“Blink the lights when you get there.”
That’s what I put on the card. For the flowers. For the funeral home. For my friend Florence (Flo), who passed away last week.
She used to stand at her door to watch me home safe, until I blinked my porch lights. This was not so much a safety precaution as a gesture of friendship, an affectionate tradition, one last good-night. I only had to cross the street.
It was of course the same street that Flo crossed — arm in arm with her husband Win — to welcome me to the neighborhood 16 years, 10 months, and 1 day ago.
Despite a 40-year difference in our ages (and the loudness and lateness of my move-in party the night before), they seemed genuinely pleased to meet me. And, it is not sugar-coated hindsight to tell you, I adored them immediately.
It’s rare, but liking some people is like that: Easy and quick. And, rarer still, unchanging. I crossed that street many times over the years, to chat, to give out Halloween candy, to enjoy a home-cooked meal or a glass of lemonade. I crossed that street to borrow a cup of sugar. (I swear it’s true.) I crossed that street to borrow a magic snow shovel. (I swear that’s true, too.)
When I crossed that street, more often than not, I came home with more than I’d arrived with, be it fresh-picked tomatoes, a cute scented candle, or a new wish to have such a bright mind, such mischievous eyes, such a smile, such a positive attitude — or such a well-kept house! — when I am in my 90s.
I crossed that street to say good-bye to Win before he passed, four years ago. And I crossed that street on Monday, after Flo’s funeral, to spend time with her family.
For the past few nights, as I’ve turned out the lights and walked through my house on the way to bed, I’ve lingered a moment at my dining room window (half hopeful, half cynical, and wholly embarrassed to admit it) to see if any lights blinked on and off across the street.
No. They didn’t.
Last night again, I was standing at the window. It was midnight. There were no blinking lights inside the house across the street.
But, above that house? Well.
I saw a flash. And another. And another. It took me a moment to realize I was seeing lightning from a distant storm.
There wasn’t a sound. No thunder, no rain, no wind. The lightning wasn’t in jagged streaks and electric, sparking forks. It was within the clouds, lighting things up from the inside out.
This was not a typical storm. I’ve never seen anything like it. Like fluffy, monotone fireworks. Like fireflies in a jar of cotton balls. Like flickering streetlamps lost in a swirling fog. Like flash bulbs going off underwater, snapping black and white photos of a wild and fantastical sea. Bright-as-day clouds billowing behind pitch-black silhouetted clouds. Appearing. Disappearing. Reappearing. On and off, again and again. And, just when you’d think it was over, again and again and again.
I stood there for an hour — jaw-dropped, teary-eyed, goofy-grinned, and goose-bumped.
This was not lightning striking. This was lightning laughing. This was lightning dancing. This was a midnight party.
This was a celebration in the heavens.
Good-night, Flo. And thanks for everything.
June 19, 2014 at 3:09 am
When iPods first came out, I did want one. However, as the current or former owner of two portable record players, three transistor radios, approximately seven different clock radios, two boom boxes, a stereo (with tuner, turntable, cassette player, CD player, then dual cassette player, then five-disc CD player), a Walkman, three different portable cassette players, a portable CD player, a CD player-radio that hangs on the wall, a TV cable package with stations that play uninterrupted music, and two computers able to operate iTunes — not to mention a piano, a harmonica, an accordion, and a decent singing voice — I wasn’t exactly camping out or breaking open the piggy bank to be among the first to own one.
In fact, I only got an iPod Shuffle about five years ago. Thanks to Apple’s annoying habit of updating iTunes so often that sorting out which computers had which music and which version to sync with, it was actually 2013 before I had an iPod — with music on it.
I used it exactly once. And forgot to turn it off.
So, the next time I went to use it, a couple of months back, it would not play. I read the instruction booklet and realized I needed to charge it using the USB cable that it came with. Hmmm. I checked the box it came in. I searched the drawer where the box was stored. I searched the rest of my home office. I searched other rooms and other drawers and even dragged from the living room closet the big, bad basket of tangled, writhing, Indiana-Jones-awaiting, possibly-useful-but-unlabeled gadget cables.
I did not find it. I could not think of where else it might be.
To be fair, my thinking is done with a brain old enough to have bounced in my skull as I danced in the backyard with my little sister and a transistor radio playing that cool, new hit single, Benny and the Jets. My memory being what it is, I couldn’t be sure enough to call Apple and say it hadn’t come with one; I couldn’t be sure enough that it had come with one to justify additional searching. Feeling a bit despondent about the charger — and my mental faculties — I gave up.
