Come hungry... leave?

“Where are you going,” I said with a slightly raised voice? My friend turned slowly towards me with his familiar albeit confused glare. We’ve known each other long enough for me to immediately recognize the glare as really more of a question: “WTF are you bitchin’ about now?” “Where are we going? Are we on some Sunday drive or something,” I demanded? “Well it’s lunch time. Aren’t you hungry? There’s that place just up the road that we went to before. You liked that didn’t you?” I had no idea where or what he was referring to but, I said, “no” anyway. Why did I say no? I imagine partly because where I went to grad school most questions were first answered with a, “no.” Also, I never enjoy the meals or service in this town so; I thought it generally safe to answer in the negative. In addition, this week I have, “not been in a good place,” as self-help books might term my funk.

“I thought we were going shopping?” “No, I don’t want to shop!” His tone suggested that this wasn’t negotiable. “Well, why the f**k am I in this car? He offered, “Well, if you don’t want to go there to eat, then where?” I don’t know why I suggested this but out came, “let’s go to IHop. I want to go to IHop.” Boy do I have fond memories of IHop from high school. Those memories were culminated with looking up one morning staring into Spud’s disapproving face; his arms crossed and uttering simply, “gentlemen?” (Never mind who Spud was, if you were there you’d remember him) We went to a private high school and senior year had first period as a free period. We used to slip away to the IHop a couple miles away from campus and hold court over stacks of pancakes. This was long before they started putting chocolate chips and other weird stuff in the cakes. What made them great then were their fluffiness and your choice of four types of syrup. But that was then...

Now, two, maybe three decades later depending upon how honest I want to be here; I was on my way to IHop again in a Buick. We walked in and I felt like that character from mythology that flew to close to the sun. This wasn’t the place I remembered. Whose design idea it may have been I don’t know but, you could see directly through to the grimy kitchen. Three kitchen workers looked up at me from their work. They sneered as if I had just arrived unannounced to their kitchen at home. They looked over-worked and a bit pissed. I put my head down and followed what appeared to be a tenth-grader/host to our table.

The room seemed much smaller than I remembered; much dirtier too. I took the menu from the table and whipped away the food left on the seat by the last customer. I rested my forearms on the edge of the sticky table trying to take it all in. The place looked as if it had not been painted since I was there last. Thirty-five to forty percent of the paint from the deep window sill had chipped way revealing hunter green underneath the creamy white. The room had a yellowish, golden hue as if we were sitting in a recently emptied deep fryer. I ignored my friend’s expression which suggested both blame (me, for a bad choice) and fear (of the meal to come). I tried to make light of the situation as we waited and waited for service. A waitress finally came over. “Sorry guys, I didn’t see you over here in the corner.” (The restaurant floor is all on one level) We asked for water and coffee and if we could just place our orders then rather than waiting for her to come back. After some consideration, she finally agreed leaving me to feel as if I had been done a great favor.

People entered the room, were seated and served while we waited. We caught the waitress in passing and asked for cream and sugar for the bitter coffee. There’s nothing like craving coffee and receiving a rancid cup from a dirty pot. Yummy. I found it extremely odd that when she came with the sugar packets she asked me to pass her their container. She did not give us a few packets to get started. She fumbled and adjusted and re-adjusted the packets until they all fit neatly in their container. This took maybe five or six minutes and was more than a bit painful to watch. OCD? I don’t know what was happening but, for a moment I was weirded-out. About fifteen minutes later our meals came. I had the mushroom and spinach omelet. It was covered in canned strange yellow “Hollandaise.” It needed no Hollandaise, canned or fresh. Why then? I believe that the answer most likely is; because this big ass country loves goo? It also came with a stack of pancakes. Who needs to eat a large omelet and a stack of pancakes? Anywho, the mushrooms were raw and the spinach barely blanched. I love mushrooms and spinach and was starving by this point so...

As we ate I surveyed the room further. My friend asked if this experience would, “appear as a blog post tomorrow?” I lied and said that it would not as I was distracted by an attractive blond woman who seemed to be flirting with me. The big black dude she dined with had his back to me. I never know when people are flirting with me unless they are obvious. She was obvious. “Maybe she wants to trade up,” I thought aloud and moved on to obsessing about the enormous woman to my left who handled her bacon more delicately than I have ever seen. “Then the magic words, “let’s get out of here” came from my friend.

We were done and it was time to go. As I left I felt ashamed for some reason. Again, walking with my head down, I could hear discontented rumblings from my stomach. I sent my friend a text message later that evening, “Hollandaise hated residence in my tummy. It left quickly with little notice.”

Oh well, I’ll always have high school...

BTW: I came across this on the internet on 05/16/12

The Sole of an Environmentalist

So, what's with me and old shoes, doctor? I have always had the hardest time throwing away old shoes and I am not sure why. These aren’t Johnston and Murphy dress shoes that can be resoled as many times as necessary in your life. These are casual shoes used mostly for walking; even sneakers. This problem came to a head a couple days ago.

The other night I watched an episode of the television show, “Hoarders.” If you have not seen this show, it concerns people who cannot part with stuff. Stuff and things enter their homes and nothing leaves. Not even the wrappers or bad food leave. Eventually moving about is all but impossible and facing condemnation, health problems or a threatened spousal separation, the residents are forced to solicit the help of a therapist and a “professional-throweroutter.” I should add that these poor folks are now considered mentally ill, thus the therapist. The stuff has taken over their lives and they cannot even move about their homes. They have the most ungodly floor to ceiling pits of junk that you would ever wish to see. I immediately thought of the old “Sanford and Son” television series from the ’70’s where Fred G. Sanford and his son Lamont lived in a junk yard. Well, the situations on this show are similar but, this isn’t funny. As well, we should consider ourselves lucky that smell-a-vision has yet to be invented.

