Or: Elinor! Don’t eat so fast!

Years ago my sister had a friend, Dolores. They went to high school in Danbury, CT together on the bus. Sometimes, on Spring evenings, they’d get together after supper and walk in the quiet dusk. And sometimes I’d sneak after them. We were six years apart–we lived in separate worlds.
One day Dad ordered a spaghetti dinner for us. He worked for Connery Brothers general Store and knew all the housewives who lived just outside Georgetown, Connecticut. He spent his weekday mornings driving around taking grocery orders and afternoons delivering them. I wonder now: was there any gossip he didn’t know?
When he went to pick up the spaghetti and meatballs, Mrs DeGrazzio (do I have her name right?) would wait for his truck to drive into her driveway before she’d put the spaghetti in the pot of boiling water.
My sister had asked Dolores for supper that night to enjoy the treat.
After I had finished my plate of spaghetti and meatballs, I eyed Dolores’ plate. She sat next to me. She was a more careful eater, but then so was the rest of the world.
After looking at the second, uneaten luscious meatball for some time, I asked, “Are you going to eat that meatball, Dolores?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Elinor! You eat too fast!” said my mother. She probably said more than that.
What a brat I was!
I wish I felt sorry for coveting–aloud–Dolores’ meatball but I don’t.

Ants! already! And it is only May. But I’m lucky. I told the powers that be that I had ants and the next day the exterminator came. I’d already killed a bunch and pulled sugar and sweets out of the cupboard the ants had invaded. I saw some confectionery sugar but I thought ants were like pantry moths and wouldn’t eat any white stuff. Pantry moths won’t eat white sugar, white flour and white rice. No nutrition.
My mistake. I found them in the confectionery sugar.
I went to yoga leaving my husband to deal with the exterminator. When I came home I found he had been and sprayed the corners, etc. I opened the cupboard door expecting dead ant bodies. Instead I found ants running around, slowly.
I went into my frenzied ant-killing mode and killed as many as I could. Then I closed the door.
I’d deal with it later, like Scarlet O’Hara.
Later is today. I’ll go sit in the sun first, I think. Dr. Oz in Oprah says we can get 20 minutes of sun a day with no sunblock. Our body uses it for good things. Nice. To the deck for me.

I’m sad to say that instead of having one underpant (AKA “pair of underpants”) that was special, I now have four of them. So how can they (the four) be special?
They can’t. They aren’t.
Except for the salmon-colored one. It’s a mixture of yellow, orange and something else, rather sick-making.
I’ll go get it so you can see.
Oops! It’s a pale beige now with salmon-colored elastic…it must have been bleached. the elastic–still salmon color–glows in the dark.
The question is, as I travel on my Amtrak train to Newark, home of the brave, would I like to have the emergency medical people find this underpant on me as they drag me out of the train wreck?

Anyway, Amtrak never goes off the track–look at their name: Am-trak stands for “aim for the track.”
Anyway, I’ll probably take all four of my new underpants and never notice which one I’m wearing. How sad.

*See January

Last week I went to Washington, D.C. and visited friends and family. It was a great trip; I saw my son and daughter-in-law, my granddaughter and my old friends. I’ve known my friends since the fifties when we all lived in Berkeley, California.
I played a little trick on them. Ten years ago I had a mastectomy. Most of the time since then I’ve been wearing sports bras for comfort. But recently I bought some new t-shirts from LL Bean in fresh spring-like colors. I didn’t want the black straps of the sports bras showing–ug! So I got out my old fake breast and the bra that goes with it and wore it to Washington.
Of course I expected some response, a start, a stare, a discrete question.
Nothing.
Hmmmm. And worst of all: nobody noticed that I’d lost a half pound or two.
Now they know it!