I am waiting for someone to answer Kaiser Permanente’s phone. I am trying to reach Dermatology. Not only does the phone ring, it sings. The on-hold music is so repetitively familiar that I feel like humming it when someone finally answers. In fact, when a receptionist appears, I want to chirp ”how can I help you?” Unless the person at the other end is naturally attuned to the surreal, this greeting should set up a cascade of confusion. Never mind. I finally get through, and the receptionist says that I am long overdue for a check-up. And I can’t tell if this is good or bad, and I don’t care. Turns out 5 October is the soonest. Fine. Why not? If COVID-19 hasn’t gotten me by then, might as well give skin cancer an equal opportunity.

Days of frustration. Being a Monday, and with Jane decamping for the grandkids, I roll out to Cup. There, my finger slips in manipulating my iPhone, so I pay without a tip. I correct this with some live dollar bills. Still, it annoys me. Moments later I am outside, Sam having transported my cappuccino to a curbside table. On the window above me, a sign stipulates how far away a person has to be to smoke. We are assured that 15 feet away from open windows or doors is OK. Or, to apply another rule, at the curb. And while not a fan of smoking, I can see the madness in this. San Francisco is a windy city. The constancy of the breeze can be annoying, but in this era of pandemic measures, it is also a godsend. Even a person trying to annoy the multitudes with a cigarette would have a hard time accomplishing much. Light up within 5 mm of this establishment, and your efforts would be out the window. Literally. Figuratively.

My peanut butter and jelly arrives. This has become my constant. The fact is nothing much else on the menu is particularly pleasing. And I go there so often that I have run out of options. I also ordered some cantaloupe. Altogether, it seems a nutritious, moderately healthy meal. The outside tables, like the inside tables, are not exactly designed for wheelchairs. I really can’t get myself under them. So, I have learned to sit at a particular angle. Thing is, this is my era of quadriplegic discontent. And all angles are bad.

It would be great to extend my legs. My feet have a way of stinging if they are left to hang gravitationally. Furthermore, there is this basic problem with the table. To eat in relative order and maintain something like personal hygiene, I need my feet down anyway. No, it’s not comfortable, but I am out of the house, experiencing the wider world, and this is what there is. And what there is consists of one cappuccino in cup and saucer, a plate with two pieces of toast, and a copy of the New York Review of Books. The latter, on this particular occasion, seems unspeakably interesting. Half the articles really attract my attention. This issue, by the way, dates from January of this year. Which says something about the NYRB. 

Someone is reassessing William Faulkner. And right now a reassessment of the Nobelist, whose works truly are work, seems like what I want to take part in. Problem is, there’s almost no way to read the fucker. The New York Review of Books is an immense tabloid, and reading it requires either some extremely skilled folding, or a lot of patience. There’s no room on the table for it, really. Holding it on my lap with one hand in the wind while I turn to page 4 requires a level of neuromuscular rehabilitation that I have not attained. Much easier is the manipulation of my phone, which does display about 3 inches of the news of the Rialto. And the whole situation is utterly untenable. Did I mention that I have a male purse, for want of better words, strapped around my neck? The purse is right on my lap, and fortunately I realize in time that it is in the path of dripping peanut butter and jam. Dripping this on my lap, actually my purse, is not only a bad idea. It will trigger a chorus of self-recrimination…right on the eve of our trip to Olympic National Park. Which does occur to me, the trip, that is, several times during the day. Which is good. Let us at the end of things, or even midway, be grateful.