Quick, quick, slow

Finally. It's lunchtime. My stomach had spent the entire morning splashing around in lukewarm coffee, preparing for this moment: when I would open the refrigerator and extract something delicious to fill its growling hollow.

This has been our habit since as far back as I remember … so far back, perhaps, that the phrase intermittent fasting might have been known as the less celebratory phenomena of binge eating. 

No matter. Time and repetition have convinced my body to feel ravenously hungry at noons and threes. 

Alas! My stomach turns as I fling the door wide and stare blankly into the harsh light of the Frigidaire. The leftovers have been leftover too long.

I open containers one by one and dump their contents into the trash. There is formality if not ceremony to this weekly ritual.

"Goodbye Thursday of last week. Pasta usually gets better with age, but not spaghetti so old its angel hair grows coarse and green.

So-long, Friday. Fish that smells like it's gone long past the time to cut bait.

Farewell, plastic-wrapped thing that I don't have the gumption to unravel. It may still be good, but the chance that it's gross has better odds. I won't take that wager.

The dog looks at me with Puss in Boots' eyes: big and round and saucer-y ... ready to spill liquid emotion all over the floor.

How could I, in good conscience, feed all this slightly furry food to the bin when she's right there … salivating to recycle our food waste?

I do not waiver. In as much as I won't bet the farm on how far my iron stomach has oxidized, I would likely win the gamble were I to give in, the subsequent liquid spilling forth on the carpet wouldn't be emotive as much as an emetic. 

I slip her a biscuit or five. Atoning for the lack of equality we humans have with our resident canines. How patently unfair it must be to watch your hoooomans casually stuff their faces at will. Even the felines have figured out how to thwart the hinged lids on the food bins and gorge on the kibble inside. They are not afraid to tip the thing over and eat to their heart's content. Dogo cares what I think of her. If the cats have any cares about feelings, they are looking inward. 

My stomach still mewls. 

There must be something I can eat: a slice of bread toasted and slathered in butter; a bowl of doughnut-shaped oats swimming in milk; a banana, still firm and unspotted. 

Why does the food not make itself?

Maybe I'll just have some crackers and cheese ... that is if the little mice children haven't already eaten through them. I'll know by the empty saltines sleeve hanging from the weightless package in the cupboard, and the tell-tale discoloration on the block of cheddar left in the drawer, unwrapped. 

We do not live by crumbs alone.

No. On days like these, we live on ice cream.

Gummy-edge, freezer-burned vanilla … and a tiny ribbon of chocolate lining the seam of the carton where it had once known the touch of strawberry.

I hope there's still antibacterial cream left for when I require unguents for the knuckle graze I get from planning (unwisely) to lift a full box.

Whiling away the kilowatt hours

"Are you sure?"

I was.

"I can't talk you out of it?"

He couldn't.

There was nothing he could do but hover anyway. He'd offer scads of well-meant advice that I would tiptoe around like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Things might break.

One collision away from catastrophe.

It wouldn't end well for either of us if he stayed. This was just one of those times misery doesn't love company.

So I kicked him out of the house. I watched him pack a bag with all of his cold-weather gear, his skis, and helmet and told him "Don't let the door hit you on the way out," with all the warmth and concern I could muster.

The annual ski weekend with the guys was finally happening, nearly three years after its pandemic-forced hiatus, and l didn't want him to miss it again.

Especially if missing it meant he'd have to bob along as I weathered the irregular waves of grief.

I've got lots of experience with sadness. It's like watching the ocean roll in on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday in summer. Even if I turn my back on the sea I know it's unlikely to overwhelm me.

You can only steady yourself. Focus on the sand escaping beneath the soles of your feet and dig in.

I would just breathe. And sleep. And do all the things I'd written down on my list as slowly as I could force myself to go.

I would take all the time I needed starting the moment his car left the driveway.

Which, as luck would have it, was the exact moment my daughter emerged from her room to declare that not only was the temperature sub-arctic but the water coming from the showerhead was only slightly more fluid than icicles.

I checked the thermostat and realized something had to be wrong: the digits claimed the living room was 57 degrees.

So I ran downstairs to the furnace to see what it had to say.

The readout said nothing but the water streaming out from the seams of its casing spoke volumes.

I called his cell phone.

"Hey there. Everything ok?"

In the four minutes he'd been gone he'd somehow made it all the way to Massachusetts, and was currently a rest stop or two away from his destination in Maine.

"Yeah. It's just the heat isn't working and the furnace is leaking. I think I'm going to have to call for a repair."

