Fear of Winter. What a cold shock in the puss. We had to turn the heat on this morning. When I went outside to pick up the paper it was cold. Cold! I can’t stand it. I wish summer would go on forever. Reality is supposed to be a blessing, so I will get this sludge-bucket carcass moving – because it is time to MAKE PLANS. Making plans does not come to me naturally. Yet I will do it – make two lists. The first list, the easy one, is all the things that I can do at my sister Carolyn’s house – like painting the shed, and repairing the masonry wall – enough work to keep me busy for two months – and a really good value for her, because the work suits my talent. I will show her the list this evening and let her decide.
The second list will have too many branches – going to Texas, but either to stay at my daughter’s house OR to find some house-sitting. And working for the Wilson County News if Elaine will hire me OR going to Louisiana to volunteer for disaster relief. This is not quite a plan. But winter is undeniable.
I like reading Aurielle's blog
Romance. Things ended with Eileen. There was a candle-lit dinner and a walk in the neighborhood. Then we sat on the couch and listened to music. We kissed. I didn’t really feel anything, and she neither, because she said, “This is awkward.”
We were not even disappointed……Onward.
The Beach. The glorious sunset. The sparkling water. A woman sitting on the sand as if in a dream. I was walking near the waves, clutching my portable radio, listening to the White Sox hammer the Angels.
The Boardwalk. One of many Living Rooms in Los Angeles. You go there and it’s your family and everybody is “at home.” I sat on a bench for a long time and then went home, feeling refreshed.
Three more lives -- Carolyn, Chris and Claudia
Carolyn Rios – she’s my older sister by two years ago. She married Frank Rios, the beatnik poet. Carolyn and Frank bought this bungalow house in Venice in 1977 and they had two children, Primavera and Zana. But he went back to drugs and she ran him off. She became a school teacher, teaching at Venice High School nearby – although never in the regular program, but in the Special Ed section for troublesome children which means very small class sizes and individual attention. She has always liked this job, plus it is so close to her home.
I have been staying at her house for several weeks now. I am excited to have a chance to overhaul her garden – something I always wanted to do, but never, until now, was she ready for that. It was having the crew removing the huge banana plants in the back yard – she had been looking at them for 28 years, but they had to be removed because she was finally having the termites exterminated and the exterminator said termites love banana plants.
Anyhow, removing the giant banana plants broke her mental log jam, and now she has given me the green light to fix a whole bunch of things in her garden. It’s good work.
Chris McCarthy is a nurse in LaConner. She lives on Maple Street, two houses from Wayne Everton, who she is never gotten along with – ever since Wayne called Town Hall and complained about her bees. Chris claims, and I believe her, that her backyard bees never bothered anybody, that the farmers bring in many hives of bees every spring to pollinate the cabbage seed plants and other crops. Chris went on to explain that Wayne had a big hedge of heather leading to his house and heather is known to attract bees from miles away, and that it was really those heather plants that were bringing the bees that were bothering Wayne’s wife, Beverly, which caused him to complain.
Claudia Miller, MD is a doctor in San Antonio, Texas. I got to know her through JDate.com, the Jewish dating service, although neither of us is Jewish. That was last winter. We got to know each other and exchanged some heartfelt emails. We even had several cozy phone calls. I had pleasant sexual fantasies about Claudia, and I would describe them to her – she didn’t discourage that.
What I enjoyed about emailing her was the frankness of it. Claudia was a doctor, and I realized that I could tell her absolutely anything about myself. I even typed a very complete medical history of myself which she enjoyed looking at.
We never met. I was in Texas when we first made contact, but then I came back to the Skagit Valleyin the spring, and so I was too far away. We still liked exchanging emails, but I stopped it, figuring that I better try to meet a real woman in the flesh.
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