Lobbyists

There's a bit of a gauntlet to be walked here at the Holiday House when one enters via the double set of glass doors separating the bare foyer of the building with its one payphone from the lobby with its revamped sitting areas and sign-in table.  During specific times of the day and early evening, one can't help but notice the cluster of residents inhabiting the formal pale green winged-back recliners and the comfortable couch facing the cabinet-housed television.  There are also several ladies who mill about, or hang out, perched on their multiple maroon walkers with cushy seats, hand brakes, wheels, and those handy storage baskets.  (I do believe mine would house a notebook or laptop, dark chocolate, and my iPhone!)  Though singles and doubles do use the space, most times they congregate in groups. There are a minority of males; females dominate this two-story forty apartment complex.

And all heads swivel as new arrivals head toward those clear glass doors which separate the outdoor air and life of Woodbury proper from the indoor air and existence of this largely senior population.  Given the physical condition of many of these folks, its rather impressive to see just how far their  necks are capable of turning as they take immediate notice of the incoming.  A very apparent and sudden silence stills the room as eyes question and smile, wonder and surmise.  If one is not an actual inhabitant returning from an outing, perhaps to the Dollar General or Piggly Wiggly or a physician's appointment, then the three-ring binder on the guest table must be filled out with specific visitor information: name of visitor, name of resident awaiting said visit, date, time in, and, eventually, time out.  The back of the head fairly burns with the intensity of multiple gazes zeroed in on it.  Does anyone ever return in surreptitious manner during an isolated moment to nose through the penned lines, perhaps curious as to who that strange women was who visited such-and-such in apartment 107?  Or to determine when that gentleman caller left because it sure seemed like his car was in the parking lot ALL night!  The now official visitor, while heading off in the direction of the targeted resident, is accompanied by a dwindling trail of whispers as the talk heats back up and the newcomer is enfolded into the topics being tossed about in the Holiday House huddle.

This same gallery of keen onlookers exercise their skills of observation and interaction in more individual ways, too.  If one is not careful in manner and scrupulous in word, feelings can be hurt and dislikes can form.  Just tonight, my mom received an impassioned call from a resident who happens to also be a good friend.  He has an apartment directly above her and rang her up to find out if the music he was playing at 4:45 in the afternoon was disturbing her.  "Music?  What music?" we both wondered as we had heard nothing outside of ourselves, the television, and the lovely voices of my delightful daughters all day.  As his story unfolded, it became clear that a mini-drama had been enacted over the past hour.

The sour-faced women down the hall who huddles outside the north end of the building several times a day to puff on her cigarettes, and who is known for stirring the hornet's nest with not much more than a short stick, spouted that she heard the loud music and was tired of it.  Further, my mom had heard it, too, and [being the night manager and general go-to gal for peer problems great and small] disliked it so much that she was going to have him evicted!  From my corner of the couch, I could hear him, voice enhanced by the speaker button on mom's telephone, intoning passionately of how the CD was a gift from his son featuring his son's music and most everyone who heard it thought it rather good.  His dander was most definitely up; he worried he'd possibly bothered my mom during her difficult recovery.

Mom smoothed his ruffled feathers, clucking a bit over where this woman could possibly have come up with such falsehood and why.  He seemed to recall that the smoker lady stopped caring for him after another person moved in.  No one could ever figure out why.  Mom told him to play on -- later I suggested she should have closed with, "Rock on, Ray!" -- assuring him that 7PM was the cut-off and that she remained unaware of any excessive noise or complaints of such.  Disaster averted.  Lives may possibly have been saved.  No one was evicted.  We returned to our regularly scheduled Hallmark Channel programming.  Or was it Sarah Palin's Alaska?

(I distinctly heard this modern princess of the North say 'yinG and yang' during one of her rambles and I had to wonder if all Republicans display a propensity for these peculiar creative wordisms?  Some of President George W's Bushisms still rank high in verbal antic enjoyment for me!  But then I recalled a total donkey of a democrat I know personally who pronounces THyme for thyme and It'ly for Italy.  And then there was that aunt-by-marriage with no political affiliations at the time who substituted buzzARD for buzzer and KIRrit for carrot.  And until I was called out on it by my favorite uncle as a young teen, I pronounced lingerie as it presented phonetically in text, having never paired the audio version with the written.  It appears to be a simply human thing.  Imagine that . . . )

At present, all ladies and gents of this microcosmic community are safely ensconced in their beds.  The only noise I hear emanates from easily identifiable and non-offending sources.  The hum of the freezer and fridge unit as it works to chill the groceries I added to its dwindling contents.  The soft measured breathing of my mother as she slumbers somewhat fitfully in her borrowed lobby chair.  And the on-and-off staccato of my Dell keyboard as my sore arthritic fingers race to complete this entry in time for a bit of reading -- Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, a topic for another day if ever I get through it -- before my breathing, too, becomes soft and measured.

Good night to all.