The A-Team

The older I get, the simpler I get - and if anyone makes any jokes, they're out of the will while I'm still of sound mind. I blame the A-Team, but more about them in a minute. 

Silas treating the $29 bedspread much nicer than my

heirloom quilt - the little schnook. 

I've always gravitated toward the simple and the quaint but I'm finding that aging and animals have boosted that tendency big time. However, I refuse to allow beasts to completely ruin the House and Garden lifestyle to which I plan to become accustomed. Still, animals can get you simplified REAL fast if that's already your bent. 

Living with the kids and me are Hope, our dog, Kitt, our cat, and Silas, our kitten. Before the fur-clad A-Team (Animal Team) came along, I bought expensive bedspreads. I gave up on that yesterday and picked out a sweet little reversible quilt at a local discount store for $29, and a chair cushion for about five bucks. 

This chair is now squirreled

away in a corner of my

bedroom. Correction: This 
chair now helps make up a
charming little reading nook 
in my bedroom.

Oddly, it seems that cat fights and dog dances atop the bed slowed to a trickle with the new spread. Apparently, the cheaper my decor, the less desire the team feels to mess it up. Maybe they value the simpler things in life too.

I also moved two of my favorite chairs (purchased before Silas' arrival) into my bedroom because he was more likely to wreck them in the living room. 

But on the bright side, I hardly ever had comfortable chairs or a reading nook in the bedroom before, and now I have two - two chairs and two nooks. One single person can never have too many reading nooks in one small bedroom. Sad to say, however, I prefer to read in bed. 

And this is my reading

nook for sunny days when

no lamp is required. 

But the A-Team isn't only Hope, Kitt and Silas. Inspired by a book I bought, All You Can Eat in Three Square Feet, I put in a garden last spring. It became a food bank for every chipmunk, rabbit, squirrel and bird within a five mile radius. Now I have to make another plan - maybe with more container gardening and mesh next year. 

But again, looking on the bright side, outwitting the local fauna helps keep me sharp much as it did for Elmer Fudd. The entire yield of this year's harvest: three tiny radishes, enough lettuce for one small salad, and eight jalapeno peppers. 

But that's okay. I have plenty of dog and cat food, and that's what really matters. 

Brown Shoes

According to the Cole Porter song, Miss Otis Regrets, the lady is saddened that she's unable to lunch because she's just gotten hauled off to the hoosegow for shooting her lover. On Saturday I regretted that I was able to lunch - and even then, it was just barely. 

Brown Shoes by Teece Aronin. Available on products at
redbubble.com/people/phylliswalter.

I have a friend I'll call F. F and I have known each other almost two years and met through the miracle of social media. Because we live roughly two hours from one another, we have communicated mostly via the Face Book game Words with Friends and texting. We did manage to meet a couple of times, one of them for dinner. Maybe you've found yourself with the same problem: you like someone, but you live so far apart that it's difficult to date like other couples. 

So back to F. One or the other of us was always dating someone else or recovering from some star-crossed stupidity into which we'd gotten sucked. 

Anyway, there we were last week, messaging back and forth, and ended up planning a date with each other. It was for yesterday. Then, in one of those, "I-have-no-idea-why-we're-texting-about-this" moments, it was decided we'd share our first kiss. He seemed enthused about the kiss and so was I. I was to drive to his house and we would go from there to a wedding reception. 

Now, I was rear-ended a few weeks ago, and my back and knees waited until recently to start collectively killing me. I've been limping, playing phone tag with my medical claims rep and having a rough time getting things done at work because of the pain. The day before the date it was almost unbearable, so I went to my doctor. I had told F that I would dance with him, but could barely get out of my car. 

"I'm going to a wedding tomorrow!" I told my doctor who wrote me a prescription for a steroid. And then it hit me that I had nothing to wear. Actually, I have very few clothes period. I think some of them are still packed from when we moved last spring. Even at work I dress very casually. So I went straight from the doctor to Marshall's where I limped my way among the racks until I came up with something nice enough for a wedding but not too dressy for work. Then I went home and collapsed. 

Three hours later, F texted to say the couple getting married hadn't received his RSVP so would I like to just meet for lunch? I was disappointed but relieved. I'd had mixed feelings about getting all dressed up and mingling with a lot of people I don't know while walking like Walter Brennan. So lunch it would be. 

That night I was feeling a little giddy about the next day, and the idea of the kiss - which in my mind had become not just the kiss, but the KISS. 

We met at the restaurant, oohed and ahhd over the pot stickers and each had a sandwich and a beer. When the bill came I asked if I could help and he said I could cover the tip if I liked, so I did that. He walked me to my car where I instantly regretted not getting to my mints beforehand. 

It occurred to me that we'd each driven more than an hour just for lunch and that maybe a first kiss in a parking lot wasn't what he'd had in mind, so I said, "I don't know what your schedule's like, but would you like to go do something else?" I was thinking a movie or a park might be a good idea.

No, he said. He had to let the dog out and a buddy was taking him out for his birthday (I had wrapped up a small birthday present for him, but forgot it at home). Then he said, "Well, I'll be seeing you," and started for his car. 

"F, would you like to kiss goodbye?" I asked.

"No, that's okay," he said, and kept walking.

I sat there for a second, a little perplexed then went after him.

"F?"

He didn't seem to have heard me and kept walking,

"Excuse me, F!" 

