I Scream, You Scream, No More Ice Cream
The trail led down the hill, disappearing through a tunnel of houses, then up and into sight again, vanishing over the horizon. It beckoned me to follow, but at 7:30 p.m., the sun had set and darkness was falling fast. Reluctantly, I turned toward home.
Late this summer, I rediscovered the joys of bicycling. Tonight, pressed for time, it was the mountain bike I chose, spinning out of my garage and around the corner onto the dirt trail, a dog-eared bicycle map tucked inside my T-shirt. Shoes open-toed, legs bare. No helmet. No water. No destination.
Racing the descending sun and clouds that threatened rain, I rode hard and fast, thinking about everything and nothing: The man at whom I was pissed, loose plans already made for the upcoming weekend without my sun, the Sunday choir performance for which I felt unprepared, a too-long-absent friend with whom I'd finally spoken that day, the man at whom I was pissed.
I stood on my pedals to ease the pain in my knees of schlepping the bike and my body up a hill. It was not even a steep hill, I noted with equal parts dismay and disgust. I'd felt deceptively fit only a week ago when I rode 20 quick miles on my slender, laughably light, aluminum-framed Trek. But sailing on a road bike over Denver's flat, paved trails was one thing. Riding the heavier mountain bike over the small roller-coaster-variety trails of the south suburbs was an exercise in humility.
At the top of that rise was a split in the trail, and here was where the trail unfurled down, up and away. It seemed to disappear into the mountains, which were framed by dark clouds. Drops of rain began to fall, but lazily so. They lacked the enthusiasm necessary to become a storm, a soaker or even a dust buster.
With or without rain, the newly discovered section of trail would have to wait for another evening. I headed gratefully downhill.
By the time I rounded the last corner of the bike trail and bounced over the curb and back onto the street, darkness was only one slim layer of light away.
Out of the gloom, the sound of chimes rang, taking on an audible shape that was instantly recognizable. It was the song of the ice cream truck. The small, boxy vehicle drove into view at the end of a nearby street, pausing at the stop sign.
Something was wrong with this picture, I thought. It was the lights. The ice cream truck was piercing the darkness of the neighborhood streets with headlights.
The ice cream truck belonged on sun-drenched summer streets, with kids who ran to it from the front yards in which they'd already been playing.
Yet here it was, the driver making one last, seemingly desperate round on a Monday night, the first of autumn. I imagined the arguments he sparked in kitchens throughout the neighborhood as the heads of children, obediently bent over homework, snapped up at the strains of their favorite summer song. They pleaded and cajoled, and work-weary parents responded with firm, then frustrated 'nos'.
The ice cream truck, so welcome on a summer's day, did not belong here this eve.
The truck and I passed one another on the street. It slowed, the driver perhaps momentarily confused at the tiny light bobbing toward it, then regained speed, the driver and I waving at one another in the off-handed way of mere visual acquaintances.
As I rode by the truck's side, the sound waves broke and shifted and the happy tune suddenly devolved into something you'd expect to hear from a horror movie fun house. It was as though the truck were speaking. Summer's over, it seemed to say. Close the windows, pull the blinds, put away the sprinklers, drain the pools, bring in the flower pots. The bitterly beautiful season of winter is waiting impatiently in the wings, ready to take center stage.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The first time I met her, she called me a dog. Inadvertently, of course. It was confusing -- meeting me and my dog at the same time, what with my dog having a sort of human female name. But still, there it was: your boyfriend's mother, calling you by your dog's name. Not the most promising start.
My then-boyfriend introduced me to his mother with great excitement. "You'll like her," he said. "She's really nice." We entered her Denver house together: Zach, me and my border collie/Australian shepherd mix, Lindy. His mother was nice, greeting us with a big smile and in warm tones, her voice lightly laced with an accent I later learned was Oklahoman. She had big, brown eyes, high, round cheekbones and dark, curly hair. A pretty woman, already then widowed several years. She must have been in her mid-50s then, but I was too young at the time -- mid 20s -- to think about her age. She was a mom. A mom I wanted to impress, but still mostly to me just a mom.
It only occurred to me later, years later, that she was not just a mom. But a woman. Even then lonely and heartbroken, widowed too young - as though there is ever a right time to be widowed - facing an uncertain financial future, accustomed to a lifestyle she even then must have known was no longer sustainable.
Her smile when she addressed me that day gave away none of it. "Lindy, would you like a drink?" she asked.
