Portrait of a Worker as an Old Man

I couldn't sleep last night, couldn't breathe.  I woke over and over and over again choking, gagging.  Phlegm from my sinuses.  It was maddening.  So much for the dignity of work.  

Yea. . . I worked.  I had to.  After the reconstruction in the kitchen, things were a mess.  I got scrub brushes, sponges, mops, and rags.  I filled a pan with water and TSP (trisodium phosphate), something that cleans almost anything.  I scrubbed the ceiling.  My broken body was not a fan.  I stood on a ladder, reaching with my left hand above my head without an AC joint, holding on to anything I could for balance.  But it had to be done.  I scrubbed the ceiling, emptying and refilling the pan as it became mud.  I scrubbed and then rinsed the entire thing, and then I dried it with towels.  Then I did the walls and cabinets.  Same thing.  And then the floor.  I did, however, feel a bit heroic.  Cleaning the kitchen took hours.  I had emptied the kitchen counters of all things, so when I was finished, the kitchen looked new.  But I realized that the floor planks which had warped from water leaks was coming apart.  I had sanded the floors, painted them, and then polyurethaned them 28 years ago.  Had it really been so long ago?  Something will need to be done.  

Later.  

When the kitchen was finished, I had a decision to make.  The carpenter had called to tell me he was sick and wouldn't be working for a couple days, but. . . he wanted his money.  Many thousands of dollars of money.  He also told me that the new siding needed to be painted with a cement sealer.  He gave me instructions on how to do that.  It was midafternoon when I finished the kitchen and I was pooped.  I needed to get the renovation permit for the coming tankless water heater notarized and emailed back to the company doing the installation.  I also needed to stop by an orthopedic group to see about getting my mother an appointment.  

So I paused and I thought.  It was 95 degrees outside.  Still. . . the siding.  I decided to finish the work.  

It didn't take so very long, nothing like cleaning the kitchen.  It had been a productive day, but I knew I would pay for it.  All the bending and twisting and working overhead would have bones and muscles barking that night.  

And sure enough, after showering and dressing and printing out the permit, walking seemed a chore.  

But that is not why I couldn't sleep.  Phlegm clogged my throat.  Surely it was from cleaning the kitchen or perhaps working with the cement sealer.  Whatever. . . I don't find such work so very heroic.  It is the stuff that kills you, I think.  

I will struggle today.  I must tote my mother around to doctors and labs after I put my kitchen back together.  

After all the work, clean as a bean, permit notarized, and being just a block from the Boulevard, I decided to pop into what had become my favorite bar to get a Negroni.  They make a great Negroni there.  I think it is the smoked orange peel that does it.  

The bar was open, but nobody was around.  One fellow sat at the bar eating.  Two bartenders were standing in the back talking to a waitress.  I stood for a bit but no one paid attention to me, so I walked over to ask if they were serving outside.  

"Yes, I'll send a waitress out."

"Send her with a Negroni if you will."

I plopped down into the very comfortable low seating and waited.  And waited.  And waited a bit longer, but no waitress came out.  Perhaps they didn't like my look, I thought.  Maybe they don't serve hippies.  No matter.  It was a bad idea to begin with, sitting alone at a sidewalk table sipping a small, $15 Negroni.  

I walked back to the car.  

That's just the way my life goes now.  It just is.  

So I shopped for groceries and went back to my mother's.  I opened a beer and turned on the news.  Oh, my!  Virginia Giuffre’s mother is up in arms over the Epstein Files, and all I can wonder is how anyone can take her seriously.  I mean. . . where was good old mom when her "child" was on the "Lolita Express"?  At the time this took place, Virginia would have been charged with prostitution even as a minor, not lauded as a victim.  

I understand.  The past was bad.  We are better now.  Still. . . where was good, concerned mother?  

But man. . . this stuff draws a greater audience than the Magruder Files and the Kennedy Assassination Files combined.  

Someone sent me a song yesterday saying, "This should be your theme song."  Yea, yea. . . it might be accurate.  

"Ooh Woo, I'm a rebel just for kicks now."