Men,Tires and 20/20

Is this the week of the full moon?  I have a feeling it is, but I haven't really been paying much attention to it.  I bet it is though, sifting through the memories of the days of this week prior to today. 
Monday wasn't too bad but actually I really can't remember it.  Tuesday was incredibly B A D...starting off at 6:30am.  I am supposed to be at work at the dental office at 6:30am on Tuesday and what am I doing at 6:26am on Tuesday?  Doddling along~setting peanuts out for my squirrels, washing up the breakfast dishes, making the bed thinking I am doing good with the timing of things today..thinking about the next two days morning routines, which are Wednesday and Thursday when I am going to take KennyRogersLookAlikeBeforeThePlasticSurgeryWentWrong to the eye cataract surgeon for his appointments at 7am.
  SUDDENLY I remembered I am supposed to be a work at 6:30am not just leaving the house.  KennyRogersetc said  "I wondered what you were doing, but be sure to let the car warm up before you take off cause it's only 6 degrees."  Well, I kept saying to myself, what is the matter with my brain?  I know I am always at work by 6:30am on Tuesdays. I think this eye surgery is bothering my mind more than I knew. ..So, of course,  I didn't have time to let the car warm up, I just took off. 
The car sounded kinda funny and drove kinda funny but I just kept going down the street slowly so that the fluids would warm up as we chugged along.  I pulled out on the main road and then knew that something was really wrong as the car would barely go.  I stopped in a parking lot and got out and walked around the car.  Aughhh! the tires had been getting low because of the cold weather snap but the front right tire was really flat.  uh oh.  I called KennyRogersetc and he said you are going to have to nurse it to the auto shop up the street.  So I did.  Going very chuggy and slow and all the other cars were very impatient with me in the dark and they passed me..but that was ok.  He had told me to go to one particular auto shop, but they were closed of course at 6:35am and the auto shop across the street had some lights on in the garage area so I barely got the Full Monte (Chevy Monte Carlo is the make of my car) limped into the parking lot and pulled up in front of the garage area.  There was an old bent over man in there with some overalls on sweeping the floor.  He barely looked up and his scratchy voice muttered "I'm the janitor and they ain't open till 8am."  I told him my tire is flat and actually when I then looked down, I saw the rubber tire laying on the ground like melted tar off the rim.  He looked thru the murky glass, swung his arm and said "Well you can't leave it in front of the door you're gonna have to park it somewhere" and off he went all bent over and sweeping.  That wasn't pleasant but I parked it and left it running so I wouldn't freeze to death till 8am. 

I called KennyRogersetc and told him or I think I told him that the rubber tire was off the rim but he said I never did say that and he assumed it was my right rear tire that was really low.  Well, it was the front right and it was really low alright.  I thought  "what do I do?"  I tried to call him back to tell him where I was but my cell phone wasn't charged up any longer.  I felt like a homeless person!  What do you do or where do you go at 6:30am when no one is around and businesses don't open till 8am or 10am and you don't have a phone to get help and some old crotchety man won't help a poor woman in this day and age?  What if I have to go to the bathroom?  There's no where to go!  What do homeless people do when they have to go to the bathroom?   I couldn't walk anywhere in this cold freeze and panic was starting to set in.  I had to wait and wait and finally the owners of the auto shop came to work and at 7:50am turned the Closed sign over to Open.  I flew out of the car into the door and the woman just stared at me.  I said, 'I would like to be your first customer' and she just looked a little bothered. She took my name and my address and make of the car and my keys and went to talk to her husband who was even less 'personalitied' as her (I made that word up).  He went out and looked at it and then came back in.  Meanwhile KennyRogersetc found me, drove up~ he's not supposed to drive in the dark with his cataracts so bad,  and asked the lady if she had an air hose to pump up the tire.  She said yes and he asked if it was inside and she said yes but we will pump it up in the garage area.  He said ' I can pump it up out here in the parking lot, I just need to know if it will reach' and she and I both looked puzzled.  He just looked mad at us.  I said "they can't pump it up because it is off the rim."  He said 'it's not off the rim it's just low."  I said "it is laying on the ground, they are going to take off the tire and see if it can be fixed."  He looked puzzled, so I walked over to the car with him and showed him.  "See it's off the rim."  He mumbled frustratingly that I never told him it was the front tire.  Besides, he can't see clearly because of his cataracts that he is scheduled to get  out on Wednesday and Thursday.  I assured him that I was just fine and he should just go back home and that this personality-less man is going to fix the tire or put the spare on. The man put the spare tire on and threw the other one in the trunk after he told me that my car's presence was going to mess up his auto mechanic schedule. I can see now why KennyRogers etc. told me to go to the nice auto shop across the street...the nice auto shop is going to put 2 new tires on for me and they are happy to do business and told me to come by any time and they will open up and air my tires for me if they get low. The eye surgery went great and now KennyRogersLookAlikeBeforeThePlasticSurgeryWentWrong can see with 20/20 vision!  Remarkable, although, this might present a problem for me.  He says he can see all the lines in both of our faces that he never saw before and he is noticing dust on everthing!  I caught him cleaning when he should be resting! 

