When the furnace cracked, the CO2 levels in the attic reached a level that actually seeped onto the/our second floor.This explains the sore throat and the headaches!The furnace was turned off and “red tagged” by the gas company – and so we were without a furnace from Friday morning to sometime Monday afternoon (today).
Join me, won’t you, as I think back to summer, to the bus stop on a warm day that required neither furnaces nor large amounts of cash…
I am standing at the corner of 24th and Nicollet, waiting for the bus.I have just left George’s house.
Minnesota has days – made all the more precious for how clearly delineated they are, in the overall course of the seasons – that are perfect.The sky is a high, clear blue, the temperature is comfortable, the humidity at neither science-experiment-hair nor at frizzed-tropical.The sun will go down soon, and the light is warm and tinted.
I stand with my face to the sun.A sweet season made sweeter by its brevity, I close my eyes, feel the sun settling on my eyelids, pressing on the top of my head, my hair.I feel wonderful, sophisticated.In a charcoal pencil skirt, a salmon, belted knit top, my pointiest heels, I feel put together, I feel “city” in the best possible way.
I feel someone staring.
I open my eyes to see a man in front of me.He is wearing baggy sweatpants and a tee-shirt advertising a 5K run held at a golf course in 1997.
He smiles at me, and I smile back.
“Mama, you lookin’ good today.You comin’ from work?”
I nod.
He nods appreciatively.“Oooh, mamacita, you no eat more, you no eat less.You is perfect, right now.Total respect.”
I laugh politely, pull my phone from my purse.
Two minutes until the bus comes.I look up the street – and there it is, maybe three blocks away.
The man is pressing his hair down with his hands, tucks his tee-shirt into the elastic of his sweatpants.“So where you stayin’ now?”
I tell him that I live in Minneapolis, with my husband.
“You geev me your number, right?We go to the park, sit and talk.Total respect, you gnome sayin?”
I frown.What did he say about a gnome?
“I want to geet to know you, gnome sayin’?”
Ahh.
Now I gno what he’s sayin’.
I smile at him.
And the bus pulls up.
The door opens and I step toward it, second in line.
“You know where to find me,” he calls out.There is a slight pause.“Mm-mm-mmm,” he says, almost contemplatively.“You eat no more, no less.You is my perfect woman right now, mama.”