May 6, 2015
Today marked my introduction to Cacelia, who will be cleaning my apartment the first Wednesday of every month. Although I had set my alarm for 8:00 a.m., I either didn't hear it or continued sleeping soundly when it started buzzing. I awoke to the electrifying touch of a gentleman from Security, letting me know Cacelia was here. This was, to put it mildly, embarrassing. I stared at his departing back with my good eye, then hurriedly took off my pajama top (Ed used to wear only pajama bottoms; his best friend Blake Thaxter wore only tops), put on my wig, shirt, slacks, and the tinted lavender glasses that concealed, I hoped, my crossed eye.
While my helper did her chores I sat at my computer and worked on bringing my blog posts up to date. The visitor statistics still look good, but no one has made a comment in a long time.
I vacated my chair when Cacelia was ready to vacuum my study, then saw her to the door. When I asked about payment, she said her time was automatically charged to my Linden Ponds account. I started to hand her a $20 bill for the trouble I had caused and she shook her head. "We're not allowed to accept tips."
"This isn't a tip, it's a birthday present," I said. "When's your birthday?"
"It was yesterday!" she smiled, accepting the gift. What a delightful coincidence. I told her about Naomi McBride who took good care of our condominium years ago.
"We are still friends and write letters to each other. "I hope -- no I know you and I will be good friends, too."
I'll send a copy of this to Naomi. A phone call no longer works well, even with the speaker on. I'm serving what Philip Roth calls a Deaf Sentence, his clearly autobiographical and hilarious novel.
Today marked my introduction to Cacelia, who will be cleaning my apartment the first Wednesday of every month. Although I had set my alarm for 8:00 a.m., I either didn't hear it or continued sleeping soundly when it started buzzing. I awoke to the electrifying touch of a gentleman from Security, letting me know Cacelia was here. This was, to put it mildly, embarrassing. I stared at his departing back with my good eye, then hurriedly took off my pajama top (Ed used to wear only pajama bottoms; his best friend Blake Thaxter wore only tops), put on my wig, shirt, slacks, and the tinted lavender glasses that concealed, I hoped, my crossed eye.
While my helper did her chores I sat at my computer and worked on bringing my blog posts up to date. The visitor statistics still look good, but no one has made a comment in a long time.
I vacated my chair when Cacelia was ready to vacuum my study, then saw her to the door. When I asked about payment, she said her time was automatically charged to my Linden Ponds account. I started to hand her a $20 bill for the trouble I had caused and she shook her head. "We're not allowed to accept tips."
"This isn't a tip, it's a birthday present," I said. "When's your birthday?"
"It was yesterday!" she smiled, accepting the gift. What a delightful coincidence. I told her about Naomi McBride who took good care of our condominium years ago.
"We are still friends and write letters to each other. "I hope -- no I know you and I will be good friends, too."
I'll send a copy of this to Naomi. A phone call no longer works well, even with the speaker on. I'm serving what Philip Roth calls a Deaf Sentence, his clearly autobiographical and hilarious novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment