Lunch with Judi

It's been windy the last couple of days, but yesterday was not so bad. We were up early to get ready to go to lunch with Judi. She's in town to see some of her old doctors and is staying with a friend. We picked her up there. 

She's been having trouble with her balance when she walks. It's been a problem for years but has recently become worse. She's doing physical therapy but she's afraid that when this round runs out, the doctor won't refer her for more. Without a referral, the insurance won't cover it. I asked if it was helping and she said it was. I suggested she keep going and just pay out of pocket. She could easily afford to make this happen, but she refuses to pay. 

(She did the same with Paul. After he was released from the hospital, he wanted to come home. He knew the end was near. We all did. He had worked all his life and they could afford to pay for private care so that he could come home, but Judi didn't want that so Paul went to a nursing facility.  The better facility would have required them to pay out of pocket, the other facility would be paid for by insurance. She took the one that insurance paid for. I bit my tongue over that one, which is the only reason our friendship survived. She cut out another friend, one she had known longer than me, who called her out on it.)

Judi is getting old--we all are--but age hasn't softened her. At this point, I doubt that anything will. There are causes and explanations, a backstory--but at this point, it just is.

We offered to drive Judi by her old house, to see some of the changes the new owners have made to the facade. She said no. She said she doesn't want to see it. She says she misses "her" house and she misses Paul who died during the pandemic and she misses me and Dave. She had a life here and she misses it. "I'm homesick," she says. She wasn't expecting to be homesick for a place where she spent more than half a century. 

At lunch, she ordered a green chile cheeseburger and fries. She ate less than a third of her burger and a couple of onion rings from a shared basket and a couple of fries. She had a bit of Dave's chocolate milkshake and a cup of coffee. (She says she lives on yogurt and cookies and coffee in Florida.) I had some of the onion rings, two teaspoons of Dave's chocolate milkshake, and a BLT with fries. I couldn't eat more than a few fries. Dave had some onion rings and huevos rancheros with extra cheese and the chocolate milkshake that he shared with us.

We looked at photos and videos of Judi's new dog on her phone. She loves dogs and this one is no exception. It's the first of her dogs I haven't met in all the time I've known her, almost twenty-six years now. When she left here, she had Buzz. He died soon after she moved to Florida. Her new dog is a Florida dog and will never know this place.

We talked about my brother and how he died. We talked about my mother and aunt. She asked Dave about his job. We asked her about her life in Florida and if she's making friends. She says she's surrounded by religious people and that two of her neighbors have offered to drive her to church. Her new "dog nanny" is a southern baptist (southern baptists are scary; they are outwardly calm but always have a hysterical look in their eyes) but she is good with Judi's dog and that's all Judi cares about.

She was tired after lunch--altitude sickness, she thinks--so we took her back to her friend's house. She asked me for a hug, something she never does, and she gave Dave a hug. Then Dave helped her to the door and helped her to open the door (the lock sticks) and he carried in a package that had been left on the doorstep. He helped Judi inside and brought in the owner's little dog from the yard.

I only cried once on the way home.

It was early afternoon by the time we got back. Dave got into his pajamas and I put my pajamas in the washing machine and sat down to do my French lessons online. While Dave talked to his father and sister on the phone, I nodded off over art restoration videos on youtube and when my computer slid off my lap and hit the floor, I got up and put my pajamas into the dryer. When they were dry, I put them on and went back to bed.