Sixties Chick

Here we are right smack in the middle of those dog days of summer, named by the Greeks for the conjunction of Sirius, the dog star, with the sun. Known for its hot, sultry, often unbearable weather from July to early September, “Dog Days” was thought to be an evil time – when the “seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.”*

It was not, as I had thought, named for Labs lazing about in the shade in midsummer. You learn something new every day, no?

Why just yesterday on my way to Washington via Amtrak I learned that the mother of the middle-aged woman who was seated a couple of rows in front of me was in the hospital. I learned this from listening, no rather hearing her rather lengthy conversation, first with her mother, then with her father and then with the nurse who was called in from the hall. “Did they know she had called last night?” she asked over and over and over again.

“I don’t want to hear this,” I thought, unable to concentrate on the book I had saved expressly for the ride down. Does she know we are all listening, that we can’t help but listen?  Where does she think she is?  Alone in her damn bedroom?

“Take a deep breath,” I tell myself after I envision leveling her with the hardback in my hand. My good angel, ever on call, pulls me back just in time from the human-hating abyss I sometimes fall into. Her mother IS ill, I remind myself. I’d probably do the same. And there, she’s off the phone. Cool it with your intolerance.

But just as I settle back down anxious to be with the inimitable Tennessee Williams, my fellow traveler makes another call – this time to her friend. Forty-five minutes later, I and the other 80 or so passengers have learned that she is on the way to DC to help her daughter with the children, an inconvenient time, of course, because her mother is in the hospital which we already know, don’t we?

We are apprised of what each of the three children is doing this summer, and the fact that her son-in-law has been traveling a lot lately. We hear all about the daughter’s new responsibilities at work due to layoffs at the company, and what with the children’s schedule and the husband gone most of the time, it seems that the daughter is quite stressed, out of sorts. “Not as out of sorts as we are,” I mutter to myself. The gall.

You see, I don’t want to know about this woman’s daughter, her son-in-law, her grandchildren, even her sick mother. I don’t want to know anything about her. It may seem surprising coming from an inveterate eavesdropper, but there is something about a phone conversation imposed upon me in a public space that sends me up the wall.  It is uncomfortable at best – a rude, selfish, egocentric, unconscious imposition on others’ quiet enjoyment at worse. As my mother used to say upon occasion in regard to what she deemed proper behavior, “Some things are not done in public!”

So right she was. There are simply things one does not do in public. We don’t pick our nose, scratch our behind, or scream fire. And I’d like to add to that – converse at length on a cell phone in a confined space from which there is no escape.  Call me old fashioned or just plain cranky, but having to listen to someone else’s inane chit chat can make me barking mad. Meaner than a junkyard … well, you get it. A bad-tempered bitch or not – those devilish “Dog Days” aside, I am begging with my most humane heart, “Please,  put a muzzle on it.”

*John Brady, Clavis Calendaria, 1813.

I don’t care what they say. From where I sit, the economy doesn’t feel a bit better, except perhaps for our buddies at Goldman Sachs who seem to be just fine, bless their black little hearts. No, from my perch, even here in scenic South Jersey, there don’t seem to be any appreciable signs of recovery, at least not for the writing business. I am full of faith nonetheless. One day soon things are bound to turn around.  It’s just…what does one do in the meantime?

Enter my Brazilian ex-husband, an ever resourceful soul, who arrived yesterday for a week’s visit to buy all sorts of strange merchandise for his internet business – a business that supplies ranchers in the remote interior of Brazil with files for goats’ horns, oversize nipples for weaned calves and “castrators”  for cutting the you-know-whats off of bulls. His appearance reminds me of one of the things I learned from six years in that incredible country.

Coming from a place where old folks get tossed out like so many bags to Goodwill, I used to marvel at how Brazilians would save old string, make toys out of plastic soda bottles, oil lamps from old tin cans. Not only prodigious recyclers, Brazilians could come up with the most ingenious ways to make a living, melting down stolen manhole covers notwithstanding. And that’s with 80% inflation per month!  If the Third World teaches anything, it’s how creative humans can be when it comes to survival.

Case in point, Dona Antonieta – 63, 250 pounds, a diabetic blond bombshell. Left in the lurch by her second husband, a man twenty years her junior, Dona Antonieta had no skills, no education, no means of support and no hope for a job.

She did, however, have an apartment two blocks from the beach in one of Recife’s tonier districts. Although it couldn’t have been more than 750 sq. ft. with only two bedrooms and a bath, three including the maid’s off of the kitchen, this modest asset saved her from the street. She used it and her head and figured out how to make it pay.

Last I knew there were eight people living there. One in each of the two bedrooms, one in the tiny maid’s room. She had divided the living room using shelves, taking one half for herself and her 36-year-old gay son who produced impeccable meals (extra if you so desired).  Three boarders occupied the other half.  She employed a full time maid who kept the place spic and span, and had a laundress show up on Thursdays to do the wash, offering yet another service at what she called a slight charge.

Dona Antonieta had firm rules as all good landladies do, and, surprisingly, everyone seemed to get along just fine. In fact, they seemed to have a great time together. In the evening, the ragtag group would gather in front of the TV to watch the latest episode of the hot soap opera of the season, often shouting comments at the actors and each other. There was a lot of laughter coming from that small room.

Afterward, Dona Antonieta would hold court. Dona Antonieta loved to talk. She often said she’d never been happier in her life.

Lately, I’ve been eyeing the guest room down the hall. Then too, my daughter’s off to college again in the fall.  The thing is, where survival’s concerned, you’ve got to be willing to crawl outside of your comfort zone. To leap right out of that box. You’ve got to be creative. And if there’s one thing I am…. it’s that!