I blinked, befuddled. Lindy likely was thirsty, but I would have bet doughnuts to dollars she'd already found an open toilet. Then I realized she was speaking to me.
And so our relationship began. Sue Allen eventually became my mother-in-law, later my son's grandmother and soon after that, my ex-mother-in-law. Strained by the divorce, torn by the custody battle, our relationship - bound by my son - was always that of family.
Sue Allen died last Wednesday at the age of 79. She died alone, in a hospital, with tubes up her nose, a band Velcroed to her forehand, rubber strips of some sort holding yet another medical measuring tool cutting into her cheeks. The last time I saw her, her depleted body was little more than a slight rise under a white sheet. The last time her eyes opened to mine, they were big, brown moons in a face strangely smooth and youthfully shining illness.
Almost two decades passed between the first and the last time our eyes met.
In the time between, I remember countless evenings spent in her Denver home, with Zach's brother and sister, and later their spouses and husbands, gathered inside the sprawling townhouse. She loved antiques and the finer things in life. Her hair was always expertly done, clothes fashionable and flattering, nails professionally polished. She was without fail, and for every day that I knew her, ladylike and dignified.
Sue Allen also could cook, and I remember big, meat-centric meals, the cut of choice sometimes grilled, sometimes roasted for hours, the meals always framed by endless glasses of red wine and the smoke of cigarettes. She and all three of her children smoked. I was always trying in vain to escape, to find a piece of furniture, a corner of the home, not saturated with cigarette smoke. I never found it because this was just part of the drill, the price paid for good food and a soon-robust family that often overwhelmed me with its wide-ranging personalities and issues.
Sue was the anchor, and Zach, by default after his father's death, was second in line. Yet I sensed that the family had suffered an unbreakable kink in the chain when Sue's husband died, that their most solid member had fallen away, leaving them all slightly adrift. To this day, I wish I'd have known the family that existed in the days before his death.
I suffered my miscarriage in Sue Allen's bathroom. Shocked by blood while my ex-husband and I were shopping in Denver that day now almost 14 years distant, we retreated to her home. I heard her voice and Zach's rise and fall from the living room and smelled cigarette smoke as cramps rippled through my abdomen, as I passed what was distinctly a tiny and vague but wholly human form. I called them in to see it, then flushed it away from sight.
She wanted to be in the delivery room for Robby's birth, having missed that opportunity with her own daughter, but I refused. I was not her daughter. It was not my duty. Sometimes I still wonder if I did the right thing.
It was with a shock, almost 10 years later, to hear that she planned to testify against me in the custody battle her son and I waged years after our divorce, when I moved two hours away from the mountains to the city. According to the docket, she was prepared to testify about my frequent vacations, a handful of long weekends I had taken in the two years previous to visit what was, by that point, an ex-boyfriend.
I was furious at the idea these few days could be so blown out of proportion. Even more so, I felt betrayed that she planned to say damning words about me in a courtroom when she and I had never exchanged a harsh word. Whether or not she truly intended to testify I will never know. The decision came with shocking speed and minimal testimony, granting her son primary custody.
In the chaos immediately following, she tried to approach me. I stood in the hallway, conferring with the court advocate about the wisdom of an appeal, too stunned and outraged to cry.
I heard Sue's voice from a small knot of people at my left shoulder. She was talking to someone else, perhaps to Zach, but she intended her words to reach my ears.
"I hope Jane isn't mad at me," she said. "Why, Jane has some qualities I wish I had."
At that moment, I could not turn to acknowledge her. My pain was too raw, my anger all-consuming. I thought I might hit her if she came any closer. Yet all these years later, the words and not the anger I felt, stay with me.
I could divorce her son. But I could not divorce my son's grandmother. He loved her, and she spoiled him rotten. I could not keep them apart. So as families often do, we put the past behind us, never spoke of it again, and moved on with our relationship.
When I moved to Denver, and Zach and his wife moved farther away, it was me who ensured she saw her grandson, who came to dinner in her apartment, whom she hugged and called sweetheart and over whom she sometimes worried. I felt like a surrogate daughter, stepping in where Robby's father could not. At first, I thought Sue was treating me so well because she knew it was in her best interest, that she knew very well I was the bridge to her grandson, and the unrelated parent who lived closest to her.
That changed on a snowy December night, on my way home from her house. I had brought Robby there for an overnight stay. In spite of her protestations, I left for home, driving slowly but steadily down snow-thickened and silent Denver streets. Shortly after my return home, the phone rang. It was Sue, saying she'd wanted to be sure I made it home safe. "I've been worried about you since you left," she said.
