The Last Place I Looked

    Naturally, it was the last place I looked.

    My first driveway walk this morning was in Bluetooth conversation with my daughter.  She was happy to be in their new home enjoying the comforts of central air conditioning while the temperature blazes toward triple digits.  Benjamin laughed when she tickled him and was silent when I talked to him.  Oh, well.  Maybe he will snort for me next time.

    During that happy stroll, I came to John’s front porch where my dirty laundry had been scattered at the bottom steps by our trusty dog, Radio.  Evidently Mom had set it down after gathering it this morning and forgotten it.  Drat!-- my nice new blouse on the ground and my brown pants covered with dog hair.  After I collected the clothing and carried it over to Mom’s house, I saw that Gunner had one of John’s socks.  I wasn’t willing to tussle him for it.

    (Because I was on my mobile phone with Dana, I couldn’t deliver the laundry directly to the shop office laundry headquarters because I lose the signal the second I step into the shop.  Luckily, Mom was standing there near the front door, and I handed it over to her.  This time, the clothes made it to the shop.)

    By now, it was time to pull together a little lunch, but Mom hadn’t showed up.  So after getting everything on the table and her coffee heated up, I went to look for her.   I figured she was out in the woods with her golf cart.  I did the full driveway circle without finding her, remembered it was time to open the cage door between Tiva’s and Eiger’s cages, stopped at the house to grab my jacket, and set out again, mildly worried.  I’ve never read what to do if you can’t find your mother’s golf cart in the woods.

    Since her cart had not been in its other usual locations—in the shop, by the garden, next to John’s basement door, in the woods, or in front of our house—I decided to go look behind the shop.  Voila!  There it sat, empty except for the pruning shears, the crocheted doily she uses to hold on to her freezer push-ups, and a box of kitchen matches.  “Mom?  I have lunch ready,” I called, and her voice emerged from the woods:  “Okay, I’ll be right in.”

    Stopping at the golf cart, I snatched the matches to hide in my closet.  (We don’t want her starting any fires during the island-wide burn ban that just went into effect, so we have also hidden her small blow torch.)  Pretty soon, she made her appearance, and we had our casual version of lunch:  she dipped potato chips into her egg salad and enjoyed a few sweet pickles while I ate an almond butter sandwich, blueberries, and a banana topped with Nutella.  She mentioned the burn ban and hoped for rain, now that she has the dry pond swept clean.

    So now is our daily rest time, and instead of napping, I am at the computer.  I think, though, that I can still squeeze in a few minutes of shut-eye before Mom heads back out to the woods.  Then, after a bit, I can bring her a drink of her Ensure, check the laundry, and pick sweet and sour cherries from our three tiny trees in the garden.  Maybe I’ll run across John’s sock after all.  The first place I’ll look is in the pond.