Catch Me If You Can

The reason I'm leaning on one leg and then the other is that if I stand too long on the left one, I may bleed right through my bandage. Even though I scotch taped a Publix bag over the bandage, sometimes it just gushes out. I try to keep the weight off that leg, but the inside of my shoe keeps rubbing on corn on my other foot.

I'm not going to give that Chiropodist another nickle. Medicare paid him a fortune for me already. Last time, he had the nerve to ask me for $10. just to cut my nails. Well, he lost my business. Now, I just go into the emergency room whever they start to dig in.

I'm only waiting on this line for the bus because I had to fire that stupid girl. She doesn't even know how to cash a check. She had the nerve to tell me I wrote it out wrong. I really wasted my money on that half price discount home health policy.

If I didn't need to get my prescription filled, I wouldn't even have left the house. That guy should come here with all I'm paying him. He says he can't get on the bus with his wheel chair. Look at me, with two bad feet, am I in any position to be running?

He should give me his whole bottle of pain killers and keep the cholesterol pills. He says he's getting them from a reputable Canadian pharmacy, but last time I tried to cut them in half, they just disintegrated.

Well, at least it won't be a wasted trip. I can get another load of free plastic bags.

  

There is no place like home.

The girls had taken turns making "something special" for over 20 years. From now on, Ida would be ordering from a menu at an assisted living facility. Rose hoped she could teach her daughter in law how to make some of the family recipes . She wasn't even sure they had Kosher salt in South Carolina. Only Ruth would remain here on her own. " I want you both to have a place setting from this table."

"I never remember eating from these. You always serve on paper plates." Ida didn't think she'd have any use for this fancy stuff where she was going.  Lazy Isles offered microwavable meals in their pantry, if you didn't want what was being served in the dining room that night.

"I'm sure my daugher-in-law doesn't want me polishing silver on her marble countertops . And these glasses would be broken in 2 minutes with the twins jumping all over. Where have you been keeping these?" Rose admired the light sparkling off the water goblet.

"I inherited these things from my mother. Her mother brought them from Hungary.  I've never used them before. My grandmother never talked about them. My mother was always buying new dinnerware from the catalogs ." Ruth lifted some soup from the pot into a turrine with a  matching pattern ladle. " I didn't even remember I had these things in the closet until I went looking for something to give you as going away presents. From now on, I plan to use these for all my meals."

"How can you do that? Aren't you afraid they'll break?"  Ruth's friends were almost afraid to sit down at the familiar kitchen table, that was now covered by an antique lace tablecloth. 

" I may have thought that when I put them in the attic after my mother passed. Then when Herb and I moved here, who wanted to fuss?  Now, my own daughter lives in South America, saving the rain forest.  My son's wife has things from her own family. Please, let's make a toast."

The crystal tinkled in their shaking fingers. "We've sat here through the birth of our grandchildren, the loss of our friends, the cruise brochures and the operations. Even though we may be apart, when we eat with these,  it will be like coming home."