The Geriatric Pirate

Four of us neighbors got together to relax and enjoy each other’s company in the evening. Marla had put in a full day of work, and Shawn was tired from a day of hands-on mothering and house-wifering. Connie and I slumped back in our seats, ready for easy, laid-back conversation.

The subjects ranged far afield until we began to talk about our passions. Marla loves being a mechanic for high-end bikes. Repairs that she once would have sent to the manufacturer, she now does in the shop. Connie enjoys creating things that involve sewing, quilting, and handcrafts. She didn’t speak of it that night, but we all benefited from her Pickle Passion last year. As soon as you go near Shawn’s home, you know there is an artist in residence. She is a potter, a painter, and a crafter. I am in awe of these practical talents. I would rather write than sleep, probably making me more sleep-deprived than productive. They kindly pointed out that I put words together to make things. Writers are always in need of supportive friends.

I have no idea how we jumped from appreciating each other’s talents to laughing about our fictional geriatric pirate. Many ideas came from Connie’s corner. Her pirate always paused to change his Depends. Marla was our active model – leaping up to demonstrate how the pirate’s ship would move or how he would make a rescue with a walker. Shawn was drawing the book cover in her head and contributing hilarious dialogue. There was little left for me to do except laugh, which I did with gusto. At the end of the day, our spirits were high, higher than they had been for weeks. No one shot down the idea of our group gathering again to continue the non-writing of our novel. We learned anew that laughter with friends puts air in your lungs and lift in your bones.

Choc-lit Salad

Fun with old ears has started another chapter. Younger generations know I don’t hear well, particularly in a social setting where there is background noise. Grandsons David and Nathaniel learned to appreciate the mistakes. I told them what I heard and let them tell me what they actually said. Now it is neighbor Logan’s turn.

Yesterday Logan (8) was proud of having packed his own lunch for school. He said he had a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of chips, and a container of Jell-o. While the steam valves were blowing on his overactive body-engine, he jumped the ditch so many times the dessert came tumbling out on the ground. I asked if he had packed his lunch this day. He hadn’t, his dad explained, because he stayed in bed too long and had no time. It started a discussion of school lunches. He described one of his favorite dishes, and I heard him mumble, “Choc-lit salad.”

“I heard you say chocolate salad, but surely that’s not right,” I said. I was aware that some Mexican recipes call for cocoa in savory dishes, but not in an American school lunch! I was closer than I thought.

His correction was, “TACO salad!”

If the bus hadn’t come, I would have described the fruit salad that Danish friend Kai wrote about. One of his favorites includes such things as cutup grapes, bananas, oranges, pears, and apples. Mix the fruit with sweetened whipped cream and then cut up small (not TOO small) pieces of dark chocolate to stir in. I would gladly misread the recipe and add ten times the proper amount of chocolate. Anyone want to join me?

October Begins

October is my favorite month of the year, so it is appropriate that several pleasant things happened. We are always amused at neighbor Logan (8). As we walked toward his bus stop, he came running to us. In an instant, he bent down with his hands behind his knees and was making funny sounds. Something about his attitude made me wonder if he had been told not to do it. Still, it was very funny, and I asked him to repeat it for a video. His focus shifted to something down the road, so all I caught was the side of his head and a halfhearted squeezing of one knee. That may have kept us both from getting into trouble.

100118 Logan makes noise with hand and knee.JPG

Our church had a special dinner honoring our pastor’s 35^th anniversary of his ordination. We were told it was going to be special. What a surprise to find the gym transformed into an event tent by a tank parachute! Twenty-two of us were asked to bring a home-baked cake for dessert. I thought the instructions were brilliant. We were asked to cut our cakes into at least 10 pieces before bringing them in. The organizers knew there would be enough to go around, and all they had to do was put the cakes on a table for people to help themselves.

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John knows I love day trips in the mountains, so we visited Weaverville north of Asheville. What a charming town! We went in a little shop that advertised antiques and food, a pairing that grandson Nathaniel would love. The proprietor handed round little cups of peach tea to six customers. I said we should have a toast, and a man near me raised his cup and said, “Here’s to a lovely afternoon for everyone!”

