Lunch with Karen

Rochester is again sunken under concrete skies and cold, miserable rain. But it comes with spring and is necessary for the growth that comes later and the green that is already taking over. The bike now is just sitting in the garage, the heat is back on and the Wonderdog's walks are a little shorter. He makes up for it by pulling more and heading in more directions. I am creating a dog with a neck of mythic strength.

I did venture out into the gray to have lunch with my old friend Karen P., who runs the financial end of the timber frame company I worked for several years ago. I should note that I really don't mind rain as much as it sounds and I really enjoy the company of the people I met at New Energy Works. I passed the architect on the canal trail Saturday and ran into a former timber framer Friday night at a Fairport bar.

Karen is one of the special people you meet and come to love though. We always appreciated each others strange sense of humor and cynicism. Karen is biologically old enough to be my mother, though it would have been frowned on if she had had me at 17. Her oldest is a little younger than me but enough to make her respectable. It was funny, I was regularly warned about what a evil bitch she was when I started there. We took care of each other in funny ways there.

But after a shaky start and her not being there, the restaurant being closed and such we finally found one another and a place to eat. She had been in a meeting which ran long, which I remember too well. It was great to see her though. Talking about the stroke she put her finger right on what I feel all the time. I described my fatigue and she said it was the way she felt trying talk or follow a conversation in Spanish when she visits South America. "You don't feel sleepy, you just feel like your head will explode and it's too much." I am probably paraphrasing a lot here, but it suddenly dawned on me what was happening. I was trying to speak a new language, the one I have always known.

The brain forms the idea, the mouth works but there is a discord and my head wants to explode after a few minutes of trying. She and a lot of others have told me I sound much better than when we spoke closer to the stroke. I know I am getting better, but I am more reserved and quieter now. Sadly this drives Maria crazy as quick simple meaningless responses often come right off my tongue. A lot of times it is all I can say and don't realize I even say it.

Karen is leaving for Europe shortly. She works very hard for someone who could be retired but also rewards her self well. It was nice and left me exhausted and a happy. We promised each other a dinner at "The Palace" I think she called it. A wonderful little shack her beau is rebuilding on a widewaters on the canal. It will be fun, maybe even for Maddy.