3/24/2022

I'm up til 6 being a fool writing on, looking at Kerouac reading to an added jazz backdrop of sound.  

I get up at 1.  Tiptoe down the stairs.  God.  Mom is down in the living room sitting in her Eames chair. 

 I heat up pizza for her.

She complains about taking her pills.  What are these pills for?  Why do I have to take them...  I plead with her.  I hear her call me a bastard.  I walk out the front door.

I go outside and do my yoga sadhana, Mantra chant, pranayama, sitting cross-legged on a slope of grass out the front door.   

Chuck rolls up in his Jeep, the newer one.  He had to go back and get his keys off the keychain from the '98 out in Scriba.  He's got to go through the National NAZE for bridge repair resurfacing elimination of lead paint to qualify for his new job. 

That's a big hole in your car, a lot of rust.  Do you take it to the carwash?  There's a lot of salt on the road. It doesn't look good to him.  Maybe somebody can Bondo it.  The rocker panel, looks like it's hanging by a thread.  Not good.  Maybe it's not worth fixing it.

I come back in.  Mom is sighing.  Where are those bastards.  Women always have to wait for men, she's explaining to herself.  

I wish I'd gotten up earlier, but I didn't feel up for it.  Just every day, exhausting.

The microwave beeps at me.  Mom wants to go out for a drive.  Then she'll want to go out for lunch.  Her social security check came through into her account, but there's not much room for play when the rent is half of that.  

I open a small can of chicken and rice soup from the generic brand, add some stock, a dash of bone broth, spices.  I take some of the chicken artichoke from an earlier dinner, for the soup, and then the baked potato, along with a few chicken wings doggy bag from earlier in the week.  I hear her call my name from the Eames chair.  Yes, mom, that's the Helen Vendler Emily Dickinson book I got for you.  Yes, it's yours. Can I take it home?  You are home. 

Her sighs are more appreciative.   She's dropped the bastards keeping her isolated thing.  My blood pressure drops somewhat.  The cat has eaten two thirds a can of Grilled Chicken Feast in Gravy, and goes back out.  The sun is coming in and out through the clouds.  The wind has dropped.