1/8/18: My last normal day

I plan to have my two brothers over tomorrow night to tell them of my grim medical condition, something I put off until after the holidays because I wanted their sons and daughters to have returned to the cities they live in and the colleges they attend. They're all back now.
I'm not looking forward to upsetting my brothers. I'm dreading the reaction. They're calm, mature men, so I don't expect that there will be too great a leap into crises mode, but I do fear that the news will be followed by more phone calls and visits than I'll want. 
We'll see. Even people you know well don't always react to things the way you think they will.
After I tell them, it will be time to tell others. Friends, old and new. I'd rather not, but considering that my leg will be amputated soon, word of some kind will get out anyway and it's good to disseminate more information than less, I think, and as I've said before, I don't want to have to explain my condition repeatedly.
 _________________________
Me, shopping, earlier today, around 1 o'clock. Bad weather had been predicted and now, a few hours later, there is a coating of ice. Schools were let out early, libraries closed. I went to a supermarket, which I'd planned to do anyway. The lines were long but nothing crazy. There are many supermarkets near me and they range from middle class ones, like Acme, to the more expensive Whole Foods. There is also a Trader Joe's and a Wegmans, all a short drive from where I live. I visit all of them over the course of a week or so as each has items I like that the others don't. 
Today, I went to the Acme. The usual types were in the express line. Harried moms, an elderly man clutching a loaf of white bread, me getting cheese, bagels, and eggs. And I see this girl. So young. So calm. So pretty. Who is she? Who does she live with? Is she a college student? What things will she see, what problems will she face in the many decades of her life that will pass between my death and hers?
Whether or not I'll be alive a year from now is a fifty-fifty proposition. If I am, it's fairly certain I won't be doing my own shopping and seeing things like this.

Shoppers in the express lane of an Acme supermarket.

Self checkout

A man and a woman tally their purchases at a supermarket.

The Complete and Total Loser has mixed feelings about self checkout lines.

The bad:

• They rob him of an opportunity to interact with another person. (The Loser is unemployed and friendless, and he goes days at a time without speaking to a soul.) Aren't there enough things already that diminish or obviate human contact? 
• They allow one person do the work of four, thus putting people out of work
• They seldom work properly. The Loser brings his own bag to supermarkets and touches the part of the screen that says "I'm using my own bag" when prompted, but it freezes anyway, requiring the help of the one person in charge of the four to six stations.

The good:

• The Loser lives in a haze of self-conscious guilt, certain that others are judging him and rightly deeming him a loser. Self checkout allows him to purchase embarrassing items a man his age shouldn't be buying, like candy and powdered donuts, both which he buys hoping the sweetness will counter the sour loneliness of his meaningless life for a few moments.
• They are for express customers and therefore, the lines are shorter. The Loser can get his pathetic, single serving items relatively quickly.

The day off

Went to three shopping places for groceries. Trader Joe's, Acme, Whole Foods. Got dried things at Trader Joe's (banana chips, apricots) and almond butter. Got chicken at Acme (two for one packages of thighs; they taste good and "thigh"

The Loser's driveway.

is a great word), instant coffee, cut up pineapple. Got tabbouleh salad at Whole Foods (theirs is the best) and soy half-and-half, which Trader Joe's has but theirs goes bad sooner than the Loser can use it. Saw sister-in-law with her son in Whole Foods parking lot. The son, 15, is huge. The sister-in-law is a cultural cliche; tall, blond, SUV. Went home and ate tuna salad roll up from

A skinny girl.

 Trader Joe's, washed down with a seven-ounce Rolling Rock. Sent tax documents to guy brother recommended. Swept part of driveway. Doing so calms the Loser in a Zen way. Always surprising how just a few feet of sweeping fills a trash can with debris. You don't see how much there is when it's all spread out. Found claw gardening tool with long handle in garage, started tearing up part of garden in back yard, where the Loser wants to start a vegetable garden. After about nine square feet, the claw came off the handle. Old, perhaps. Mid thirties outside, which it shouldn't be, but the weather hasn't been what it should be for years, if you think about it. The outdoor work failed to warm the Loser up, as if his body's thermostat is set to spring. The Loser saw a skinny girl going sleeveless on the train platform just two days ago. 

Cheap Bastard

He, the Complete and Total Loser's father, was a cheap bastard. But in a loveable way.
He was born September 21, 1920, ninety-two years ago from the date of this post, and died last December.
Imagine being nine years old when the Great Depression starts. Even brief downturns in the economy scar us for life. The Loser got out of college during a sharp but brief one (Reagan, '81) and is still surprised when someone offers him a job. 
The last car trip the Loser's father probably made was to a supermarket three miles farther than the nearest one to save a quarter on a can of soup. He kept uncancelled postage stamps, clipped coupons and washed his own car for as long as he could, all while living in a house worth $700,000 and sitting on $1.2 million in stock. 
"I could lose it all tomorrow," he'd say, and he meant it. 
Not that he scrimped. He and the Loser's mother enjoyed life. They vacationed in St. Bart's, ate out often, and drove decent enough cars. It was on the little, everyday things that he scrimped. The Loser wanted his father to enjoy those little things and when, in those last months he'd do the shopping because he "liked to help out," he'd spend his own money on premium stuff. Acme? No. Whole Foods.
Over the past few years the Loser bought him a bottle of good scotch on Father's Day. His father may have found the brands he bought fine, but he didn't drink much and how good can scotch be if it comes in a plastic bottle? 
He died before he finished it all. The Loser is drinking one last, fairly large glass of it (for him) now to commemorate his birthday. 
Here's to you, Dad, you cheap bastard. I miss you.