MUST BE AUTUMN

 

Must be autumn!

They play the World Series more often than they used to,

And the store on the corner is farther away now.

 

Save our environment! Save our planet!  Save our souls

As the axis turns the tilted world around once more, spinning the old people until they become dizzy,

Stepping in the footprints they made as babies.

But their memories are as gold as the leaves on the trees.

Is it the Sourwood tree or the Sugar Maple that crowns their seasons?

 

Must be autumn!

Back to school, coats and sweaters.

Is it pecans or pe cons?

The squirrel doesn’t care.

Run deer run!  Roll through the leaves and smell the wood fires!

Run deer run! Ageless as the tears and smiles.

Fly turkeys fly As we set out the pumpkins and bring in the plants.

Geese headed south like a choreographed dance.

 

Must be Autumn!

Play children play while the news is just something that interrupts the music.

While you trust in miracles, the old woman in a shoe.

And smiley faces on gingerbread people.

Who believe the recipe is forever new.

Let’s all go down to the store and buy ourselves a baseball.

Hit it out of sight!  … and Harvest it someday from a river on the moon.

 

A FEW DAYS

Sunday evening

If sounds came with this blog you would hear one dog squeaking a Kong football, one chasing a Kong squeaking tire, and the other one breathing so hard trying to keep up with the other two. My little 1040 square feet bungalow is filled with two working guide dogs and one retired guide dog. They are exceptionally good dogs, but I closed off half the house so they are living in 520 square feet. My former husband is having a hip replacement and this seems to be his dogs’ home away from home.

Monday

This morning at 3 AM Chloe began shaking herself. She has on so many clanging tags she could work for the Salvation Army at Christmas. I drug myself off the couch and went out into the very early morning dampness with her. It is always a surprise to experience the coolness of a fall morning, hearing leaves being blown from the limbs and knowing they are beautiful even in the darkness. Of course Chloe and I came back in and she settled right back into a peaceful sleep while I began running this day through my mind.

I decided to get up before dawn while everyone was asleep and take my shower. Not wanting to alarm the fur babies, I decided to use the shower in the hall bathroom so they could find me if they panicked. Now, I do not know if I washed my body with shampoo or my hair with body wash, but one of them smelled like toothpaste.  

It’s time to take the dogs out before breakfast. These dogs are trained to empty their tummies and bladders on command so it’s easy to clean up after them. This works well for two of the dogs, my Vivi and Jim’s Chloe, both labs. Autumn who is a Goldendor and is retired seems to have retired from that command as well. Sunday night she started to play with a stick … that moved. It was determined to be a Copperhead. The young snake skidded off in a rush and may be living now in the workings of whatever is underneath someone’s car.

Finally, with Dogs all taken out, fed, watered, beds moved out of the middle of the floor, bowls washed, taken for individual walks (three walks for me), long play time, it’s time for a treat. Chloe missed the treat and got my finger. I forgot all about the beautiful experience we had in the middle of the night and yelled at her. She isn’t speaking to me yet.

Tuesday

I decide to walk the dogs with my hair still wet since rain doesn’t matter anyway. It seems as though it rains every Tuesday because it’s the day I get to go outside in the mud and bring the trash cans and the recycle bin around to the front for emptying. With my shoes caked with mud and my hair rinsed well in rain water I bring Chloe out for a short walk and return her and take Autumn for a shorter walk. back inside I realize I have left my own Vivi shut up in the bedroom for over forty-five minutes.

After a repeat of Monday morning’s routine I light a cinnamon scented candle and take pictures of the beautiful three girl dogs. They don’t want to cooperate so I go outside and take it through the front door.

My tasks for today besides the next walking, playing and treats include taking out burners and scrubbing them, vacuuming the house, emptying the dishwasher, washing a load of clothes, and trying not to forget to water the plants. Dogs are playing, things are going well and suddenly Dene, Jim’s wife, comes in. We pack up the dogs, beds, food, bowls, leashes and toys and load up the car. Although I am glad Jim’s hip replacement has gone well, I realize I enjoyed the camaraderie of the canines.

…

I open up the bedrooms and remember to water the plants. The burners can wait for tomorrow. Doctor Oz is talking about sprouted guiltless bread and how this lady loves it and was able to put down her carbs. I make a face and keep on scrubbing stove parts, but I quit and run into the living room when he says he is going to show people how to sharpen their brain in older age. Of course, you take this little test every day and it’s all done by sight. I turn off the TV. 

The house is quiet.  No jangle tags, no squeaking toys, no pretend growling, no biting fingers. I fix myself a Cappuccino and sit down to rest with a good book. I’m almost falling asleep when Vivi comes over and pushes the toy in my lap. Time for a game of football.

  

CLEANING IT UP

 

Sometimes I find myself looking for a new subject for my blog but inevitably one will drop in my lap and make me wonder why I didn’t talk about it already. I want to thank my sister-in-law, Linda, for helping me out and hope she knows she really did. One day she called and asked “What are you doing?”  “Cleaning up,” I said. “How?” she asked. So I realized that even those who have known us blind folks forever sometimes have to stop and wonder things.

