Suebob's Red Stapler

Back story: I answer my phone with my name because my phone number once belonged to Jim Schwartz, a guy who does some kind of financial thingy. For the first year I had the phone number, I got at least a dozen calls per week for Jim.

After blocking hundreds of numbers and explaining the finer points of the Telecommunications Privacy Act to a bunch of people (“It doesn’t matter if you are a vendor. You STILL need to comply!”), I’m down to about one call per week for Jim, but I still answer the phone that way for unknown numbers just in case.

Today the phone rang.

Suebob: Hi, this is Sue Davis.
Unknown dude: Nuh uh
Suebob: Pardon? THIS IS SUE DAVIS.
Dude: Silence.
Suebob: Silence.
Dude: HELLO?
Suebob: Yes?
Dude: Davis???? Where’s Michelle?
Suebob: You have the wrong number.
This is the part I love.
Dude: No, I doubt it.
Suebob: Yes, goodbye.

Reader, he waited about 15 minutes and called BACK.

To give the callers for Jim Schwartz credit, once I explained that I was not Jim Schwartz, none of them ever said “No, I doubt it.”

So remember my last post when I talked about mom having a crush on a guy at her board and care home? A much younger guy?

Well, now there’s intrigue. When I visited Thursday, she told me that “that young one” (another lady at the home, Laurene, who is in her 70s — so a young floozy in my mom’s eyes) and her guy, Ron, are flirting with each other.

Mom made a little face where she pursed her lips and waggled her head disapprovingly. She thinks Ron and Laurene are fooling around with other. Both are married. The facts are that Laurene’s devoted husband visits almost daily. Ron is just charming to every person he speaks to.

It’s an unvarnished look at how we make up stories in our heads. This isn’t real. Mom’s age, cognitive and memory issues make it glaringly obvious.

But how much of my life is exactly like this? Most of it, probably. The filters in my brain create the world I see – whether people are kind or mean or helpful or stupid.

I think this is the reality behind what trite books like “The Secret” are trying to get at when they say “You create your reality.”

It’s not that thinking about a red bicycle will make a red bicycle appear on your porch, and that thinking about cancer will give you cancer.

It’s that you can look at every situation and every person in a multitude of ways, and those perceptions are up to you. You may wake up and say “This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife,” like the Talking Heads song says. Or you may wake up and say “This life is so amazing and beautiful and I love my home and my wife.”

I often look at the world, especially when it seems ugly, and think “Wow, all of this is a product of choices.”

Now I’m thinking that even my choice to see it as ugly is the more important choice. What’s out there? It depends on what is inside.

My mom’s old helper, whom I will call Anita, called tonight.

This was remarkable because Anita left about 3 years ago for an 8-week temp job in another state and had never returned.

Despite the fact that she and my mother were very close – she often told me how much she loved my mom, and they spent their time together yakking and laughing like schoolgirls – Anita never called. Never sent a postcard. Nothing. Mom was heartbroken.

I texted her. I called and left voice messages. I sent Facebook messages. I begged. I told her how mom asked about her every day, how sad Mom was, how she asked “What have I done to make her hate me?”

Nothing. Not a word.

Mom’s helper after Anita was Anita’s niece.

So when the phone rang at mom’s and I didn’t recognize the number, I expected a telemarketer. I answered tentatively.

When I realized who it was, I put her on speaker and handed the phone to mom. “Hi gorgeous!” Anita said. “It’s me, Anita!”

“Who?” Mom said.

Anita tried to explain who she was. Mom didn’t remember.

“Did you come in the afternoons? Rose, is that you?”

“No, it’s Anita, Anita, remember?”

“I’m sorry, honey, there were a lot of people and I’m sure you were one of them, but I just don’t know.”

When I took the phone back from mom and walked out into the hall, Anita was sobbing.

“I love her so much and she doesn’t remember me!” Anita said. She was bawling hard.

“Well, she’s having a hard day, and her memory isn’t what it used to be,” I said, holding myself back.

“I was gone and then I lost her number…” she cried.

She lost her number. Her NIECE was mom’s caretaker.

“Ok, then, goodbye,” I said. I was short with her because that was the best I could do.

