revenge of the cockatoosAt first, Keith chuckles and rubs his hands together, his shoulders bouncing up and down like Lleyton Hewitt preparing to serve at the Australian Open, when he sees the sulfur crested cockatoos dive-bombing pedestrians who pass in front of the red bottle brush shrubs he has planted with as much devotion as an Episcopalian Sunday School teacher explains Moses and the Burning Bush, his bushes a striking border for the gray convict cottage he has restored: cedar planks from a demolition yard, shutters he has adzed and stained himself, but not satisfied with harassing passers-by, the birds attack his weathered cedar, sharpening their beaks as companionably as bridesmaids getting manicures before a wedding. At night, as he tries to sleep in the soft Sydney air, he hears them pecking, pecking, pecking at the wooden exterior so, in lieu of a scarecrow, he ties a yellow kite to a shutter knob to try to end their repetitive grooming, but he is not successful. Finally, he crosses and crisscrosses fishing wire across the east side of the house like an intricate cat’s cradle and the noise stops. He goes to work the next day as flash as a rat with a gold tooth, happy as Larry that he has fixed the problem. When he returns at dusk whistling Abba’s Dancing Queen, however, he sees white feathers floating above splintered ruins as mystically as the background music in the Australian movie, Picnic at Hanging Rock. Revenge. Secure footingRon helps her into the boat after the banquet on the island off Hong Kong mainland the way anyone would, holding her elbow to help her judge the little distance from the dock to the boat edge, her yellow espadrilles finally shuffling to secure footing on the boat bottom, so difficult for her now, until she sits staring as if lost in her own musings. She never did say much when we played cards with them in Chicago years ago, except to articulate the pinnochle words: I open, or pass. Her fingers, bedazzled with showy rings, clinked against the glass when she’d get up to mix another gin and tonic for us or fill the cashew bowl. Now she doesn’t comment on the charming stationary sanpans we pass, the Chinese women cooking on charcoal brassiers, their chicken or pork fragrant with four flavor spice in the nine p.m. hot breezes continuing from the sunny day. Once ashore,we say “Good-night, Cynthia,” and hug, the way we used to, but it’s clear she doesn’t know who we are any more. The GleaningThe ancient distant hills are bruised with mist this morning in the South of France. Within the frame of a Millet painting, I sit under a tree, bucolic as one of my piebald bovine friends who chews cud. I listlessly gaze at the aproned women who glean the fields for leftovers after the nobility have taken what they want, then the noises of real life intrude: -grind of the morning coffee maker -flip-flop rhythmn of clothes in the European washing machine -and the forever coo-cooing of mourning doves in the pine trees. I step out of the frame into a foggy day. Until FallAll cold winter the snow piles up between us like the neighbor’s wall in Robert Frost’s poem, you late for dinner in Rochester most nights due to icey roads along Allen Creek, so you say. I clatter the pots on the stove as I reheat the chicken casserole with carrots and aromatic marjoram and feel more anger icycles accumulate on the eaves of our marriage. However, this morning, I wake with your fingers just grazing my left breast, your warm breath on my shoulder. Visiting My SisterI can’t face visiting my twin sister alone,
in Cumming, Georgia, after this two-day conference in Buckhead, trendy suburb of Atlanta. My sister let her ortho take out her whole hip like a roast out of the freezer. The ortho couldn’t clear up her infection from her hip replacement after a year of trying so she has to wear a four inch high “elevator shoe” (we called them as children in Chicago) when everyone we knew had hips and noone scooted around in wheelchairs like she does now. Medical friends suggested she go to an ortho at a university hospital and even though she only sheepishly replied, “But my ortho likes me,” instead of changing enthusiasticly when we told her what they advised, I understand that she probably didn’t want to leave the convenience of her hospital for Northwestern or Rush nearer us. Her hospital was poorly rated on YELP and the doctor got snarly with “interfering relatives” who asked about her options. She wouldn’t ask the doctor the brand of the hip replacement so we could figure out if her doctor used a cheaper, defective one so she could sue, he must have realized. We do appreciate that she was malnourished when she first saw the doctor which must have given him a certain perspective and is partly why her children finally suggested a senior facility in Cumming where her oldest boy, Eric, lives. Nevertheless, tonight, my husband and I will eat well at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse with my sister plus Eric and his wife, Sharon. They’ve made the reservation. I’ll bet my sister will order fish or soft lobster since she won’t replace her upper partial and fish is softer than the steak which Ruth’s Chris is known for plus it’s nutritious which she needs because she continues to suck gummy bears and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups supplementing her senior living diet.
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