and procedure codes are identical. I’ve already paid these. But page 7 on each set is different. So am I going to compare every page, cross out the doctors I’ve paid, add up the new charges, and figure out the difference?

            No, I call the hospital billing office, wait only a few minutes on hold, and talk to a very helpful woman named Donna, who says she will send me an amended bill with only the amount I now owe. Vast relief. One task, semi-complete. Life can work out the way it is supposed to.

Blast from the Past

I met a friend to see the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! this afternoon. Before that, we stopped into a nearby restaurant for lunch, and the only tables open were in the bar. After we sat down, I could hear a man at the bar saying to the bartender, “She looks familiar.” I looked over, and he asked, “Did you use to work at the Village Voice?” Yes, I said, but he did not look familiar: a round-faced, slightly heavy-set black man. “It’s Patrick,” he said. Then I remembered Patrick Merry. He had an administrative job, I forget which one, but he was one of the nicer people, when working at the Voice sometimes felt like being in a kindergarten with kids who hadn’t learned social skills yet.

            We didn’t have time for reminiscing; my friend was only in town briefly. But I love running into people I haven’t seen in a long time — and it did feel connected to the memorial somehow. On Saturday I was seeing many people I hadn’t seen in a long time. Perhaps I will continue to see people I haven’t seen in a long time for the next several weeks. I would love that. 

            P.S. Hail, Caesar! is very funny, and full of coy references, and sendups, of old movies.

Catching Up, III

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Today I transitioned, from family to friends. Over the weekend, my brother and his wife, two of my nieces and their significant others, my nephew, and two cousins were all in town for the memorial. They came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, and California. They flew in, and they drove. Some I'd seen recently, others not for years. Some stayed at hotels, some with me. It was fun, but also wearing. Family interactions can be intense, with archeological layers,

It's interesting to see certain patterns emerge. When we visited relatives when I was a child, my father was the family handyman. People saved their broken appliances and electrical problem for him: "This radio hasn't worked in years"; "Can you move this outlet?"; "This TV only picks up static." My brother and his wife just gave me an electronic weather station, with indoor and outdoor thermometers and some sort of sensor that offers a forecast. Today my brother labored away at finding a location for the outdoor temperature gauge, installing it (masonry or metal were the only surfaces available, and he had to make a couple of trips to my building's handyman for the right kind of nail), and then setting up the indoor monitor. So he's filled the Mr. Fix-It slot our father used to occupy. (Jack would not have wanted my brother climbing out of windows and hammering into walls to set up some device he, Jack, didn't see any need for.)

Niece R. filled the computer tech slot previously occupied by my brother, though he added input as well, as we tried to divine how to download Jack's old Sent mail into a new e-mail client I wanted to try out. Helpful, yes.

The transition happened when niece and boyfriend set off for home, and brother and wife will leave too early tomorrow for me to see them again. So I went off to meet GirlGriot for a writing date, where I am writing these Slices. Friends and family came together at the memorial, and now move off into their respective worlds.

Catching Up, II

On Sunday, I attended a Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon in Brooklyn(link). Nandi Kaye led us through a mental, then we wrote, then we wrote some more and we had a physical writer warmup. Here is what I wrote.

I

I remember because that is all I have left. Someone once wrote, "Death ends a life, but not a relationship...." Death ends the accumulation of new memories, while the old memories remain as fresh or as stale as they want to be. Memories hide in the weeds of my forgetfulness, they jump out to startle me as I lie abed. Memory cannot wrap arms around me, cannot kiss gently, or passionately. Memory rouses grief and mourning, but forgetfulness erases life, us, me. Memory wants me to forget loss, to move on, to move ahead. But memory also anchors me to the moment of death, with a rope stretching, stretching, stretching without breaking.

II

Happiness comes from my pink hair. Jack loved my pink hair. When strangers say they love my pink hair, I feel 50 degrees warmer. I glow. I feel connected. My pink hair is the magic token I've looked for all my life. My pink hair is the guardian angels protecting me from despair. My pink hair is punk, is rock and roll, is a happiness drug. My pink hair matches all of my favorite clothes, well, almost.

