15 September, 2001 - 23:08 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Two Bags Full

I had a grand opportunity for a good, normal day today. That is what I had. It started off with Heather pulling my blanket off me a half hour before I had my alarm set to wake up. She said something to me and all I could hear was the the sight of her mouth moving. After putting my hearing aid in I could then decipher, "We have lots to do before the party today."

By a feat of supernatural strength and agility I managed to stumble out to the kitchen and get coffee and a banana, my normal morning pre-breakfast. Needless to say it constituted my full breakfast today as well leaving a little room for lunch later, I hopped (trudged) into the shower, got my hair wet and with the application of SDS (some damn shampoo) managed to get a pair of soapy eyes and semi clean hair.

We spent some time finishing up the goodies, re-hanging 50 Sacawegea dollars off the limbs of a small homemade tree and other minor details.

The party was to be at The Olive Garden, across town. Donning a pair of sweat pants, a threadbare old shirt and slippers, I went down to the parking garage with Heather to do the enigma operation.

Loading the car was the sticky part of the day. It was worse than any jigsaw puzzle or one of those prickly, strangely weird, wooden ball puzzles.

Of course the operation had to occur quickly so that Heather could get there early.

Car loaded we went upstairs and put on our good clothes. I got lucky, I only had to change shirts once, the first one did not meet with the bosses approval. Just a one time change wasn't bad, sometimes I just tell the lady to come pick out what she wants me to wear and she does the eenie minie mo thingy. Put on my best pants, the other pair isn't the best. Had to take them off and put on my underwear -- formal you know. Had a bit of trouble with my rope suspenders but got that worked out okay. Only had to go back into the apartment once. Heather wouldn't let me go unless I put shoes and socks on.

The end result was a fantastic birthday party for our youngest son's 50th year celebration. It was good, one of the best. It was a great one, all of his old friends showed up. Everyone, family and all who were invited attended which I think is a bit unusual. We ended up with 35 people there, a few of them were little kids - son's nieces and nephews.

Flash back to earlier. We had taken down a full grocery buggy of stuff, plus light stuff in our little - fold-up wire cart which was also stowed in the car.

When we got to the car it dawned on both of us that we had forgotten to leave room for the unwieldy oxygen bottle and cart. A major rearrangement took place. More stuff carefully stowed in the trunk. A huge bagfull of hydrogenated balloons was stuffed in the back passenger compartment, pushing and pulling them in an attempt to get them packed in to enable Heather to see with her rear vision mirror. Then I got in the front passenger seat, hooked up my air bottle, put on my safety belt and was ready for the final stage of preparation to leave. Another full bag of balloons was stuffed into the passenger side of the front. Then it was a matter of push-pulling a bag of floaty balloons into a place that would give Heather side vision. I managed to get them down as much as possible, a picky-picky type of policeman would have given us a ticket, but we lucked out.

We worried our way across town to the restaurant, sat in the car a bit figuring out in what order to unload. Finally she took the balloons out of the front seat so that I could relieve my riders cramp, and then me, my cane and oxygen bottle and the fold up cart managed to get into the restaurant. The lady who held the door open took me back to the party room. I put my pretty little behind on a chair, guarded Heathers purse and watched the whole thing get put together. A couple of the grandchildren came early as well as our middle daughter to help Heather. I did signal service by being the, "Here hold this," automaton while the world turned.

The amazing thing to me was that we got clear across town with the balloons crammed down in the car and not one of the balloons was popped in transit nor in the decorating, we arrived in the party room with the full unblemished count, the whole Two Bags Full . . . . . .

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