The Idea Tree: Pick a few when YOU'RE ripe

Well, when you talk to Judy Diaz for 112 minutes, you're certainly gonna get a few ideas from this smart lady. When I hung up, I thought (but I haven't told her yet) she and I should run a group. We're both therapists. We could run it on the topic of aging. She's 10 years older than me and was best friends w/Judy A, who died last year of cancer.

Long ago, Judy said to me, "I don't know how I'm gonna live w/o Judy. I hope I croak first."

Not to be. Judy A was born w/a congenital kidney disease. She didn't need dialysis until she was in her 70s and said it was no big deal. Then at age 80, Johns Hopkins said Cmon on down, do we have a kidney for you!

She was the oldest kidney t'plant on record, back then. She also got the kidney of a person who died from cancer. The kidney was not cancerous. However, four years later, Judy developed cancer which quickly spread thru her whole body and she died.

But she died a happy woman. She married the widower of a dear friend and for the first time in life she had a loving man and a white sable coat. When I used to visit them, she'd sit on Irv's lap. They were so in love.

Judy Diaz and I reminisced about our time when we worked at Bristol-Bensalem Human Services before it was turned into an expensive housing development. My fondest desire is to see if the bagel place near there in still open. It was run by a Russian denture maker who could barely speak English. We communicated with low bows, head nods, and lafter. I basically kept my mouth closed cuz I have bad teeth. Very.

Judy has a subscription to the New Yorker, something I read online, which contributes to my constant neck and shoulder pain. I really try to limit my online time, except for you, Dear Reader, I'm willing to get an extra kink or two, but I don't take it lying down.

I'm sitting here doing neckercises and shoulder stretches. Ah!

So she tells me about these really great articles and even the issues they're in.

I drive over to the library, plop myself down on the floor, and leaf thru the giant stack of mags. (I almost capitalized the word 'giant' as I do when I write about the New Directions meeting at the Giant Supermarket.) I try to type really really fast so I can get outa here. Plus Scott is waiting for me. Since we don't live together, we feel excited when we're together.

As I drove to the library I was thinking about the exchange of ideas. Here I am sitting in my Willow Grove home and Judy is at hers in Bensalem and we're communicating, not like ants do, by touching one another, or like bees, by waggle dancing, but we're speaking, and in that way, thoughts become words, and words are transferred over the phone wires, and ideas are disseminated that can be taken or disregarded.

This is why we prefer some people to others. Idea people are my favorite. People who think. That's why we read books. If we can't actually be with thinkers, we can read their thoughts, thanks to the Gutenberg printing press originally.

Sarah and I went walking to The Secret Garden on the grounds of one of the local Swedenborgian churches.

Sarah, I said, you dropped your sunglasses.

They were not hers, but there they were, nestled like a baby bunny in the grass. I asked if she needed another pair and she said No, so I kept them.

This is a situation where no one will return to find them in this abandoned wild garden where a fountain once trickled with rain water.

I always buy the cheapest pair of sunglasses I can find, but these ain't cheap. They've got rubber sidepieces that keep them tight on your head. The fit is so good you'd think they used you as the template.

I wanted to pay homage to the pair by photo'g them and showing you. I don't think I've ever examined a pair of sunglasses before. Maybe it's time we did.