Rusty's Armory

Shabbat, Bill Collectors, Rain and Rest

Posted on November 12, 2022 Updated on November 12, 2022

Shabbat dawned sunny but a bit chilly, for us, anyway.  The latter rains have come to the dry pampas but blew on over to the northeast yesterday leaving everything a bright green and fresh smelling.  That part of it is great … the waving fronds of weeds mocking me isn’t so great.

But today is a day of rest, and I put mowing out of my mind, along with a growing list of house maintenance items.  I spend all week ignoring my chores, and then on a holy day of rest, I want to do them all in one day.  I am a failure at religion, but I keep trying to live up to its tenets.

The neighbor bought a new motorcycle, and rather than ride it, he sets in the yard and guns it.  I like bikes ok, but after ten minutes of hearing it rev, I start getting a headache and contemplate if I can put a hole in his engine block with a 30-06 without putting a hole him.  They frown on shooting anyone but robbers and burglars here.

Snooks is at a plateau now, and at some moments she is almost normal, and at others she can’t recall anything more than six seconds past.  But I can tell her the same joke everyday now, and she thinks it is funny.  So often I want to ride to her rescue as she fights with the remote control, and usually she gets it after struggling with it.  But a few times she has pulled me out of bed to turn off the TV and black box.  I keep reminding myself that we are not even into a full year yet.

I have noticed that if she doesn’t take an honest nap in bed, she has more problems.  But she has never been a ‘napper’, and sometimes it is all we can do to talk her into it.  More difficult things like counting by twos and fours gives her problems.

And she is a sucker for telephone spammers.  One day a salesman showed up for a roof repair, and I had to send him back home.  He protested he had an appointment, and when I told him that Snooks just can’t handle pressure now and told him yes just to shut him up.

And now we get incessant calls from Medicare plans since this is the enrollment period.  For a long while now, it has been people from Pakistan and India making the calls, but just last week, I started getting people with Asian accents.  They want to talk with Leeendahh … and I tell them she is unavailable and will never be available to them.  A couple of them got very nasty about it, but frankly, it makes my day when I unhinge one.

But Snook ALWAYS knows that on Shabbat, she listens to a podcast from our old congregation in Denver.  She remembers how to find it and log on.  So, a lot of her memory problems are contingent on her interest in the subject.

Bruce and Amber have really risen to the occasion, and prepare six of the evening meals each week, and clean up afterwards.  And I haven’t horked off too many of my debtors as I try and get their bills paid in a timely manner.  But that is going to be the subject of another post, when I can start laughing at my mistakes.

So on this day of rest, I write, I muse, I play games, and I remember what this day is, and the mystery of it.

Good morning!