We looked in several restaurants as we walked up and down the main street, and we went in a shop that displayed pottery in the front and had potters working in the back. We knew we had hit the right spot for lunch at the Well Bred Bakery. Lovely sandwiches and pieces of quiche were displayed in large cases at the back, while the front cases had the most delectable desserts tempting us. We each had a piece of bacon-cheddar quiche and ate it slowly. Feeling satisfied, we chose desserts to take home. John took one of his favorites, carrot cake. I opted for a chocolate fudge cake to make up for not having the devil’s food cake I took to the church dinner. We ate cake instead of a meal in the evening and felt almost virtuous.

100118 Well Bred Bakery in Weaverville.JPG

Advice to this Walker

I was surprised a man approached me near the cafe as he walked in for breakfast. I recognized him as the one who took over the iron-worker’s shed halfway up the steep hill. In the past few weeks, he greeted John and me with several sentences of a Southerner’s standard greeting as we walked past. (“How y’all doin’? Mighty fine day! Y’all have a good un!”)

092818 Shed on the steep hill.JPG — Ironworker’s shed now houses lawncare equipment.

Today he said, “I wanted ta tell ya ta be careful. T’other day y’all just got past my place, an’ a cow came bustin’ outta the woods. Run right across the road inta the cornfield. Ya need to be aware of what’s goin’ on around ya. Ya never know what’s gonna happen with animals around here.”

Please note that I am not making fun of his accent, because I sound a lot like him, only at a higher pitch. Blogger Kate Crimmins (https://coffeekatblog.com/) can vouch for that after I jangled her ears with my normal speech. Kate herself sounds like a normal person with a nice Pennsylvania accent.

I thanked him, and we had a good laugh over crazy animals that get loose in the area.

Going up the hill, I stopped to chat with Nancy at the first house on the right. She had been concerned at not seeing us for several days. I found out the big RV parked in the yard belongs to her niece from Missouri. She and her husband and crazy dogs are going to move here and open a commercial cleaning business.

Toward the top of the steep hill, next-door-neighbor Dawn stopped her car and wondered why a vehicle with a flashing yellow light turned around in my driveway. The only thing I could think of was someone delivering the newspaper. I came home to find papers for three days in the box. A sheet inside explained that our carrier quit, and another person will deliver to us after doing his own route. With news three days old, we might as well be on Colonial time.

Turning Back

I checked the weather forecast, both an hourly list and an animated map, before going out to walk. There was a 5% chance of rain, and the rain clouds should have been diverted by mountains. Halfway to the creek, moisture was falling through the air. I couldn’t see it except on my glasses. It was a percentage of rain, not just a chance of rain. Truly, the droplets were about five percent of the size of rain! I started down the steep hill and turned back. Those silly clouds were watching me, and they were not to be trusted. Sure enough, shortly after I got home, the gutters were gurgling.

I took a photo from the front porch, which shows that a dogwood tree and a row of burning bush plants are gearing up for Fall.

092518 Gloomy day in early Fall.JPG

Local Emergency News

As we walked near the firehouse, a volunteer fireman called a greeting to us. He was taking his boots and some other things inside. He teased us about exercising, and we began to chat. We like hearing about volunteer fire departments, since we know several volunteers. Two are named Dennis, one in Stony Brook and another upstate NY. My brother was also an active one when he lived near Charlotte.

This man said they had a busy week last week. There was a house fire with one dead, a car fire, and one other event that John and I couldn’t remember. When we showed interest, he explained that the house fire was probably caused by propane. They think the man accidentally turned on the stove without realizing it. John heard his soft comment that alcohol could have been an issue. Those were sobering facts, and we didn’t probe. John asked about the average number of calls per year. The answer was 700! That would work out to almost two per day! We may live out in the country, but we generate our fair share of emergencies.

Jonathan Creek fire station.JPG

We walked home, appreciating our peaceful breakfast on the back porch. For the foodies – we had fresh-baked cardamom muffins and hot coffee.

Play Dates

I’ve decided you’re never too old for play dates. John’s date to go to the train club had been on the calendar for weeks. He left early one morning and planned to return late the next day. From something he said, I think the men were changing the track and had to deal with a large tree root. That would not be pleasant in high heat and equally high humidity. My weather, on the other side of the mountains, was much cooler. We found out after we moved here that East Tennessee tended to be hotter than Western North Carolina. What a year-round blessing that turned out to be!

I met neighbor Marla as she was walking Albert, and I opted to stay with them. I did two laps of the street instead of going to the creek. Marla claims morning is not her best time of day, but she always has interesting things to discuss. For some reason, we got on the subject of war movies. She knew a lot more about them than I did. I was very happy to hear about them without having to sit through one.

Marla happened to mention to her mother (Connie) that I was alone. Connie called, and we had a spontaneous play date for coffee. We went to Panacea, a roaster in Frog Level. (You can tell you are in the South when you see area names like that. I grew up in West Tennessee near Frog Jump.) We chatted about many things, including technology, siblings, cell phones, and grandparents. I was very interested in hearing about her weight loss – 50 pounds since spring. Isn’t that marvelous? Of course, I wanted to celebrate that with a photo and she graciously obliged.

092218 Connie and me.jpg

Albert, the Vacuum

Albert, neighbor Marla’s German Spitz, loves to sniff around Bob’s car when we meet at the bus stop. Bob invited the dog in, saying there were some spilled Cheerios he could clean up. Albert was delighted and set to work as we humans talked.

092018 Albert vacuums Bob's car.JPG

Logan (8) was out of sight, running back and forth from the car to the end of the street. We laughed when Bob said quietly, “I feel sorry for the teacher.”

When the car was clean, Albert was petted before heading in to breakfast.

092018 Albert petted after cleanup.JPG

All that activity was in sharp contrast to the beginning of our walk. A deer paused to look at us through the heavy mist, well before the sun burned off the moisture.

091918 Deer on Woodmore before foggy dawn.JPG

Near the creek, John said, “My hair is wet from the mist.”

I replied, “Mine is, too.” Laughing, I said, “I had to touch my hair, didn’t I? It’s like wet paint! You see the sign and have to check to see if the paint is dry.”

Focal Points

We had two points of interest this week – Hurricane Florence and Logan’s getting on the bus.

The hurricane was a non-event in our area, unlike the flooding in eastern North Carolina. We noticed one 10-mile-per-hour gust of wind that lasted 30 seconds. Big whoop! One full day of steady rain made Jonathan Creek rise. I was texting with friend Karen when John walked in and asked if I wanted to drive to the creek. We rushed there and took a few shots to share with her. Karen is one who usually walks to the creek with us when she is here, so she had a vested interest in it. We caught the water at its highest point.

091618 Creek rising Hurricane Florence 1

John checked the rain gauge when we were sure all the rain was over. Despite being warned that we would have 10 to 20 inches of rain, we could muster only 4.

091718 Rain gauge Hurricane Florence.jpg

A video clip of our street at 7:40 would show everyone converging at the bus stop. We try to time our walk to be there, and Marla comes out with dog Albert. Logan jumps out of his car, not so much to join us, as to run circles around us. In the photo, Logan had already greeted us at Marla’s driveway and run onto the neighbor’s lawn around the telephone pole.

091818 Converging on Bob's car.JPG — Logan is the blur to the right of the pole.

Logan circled around to pet Albert as we began to talk to Bob in the car. There was a pause as we watched the boy leap onto the bus, and we scattered as quickly as we gathered. Another day was off to its proper start.

091818 Chatting before the bus came.JPG

John’s Birthday

To celebrate John’s birthday, we went to the restaurant where grandson Nathaniel worked for the past two summers. As the camera came out, son John $ adroitly offered to take our photograph, thereby getting on his preferred side of the camera. I took comfort in knowing I could erase anything I didn’t like.

091418 Birthday dinner at J Arthur's.JPG

John likes that restaurant for one particular dish, which they do well. All their food is good, but I go there to bask in reflected glory. One of the owners generally cruises the dining room, and John lets her know we are Nathaniel’s grandparents. Last year she beamed on us and told us what a marvelous worker he was. This year she called over the other owner, and he joined her in praising our favorite chef-in-training. Their words were glowing, and I took in every syllable. I looked at my plate and took myself down a notch. If Nathaniel had been working there, he would have peeled the potatoes.

Later we had John’s favorite dessert, angel food cake with strawberries and whipped topping. As we sat on the porch, we told $ that we’d heard coyotes howling in the pasture the night before. We’d never heard them so close or so persistent before. Although we were not frightened, he assured us that no coyote had ever killed a human.

091418 John's birthday cake.JPG

The next morning, John saw the single candle left from the night before and stuck it in a biscuit. It was his official birthday, after all. Normally I cannot do two things at once, but I did that time. I pulled out the camera to take a shot of this shady character, and I sang Happy Birthday. $, right beside me, declined to sing. If you listen carefully, you can hear his silence.

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