Sat. Sept 5, 2009
There’s a full moon today, and Mike is halfway to werewolf when I pull in. He and four or five other guys are gathered under the covered walkway leading to the nursing center. Some are smoking; all are bitching.
Mike is bitching the most.
"They closed the pond for the weekend," he tells me.
Mike loves the pond. It gets him up and out, and fishing. And he knows I love the pond. It had become my spa: As soon as I sit on the fishing dock, my shoulders relax, my breathing slows and the world is beautiful.
Apparently, though, Friday’s heavy rains knocked down a cottonwood limb, and the pond area has been deemed unsafe and locked up. Mike finds this ridiculous. It’s a three-day weekend, and no one can go fishing?
"We have thousands of trees down here," he snarls. "What are they going to do, close everything?"
Mike heads into the nursing center for his pills, and to vent a little further to anyone who looks official. One of the nurses says she heard five trees fell, so the pond will be closed through Labor Day, since no one is on duty to make sure it’s safe. She says the staff just wants to make sure no one gets hurt--which makes sense, unless you’re Mike, and there’s a full moon.
I have a few minutes before I need to go to Bingo, so I suggest we try to get a little closer and look things over for ourselves. We get down to the pond, where the gate is indeed shut and locked. We don’t see any trees or limbs down within the fence, but there does seem to be a cottonwood down maybe 50 yards from the fence.
"That’s why it’s closed?" Mike fumes. "That’s nowhere near where anyone can go!"
I suggest maybe they’ll lock all the bathrooms next since, technically, those toilets are a gaping drowning hazard.
This makes Mike laugh, which is a good way to leave him while I go to Bingo.
But today, even the Bingo room is not immune to the pull of the moon.
Out of nowhere, a fight erupts. Royal, a sweet and impeccably groomed woman, has swapped one Bingo card for another in between games. Leo, a big, burly man who uses his powerful voice to great effect, is not pleased.
"She can’t do that!" he yells, pointing at sweet Royal. "She switched cards!"
Royal is furious. I can’t tell whether she’s embarrassed at being "caught" or just royally pissed at being fingered, but she packs her cards, yells something back and spins out of there.
This, in turn, pisses off Doreen, the volunteer leading this session of Bingo for the VFW Auxiliary. She rips Leo a new one, and he returns the favor.
It’s ugly, and uncomfortable.
Ray, the Bingo caller, urges everyone to calm down, finish the game and then stick around while he clarifies the rules. After the game, Ray implores everyone to please keep and use just one Bingo card. "It’s not like we’re playing for hundreds of dollars," he says to me.
After Bingo ends, Doreen and Leo go at it again. Later, as I’m helping her store the leftover prizes, she says she’ll be shaken all the way home, but she had to speak her mind. I tell her to try to breathe deeply, and let it go.
I head down to Mike’s room to relay the excitement. He has some of his own: He got someone to open the pond.
"I found the boiler-room guy and explained my position. I didn’t get mad, I didn’t swear, but I thought I was right, and I presented my case."
I tell him he did an excellent job.
"Can I tell you something, a little bragging?" he asks.
"Absolutely," I say.
"I wanted to show you I could still get something done," he says.
I beam, and grab his hand. "You did exactly the right thing, and it worked because you were right," I said.
Minutes later, the drama of the day behind us, we take some deep breaths of our own, at the newly reopened—and always rejuvenating—pond.
There’s a full moon today, and Mike is halfway to werewolf when I pull in. He and four or five other guys are gathered under the covered walkway leading to the nursing center. Some are smoking; all are bitching.
Mike is bitching the most.
"They closed the pond for the weekend," he tells me.
Mike loves the pond. It gets him up and out, and fishing. And he knows I love the pond. It had become my spa: As soon as I sit on the fishing dock, my shoulders relax, my breathing slows and the world is beautiful.
Apparently, though, Friday’s heavy rains knocked down a cottonwood limb, and the pond area has been deemed unsafe and locked up. Mike finds this ridiculous. It’s a three-day weekend, and no one can go fishing?
"We have thousands of trees down here," he snarls. "What are they going to do, close everything?"
Mike heads into the nursing center for his pills, and to vent a little further to anyone who looks official. One of the nurses says she heard five trees fell, so the pond will be closed through Labor Day, since no one is on duty to make sure it’s safe. She says the staff just wants to make sure no one gets hurt--which makes sense, unless you’re Mike, and there’s a full moon.
I have a few minutes before I need to go to Bingo, so I suggest we try to get a little closer and look things over for ourselves. We get down to the pond, where the gate is indeed shut and locked. We don’t see any trees or limbs down within the fence, but there does seem to be a cottonwood down maybe 50 yards from the fence.
"That’s why it’s closed?" Mike fumes. "That’s nowhere near where anyone can go!"
I suggest maybe they’ll lock all the bathrooms next since, technically, those toilets are a gaping drowning hazard.
This makes Mike laugh, which is a good way to leave him while I go to Bingo.
But today, even the Bingo room is not immune to the pull of the moon.
Out of nowhere, a fight erupts. Royal, a sweet and impeccably groomed woman, has swapped one Bingo card for another in between games. Leo, a big, burly man who uses his powerful voice to great effect, is not pleased.
"She can’t do that!" he yells, pointing at sweet Royal. "She switched cards!"
Royal is furious. I can’t tell whether she’s embarrassed at being "caught" or just royally pissed at being fingered, but she packs her cards, yells something back and spins out of there.
This, in turn, pisses off Doreen, the volunteer leading this session of Bingo for the VFW Auxiliary. She rips Leo a new one, and he returns the favor.
It’s ugly, and uncomfortable.
Ray, the Bingo caller, urges everyone to calm down, finish the game and then stick around while he clarifies the rules. After the game, Ray implores everyone to please keep and use just one Bingo card. "It’s not like we’re playing for hundreds of dollars," he says to me.
After Bingo ends, Doreen and Leo go at it again. Later, as I’m helping her store the leftover prizes, she says she’ll be shaken all the way home, but she had to speak her mind. I tell her to try to breathe deeply, and let it go.
I head down to Mike’s room to relay the excitement. He has some of his own: He got someone to open the pond.
"I found the boiler-room guy and explained my position. I didn’t get mad, I didn’t swear, but I thought I was right, and I presented my case."
I tell him he did an excellent job.
"Can I tell you something, a little bragging?" he asks.
"Absolutely," I say.
"I wanted to show you I could still get something done," he says.
I beam, and grab his hand. "You did exactly the right thing, and it worked because you were right," I said.
Minutes later, the drama of the day behind us, we take some deep breaths of our own, at the newly reopened—and always rejuvenating—pond.
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