I knew I'd have to humor him: I'd follow the pipes and turn valves off and on before he'd agree that there wasn't much more I could do.

And three visits from the repair dude between Thursday and Friday nights convinced him there wasn't much he could have done either, besides calling in favors, which he managed to arrange via voice text as his car cruised along 495. By midnight he had friends deliver up all their space heaters, which they line up in the garage nearest the woodpile.

The kids and I would keep the home fires burning (literally) until the furnace part could be procured in three or four business days.

It was surprisingly simple. The woodstove worked some whole house magic, while the tiny little space heaters took the edge of the chill near the plumbing.

We awoke each morning to a warm house. Warmer, in fact, than when its furnace was functional.

And each night the kids and I snuggled into the couch watching movie marathons. It seemed like the most comfortable camping trip ever. We roasted hotdogs and told stories until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. Contentment washed over me like a little flash of gold as I banked the fire in preparation for another night's sleep.

Turns out there's quite a bit of solace in knowing there's only so much you can do. And sometimes that's plenty.

You come too

In a darkened room, with Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" playing softly, my father took his last breaths. My sister and I were there, stroking his hands, kissing his forehead ... just the way he had once comforted us when we had nightmares or couldn't settle ourselves to sleep.

We knew he couldn't stay. We knew his body couldn't take much more of the fight his lungs had picked with his heart. Still, the end came as a surprise.

Two days before he died, we sat and talked for hours. He told all the stories that had played like the background music of my life. He talked about growing up in the 'Burgh with the Oakwood as his playground.

He brought me along just like he always had.

But for the first time, the Troy of his youth flickered before me like a movie on a screen. I saw Great Aunt Agnes as she steered big Buick onto their street, beeping all the way from 1st Avenue until she pulled up to the big, yellow house to pick up her young helper who would buy her pizza and quarts of beer at Gallow's store so she wouldn't have to get out of her car.

I pictured the old man in charge of the crematorium who let my dad watch him work. I heard the metal door in front of the furnace slide open and saw my dad's face – seventy years younger -- cringe as a ball of fire burst from the skull inside.

I could taste the wine Carmel Bell's grandfather gave him to drink with dinner when he was seven years old and how exotic that seemed to him -- the skinny little Irish boy down the street -- whom the neighbors always wanted to feed.

There was Huey Morgan at the gas station working magic on cars while Fix Fasoli talked smack. Sal Speciale, on a break from his vegetable truck, was taking his helpers to fill up on breakfast before spending the rest of the day delivering greens.

I patted the mane of Sam Jordan's ride. He was the route man for Freihoffer's, and his truck had literal horsepower. An automatic, that clip-clopped through the neighborhood following his man from one house to the next. Can you smell the fruitcake? It's still warm.

Oh, there's grandpa! He's out on rounds with his post bag and his pipe pointing toward home, smiling as he goes. He always identifies the people he's talking about by name and address. Sure, it was late at night, but Mr. Rothenhaber, 343 10th Avenue, had been waiting on this letter. It would be unkind not to take it to him directly. Mrs. Rothenhaber repaid the kindness with paper-sackfuls of vegetables she grew in her garden.

We won't have to wait much longer.

Oh, dad! There's Tommy holding your hand by the rail station downtown.

I can feel his hand slipping away.

Look, there's mom. Pushing you out the door when you showed up nervous for the first date, Christmas Eve, smelling all brined from the AOH. “You can't come in here. I don't understand it: My mother likes you and we should keep it that way.”

I can see where he's going. The lake.

He waves me on: Come into this memory. It's just a story to keep for the next time we meet ... perhaps lined up for one of Dennis' footraces. Den will give us a headstart but he always wins. 

My adrenaline is pumping as his fades. 

I see it so clearly. 

Look! Everyone's here ... I tell him. You come too.

Mission Improv-able

Time was of the essence.

My neighbor had found herself in a bit of a pickle. Having nearly reached her destination two states away, she realized she had left something of vital importance on her kitchen counter. She also realized she had left all of her extra house keys in the bottom of her handbag, which was on the passenger seat next to her.

To have to turn around now and come home, just to fulfill this necessary task, would totally submarine her plans for the remainder of the week.

Which is where I come in ... or so explains her voice on speakerphone in my car ... making me an offer I couldn't refuse.

"The mission, should you choose to accept it," said this neighbor in no-way-near-any-similar-verbiage, "involves breaking into my house .... and you might need a ladder.”

“Who's ladder a'we gonna take?” I wonder in my head.

