On holiday from sanity

While you were barbecuing and attending parades, Rick and I celebrated Memorial Day weekend by taking a holiday from our sanity.

We let our daughters set up refrigerator boxes in our living room as “houses”—-boxes that they requested and received for Christmas. Since we neither live in a mansion nor have an “open concept living space,” you can imagine the effect:

Why I don’t write at home

Every Tuesday—-my writing day—-I go to the same local coffee shop. The tables are numerous, the food delicious, and the coffee adequate. I often run into friends there.

Today I sat down at a corner table with four seats. The shop was half empty when I arrived, and I felt okay taking a large table even though I was by myself. After a steady stream of customers trickled in, the shop started to feel crowded. I kept looking around, feeling uncomfortable, wondering if it was time for me to move to a smaller table (in a less desirable location). It was getting awkward, but my love of the corner spot kept me in my seat.

After I’d been there an hour, an older African American man approached me and politely said, Could we have a couple of your chairs, Ma’am? I decided this was my cue. Would you like to trade tables with me? I really don’t need this space, I said.

He looked at me as though I had offered him a hundred dollar bill. 

Parenting my grandma

I accompanied my grandmother to a doctor’s appointment last month. It was time to replace the battery in her pacemaker. Her two children were both thousands of miles away, and they wanted to know exactly what the doctor advised.

So after sending my kids to school, I drove one hundred miles to meet Grandma at her cardiologist’s office. On a clipboard I brought a list of questions from my dad and a bunch of documents proving that I was permitted to attend the appointment.