planes and cars — rams and tears — balls and fears — Docs and Jeers
“Thanks for watching Arrow and Tiger while we go to the Rams game in LA,” Melika noted.
“No problem,” Nazy replied.
“Being a Rams fan,” I thought, “is like being a Chicago Cubs fan — without the 2016 season. Not only is the football team bad, the owners talking the city into building a stadium.”
Nazy took a few selfies while the grand(est)sons shared the bed.
The remainder of the week unfolded dramatically. On Monday, I had a brief checkup with my physician. When he mentioned elevated blood pressure, I explained that I…
“.. do not want to dwell on my health.”
“You’re speaking to your doctor.” He replied. “Health is my…”
“Ball, cat, piano.” I responded.
“Eh?”
“During last year’s physical, those were the three words you asked me to keep in mind as a memory test. Now,12 months later, I can’t forget them. That’s why I don’t want to dwell on my health.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Neither did a ‘ball-juggling cat playing the piano,” I said, reciting the nemonic I had used to remember the (now) unforgettable.
“If you were 90 years old, I’d ignore your blood pressure readings. But you’re a young man..”
“ .. thank you. My blood pressure is higher than normal because of the election tomorrow. I’ve had a frightening premonition. I have a queasy feeling — like the one you get when discovering that your kayak instructor is a kangaroo.”
My premonition was not only frightening, it was also accurate.
The Tuesday night announcement that “The world has ended”, came while Nazy and I were visiting friends and watching the election results.
“If the world is finished, they probably won’t cash the tax penalty payment check.” I thought — looking for the positive. At this point, Nazy hadn’t noticed..
“Why is Wolf Blitzer crying?” she asked, returning from the kitchen. “And why is Christine throwing things at the TV?”
I explained what had happened. Nazy gasped.
“We need to get Darius and Christiane into the USA before..” I thought pointlessly.
Meanwhile a friend from The Netherlands warned me that the borders were closing and..
“We’re going to be building a dike, Dan.”“A dike?”
“And we will give your new president the bill.”
Domestically, Arrow, our youngest of the grand(est)sons, reacted to the news by refusing to get up on Wednesday morning.
Tiger was (in)completely nonplussed.
“What does that mean?” Nazy asks befuddled.
“Tiger, my dear, had more important concerns than the demise of western civilization.”
“Like what?”
“Like his cars. I just spend more than an hour playing cars with him. Where did he get this obsessive gene? Do you think he’ll ever grow out of it?” I asked planetively.
“He won’t grow out of it Dan.” Nazy retorted. “You retired, but you still have your collection of little airplanes.”
“Tiger has more cars.” I replied. “And some of my airplanes are big.” I thought.
“Tiger wanted to play with your airplanes. And we’re trying to teach him to share.” Nazy noted pointedly.
“My airplanes are fragile, Nazy.” I replied. “And Tiger broke the 1954 Thunderbird car I got for him.” I thought.
“I’m sure he’ll be careful Dan.”
“I think I’ll go read him a book.”
We ended up playing cars, reading a few books, playing cars, having fun with marbles, playing cars, writing on the whiteboard, playing cars and breaking the landing gear of a few airplanes.
According to his teacher, Tiger is very independent. But, she told Melika: “He doesn’t eat his snack with the other children.”
Melika asked Tiger about this foible.
“So, Tiger,” she said. “Why don’t you eat snack with everyone else?”
“When they are eating, I play with Landon’s cars.”
I noticed that I was low on petrol when I drove to pick Tiger up from school. I pulled into the nearest gas station, a Mobil, right off the 101. I began pumping before I noticed the price.
“$4.99/gallon?” I thought. “Did I get teleported back to Switzerland? Did the dollar crash?”
I stopped after two gallons and, later, went to my normal Shell station ($2.39/gallon).
“That Mobil station was gouging the convoys headed toward Canada,” I thought in my last comment about the election results. (Except to mention my support for Calexit and the Republic of California.)
For last week's letter, please click here
Arrow — happy — before election 