Slice of Life

   She came into the waiting room of the physical therapy facility, asking to verify her appointment.  Turned out she was half an hour early.  "I've always been a bit ditzy,' she said, "so I thought I'd better check."  While she was waiting, she said to me that she had bought oranges at the market, but when she got home, discovered they were grapefruit, orange ones.  I suggested she return them, but she said she'd already opened them. When I said that some people can't eat grapefruit because of  drug interactions, she remembered that she was not supposed to eat them.
     The therapist told her that she could start on the machines while she waited for her appointment time, but she said she'd wait, because she was having issues--with her tailbone. She'd slipped getting out of her hot tub, and fallen on her back, bouncing her head on the tub as she fell, and suffered a concussion, as well as a hurt back.  I asked if she remembered falling, and she said she remembered the fall, but did not remember going upstairs to her bedroom and getting into a nightgown.  In the afternoon.
     It was important, she went on, to get herself completely checked out, because she was attending a wedding in Italy the end of August.  She was to be traveling alone, had bought a one-way ticket, planning to visit several other countries on the visit. She had several cousins in several countries, she said.  She'd traveled a lot in the past.
    I asked if she had to plan for pets or plants.  She said she had made provisions for her pets, but had completely forgotten her plants, which are on her back porch.  She plans to return some time in October.  She thanked me for reminding her of her plants.
   Some people just sit and wait for the grim reaper, while others set off in pursuit of an adventure.  She was not young, probably in her mid to late sixties, maybe even a bit older.  She had vitality, and I wish her well, ditziness and all.