He turned and saw me and continued getting into his car. When I caught up to him, his car door was still open. I bent over and looked in.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No, nothing's wrong."

"But you wouldn't like to kiss goodbye?"

"It's not imperative," he said, not moving except to look at me.

I straightened up, walked back to my car and got in. He was long gone before I'd even managed to get my keys in the ignition. 

I tried to keep an open mind about what just happened. We'd met before, and he had been open about his attraction to me and wanting to kiss me someday, so I didn't think it was an attraction problem. Then again, maybe it was. I started that losing battle so many of us wage in these situations, trying to think what I'd said or done to offend him. There was nothing stuck between my teeth and nothing up my nose. There were no lulls in the conversation and a lot of laughing. What happened?

Then I just felt bad and drove home. 

It's probably not fair to write about this when F and I've not talked about what happened, but for all I know, he doesn't intend to and might have no plans to discuss anything with me again. And besides, if I don't write about things like this, they pile up inside and who needs that? 

Also, F deserves the benefit of the doubt. For all I know, he chipped a tooth on a pot sticker and was too self-conscious to kiss. Or maybe he really does still like me, but didn't want the kiss to happen over his doggie bag. Or maybe the woman he'd just started dating who so far was two for three on date cancellations, texted him while I was in the ladies' room and proposed marriage. I joke, but truly, some very good reason might have occurred to him that made him change his mind.  

And like women, men have the right to change their minds and they also have the right to say no to unwanted advances. 

Imagine all the times Donald Trump must have fought women off. 

Never Depend on a Goose

One of the saddest things I can think of is an animal lying dead by the road.

However, an animal which is probably dead, lying in the grass near the road is worse. There's the possibility that instead of being dead and dragged there by a driver or pedestrian, it dragged itself there and is alive and in pain. Or someone else might have dragged it there assuming that if it wasn't dead yet, it soon would be.

Throw in the misery of a cold, rainy day and someone who doesn't have the sense to just keep driving, and you have the makings of a truly rotten experience.

I had been on the road all day, it was close to 7 p.m., and I desperately wanted to get home to my kids. Suddenly, there was no missing it: about 10 feet from the curb on the lawns of a church was a black goose sprawled on its belly. Other geese trundled by as the rain poured down on all of them. 

I pulled into the church parking lot and thought about calling Animal Control. If it were dead, the goose needed to be disposed of and if it were alive, it needed to be tended to. It took four calls before I got a hold of someone. He said they didn't have anyone on duty at the moment but could tell me who to call, a woman who volunteered for things like that. Her name was Lillian Plentworth. I called the number. 

Ms. Plentworth answered the phone after two rings and within seconds my mental picture was clear: seventy-ish, no nonsense but pleasant, sensible haircut, short fingernails, no polish, and a rain slicker with a pair of waders in the hall closet.

Me: Hello, Ms. Plentworth. I was just driving down Raleigh Drive in Birktown and saw a goose lying on the lawn in front of First Presbyterian Church. I think it's dead but I can't be sure. 

Ms. Plentworth: Well, is it breathing?

Me: I don't know. I got out of my car and tried to check a few minutes ago but I couldn't get close enough. 

I didn't mention to Ms. Plentworth that I couldn't get close enough due to a years-long bird phobia, and having the birds be dead and soaking in the rain just makes it worse. 

Ms. Plentworth: Well, run over there and look again and call me back.

She hung up before I could so much as whimper. After she hung up, I whimpered anyway. 

I got out of the car and walked back to the goose. I'd forgotten my umbrella that day and was already soaked from my first failed mission to assess the goose's condition. 

Looking closer, the goose was probably dead, but I couldn't shake the notion that it was shallowly breathing. And since I'd gotten as close as I could without hyperventilating, I scurried back to the car and called Ms. Plentworth. 

Me: I can't tell if it's breathing or not. 

Ms. Plentworth (sighing): Well, ordinarily I'd come out there, but I just rescued a turkey and now I'm about to take some soup off the stove. I'd rather not come out there if it's dead.

Me: Then I don't know what to do. I mean, someone needs to come get it either way, right? 

Ms. Plentworth: That's true. But if it's dead, that would be someone else's job. I collect them when they're injured, not when they're dead. If I told you where to take it, would you go pick it up?

Me: I'd rather not. 

Ms. Plentworth: Well, let's just assume this one's dead. I'll let Animal Control know to send someone out in the morning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my soup. Have a good night!

I peered through the downpour, over the shining wet blacktop of the parking lot, and across the expanse of grass, vividly green from the rain. There lay the goose. It's brother and sister geese seemed unmoved. Shouldn't they perform CPR, or if the goose was religious, scratch together some kind of a service? Shouldn't they be conferring over a place to bury him or her?

I had the sudden realization that one should never depend on a goose to hand one an emergency bottle of nitroglycerin tablets. On the other hand, it also seemed sensible that one could use a goose as a model for how to stay calm in a crisis. 

'Okay,' I thought. 'That goose is in no condition to attack me so there's no reason I can't get close enough to it to make sure it's dead. If it's not, I call Ms. Plentworth back and tell her I don't care if her soup gets fried; she needs to come out here and collect that goose. If it's alive, it must be dying and at least a vet could put the poor thing out of its misery.

I approached the goose one more time.

It had probably been a good 20 minutes since I'd first spotted the goose from the road. I took a deep breath and stood a little closer this time. Clearly, it wasn't breathing. If it wasn't dead before, it was now.

Geese can't count on us either.