When I attended the Governor Morehead School in the 1950’s, we had maids to clean our rooms and bathrooms. It is a little amazing that we were really not taught some things. However, when I attended the Rehabilitation Center for the Blind in the 1960’s. While thinking I was there to merely wait for a place in a class to open up at Duke Medical Center where I would begin my career path, I found myself being put in a class called demands of daily living, and another one called laundry. These classes were taught by totally blind people. Laundry? I thought. I’ve been doing my own laundry since being twelve years old. It was the ironing that opened my eyes (so to speak). At that time creases in pants were a MUST. It never occurred to me that if you line up those in-seams the creases perfectly line up, front and back, and last at least until somebody sits down? And then there were those shirt sleeves that always must be rolled up to be in style. Rolling them up and ironing them that way really helped them not start falling down just about the time a young man knocked on the door of his girlfriend’s house. That’s when young men really did do that. Cleaning bathrooms! No fun for any person, perhaps more not fun for a blind person. Yet we were given instructions on brushes, cleansers, scrubbing, mopping, making sure things like the tops of tiles around a shower or rims around the top of a tub  were always dried off or either wiped off when cleaning. We learned to touch most surfaces because it might look clean, but it needed to FEEL clean as well. We had been making hospital tucks in our sheets for like ever, yet learned to fold the corner of that bottom sheet backwards over one hand so it would slip right over that corner easier, most of the time anyway. We learned to put our hand inside a plastic bag, lay it over a pile of anything such as spilled ravioli in one spot or pick up the mess a dog makes from the carpet or outdoors. We learned to be careful if we took the broom to knock down spider webs not to knocked down a picture instead. Those are just a few things we hopefully learned; here are more things I found out once I became married and had children.

Sweeping works better for me barefooted.       

I never could get those hard water stains out of the tub because I had no idea there was such a thing. I think they have cleaners that work better these days, but I have a fiberglass tub which is easier to clean, although I’d surely like to have one of those fancy showers you see advertised on TV for older people.

I cannot get soot off the walls, well, maybe I could if I realized it was there.

Sometimes there might be a stain on the cabinet top that is totally unfeelable. I just wait for somebody to let me know I missed it.

Then there’s this air return vent up so high over my hallway door that it fills up with lent. Finally, after my X husband’s new wife informed me how bad it looked, I bought a long handled mop to reach it. Is there a way to show a tongue sticking out on the computer?

Once I began keeping my grandchildren for my own children to work, I also worked at home, so I hired a cleaning lady, truly a joy in my life! Sometimes she thought there was a problem I didn’t see because I was blind, however, there were times I certainly knew it was there, just waited for her to deal with it. I must admit how great it was to know I didn’t have to be embarrassed for people to see anything amiss and think “poor thing didn’t see it.”

  Streaking windows and doors plagues me to this day! Why can’t somebody invent glass that just won’t streak? I now have a new cleaner guaranteed not to streak; I’ll let you know as soon as somebody tells me I streaked my front storm door.

Now, last week when I was in Lexington I took everything off Mom’s bottom shelves on every table in her living room and dusted it thoroughly. I told her there were Bibles and papers that would take somebody ten years to sort out when she moves to heaven some day. I put everything back, except this one picture of my brother and sister-in-law, which I put back upside down. I didn’t do it on purpose, Linda, honest.

  

SPECIAL GOD MOMENTS THIS WEEK

A FEW SPECIAL GOD MOMENTS FROM the week

 

Saturday, August 22,

Christi and I sat on my patio during a stressful time. The music of a cicada choir seemed to sing  from God to both our hearts as we stayed there experiencing His peace.

The two dogs I had been dog sitting for four days went home.

 

Sunday, August 23

Coffee on my patio on a cool morning as the street in back of me that usually plays traffic noise is still asleep.

Hearing my soon to be ninety-five-year-old mom answer her phone after she was not sure where her bed was last night.

Walking with Vivi through a peaceful neighborhood at twilight to a cricket lullaby.

 

Monday, August 24

Seeing a special friend I had not seen in twenty-five years!

Vivi and I visiting three classes and once more identifying with the energy, excitement, and fun that only nine-year-old’s can know.

 

Tuesday, August 25

Being invited by some new friends to dinner and being treated as though I were someone special.

Playing music with them and feeling their bond of marriage wrap the music we played with love.

 

Wednesday, August 26

Praying that Vivi wouldn’t freak out at the vet like she usually does, then watching her wag her tail as though it were a picnic.

Actually being able to hear and understand the person building my Subway sandwich without standing in line looking confused, wondering who they were speaking to.

Pay day!

 

Thursday, August 27.

