Little bugs, band-aids and bless you
Discombobulated this morning. I got plenty of sleep, as I knew I wanted to wake early and get ‘my’ washing machines here at the laundromat.
Success!
I was in motion, coffee was brewing then … a strange noise. Butters and I both stilled and cocked our heads wondering what the clatter was outside – grackles on the roof again.
Back in motion.
Decided to do 1/2 my bedding as I wasn’t feeling strong enough to carry two laundry baskets plus a quilt and pillow cases and sheets … I know I’m going to regret that when I get home.
I’ll wish the quilt was done too.
I arrive and my laundry lady starts chatting as I wait for her to give me a laundry card.
She pointed out a man in a hat, describing him as ‘the weird guy in the hat’. I followed her gaze to discover she was talking about my glaucoma guy.
Isn’t that odd.
Our perceptions of people and how they vary depending on our personal interactions with them.
I got an update from him about his eyes … he’s getting tired of the drops he’s putting in every day and wondering about marijuana cookies.
By then, another older gentleman joined the conversation and my glaucoma man turned into cataract man right before my eyes. (no pun intended)
Seems he’s certain the cataract surgery has given him glaucoma. The newest member of the conversation assured him that could not be the case.
All this as I’m typing and posting the guest edition before this post.
Then he left.
I looked up to see new eye-chat man studying something on the floor. It was a little tiny bug.
This really caught his attention – I mean … really. He got up, stood over it – and when his wife returned with her cart, pointed it out to her.
His wife just sneezed and he didn’t say ‘bless you’.
I mumbled it to her from my table.
Have they been together so long they don’t say ‘bless you’ anymore?
I hope I always say ‘bless you’. (I don’t think there’s much fear of that considering I’ll shout it to a perfect stranger from an aisle over when I’m at the grocery store.)
He’s been sitting holding a paper towel over a small cut on his elbow for sometime now …
I went and grabbed a band-aid from my laundry lady for him.
Now he can go back to focusing on any little bugs that might venture across the floor in front of him.
Musings from another Laundromat: Guest Writer Edition
A couple of Sunday’s ago I visited a local Laundromat to wash a quilt I had just finished.
It was a project I had been working on for nearly three years, which was destined to have a new home with my mother.
I love quilting. It’s a tradition deeply rooted in the past that can have immeasurable effects on the future, for generations, when people admire its beauty and enjoy its warmth.
While at the Laundromat, I passed the time by exchanging instant messages with my friend Amanda. We chatted mostly about feeling under the weather and the unpleasant midlife change we’re approaching. We started talking about a guest spot on her blog – musings from another Laundromat. During the conversation I made this comment…
Then I got to thinking, “do I really?” And that led to “do I spend too much time in the past?” When I think of the most interesting parts of my life, they almost always involve my 20’s. I toured North America performing at air shows in order to show citizens the capabilities of the Air Force’s F-16. I served in a war (which is associated with a long list of “interesting” moments).
Then I saw this post….
I mulled it over for days.
While I drove 14 hours to deliver my quilt I mulled it over some more. While I drove 14 hours home I mulled it to death. I came to the conclusion that I should really ignore the past, make some life changes, and have an interesting future.
When I got home a funny thing happened. You see, I have a Facebook page dedicated to the squadron I served in during Desert Shield/Storm.
For years it’s had about 30 members and doesn’t get much activity. A friend suggested that I expand it to include all our bases squadrons that served (we were all commingled during the war).
I did and something amazing happened. Membership doubled within hours.
Old friends were reminiscing and sharing stories, some that I had never heard before. I was flooded with THE PAST!
For days I reunited with people, heard about their new lives, and shared mine. It was great!
So great that I’ve decided I shouldn’t ignore the past at all. I should embrace it. I can’t be the only person who think their 20’s were the greatest years, right?
However, I do need to make some changes so I that I’ll have some good stories from this decade.
I’ve joined a gym. I’m shedding some pounds. My goal is to take a 17 mile hike to the top of mountain this summer. Sounds like a good story. Another piece of my “life quilt.”
And what is life? A crazy quilt;
Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt,
With here and there a square of blue
For some old happiness we knew;
And so the hand of time will take
The fragments of our lives and make,
Out of life’s remnants, as they fall,
A thing of beauty, after all.
-Douglas Malloch. From The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America
A letter to my mom
I get it.
After years of not understanding, I get it.
When my son fell in love – it was so painful, and all I wanted was it for to be the RIGHT person.
This past Christmas, you gave me a card that read:
‘Daughter, Even though you’re all grown up, there’s a part of me that wishes I could give you want you want most at Christmas. But I know it’s not as simple as a doll or bicycle anymore. You have hopes and dreams of your own – things I’m sure you carry in your heart with the word ‘someday’. And though I can’t give you those things myself, I hold them in my heart too. And I’m always hoping you’ll have whatever makes you feel happy, fulfilled, and loved.. Because that’s exactly what you deserve.”
I cried reading it.
You put a lot of attention into cards. I know this because it’s how we’ve always been. I keep EVERY SINGLE CARD!
It takes me forever in the card aisle – I’m bawling or laughing and spending way too much time.
Let’s cut this to the chase.
Mom.
I’ve cried wolf a bunch of times.
Every time I’ve said “I’m in love” I know you’ve cringed.