 

Catching Up

Saturday was my husband’s memorial. I knew I would have no time to write anything that day, so I thought I would catch up yesterday and post two Slices for the day. But that didn’t happen either. So here is it, March 7, and I will definitely post three times today. I promise.

            So here’s what I could have posted for Saturday’s slice.

            I barely had enough time to pack up everything — the large picture board, the two notebooks of J.’s newspaper clips, the notebook of the letters he wrote his oldest friend from 1963 to 1970, more memorabilia — when my cousin, driving up from Virginia, called to ask about parking 10 blocks away. Seems she neglected to look up my address, thinking she remembered it, and she was 10 blocks off. So I had time for a few stretches before she arrived at my door.

           
            We set off in her car to the church downtown. (I’m a New Yorker; I don’t own a car.) It’s a 40-minute subway ride and brief walk, but we had too much to carry to take the train. But New York City traffic can be horrendous. In trying to detour around construction, my casual driving knowledge led us into a longer detour than expected. I had to call the church to give updates on our progress.

            The memorial was scheduled to start at 2 p.m. We arrived about five minutes past. My friend who was  coordinating the logistics assured me they couldn’t start without me. And I was amazingly calm. I know J. would have been having a fit; he would have been sure to be there at least two hours in advance. But I’m not like him; I’d wanted to be there by 1 p.m., but if it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.

            The assembly room was bustling with people. I quickly delegated my daughter to put programs on all the chairs, and I put up the picture board and laid out the books and ephemera. The a capella Art Mob sang, and it was a wonderful and warm couple of hours of remembrances. If it wasn’t exactly as I had envisioned, it was still a supportive and thankful experience.

Here is the cover for the program. 

 

Life After Three Score and Ten

While putting together the photoboard for the memorial tomorrow, I went to my husband’s computer to find out when the photo that’s his Facebook pic was taken. There I was reminded of a thread he started on his page titled “Life after three score and ten.” Here are some of his posts:

            Candid lady of my acquaintance says: "You know you are getting old when all the guys you committed adultery with have died."

            I learn of the death of an old girl friend. I can't remember what she looked like and this depresses me. Sonia is reassuring: "I wouldn't let it bother you. Her feelings aren't hurt."

           Neighbor woman I flirted with in the long ago gives me the same kind of winks and leers as in the past. Are we still flirting? I guess, if we think we are.

            You notice that when you talk to your lover of many decades, you are more likely to discuss what goes on in the bathroom than what happens in the bedroom.

            If you aren't mourning your friends, they are mourning you. An easy choice, but....

 

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I’m participating in the 9th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day three of the thirty-one-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

Memorial Time

            I’ve finished writing up my comments about J. and now I’m getting feedback from my writing groups and friends. Now I am gathering together other comments from friends who aren’t able to come to the memorial this week, and also putting together what librarians call “ephemera,” materials like the newspaper clips my husband wrote as a reporter, letters he wrote to friends that they saved, family memorabilia, as well as a large matteboard of photographs.

            While doing all of this work, I felt myself slipping into a relationship with time rather like that I felt when I was pregnant with my daughter, 44 years ago. It feels like this period of time is outside the usual stream of minutes-hours-days passing always in one direction. This “memorial time” feels static, not moving, containing within it all the time J. and I were together but all lumped together.  One moment of time holding all of our moments, which I could bury myself in if I chose.

            I want to be there... yet I don’t, I can’t. I can’t stop living, I have to keep moving forward along with everyone else. Yet somehow I want to keep a connection to that parallel memorial time. Just to touch it, touch him, now and then. 

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It’s the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, hosted by the wonderful people over at Two Writing Teachers! Every day this month, hundreds of writers will be posting their stories. Head on over and check out the other slices!

Remembering and Forgetting

My husband’s memorial is in three days, and I am only now knuckling down to write up my comments. (Yes, I do have to write out what I will say. I have only once ever given a talk based only on notes, and I have given many talks. I’m good at writing the way I speak.)

