The TV, Part 2

George Washington’s birthday is a time for sales.   My friend took me to Best Buy and she analyzed all the TVs and told me which one was best.  She liked the reconditioned models and some of the smaller ones but, in the end, I decided on a 42″ plasma screen whopper.  For under $500, I think it’s a deal. 

I was all for paying Best Buy to deliver, haul away the old 100 pound blinking monster and pay $150 for setup.  My friend, thrifty is the nice word for her, refused to allow that and promised she’d get her sons/husband/male friends who owe her to come over and haul away the old TV and set up the new one.  She can do that, she’s great with electronics.

We carried the TV down the three flights of steps to my place and I slid it into the bedroom until that day, hopefully very soon, when my lovely new TV will be in my living room and I can sit on my sofa and christen the first viewing with The Fellowship of the Ring. 

There is peace in my heart and I let go of my anger against my almost-ex and his idiot friend.  I am tempted to send Duff a message on facebook telling him he can now keep that 5-year-old TV and to shove it up something sideways.  But I am too content and I won’t do that.

For the love of Bruiser

He weighs about 110 pounds and he’s going through his springtime shed right now.  There is hair all over my house.  I sweep the floors daily, sometimes more, and vacuum twice a week, which isn’t nearly enough.  Sadly, my wardrobe is based on black. 

In 1952, my mom bought a clothes brush from the Fuller Brush Man.  It looks like new and is now finally getting the use it deserves.  Is the Fuller Brush Company still in business?   No wonder if  it’s not; producing such a strong product put them out of business.  A brush that is still going strong 59 years later doesn’t indicate any planned obsolescence. 

My black coat is brushed several times a day.  My vacuum cleaner, a Dyson, The Animal model, has to be emptied every single time I use it, there is so much dog hair in my apartment.  On my bed.  On the floor.  All over.  Disgusting.

But, Bruiser is well worth it.  He is the smartest dog I have ever had. 

There is a hill we have to walk up to go out of my courtyard and a week or so ago, it was covered with snow and quite icy.  Bruiser was frisky and I encouraged him.  “Go on, Bruiser!  Go on!  You can run up the hill!”  He did.  I loved the way my boots slid on the ice going up.  At the top, I felt my legs flying out from under me and I landed flat on my back and hit my head on a block of ice.  No real damage, (I did feel a slight whiplash two days later, though), but at the time, I laid there slightly stunned.  Bruiser came over and nudged me under my shoulder until I got up.

Then, he helped me walk down the hill, going very slowly, the leash in his mouth, taking me back home.  It was touchy getting my footing on that downward slope and when I would pause, he would stop and turn around, sniff at me and push me a little with his nose as if to keep me going.  When we get in the backdoor, he stopped and looked at me until I moved around enough and he seemed satisifed that I was okay. 

A dog that would please Saint Bernard.

He loves his Milk Bones but I made the mistake of putting peanut butter on one.  Now, when I give him a plain one, he pushes it away, won’t take it from my hand until I put peanut butter, or cream cheese, or butter, or even jelly on it.  Just a touch makes him happy. 

My condo is on the ground floor and before Bruiser, I felt a little uneasy being so vulnerable.  Now I don’t.  Yesterday, there was a knock on the door and Bruiser barked.  I opened it without any worries and two tall young men were there. Young men I would never have opened the door to before.  One had long dreads, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, the other, the white one, had his head almost shaved, tattoos on his neck and looked rather, well, scary. 

No fear for me.  Bruiser pushed his way out the door and growled at them until I said, “Wait, Bruiser.”  I believe his name alone is an intimidation.  The young men were selling subscriptions to the Washington Post and I bought one just because they looked so damned scared of my dog.  They were very polite, too.

Bruiser is eight years old.  Old for a St. Bernard.  He is healthy and runs like a puppy.  Sometimes.  He likes to sleep a lot and I think his hearing may be going.  Last Wednesday I was vacuuming and came right up behind him.  “Move, Bruiser!” I said. He just sat there, his big, broad back to me.  I tapped his head and he turned and jumped up, startled at the vacuum cleaner and then went into the bathroom and climbed into the bathtub.  He hates the vacuum cleaner.

He also goes into the bathtub during thunderstorms and during the two times I attempted to cut his toenails.  We had to go to the vet for that in the end.

At night, Bruiser sleeps in the dining room and then in the middle of the night, he comes in, looks at my face and if my eyes are closed, or if I’m looking through almost-closed eyes, he thinks I’m asleep, sniffs at me, then lays down next to me.  He’ll give a big, heavy sigh as he settles down.

He snores sometimes.  So loud, I have woken up and thought I was back home with my almost-ex-husband as I come out of sleep. 