While I have held onto things for much longer than I probably should have in the pass, I don’t consider myself a hoarder. However, shoes are a different story. I can’t seem to part with them. After watching the show I got up to get a glass of water and tripped over shoes in my bedroom. When I came back with the water I sat and looked about me. At any point in time I have at least a dozen pairs of shoes and boots that are in terrific shape and at least a half dozen pairs of shoes and boots that should have been tossed a year ago. I pulled stuff from under the bed, out of the closet and made a pile of every piece of footwear I own. There was a two to one ratio of great footwear and garbage footwear. I sorted the pile leaving only the garbage footwear. It was hard. I fondled a pair of Sperry Topsiders whose right heels were so worn that it appeared to have at least an inch missing from the outer edge. I finally put them in a trash bag and immediately removed them to consider again if I was making the correct choice. I know, I know, this is odd to me too. It wasn’t as if I did not have plenty of other shoes. I don’t wear the Topsiders and haven’t for a while; in fact the insides are so ruined that they would cause great pain to wear. I took a pair of scissors and cut the leather cord that runs the side of the shoes so as not to be tempted to retrieve them again. I then thought that the cord of leather might be useful in a craft project or something so I removed it. Shaking my head I quickly put all of the garbage in a plastic bag and set it at the curb for the next morning’s trash pickup.

Where did all this old shoe saving come from? It is not as if I spent my childhood shoeless chasing critters about the “holler.” I have thought about this and can offer no explanation other than; it pains me to add to the landfills. I always try to recycle and find second and third lives for most everything. Old tuna cans become paint dishes for projects; spent sauce jars become the receptacles for spent grease; Styrofoam packing peanuts are used for drainage for newly potted plants; old towels and t-shirts become shop towels and so on. I believe this my responsible in an attempt to reduce my carbon footprint and all. Other than that explanation, who knows? I of course also acknowledge that I have yet to find any use for old shoes other than a make-shift hammer. Maybe, I’m just plain…

By some standards all this old shoe saving might seem nuts. I might even seem in need of some sort of intervention and care of a trained professional. Nah. Aren’t our neuroses what make us more interesting individuals? Other than being on occasion unsightly or perhaps a tripping hazard; who am I hurting? Besides, as I told a friend the other day, “we all have problems; some are just a bit more visible than others and few really require a group meeting.”

Never wait...

Life has been a bit strange for me lately. I recently connected with an old friend that I was very close to eight or so years ago. Back then we drifted apart I would like to say because we were different people. The truth is that we both had a couple three emotional problems; unfortunately while we needed each other greatly, those problems pulled us in different directions. Neither of us ever forgot during this period apart what we had meant to each other.

We found our way eventually back to each other’s lives through social media. As you well know Facebook collects every key stroke. On a couple occasions I entered my friend’s name and came up goose eggs. You know how on Facebook in the right handed column they offer suggestions for friends? Facebook suggested that I friend a young woman who turned out to be my long lost friend’s cousin with the same last name. My friend has an uncommon last name so, I assumed their might be some relation. I sent that young woman a message asking if she was indeed related to my friend and she immediately sent a message back stating that she was. I then sent her my contact info and asked that she pass it on to my friend. She was happy to help.

As the weeks and months passed, I heard nothing from my friend and had all but given up hope. I surmised that he just did not want to look back. I understood this in that I too have received requests and thought the same thing. Sometimes it is not best to look back. Then about a month ago my friend contacted me. We picked up where we had left off; long conversations now supplemented with texts, emails and Facebook messages. It was like old times. We greatly enjoyed the renewed connection and told each other so a couple times. There was something wrong though…

I don’t know if you can but, I can sense so much from a telephone conversation or an email about someone’s life. My friend seemed greatly unhappy. He seemed almost to pretend the opposite. However, I am not one to ask about private matters even with close friends and certainly not through social media. I have always thought that people would/will reveal to me what they want me to know. And he did. Each connection told me a bit more about his life. Each connection also told me that he was greatly discontented with his life and the world. It was my plan to actually meet up with him sooner rather than later. I have moved cities since we knew each other and we were now a couple hundred miles apart. Not a real problem at all, we just needed to set the date.

Last Tuesday we were to chat again. He sent me a text about one o’clock in the afternoon and asked if I was going to be around for a chat that evening. That evening I sat and watch mindless television waiting for a call that never came. Then Wednesday came and I texted him. Knowing that he did seem on edge I did not want to pester so, I left a couple texts for him that I thought would make him laugh as I have before. Oddly, there were no responses to those texts. Wednesday became Thursday, then Friday and then Saturday. Friday night into Saturday I barely sleep. I knew something was wrong. Sunday morning I went directly to the computer and without thinking I “Googled: his name. The search engine returned two obituaries for his name and city. In disbelief I even rebooted the computer. They were real. Neither of the death notices for my friend offered any real info other than next of kin and funeral arrangements. I signed the online guestbook with the truth; “I would always remember him as one of the kindest people that I have known.”

As you might guess I am torn apart by all this. I have no idea what happened. I searched his local newspaper and other search engines and only came back with those two obituaries again and again. Someone suggested I contact the family. Having been through such events myself I thought it inappropriate to contact his bereaved family with the question: “how did he die?” I have always found such questions a bit insensitive.

Right now all I feel certain of is that the universe brought us together again if only for a month to in some way say goodbye. My pain is only consoled by the joy we shared in the past month.