Finally, after months of wishing and hoping my treadmill would disappear, it happened. We presented it to the guy who maintains our HVAC system…and whose wife visits us regularly to do the housework we are either incapable of doing or unwilling to do. I justify my avoidance of sweeping, mopping, dusting, and otherwise making the house look and feel livable by looking at the scrawny, elderly man who peers at me from the mirror. I also defend the choice of hiring a housekeeper by arguing that we may have more reliable financial resources than she and her husband have. But when I see him park what appears to be his expensive, luxurious, and fully-equipped extended-cab pickup in front of my house, I conclude that my meager fixed-income probably represents considerably less than his potentially limitless financial resources. And, then, I envision their flush bank accounts, overflowing with massive stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and their safe deposit boxes crammed with giant bars of gold bullion and countless ten-inch layers of of ten-carat diamond rings. I imagine them driving into the Rolls-Royce dealership at the beginning of each month, trading their pre-owned Rolls-Royce Phantom for another one…one newer and cleaner and oozing prestige. But…maybe not the top of the line Rolls-Royce Droptail; after all, they’re working people, too, like the rest of us. Hmmm. I think I’ve seen each of the two of them sporting Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet watches, snatched from hand-crafted watch-cabinets made of pure-heart sycamore and ebony wood.
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It’s hard to say whether the chemo was responsible for the way I felt yesterday. Whatever it was and—to a slightly lesser extent—remains seems to have put the brakes on me again yesterday. My naps were shorter than “normal,” but they encroached on my day considerably more than would be ideal. When I woke sometime before 5 this morning, I knew immediately I would miss today’s Music on Barcelona event at church this morning. And I knew I would miss the meeting of the Council of Past Presidents’ Meeting this afternoon. Though I doubt I could contribute anything of substance to the meeting, I feel like I again dropped the ball on one of my only truly visible church functions of the year. Wednesday, I will ask my oncologist to try to determine the reason the latest chemo treatment apparently is giving me grief. Or, if it’s not the chemo, what is responsible for delivering pain and fatigue and other unpleasantries so early in this phase of the seemingly endless regimen?
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Peppercorn. That is an odd name to affix to a noise that ostensibly describes little black balls. I would say the same thing about a noise used to describe an aperture belonging to a lagomorph with two pairs of incisors…that is, a rabbit. Purity is a different word, entirely. Who would use that noise as a meaning for tainted coal? No one, in my opinion. Humor is just one simple step away from insanity. But simplicity is not quite as simple as we’d like it to be. Simplicity is complexity hidden in a different framework…a framework incapable of supporting the superstructure of a gigantic concrete and steel bridge.
