Ramblings from the couch

Her entire life is spent on the same moderately ugly flowered couch. Occasionally she gets up to go to the bathroom (and I’m excited to say that toileting is still not a huge problem), but for the most part, she lives on a couch.

Fortunately it is well situated. She catches any traffic going up and down the stairs to the second floor. And with me, that’s a lot of traffic. Just getting ready to go play soccer takes about 300 trips. I go upstairs to get my shin guards and see that there is laundry. So I grab it, come downstairs and throw it in. On my way out I notice that I left folded laundry and run it upstairs. But the dishwasher needs to be emptied so I come back down to take care of that. Meanwhile it’s getting close to when I have to leave and still need those shin guards.

Each time I pass by, though, there are questions.

“Where are you going?”

“What are you doing?”

And my very favorite….”What’s going on?”

How do I answer that? What do you MEAN ..’what’s going on?’ Do you mean current events? Upstairs? Backyard? Kitchen? My kids? What???? Usually I stop and look at her trying to think what she wants to know. I have tried different things, but haven’t found it. If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.

I guess when you live on a couch, you have to get your news from anyone who appears to be mobile.

To mix it up, sometimes she lays down and stares out the front window. There are very popular bird feeders right outside the window covered with sparrows that double as little feathered clowns. I don’t think she sees that. I don’t know what she looks at.

This is her first destination in the morning. She comes out dressed for autumn even though it’s in the lower 90s. Hobbling to the couch, she has her shoes and wears her strange slippers. It takes quite a while to go from slippers to shoes and some mornings we wear a slipper on one foot and shoe on the other. Hey, it’s a fashion statement. It all happens on the couch.

We try to get her to go outside. No chance. We ask if she wants to sit in the other room. Uh uh.

We live on the couch.