Liz-with-an-S and our buddy Holly make a crucial decision on the Happy Hour White at Willow on Monday. Liz-S has just agreed to join the Socotra Legal Team as a special consultant. Photo Socotra.
I like Mondays, don’t you? Can’t help that day. It great to get to the office on a Columbus Day holiday and really stretch out and do some problem solving, and I was hard at it all afternoon.
I was startled when Raven picked up the phone. I mean, shocked. Stunned. It was late in the afternoon, and my juices were starting to get rolling about what Happy Hour White was going to be at Willow that evening, and whether that out-of-sight Duck taco was going to be on the menu.
I had got through a long list of action items, many of them business-related, since we are gnawing at the 72nd solicitation from the Government on my contract vehicle.
But there was time for more. There were calls to the Brokers to line up resources to handle the Big Negative that is going to occur when we move Dad to a nursing facility- coordination calls to keep the siblings in the loop, calls to schedule Raven’s assessment visit, a courtesy copy of emails to keep Potemkin Village satisfied that we are moving forward.
Where exactly that it remains a little murky. I am hoping that Mary, the Queen of Admissions at The Bluffs, will shine a little illumination on the process. I can’t have them march into the apartment and start a conversation about warehousing Raven without being there, and hence, I have no idea where I am going to be or when.
So, being on the implementation end of things, to have Raven suddenly speaking to me was a stunning development.
“Hello,” he said in the familiar voice.
“Dad!” I said with a tone of wonder. “Great to hear your voice!” What on earth, I thought.
“Yes. Good.”
“How are you? How have you been?” A pause, as he processed my question.
“Here and there…going here and there. Busy busy,” he said. He got going at the front end and ran out of steam as the thought progressed. I asked him questions, and he responded, not knowing precisely who I was, but engaged and attempting to respond.
Jeeze, I thought, this just at the time I am going to be the instrument of breaking them up after 63 years together. We went back and forth, me asking the same thing, and letting him put out random comments.
“Dad, can I talk to Mom?” There was silence. “Is Mom there, Dad? Let me speak to her, would you?”
I heard him say something not directed into the phone, and a response.
“Is it Annook?” asked Mom in the background.
.“Some guy,” he said. “Talk? Here.” The phone rustled as he passed the handset over.
“Hello?” she said brightly.
“Hi, Mom. It’s Vic. Just calling to check in.”
“Where are you?”
“I am in Washington, Mom, where I live.”
“Oh, are you coming here soon? I need your help.”
“I am just the guy for you, Mom. I will be there soon to help. What’s up?”
“Well, it is the ten of them. Or the other ten. Do they want to go to law school?”
“Which ten are we talking about, Mom? Who are they?”
“Well, there is some confusion about that. There is the five of you.”
“Mom, there are only three of us- Annook, Spike and me.”
“Then why do I think there are five? Are we all related?”
“Well, yes,” I said, furrowing my brow. “You are quite right. There are five of us, and always have been if you include Dad and you. That was our family, five in all. So that is good.”
“but what about the others? Suppose they want to go to school?”
“I think they should, and I will be up there to help out. Maybe Dad can go back to school with them. Can you help me out with who they are? All those Law School tuitions are going to be pretty expensive.” I was thinking hard. Had she just watched “Cheaper by the Dozen” on the Turner Class Movie Channel? Spike had gone to law school out in Wyoming when he stopped being a river guide and became a professional. “Heck, I might want to go to law school, too.”
“Well, that is good, but I need you to be here to advise me on what to do.”
“You can count on that, Mom. For sure.”
“So when will you be here?”
“Soon, Mom, I just need some more information from my sources up there to make a schedule. I will let you know as soon as things firm up.”
In the background I heard one of the Nursing Assistants tell them it was time to go to dinner. “Mom, it is time to get Dad ready to go to dinner.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. It is lunchtime.” I could almost see her peering at the gigantic clock that Annook had hung on the wall, and which Big Mama can no longer interpret.
“Right, Mom. But it is time to go down to the dining room.”
“We can do that. Will you be here soon?”
“Yep. I will keep you posted.”
“Good. I need some help figuring this out.”
“I completely understand, Mom. Have a good dinner.”
“Or lunch,” she said, upbeat. “I will get your father ready.”
“That is good Mom. Great to talk to you.”
“Good to talk to you, too, Honey.”
“Bye, Mom.” I reached over to the desk and punched the button to turn off the speakerphone.
I wonder how this is going to work, I thought. Then I wondered what the Happy Hour White was going to be at Willow. I knew it was not lunchtime. I don’t drink at lunch, at least not any more, but I could see that this was going to be interesting, now that we are all unstuck in time.
And what the hell are we going to do about the ten others? And all that tuition?
It was a good thing I had asked Elisabeth-with-an-S to join the Socotra legal team as a special consultant. This is going to be complex.
The table next to Raven and Big Mama in the Challenged Dining Room. Carla (tuxedo shirt, left) ensures that Big Mama does not get an all-vegetarian meal. God only knows that that got started. Photo Socotra.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com