Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Back from Gallivanting Friday Round-Up
I once went 843 consecutive days posting on my blog which seems, now, like a symptom of something. I remember the moment I realized I was going to miss a day. We were driving down a two-lane road to a campground next to some river out west and I said to myself, “Really? You’re going to turn around and go to a McDonald’s to get a signal so you can post today’s baloney?” It was like pulling the gate on a bucking bronco – I can throw you off anytime I like, Red’s Wrap, just watch.
The traveling was hard, but the trip was great. Airports are architects’ wet dreams – so much to organize and make pretty. So many opportunities for long hallways with dramatic floor to ceiling windows showing the world outside, so many clean, elegant lines uncluttered by unnecessary things like benches for old people to sit on while they gather themselves for the remaining mile of the walk to their connecting flight. I am not bitter, even though we had to be rescued at midnight by a young couple working the wheelchair stand, one of us becoming suddenly quite lame, because the trip itself was great. Full of grandchildren and baseball and the peaceful monochromatic landscape that is Arizona.
I ordered a shower chair for the one of us that is suddenly quite lame and a pair of black patent leather (I think) penny loafers. I say, I think, because I did it so fast and so carelessly that I didn’t really check to see if they were patent leather or just leather. If patent leather, it could be a kind of full circle thing, harkening back to the black patent leather Mary Janes the 5-year-old me wore to Easter Sunday School at the Central Methodist Church in Hastings. I remember walking there on my own, my head down, admiring my extraordinarily beautiful, ruffled anklets. I don’t know where my parents were – they must have come later in the car.
I’m not an elected official but I am an official. And in that capacity (Chair of the Milwaukee County Commission on Aging), I was invited to be in the audience at a panel discussion with a Cabinet Secretary (Xavier Becerra) about the Biden Administration’s successful efforts to cap insulin cost at $35/month and lower the price of other drugs as well. It was very cool to be there, with my little Commissioner pin, being righteously and pleasantly old, and having my picture taken with the guy who appointed me. Half my age, David Crowley is smart, inclusive, and optimistic, the latter being the rarest and most inspirational quality in an elected official. He is a role model for an old lady we know.
It is St. Patrick’s Day, and we have no Guinness. We have a wee corned beef and a sturdy head of cabbage and the possibility of apple crisp. We also have three cans of whipped cream in the refrigerator so we need to make things that can be slathered with whipped cream. For that reason, I decided not to make cookies.
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
The suddenly quite lame person should definitely not wear the (possible) patent leather penny loafers into the shower, even if the shower chair looks inviting, or because the two items were ordered together. Heads up- if you have never flown through Denver but have any reason to, reserve a wheelchair. That airport is a struggle rather you are lame or not.