The Dept. of Revenue called and said I owed them over five hundred dollars from my 2014 taxes. Since I had trouble with the people who filled out my 2013, taxes I shrank inside feeling like the bug I smushed with my front door last week. After calls to the bank, records faxed, etc. and a prayer of desperation, I called and some intelligent being answered, recognized that the company put the wrong SSN on the tax forms and fixed it instantly!

Watching Kevin understand paperwork that makes me crazy.

Watching Vivi and her best doggy friend, Stella Mae, enjoying life, not knowing anything about so much meanness going on in the world.

 

Friday, August 28,

Praying “Help!” as I stepped on the scales; losing the pound I gained last week.

Sitting outside singing to the birds, neighbors, and mostly Jesus, knowing He hears.

 

Even though this is not designed to be my pulpit, there are times I must speak of Jesus; not the Jesus who was just a profit, not the New Age Jesus who changes with and like the political climate, but the bible Jesus who speaks of loving your neighbor, and full of grace and truth, who is LOVE, peace on earth good will to men, never meaning for it to be only at Christmas.

 

 

BLIND LADY AND THE BUG

 

 

You are enjoying a peaceful Saturday evening rest after an exceptionally busy week when you hear something bouncing around on your front door like the glass is a trampoline. You can’t see it, but the more it bounces around the bigger it gets in your mind. What to do? Alert the dog? … She doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s on the outside wanting in, but you’re more afraid it’s on the inside wanting out. You think about calling your next-door neighbor but cringe when you remember calling him before because you heard imaginary water running outside like a pipe had burst, or the time you woke him up because there was a wood-be robber on your patio. You tiptoe to the storm door like the thing is going to jump in your face. Nothing happens, so you grit your teeth and open the storm door. The thing really starts jumping around in triple time, so you think whatever it is has left the premises. You breathe a relieved sigh, sit back down just in time to hear more bumping around on the glass. You get up again and swing the door open and shake it like it’s a lint-filled area rug. Got-chu!” Peace at last … you thought. What to do? More dancing bug; more shaking! You can’t breathe! You know you feel that bug chasing you! In a hissy-fit you shut the heavy front door, sorry you had to resort to violence for the critter.  Now you sit with no peace at all, imagining you hear a trapped insect between the doors. You realize you are trapped too, or at least may have to use the back door for the rest of your life.

…

Bugs, bees, whatever, anything that creeps, crawls, buzzes, whirs, swishes, jumps in the grass, sings a song just before it bites, are a few of my not favorite things. Now I look on facebook but every picture I can’t quite make out appears to be a bug. Once I posted a true experience on facebook which said  “The bee and I both wanted the same drink. He drowned and my nose hurts.” 

 

 

 

 

POETRY CORNER

From the children’s section of my poetry corner

 

CRICKETS

 

 

There’s a cricket in the hall!

Do you hear the sound?

Is he here?  Is he there?

Is he hopping around?

 

Which door should I open to get him out on the porch?

The front door, the back door?

The hall door of course.

 

There’s a cricket in the yard.

Listen how he begs

His friends to come over

With staccato cricket legs.

 

Now I’m going inside to sleep in my bed,

But I still hear the cricket; is he inside my head?

Somebody help!  I hear Mama call.

Doesn’t anybody hear?

There’s a cricket in the hall!

 

 

BEFORE TOMORROW

 

My first grandchild was three.

 

 

Before tomorrow all the dishes will be done,

The clothes put away,

And the counter tops cleared.

 

Before tomorrow the beds will be made,

The floor will be vacuumed,

And all the toys put in their places.

 

The doll weighs ten pounds soaking wet.

Her blue dress flops around her.

 

A few yarns of hair stick out the top of her head that once were tied with a bow.

 

I pick her up by one foot and drop her onto the porch.

Her head lands with a thud that causes me to wince.

Her eyes are fixed and blue and stare up at me.

I look down into them and see your child/play.

Her face is muddy and her lips form a permanent kiss …

Probably placed there by you.

I pick her up and squeeze water from her cloth body.

My fingerprints remain and I call her hopeless.

I put her in a plastic bag with the other garbage and bury her in a can coffin.

 

I go about my day’s work.

I take my shower, brush my teeth,

So I’ll be ready … before tomorrow.

 

I put on music to sanctify the day and hear:

“The Lord is in his holy temple.”

On his altar I see a soggy worn doll with a hug still shaped around her.

 

One day you looked at me with those little-girl eyes and said:

“I want to grow up and be like you.”

 

Oh no, don’t do that, my little child-mom.

Don’t pour your heart into words that no one understands.

 

IN the pouring rain I make my way out back.

I reach down past the egg shells, the left-over pizza, the empty carton and the dirty diapers.

I find her hand and pull her out through the muck of yesterday.

 

With pre-wash sprayed all over her, I toss her in the machine.

She comes out clean, then dried except for the water … that’s still inside her head.

 

I position her carefully on the counter top and know

The water will have dripped out … before tomorrow.

 

Like notions in a little girl’s mind.