ProetryPlace Blog 16: Stray Felines and For Sale Signs (and more free samples)
Twenty years ago I was a runner, not fast but frequent—three or four miles a day most days, maybe a 10K on the weekend, all for fun and feel-good. Now I walk several times a week. The more leisurely pace allows me to “read” an audiobook or listen attentively to a music album on my morning excursions around our subdivision. Occasionally I meet another neighbor-walker by chance, click off the iPod and exchange a mile or two of friendly gossip.
One year ago my ambulatory ability was limited to transferring laboriously from my motorized, computerized talking bed to a chair four feet away and back during my 28-day hospital internment 250 miles from home. The surgeon made a small but nearly fatal error while removing my burst appendix and corrected it a week later by removing a few inches of bowel, so-called resection surgery.
For almost 80 years my trusty appendix had stood by my side for no particular reason with never a whimper, twinge or protest. No black cat had crossed my path to hex my guts. I had not walked under any ladders or stepped on any cracks. No broken mirror. No spilt salt. No warning symptoms. Then—wham! A third surgery and 12-day hospital stint corrected the second surgery six months later.
Now I am walking again. Today, no story or music or neighborly chat distracted me. I walked through our 200-some-home subdivision, almost exclusively occupied by retirees like me, a little more aware of the familiar surroundings. Only two undeveloped lots remain, both heavily wooded. And For Sale signs seem to have sprung up on the lush green lawns, like giant mushrooms, six or seven in total.
Two of the signs have been in place for months, the owners somewhere in homes, unable to care for their properties or themselves. A third, of more recent vintage, belongs to a widow woman just remarried and removed to her new husbands abode. I do not know the owners of the remaining homes.
I can imagine that these home sales were prompted by some happy circumstance, but the odds are against it. Given the average age of our property owners, there is a fairly constant sprinkling of these signs because of death or displacement of the owners. Makes one wonder when the estate sale or realtor sign will appear on our front lawn.
A black cat with four white paws joined me for a few quiet paces today. We did not speak, and he turned off eventually in search of better entertainment. He did not cross my path, so we may be safe for a while yet.
And now, the free sample poetry (lowku):
feel gutsy today
bought a two-year subscription
paid in advance
bought LED bulbs
that last twenty years—not my
wisest investment
Richard Allen Anderson < : - )> http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com
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