A feeling of warmth spread through me at the tender and genuine care and concern in her voice.
"OK, well I'm glad you're safe," she said. "I love you. Goodnight."
Though she had the time, the personality and the looks to easily do so, Sue Allen never remarried. I never even knew her to date. She moved several times in the years I knew her, each time to a smaller place, each time leaving behind furniture and other pieces of a life receding ever further into the past. I never heard her complain about these changes, or speak with bitterness or sorrow about the direction her life had taken. In fact, I never heard her speak of it at all.
In those last couple of years, she worked in the front office of her apartment building in exchange for rent and Zach's two siblings moved into her small apartment with her, each for different reasons, each with financial challenges of their own. While it was not the life any of them would have chosen, it most certainly was not the life Sue Allen had envisioned for herself. On the phone or in person, she revealed none of this, her voice always bright and cheerful, her manner always welcoming and warm.
Earlier this summer, a routine surgery ended with a myriad of complications. And after only a few weeks home, Sue Allen was rushed back to the hospital with a blockage in her small intestine. More complications, including pneumonia, ensued. We visited her on a Sunday that last time, three days before she died.
She was aware of our presence for only a few moments, but even then, strapped to an army of instruments monitoring every flutter of life within her, she put on a cheerful face for Robby, her cheeks somehow rising in a smile around the tubes and straps.
"Did you have a nice birthday party?" she asked Robby, who'd celebrated his 13th birthday the day before.
And then, only seconds later, "Is the coffee ready yet?"
I thought she was out of it for good then, so we said goodbye and turned to go, stripping off the latex gloves we'd been required to wear in the ICU.
But then we heard her voice again, muffled and impossible to understand. We both turned and stepped closer to the bed.
"What did you say, Grandma?" Robby asked.
"Kiss me on the cheek?" she said distinctly.
The last time I saw Sue Allen, my son was touching his lips to her cheek, somehow finding an open patch of skin among all the tubes and bands lashed across her face. She smiled slightly and murmured something that might have been, "You're a good boy, Robby."
My then-boyfriend introduced me to his mother with great excitement. "You'll like her," he said. "She's really nice." We entered her Denver house together: Zach, me and my border collie/Australian shepherd mix, Lindy. His mother was nice, greeting us with a big smile and in warm tones, her voice lightly laced with an accent I later learned was Oklahoman. She had big, brown eyes, high, round cheekbones and dark, curly hair. A pretty woman, already then widowed several years. She must have been in her mid-50s then, but I was too young at the time -- mid 20s -- to think about her age. She was a mom. A mom I wanted to impress, but still mostly to me just a mom.
It only occurred to me later, years later, that she was not just a mom. But a woman. Even then lonely and heartbroken, widowed too young - as though there is ever a right time to be widowed - facing an uncertain financial future, accustomed to a lifestyle she even then must have known was no longer sustainable.
Her smile when she addressed me that day gave away none of it. "Lindy, would you like a drink?" she asked.
I blinked, befuddled. Lindy likely was thirsty, but I would have bet doughnuts to dollars she'd already found an open toilet. Then I realized she was speaking to me.
And so our relationship began. Sue Allen eventually became my mother-in-law, later my son's grandmother and soon after that, my ex-mother-in-law. Strained by the divorce, torn by the custody battle, our relationship - bound by my son - was always that of family.
Sue Allen died last Wednesday at the age of 79. She died alone, in a hospital, with tubes up her nose, a band Velcroed to her forehand, rubber strips of some sort holding yet another medical measuring tool cutting into her cheeks. The last time I saw her, her depleted body was little more than a slight rise under a white sheet. The last time her eyes opened to mine, they were big, brown moons in a face strangely smooth and youthfully shining illness.
Almost two decades passed between the first and the last time our eyes met.
In the time between, I remember countless evenings spent in her Denver home, with Zach's brother and sister, and later their spouses and husbands, gathered inside the sprawling townhouse. She loved antiques and the finer things in life. Her hair was always expertly done, clothes fashionable and flattering, nails professionally polished. She was without fail, and for every day that I knew her, ladylike and dignified.
Sue Allen also could cook, and I remember big, meat-centric meals, the cut of choice sometimes grilled, sometimes roasted for hours, the meals always framed by endless glasses of red wine and the smoke of cigarettes. She and all three of her children smoked. I was always trying in vain to escape, to find a piece of furniture, a corner of the home, not saturated with cigarette smoke. I never found it because this was just part of the drill, the price paid for good food and a soon-robust family that often overwhelmed me with its wide-ranging personalities and issues.
