I had a wonderful night’s sleep, one of those sleeps you hate to wake up from. I considered sleeping in and not going to Bikram. I had to remind myself that I’m retired, and I could come home and nap whenever I liked.
My leg and hip started bothering me when I got in the car. While in the yoga class, I did a lot of rolling around on my tennis ball. Massaging my tense leg muscles seems to do wonders for me.
After Bikram, I did some chores. First, I checked with the Carpet Care Store; I wanted to return the large floor attachment. It was closed. I headed over to the Friendly Place to drop off stuff there.
I gave them two pairs of jeans, several long-sleeved polo shirts and asked them if they could use some of the items Habitat had rejected. They took them all: Mike’s battery-powered toothbrush with four brush replacements, his electric shaver, my mom’s Mr. Coffee coffee maker, a small aluminum tin, and a miscellaneous strap for something that never got used. The young woman had given me her old roll-on suitcase to see if it could be of use to anyone. It had a busted wheel. The Friendly Place said no to this. If it still had functioning wheels, it would probably have been yes.
As I left the Friendly Place, the folks there thank me. I told them it wasn’t me they had to thank but Mike. It was his death that made all this stuff available. Also, it was he that collected all this stuff in the first place. Because of his involvement with Habitat for Humanity, he saw his job as helping the homeless people. This was his passion- well, besides me.
Then I went by the Carpet Care Store. It was open now. I gave the lady at the desk the attachment, and she gave me $25. Done. The next stop was Safeway. They didn’t have the freshly made bread I usually get, but there was a whole grain bread with seeds. I grabbed that. On the way home, I stopped at the transfer station and tossed the suitcase.
While driving, I was wondering what I would find when I got home. Would the kids be out for the day? Would they have already moved out? Neither. They were busy packing up. They had tons of stuff all neatly stored in their room or my frig. It was still a lot.
I promptly texted everyone in the family and the extended ohana to tell them that the kids were moving out. People have been worrying about me, concerned that I am being taken advantage of. I wouldn’t go that far. At one point, I told Jean, who expressed concern, that while I might have some trouble telling kids to leave, I wouldn’t have any difficulty complaining to friends and family. I had been doing that for about a week now. It was time.
When the young woman left, she hugged me. She said, “Thanks for letting me stay here.” I said, “Thanks for leaving.” We laughed. It was a good good-bye. I told her that if they couldn’t find a place to sleep, they could sleep here. They just couldn’t move back in.
I hung some pictures today and did several loads of laundry with the linens the kids left. I also alphabetized four shelves and netted zero books. These last 20 books are going to slay me.
Someone got a bath. She should have them more frequently, once every two weeks, once a month with this special medicinal soap, but she hates it so much I’m reluctant and put it off. After I set her down, she raced around the house, back and forth, back and forth.
Yvette came in to talk to me when she got home. She told me that she overheard me saying to someone on the phone that Yvette had shown me no gratitude for having the floor redone to improve the sound insulation for the ohana below where Josh and she live. That wasn’t it. The problem was that she was very superficial in telling me that my efforts had been unsuccessful. Making decisions about how to proceed had been very stressful.
During this conversation, she told me that the repair to the ceiling had to be done before the carpet had been laid. Oh, boy.
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