new clothes can do wonders

My grandfather believes his health can be restored by wearing a polar bear suit. He told my dad that his mother (my grandfather's mother) had been brought back to life when the people at his assisted living center put a polar bear suit on her, and that now she is living down the hall. He said his finally came in the mail, and that he wore it, but the woman who cleans his room took it and mailed it back. He said he went downstairs to get it, but they had already mailed it. He thinks I moved to New York to work on a reality TV show about transvestites. When my dad went to go see him, Stagg (my grandfather) informed him that he kept watching Channel 9, but he hasn't seen the show again. Stagg also told my aunt that he has a new wife named Sunshine. While this is disturbing, we cannot help but laugh, since when Stagg was sane, he ideas were still really out there. Like he believes that the anglo saxons are the lost tribes of Israel, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Basically this leads to a lot of racist commentary not worth repeating. He also purchased several new cars. At last count before he went into assisted living, I think there were 28 cars. He would park some of them at this special parking lot at the dealership, and once he couldn't find one of his trucks. The batteries would run down if they weren't driven, and I think this also effected the car alarms. On our birthdays, or any family gathering, he used to hand out pages of advice, as well as articles about his life, all written by him on one of his many typewriters. Sometimes they also included xeroxed images of planes from WWII or the wedding picture that he put in the paper every year to mark his wedding anniversary. He put the same picture in every time. My grandmother, in the Dallas news, will always look 17 years old. Maybe she was happy about that; I don't know. Maybe she didn't want to face her 17 year old self. I never asked her. SInce this post is getting a little moody, I should stop now. I felt a little weird after eating fish and chips today. Maybe I should order a polar bear suit.

First

I am tired, and my plane leaves in 5 hours to go to Dallas, to see my family, and to see my friend Tori get married. The last time I was home was October, and I have pre-travel anxiety just a little bit. But not as much anxiety as the time I flipped over my laundry cart in Bed-Stuy shortly after I moved here. I was walking along, trying to go get my laundry done. I moved here in February, and have been told that this past winter was mild. Since I most recently moved from Little Rock, AR, the winter did not feel mild. I was still getting used to going up and down four flights of stairs, and carting my laundry and groceries up and down the same. But I really wanted to stay on top of things, so I got a laundry cart, loaded it up, and starting walking to the laundromat. My cart hit a rut; in the split second before the next thing, I basically thought, "If I nudge this cart with my knee, and keep walking, it will come out of the rut." Though this would have been ideal, the cart stayed in the rut and my momentum propelled me in a flip over the cart. I'm used to tripping over my own feet, since I'm tall, but this was pretty much a full-on flip. It happened right in front of this massive SUV parked right beside me. An old lady tried to help me, but I was kind of in shock, and told her I was fine. She said, "Honey, it happens to all of us; the same thing happened to my daughter." Someone ought to do something about the ruts, or the laundry carts, or both. Because this was shortly after I moved here, and the "I moved to New York!" adrenaline was wearing off, and I was cold, I quickly developed a thundercloud over my head, and was almost crying by the time I was loading the washer. I had to get control of myself, but since this time, I've seen a few people crying on the streets or in the subway, and think maybe it would have been no big deal for me to cry in the laundromat and worry about getting a Staff infection in the gash in my arm from the germy sidewalk. It all worked out, and in retrospect I laughed, because it probably did look really funny to anyone else. I didn't get a Staff infection, I do have a scar down my arm, but I moved out of that neighborhood, to a second floor apartment, and the laundromat is right across the street, so I have cut the cart out of my laundry routine. So things work out in New York. I still wonder if I am the only person who notices the number of people crying in public, though.