WHAT A WEEK AND IT'S ONLY THURSDAY

I've been silent here for several days, which wasn't my intention at the outset. My plan was to post every other day, if not daily. The first entries shot out of me like a bullet. Not so, this time. Since my last post, I've begun two posts -- but stopped mid-stream -- twice.  

The first recounted a wonderful evening with my new fabu galpal, MS, who invited me to be her guest at The Goodman Theater.  It was a swell time...opening night of two one-act plays -- the second of three installments of The Horton Foote Festival. I indulged myself by taking a cab downtown; I was like a saucer-eyed kid, taking in the breathtaking sights as we coasted down Lake Shore Drive to The Goodman. The night was made all the more special because of the presence of the playwright, a dapper, sharp-eyed 91 years old. The formidable Mr. Foote is the recipient of an Academy Award (for his screenplay adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird") two Pulitzer Prizes, with an impressive list of credentials spanning decades.  

As a writer, it was a particular honor for me to be in his presence, and see his work come alive on stage. The two one-acts (set in a small Texas town in the 1930's) each hitting different notes, were both beautifully performed and produced.  It was one of those wonderful nights in the THE-a-TAH. Yet, for whatever reason, earlier this week, I couldn't pull the words out of me to write about it.  The dreaded writer's block.

Last night, I had one of those horrific online dates. I started to write earlier today about it, but hesitated because I declared last week that I would most likely NOT write about my dating experiences; that said, I can't help myself.  

First of all, I have renewed my commitment to only date age-appropriate men. That's not difficult because I'm only interested in dating men my own age, five years or so on either side. Apart from eye candy moments, I'm only attracted to men 40 and up. "Junior" is, um,  30 and I'm...so not 30. But I went along with it, because he approached me and pursued me and so I thought, I'm game, if it's not an issue with HIM, it won't be with me.  Okay, I'll be Daddy Date for the night. 

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I cannot date someone who sends 20 text messages in one day instead of doing the normal, old-fashioned, but much more efficient and time-saving method of JUST PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL ME ALREADY! Text messaging irritates me.  Despite that annoyance, I decided to not be an old fogey about it and let it go.  

When he opened the door to his apartment, he lunged toward me without warning and tried to plant a big, wet one on me. I pulled back before I suffocated and looked around to see a panoramic view of dirty dishes, soiled clothes and half-open containers of crusty take-out food. I quickly suggested we leave to have dinner. He mentioned his roommate was out of town and he would have been able to use his car to drive us to the restaurant, but it was in the shop.  On the way down the stairs, he made a crack about his roomie having a Jetta, "the gayest car on the planet. It's such a cliche!"  

As we walked outside to the street, I clicked my remote to unlock my car.  I looked at him and said with gritted teeth,"That's mine over there -- the blue Jetta."

The evening went downhill from there. The restaurant he recommended served the worst Mexican food I have ever endured, and that's saying a lot. I ate four bites of a wad of congealed rice and greasy dark chicken and pushed the plate away in self-defense.  

He wolfed down his food and knocked back a double margarita.  His first.

"I had a rough night last night.  I went out drinkin' with some friends after work and we got so wasted that I wound up sleeping on someone's sofa because I was too drunk to go home."

He paused.

"You think I would have learned from the night before! I got so trashed I don't know how I got home."

He drained the last drop of his double.

"Aren't you going to have one?"

"I told you on the phone, and it was also in my profile, that I don't drink and that I'm in recovery."

He frowned.  "So does that mean you don't drink, ever?"

"Ah, no."

"Bummer."

The endless evening -- which in actuality clocked in at less than 90 minutes door-to-door -- was capped by a late-night visit to the grocery store. I thought I had brushed off the lousy date pretty well, all things considered. I told myself, just chalk it up to one of those bad nights, it will be a funny story sometime, maybe, and it was good that I went on that date, no matter how it turned out, because it got me out of my comfort zone. It wasn't a disaster, I told myself, it was an ADVENTURE. Uh-huh. But when I got home and started to unpack the groceries, I realized that I perhaps not tossed it off as adroitly as I thought I had. The evidence was compelling. And expensive.  

