Oh, I Think So

She was keeping her eyes out for Kevin, Handsome, and the flesh-toned Fiat 500 as she went about Christmas shopping.  The family had decided to have a grab-bag for adult gifts and she'd drawn her nice cousin's husband, a man who lived, breathed, slept, and ate for two things:  his family and woodworking. "A Dremel tool.   That's the word from the basement.  He wants a Dremel tool," she told her when they spoke on the phone. "Okay!  That's great!" she said, her life being made easier.  "What's a Dremel tool?" "Now you want to know too much," the cousin answered. "Did he say a particular model?" she asked. "Oh!" she said.  "Something about 12 volts being plenty." "That's good information.  Do you know where I can get one?" she asked. "Again, too much," the cousin said, "but I've seen the word Dremel at every major hardware store in town." "S...

And then it was Christmas and planning for the annual office party. Unlike most companies, she worked for a very cheap bunch that never acknowledged the holiday season in any way than to pay them for Christmas Day and January 1st.  They all accepted the stinginess of the company owner and since he and his wife wintered in the South of France, they never had to worry about him strolling in to see how his employees were faring. They had a sign-up sheet for their party and people brought in their best creations or their favorite store-bought items to share.  It was a nonstop eating festival from the time they came in until the time they went home.  A co-worker made a ham every year and she gave him half the money and that was their contribution.  One year there was ham, Puerto Rican pork, fried chicken, with sides like marinated green beans, guacamole, goat cheese crostini, and tater tot casserole (which was a pound of bacon, a pound of breakfast sausage, cream of c...

They had a nice long walk around the neighborhood.   In the mid-afternoon light, they were able to look at and, of course, criticize the Christmas displays that had already made their way to lawns and houses. "What the heck?" she asked at a home that offered up Santa and his reindeer dashing in the front of a row of yew, a snowman as tall as the two-story house, a jack-in-the-box with the clown out and waving int he breeze, a single giant Rudolph, and an inflatable Nativity scene, complete with camel, three wise men, and an inflatable manger that was empty, awaiting the birth of the inflatable Jesus on Christmas eve. "It's actually not an inflatable baby," her cousin advised.  "There's one of these in my subdivision and the baby is actually a doll for those who like to add the baby on Christmas Eve.  There was no way to get the baby in there and have him inflate so the company added a doll that was weighted to stay in the manger." She stopped...

Panorama lights at Old Orchard in Skokie

She had a dream sitting there in the TV room near the snacks.  In it, she was getting married.  She'd was wearing a cream-colored dress with a full, ballet-length skirt, cream colored flats, and a silk, fitted bodice with long sleeves.  Her hair was in an elaborate updo.  She turned this way and that, looking at herself over her shoulder in the dream, smiling at her image.  Her two cousins were there, wearing dresses that were best described as "Hooker's Lime Green Dream" with black patent stilettos and her aunt was also there, wearing a witch's pointed hat with a black Chanel-style suit and mid-heel leather pumps. "Why the hell did it have to be lime?" her less pleasant cousin asked in the dream.  "And it's so short and tight you can almost see the outline of each pubic hair." "I have to agree," said the nice cousin.  "It's a bit, well, revealing.  You look so pretty and demure and we look like we're going to t...

In the city where she lived, good street parking was terrible in some areas and easy in others.  If there were more apartment-type buildings on a block or in an area, the parking was pretty ghastly.  Some areas, like her own, featured multi-tenant dwellings on two of the four corners of every block and houses everywhere else.  She was confident that no matter what time she drove off, when she got home there would be parking within a half block of her house. Her cousin's neighborhood had only single-family dwellings for blocks around and the lots were ample.  In other words, the parking was fantastic.  She always parked in front of the house next door to that of her cousin.  There were metal plates on each window, the hallmark of a house a bank owned that was now abandoned.  The bank had the lawn mowed, leaves all raked up, and the sidewalks kept clear.  The grinning face of a bald, bespectacled, middle-aged realtor smiled at anyone who cared to ...

