An email to my daughter Madelaine.

How now, my little larkspur?

Hope all is well on the homefront. I was just going to complain that Daisy hasn’t sent out her weekly email yet, but it just came through. My computer is so slow that in comparison ketchup out of the bottle breaks the sound barrier.

I have so many aches & pains this week that it’s hard to decide where to start. Perhaps I’ll just sweep them all under the rug this time and spare you the agony altogether -- that’s the kind of good deed that would get a Baptist into heaven, no doubt.

Excuse me a moment while I go trim my fingernails. I hadn’t noticed how long they’ve gotten until they started bothering me as I type this . . .

There, that’s better. I should have done my toenails too -- they really need it -- but I can’t manage to bend over and snip them anymore; my belly gets in the way. Sad, very sad. I just calculated how much I spent on my feet alone last month, November. It came to nearly fifty dollars -- what with a pedicure and then foot creams and oils and epsom salt baths. And I still can barely get to sleep at night from the throbbing and heat my feet give off. But that’s one of the aches and pains I decided to spare you from, isn’t it? So never mind. Strike that last statement from the record, bailiff.

I still manage to hobble over to the Rec Center most mornings to swim and stew in the hot tub. There is a virtuous feeling to grunting and sweating when you reach my age.

Steve asked me today why I haven’t written any long pieces lately, like a novel or a play. I had to admit that I no longer have the mental or physical stamina to tackle such a project. Instead I find ridiculous headlines in the newspapers and create limericks from them. Surely one of the most trivial literary pursuits in the long, sorry, history of letters. But I solace myself that sometimes I hit the mark in ways that are appreciated. Just today I got an email response to one of my limericks from Amy Argetsinger, a reporter for the Washington Post, who wrote me:  “Do you know, sometimes I am actually learning about some bit of news because you've written a limerick about it. That's how crazy the news cycle is these days.”   So that helped me feel like I am not completely wasting my time.

I had Steve and Doris over for lunch today. I made lamb stew in the slow cooker, adding a full cup of red wine to perk up the broth. It still tasted rather blah to me -- although Steve not only had 2 helpings, but also ate both his and Doris’ chickpea salad  mixed in with it. That boy can eat, when he has a mind to. While we visited after the meal I decided I wanted a new map on my living room wall -- one of Brazil. The current map is of Germany; I put it up to get Virginia to come over and tell me all about her days in the Air Force in Germany, but now that she and Andy and Cici have moved down to Alamo Land I dislike that map. So I suggested to Steve and Doris, or ‘Storis” as I will call them from now on, that we take a little trip to the Utah Idaho Map World store in Lindon so I could get a new map. We had trouble finding one that featured all of Brazil on just one side -- the maps divided the country into 2 sections, North on one side and South on the other. That was not satisfactory, so I had to buy a National Geographic map of South America, which turned out to be a good idea. I posted a picture on FB of the new map, with Doris next to it, and I must say the new map is an improvement on the old one. Leaner and more centered. It gives my living room more focus. My next project is to review the hundreds of negatives I took of my last few years with the circus before I went back to Thailand in 2009; I believe I took some striking photographs of the circus tents and performers and the audiences on the bleachers, which would look appealing and be very distinctive if I had them developed and put in simple 8X10 black frames. Most of them are black and white.

Whoops. The timer I use on the microwave that Nathan Draper gave me years ago just went off. That means the washer is done, so I gotta go put fifty cents in the dryer. I’m doing my laundry tonight. Washing all the new clothes that Storis bought me this past week. Be back in 2 shakes of a dead lamb’s tail . . .

There we go, all set. I put in a Valu Time brand fabric softener sheet, spring sunrise scented, and then dumped in the soggy bundle of clothes to tumble merrily around and around for the next fifty minutes. I wonder what people did before there were fabric softener sheets? I don’t remember my clothes being especially itchy or irritating when I was a kid. We didn’t even have a dryer until I was in high school -- before that, mom hung everything out to dry, summer and winter. What I do remember is the endless ironing and starching my mom did. She ironed my dad’s shirts, his handkerchiefs, and even his socks! And sprayed his jockey shorts with spray starch before ironing them. Why? My dad was a bartender, sitting around all day with a bunch of drunks -- why did he have to look so dressed up? I think that working up a sweat at the ironing board was one of those virtuous chores that built strength of character in women back in the 1950’s and 60’s. They don’t do that anymore, and look at the mess we’re in now!

On the way back from the map store I asked Storis to stop at Fresh Market so I could buy some beef heart. I’m having a couple, the Uharriets, over for beef heart stew tomorrow night, Sunday night. I’m trying to duplicate a dish I had at a Peruvian restaurant some time ago. It was very rich and savory. I’ll serve it over egg noodles. And beef heart is very cheap. If it turns out well I’m going to try a steak and kidney stew -- I wonder who I can get for my victims? Storis is going out of town for several weeks on Monday; Sarah is really busy with her in-laws on their annual Christmas visit; Adam is on a special diet (when is he not?); and your mother is up in the Idaho tundra nursing her wounds. I’ll have to have my old pal Phil Hinckley try it -- he likes to come over and tell me how Obama sent the country to hell in a handbasket. He thinks Trump is doing okay. I don’t even try to argue with him. He’s really into fake news -- he believes anything that makes the Democrats and liberals look bad. I just nod my head and chew my food.  

Somebody is out in the alley right now, singing Jingle Bell Rock. A woman’s voice. But it’s dark and I don’t feel like getting out of my recliner again until the timer dings, telling me the dryer is finished. There’s probably an interesting, possibly sad, story behind that woman’s wailing -- but we’ll never know what it is because I have become a human slug.

The ward Christmas party is also tonight, and you will understand to what low depths I have sunk when you realize that I am forgoing a free ham dinner because I don’t want to walk the four blocks to the chapel. If I could still do balloon animals I think I would force myself to go -- you know how much I love showing off and grabbing attention. But the arthritis in my hands forced me to quit doing balloon sculpting months ago. And I don’t relish sitting around like a bump on a log, doing nothing but exchanging banalities with ward members. Call me a crotchety old coot or a flint hearted iconoclast, but my fund of small talk is bankrupt. What I yearn for is a group of people who sit still and quiet until one of them thinks of something brilliant or innovative to say, then gets up to say it -- or to ask an intriguing question and then gets up to ask it -- and then we can all ponder and talk to one another in simple declarative sentences for a few minutes. And then go all quiet again until someone else comes up with something refreshing to share. But when is THAT ever going to happen?

So in other words, I’ve become a complete snob and think my thoughts and conversation are so far above everyone else’s that there is no use in me even trying to communicate with my inferiors. Sad, very sad. But in my own defense I have to point out that I do enjoy having people over to taste my cooking and am always eager to hear what they say about it -- good or bad. At such moments I am affable and attentive and do not try to overawe my guests with my sparkling intellect.

Well, good gracious me, I’ve run this email up to 1500 words! I guess I better cease and desist and start watching some movies until I fall unconscious into my bed. I’m starting with Hope and Crosby in Road to Rio from 1942, then on Netflix I’m watching Boss Baby and then Deep.

Say hello to Donald and Deisel for me. And save a lump of coal for me!  Love, dad.