I thought about yelling at her, telling her how much she hurt mom. But she knows. What good would it do? I hope never to see her again.

I’m just writing this down to remind myself of this lesson. Make the phone calls. Write the letters. Stop by and visit. Sooner than later. Sooner than too late.

Remember back in November when I thought Mom was dying? Ha. Six months later and she is still alive, alert and enjoying lemon meringue pie.

In January, we moved her to a truly lovely home with 5 residents. It’s in Montecito, so she’s Oprah’s neighbor.

The place is run by two Polish people. There’s a woman my mom calls “Doris” or “Dorothy” because she can’t remember her Polish name. She is former nurse who loves to decorate for holidays and keeps every surface in the home shining clean.

And then there’s the man. He’s one of the most caring people I have ever met. Maybe 45 years old, strong, stocky, with a cute accent. He calls the ladies “Darling” and “Sweetheart” and makes little jokes with them as he takes them to the restroom, makes their beds, wipes their chins.

Last time I was there, Mom leaned over, eyes gleaming. “I have fallen in love with that guy!” she said with surprise in her voice. “I just did!”

I glanced from my mom, 92 years old, in her wheelchair with her catheter bag, back hunched – over to him.

“Ok,” I said. “Just don’t let his wife find out.”

As I walked the dog around the high school area tonight, choir practice was getting out. It was about 9 pm.

After almost everyone was gone, one girl remained. She stood near the lit-up statue in front of the school.

She had long, straight hair and artsy glasses with chunky sienna-colored frames. She held her phone in her hand. I could tell from the way her shoulders were hunched that she wasn’t happy waiting by herself.

I let Abbie mosey around the lawn on her long leash. We made one lap. Two. We went over and sat on a bench for a bit. We moseyed some more.

I didn’t say anything to her.

I saw a car pull up and her shoulders dropped. She ran to the car.

Abbie and I began to walk away and the girl’s dad drove her off.

She doesn’t know me and I don’t know her, and I don’t think I ever will. I just want parents to know that some people are watching your kids and they’re not all bad people. Some of us are looking out.

When my dad first died, of course I worried about my mom. They had been married over 60 years.

She was sad, of course, but nowhere near as devastated as I had feared. Some parts of her new life gave her great joy, and none more than having 100% control of the TV remote.

As a faithful wife of the Greatest Generation, my mom had never for a moment inconvenienced my father by watching any shows he didn’t want to watch. She sat through endless years of endless seasons of baseball and football, never complaining, standing by her man.

With him gone, mom was free to explore 256 channels of cable fun, and she found what she truly loved fairly quickly.

My mom loved the Kardashians.

She watched every dang Kardashian show she could rest her eyes on, sometimes the same episodes over and over.

The problems were two: she wanted to share her newfound love for the K’s, and she has a terrible memory for names.

Cue me perched in a recliner chair, trying to muster up an interested face while my mom recounted what had happened on last night’s episode.

“The one, you know, the one who married that basketball guy, she came in and just ignored that other one, and the mother didn’t like that but she had to leave with that guy, is he her husband or I don’t know, I don’t think he’s the father of all those girls…”

That’s my problem in life folks. I just can’t keep up with the Kardashians.

I haven’t been to the gym in a while. I mean, a long while. Since I last went, babies have been conceived and born and have begun walking. I keep my membership for 2 reasons: blind hope I may someday get my butt over there and the fact that my work reimburses me for my membership.

I recently changed credit card numbers, due to fradulent activity on my account. The gym called and left 2 messages for me to update my information. Two messages in two hours.

I called back and gave the woman, Shelly, my info. She was very nice and friendly. She told me she noticed I hadn’t been in in a while and wanted to give me the option – if I needed it – to freeze my account. I wouldn’t be able to use the gym, and they would just charge me $10 per month.

I said “Shelly, I feel like the only time you ever call me is when you need to…”

“To talk about billing!” she said sympathetically.

“Yes,” I answered. And it makes me feel like no one cares about my health. Would you or someone call me once a week to remind me to come in and work out?”

This was my April Fools joke. I was waiting for her to sputter in shock at my audacity.

“Sure, I’d be glad to!” she chirped.

Joke was on me! “Oh, Shelly, you’re too kind. I was just messing with you because it is April Fools.”

