Hell Depot (from 2014)

In the last few years, self-service checkout stations have appeared in drugstores, Home Depot, & the like, with a corresponding reduction in cashier-manned checkout.  What a brilliant idea: make the customer do more work, cut back on entry-level jobs when there are few enough for young people, & force the whole mess upon the person who is paying.  I avoid using them when possible, mostly because of the job loss issue, though also because those using them generally seem to get stuck there, trying to get the beast to function properly.

Here's a case in point:  Home Depot.  I've shopped at Home Depot here & in other states probably for as long as the company existed.  Once upon a time, the employees were extremely well-trained & well-informed.  They were exceptionally able to come up with solutions or recommendations.  They most definitely were familiar with tools, home repair, & the like.

OK, I can live without that, & it's been many years since I realized how little training their staff get now (perhaps it was the time I went to buy an extra battery for a Makita cordless drill, & the two young men in that department had never even heard the name Makita; eventually I found what I wanted online at another company).  I don't blame the employees at all, but I was sorry to see that expertise go.

Still, I generally know what I want.

 Here is an ancient blog, ending more or less when my previous poodle's life did.  Now we are coming out of four years of Trump rule, which ended in treason, gingering up his fans to the point of actual armed insurrection. General mood has gone up from utterly horrified to somewhat less disgusted, but my friends'  optimism about the future seems misplaced.  Not only are the people who dressed up as Mighty Hunter Vikings & stormed the Capitol very much still around, so are the ones who encouraged them until they were out of control, the ones who sat back & let it happen, the ones who still, even then, wanted to say there were good people, albeit misguided, on both sides.  There are a lot of them.  They are very angry (at Trump, at Pence, at one another, & of course at the rest of us).  Anger like that doesn't dissipate.  It festers.  I admit I was cheered to see how the rioters scorned wearing masks & happily shouted in one another's faces; Darwin should be along any day now.  

Curiously enough, this almost gives me hope.  The good people of the Northeastern cities tend to believe that violence & fury & lynching are far in the past, except perhaps in Mississippi.  But my family lived in Mississippi, & I grew up in Maryland, & so did the engineer, full-time for him & a few years worth for me in a part of the state that is known for its beauty & seafood.  If you live there, add mosquitoes to the list; and an evil undercurrent that is still around from the days (not all that long ago) when lynchings happened in the open, & drew spectators.  Happy spectators.  There are photographs.  

I saw the same faces storming the Capitol.  It's not just the South, it's certainly not just the past, & it's not going away anytime soon.  But at least the tenderhearted can see that no one exaggerated one whit.  And by "no one," I do mean Black people, not just cynical middle-aged White people.  The difference between police behavior during domestic terrorism in DC & noisy but inoffensive, legal marchers in the streets this summer -- "oh, a few bad apples, the police were under stress after all" (we have friends who were arrested, & surely dealing with stress is part of policing?) -- should prove what some of us have said all along, that there are two (or more) worlds here.  Should prove: because of course it's done nothing of the sort.  

America is still America, & cellphone videos at least record some of the worst of it.  

Now we go back to Pericles, in one of his speeches to the Athenians: "And now the plague has come upon us, the one thing that was beyond [our] expectation."  But that's Thucydides, & therefore not really translatable; the words for "beyond expectation" also mean "greater than hope," & he meant both, of course.  Not my first time at this rodeo, especially in the early months, when AIDS prowled around the village every night & there was no way to defend against it or to know whom it would take next.  I remember that feeling well; it came back to me right after lockdown.  

The last person I spent time with in the office itself worked at the security desk, & was told he was "essential" (what were they guarding, with everyone working from home?).  But he was not given a mask ("they don't help & anyhow they must all go to the hospital employees" was the story we were given then), or a place to sit at a suitable distance from his co-worker & visitors, or decent ventilation, or safe transportation (the subway would have to do).  

Since he would be there & I wouldn't, I divided up my tea stash with him -- he was very fond of "proper tea," loose leaves, brewed in a pot, boiling water not just hot, in a real cup, not some paper abomination.  I told him where the teapots were kept & the strainers.  My kettle was still at home -- I'd taken it to New Orleans with me, so that we could have better coffee than the hotel provided -- but he said he knew where there was a "real" kettle in the kitchens upstairs, to which he had access.  He had gotten the baby in the New Orleans king cake for the second year in a row, & he showed it to me, wrapped up in a handkerchief with the first one & a few other small items; he carried the little bundle all the time, & he said he was a lucky man.  A couple of weeks later he was dead.

The epicenter last spring was a few blocks from here, the sirens & helicopters easy to hear even above the air conditioner, when the weather got warmer.  We wore masks, or at least bandanas, before it was required, & splashed hand sanitizer on our paws when we went down for the mail or touched the door to the elevator.  Just as well, because our older neighbors thought it was all nonsense.  The couple upstairs fell ill, & the husband died, & the same thing with the couple downstairs, & one couple on the first floor both died, & several people were very ill but recovered, & of course those are only the ones I know about, in this wing of this building.  We were both permitted to work from home, & we have a car, so we made grocery runs, or went in search of thermometers (that took some doing), for friends who were sick. Most recovered.  Sometimes it was a whole family, sometimes it was a friend tortured because he could not go comfort his dead uncle's family, half a mile away.  Once it was a young couple we knew, though the girl (the source of the infection) was refusing to admit it & of course there were no tests.  We went out & collected them in the car when he fainted on the street, & fed them, & calmed them, & took them home, & days later she had a raging fever & was very sick indeed for some time, & he had a milder case, & somehow it missed us.  We knew the risk, just as I knew the risks in the 1980s.  You do what needs doing.

Eventually, if you live long enough, you come to feel like Miss Marple, who has at some point in her long life seen, apparently, every variation on human wickedness or at least frailty, & brings all the old stories up to solve murders (though this seldom made sense -- an embezzling clerk 20 years before somehow gave her insight into a strangled nanny?).  Eventually you say, I remember the last riots, when I was a child, & the last plague, when I was young & still new to the city; be watchful, it isn't over yet.  

Last year, my therapist laughed & accused me of catastrophizing, I believe it was:  I should be careful or end up like one of his patients, who was terrified to fly because her brain conjured up all sorts of ghastly accidents that could happen.  And when I heard about the "novel coronavirus," my brain did that too, but I listened to my brain anyhow, & everything I feared & more happened.  How I would have loved to be wrong.  But at least, to the extent possible, we were prepared, at least materially.  I still have that fear, not for myself -- I've had a good run, I'd like to stick around, but my life has been occasionally disastrous, often foolish, & usually tremendously entertaining, so fair enough -- but for my people, my tribe, my real family.  

Yet we can't circle the wagons, we can't huddle in someone's cellar, we must stay distant.  I remember how in the early days of AIDS I had to get over my innate dislike of hugging, because my sick friends were starved for contact.  No risk there, at least, just the need to change my attitude, because it was necessary, & because, too often, there was no one else.  Unless someone has antibodies, we can't even do that now; we waggle our butts at one another like ducks getting out of a pond, or smack elbows together, or, rarely, say "fuck it," take a deep breath & grab onto the person who needs it, & not exhale until after we've held them for a moment & then backed away.  So far, so good.  Or perhaps like my fortunate friend with the gift for finding king cake babies, my luck runs out.  It no longer scares me for me, but for others ... yes, still, even though humanity is one great mass of awfulness, betrayal, deceit, greed (& those are just my friends).

Limbo

After seven weeks, I still close the gate to the kitchen, even though the poodle will never sneak in there again; though now I am less likely to expect to see her curled up in her bed near the desk, waiting for me to finish up & go back to the big bed with her. 

I still find her toys everywhere.  I go to put away her t-shirts & find one that she never wore; there are unopened bags of her favorite duck chips that will have to go to some other dog, because she won't be needing them.  Of course it was foolish to buy so many, but making a smaller order would have meant admitting that we had weeks, at most, left together.  For the last year or more I would flip quickly past the pages of memorial stones & urns in pet supply catalogs; & of course I had to avoid four of anything, after hearing so often that to the Japanese & Chinese, "four" & "death" were homonyms.  Superstitions, & not all of them even mine, but -- just in case. 

And yet for the last weeks of her life I checked her heartbeat or her respirations when she was sleeping so deeply, hoping that she had died peacefully there, & would not wake up when I tickled her.  Probably dying at home would have been a mercy for me, not for her -- the vet was competent, & we never left her alone. I had brought her in wrapped in a towel from home, along with her softest dog bed, & she was lying in the bed, in & under our hands, when she died.  She didn't flinch or gasp or react at all; she just relaxed, & I felt her heart, which had been beating so terribly hard as it failed, these last years, beat more gently & then give one last flutter. 

We left that dog bed at the vet's with her body, thinking they would keep her in it & Hartsdale (the pet cemetery) would take it along with her, but when we went to Hartsdale & saw her body before the cremation, there was no dog bed, & I think it stayed behind at the vet's.  A friend who worked as a vet tech said that after a few weeks, if unclaimed, bedding was used for dogs who were being boarded there.  So I didn't call to get it back; let some other dog get the comfort of it. 

But she had little beds all over, including two on our bed that we cannot bear to remove yet; the engineer took the sheets to wash but put the beds back up afterwards.  When he has left for work, some mornings, I lie with my head on one of her beds, & catch a bit of her scent, & get a huge rush of recognition for a moment. When I was away at work or in the kitchen or running errands & she was napping on the bed with the engineer, I was always secretly pleased to come back & find her lying on my pillow or right in the center of where I always lay, right in my scent, instead of snuggled up to him.  I understand it better now. 

Not much else helps.  I do not dream of her, which surprises & bewilders me.  I cannot talk about her or even think about her much without breaking down again, & have had to wear sunglasses to & in the office for privacy.  And I have almost no feelings for human beings, even the ones I loved or lusted after; that was gone as soon as she was & nothing is left but a mild gratitude toward those who were kind to her.

I could have done so much better, I could have been more patient, I could have kept after the doctors & insisted on more information or second opinions.  Somewhere, sometime, I stepped on a crack, let myself drink water in four gulps, or read the section of the pet insurance policy on reimbursement rates for euthanasia.  I wanted things, or people, or opportunities, but only with & for her.  Now I want to destroy it all, burn the building, break & rip up & smash everything I own; now I am ashamed to have scolded her when she was -- rarely -- destructive if left at home too long.  Now I see what she meant.

When we went to Hartsdale for the cremation, & were waiting for her ashes, I saw a young woman throw herself onto the ground where -- I suppose -- her dog or cat was buried.  At any other time or place, that would have appalled me; such over-dramatization; showing off.  But not there.  We were halfway up the hill, where the poodle will be buried when I can stand to let her ashes go out of the apartment, & the woman who was mourning at her pet's grave was down on the flat area & didn't know she could be seen.  I see what she meant now, too.

We're gonna walk around the block tonight

Nighttime Dogwalk Obstacle Course.

Start with elderly & somewhat senile poodle who can see a bit by day but almost nothing by night, is also deaf, has been having some digestive issues in the last day or two, & is on hunger strike because engineer has bopped off to Maryland for the weekend & she is miffed at being stuck with just me.  Add human with ADD & night blindness (post-LASIK a few years back). 

Make it stop

I think the use of "pop," as in "pop of color," started last year or the year before.  And it should have stopped then, too.

Instead, it's escaped from the lifestyle sections & fashion magazines.

If I want a pop of anything in my outfit, I'll wear bubble wrap.

Piracy on the palatine raphe

Down by the laundry room are various bookcases (mostly discards from when people moved or replaced furniture; one of them was mine, actually, but didn't fit into the apartment when we settled in), & there the building has an informal book exchange.  Friday morning the engineer brought up a paperback that he thought I'd like -- it was a mystery, which I sometimes do read, featuring dogs, always a plus, & when trying to fall asleep, I will read almost anything. 

I should have stopped after the author credited a romance writers' group for their support.  But then I would not have read about someone who kissed the main character & then continued to "plunder her mouth."  What the hell was he doing, stealing her fillings? 

 After three legal marriages & a good many informal liaisons, I am baffled.  What am I doing wrong that no one has plundered my mouth?  And how would anyone accomplish that?  Would I be as pleased about it as this heroine?  Had she hidden her jewelry in there, or her wallet?

From a quick skim of the rest, I gathered that the prose style & plot throughout ranged from breathless to downright bizarre (dogs also spoke to the heroine telepathically, & something about her own dog's lines made me picture Karl Malden), but I think -- I hope -- that no one actually made it into bed.  Because I really don't want to know what a man who plunders your mouth does to the rest of you.

Mitigation

Chinese antique carving, books & Teuscher?  (Granted, the first two are for the household, & the Teuscher would be too if I had not hidden it, but still.)

Oh, all right then.

Key lesson:

Apologies?  Promises to make it up?  Self-serving whining?  Boring & a tad insulting.

Actual effort? Works every time.  (Say it with books.  Even one book.  But chocs & Chinese antiques -- gild that lily, do.)