"You know these transmissions are probably being recorded," said my son, who was also likely wishing he didn't have to go to the sports-ball practice I was carting him to so he could witness my comedic attempts at sanctioned felony instead.

"It's not a crime if the homeowner ASKS you to break in.”

"You know what I mean," he says as he grabs his gear and pulls himself out of the car. "I could help."

Of course, I know what such "help" entails.

He wants to "spot" me as I attempt to scale the exterior wall using an outdoor gate valve and an empty garden hose holder. He wants to "cheerlead" as I struggle to balance while using a piece of lumber that I've found in the garage as a rude tool to pry open the window. He will "commiserate" when the shim proves to be too wide to get between the upper and lower sashes.

He will "suggest" I try a stick of kindling from our carport, calling it a better fit, without lowering his phone camera or offering to find one for me.

Really, he just wants to record this caper - to preserve my posterior for posterity - as I slither through a window of a house that's not mine if I somehow, miraculously manage to find a way in. And then, he'd like to account for everything I might literally break that requires skilled labor to repair. 

"I don't need that kind of help," I yelled through the now-closed car door as he loped away. 

But ... I did need exactly that kind of help.

The window, it turns out, was locked.

As luck (and texting) would have it, a mutual friend turned up to lend a hand.

We circled the house, looking for other ways in. Finding none, we nearly gave up. Even calling our friend with the disappointing news. Walking across the lawn toward my house, though, I noticed a tiny gap between the sash and sill of a living room window. A little pressure from the tips of my fingers was all it took to slide the thing up. 

I screamed and ran around the front hoping to stop our mutual friend before she drove off. "We're in!”

A leg up and a plant stand on wheels were all that stood between us and the task at hand. 

Mutual friend, smiling, appeared at the now unlocked door holding up the rescued item and handing it off for the next step in the mission.

"When does the post office close?”

"Google says you have 17 minutes to complete this mission or the entire plot self-destructs!”

I know this is the easiest part. The agents at our local P.O. have mad skills for the delivery of special packages, even in a last-minute pinch. The self-destruct part happens when I have to debrief the boy after I collect him, a little late, from sports-ball.

Mind over matter

The world is pretty scary right now. The news of emerging and enduring threats surrounds us wherever we turn. Just thinking about it pins my shoulders to my ears most of the time. It's hard to turn off the noise.

I wish I could time travel. I'd go back to almost anywhere. Even the ghosts of past uncertainties seem quaintly comforting compared to the threat of current events.

 Opening my phone usually opens the floodgates to more heartbreak. It's hard to and tune out. So I force myself to scroll past the doom until I land on the last page on the screen.

I select my game.

Backgammon.

Somehow it manages to bring me back. ...

Back to a smoke-filled living room where I, and a half-dozen 20-something friends, killed time before venturing out for a night on the town. Back when we had part-time jobs and full-time plans.

I don't know what made me think of it or what made me search for digital versions of a game I hadn't played since college. Maybe it seemed familiar and safe, something that would test my brain but not tax it. 

But instead of snapping open a leatherette briefcase and lining up rows of black and white disks on alternating white- and brown-colored triangular flags, the computer did it for me.

Memory, it turns out, didn't serve.

Were it not for the automated array the setup would continue to elude me.

I must have lost a dozen games against the programmed opponent before any semblance of my former strategy returned.

I was grateful to be alone with such stunning defeats.

It was weeks before any urgent need to listen for the ringing of phone calls introduced me to the sounds of the game.

The music playing in the background sounded like a light Jazz riff going out for a little stroll. It made me feel as if Charlie Brown and Snoopy were standing behind me, watching as I planned my attack.

I was surprised by the gentle "click" of the tiles and not so jazzed by the horn that blows upon defeat.

The combinations feel familiar but I am rusty. A roll of five, two moves one piece from the top corner and covers the "six" slot in my home turf. Six, five moves one piece on top, halfway from right to left, but leaves another piece vulnerable to attack.

I prevail in fewer than half the games I play. But the matches are quick and certain. Skill and luck working with and against each other. 

I can't figure out a formula for my wins, but it doesn't stop me from picking myself back up after each losing streak.

The machine litters its backfield with uncovered pogs, then rolls a six and a one and edges steadily toward a lead while I struggle to keep up.

When I roll a six and a one during the next round, I split moves between the two pieces stacked in the farthest quadrant from home. My opponent takes them both and builds a wall of stacked pieces, which will keep me waiting on the rail until my computer nemesis has halfway gammoned off.

There is no way to win this one … but maybe my luck will change for the next one.