Excuses, Excuses, Excuses or Why I Missed a Week

I’ve been writing this blog for almost ten months. Amidst numerous competing responsibilities and pressing “must-do’s” I have managed to crank something out on a more-or-less weekly basis. But last weekend was different. I got bogged down. Overwhelmed. I couldn’t focus. 

It wasn’t a particularly unusual weekend. 

I was on the road at 2:30 a.m. last Saturday driving across the state to my brother. This is my thinking time, my life-planning, blog-composing, blissfully alone time. I do not mind doing this. I have my routines. I stop in Binghamton, mid-way, at 5:30 a.m. at a Dunkin Donuts for a cup of coffee and yes, a donut. Boston crème. Then I stop at a 24-hour Wegman’s to wander about the aisles for a few minutes. I look at their flower section, the expansive magazine display, the children’s books, the gluten-free items. I don’t buy anything, I just look.

I pull into the driveway of my brother’s group home at precisely 8:50 a.m., chat with staff, then head to breakfast at Miss Batavia Diner. Fifty years ago, my dad often took my sister and me to dinner there when our mother was pregnant with our brother and suffering 24 hour morning sickness. After my mom died and most of my weekends were spent cleaning out her house, the diner became my kitchen away from home, its owner and the staff welcoming and friendly. We get to ignore the “please wait to be seated” sign and head for “our” booth at the front where Lisa, the owner, appears with the coffee pot, a hug, and the hazelnut creamer she knows I like.

In the car I have given my brother an article about Randy “Macho Man” Savage dying in a car crash. I had promised I would print it the evening before after he’d told me this terrible news over the phone. He studies the article seriously, picking out words he knows. Macho Man, car, crash, Florida, Miss Elizabeth, WWE.

Over breakfast, he asks me to read it and I do, scanning ahead for the gist, then summarizing convoluted sentences with briefer, more understandable ones. He listens intently. I read the part about his wife being injured. “She die too?” he asks. “No, she’s just hurt, not badly,” I add. “Whew, close one,” he says.

After we eat, we drop a time-sensitive package off at UPS. I’ve been trying to do that all week in New York without success. We pick up my brother’s suit jacket from the cleaners that I left there two weeks prior. Am I the only one who notices sleeves that are spotted with gravy?  Next stop is the Salvation Army store to drop off old books I have carted all the way from NYC. Then to the bank to cash a check. My aunt calls in the midst of this wondering if I would stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for her.

A half hour later, we are heading to our favorite nursery/greenhouse outside of Rochester. My elderly aunt and uncle are along for the ride. This field trip, which could be accomplished in 30 minutes were it just me, stretches to 90 as they ponder their selections, move slowly, occasionally lose each other. My aunt hints, “Gosh, those hot dogs smell good.” This is a full-service nursery. It is 12:10 p.m. “How about a hot dog?” I say to my brother, knowing full well how he’s going to respond. He looks at his watch and frowns, “Not 12:30,” he says like I’m an idiot. “No, but it will be in 20 minutes,” I say. “I’m getting you one.” I direct the three of them to an unoccupied picnic table and stand in line for the hot dogs, sweating in the humid Rochester air. I hate hot dogs. After delivering them, with mustard, I head off in search of the vending machine for drinks. When I return, my brother hasn’t touched his food. He frowns again.  “Miss Batavia,” he says. “No,” I say, “We aren’t going back to the diner for lunch this time. Look, it’s 12:25, you’ll be hungry in five minutes,” I cajole.   “Oh all right,” he says, resigned. “Me eat.”  Thank you god(dess).

Back at home base, we unload my aunt and uncle and the trunk full of flowers. My brother and I head to the other end of town to Home Depot for dirt.  En route, he produces a booklet of coupons for McDonalds and points to a picture of a fruit smoothie. “Mmmm good,” he says and smacks his lips with gusto. I sigh at this second hint of the day. The coupons expire in a week. He’s not likely to get there unless I take him. “OK,” I agree, pulling into McDonald’s for his free smoothie.

Back at his house, we need to relocate his winter clothes to the basement and bring his summer things upstairs. But his room is an utter disaster. I remember hearing the strain in my mother’s voice telling me she was in a bad mood because she’d cleaned his room. Now, I totally get it. All over the place are little pieces of paper with the same sentences written obsessively on them. Videos and DVDs not in their cases lay strewn about in random places. He has several plastic bags hanging from drawer and door knobs, each with little collections of similarly themed DVDs in them. This one has an Elvis theme; that one has a Godzilla theme, still another with John Wayne movies. Bottle caps on the desk top, on the floor, behind furniture. Empty water bottles. Half-filled (and moldy) juice bottles. I open a desk drawer to find a pair of underwear sitting on top of papers. There are 3 layers of coats, sweaters, and shirts over the back of the desk chair. There are straw papers on the floor, old paper plates under his bed. A Christmas card with $20 in it, missing since January is unearthed under the desk. Behind the headboard of his bed, there is a pajama top on the floor, 3 or 4 mismatched socks, and a belt. There are gobs and gobs of dust everywhere. I unearth three toothbrushes from various hiding spots, and five or six old cleaning rags (unused). I am livid. The AC isn’t on yet in the house so I am also sweating profusely and I can feel my hair frizzing. After two hours of cleaning and tossing and telling him this is intolerable, we are ready to make the clothing swap. I carefully examine everything we are folding to take down to storage in the basement. “Is this clean?” I ask more than a dozen times. “When was the last time you washed this?” I explain for probably the hundredth time that just because he didn’t spill something visible on that white shirt doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be washed before it is put away for the summer. He just doesn’t get the concept of body oil. Save your breath, girl.   

