Yesterday morning when I left to go walking with Rita and Joan I was startled out of my reverie about how to get rid of this cold by the insistent barking of a pit bull perilously close to my car. His leash reached just to the end of the walkway next door and he was straining at it with all his might, evidently convinced that I was invading his territory by walking to my car. He has one of those cute circles around his eye like Spuds McKenzie (beer spokesdog) but the cuteness stops there. He's out there right now (7:45 PM EST) barking at something. The pit bull sort of goes with the run of scarfaced bikers in leather she's been bringing home lately. Kind of a motif. I actually found myself thinking: now is the time to sell the condo and move to Rhode Island.
I made it to Rita's and we only walked half the route before I pooped out on the hill. I couldn't breathe. We went back to her place and had lunch and espresso and she handed out the plans for our trip to North Conway later this week. We each have designated items to bring and tasks to perform. She's organized.
I rested at home for awhile and then had a brief burst of energy in which I dropped off the laundry, bought healthfood type snacks for watching the world series, picked up zinc lozenges and echinacea capsules as well as tea (prescribed by Rita so I will be over this by Thursday for our trip), cleaned the Auntmobile, picked up cat food for the little orange wacko at Petco, even bought a CD-ROM at Charrette so I would have something besides grownup stuff if the kids had to come over, and the crowning achievement: on the way to pick up Nancy at the bus station, I stopped at New Words to get a copy of Rat Bohemia, which I've been wanting to read.
Whew! I don't know where I got that energy. By the time Nancy and I got back up here to The Vineyard to buy their unbelievable 3 mushroom salad and stuff for dinner I could barely walk or talk or anything. But we had a great time watching the game. Wade Boggs on horseback during the postgame celebration was a bit much, so I took my tired body to bed.
Nancy didn't try to wake me up this morning. She let me sleep til she heard me coughing and offered to make echinacea tea for me. After breakfast I went back to bed for a few hours. Then we bravely went to Pasta Palazzi for lunch. After lunch I showed Nancy all the cool things the new Mac can do and napped some more.
I feel bad that I didn't go to see the Elizabeth Stuart Phelps play. Especially since I had a message from Julie on my voice mail when I got back from lunch asking if I could take pictures of the actress in costume for the historical society. I couldn't even call Julie back because my voice totally fled during a solicitation call from the Special Olympics. The poor guy couldn't hear my refusal so I had to repeat it as loud and broken as I could until he got the point that I have no problem with the organization - I just don't have a job and can't give the generous amounts I used to to anything. Anyway, now I can't talk above a squeaky sqawky whisper.
Also, this afternoon two little boys about 5 or 6 years old came to my front door and rang the bell insistently until I answered. They asked if I had anybody for them to play with in here: any kids or any fathers? Odd question. I said I live here by myself. The littler, of the two asked again about were there any fathers here. I asked where they lived and one kid tried to describe his unit, the other said he didn't live here and he lived two places. I didn't get any more info from them.
I drove Nancy to the bus station and came right back home. My unit was still here. Wilbur, his orange insaneness, was waiting for me at the door. I am serially slipping Hall's honey-lemon-menthol cough drops in my mouth until bed time.