“Well, when you said it, I thought, wow, there are a lot of times I wish someone would call and check up on me, so I said yes.”

“Have a good day, Shelly.”

“Ok, hope to see you soon!”

There ARE nice people in the world.

The grocery store closest to my house is a little neighborhood market run by Syrians. I love it. Not only can I get a quart of milk, but some labneh, a giant jar of tahini, and a chunk of sheep’s milk feta.

Last night when I went in, I noticed the ice cream freezers near the cash register (these people have the impulse buy thing figured OUT) were completely empty.

“Someone got hungry for ice cream?” I joked with the cashier.

“A lady get really hungry for ice cream,” she said. “She drove in store.”

I thought the language barrier was causing confusion.

“What?”

“Her car, she drove in store.” She pointed to the front doors, which were boarded up.

“WHAAAAT HAPPENED?”

“She get confused, she hit gas instead of brake, she drive in store, smash ice cream.”

“Was everyone ok?”

“Yes, only cashier was here, she was in back of store thanks God.”

“Was she drunk?”

Shrug.

“Her car come all the way in store, then she make a right and end up in front of milk.”

And that, my friends, is why the market has no ice cream. The most exciting thing to happen around here all weekend.

After 20 years of doing my laundry at home, I found myself, with the move 2 years ago, being forced to use a laundromat once again.

(huge sigh)

It’s not like I don’t enjoy shelling out $50 per month to wash my clothes in machines reeking of Downy Ultra Infusions (damn them to hell!). Ok, it is exactly like that. But at least I have the best laundromat in town right across the street.

I tend to go early in the morning, with the other very responsible and tidy-type people. I mean early like 6:30 on a Saturday morning. I’m always shocked when there are people there almost done with their laundry by the time I get there.

One day I was bumbling around with my cart blocking the aisle, and I could FEEL someone be impatient with me.

This Asian guy with a long ponytail was standing there, fully disgusted with my disorganization that was causing him to have to wheel his cart all the way around a row of washers because he was sick of waiting on me to notice him.

I felt bad, and also mad. Why didn’t he just SAY something? Jerk.

About 10 minutes passed, and the guy came up to me. He handed me a warm cinnamon roll in a square of waxed paper.

“This,” he said, “Is for you. My name is Kainoa.”

Kainoa had realized he was being a bit of a jerk. And he had taken steps to mitigate that. He brought me the most delicious cinnamon bun from the bakery down the way.

We started talking. He and his wife always did laundry there. They were Hawaiian.

Kainoa took the extraordinary step of turning a regular stupid bad interaction into something good, and we became happy acquaintances. I always say hi to him, he always says hi to me.

That’s how it should be.

So this morning, Christmas morning, I was delighted to see that Kainoa’s van was the only car in the laundromat parking lot when I was walking the dog at 6:08 a.m.

I stuck my head in the door and began to sing.

“Mele kalikimaka is the Hawaiian way to say Merry Christmas, a very merry Christmas to yoouuuuuu.”

Kainoa laughed and gave me a two-handed Shaka and said “Aloha!”

Pretty great way to begin your Christmas day.

Mele Kalikimaka.

Things have been so weird here. Our town was partly destroyed by fire. We were under a blanket of heavy smoke for 2 weeks. Schools have been closed since December 5 and will remain closed until January 7 (I KNOW, RIGHT, PARENTS! THE HORROR).

Parks and parking lots are closed due to fire or to being used as staging areas for fire personnel and electric company trucks. Whole neighborhoods are closed by checkpoints except to residents to keep looky-loos and looters at bay.

I don’t even know what to expect anymore. So when I drove by a local park one night and found it fenced off, I thought it must have something to do with the fire. It was a dark night already, but the cloud of smoke in the sky made the blackness extra impermeable.

I glanced over and saw shadowy figures gathered in circles in the park. I looked closer. There were no lights, no motion. Just these circles in the dark. I thought “Are those firefighters? Are they praying or what?”

I went by a couple times on different nights. The shadows, eerily, were always there.

Today I drove by in the light.

In case you’re out and about, Plaza Park has lovely displays of Christmas trees. In circles. Maybe they’re praying.