Christmas Kindness Long, Long Ago

When I was a little girl, at Christmas time, my parents took me and my little sister to a candy shop that was way up on a top floor of a department store and you could see the skyline from the windows.  I remember that clearly, but I remember more what happened there. 
I was gazing at the wonderful glass candy cases with the most magical and sparkly candy treats nestled inside.  I spied this little round bellied elf, with his big cheeks and his velveteen little red suit. There were two elves, but he had the most sparkly crested head of shiny,glamorous glitter.  His cone hat looked like it was encrusted with diamonds and to my mind back then, glitter was just as desirable.  Anything that sparkled caught my eye.  My favorite color was sparkle.
 Mother was busy buying the lemon filled dark chocolate bonbons and the delicious honey comb candies covered with rich, dark chocolate.  I asked Mother and Daddy if I could have this little elf of Christmas with his belly filled with colorful fruit filled hard candy.  They could clearly see I was enraptured by this faux diamond spectacle, but they smiled and sweetly said no, not today and my Daddy held my hand gently as he picked my sister up in his arms.

My face must have fallen to the floor.  I fought back the tears, longing for my little magical guy, but I turned to follow mother and daddy from the shop. As I turned from the candy case I was so disappointed to see an older man step up in front of us and ask to buy the little gem of an elf, the very one I was looking at with the most glitter of the two in the glass case.
My heart just sank.
  Just as swiftly as Ole Saint Nick himself, the man thrust the little bejeweled elf into my hands and ran out the door.
  I never even saw his face or got a chance to thank him. I'll never forget this miracle of kindness.  My mother said I must have reminded him of a little girl he once knew. I prefer to think he was the real Santa Claus. 

Daddy quietly purchased the other glittered elf for my sister and I was glad for her.

Vintage Pixie Christmas

Boy Friends

This week has been interesting~this week of Thanksgiving.
  I have had 3 men from my past contact me...43 years from my long ago past. Old boy friends but none that I ever dated. Some I remember a lot about and some that remember a lot about me that I never knew was known or thought about by them in those bye-gone days. All the  'shoulda, woulda if I coulda' memories come blurting out. The holiday of Thanksgiving brings the "reach out to the familiar" in people. We're getting older and want to connect..didn't know they wanted to 'connect' in our high school days.  They were all too shy. But now that we're older we can tell each other 40+year old thoughts. Quite flattering actually, but it is reassuring to know that there is no pressure other than friendship now.
  I'm thankful for the way they have made me feel this week.

New Moon Promises....

It's the New Moon....write yourself a check for an enormous amount...the more the better.  Doesn't matter if you have it in the bank or not...like the little kids say "you have checks so you have money".   Theory is that if you write yourself a check or shake an empty purse at the New Moon by the next New Moon you will have money in your pocket or in your purse.  that's what they say....

A repairman came this morning to fix the siding a bit. He put the ladder up and went back to his truck. When he came back to the ladder, our squirrel Wynken, was sitting under it with her little hands up to her chest as they do, and she was staring at him. He looked at her and then at me. I said, 'She wants a peanut'. He again looked at her and then at me and then at her again...and said nothing.

NOVEMBER 9

November 9, 1968 at 11:02am, Indiana and Illinois felt an earthquake.
 I remember it like it was yesterday.
 It was my maternal grandparents' 50th Golden wedding anniversary. They would have been married 94 years today. November 9, 1918.
 My sister and I were at my Aunt Florence and Uncle Russell's house eating lunch while preparing and decorating for the big party that evening.
My aunt was in the kitchen bringing the luncheon plates to my sister and I as we sat across from each other in the small dining room.  My uncle was down in the lower level of their split level house in his fascinating radio room with all the radios and Morse Code contraptions and radio wave sounds from all over the world. He was a Short Wave Ham radio operator.  I always wondered if he could pick up sounds from Mars. 
 My chair started moving and shaking and I looked at my sister accusingly as my chair rocked and slid..  She exclaimed that her chair was rocking too and then we heard the windows rattle and we looked at each other as the blood ran out of our faces.  I said "I think we are having an earthquake! What should we do?"  We both envisioned the earth cracking open and swallowing us right then and there and realized there was no place to run to get away...It was an awful sick feeling.
We asked Aunt Florence if she felt anything but she did not. She'd been moving too fast on her feet in the kitchen.
  My uncle came upstairs when he heard the panic in our voices. He said he thought it was his heart beating hard enough to jolt his chair around and he was waiting for himself to keel over.  He announced that we indeed had just experienced an earthquake as confirmed by the other Ham radio operators he was talking with who were privy to seismographs from around the country and the world. 
 We have had several earthquake tremors since that day.  One was on my own wedding anniversary in 1974, but that was my first, and now, every November 9, I remember my grandparents 50th Golden wedding anniversary and my first quake.