Saturday, January 2, 2010

Out and About

So cold. But you know, you can't just stay home because it's cold. Shabbas ends early, around 5:15, so there are parties and shiva houses, and of course, there are my parents who wouldn't mind a visit.

We take our time, putter around cleaning up dishes, putting things away, and the other doc runs off to see a patient in the hospital. It is a patient who has no insurance, who has no money, who has no resources, either. He will spend the next few days unraveling her mystery, and I'll listen to the upshot, because frankly, other people's troubles, don't sound so bad, somehow. Something about degrees of separation.

I hear him honk lightly and face the chill, for that's all it is, really. There's no snow left on the sidewalks, for people have shoveled (the good people have shoveled, the bad ones have not). First stop is my parents' house.

They're happy to see us, both still dressed (it's awful when people are in their robes in the early evening, she writes, in her bathrobe). They look good, smiley, happy he's back from the hospital and has resigned himself to the limitations of having a nondisplaced fracture. He walks with a walker and uses the raised toilet seat. The visiting nurse is God, and they will listen and obey.

No more falls, no more trouble, he'll have PT and OT and it is all good.

We talk about Florida. I say, "Maybe next year. Wouldn't that be great?"
My mother looks at me. "Who are you appeasing?"
I guess not. No Florida, not next year, not unless an angel appears who will take care of them there. They're self-sufficient, if you call leaving the house for a full hour on a given day to get to the fruit store or the beauty parlor self-sufficient.

We make plans for Monday's dialysis. One of us will be there to help him into the car. I'll take the morning, the doc will get free for the return home in the afternoon. He'll get to see the garage, how I've moved things around to make room for the car, the fishing poles, the golf clubs, the gardening gear, the plumbing supplies, and he'll wonder what I threw out.
Flying Bubbie, grounded

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