Were Passing With Weather

In China, I never drove anywhere.  We had a car.  Sometimes I’d pick the kids up from school or head out for groceries.  But Didi’s were ubiquitous and there was really no need to get behind the wheel.  Today I spent about seven hours behind the wheel.  Tomorrow I’ll do the same.  My stepdad is in the hospital two counties down and I need to take my mom down to see him in the morning and pick her up in the evening.  It will only be a few more days, certainly.  He’s rapidly improving from this wretched tick-born Babesiosis.  Truly, I do not know how truckers do this.

It’s Monday.  Of course, you assume you should be able to get work done.  “I’ll call people.”  I have a rudimentary call service that Toyota provides in-vehicle.  Press a button and the virtual woman chimes in.  The woman always pronounces my surname wrong.  She pronounces my wife’s first name wrong.  She doesn’t recognize the name of someone she recognized yesterday.  She says: “I’m sorry,” in a decrescendo that makes me hate her.  I repeat the name.  She tells me she’s sorry again.  I raise my voice.  She is sorry in the same manner she was when I spoke in a plain voice.  And at sixty-five miles per hour, I just pick up the phone, thumb through the directory and press dial on the number I need.

There was hail at home.  Frozen golf balls all over the summer lawn.  When they stopped, I headed out.  But the bad weather is following me.  I haven’t driven in rain this hard in a while.  The car feels steady, but who knows about all these other idiots I’m sharing the two-laned New York State throughway with.  Off in the distance to the east there is a clearing.  But its’ a tease.  It’s moving away from me.  The path ahead is dark.  Now there is lightening to the west and the thunder is right behind it.  Once upon a time you might wonder if the mandate of heaven were passing with weather like this. 

At the Mario Cuomo Bridge, I cut across to the eastern shore and finally there is a break in the rain.  By the time I reach the Westchester Medical Center there’s even a patch of sun.  I apologized to my mom and blamed the weather.  She brushed it aside and said she was glad to see me as there was apparently horrible storm that had made its way down from Albany along the Hudson.  She'd heard on the news.  Indeed, there was.  The ride back home was up the Taconic and it rained a lot along that winding, mountainous parkway, as well. 

Monday, 6/29/20