Nothing new here. Old stuff all over again.
So I will talk about something else.
I needed a haircut. Badly. And that is what got me out.
First I must contact the pizza place and order pizza, salad and ice cream. Then I must stop at the juice shop and buy for myself and for the grocer. Then haircut.
Then order from Philly. Then the small grocer next door. Then Philly again to pick up my order. Then home.
Everyone is new at the barber. The whole place is new. The inside is remodeled. We are all strangers to each other. I was there and seated and watching when the boy handed the driver my $10.00 tip as if it were his own as we arranged. I was supposed to be seated for a haircut but they were running late. Then he was surprised that anyone bought him ice cream. He is still a boy. I watched him with the same fondness that I watch my own nephews and I have no idea who he is.
I must say, the woman gave me a fantastic haircut. I watched the whole thing. I was amazed. And I have been studying haircuts since ... um ... since a very long time. Like really pay attention as if I am doing it. Because I wanted to try what they do on my dog. That is why I paid such close attention and that is how I knew this haircut is different. It goes from zero to something militaristically. I look like a military officer. But this woman trimmed it all up, way up, severely, and the rest backward with the front flicked upward and backward to make me look exactly like Gatsby.
"You know, in my thirties I used to model."
"You did?"
"Sure. All over the place. For the whole decade. But I must tell through that whole thing, through extreme makeup and haircuts, I never had a haircut good as this one." And I meant it. And I sounded so freaking sincere that she knows that I meant it. Plus I bought her a pizza, salad and ice cream. What's not to like about this whole thing?
Back outside I stopped at Taste of Philly and ordered a sandwich and 6 Cokes. What the heck. Take some home.
I also need milk, ice cream, sugar and corn starch, the basics of life as set forth in the Bible. Somewhere.
The grocer didn't have cornstarch. I gave him his watermelon drink. I don't think it's really all that healthy. The juice place doesn't put it on their menu. It's just a thing that they like that is better than the things that you usually get. It is a complex mixture with other healthy things like ginger.
So that is two fairly unusual gifts. Pizza, salad and ice cream for the haircut people and watermelon juice for the grocer.
Now I am laden with things to take home.
This was a mistake.
Let me write this down. Note to self: Don't do that again.
My backpack contained two pints of juice to bring home, a gallon of white milk and two half gallons of chocolate milk, and one half gallon of chocolate ice cream and five pounds of sugar. Surprisingly, this filled the backpack. And it is a large one too. And it is heavy. The bag that I carried contained a 12" sandwich and six Cokes and potato chips but those hardly weighed anything at all.
The heavy bag intrudes mightily with my left cane as if it is its own gyroscope working against me. This is most of my difficulty, the high blood pressure and kidneys not working is incidental to that. I walk the street as if I am traversing K-2 in the Himmy Layas. This is my state. I live in each moment. Each step. Each step is a struggle for continued life. I feel myself sinking. I feel my leg muscles closing down. I fumble the door key.
Odd, because the key is automatic. I just touch it. How do I fumble that? By touching the key and not the key fob.
Inside I see no one. I hear no one. I say into the absence from behind my mask: "Did you get your box of tea?"
From inside the office, faintly, "Yes! Hang on."
The woman met me at the office door. We are blocking the door, face to face, both covered with masks. She is excited about the box of twelve sample teas. Each their own tin. She showed me the box. She told me about her previous tea adventures. She was very excited to have this box of tea appear from out of the blue. Associated with nothing. She was thrilled.
"Liz guessed it was you."
And she looks fantastic. Her hair is great. Her makeup is great. Her hygiene is great. Her dress is splendid. Her shoes are fantastic. Her jewelry spot on. She smells like a mystical tree. She is upscale and she hides in the back of this office. But now she is talking to me excitedly about tea.
Tea.
Imagine that.
The other woman sprang up and joined us. Now three all wearing masks face-to-face-to-face, two fantastic women, blocking the doorway. She is exited about her caladiums. This is part of a group that I left in a box at the beginning of lockdown. The woman cannot grow anything but this time she grew a pot full of wonderful large splendid colorful foliage. She is thrilled. Thrilled because she finally grew some plants. She is showing me photographs of her caladiums on her phone.
I see the results from two previous gifts. Caladiums and tea. Both stabs in the dark. Both worked really well.
I give and give and give and give.
And what do I take?
I take all the joy and excitement and raw pleasure that people give so freely when somebody springs a small surprise on them. It is so easy.
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