NaBloPoMo, Day 2

• The turning leaves tell us Fall is here in Chicago, but the warm temperatures, blooming flowers, and robins going crazy in the trees make me think it just might be spring.
• It may be 4 p.m. on a warm Friday afternoon but if it’s Halloween, any playground will look like a ghost town.
• I’ve decided, as I did last year, that I won’t patronize any
  business that puts up their holiday decorations before Thanksgiving.
• I was lucky and had to wait only 30 minutes to vote early. How long did you have to wait?
• I’m working the election on Tuesday and have calculated that in order to get eight hours of sleep the night before, I’ll need to go to bed tomorrow evening at seven o’clock.
• I really can’t believe that this Presidential campaign has just one day remaining. I thought it would never end.

I took advantage of what may well be the last warm and sunny weekend of the year to plant daffodil bulbs–about a hundred of them. I also planted some squill–those tiny blue flowers that come out just behind the crocuses in the spring. If you’ve ever seen lawns or areas under trees covered in tiny blue flowers, that’s probably squill. Absolutely beautiful.

I also couldn’t resist a bag of miniature iris bulbs, which I planted in the plot on the corner. My goal is to have a yearly blanket of blue and yellow covering the front of our place every spring. The nice thing about planting these bulbs, as opposed to tulips, is that one fall of back-breaking work and you’re done. These bulbs should multiply on their own and provide years of welcome spring color.

I spent the rest of the weekend getting all the outdoor fall chores done. Brought in all the hoses, emptied all the vegetable tubs in the backyard (including a cherry tomato plant that amazingly still had some blossoms on it), reorganized the garage to stow everything away, and gave the front stoop a good washing off. Next weekend, the indoor fall cleaning begins in earnest before we have to seal this place up for the winter.

There’s a first time for everything.

Last night, as we were merging with other cars leaving the Grant Park South parking garage after a performance of the CSO, I glanced over to see a woman brushing her teeth while driving her car. I mean really scrubbing away. Unfortunately, our lanes diverged before I was able to see where she spit.

NaBloPoMo, Day 29

Answering the phone here at work (I’m actually in the office for the first time in weeks) has always involved fielding a slough of wrong numbers. It’s been this way for years–the curse of having an easy to remember phone number with a nice round number on the end. We get a handful of confused callers and hang-ups every day.

Through sloppy dialing, incorrect area codes (the Chicago area alone has four–312, 773, 847, 630), and out-of-date correspondence printed with the wrong phone number, we’ve received calls on a semi-regular basis for a geriatric doctor’s office and a university. We’ve had calls for car repair, dental care, and ancient technology, typewriter repair. My favorites are the callers who keep me on the line arguing about the number they’ve dialed, as if I’m jerking them around just for fun. I’ve had more than a few folks ask me to look up the correct number for them.

Today, I answered what is by far the oddest wrong number in all my thirteen years of answering the company phone. After my standard greeting, the young woman on the other end of the line said, “I need to make an appointment for an abortion.”

Uh….?

Yeah, that sure jerks you out of your work routine.

Last week we had a medical emergency in the office. It turned out to be relatively minor, but did require a 911 call and a visit by two EMTs and the requisite back-up firetruck. In the process of administering an IV, blood was spilled on a couch. Nothing dramatic but enough to make a visible stain.

Within an hour of calling 911, stabilizing the patient enough to determine he didn’t need transport to the hospital, the office settled down and I returned to the lunch I’d abandoned earlier. Standing in front of the microwave where my soup was reheating, I noticed a pair of business cards that hadn’t been there before. Sure enough, they’d been dropped off by one of the fireman, advertising his family carpet and upholstery cleaning service. (The “off duty fireman” label on the card was the tip-off.)

Great gig. Go in as an EMT, make a big mess, spurt blood everywhere, and then offer your services to clean it up–for a fee! Very enterprising indeed.

While commuting home from work this evening, I got to thinking about a piece I’m writing for The Beachwood Reporter. By the time I got home, following a short El ride, a stop at the coffee shop to caffeinate myself, and a 15 minute stop-and-start walk home, the box I was carrying was covered with notes. It’s a good thing the rain held off until after I walked through the door.

While out running errands at lunch, I saw something I thought only happened in the movies: A small airplane towing a sign that said, “Theresa will you marry me?”

I sure hope Theresa was looking up.