One Side But Not the Other: Notes from The Shrine, 5.25.2024

I used to think it was a robin making that sound but I heard it first at Farm and now here at Shrine/St. Francis. It is a Great Crested Flycatcher. I had eyes on it but they still hide pretty well in the branch-tops.

Their call is a terse warbling whistle, a short flutter of a call; not a song. If it sang it might sound or sing like the Summer Tanager. But the Great Crested Flycatcher is not a singer. Its call has volume, breadth; it resonates but it’s short. It’s a bit of a warbling squawk. A controlled outburst.

I just saw it fly by. It is a striking chestnut brown on its back. As it fluttered in a nearby river birch I could see some of its yellow belly.

In addition to the Flycatcher and the Summer Tanager, there are also Carolina Wrens, Northern Cardinals and Indigo Buntings flavoring this pleasant Saturday late-morning air. 10:49.

Walking Stick Lady stick-walked by, then she came back and sat down, in one of the dozen or so chairs out on this patio, one of the best spots Benedictine/Shrine/Dammert/St. Francis has to offer. There is a light, gentle, temperate breeze. I am in shorts and short sleeves. Mouse Lady is also out here.

“It’s so nice sitting here, I hate to leave,” says Walking Stick Lady as she gets up and makes her way away, 2 x 2. She must (still) be in Independent Living. She’s got more walking to do.

Meanwhile, Mouse Lady is silent. She prays her beads.

I discovered a small tick on my thigh right after I parked the car here. It’s from yesterday; that house along St. Albans road we went and saw. I made two circles around the damp, muddy, woodsy terrain surrounding the house; picked up at least three ticks. Two I found right away and tossed. This third one eluded me. It might have spent the night in the car? Then it reattached itself as I drove over.

I had no tweezers in the Honda, which is the car I drove over in today. I have tweezers in the Subaru. I know because I checked after we went to visit that house. Can’t have enough tweezers in enough places if you spend time in tick country. I asked one of the nurses if she had any tweezers but she didn’t. I want this arachnid off my thigh!

And wouldn’t you know. Arrives now my brother, who I knew was going to be joining us for lunch, and whom I texted to request that he bring a pair of tweezers, not a moment too soon.

We ate lunch in the big dining room, then went back to Dammert for a little while afterward. I passed Bob Lanaghan in the hall.

“What’s going on, Bob?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” he said, “empty pockets even.”

“You don’t have any loose change?” I asked.

“No, not me.”

“No cookies?”

“Boy, you’re really hitting on all the hard ones.”

Then he chuckled and started to check his pockets. He patted the upper pocket on the left side of his shirt.

“Wait a minute, what’s this?”

He took out what certainly looked like a cookie but it was not a large cookie. I couldn’t see it all that well, he was cradling it in his hands.

“It feels like it on one side but not the other,” he said.

Slowly, he broke the cookie apart, handing some of it to me.

“Here,” he said, “you take half and I’ll eat half.”

I took my half and ate it. Who knows where it had been, how long it had been around, but what the hell, I thought. Oatmeal raisin by the taste of it.

“Oatmeal raisin,” I said to him.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“How was lunch?” I asked him. Lunch was crab cakes, asparagus, sweet potato fries, and tomato soup.

“No, I didn’t get any of that,” he told me. “I wish.”

My dad and I were headed out of Dammert, intending to sit a little longer outside when we saw Lillian making her way back from the Dammert dining room. She said hello to us, or to me.

“So you’re still in high school then?” she asked me, not for the first time.

“I must look youthful today,” I said, knowing I didn’t. “I’m way past high school. I’m in my forties.”

“Do you know how far we have to go down the hall to get downtown?” she asked.

“I think you’ve got to go pretty far.”

“I haven’t gone shopping in so long,” she said.

I didn’t reply but she continued.

“I’m in school, too,” she said. “Some of my students, when they get a free ride, boy it really makes my blood pressure go up to here.”

She raised her hand, palm down, up to the top of her forehead. Of course I didn’t mention that I was one of those students who got a free ride, thanks to my parents, to my dad and to his clients, thanks to the stock market.

We continued on. We saw Sister Therese-Ann again, exchanging nods and smiles. We saw her earlier in the lunch room. She introduced herself to me and my dad a few weeks ago. She seems to like to visit with people in the lunch room, to drop by and say hello, ask a few questions.

Today she stopped first to visit with this fella whose name I don’t know, I call him Fred. He’s the guy whose wife is in Dammert, which must make him the only male spouse in Independent Living or in Assisted Living with a wife in Dammert. There are a couple of wives of Dammert residents living elsewhere in this retirement community, both in Independent Living.

This guy Fred sits, often by himself, in main dining, usually at the same table, which is just one or two tables away from where my dad and I usually sit. Sister Therese-Ann was asking him questions, trying to get him to talk. He wasn’t going for it. He wasn’t interested in making conversation.

“Which dining room does your wife eat in?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer. That dining room really doesn’t have a name, I don’t think. It’s the smaller Dammert dining room, where the residents go when they need help eating.

She continued more pointedly.

“Does she need help eating?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “yes she does.”

A minute later he excused himself from the table and she came over and started talking to us.

“Where are all of you from?” she asked.

“University City,” I answered, “outside St. Louis,” I added, just in case.

“University City?” she said with surprise. “Two of my sisters used to live in University City. Whereabouts in University City are you at?”

I said, “Near Delmar and Hanley.”

“My sisters were right near there, on Teasdale, in a house they rented.”

It was uncanny but I said nothing, my brother heard me say nothing. We let it go at that.

Not long after Fred left, the woman who sometimes joins him at that table for lunch—but always later on in the noon hour—came and sat down at the empty table. She’s quiet. They are happily quiet together, when they sit there.

I often see Fred in the Bird Room in Dammert sitting with his wife before lunch. She’s in one of those lounge chairs, tilted slightly back.