And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
Well, first off, let me apologize. Michael came home from the hospital today, and my morning was spent with clients, my afternoon with getting him home, going to the pharmacy to pick up meds, dropping my car off to be fixed, running back here to meet with three more clients, fixing supper, and I just sat down to start working on tomorrow’s manuscripts when I remembered. Today is Thursday. The day I post my Moment. AUGH!
Whew. But Michael’s home. And yet…that’s not my Moment.
This past Saturday, Michael was still in the hospital. While the doctors had identified what was wrong (a UTI that went septic, and an ulceration inside his stomach where the feeding tube used to be), they couldn’t figure out (yet) why he wasn’t hungry or thirsty and was constantly nauseous and throwing up. I was more than a little glum.
It was a class-free Saturday for me. I teach two Saturdays a month, and so my free Saturdays mean a lot to me. Neither my son Andy nor my daughter Olivia were working, and so I suggested that we do one of our favorite things…what they call “thrifting” and what I call “scrounging”. My favorite place for this is a St. Vinnie’s, located in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, housed in what used to be a huge grocery store.
I’ve loved “scrounging” since my teenage years. My very first purchase was when I was fifteen years old and a neighbor down the road had a rummage sale. She had a small antique typewriter and I fell in love. My mother thought it was junk and refused to buy it for me, but a few hours later, I was still thinking about it. I had enough cash of my own, and so I slipped out the door and returned to the sale. The neighbor smiled and gave me the typewriter for half off. Five dollars. I didn’t even haggle. I think she saw the look on my face when my mother called it junk, and she saw the look on my face when I came back.
I’m 63 now, so I’ve had that typewriter for 47 years. It came with me everywhere, to college and to the variety of homes I’ve lived in. Now, it sits in the AllWriters’ classroom.
I was pregnant with my first child when I began to scrounge at rummage sales on a weekly basis. And I discovered flea markets too. Over the years, I’ve found all sorts of treasures.
And so, glum, I went to St. Vinnie’s this last Saturday, hoping for a treasure.
At first, I mostly found clothes. I wandered through the other aisles and didn’t really see anything. At the far end of the store, at least the way I travel it, is the furniture, and I went through there last. My son and daughter were by a huge bin of stuffed animals, and my daughter was looking for Squishmallows, while my son was examining a stuffed Jurassic Park dinosaur with wonky eyes.
Treasures.
And then my treasure. I wasn’t even sure what it was at first. Well, I knew what it was. It was a rhinoceros. But what was it doing in the furniture section? I scooted quickly toward it.
And it was a rhinoceros. A rhinoceros footstool. It had lovely horns and a woebegone expression on its face.
Kind of like the face I saw in the mirror when I looked in it that morning, though I don’t have any horns.
There was a lid on its back, and when I lifted it, I discovered a hidey-hole. It was just the right size for stowing a small notebook and some favorite pens when I needed to just get away from my desk and computer screen for a bit.
The rhino wasn’t perfect. Someone, likely a child, drew on his stuffed lid in a dark crayon, but because the rhino was brown, it didn’t really stand out. And perfection has never been a draw for me anyway. Just ask the myriad of clocks that hang from the walls of my condo and line the tops of my kitchen cabinets. They all came from flea markets and Goodwills and St. Vinnie’s and antique stores. Many of them don’t work. And I don’t care. It just means they’re even more needful of a home.
This rhino needed a home. Oh, that face.
I didn’t even have to say anything. My son, not uttering a word, came over, picked up the rhino, and put him in my cart. Yes, the rhino is a he, as far as I’m concerned.
The rhino now stands in my office in front of the rocking chair I’ve had since I was pregnant for the first time. I found it in a flea market. It was painted bright blue. My husband at that time grumbled when I brought it home, but he taught himself how to strip it and refinish it, and it’s a beautiful rocker that I treasure. It’s my reading chair in my office now, my days of rocking babies long gone. It’s covered with a blanket Michael had made for me, with the covers of my (then) books on it. When I’m not sitting on it, a big stuffed iguana rests there, purchased at a used bookstore when I realized I was likely going to be writing the sequel to my novel, If You Tame Me, which featured Newt, a green iguana.
Treasures.
But here’s the thing.
When Michael and I were out on our official first date, we went to a zoo. We had a wonderful time. But when we approached the outside enclosure for the rhinos, there was a huge crowd. We moved in to see what was going on.
The enclosure was fenced off, a rhino on either side. On the one, a female. On the other, a male.
A male that was, shall we say, clearly very, Very, VERY attracted to the female on the other side of the fence.
Holy cow. Or more accurately, holy rhino.
The female preened for a bit, then turned her back and trotted away to the other side of the yard. The male, demoralized, slumped to the ground. Right on his…well…his very obvious attraction.
The entire crowd, especially the men, groaned out loud.
Michael and I laughed so hard, we had to hold each other up. And from that point on, rhinos were special. I have a brass rhino hanging from my keychain. We have a few rhino ornaments on our Christmas tree.
And so, on this day when I was glum, there was a rhino.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was perfection.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
Lovely! Michael looks good.
Thank you!