By 5 p.m., I’ve had quite enough of him and I’m sure he’s eager to get me out of his room, so we hug goodbye until morning. I leave with 15 summer polo shirts, horribly wrinkled after their long winter’s nap, to iron back at my aunt’s. I know they will never get ironed unless I do it.  

The day is far from over though. First, there are the 15 polos to iron. In addition, my aunt/uncle will soon be celebrating 70 years of marriage. I can not imagine being married to anyone for 70 years. This is a big deal, and I have made reservations to take them for dinner at one of their favorite places.

We are home by 8 and it’s still light enough for me to drag my potting soil out of the trunk and plant three kettles full of geraniums for the cemetery.  Then we sit out by the garage, watching the rest of the daylight fade, the hummingbirds draw the last drop of red sugar water from their feeder, the row of solar lamps in the garden burst to life one by one. This is the one peaceful moment of the day. I’m trying to be in it, not thinking about the final papers I should be reading for one class, the grades I should be calculating for the other, the laundry that won’t get washed, the food shopping for myself that won’t get done. I consider a week of eating oatmeal, hummus and carrots, and popcorn for dinner. It is nearly 10 p.m. and since I have been up since 2 a.m., my eyes are slowly crossing and my brain is closing up shop. Go to bed, girl.

Sunday morning, we go back to the diner for breakfast, then off to another town to deliver one crock of geraniums to my grandmother’s grave. We stop at the grocery store for snacks for my brother. Then Walmart for film for his camera. I remember that we need to shop for his gift for our brother-in-law, whose birthday will come before I will be back in town. Finally, with all missions accomplished, we head through town back to his home. I glance at him in the seat next to me. He has his glasses off and is rubbing his right eye. “What’s wrong with your eye?” I say. “Do you have something in it?”

“No,” he says. “I sad.”  

“What are you sad about?”

“Macho Man Randy Savage,” he says.

“Oh, yes,” I say, trying to summon up patience and empathy. “It’s too bad, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he whimpers.

“But,” I say, “think of it this way. “He’s probably up in heaven already hugging Miss Elizabeth.” I learned from the article that she had been his first wife, and she had died of an overdose many years ago. 

“Oh,” he says, looking brighter. He ponders that for a minute. “That’s good,” he agrees, finally. He puts his glasses back on and looks out the window up at the sky. “You be fine,” he says presumably to Macho Man. Deluge averted.

We drop off his snacks at his house, but everything has to be first marked with his name. We stop at another cemetery to deliver mom and dad’s geraniums. Then back to my aunt’s house. I start to pack up my car for the drive home. I give my brother the card we bought for our brother-in-law. “Here,” I say. “Sign this.”  He laboriously – and very neatly –  pens his name, then waits patiently for me to spell the address for him as I pass back and forth carrying my stuff to the car. 

Finally, after hugs all around, I pull out of the driveway. Next to me on the seat is a wicker basket containing a raspberry turnover my aunt has baked that morning, 2 sticky buns loaded with walnuts, and 2 pieces of cake that she has saved for me in the freezer. This is not good.

I drive. I stop for coffee. I eat the turnover. I stop for gas. I stop at Staples for some supplies I need. I stop at Kohl’s to look for slim chinos for my skinny brother. I eat a sticky bun. And drink more coffee. I stop again at Wegman’s, buy some cards, buy some gluten-free items for my daughter. I stop at a Best Buy to look at computers because mine is driving me nuts. While there I decide I could be convinced that I need a new camera, a flat-screen television, and a wireless router. This is not good. Get out of Best Buy, girl.

Back on the road, I approach the Tioga exit for the casino. I am thinking about stopping. I need soothing and I have the idea that sitting alone at a slot machine might help. The loss of $70 on my last trip to a casino, however, is still painfully fresh in my mind. I step firmly on the gas and drive resolutely by the exit. Stopping is not a good idea.

It is 9 p.m. by the time I pull into my driveway. In 11-1/2 hours I will be back at work, racing against time. The laundry is unwashed, the refrigerator barren, 25 papers remain unread, 26 grades are uncalculated, the blog is unwritten. I.just.can’t.