Sue was the anchor, and Zach, by default after his father's death, was second in line. Yet I sensed that the family had suffered an unbreakable kink in the chain when Sue's husband died, that their most solid member had fallen away, leaving them all slightly adrift. To this day, I wish I'd have known the family that existed in the days before his death.
I suffered my miscarriage in Sue Allen's bathroom. Shocked by blood while my ex-husband and I were shopping in Denver that day now almost 14 years distant, we retreated to her home. I heard her voice and Zach's rise and fall from the living room and smelled cigarette smoke as cramps rippled through my abdomen, as I passed what was distinctly a tiny and vague but wholly human form. I called them in to see it, then flushed it away from sight.
She wanted to be in the delivery room for Robby's birth, having missed that opportunity with her own daughter, but I refused. I was not her daughter. It was not my duty. Sometimes I still wonder if I did the right thing.
It was with a shock, almost 10 years later, to hear that she planned to testify against me in the custody battle her son and I waged years after our divorce, when I moved two hours away from the mountains to the city. According to the docket, she was prepared to testify about my frequent vacations, a handful of long weekends I had taken in the two years previous to visit what was, by that point, an ex-boyfriend.
I was furious at the idea these few days could be so blown out of proportion. Even more so, I felt betrayed that she planned to say damning words about me in a courtroom when she and I had never exchanged a harsh word. Whether or not she truly intended to testify I will never know. The decision came with shocking speed and minimal testimony, granting her son primary custody.
In the chaos immediately following, she tried to approach me. I stood in the hallway, conferring with the court advocate about the wisdom of an appeal, too stunned and outraged to cry.
I heard Sue's voice from a small knot of people at my left shoulder. She was talking to someone else, perhaps to Zach, but she intended her words to reach my ears.
"I hope Jane isn't mad at me," she said. "Why, Jane has some qualities I wish I had."
At that moment, I could not turn to acknowledge her. My pain was too raw, my anger all-consuming. I thought I might hit her if she came any closer. Yet all these years later, the words and not the anger I felt, stay with me.
I could divorce her son. But I could not divorce my son's grandmother. He loved her, and she spoiled him rotten. I could not keep them apart. So as families often do, we put the past behind us, never spoke of it again, and moved on with our relationship.
When I moved to Denver, and Zach and his wife moved farther away, it was me who ensured she saw her grandson, who came to dinner in her apartment, whom she hugged and called sweetheart and over whom she sometimes worried. I felt like a surrogate daughter, stepping in where Robby's father could not. At first, I thought Sue was treating me so well because she knew it was in her best interest, that she knew very well I was the bridge to her grandson, and the unrelated parent who lived closest to her.
That changed on a snowy December night, on my way home from her house. I had brought Robby there for an overnight stay. In spite of her protestations, I left for home, driving slowly but steadily down snow-thickened and silent Denver streets. Shortly after my return home, the phone rang. It was Sue, saying she'd wanted to be sure I made it home safe. "I've been worried about you since you left," she said.
A feeling of warmth spread through me at the tender and genuine care and concern in her voice.
"OK, well I'm glad you're safe," she said. "I love you. Goodnight."
Though she had the time, the personality and the looks to easily do so, Sue Allen never remarried. I never even knew her to date. She moved several times in the years I knew her, each time to a smaller place, each time leaving behind furniture and other pieces of a life receding ever further into the past. I never heard her complain about these changes, or speak with bitterness or sorrow about the direction her life had taken. In fact, I never heard her speak of it at all.
In those last couple of years, she worked in the front office of her apartment building in exchange for rent and Zach's two siblings moved into her small apartment with her, each for different reasons, each with financial challenges of their own. While it was not the life any of them would have chosen, it most certainly was not the life Sue Allen had envisioned for herself. On the phone or in person, she revealed none of this, her voice always bright and cheerful, her manner always welcoming and warm.
Earlier this summer, a routine surgery ended with a myriad of complications. And after only a few weeks home, Sue Allen was rushed back to the hospital with a blockage in her small intestine. More complications, including pneumonia, ensued. We visited her on a Sunday that last time, three days before she died.
She was aware of our presence for only a few moments, but even then, strapped to an army of instruments monitoring every flutter of life within her, she put on a cheerful face for Robby, her cheeks somehow rising in a smile around the tubes and straps.
"Did you have a nice birthday party?" she asked Robby, who'd celebrated his 13th birthday the day before.
