Quiet in the Roadhouse

Yes, not too much is going on here tonight. A few people sipping tea, a couple of others with a cola, a pair of cute polar bear cubs tossing back some salmom . . . and an angel of two just sitting and relaxing. Friday (our dog, remember) is stretched out on the plank floor under my leg which rests upon the neighboring chair rung. I can feel his fur soft on my skin. And I guess he feels me.

We still have to do our nightly call checks on a couple of folks, make certain they are tucked in all safe – especially Sarah who pretty much drives us crazy . . . especially when she goes down in the bunker and hears water dripping. She can’t hear anything else too well, but let one drop drip and she’s on alert. In which case she grabs a flashlight and comes to report, her face leaning down close to yours. Just like this Christmas Eve . . . “I think there’s a pinpoint leak in the bunker . . . ”

And now that we’re thinking of her, we are also remembering she always checks her tires before she get cleaned up to go anywhere. Might have a flat, dontcha know. We’d call Sarah on the old Candlestick brass phone because we know she hates its tinny sound and we like to hold the receiver to our ear while we wrap the other hand around the upright part and lift the speaker cone to our lips, but Sprint to Sprint is free.

So it’s speed dial time . . . #6.

Sometimes it can almost be

There are times when I work and sweat and trigger good little endorphins and when the light of the fading day is cheerful, making me look forward to the next morning’s dawn . . . Heck, maybe it’s the barometric pressure. But anyway, there are times when I can think maybe that most wonderful thing will happen. I delay talking sense to myself because for those few moments of delicious hope and great cheer, I feel so very good. And I am so happy that tears come to my eyes . . . and then I can tell myself, AmeliaJake, that won’t be . . . because those tears in my eyes can also carry away the stress hormones of sadness. So it is an ache, and for a little while, not a bring-you-to-your-knees pain.

Half a long day . . .

About three and a half decades ago, when Robert William was little and at my parents’, the sun started moving far enough to the south that it set over the end of the old store building and just as that happened, my father turned to Robert William and said, “Good bye, Mr. Sun.” My mother told me that yesterday.

Today Robert had surgery on his leg again. Necrotic bone around the break/shatter site. Three months of no weight on the leg and keeping it elevated. Right now the ice machine is running cool water through the cast. A year before he is walking.

He was in a lot of pain. So we gave him medicine and he is feeling better for awhile.