Measels & Woodchucks, Buns Berry Baseball, Death.

“I saw a measel! This morning. One my way back from the Dr….” I tell Brigham this as I swelter in the raspberry patch clad in candy-striped pj bottoms and a long-sleeve gray inside-out Tee. There isn’t a breath of air, not a single tree leaf stirs; it was in the 90’s before 8:00am when I went for my hip/back appointment; as Hippy Bill states…it’s hell-hot now. Fry-able.

(“Kansas has 2 temperatures” in the World According to Bill: “Hell-Hot or Bitch-Cold. Nothing in-between.”)

Brig raised a slight eyebrow, unimpressed by my new mammalian species… “I couldn’t tell if it were a muskrat or a weasel-thing…” I offer this explanation, but it’s too oppressive to talk. 2 nights ago I’d seen a rare woodchuck, the 3^rd in my lifetime, and excitedly began that tale, but he burst my bubble when he asked if it were down by the old ball field… Harrumph. He’d spotted it too. “So. How much wood was it chucking? MINE was chucking baseballs…”, I say. But he didn’t find that worth conversing over either.

He’d Appeared Out Of Nowhere moments before, startling me like a damp orange apparition as I swiped the sweat from my eyesnoseears, teetering and diving down again for another purple/black elusive clump hidden in the still, mosquito-laden understory of humid silver leaves.

“Get those 2 big ones! Right there!” he points, but I‘m not Stretch Armstrong and he won’t grasp for them himself, preferring to nibble the already-picked, outer edge-of-the-patch redder-tarter ones. He has on a scissor-mutilated, debilitated-rehabilitated faded orange Tee, cut to expose his biceps, back and ribs: “Dangerously Cheesy” it exclaims, from the “It Aint Easy Bein’ Cheesy” cartoon cat, now crumbling from multiple washings since 7^th grade.

Mr. Cheesy certainly will not risk a sharp raspberry scratch from an evil thorn, having experienced enough pain from last week’s tattoo claw. He’s hot. He’s tired. He’s all scratched out at the moment. Seeing that I’m not risking my careful footing to stretch for the biggest bestest berries, he harrumphs himself back indoors.

I, on the other hand (foot), continue precarious hippo ballet, wallowing delicately amidst the canes. I look for secure footing—one leg astraddle a low-lying clump.

This reminds me of my doctor-visit stance: “Stand up against the wall for an X-ray. Not facing the wall. I’m not going to frisk you! Have you ever been frisked?” Caught off guard by my incompetence (why are you x-raying through my stomach??), I find myself turning forward wondering ‘HAVE I ever been frisked?’and then gasp aloud, “NO!” “Don’t stand with your feet TOGETHER...” he says, “ keep your legs apart as wide as your hips and your knees straight.” I perform this and am still deemed unsatisfactory. “Closer together”. “Closer.” “Closer—Your HIPS are not THAT wide!”

I look down at the space between my bare feet. “Well, they ARE in my MIND!” I tell him. Aloud.

He leaves to go x-ray my solid parts, my bones; my thoughts are safe and can’t be read with his super human ray-gun. Harrumph. I’m disgruntled, having been told “NO MORE LUNGES” and “No attempts at running EVERY day—you’re NOT A MARINE.” I’ve questioned his “No more lunges” statement and he’s told me that the glute muscle works TREMENDOUSLY HARD during a lunge. It strains. It contracts. It squeezes. “Why do you think I do them?” my impertinent, invisible and un-x-rayable mind thoughts say.

Later, as my eyes burn from salt-sweat and Biofreeze (Brig wasn’t obliging when asked to rub my butt muscle so I did it myself-- accidently touching my face), I think that I probably AM doing some gluteus maximus straining anyway with this raspberry balancing act. Super-achy an hour later, I decide to stop.

Swimming away the heat at Paula’s, floating, dreaming, envisioning more unpicked berries—Brig calls from the Mall, cool and sociable once more. A fellow track-relay-mate, on the 4 x 400 one year, has committed suicide that morning. The boy, 3 years older, reminded me a lot of my own son when they both sported a goatee, same short stature, dark-haired and handsome. I had already heard this rumor from Paula’s dad minutes before. Brig always seems aggravated that I ‘know everything before he does’. (“Moms always know everything” I’ve told my kids numerous times. “And we always find out.”)

I am sad that sometimes moms find out things way too late. Way, way too late.

Now he doesn’t really know what to say. Things like this are BEYOND COMPREHENSION. I am the older, the wiser (?) so now I say the things that need said because this is truly such a waste of life and a heartbreaking devastation.

I much prefer the semi-silent conversations that auger forth imaginary measel creatures and light-hearted, trivial thoughts of baseball-playing mammals on a hot summer day…