            It is not easy. First, it has to be about him, not about me. I have been writing memoir quite a bit lately, which is ultimately about me. It’s hard to shift the focus. Second, I know there are stories he used to tell, about his growing up, his family, his various workplaces, and I used to think, I should write these down — but I never did. My memory is not that good. He remembered stories about my life that I’d forgotten. Now his memories are gone. But I'm trying not to think about what's gone, just what I do remember.

            Third, our daughter is going to speak at the memorial, so I have to make sure I don’t steal any of her material, or say anything that might embarrass her. So we’re e-mailing back and forth.

            Fourth, fact-checking. Did the friend I think recommended a job really do it, or was it someone else? (E-mai

ls.) What was the name of the editor on the start-up magazine he worked on for a week? I spend time on Google, then decide the whole story isn’t necessary.

            Fifth, his oldest friend and his younger brother cannot come to the memorial from their homes in Colorado and Kansas. So they wrote reminiscences and sent them to me. The friend needed an editorial discussion to encourage him to write more, while the brother needed a heavy editorial hand to cut down what he’d sent. (These will be read by a friend and my younger brother, respectively. So I have to send the finished products off to them as well.)

            So that’s been my day so far. Still working away.

Walking and Remembering

              Today I walked around the neighborhood on the way to pick up the program’s for Jack’s memorial on Saturday. I walked up Broadway to see if I could find the place where our daughter went to day care 40 years ago. I’d gone by the area yesterday and nothing looked familiar — I remembered what the nursery school/day-care center looked like, but the entrance into the middle-income housing complex where it was located looked very different. Did it even still exist? So I thought I would explore today.

            The walkway was off 123rd Street, not Broadway, as my mind’s eye had it. The path led downhill toward an area with benches. Then there were two winding stairways, and I wondered, did my three- then four-year-old walk down these steps? Did I wheel her in the stroller and carry it down the steps?

            But down at the bottom, there was the play area, fenced in, the entryway, now lined with open coat cubbies and wooden stoves, sink, cabinets for the kids to play with. By the door was a stroller parking lot. Yes, it still exists, though now the plaque hanging above the entry says it’s the Children’s Learning Center of Morningside Heights, no longer the Gardens at Morningside Gardens.
           It started as a nursery school in the early 1960s; one of the founders lived in our apartment building. When my daughter went there in the mid-1970s, the Gardens was unusual in the city in that it was neither wholly private nor wholly public: some parents paid full fee, as though it was a private school, while others were subsidized through city, state, or federal funds; it was multicultural before that was a touchstone. A story I wrote for the Village Voice in August 1976 noted that this was the least expensive way to provide child care in New York City. But most day care then in the city was completely paid for either by government funds or by parents. An ad-hoc coalition proposed that the centers funded by the city change over to this mixed service to save money. But this didn’t happen, partly because the city agency would no longer have control over a line-item budget, but also because there was corruption in the awarding of day-care leases.             It seems from the Children’s Learning Center Web site that it is completely private now, though a limited number of children receive tuition assistance. Too bad.
            From the presence of strollers and jackets, it was clear there were children inside, but it was too quiet. Perhaps it was nap time. And I wish I’d had one of my camera devices. I’ll have to go by there again to add a photo. 

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It’s the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, hosted by the wonderful people over at Two Writing Teachers! Every day this month, hundreds of writers will be posting their stories. Head on over and check out the other slices!

Slice of Life: Giving and Losing

Yesterday I donated Jack’s unused syringes of blood thinner, compression stockings, and medications to his hemotologist, vascular surgeon, and primary doctor. It was harder than I expected.

            I’d called in advance to make sure the doctors could use them, since I didn’t want to throw away all these supplies unless I had to. I would always rather give things away than add them to the landfill. And all the doctors said yes.

