February 1, 2011
Dear Everyone:
First and foremost:
Happy Birthday, “Alice”!
Let me tell you about my new shower.
Many, many months ago, long before I even knew I had a bad heart, I was sitting in the tub, shaving my legs. When I pulled myself up out of the tub, my back said, “Don’t do that again!” (Remember: It’s not just a bad heart; it’s a bad hip and a bad back, too.)
I bought a little, folding bench made just for sitting in the tub, without actually sitting in the tub. I quickly learned that using it to shave my legs just moved the problem from one set of back muscles to another, so the bench was “benched” for the time being.
Then I had my “little incident” with the heart stopping and all that. And someone decided that I should take all my showers sitting on that little bench, using a handheld shower head instead of standing up like a normal person.
I was all in favor of the handheld shower.
I had one back when I was a college student, living in
Morocco. At one point, all of us students were “stationed” in a local
hotel. It was quite a luxury
hotel; each room had its own bathroom, instead of walking down the hall
in your bathrobe. And each
bathroom had what we called a “telephone shower”, with a handheld shower
head that came away from the wall like an old-fashioned telephone ear
piece.
I loved that shower and raved about it to my
classmates. One of them, a
strapping six-foot-something lad, drawled, “Oh, sure, that’s easy for
y’all to say.”
(They were mostly from
Texas and other
southern states, so they
all drawled.) I realized
that, at five-feet-two, the shower “fit” me a lot better than it did
someone taller, who had a problem getting the water high enough without
spraying it all over the room.
So, on the lookout for some kind of handheld
shower.
Some weeks ago, Our Friend, The Plumber (OFTP) came
to look at my bathroom. Our
Friend, The Plumber really is a “Master Plumber”, married to another
deposition court reporter who has worked with “Jeannie”, so that’s how
we know him. He’s officially
retired, but does “odd jobs” on the side.
After taking a look at the existing shower head and the whole
bathtub-shower ensemble, OTFP decided that we should visit the Big,
Warehouse Hardware Store with the Blue Sign.
(We usually go to the BWHS with the orange sign, as it’s closer,
but he prefers the blue sign one.)
We all got in the car and drove to the store.
They had to let me come since I was the only one who knew where
the store was. In a short
time, we picked out a “shower package”.
This consisted of a vertical bar, and a handheld shower on the
end of a metal hose. The bar
was there to hold the shower head for you.
In fact, OFTP repeated several times that the
vertical bar was not intended to hold any weight; do
not use it as a “grab bar” while in the shower.
Message received.
While OFTP was installing the shower, “Jeannie” and
I made a quick run to the grocery store.
Before we left, we tuned the TV to the
High Definition
Sports
Channel, for OFTP’s enjoyment, should he finish before we got back.
By the time we returned, not only had OFTP installed the shower
assembly completely; he also figured out how to get the cover off the
furnace and cleaned the filter for me.
And was happily watching HD Sports.
So now I have a new shower.
The vertical bar allows me to adjust the height of the shower
head, which is wonderful.
All those years of adjusting my body to accommodate the shower, now it’s
the other way around!
And the bench is back.
I have tried sitting through the shower, but it becomes too much
of a production. However,
the bench provides a very handy space for placing little bottles of
soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc. throughout the course of the daily
bath. And, should the mesh
sponge slip away while washing my back, it only falls as far as the
bench; much easier to retrieve than fishing in the bottom of the tub.
I even sit down while washing my feet and legs.
And rinsing the bench, and the shower walls, for that matter, is
a snap now. If you’ve never
tried a handheld shower (with the vertical bar, of course), think about
it. It will increase the
value of your property.
Trust me.
In other news…
Just to show how much better I’ve been feeling,
“Jeannie” and I went to a movie for the first time in many months.
We saw
The King’s Speech.
In some ways, this is a study of three different families:
First, there is the Royal Family (also known as
“The Firm”.) In this family,
the King and
Queen are first, of course, followed by the
eldest son,
called “David” in private.
As the older King’s health fails, it is obvious that “David” will
succeed to the throne. The
only problem is that “David” chooses to place his own
selfish interests
before the Family, “the Firm”, and the country.
(Small wonder, given the atrocious “parenting”
provided by the King, Queen and a host of “nannies”, all with their own
agendas. They brought him up
to believe that his every whim, including consorting with the
Ultimate
Opportunist of the Twentieth Century, was approved by God.
It’s almost like these people never heard of
Henry VIII.)
Next is “Bertie”, the younger son, i.e., “the
Spare”. In their own
“apartments” in the royal palace, he and his wife,
Mary, strive to give
their two young daughters as pleasant and stable a childhood as
possible. Bertie is
dominated by his father and overshadowed by “David”.
And he has a painful tendency to
stutter.
(Again: Any wonder?)
Finally, there is Lionel, a working class “colonial” from
Australia.
Lionel has built a small practice as a kind of “speech
therapist”, with no formal training in either
linguistics or
psychology,
using his own native intelligence to piece together the help his clients
need. Lionel would really
rather be a stage actor, but doesn’t get very far in that department.
His two sons, in their teens, have begun to “rebel” against him
in a good natured sort of way, easily identifying obscure
Shakespearean
characters based on opening dialog with what is clearly a lot of
practice.
Bertie’s wife, Mary, seeks Lionel’s help for her husband and thus begins
a tumultuous relationship.
Colin Firth (Pride and Prejudice,
Bridget
Jones’s Diary,
Mama Mia!)
shines as the man who so fervently does
not
want to be King.
Geoffrey Rush (Shine,
Les Miserables,
Pirates of the
Caribbean…) is excellent
as Lionel.
Helena Bonham
Carter (Hamlet,
Planet of the Apes) has grown beyond
Ophelia and brings a marvelous
maturity to Mary. All of the
roles are gems and the awards are beginning to accumulate.
Clearly a labor of love on all sides and definitely worth the time and
money.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |