Farewell Funky February

My February stank like steaming cauliflower, no cheese sauce. My heart lightened a little in anticipation of the turn of the calendar page to March. It had to be better! My friend came to visit and we talked for hours. We went through a huge volume of coffee, good creamer, and wore sweatshirts against the chill. "Nobody named me a doctor," she said as she hugged goodbye at the door, "but I think you're deeply depressed. How about if you go get some attention for that right away?" Yes. Well.

I often occupy a reclining chair to read. It is placed in a large bank of windows, and at certain times of day, the sun comes through the wooden shutters and warms me. At night, I can see the cars pass by on the street, or close the shutters and reduce my environment to a small comfortable room. At arm's length stands a small curio table with shelves that hold coffee cup, books and bookmarks, cell phone and sometimes a snack. When I climb into the chair for a read, I follow a ritual. Check the contents of the curio table, check the angle of the shutters, get onto the chair, cover most of myself with a San Francisco 49ers lap throw, place my glasses on the curio table, and open my book. Oh. I also howl out "Kitty, kitty, kitty" and I am quickly blessed with the presence of the lovely Virginia Woolf and her new step-cat, Bogie. I'd be certainly embarrassed, if not fully ashamed, to admit to the number of hours spent in that chair with those cats. On the plus side, I have renewed the lifelong habit of voracious reading, which I had lost when I was lost. I know all of the sounds of the house, and sometimes I sleep in the chair awhile, in the sun, with the cats.

The ornamental plum tree in the neighbor's yard is blooming so profusely, one can almost hear the blossoms snap open. No other plants or trees in the immediate vicinity seem to be in flower, even the other ornamental plum trees. I like to watch the tree from the recliner, through the shutters. It seems to grow fluffier during each reading session, looking for all the world like a gigantic pink Q-tip.

I got a book at the library - a most wonderful, comprehensive biography of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. I am an Anglophile, plus I really like the late Queen Mum, so this book was quite a find for me. I love that smiling face and the pastel suits and hats and the fact that she never hid her fondness for a cocktail. A few days into the book, I began to gripe in a good-natured way. This gem runs 1,000 pages and weighs approximately one ton (actually, using methods many women will recognize, it weighs about as much as a 5 pound bag of flour). I devoured the narrative of her Edwardian childhood and read with interest the explanations for some British pageantry I'd never fully understood before. After another day, I kvetched about my neck, arms and shoulders suffering a bit, and why wasn't this book published either in soft cover or in multiple volumes? I continued to read. On the night I had progressed to World War II, I was in pain. I'd read in chair, bath and bed for a few days. I read without my glasses, which requires planting a book right on my chest or nose. Biceps and triceps screamed. I gave up. I'll have to read the rest of the story some other time. Yes, I sneak-peeked to read about certain events after WWII.

Ex had a theory. He was in no way an Anglophile, but he tolerated my interest which caused him to witness royal weddings, funeral services and other glimpses at people who don't seem to occupy the same world as we mortals. He was taken by Queen Elizabeth's always having the just-so-correct handbag across her arm. After he mentioned it, I paid closer attention, and he was right. She sported a purse even when to do so would seem burdensome and unnecessary. Ex wondered what the Queen might keep in her pocketbook. Face powder, extra pantyhose, lipstick? Nah. She had people to handle that for her. So why the purse? Ex was a wickedly funny man. Whimsical and imaginative. His theory emerged thus: Queen Elizabeth is a capable, hardy woman. She shoots a gun and drives cars, she served briefly in WWII. Ex believed she carried a gun in her handbag. Maybe a .357 magnum. If anyone got past her people and posed an imminent threat to the Queen, she would tear open her purse, drop into a commando pose and show them with whom they were messing. Ex would demonstrate his theory, too, a very large, dark male imitating a small, fair woman.

About the time my brain (if not my eyes, yet) was abandoning WWII to King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill, my ears wandered, too. I could hear Piers Morgan interviewing Charlie Sheen on TV, and I could almost feel myself being pulled in. They discussed addiction (Charlie says he's not an addict and those women should not have called 911), his firing from his $1.8 million per episode TV show (Charlie doesn't think he deserved to be fired from the highest paid acting job in television), his treatment of other human beings - women in particular (Charlie says he has never hit a woman) and I could feel myself beginning to seize up like a pickled schoolmarm. Look, I don't know any more about Charlie Sheen than what the headlines scream. I don't know his TV show. I can't quickly name any of his movies I've seen. Without looking at him, I focused on the things he was saying - his responses to Piers Morgan's too-gentle questions, the answers to which were not followed up with any hard-hitting further questions. I did the slow burn for awhile, offended at many levels of my belief system. When the show ended, others in the room milled around while I continued to fume. I finally said it just the way it felt, but quietly, I thought. "That's the most f***ed up 45-year-old I've ever heard speak." I rocked the room. They laughed at me! "We could see when you were getting a belly full of him!" Yes, well, I know about that which I know about. He's f***ed up.

True story: When I was ill in 2010, I had a problem remembering things. Any things. This frightened me, because I have always - but always - been able to rely upon my head. I took to writing notes to remind myself of things. That may not sound unusual, but I've never had to rely on copious notes for any purpose. "Les, why are you making notes about that particular subject?" "I may need to know it and not recall it." And I had a near-collapse when I began to forget certain words. I broke down in tears the day I explained to a friend about the pedometer in my hand, how it worked, why it was used . . . . but I could not remember its name. My memory is much improved now. I'm almost cocky. Oh, yes, I had to struggle for a word the other day, but it is a pretty arcane word and I didn't panic over it. I Googled around and found the word. I don't take so many notes any more. And I'm back to multitasking. Mostly I can juggle a lot of balls at one time.

So, I have a jacuzzi tub that I love. Into that tub, I could take a baby, a lover and the entire neighborhood at one time and we'd still all have room to swim around. I sincerely apologize from the green/conserving part of myself, but that tub holds a lot of water and I get into it frequently. The reader doesn't need to know exact numbers. Let's just say I have to use an industrial strength moisturizer on my skin against all that bathing. I take coffee, a book, music or anything else to amuse myself during my bath. The sides of the tub are tall and I am not, so getting in requires a swinging leg, a plunge over the side and almost complete, immediate submersion. On a recent day when snow threatened and the house was chilly despite the furnace, I decided it was time for hydrotherapy. I set the tub to fill, the jets to roar, and noodled around doing tasks. When it came time to undress, I did it quickly, never yelping. I swung the leg, I took the plunge, I was submerged up to the neck. In a bath for which I had forgotten to add any hot water. Do you know, it is amazing how much a little old lady can shrink when exposed to ice water!

In my ears right now: I was young. I thought I was bulletproof. I was mistaken.