Birds

I was driving my shortcut home the other day (some say it's not a shortcut, but it most assuredly is): a long stretch of road that is divided almost equally in half by a single stop sign. I love this road, by the way, because this is the road where I often find my treasures that I restore (or plan to anyway) on the night before trash pickup. People throw away the best stuff. Anyway, I'm slowly (ok, maybe not slowly) approaching the stop sign (likely put there for people like me) singing my song along with the radio when i see the tiniest, frailest little old woman i've ever seen, in a pink chenille robe, pushing a walker. There is also a woman in scrubs just a few inches in front of her walking backwards and gesturing her on with her hands, so naturally I assume that this woman is a caregiver and is taking the littlest woman alive out to get a bit of exercise. She's is so little. I mean SO LITTLE and so sweet and really pushing her walker along and as I come to a stop at the stop sign I look out of my window at her and smile encouragingly. I mean, everyone needs some encouragement from time to time, right? She pushes forward a little more as we make eye contact and there I am smiling at her and probably stupidly nodding my head like "good job, cutest woman ever! you're doing a great job! keep going, don't give up!" She stops, looks right into my eyes for a moment and.... gets a disgusted look on her face, flips me off,  then continues to push on towards her caregiver. Wait, what?! This little, sweet old woman just irritatedly gave me the finger. My jaw hit the steering wheel. I couldn't believe it. I drove away quickly, embarrassed by the scene and thought about it for the rest of the drive home. And i came up with this: this poor woman is out busting her ass in the street, in her bathrobe, where she likely doesn't want to be, doing something she doesn't want to be doing and here I come staring all the way down the street. Actually being presumptuous and condescending enough to be giving her some sort of encouragement as if she were this frail little bird. Who knows what this woman has lived through? Has accomplished? Maybe she was a well respected archaeologist who traveled the globe (I'm rooting for this one). Maybe she wrote volumes upon volumes of children's literature. Maybe she was a biologist who found the cure for something that we don't even know about, but should be thankful that she took care of before it took care of us (ok, i'll root for this one too). Or maybe she was just a spitfire of an old woman who was pissed that I was rudely staring at her in her bathrobe and just wanted to tell me to f - off. 


Either way, I kind of want to be her when I get to that age.


L




FACT: that is not a shortcut. i know what road you are speaking of......not a shortcut.
FACT: a picture is worth a thousand words.
OPINION: i go with spitfire.

driving home on 309 the other night L regaled me with this fantastic story and its companion imagery. as she's describing this seemingly sweet, tiniest old woman flipping her the bird, which already is a picture of perfection, i can't get out of my head laura's face mimicking the woman's gesture.

i now know what i will be looking at when we are in our 80's! the mere thought of that face sends me into a fit of giggles. at one point i will need to post a picture of this. i will also need to insure that this will indeed become one of her standby faces from here on out. it's like a secret handshake, to be used to no one's knowledge. the description  of her emotions was funny enough already, going from "aww", "sigh", "OH!", "meh", "yes!" but then she shows me this face and the finger and quietly exclaims afterwards, "i so want to be that woman when i am that age". *snort, chuckle, snort*

there is no doubt in my mind that this will indeed happen. none at all. and honestly? at that age you kind of have a right. i can see us sitting on one of our porches, drinking our blood orange margaritas at this age and doing the exact same thing...with laura making that exact same face while flipping the bird, while i use my most favorite expletive ever with aforementioned hand gesture. we may just end up like statler and waldorf adding our two bits but in an old italian "aunt" kind of way.

and while i would've paid money to see this whole interaction with L and this crotchety dear one i'm pretty satisfied with the image i do have.

click on the hmmm because i can't figure out how to just pop up!

hmmmm