He’s a good friend.  My dear pal.  I love him so much and wish St. Bernards lived for 30 years.  But, they don’t.

My Minimalist Experimenting

 

Having only a few possessions intrigues me.  Like the character in the Anne Tyler novel who walked away from her family taking nothing but a credit card.  She had all of her things in one box after a while. 

I’m working on tossing my extras, doing a 15 minute fling boogey every day as recommended by the Fly Lady.  I carry stuff to the trash, lots of good stuff but if I’m not using it and I can’t give it away easily, it’s nothing more than a burden on me.  No longer to I think, “This is good stuff, I can’t throw this out.”

It’s just molecules. 

So, my bed is a futon I ordered from Japan.  I got used to it quickly and sleep wonderfully well now on that 3 inch deep cotton packed easy to store in a closet bed.  The comforter I also ordered from Japan is satiny cotton stuffed with shredded silk.  An easy to remove cover washes well. 

Not much furniture in my bedroom although there are piles of books.  Less books, though, since I got a Kindle. 

I have few clothes and they are all comfortable.  My shoes are all comfortable.  Everything matches everything else.  I wear a lot of black. 

My hair is now shorter and easier to care for, although long, I just washed, combed and went.  I don’t use a hairbrush anymore, just a comb.

Makeup is simple but I always wear it.  Lipstick is a must.

My refrigerator is almost empty. 

I don’t have a vehicle.  Take the bus and Metro and get around just fine. 

Living with less, decluttering, streamlining my life has made life more enjoyable. 

Don’t think I’ll ever reduce my possessions to a couple of boxes.

The TV

Four years ago, Jimmy and me bought a flat screen TV for my condo. It was a nice big TV and cost about $1,500 on sale, 50% off. When I rented my condo to Kevin, we left the TV and told Kevin we’d come to get it. After waiting a million years, Jimmy and his friend Duff went to get the TV before Kevin hocked it. There wasn’t real room for the TV at our house, so Jimmy took it to Duff’s house with the understanding that when Kevin was evicted, the TV would go back to the condo.

Kicked Kevin’s sorry rear end out. Time to put the TV back. Several months went by. “Jimmy, when are you and Duff going to take that TV back to my condo?”

Now, the entire presence of this condo in my life is a weird strange road that I was trying to navigate to the eventual leaving of the marriage. What started on my end as wanting a time out, renting a room somewhere and rethinking my marriage, rolled into buying a $225,000 overpriced condo, which we christened “the studio” where I tried to work away from home.

So if it sounds kind of strange me saying the house, the condo, this is why.

Jimmy kept saying, “I’ll move the TV when I get around to it,” every time I asked. The last time I asked him, he didn’t answer. I got it. “Oh,” I said. “I get it. You told Duff he could keep the TV!”

“Duff has done a lot for us! He saved us a lot of money!”

“Oh, really?” I asked. The biggest reason I have financial challenges now is pretty much Duff’s fault.  Jimmy’s, too.  Those two together, and I’m not going there now, pretty much screwed MY financial situation.  Jimmy’s, too.   

So, we lost a lot, ruining my retirement plans at the age of 52.  Not a good time to see one’s retirement planning go under.   Especially after I’d been out of the workforce for the entire marriage. 

So my idiot husband gives Duff my TV.  And Duff won’t give it back.

I am having difficulty getting over it.  I thought I was getting past this, but the old TV I have is beginning to die.   I asked Duff on facebook to return my TV.  No response.  Then I told him off but good and said goodbye in my mind to my TV.

If someone wanted their damn TV back, I’d give them their damn TV back.  I’d do it nicely, too.

Duff knew it was only in his house for storage.  But, he’s a cheap SOB apparently.  I have de-friended him completely and totally.

When one divorces, one doesn’t only divorce a spouse, one divorces friends, too.   

Good.

However, now my crappy TV screen goes black for 2 or 3 seconds, then comes back.  Sound is still good. 

An entire new level of intensity delighted me this evening when I watched Speed  with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.  I’d never seen the movie before.  When the screen went black, it  definitely ratcheted up the excitement.

Christmas alone, Christmas with the family

For the first time in 57 years, I am alone for Christmas. 

It’s a wonderful, exhilarating feeling to be completely alone.  No Christmas chores.  No gifts to buy.  No cards to send.  Nothing.  It’s a great experience and I’m happy with it.  Things do change, don’t they?

Years ago, Mom and Dad always made a Christmas for us.  A real tree that cost $5!  Dad put it up, Mom directed how the lights go on.  Instructed us how to put the decorations on just right.  We hung our stockings, big stockings with our names on them, on the cardboard fireplace that spent the rest of the year in the attic. 

