And I dream of the dead...

 Last night I dreamt of ELO, the first time ever in all these bygone years. He was sitting in a room, perhaps the lobby of a hospital. He told me his time on earth was limited, and he offered some advice, which has disappeared into the ether. He did say the doctors told him he was 16 pounds overweight. I said he didn't look it, and he launched into a scientific explanation of how the doctors had not accounted for the physiological causes which were not true weight gains. Others were present, but who they were and what they said has evaporated like water being thrown into the ocean. 

I see dead people...

 well, at least I think about them. In view of political manifestations of late, I remember how I got involved in "politics."  Jack Brackley, then Committee Chairman,  called me and asked if I would be on the Pittstown  Democratic Committee, which had lost a few of its small membership. At first I said I coudn't because I had a young child, but when he called back later and said my duties would take minimal time, I agreed. And so began my memebership on the Pittstown Democratic Committee.

  Jack rarely was able to attend meetings because he worked nightshift, but he kept advised of the happenings. Eventually he decided to resign, maybe because of health reasons. And a new Chairman was elected, Jim D.  He was a charismatic and efficient person in his capacity as Chairman, but he had never had the opportunity to meet with Jack. The PDC had many proactive exchanges and encounters during those years. But there was one unnoticed event. After a lifetime of being a Democrat, Jack abruptly changed his enrollment to independent or maybe blank. I was never told by him, but heard from  another that Jack had felt insulted because the new Chair had not contacted him as the outgoing Chair. In  hindsight, I'm sure Jim would gladly have met with him and even celebrated Jack's service, but I guess circumstances did not promote what Jack had perceived as protocol. 

  Some years later, Jack's health in further decline, he called me one day and asked my help. He asked if I would bring a voter enrollment form to his house in Tomhannock. I did. He and Carol were there, along with his mother, who was situated in a chair near the doorway, her health in rapid decline. Jack filled out the enrollment form registering him as Democrat, and I mailed it, as he had asked. When he died, not long after, he died as he had lived, politically speaking. 

Bad Cess Day

 No biggie, just annoying. This morning I put a load of laundry in the washing machine, and nothing happened when I pressed Start. Of course, I pressed several more times and still nothing.The washer is only several years old and has been working fine till now. I pulled out the wall plug and re-inserted it. Nothing. I turned on the dryer to see if there was power to that outlet. There was. I removed the load of laundry, dripping with the detergent, and prepared to call appliance repair. But I decided to give it one more shot and pressed Start again. Voila! The light came on. I threw the laundry back in, and ran upstairs, hoping the machine would do its job. I'm assuming it may have, but I haven't gone back downstairs as yet...

...Because I needed to go to Walgreens to pick up  a prescription  in response to last week's call from them. But the prescription can not be renewed now without an order from the prescribing doctor, who happened to be the hospitalist from a year ago, and with whom I've had no contact since being discharged. I was advised to call my doctor and ask for a Rx for this med. OK, I can do that.

Before I went next door to the grocery store, I decided to return the bag of empties which I keep in the trunk of my car. I bring them over to the bottle return only to find a note that the machine is out of order. As I'm going back to my car, a sudden gust of wind inverts the paper bag containing the returns, and the wind carries the freed cans and plastic bottles across the parking lot, and some underneath cars. (None are glass.) I retrieve a few, and decide to defer the visit to the grocery store. I had been planning to drive to McD's and indulge in a Happy Meal, but decided to just go home. 

Home, I'm carrying the bag, also paper, which contains the Ensure purchased with my discount coupons and a few other items. Just as I step inside my front door, the handle on the bag gives way, and the contents spew out. Those 6-packs evidently exerted more  stress than the bag could bear. 

Since my days are now very quiet, these events account for the most activity I've experienced in a long time. I fully realize their insignificance, and know worse things have happened---think Tuesday----and the  one-year anniversary of my brush with oblivion.

  So now I'm about to put the washed clothes in the dryer. Perhaps.

  

O.K., Its official

 The doctor called with the results of a test he'd ordered.  I said Thank You for calling.  He said:  "Of Course."   (He's 45.

A Shortage---For sure

 I received a call today cancelling Monday's appointment because of a shortage of IV fluid.  But the caller said there was a cancellation so I could reschedule  on Tuesday.  They have a few IV doses available. 

 So if Tuesday's cancellation freed up an IV dosage, why not use it for the Monday appointment? Why cancel and then reschedule for another day if dosage is available on Monday. 

I suppose there may be a valid explanation, but for sure I'm not going to pursue it. Let the chips fall where they may. 

Cop Cam U.S.A. Driver vs. ME

 Pulled over enroute to VVH one cold frosty day , officer approaches, asks, "Do you know why I pulled you over?"  

   CopCam:   No. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Don't you have anything better to do than harass law-abiding citizens like me, you wanna-be cop.

ME:  No, was I speeding?

Officer:  Your registration is expired.

CopCam:   So let me go and I'll renew it. My family is important in this town, so keep that in mind. I have connections.

ME:   Oh, I hadn't noticed.

Officer:  Can I see your license, registation and insurance?

CopCam:  I don't have to show you that. You can't ask me that. I haven't done anything wrong. Don't touch me. Get off me. I can't breathe. I don't have to talk to you. Get a sergeant out here. I want my lawyer here right now.

ME: Here's my registration and insurance, but my license is in my purse on the floor behind me, so I'll have to get out to reach it. 

Officer: Never mind, I'll just take your registration and insurance to my vehicle to check it. 

CopCam:  I'm not showing you anything, you b*%ch. Arrest me if you have to. But you can't arrest me if you haven't read me my Miranda rights. Go ahead, and it's obvious you can't please your wife in bed. And you just lost your badge!

Two Dressers +

 The house on State Street is for sale now, but if memory serves, the house was once owned by Paul McGraw, and after his death the contents of the house were up for sale at what was called an auction, but really meant to make an offer on any items of interest. 

  I believe Sara may have alerted my mother to the sale. This would have been not too long after we moved to Valley Falls and about a year or so after "Jack's" store was relocated to what had once been Peter Barrett's bar. Sara may have been related to Paul, though I'm not sure.

 At the time, we had very little furniture, only that which was transported by car from our last home past the curve going out from the village. Dorothy and I shared a bedroom and a bed, and the remains of an old pink dresser probably a leftover in some house or other. The drawers were so badly broken that our clothes were just put on top of the dresser. When my mother learned that there were dressers in the house, she made sure to attend on sale day. She ended up buying 2 dressers for $6.  One was a brown wooden dresser, probably oak, which was designated for my brother. The other was of blonde wood  with a curved mirror and 4 drawers. Since we girls were to share, we each had an upper and a lower drawer. 

   But most remarkable to me, probably aged 6 or 7 or so, was that after the sale, the auctioneer, or the man handling the sale, leaned down to me and handed me a key--the key to the dresser, of which all 4 drawers locked. That was probably the first piece of property I'd ever owned, and at home I looped a green ribbon, probably from an old candy box, through the hole in the key, and hid it away. I don't remember where, but possibly in an old sock which was under the other socks. Later, this key would be the basis of squabbles with my sister, when she would accuse me of locking up the last pair of clean socks, but I never surrendered that key which  granted me some measure of independence or authority or something like that, not until I ceded ownership of the dresser many years later. 

  Even more memorable to me was that the man who handed me the key, or maybe it was another man that same day, also gave me a Crucifix with a Holy Water Font. I still have it on my bedroom wall.