I know it because internally, I was cringing too.
I, for a while, was in love with the idea of being in love.
You knew it.
I knew it.
We played that game.
But I grew.
And I finally fell in love with myself – and became a great mom in the process.
There was one person I could not get out of my head.
James.
Never.
Never did he leave my thoughts.
We had everything in common but I was young and dumb. (As you know.)
I had countries to explore, mistakes to make – relationships to one day compare ours to.
You’re the mom who will bury someone who hurts me up to their head in sand and plant honey and ants around them. lol.
He will never hurt me.
I guess what I need you to know is, I fell in love with an old best friend.
And I finally found someone who I know my son loves.
Your grandson.
And knowing how much you love him is important to me.
He loves you that much back.
You were a second mom to him – and we couldn’t have made it without you. At all.
Coming home from work, and you rocking him to sleep to that Irish lullaby – priceless.
And I thank you.
And I love you.
And I appreciate you.
And I adore you.
I think of our time in England, when you did everything you could – made me dresses, saved up for birthday dolls – and struggled – and I love you SO much for all of that.
So I hope you’ll believe with my clear and understanding and appreciative eyes, that I now know what love is.
Finally.
And no, he’s not a doctor or a lawyer. lol.
He is the man I truly love.
Always have.
And I know you’ll appreciate that.
He’s an artist.
Like you.
And he’s funny. And beautiful. And tough. And does what it takes to make it.
I respect that.
I can’t love someone I don’t respect.
But you’re just like him. An artist, and funny, and beautiful. And tough. And have always done what it takes to make it.
We made it.
And your card came true.
I love you mom. x
us
I find it funny how our memories differ,
I reacall cartoons –
while you remember Italy.
I always cherished what we had.
Not knowing what we had.
And today we have it all.
Before us.
And past us.
And locked in inegrating memories.
A whole story before us.
A story ahead – that no one else has heard.
Musings from the Laundromat: Forgotten Coffee & Allergic Dogs edition
45 & 47. Those are the washing machines I bravely claimed after asking “Is someone using this one do you know?” of a table of strangers. MY OCD be damned – there would have to be a machine interrupting the numerical flow.
This morning was the second in a row of me waking and being so relieved to realize I could not only hit my snooze button, but go back to sleep again.
And I did find sleep once more, giving me long enough to have a disturbing dream. I woke an hour and a half later, remembering that I certainly did NOT want to miss out on a good seat and good machines.
I leaped into action! Started a pot of coffee, let Butters out – (who, had decided since the first bleat of my alarm, that there were many, many things close to my bed that resembled drums when thumped with her tail), gathered all household laundry, brushed my teeth, ran a brush through my hair and tossed on some clothes.
I then proceeded to forget my coffee inside three times.
I had been up for 10 minutes, bleary eyed and in that ‘late to school!’ mode.
The neighbors dog decided my laundry baskets, plonked down outside of my gate, were intruders. Barking madly as I went back in the third time to grab my coffee.
Everything finally in the car – and off I went. Still half asleep.
There were only two cars in front of the laundromat, relief washed over me again. (No pun intended.)
This place is much like a Tardis though – the outside does not lend an accurate picture of the inside.
Inside I was met by more people than expected. And my favorite machines almost all taken.
Thus the dilemma of having to use 45 & 47.
#46 had a lavender basket atop of it, like a quarter on a pinball machine. The strangers at the table weren’t sure if the two either side of that one were ‘taken’ – and while I’d usually back away and find another machine out of respect, this week I was staking my claim.
Rewind.
As tired as I am, as I waddled unevenly with two baskets of laundry and balancing my pouting coffee on one finger, (it was still a little upset I forgot it three times) I noticed a sign on the door.
“Absolutely no dogs allowed inside without medical identification!”
Now, obviously I knew what they meant, but I was hit with an image of some random pup walking in sporting a shiny tag stating its medical condition.
Laundry person: “You! You there … dog! You can’t come in!”
Dog: “It’s ok, I have allergies.”
I was still amused by this as I leaned against the counter waiting for my turn with the laundry lady.
Her: “Fresh pot of coffee just made!”
Me: “Thank gawd!”
Her: “I think that old man is mad at me. He keeps looking over because I have blankets in the industrial dryers.”
Me: “Well, he keeps cutting his eyes at you, you come get me.
Her: (laughs) “Ok.”
I adore her. She’s always so nice. I remember when she had to find a new place to live and was exhausted from moving – but still had a smile on her face. I love that she has been part of my Sunday mornings for over 4 years.
I put what I can in her tip jar, which I’m pretty sure is meant for the customers who take advantage of the full service laundry that they offer. But I like to show my appreciation anyway.
Isn’t it odd, that she is a part of my routine … my life, and so many others I’m sure. I want her to know it. To feel special and to know I’m grateful.
And as I glance up, I can see her folding someone elses laundry, while scanning the room to be sure everything is running as smoothly as the seams she irons – and I’m feeling a litte silly for being ruffled over having to use two machines that did not sit side by side.
As my boyfriend said this morning on my Facebook (accompanied by one of his old school photos lol) – I’m the luckiest girl ever.
And I am.
Everything that should truly matter, matters to me. I’m grateful for everything I have and everything I don’t.
And really glad Butters doesn’t have allergies.
Debauchery Soup 