Today, a lovely day, perhaps the last for a while, and Mary and I did a thing we had never ever done before; we had our heating system vents cleaned by a company somewhat suggestively called Coit. Yesterday evening (5:30) we drove to the Cinemark theater in Richmond; there we met our son Michael, coming home from work; together we saw Interstellar, a long but fascinating movie, a distant descendant of Kubrick's 2001, which in the distant long ago, we had to drive to a theater in Louisville just to see. How our opportunities have changed, and not necessarily for the better. Simon and I went for a walk today; at one point in space and time, our path intersected with three other separate individuals. Each one was talking on a cell phone.
I do not own a cell phone, though I see the lure, the world at my finger tips. I never need be really alone again; I could be constantly connected. If you think I'm feeling smug about not owning one, I am just a bit, but not much. In the first place I really dislike talking on the phone, especially having a conversation with someone I see regularly. Second, and perhaps most importantly, my disability makes talking on the phone extremely difficult. When I talk to my friend Martie who now lives somewhere way up north in the frozen tundra, I have to put the phone on the table and turn on the speaker. We could Skype, I suppose, but neither of us knows how to do that.
There is a fascinating idea at work in Interstellar having to do with space and time, Einstein's relativity, and the nature of a black hole. In a 10 November Time Magazine cover story on the movie, Jeffrey Kluger, the author, quotes Brian Greene, a cosmologist from Columbia University: "One of the defining features of a black hole is that it imprints a gravitational field around it....And gravity doesn't just pull on matter--it pulls on time itself." Kruger elaborates: "You can think of space and you can think of time, but if you think of them together as the horizontal and vertical threads in a weave, you realize that you can't stretch one without stretching the other." Nothing like a good image or analogy to present a concept with clarity, mostly.
Mary had a note posted next to my daily medicine container which I saw when I awoke this morning: "Don't take the diuretic today!" I didn't; the movie is long, very long, but not too long, almost three hours, 169 minutes to be precise. Even then I barely made it.
As I said somewhere above, Simon and I went for a walk. Mary was working in her garden, and knowing somewhat the way her mind works, I knew that if I waited for her to finish, I would miss the best part of the surrounding loveliness that made up this day. We thus departed the house at 4, leaving the distant cries of howling dogs, Frollie, Dexter, and Schuster, behind us. (I had put them in the backyard with Mary, so that I could slip out the front door with Simon.) They, of course, had heard us leave, what with Simon barking at squirrels and the neighbor's dog. Simon didn't seem to notice, or care, that they weren't coming. I think I can truly say that Schuster is the only dog in our pack that would care if either Frollie or Dexter were not present.
Simon's behavior on an in-town walk is interesting. At the top of Forest Street hill and its intersection with Center Street, he and I have almost always turned right to go down Center St. On our last walk I tried to get him to turn left, so that we could meet Mary with the other dogs. He stopped, planted himself, and would not move. He wanted to go right down Center St. and was determined to do so. The mystery is in why? My guess is that in some way, going right down Center St. is much more pleasurable than going any other way; no pun intended, but it strongly feels right to him. He knows what is down there, we have turned right often, and I don't see anything simply mechanical about his desire.
We turned right this time, hurried safely across the street, started down the sidewalk upon which he immediately pooped. Usually he finds a spot away from the sidewalk. Not today. I too always walk loaded: wet ones, paper towels, 4 gallon plastic bags. Picking it up is necessary but hazardous for me given my balance problems: I have to put the handle of his lead over my cane, once I have secured the line so he can't pull it out. Then I put the cane and lead on the sidewalk and put my foot on that, crazily waving back and forth, trying to get my balance secured without falling. I must look like a drunk looking for a drink. So it goes. I long ago quit worrying about what I looked like.
Well, once I and Simon are secured, I try to dig out a plastic bag from my pocket loaded with various things, bags, paper towels, pocket knife, chewing gum, etc. Finding the bag, I have to open it, perform an act that requires the skills of a circus acrobat, turn the bag inside out, bend down to the socially offensive matter, grasp all of it with the bag, pull the bag up over the poop and hope that it disappears in there forever. If I regain my upright posture without falling, I then twist the bag and put a tight knot in it, so that I can carry the stuff with my cane hand, leaving the other one for controlling the lead. Given that we had just crossed Forest, I had to carry the stuff, swinging beside my cane until we reached the first public trash receptical at the college's Log House, a long way away. Suffice it to say we made it, I got rid of it, the walk continued. He did poop once more on the walk after we had passed the last trash receptical available so that I had to carry the second bag all the way home.
Simon does wait very patiently while I pick the stuff up, which is good, very good. I have lost my balance from time to time, but, thank Goodness, I have never fallen.
As we were coming home, an exhausting hour later, we were back at Forest and Center. A car was coming up the hill. I keep Simon on a short leash in such situations; we stood and waited. The car rolled to a stop, but back from the stop sign. Since the road was clear all around the intersection, Simon and I hurried across. I waved to thank the driver. She pulled up a bit to be even with us, then rolled down her window, smiled sweetly at us and said, "I always break for dachshunds." She added that Simon was a very handsome fellow. Simon and I thought so too, I told her thank you, and we went merrily down the hill, swinging our little white plastic bag all the way home.