There were three frozen pepperoni and sausage deep dish pizzas, a large bag of double-stuff Oreos, two EIGHT-packs of 100 Grand candy bars, two big bags of Doritos (buy one, get one free!), ice cream bars, a twelve-pack of Coke (not Diet, but regular...what better to wash down the sixteen candy bars and ice cream?), four frozen entrees of family-size lasagna and a very pricey bag of coffee.  $20 for a lousy dinner, but $82 for comfort food.  It better snow again, so I can shovel to work off all these empty calories, or it's back to 45 minutes a day on the Stair-Master.  I'm sure I'll be able to fit back into my jeans in a few days. I'm wearing sweat pants now.

I've said before that losing a parent is life-changing.  It shows you whether you've got the stuff to handle just about anything that might be thrown your way.  And that's true here. The date is already ancient history to me (although I'm writing this with a Coke on one side and an open bag of Doritos on the other) because it ain't nothin' compared to real, important problems.

Yesterday morning, I saw an ambulance outside my front window.  I felt like nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz, pulling back the curtain and peering outside. In about an hour, one of my elderly (but robust) neighbors, a wonderful woman, 85 years old, was to come over and go through my mom's personal belongings with me. She had offered, and I gratefully accepted, because I knew from earlier attempts myself, it was too difficult and emotional for me to do it alone.  

A few minutes after spotting the ambulance, the phone rang.  It was Catherine, the neighbor, who haltingly explained the woman who lived downstairs in her building -- a tenant and friend for over 30 years -- died in her sleep.  She, of course, had to postpone coming over to go through my mom's effects.

She and her husband were friends of my mom for nearly 25 years. They were at my side the entire time of her illness and were there, with me, when my mom took her last breath, here at the house.  They wouldn't leave my side until the very end,  nearly three in the morning.  When I was deciding whether to move back to Chicago, she hugged me and said "We're adopting you now, we'll take care of you...we hope you'll stay and live here."  

When she told me about the woman dying in her sleep, I could hear her fight back tears. "I don't know if I can take this.  Losing my two best friends, your mother and now her, in three months. It's too much."

I spoke to her husband today and he had a different tone in his voice. It was the first time he sounded like an old man, not the vital, robust guy who took on the world.  

"There was no warning.  She died in her sleep. We're the same age.  Your mother died, now her.  Catherine and I were walking home today from our volunteer work and we saw a dead bird on the sidewalk." His voice broke. "Everything around us is dying."

Catherine told me later that her husband wouldn't leave the bird there, exposed and prey to other animals.  He went home, got a small box and tenderly put the little bird in it and buried it in his backyard.

I was surprised when Catherine asked if I wanted her to come over this afternoon to help me sort through my mom's stuff. I asked if she was up to it and she said it would be good for her, it would bring back some happy memories of their friendship together.  

It was more difficult for me than I expected. In my mom's bedroom closet, she found a box of all the letters and cards I had sent to my mom over the years, from grade school on...and the envelopes with her handwriting on each one. I was astounded to find all of my report cards from grade school through high school, my college transcripts, honor roll ribbons, diplomas, things I hadn't seen in years, but there they were, lovingly preserved and carefully documented. I held back tears as much as I could but, funny thing, I was kind of okay until I found her sewing kit.  That was it for me.  I remembered all those years when I was a kid and came home with a torn button or tear on my pants and she'd give me one of those 'boys-will-be-boys' looks and say 'Bring me the sewing kit'...and she'd fix it in a flash. I sat on the floor, holding the green sewing box, seeing the spools of thread and thimbles that had been there since I was a kid.  

They say it's the small things that can get you.  Ain't that the truth.