Mikes

We are in deep mission-critical mode, surveying the options, exhausting the possibilities and lining up next steps.  There is, after all, an expeditionary gap looming, and one must take account.  The moon missions encountered a similar moment, slipping behind the lunar mass and losing radio contact with the home planet.  We can see that coming.  No, Scarlet, tomorrow is not another day.  Tomorrow is 1 January, and while the start of 2009 is largely a calendar abstraction, there is nothing theoretical about the closure, lockdown and daylong inaccessibility of Trader Joe's.

That's why I am assessing the situation with a cool eye, a calm visage and a deeply analytical mind.  There's plenty for tonight.  Something to roast, something to stirfry, much to serve.  In fact, there may be too much to serve, but never mind.  My shtetl roots are showing.  I can hear the Cossacks' hooves flying.  The larder is full, and on this day, I am filling it further.  We have a dinner guest, after all, our friend and frequent companion David.  Who knows what he wants for dinner or how much?  Actually, I have a fairly accurate idea, but that is beside the point.  The point is to run through the mental shopping list one more time, scan the store's neon expenses for answers and do what must be done.

There's a sample bar squashed into one corner of Trader Joe's.  Today a sign wishes everyone happy holidays.  I have never seen such a sign before in that location, and this makes me interested.  Something may have been overlooked.  True, I have just acquired the evening's meat course, pre-marinated in a bag.  And with all of the refrigerated items in the bag, as it were, one has to make a commitment.  Either go into freezer mode, seizing items that have a limited life away from a -0°C home.  Or do something else.  That's why I'm heading for the samples counter with the inviting sign, and damned if it isn't a high-end holiday offering.  Baked brie.  Just what I need.  In fact, it is a generously thick slice, caloric load beyond comprehension, but never mind.  I scarf the thing down and chitchat with the serving guy.  I tell him I need an expert.  He points me toward the fat guy in the green shirt.  Thank you, I tell him.  Thank you and thank you.

Marlou said yesterday that she understands perfectly well why animals crawl off to die alone.  I assured her that people don't do this, the two of us seated in the bedroom, me in my wheelchair, Marlou folding clothes on the bed.  And am I right?  It may be that I am entirely incorrect.  When it's time, we all go alone.  Those who have the temperament and the courage to know aloneness doubtless face this fact better than others.  But I was really avoiding, it seems now, the fact that at some point there's nothing I can do for Marlou or for us.  The cancer has its schedule.  And Marlou may know something I don't.  What I do know is that my wife needs time alone this morning, and I need the opposite.  And, yes, Trader Joe's will do.

That's why I am talking to Mike in the green shirt about champagne.  I'm not sure I want any, but this is how one ushers in the new year, and dammit, I'm going to do some ushering.  And, by the way, I ask Mike as we run through the options...authentic French from the actual region, California-style and so on.  I didn't know California had any style regarding champagne, and it seems like this might be a moment to coax this guy into a fuller discourse.  But screw it.  I would be pushing my luck on this crowded holiday eve, tying up the guy while shoppers abound.  Still, I can't resist asking about the weird sparkling red stuff from Italy, which is not a champagne and not cheap.  Oh, Mike observes, that's weird sparkling red stuff from Italy.  He hasn't tried it.  As for the champagne....  I go for the Trader's higher end.  Marlou has said it herself.  This may be her last New Year's.  And thoughts of how it could be mine and may not be hers, however true, feel too much like mental dodgeball.  We have to consider this possibility, her possibility, and I'm happy to throw $25 at the French.

All other possibilities exhausted, it's time for the freezer commit.  We are go.  We are in the window, but just barely, scanning the dessert possibilities.  On the upper end there's some sort of French passionfruit thing, but there's simply too much of it.  Apple strudel will do.  And now that it's in my plastic shopping bin, we are committed.  I grab the frozen potatoes, make a quick determination regarding the frozen hors d'oeuvres...something with puff pastry and cheese...and then the checker has his reckoning, the Trader has my credit card number, and we are off.

Maximum speed to Peet's.  The place is predictably full in its holiday compliment.  I'm not into complimenting anyone, just roll straight to the counter, order the lattes, and head for the wheelchair-sized spot next to the baristas.  Mike.  Another Mike, waits in the coffee bean line.  All the more reason to head in the opposite direction toward the steaming, hissing espresso machines.  This Mike was on the board of the high school foundation for which I worked a couple of years ago.  In the end, things did not go well there.  I've brooded over the details countless times in my mind.  And now I'm going through the aftermath, an inevitable result of living in the same small town for many years.  Here is Mike, waiting to buy his beans, wearing a Stanford sweatshirt and a smug expression.  Not that I am looking at him now as I weave between coffee aspirants.  If I did, his expression would be revealed as expressionless.  He wants coffee beans, Mike does, and I do not figure.

I hide by the espresso machines, metal clanging, coffee spitting.  There's a time to embrace our failures.  Maybe that time is now.  The foundation guys and I were never able to talk to each other.  They were parents, after all, and though I was older than most of them, it didn't matter.  And I have the haunting suspicion that I was, to them, the crippled consultant.  I didn't like what they were doing.  They didn't like what I was doing.  And it's not that things went awry, but that things went silent.

The Peet's barista not only places my two lattes in a cardboard holder, but clamps on plastic lids and sets two additional lids on top to prevent coffee splash as I bounce home.  I doubt that they would do something analogous for Mike.  I really do.  This, whatever it is, is my achievement.  And unlike the high school foundation, Marlou and I are talking.  The days are hard.  Talking is hard.  But it's the best we can do.  And the best is good enough.