            My first stop was the vascular doctor’s office, in the hospital where Jack had spent many days. I felt okay emotionally until I got off the elevator and walked down the hallway to the doctor’s office. There were the gurneys lined up in the hall, waiting for patients. There was the water fountain where Jack had drunk when he was last there for the doctor to check for clots in his collateral veins. We’d thought it was good news that no clots were found, without considering the continuing question: what was causing Jack’s edema? Sadness built up before I walked into the office, where a young woman was unfamiliar with my situation and had to ask a supervisor. It’s harder to hand them over to someone who didn’t know Jack, so this young woman’s “I’m sorry for your loss” feels pro forma.

            It’s easier at the hemotologist’s office, perhaps because it’s a new space. But also because the hemotologist’s office manager is sincerely sorry about Jack, and I know she’s seen him many times and that he wasn’t just another patient. And at his primary doctor’s office, I feel I’m among old friends – she’s my primary doctor as well. Everyone knew Jack and cared about him. Our doctor even came out and gave me a few minutes between her patients.

            I feel like I am donating a piece of Jack, and I want to know who will get what he had, what their life will be like, that they will live a long time. But I also feel Jack’s loss in the act of giving. He no longer needs his pills, his compression stockings, his syringes. They will no longer be in our home, now just my home.

Slice of Life Tuesday

It’s getting harder to do the phone calls and fill out the forms. I don’t want to be reminded that he’s no longer here. I want to remain in a time where his presence still exists.

In the immediate aftermath of my husband’s death, pulling together all the details of what had to be done, who had to be notified, making phone calls all gave me something to do. As I’ve noted, it was a kind of distraction, and also proof that I was holding myself together. Oh, there were signs that this was hard. After every phone call when I had to say the words, “he died,” I had to sit very still for several minutes after hanging up, readjusting my emotional equilibrium, letting the past and present mingle in a way I could digest.

So today I called the company for one of his IRA accounts. One of its forms said I had to provide a death certificate with cause of death – and as far as I could tell, there was no “cause of death” on the certificate I had. The benefits specialist I spoke to said there had to be a cause of death, and she mentioned possible obstructions, like if the death required an investigation for, say, a murder. How would I get this more detailed death certificate? The benefits specialist suggested calling the funeral home that had provided the certificates I had.

 

I called that person and was told that New York City does not put a specific cause of death on the official certificate because that is considered confidential  information. But, he said, look at item 6 on the certificate I had, and sure enough, in small type, it said that my husband’s death had been due to natural causes. And when I called back the benefits specialist, she said that was exactly what she needed. Whew! What had felt like a huge roadblock wilted into nothing. 

Yet another Slice of Life Tuesday. Read more slices over at Two Writing Teachers,

Slice of Life Tuesday

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There are many boring, yet distracting, things a widow must do: notify Social Security, notify any financial institutions, notify insurance companies, notify credit card companies, things like that. Our New York Times home delivery was in my husband’s name, therefore he got the e-mails of special events and special offers. If I wanted to get those, I had to call the paper, explain the situation, change the e-mail address, change the user name and password. Time consuming, yes, but it’s something concrete to focus on and separate myself the situation requiring it.

            Today I went to the Social Security office. In order to claim my husband’s last Social Security check, which had been intercepted by the Treasury Department when it learned of his death but which I’d been informed I am entitled to, I had to produce the actual marriage certificate, his birth certificate, and his death certificate. Copies would not do; they had to be the originals. I actually had all these documents, and I didn’t want to send the originals off in the mail – they could get lost; they might not get returned. So I went to my local Social Security office.

            When I entered the building, the security man at the door asked what I needed. I said, “I’m going to the fourth floor.” He asked what I needed to do there (to make sure I was going to the right place?), so I had to tell him, “I’m applying for widow’s benefits.” It’s getting harder to say it, not easier. He said the obligatory, “I’m sorry for your loss,” but he looked a bit taken aback.

            Upstairs, there was a touch screen receptionist, asking my purpose and then spitting out a number, which was called about an hour and 45 minutes later. Fortunately, I had brought a book. When my number was finally called, I was directed to window 5, where, behind bullet-proof glass like you find in banks, say a young man who remembered talking to me on the phone two weeks before. He looked at my documents, recorded unknown bits of information on his computer (I couldn’t see his screen), xeroxed my documents, and that was that. I will get that extra check. I will get $20 more in my Social Security payment each month. Now on to my husband’s pension, which I will continue to receive.

Slice of Life (and Death)

A week ago today, my husband died. We were together for 52 years, married for 51. (That still feels as unbelievable as the fact that he's dead.) We sometimes thought of ourselves as the last married couple in America. The day after he died, I wrote this paragraph, perhaps the beginning of something longer.

I always thought I had to get married until I learned that I didn’t. By then I’d been married for six years. On our first date, he asked me out for a drink. I had a drink while he had a dozen. I looked at the 12 empty glasses of Scotch and water lined up between us on the table and thought, “That’s exciting.” On our second date he recited Dylan Thomas’s “In My Craft and Sullen Art.” I was impressed; reciting poetry meant he wasn’t as cynical as he usually sounded. As he lay dying, I read “In My Craft and Sullen Art” to him. I felt I was going to cry as I read “The lovers lie abed” and I thought, I’m such a cliché. Our third date was a party. He sat in a big armchair, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, and beckoned to me. I sat on the arm of the chair, then on his lap, then we were necking. I said, “At every party, there’s always a couple necking in the corner. Tonight we’re that couple." He was a WASP from Kansas, and I thought he was exotic. I was an East Coast Jew, and he thought I was exotic. As he lay dying, I held his hand and said, “Now your story will become my story. Is that okay?” His eyes closed, he smiled and nodded.

Slice of Life Tuesday, December 15

           J. is back in the hospital again, this time edema in the legs of unknown origin. I’ve been there every day, even though he’s all the way across and downtown. Yesterday I was going to take some time off and go to a couple of parties. But halfway there – I was walking, of course, a mile and a half, Google Maps said – I tripped  over something and fell flat on my face. Totaled my glasses. Multiple cuts on my face, and I could tell that a front tooth was loose.

            A young couple walking behind stopped to help. They pointed out to me that I was bleeding, a lot, and I remembered that head wounds always bleed a lot, so I wasn’t too worried. They also called for an ambulance, which came in pretty quickly. “Please take me to NYU Medical Center,” I said to the EMT guys, Drew and Tyler. “My husband is a patient there.” I thought this was funny, even if no one else did.

           Once in the ER, I took out a pocket mirror and was horrified at my appearance. Nothing hurt, yet. I was left sitting in a wheelchair – I had felt shaky walking to the ambulance, so a wheelchair seemed a good plan – for quite a while until a doctor came around to triage me, asking me about pain, testing my hand strength, asking whether I’d lost consciousness (I hadn’t), whether I could turn my neck without pain.

            First I called my daughter, C., thinking someone should know where I am. She and her partner agreed they would trek over from Brooklyn as soon as they finished eating. There seemed no rush. No one had even cleaned me up, washed off the blood on my hands or on my face. Then I called my husband, who’d been asleep when I left and had forgotten where I was going. Soon after, his nurse and the clerk from his unit came to visit me in the ER – I think they didn’t tell him how badly I looked, though they were impressed.

            Eventually, a CT scan of my face revealed no broken bones. A doctor stitched up the cut in my eyebrow, and that nasty-looking gash under my eye has already closed up on its own. Today I went to my dentist, who literally pushed the loose tooth back into its slot, though I will have to  have a root canal in a few weeks to “clear out any dead root or debris,” my dentist said. Tomorrow I see my doctor, who will look at my face and tell me what aftercare I need: more ice? heat? how to keep it clean?

            As for the glasses, since I’m due for cataract surgery in a month or two, it’s pointless to get new glasses now, since they’ll just have to be replaced after the surgery. So I’m stuck with an old pair that just about works for distance, but for close work? I am typing with with my face about six inches from the screen.

            My daughter said I looked like I’d been in a bar fight, so I’ve been posting on FB that I got into a fight with a Trump supporter. The alternative story is the sidewalk is getting even with me for all the years I’ve walked all over it. What’s your favorite?