Two Days in March

It works out well for me to make a note here of dates I may want to mark—it certainly beats scribbling information on odd pieces of paper.

There are two dates to remember this March. The first was March 8, Michigan’s “wind event”, when record setting numbers of people lost power, some for as long as a week. Actually, the incident that had most people here on edge was the plane carrying the University of Michigan basketball team being blown off the edge of the runway at Willow Run. Amazingly, we were among the few who didn’t lose light and heat. We usually do when there is a storm which knocks down trees on our tree-lined streets. I hadn’t been feeling too great and had no need to go out, so I am ashamed to say I didn’t realize that a number of friends could have used a bed or a hot meal. I have sort of happy memories of past storms: there was a March ice storm when the children were small and the house was getting colder and colder. Thank goodness for a neighbor who showed us how to rig the furnace with a large voltage battery. I am sure it was dangerous, but it saved us hotel bills for five days and we got by with an occasional meal in a restaurant, usually surrounded by neighbors who were in the same predicament. I also remember a time after I switched from an electric stove to a gas one when my burners were kept busy as I made soup for the neighbors camped out around the kitchen table. There may have been a bottle or two of wine involved.

As I mentioned in the last paragraph, I had not been feeling too great, so when March 13 dawned, I was looking forward to a day with nowhere to go and the prospect of curling up with a book. So I was wearing a pair of grubby slippers (no socks), some tired yoga style pants, a grubby, baggy white turtleneck and some undies which had started out blue, but had found their way into a load of whites laced with bleach. They were a streaky looking disgrace. Sorry, Mum, I know what you always said! I wasn’t, however, knocked down by a bus, but I found myself in an ambulance on the way to the hospital with what was probably a reaction to the on-again, off-again prescribing of strong medication. I only stayed one night with orders to follow up with all the doctors involved, but I was poked and prodded, gave up a lot of blood and examined by a number of machines. They dragged me out of bed at 1:00 a.m. for an MRI and found myself being wheeled down a long corridor to an elevator. The floor was definitely on a slope and when we entered and exited the elevator there was a pronounced bump. The poor young woman pushing me was most concerned about the bump and apologized profusely. “It’s OK, it doesn’t bother me”, I said reassuringly,”but it could be hard on your older patients.”

A marked silence. I forgot I am seventy seven. And no-one showed any interest in my undies.