Oh, I Think So and She is Where are vacationing this week. Please come back next week.

No matter what she wore, be it suit or frock or jeans and a shirt, her cousin and aunt would both find something wrong with it. "That dress is for a wedding," her cousin stated. "If you're the bride," said the aunt about a particularly nice dress she'd put on. "Why are you so dressed up?" they'd ask if she wore a suit.  "Trying to make everyone feel small?" She never made anyone feel small.  Her aunt and cousin had both been jealous of her since she was born because her cousin was no longer the special, first child and because her parents no longer babysat her cousin and showered attention on her.  Her own parents still included her in the family as if she were their own but the cousin, even as a small child, had gotten used to two sets of parents, three if her grandparents could be included.  When her own parents had died within a few days of each other -- one succumbing to cancer, the other to a broken heart -- she found out...

After the shower, she dried off, removed the shower cap, turned on the TV, and had a nap on her bed.  She awoke to full blown Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Years ago, she had a friend who was in the parade, attached to a float starring the late Shari Lewis, the creator of Lambchop and Charley Horse.  The people walking were all dressed a la Raggedy Ann and when they got to Macy's at 34th Street, Shari Lewis sang a song and they all danced around.  When it was over, her friend almost got separated from the rest of the Raggedy Anns except Shari Lewis came to her defense calling out, "Wait!  She's with us!"  Now whenever she happened upon the parade, she thought of her friend who now lived in Florida. She sat bolt upright in bed.  She needed another pair of ears and her friend might be willing to hear.  She put on her robe and slippers and entered the speed dial for her friend. As she usually did, her friend answered calling her by name. "I am r...

The alarm clock rang right at 6:00 a.m., as she'd asked it to do.  She further requested that it give her 9 minutes more of sleep.  She made this request four times and then admitting that the cranberry relish wouldn't make itself -- year after year it had refused to do so -- she staggered to the bathroom and turned the shower on to warm up the water. She lived in an older building with an older landlady with a total denial method of setting things like thermostats properly, or even fixing things, as in "That window is broken!  There is jagged glass and rain and snow can get in!  Here is a board that fits in the hole!  There is jagged glass but rain and snow can't get in as well!  Is it really broken?  Oh, look!  A leaf has landed on the grass and I must pick it up!"  Ten minutes usually did it for warming up the water and a year was about the right time for external repairs. Her landlady only hired people she knew and trusted but it was ...

She started spinning around in the parking lot, trying to spot the Giant, but the Giant was just not there.  She walked over to where she'd seen his car and it was still there.   This realization made her stomach do flips. What if he'd seen her and was following her?  How could he do that and not be seen?  He's a giant. What if he had a camera set up and was watching her that way?  Except where would the camera be? What if the camera were the store camera and he had hacked into the store's computer so he could spy on her that way?  Really?  Just to watch her ?  On a grocery store camera?  The giant wouldn't do that, she decided, but Handsome would.  Even if she didn't really know him, she thought that much about him was true. She spun around the opposite way, now looking for Handsome.  She spun around the other way and spotted a taxi dropping someone off to get their groceries.  They went out the right door and she...

The time up until Thanksgiving went a lot faster than she thought it would.  She managed to find a handbag online that was just what she'd been thinking about that offered free returns in case it wasn't what she really wanted.  It complemented the coat and cost less than what she'd budgeted. Everyone at work made a big fuss over her new coat. "Wow," said her manager.  "You look like you have a serious job instead of here, ha ha." "Ha ha," said her coworkers as seriously as they were able because they all knew they were some of the scruffiest dresser in the world.  They saw their clients every few years and dressed as best they were able then, spending any clothing budget for groceries, rent, and the occasional trip somewhere. "I'm going to San Francisco," said a guy who wore pants so old they had a shine to them who liked to spend on two things -- trips and whores. "Did I tell you?" asked the middle-aged accoun...

The dermatologist surprised her by doing a biopsy on one questionable tag, freezing off three mole-like things, and taking sterile scissors to several actual skintags. "Your insurance won't cover the cost of the ones I can snip off.  Are you sure you wish me to proceed?" asked her dermatologist.  She was originally from England and very proper.  The doctor was quite fond of being very proper and very English.  She'd been in the States for 30 years and had not lost a bit of her accent. "That's fine," she said.  "I'm feeling flush." "That's $17.50 each," the doctor advised. "Fine.  Still feeling flush," she said. The doctor applied the local anesthesia and proceed to snip, cut, and sew. "I didn't think there'd be stitches," she told the doctor. "I wanted to make sure I had plenty for the biopsy," informed the physician.  "Keep it covered with an adhesive bandage and try to...

The rooftop restaurant was on the 8th floor, added when the store wanted to impress the hell out of everyone by building something closer to heaven than any other eating establishment in the region.  Now, ho hum, the 8th floor, but it would take a while to ride slowly down on the escalator.  When she got to the 7th floor, she realized the handsome man had not asked about the picture she took with her phone.  She popped the phone open and sent it to her email address.  Phone-to-email texts weren't included in her cheap data plan. "Worth it," she said aloud.  No one else was on the escalator so she didn't have to make a sweet, purse-lipped face that said, "Oops, ya caught me talking to myself," even though she was pretty sure everyone talked to themself at one time or another and those who didn't had lots of people around all the time or were solidly nuts, so into their own heads that dynamite could not have gotten them out. At the 6th floor, she tho...

The rooftop restaurant was stuffed with patrons at almost every table, even though it was past lunchtime.  There were windows on three sides, giving a great view of what must have been a view of the skyline at one point, but the surrounding area had been built much higher so now one had a choice of which building to look into.  The furnishings were very fine, seeming to be imported from Europe but, in reality, some fine examples of North Carolina furniture artistry.  The fabrics were lovely chintz, exploding florals like an eruption at a botanical garden had spewed the flower all the way downtown.  Tourists loved the place for its of-another-era style, and old ladies, gay couples, and nostalgic locals felt the same way.  Personally, she didn't like the place.   It was stuffy and the uniforms on the staff never seemed be quite clean enough.  It suggested the company knew it was going to close sometime soon and these uniforms would have to do until ...

Of course, she should have just ignored him, walking with the crowd and acting like she'd not seen him but she still would have gone into this building with the two side entrances. Which to take? "Screw it," she said aloud, but no one gave her a second look because it's a city, people are crazy in cities, and no one wants to get involved with crazy as it might be contagious.  She turned around and went out the front door and continued up the street to store with the nice handbags which she'd peruse before going to look at the coats in the other store.  It was two blocks and she knew the giant was long gone or would be by the time he got done dealing with one-way streets going the wrong way and nonexistant alleys. The giant might have been long gone but it was getting toward the end of the year and everyone wanted to use up their remaining personal and vacation time.  She found herself sharing the sidewalk with her soon-to-be-former boss. "Well, fancy ...

Because she'd neglected to buy a train ticket ahead of time in Mount Prospect, she had to pay a penalty along with the price of ticket.  Like the handsome man, her almost boss, she paid cash.  She stared out the window all the way back into town and because it was a non-rush hour, it was as local as local could be, stopping in places where sometimes no one got on or off, giving her a lot of time for staring and heavy-duty thinking. When the train pulled into the station, she had already decided that the first thing to do would be to find Mr. King and tell him what happened.  In his former career, Mr. King was a military policeman in the Army and he was very good at scoping people out.  He'd once told her he made a particular loop of the public area's of the building looking at everything that needed to be seen so if she went in the area where he walked, he would eventually come by.  Fortunately, it didn't take long. "Hey, stranger," he said.  "I thoug...