Xander and I had taken our walk around the loop after I had gotten home from work and I had made him do his three tricks for me before I gave him his Greenie when I was finally able to plop down in the Kateri/Xander Chair and relish in the fact that I didn’t have to wake up to an alarm in the morning and was already at the start of my weekend… hooray! As Xander crunched away and added another layer of foamy drool to the carpet, it was nice to just sit, relax, reflect on the day/week, and just breath for a minute. After a moment of quiet and calm, I did like most people in those situations and started flipping through my phone to pass a little time.
I had made a few notes on the ol’ iPhone 8 earlier that I knew I was just gonna delete. So, as I sat there wondering how many gallons of Canine Saliva the rug has soaked up over the last year and a half, I took advantage of where I was at, opened the app and deleted the notes. I then proceeded to scroll through older notes to see if I could get rid of anymore! Yay for iPhone Storage Maintenance! Now, I would like to say that I am organized and can effectively use technology to help me stay organized, but I’m one of those people who would much rather jot something down on a piece of scrap paper or document important things in multiple spiral notebooks than use “this app “or “that software” to keep my life in order. Regardless, once in a Blue Moon I’ll dictate something into my phone while driving so as to remember whatever random thought I felt I needed to remember, or I’ll type something in the moment because I felt whatever information I just heard needed to be immortalized in some cloud for the rest of human civilization… all to feel like I’m hip and not falling behind The Times!
As I was scrolling through keeping this note or deleting that one, I came across one from last year that kinda stopped me dead in my tracks. It said, “Feb. 18/19, 2022… My mom and I just put Legos together until 1:12 in the morning.” Yup… that brought back a flood of memories! Not to mention that I had made the decision to set the world aside for a tiny bit the evening I was going through old notes and was gonna put a Lego together while in comfy clothes as I watched something informative and educational on The Boob Tube such as The History of the Combover for my Friday Night and found the Lego thing to be a nice little coincidence!… and then I cried as Xander stared at me from his spot on the couch across the room. (He doesn’t have “a spot”… the couch is his.)
After allowing myself to just “Go with the flow of the moment”, I felt the need to breath normally instead of the hiccupy gaspy breathing pattern crying forces us to do! So, as my breathing slowed my mind was able to shift from memories of my mom and some of the experiences we had back to present day life. It felt good to take some deep breaths as I massaged my forehead and pressed my fingers into my eye sockets. The room was blurry from the wall of tears still resting under my eyes and it felt good to rub them away. I sat there for a moment…with my eyes closed… going between rubbing the eyeballs to wiping the salty water on my pant leg as my brain began to apply the brakes and I started to think about what I could take away from this experience. Before I decided to open my eyes, I gave my shaved head one more squeeze… my face one more wipe as I stretched my eyelids and eyebrows to my temples… and slowly watched as life came back into focus. As my hand was retreating from my face and when it got to about ten inches from my chin, I saw the various scars of Kitchen Life on my weathered fingers while another part of Present-Day Life came into focus as it was making its way around my knuckle…………. A TICK!!!… and yes, I FREAKED!!!
Let me tell you… and “Sorry” Mom… but my mind pushed EVERYTHING aside and went straight into SURVIVAL MODE! I didn’t know what to do! I can’t just flick it!… I’d only be flicking it to another position IN my house! Could I make it outside?!… before it latches on?! Maybe?! Maybe not!! As I jumped out of the chair (in a controlled manner so as not to set it free in my home) I saw the woodstove and my brain instantly went, “Flick it in there!”. So I lifted the lid, strategically positioned my hand in the opening, and plinked the little bastard with 127 pounds of pressure from my fingernail somewhere into the two square feet of ashy prison I had decided was the best place for it to go! I feel like my plan would’ve been good… if I had a fire going… but I didn’t. Now I’m worried it’s gonna somehow get out of the stove, back into the house, and latch onto my back somewhere… just out of reach…! So, I do the logical thing and start catching pieces of newspaper and junk mail on fire and then quickly opening the lid to throw them into The Tick’s own little personal crematorium! I mean, I’m not gonna put paper in the stove and then put my hand in there to light it… there’s a tick in there! After about a Sunday’s Edition of the New York Times worth of paper, I felt safe enough to say, “Crisis averted.”.
As I stood there in my living room with my hands on my hips… Xander staring at me quizzically from his couch… I laughed at myself and simply went on with the start of my weekend.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 