It’s really noisy in here. I have on headphones, and I can here too much noise for my liking. I’m not sure why people think they need to yell when they work in food service. I think all the restaurant clang makes the workers temporarily hard of hearing. I know it made me that way. So, I sit and listen to the Indigo Girls punctuated by loud utterances of laughter and food industry slang. I like it here. It’s real.
Tomorrow morning I will run 7 miles. I am shooting for 13-minute miles, so I plan to get up around 5 to run because it is too fucking hot otherwise. I don’t say that lightly, that it’s fucking hot. It is. This morning as I walked the dogs, the sweat puddled around my neck and in the small of my back. My shirt was drenched by the time I made it the slow, two-mile jaunt. The dogs were panting. I was panting. We relished the cool, air-conditioned house.
We are supposed to go move Grams’s stuff from Norwood to Warren Home tomorrow, too. I hope this move goes smoothly for her. It’s strange, really, how we move old people about from place to place either by force or by desire. There is much to be said for cultures who keep the old ones in their homes with them. I think it brings less fear of death and less fear of aging to see it happen right before your eyes. I have never seen anyone die. I have never seen the sloppy parts of getting old, except the time when Mrs. Rhine, our across the street neighbor, pooped on the floor when I went to visit her one time. She said, “Oh, excuse me,” and made a bee-line for the bathroom. A little poop fell out right there on the floor. It dropped in slow motion from the hem of her house dress to the floor while I sat there, a small child, not knowing what to do. “I’ll be back next week!” I shouted as I ran out the front door. I wasn’t sure what to do with the little poop staring at me, so I ran.
In fact, I think that could be a metaphor for my life. When there is a little poop staring me in the face, I want to run.
Reason Breeds Insanity 
the sloppy parts are, to say the least, interesting. at this point in my life, i haven’t been able to say that they’re gratifying, only deeply sad, BUT you also come to appreciate small victories far, far more than you ever would if you’d never seen the sloppy parts. (and for the record, seeing poop on the floor is a pretty sloppy part.) both of Ben’s grandmothers are very healthy, for their age, and sharp as tacks. only one of his grandfathers is living, but he’s also very sharp and hilarious. his other grandpa died suddenly when he was four. that said, let me tell you: it’s strange being with an 87-year-woman who knows exactly who you are and can get around, in many ways, like a young thing. there’s no way i would appreciate THAT in the same way i do, either, without my precious grandmothers, who are deep in the sloppy parts of aging. i enjoy them equally to, just differently than, Ben’s gramma. make sense?
That was a great post, Corbs. I wish, though, that you would not use the f word so frequently. I am offended and my middle school children are too. 😉
what, the “food” word? : )
Abs, you crack me up. I will, in the future, refrain from using the “F” word so much. I will stop talking about food. 😦
I won’t fucking read this blog if there isn’t something about food on it! LOL.
Ha! You guys are too funny!
I don’t know exactly why, but your thoughts about keeping old people with us and therefore learning about/accepting mortality remind me of some thoughts that I’ve had recently about Michael and his family. His father is an avid hunter and also has raised different kinds of livestock throughout his life. Right now he has hogs. They butcher their own meat. It’s cool because we get good meat that is not full of pesticides and hormones, but it really grosses me out if I think about it too much. We have to go down like twice a year and help butcher and wrap meat. It is really hard work, by the way. Anyhoo, I think that growing up in that kind of environment has given Michael a different perspective on mortality. He understands death in a way that most of us who think of pork as a pack of bacon that you buy at the store do not. He understands how fragile life is in a different way than most of us. One shot to the head kills an animal, you know? One puncture with gun powder ends a life. Our bodies are not indestructible. We are made of skin and guts and muscles, just like pigs. Maybe unrelated, but just my thoughts . . .
Hey, I just realized that I included both a response to your serious topic and some thoughts on food!