It’s a day’s work moving me from my soft and pillowed spot on the couch to somewhere else … especially when that somewhere is away from the house. Before … when we had only Lily the Cat and we didn’t have Scarlett the Dog and Wilson the Other Dog, and Before, when I had two good legs and one good head, and then, Really Long Before, when we were young and portable … moving from here to there was really very simple.
We just stood up and moved.
Now, we’re a full Cecil B. DeMille production, complete with lead actors and a cast of thousands. The script is always fluid and marred by missing pages and writers on strike. We’re a Keystone Cops flurry of nonsense and all we need is a piano player to embellish our silent movie comedy.
Going somewhere starts early morning with a one-legged Pat Morita crane pose over the kitchen sink to wash my hair and other reachable body parts. Then it’s a literal hop, hop, hop through the process of dressing, hair, makeup and, most likely, a wardrobe change somewhere in the midst of it all, simply because I’m such a raging diva.
We’re an uncut movie of scenes; coaxing Wilson into his crate, transferring me to a wheelchair, bump, bump out the door and down one step, into the car (the one with the wide door), then back into the house for a frantic search for a forgotten book, a left-behind purse, Oh, oh, my shoe. Get my shoe, please. And my pen. Do I have my pen?
Close the door, start the car.
Down the street 200 yards, then a U-turn and back up the driveway. Poor Dan. I thought you went. Sorry, I forgot. We truly are a drama of entertainment. Thank God the shooting of this movie’s halfway done and in the can.
Popcorn, anyone?
P.S. Thanks, Fotosearch.com, for the really nice stock photo.