Everyday Life

Yes, Everyday Life is a play by Rilke but it is such an apt phrase for things one sees on a daily basis that I am stealing it from Rilke who stole it from God know who else.

So today I am driving along to my drip and I seem to be keeping up with the other traffic and a policeman pulls me over for going 45 in a 35 zone. Oh, come on, I'm thinking. Everyone was driving at the same speed and I'd had a bad 2007 and you are not going to make me go to one of those places where I have to listen to bad comedians tell bad jokes about cars and traffic and COME ON. But he is all business and I'm starting to get upset so I did what everyone should do when they get pulled over...I got out of the car and I threw up. Right there on the curb. I guess I AM sensitive these days and after all I did have an operation three days ago. And you should have seen his face. This is one thing he did not learn in policeman school. How to deal with a woman who is so upset that she throws up on his boots. (Well, I didn't actually throw up on his boots but I saw them there on the ground and I thought about it for a very short moment and decided against it.) Anyway, this cop just went about his business and presented me with the ticket and did not say a word about my sudden illness. And I looked at him for a long time thinking he might ask how I was feeling but he had no intention of doing that and he just handed me the ticket and told me how to go about it and that was that. I drove away, sucking on a lifesaver, and thought that we are all in very good hands if we are being protected by seriously focused guys like Officer McCarthy. Or else they are truly a bunch of sadists and you'd better make sure you go 35 in that 35 mph zone.

Okay, so today's guy in the vitamin drip room is my favorite so far. He walks in wearing three coats, a hat, carries a plastic grocery bag filled with letters, carries a huge camera case, the old fashioned kind and pulls a small suitcase on wheels. He starts talking as soon as he takes off the first coat. And he says...

"I just got back from nineteen days in Odessa."

The other woman and I exchanged a look and he went on about his trip to Odessa...IN DETAIL...Starting with every minute he spent on the airplane and that he went by himself and left his wife of two months at home to pursue her career. His wife is Russian. She makes him wear his wedding ring on his right hand. As he continued to talk I realized that this woman had married him to stay in the country and she did not want to be married to him and convinced him that in her religion everyone wears their rings on their right hand. I asked what religion she was and he said something like..."Balmudian." Ah, I don't think so. Anyway, she had sent him to Odessa to find her MOTHER...Oh, this story gets better...But of course her mother was not there so he just roams around Odessa looking for the best pizza parlors!! And then he goes on and on about pizza and pulls out a picture of his Russian wife who is "pleasantly plump" to put it nicely and he says she's a great singer and wants to be the next Britney Spears.

And this was all before he took off his second coat. All I know is that he seems to be going next to Prague to find her Uncle who is in the music business...In Prague. In the music business. To help her be the next Britney. In America. With a Russian accent.

I am telling you...Everyday life.

And then I saw...Cedric. I couldn't finish the whole dog but he didn't see that, thank goodness. I think I'm still a little tweaky from the operation. But once again he said one of his profound little pearls. I finally told him I'd had cancer. He was, not surprisingly, very concerned and I told him I was in remission (which I think I am) and he was pleased to hear that. Then he told me that he, too, was in remission. "I am in remission from something that is actually worse than cancer. I am in remission from poverty."

Wow, huh? He is from Louisiana and he said that Katrina revealed only a tiny view of what is really going on down there. And that's what he comes from. And if this is becoming just a bit too Travels with Maury, or whatever the hell that corny book was called...I can't help it. There he is. This guy with his truck and his hot dogs and his pearls and he's like one of the best people I've ever met.

Everyday heroes.

By the way, my spellcheck told me that there was no such word as Balmudian. Someone should tell that to Mr. Odessa when he finally removes his hat.......................