After stumbling over the big basket of miscellaneous cables for a couple of months, I decided to sort out all of The Things that creep and crowd into the living room closet when I’m not looking. (And the things I cram in there when company is coming.)
As any one who has owned a home for more than two years knows, efficient, effective clean up is all about moving your stuff from one place to another. And, so, I decided to move all board games from the closet onto some living room book shelves. (Think of it as a game of Blockhead and Jenga and Old Maid cussing.) Among the stacking and fitting of various (why the hell can’t the board game people decide on a standard size?) boxes, there was a card box. Just a little wooden box, decoupaged by my Mom back in the Elton John days, to hold a deck of playing cards. The last time I recall opening the box was when I placed an un-used, souvenir deck into it and closed the lid, probably eight years ago or so.
I truly do not know what compelled me to open the box. Sentimentality? A Pandoric curiosity? Some not-dead-only-sleeping brain cell? Who knows. But, I opened it, and, lo and behold, it held: a deck of cards. And the iPod Shuffle charger!
How in the heck did it get there? I’ve had no Eureka moment, no recollection, no memory. Nor can I think of one reason why, on any given day, in any situation, I would have considered a deck of cards as the right spot for part of my Shuffle.
Today’s life preserver is: The giggle-inducing discovery of an unintended pun.
June 5, 2014 at 6:29 pm
Life Preservers 
I Got a Charge Out of It
When iPods first came out, I did want one. However, as the current or former owner of two portable record players, three transistor radios, approximately seven different clock radios, two boom boxes, a stereo (with tuner, turntable, cassette player, CD player, then dual cassette player, then five-disc CD player), a Walkman, three different portable cassette players, a portable CD player, a CD player-radio that hangs on the wall, a TV cable package with stations that play uninterrupted music, and two computers able to operate iTunes — not to mention a piano, a harmonica, an accordion, and a decent singing voice — I wasn’t exactly camping out or breaking open the piggy bank to be among the first to own one.
In fact, I only got an iPod Shuffle about five years ago. Thanks to Apple’s annoying habit of updating iTunes so often that sorting out which computers had which music and which version to sync with, it was actually 2013 before I had an iPod — with music on it.
I used it exactly once. And forgot to turn it off.
So, the next time I went to use it, a couple of months back, it would not play. I read the instruction booklet and realized I needed to charge it using the USB cable that it came with. Hmmm. I checked the box it came in. I searched the drawer where the box was stored. I searched the rest of my home office. I searched other rooms and other drawers and even dragged from the living room closet the big, bad basket of tangled, writhing, Indiana-Jones-awaiting, possibly-useful-but-unlabeled gadget cables.
I did not find it. I could not think of where else it might be.
To be fair, my thinking is done with a brain old enough to have bounced in my skull as I danced in the backyard with my little sister and a transistor radio playing that cool, new hit single, Benny and the Jets. My memory being what it is, I couldn’t be sure enough to call Apple and say it hadn’t come with one; I couldn’t be sure enough that it had come with one to justify additional searching. Feeling a bit despondent about the charger — and my mental faculties — I gave up.
After stumbling over the big basket of miscellaneous cables for a couple of months, I decided to sort out all of The Things that creep and crowd into the living room closet when I’m not looking. (And the things I cram in there when company is coming.)
As any one who has owned a home for more than two years knows, efficient, effective clean up is all about moving your stuff from one place to another. And, so, I decided to move all board games from the closet onto some living room book shelves. (Think of it as a game of Blockhead and Jenga and Old Maid cussing.) Among the stacking and fitting of various (why the hell can’t the board game people decide on a standard size?) boxes, there was a card box. Just a little wooden box, decoupaged by my Mom back in the Elton John days, to hold a deck of playing cards. The last time I recall opening the box was when I placed an un-used, souvenir deck into it and closed the lid, probably eight years ago or so.
I truly do not know what compelled me to open the box. Sentimentality? A Pandoric curiosity? Some not-dead-only-sleeping brain cell? Who knows. But, I opened it, and, lo and behold, it held: a deck of cards. And the iPod Shuffle charger!
How in the heck did it get there? I’ve had no Eureka moment, no recollection, no memory. Nor can I think of one reason why, on any given day, in any situation, I would have considered a deck of cards as the right spot for part of my Shuffle.
Today’s life preserver is: The giggle-inducing discovery of an unintended pun.
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June 5, 2014 at 6:29 pm Leave a comment