Becoming OK on a Sunday morning
In the dark I sit on the edge of my bed and slowly unfold into a stand. I feel like the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz” — without oil.
I wait for a second. How's the left knee today? Will it hold while I take a giant step over the large golden dog sprawled by my bed? I slip on floppy, fuzzy slippers and shuffle to the kitchen, listen to the grumble of the Keurig telling me I can now press for coffee. Justy, with his almond eyes, is staring at me. “Don't worry,” I croon in my talk-to-the-dog voice, “breakfast is coming.” The noise of kibble falling into his metal bowl is too loud. Don't want to wake my grandson Holden, snuggled in the guest room, which is his room on weekends. The Keurig gives its last gasp. Coffee ready.
I pet him and hug him. “Don't look so worried.” “Calm down, calm down,” I say soothingly. “I'm OK, really I am.”
I am nestled in my spot on the end of the sofa with a view of my garden. I sort the papers putting the New York Times first, sip my coffee and begin with Sunday Review. There is an article about a man on an airplane who developed a nosebleed that wouldn't stop. He wound up with two tampons stuck up his nose, strings dangling, for the rest of the flight. He was able to give a thumbs up to the smirking ambulance attendants who met the plane. Not the most auspicious of arrivals, but at least he had a sense of humor and it was good for a laugh.
The rest of the paper isn't funny. It is filled with articles about the buffoon in the White House — not the current one, but the former guy —who used to be laughable. He once sued Bill Maher of “Politically Incorrect” fame for a million bucks because Maher suggested the buffoon had been sired by a large, orange orangutan. Maher swears the buffoon sent him his birth certificate to prove otherwise. Ha! Ha! Now he's frightening in his media-savvy craziness. What horror has he unleashed on our country and the world today?
I begin to rant out loud. “How can an entire political party, the party of Lincoln, as they like to call themselves, let it be OK that we have a dangerous lunatic running the country?” Justy gets up from his nest by my feet, puts his furry head in my lap and looks at me with worried eyes — have I done something wrong? “No, no I'm not talking to you, Justy.”
I pet him and hug him. “Don't look so worried.” “Calm down, calm down,” I say soothingly. “I'm OK, really I am.”
As I stroke Justy's soft ears I stare outside. The garden grad