And then, only seconds later, "Is the coffee ready yet?"
I thought she was out of it for good then, so we said goodbye and turned to go, stripping off the latex gloves we'd been required to wear in the ICU.
But then we heard her voice again, muffled and impossible to understand. We both turned and stepped closer to the bed.
"What did you say, Grandma?" Robby asked.
"Kiss me on the cheek?" she said distinctly.
The last time I saw Sue Allen, my son was touching his lips to her cheek, somehow finding an open patch of skin among all the tubes and bands lashed across her face. She smiled slightly and murmured something that might have been, "You're a good boy, Robby."
Sunday, September 07, 2008
I could never hear Sarah Palin's name again in my life and be perfectly happy. I told my son this today as we sat in a hospital waiting room while I thumbed through a copy of time. Ms. Palin was on the cover. Note, I did not say "graced" the cover. Annoyed, I tossed down the Time and grabbed a slightly mangled copy of People. Unfolding it back into its original shape, I could finally make out the cover: Sarah Palin and family, all grinning maniacally.
What's not to like, you may ask? Or maybe not. Because if you're a fan of this blog, you're either a liberal or a very tolerant friend.
From all I've heard, I don't think Sarah Palin is a very nice woman. Or, as one man said today, "I think she's a vindictive bitch." This based on the whole state trooper, sister's divorce, firing, back-biting strange shenanigans. Second, she's Republican. Third, she's ill prepared. Fourth, she smiles too much and it's one of those fake, former-beauty-queen-turned-politicians smiles. Praticed. Cheesy. Calculating.
But perhaps most of all, she lives in Alaska. And as a cold-blooded woman - though notably NOT a vindictive one - I cannot relate in the slightest to someone who voluntarily lives in the land of glaciers and polar bears.
Robby and I don't really talk politics. My statement was more or less a comment made while passing the time. (What we were doing in the hospital waiting room is another story.) I think Robby leans toward Barack, but given the recent baptism debacle, I can't be sure of anything about him anymore. Except that he likes video games. And peanut butter. Unless he's tucking the peanut butter into his cheeks and spitting it out later, I know these two things for sure.
But my neighbor and I do talk politics. He, a conservative Christian, and me, an increasingly more liberal liberal, swap thoughts over the back yard fence. We are like Wilson and tool guy Tim, except that Dave is a floating head from my line of sight and not merely an arm, leg or chin. It happens almost naturally. Dave will be working in his backyard, and I in mine. We look up, say hey, comment about the weather and then segue with comedic rapidity into politics, or, even better, religion.
Dave does not understand my religion. "If you don't talk about God, what do you talk about?" he asked me a couple of weeks ago.
Fair question. I did my best to give him an answer, explaining that it's more about faith in the goodness of people than faith in a god.
He said little, nodding as though he understood. I figured he was back in his house within five seconds saying to his wife, "Suzanne! Listen to this!"
I thought little more of that conversation until today, when I tucked my chin over the fence to ask if I could borrow his ladder.
"Sure," he said, hoisting it over.
I'm not even sure how Sarah Palin's name came up but suddenly, we were into the thick of it.
"I think she's a slam dunk, home run for the Republicans," he said.
I bit my tongue. Hard and felt a swell of pride for resisting the urge to say, "And I think she's a slam dunk, home run for the Democrats."
Instead, with stunning restraint, I said, "But don't you wonder, if something happened to McCain, if she'd be ready to step into the seat?"
On this point, to my surprise, he conceded.
And then, to my even greater surprise, he offered an apology.
"Listen, I hope I didn't offend you when I said something about your church the other day. I can be kind of a smart ass, especially when I've had a couple beers which I think I had that day."
It took a few seconds for the conversation to come back. And then I laughed and told him I'd thought nothing of it. "I like smart asses!"
Dave brightened at this and we retreated to our separate yards.
An hour later, while I stood on his ladder painting the trim on the front of the house, I saw him fertilizing his lawn.
"Hey, I got some extra fertilizer," he said. "You want me to do your lawn?"
"Sure!"
Dave puttered happily around my front yard, spraying fertilizer pellets like raindrops. "Back yard need it, too?"
I nodded cheerfully and thanked him. This sort of thing was not unheard from from Dave, but not an everyday occurrence either.
That chore completed, he went back to his yard and revved up the leaf blower, blasting debris from the rock garden in his front yard. Without asking this time, he walked over to my yard and blasted a few leafy crevices of the sidewalk.