Mom always spent too much at Christmas, but what a wonder on Christmas morning!  The tree would have tinsel on that Momwaited to put on after we had gone to bed. 

Before sunrise, my sister and I would come downstairs.   We had to wait to open our presents, but we could empty our stockings. 

The gifts waited and we took down our stockings.  They stuffed with small gifts, candy canes, and always that lousy orange and those damn walnuts in the bottom of the stocking that Dad would crack open and eat some time during the day.  

Later in the afternoon, we would dress up (dresses and patent leather shoes and short socks, hair in neat pony tails with barretts) and we would go to Grandmother’s house, my father’s mom, when she was still making Christmas dinner.  I think she was in her 80s when she gave that up.  She had restaurants in the 1920s and 30s and could still make a wonderful meal all on her own.  She made the best pie crust ever.  Lard was her secret, and her special touch.  Her pies weren’t the tidiest, but tasted best.

After that, we’d go to my Yiayia’s and visit with the Greek side of the family, bringing Grandmother along.  Grandmother was fairly obvious in that she thought Yiayia was a peasant.  And perhaps Grandmother thought that her son could have done better than marry into an immigrant family.

My mom’s family, the Balloses, had served as Dad’s second family for so many years, long before he married Mom.  Aunt Helen, my mom’s older sister, and her brother, Mike, had been friends with Dad for years before my father ever considered my mother as a wife.  

So, that’s the setup and there are so many tangents I could go off on. But, this is the one Christmas story that still makes my sister and me laugh.

Aunt Helen was hosting Christmas dinner.  She told my mother not to bother making pies, that Doreene (her daughter) would make the pies.  This annoyed Mom to no end because she felt that she made the best pecan pie.  Not too sweet, thick with filling and pecans.  She would make two large pies with the recipe on the Karo Syrup bottle.  Doreene would make three or four small pies from the same recipe and Mom thought Doreene’s pies were chintzy.  

That Christmas, Aunt Helen instructed Mom not to bring the whipped cream for the pies, she would supply it.  When we got to her house, we saw that Aunt Helen had provided Cool Whip, not real whipped cream.  Mom got mad.  She left Aunt Helen’s and drove all the way home, over ten miles, to get her own whipped cream for the pies.  We don’t know why she just didn’t stop at the 7/11.

During dessert, Mom was sitting on the sofa next to me.  The Cool Whip was on the table next to mom’s real whipped cream.  Some of us were at the table, some of us sitting on the sofa and stuffed chairs eating our desserts and having our coffee.  Everyone was talking, too.

During a quiet moment, Mom said loudly, “Well, Helen, you had to have Cool Whip, but I notice you’re certainly piling on the REAL whipped cream that I paid for!”

All the family stopped their talk and looked over at Mom.  I felt humiliated because I was right there next to Mom.   No one said anything.

“Well, what??  You are eating enough of it!”  Mom continued.  Silence. Then everyone went back to stuffing their faces.

No car

No more car.  I had a truck, an awesome Dodge Ram pickup with a Hemi engine.  That baby could fly!  Mostly, I used the car as a grocery getter and to get to CVS and doctor appointments.  But, because of my separation, my former husband came and got the car from the parking lot without telling me.  It took me a week and my daughter to tell me the truck was gone. 

Metro takes me to work in DC.  My driver’s license expired on my birthday and I haven’t been to get it renewed, so who needs a car? 

I’m going to pretend I’m in Paris.  I will take the Metro all around, walk, carry my groceries home daily in a string bag.  Whole Foods is on the Metro!  And I can stop at Cosi’s and get a sandwich and a glass of wine if I want.

But I’m not in Paris and it’s just not the same…

living on my own for the first time!

 I’m on my own for the first time.  As an adult, I lived with my son as I was bringing him up, we had an apartment, several apartments,  and now and again, I moved back home with Mom & Dad.  Got married, had two more kids, and that was fun, having the three children.   I kind of lived with Jimmy for 23 years.  Now, I’m on my own with no one but my St. Bernard and parrot.

What joy to come home and the kitchen is clean! No one’s mess to clean up! Peace and quiet. The scissors are always in the drawer.

Doing my laundry is not so bad. While I do miss my fantastic front-loading washer and drier, a top of the line combo that was gentle on my clothes while cleaning them like a Burmese woman banging my clothes with a big rock on the riverbank, I don’t mind hunting for quarters to put in the community laundry and cleaning out somebody else’s lint from the drier filter.  It’s just not so bad.  Not bad. Not bad at all.

Sunday morning

It is a beautiful perfect Sunday morning. My dog loved going for his walk and I did, too.