It is gloomy here – no sunlight at all, just an overcast sky without any variations in the gray. So, is my mother sleeping in or is she up and around, all coffee-fied with wood in the stove and the crossword in her hands? I don’t know. Should I call now or later. This would be what Quentin would refer to as the morning death call. Yes, I know, horrible, isn’t it.  And, of course, there is the night death call. He was still a teenager when he first used the phrase. Now, if the topic comes up, it is “the . . . call” – but we know it’s the death call. I guess when she was in her early 70’s and really robust, it was kind of a Saturday Night Live thing. Now, she’s in her 80’s, tires easier, is afraid of strokes and Alzheimers and, well, it’s not obviously as much of a joke.  Even I, when she doesn’t answer for a few times in a row, start gathering my car keys and wondering about calling someone working nearby. Then she answers and says, “I was out chopping wood or rebuilding the garage door . . . something like that.

Okay, I’m calling.

Picked up on about the fifth ring – said she was signing her name on a check and finished that. Okay. This did not bode well; I figured she was going to say she was paying her health insurance and that would have triggered a long oft-heard speech on how she doesn’t take medicine, go to doctors or intend to go to a hospital. Pays in all this money and illegals are getting free care at the ER – except she’s the one paying for part of their care. Yes, she has a point . . . like a bulldog with an indestructible bone.

My mother has “moods” – often.  I suppose to her I have “whatevers”.

Well . . . whatever.