I gave him a wave and thought about making my own smart-ass comment. Something like, "If feeling bad about making a crack about my church makes you do stuff like this, bring it on, boy!" Or perhaps, "You know what? I DO love Sarah Palin!"
But I restricted myself to a neighborly nod. Secretly, I enjoy our backyard quipping and light-hearted debate. As neighbors and as kind-hearted if politically and theologically different people, we both know we will never cross the line into serious argument. But even more importantly, my reassurances aside, I think he still feels bothered by his comment. And I want to milk that for all its worth.
Secretly, I enjoy our exchanges ...
What's not to like, you may ask? Or maybe not. Because if you're a fan of this blog, you're either a liberal or a very tolerant friend.
From all I've heard, I don't think Sarah Palin is a very nice woman. Or, as one man said today, "I think she's a vindictive bitch." This based on the whole state trooper, sister's divorce, firing, back-biting strange shenanigans. Second, she's Republican. Third, she's ill prepared. Fourth, she smiles too much and it's one of those fake, former-beauty-queen-turned-politicians smiles. Praticed. Cheesy. Calculating.
But perhaps most of all, she lives in Alaska. And as a cold-blooded woman - though notably NOT a vindictive one - I cannot relate in the slightest to someone who voluntarily lives in the land of glaciers and polar bears.
Robby and I don't really talk politics. My statement was more or less a comment made while passing the time. (What we were doing in the hospital waiting room is another story.) I think Robby leans toward Barack, but given the recent baptism debacle, I can't be sure of anything about him anymore. Except that he likes video games. And peanut butter. Unless he's tucking the peanut butter into his cheeks and spitting it out later, I know these two things for sure.
But my neighbor and I do talk politics. He, a conservative Christian, and me, an increasingly more liberal liberal, swap thoughts over the back yard fence. We are like Wilson and tool guy Tim, except that Dave is a floating head from my line of sight and not merely an arm, leg or chin. It happens almost naturally. Dave will be working in his backyard, and I in mine. We look up, say hey, comment about the weather and then segue with comedic rapidity into politics, or, even better, religion.
Dave does not understand my religion. "If you don't talk about God, what do you talk about?" he asked me a couple of weeks ago.
Fair question. I did my best to give him an answer, explaining that it's more about faith in the goodness of people than faith in a god.
He said little, nodding as though he understood. I figured he was back in his house within five seconds saying to his wife, "Suzanne! Listen to this!"
I thought little more of that conversation until today, when I tucked my chin over the fence to ask if I could borrow his ladder.
"Sure," he said, hoisting it over.
I'm not even sure how Sarah Palin's name came up but suddenly, we were into the thick of it.
"I think she's a slam dunk, home run for the Republicans," he said.
I bit my tongue. Hard and felt a swell of pride for resisting the urge to say, "And I think she's a slam dunk, home run for the Democrats."
Instead, with stunning restraint, I said, "But don't you wonder, if something happened to McCain, if she'd be ready to step into the seat?"
On this point, to my surprise, he conceded.
And then, to my even greater surprise, he offered an apology.
"Listen, I hope I didn't offend you when I said something about your church the other day. I can be kind of a smart ass, especially when I've had a couple beers which I think I had that day."
It took a few seconds for the conversation to come back. And then I laughed and told him I'd thought nothing of it. "I like smart asses!"
Dave brightened at this and we retreated to our separate yards.
An hour later, while I stood on his ladder painting the trim on the front of the house, I saw him fertilizing his lawn.
"Hey, I got some extra fertilizer," he said. "You want me to do your lawn?"
"Sure!"
Dave puttered happily around my front yard, spraying fertilizer pellets like raindrops. "Back yard need it, too?"
I nodded cheerfully and thanked him. This sort of thing was not unheard from from Dave, but not an everyday occurrence either.
That chore completed, he went back to his yard and revved up the leaf blower, blasting debris from the rock garden in his front yard. Without asking this time, he walked over to my yard and blasted a few leafy crevices of the sidewalk.
I gave him a wave and thought about making my own smart-ass comment. Something like, "If feeling bad about making a crack about my church makes you do stuff like this, bring it on, boy!" Or perhaps, "You know what? I DO love Sarah Palin!"
But I restricted myself to a neighborly nod. Secretly, I enjoy our backyard quipping and light-hearted debate. As neighbors and as kind-hearted if politically and theologically different people, we both know we will never cross the line into serious argument. But even more importantly, my reassurances aside, I think he still feels bothered by his comment. And I want to milk that for all its worth.
Secretly, I enjoy our exchanges ...
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