Today in addition to the 1001 talking points raised by our group which are still open, I'm interested in a couple more I'm puzzling over, one is the dog.
Why the plastic tube on the foot of the dog? Joan K mentioned that it was the only imperfect thing about the perfect dog. There does seem to be a lot of perfection going on. I won't go into two strangers in bed together at their age, the inevitable ...er...lack of perfection which is possible there...not talking about sex but other accoutrements of old age...all swept away...but here's a dog with a plastic protective tube on its foot? I can't picture it or what it might be for. Anybody figure that out? Have you ever seen a plastic tube on the foot of a dog which is removable?
I also thought the repetition of thoughts in this vein: Who would have thought at this time in our lives that we’d still have something like this. That it turns out we’re not finished with changes and excitements. And not all dried up in body and spirit” was an important theme. It was repeated several times in different ways.
She is 70. How old is he? Do we know? This I'm not dead yet, kind of like the Monty Python "bring out your dead" sequence in The Holy Grail, that feeling, who of us has not felt it? You feel (other than the inevitable accoutrements of aging) mentally about 30? Not sure WHO that wrinkled person is in the mirror.
You've still got "it," right? Whatever it is? Of course going to the dentist where they call you "hon" or "dear," and pat your shoulder is somewhat confusing, (they must need glasses, right?) I remember when Ella violently rejected being called "dear."
And you get on a subway and half the car gets up for you to sit down? And you look around for the old person? Or you're in a museum elevator with a bunch of Japanese tourists and there's such a long segue of "after you, Alphonse," as to who should go first off, with lots of bowing, the elevator doors close, making everybody laugh?
Or maybe you're flying back from Europe in a shuttle to your local regional airport, and the walkway comes up and there are three people standing there with three wheelchairs and the steward doesn't know who they are for, (because the people who boarded with them are about as handicapped as a marathon runner, they took off down the aisle after being afforded early boarding) so he turns to YOU in the front seat and says is the wheelchair for YOU?
MOI? Who ran on to the plane like Usain Bolt? (or my version of same which may in fact not quite approximate him).
Still got "it," tho, right? I've heard that one day "it's" not there. Addie is saying and Louis says somewhere too, and they say it more than once in other ways, that they've both still got it. They (and we) are not finished with changes (good ones) and excitements. We're not dried up in body and spirit.
I'm still trying to think of the overarching theme here. There are many. This is not only one of them, to me, but perhaps one of the most important.
I'm not dead yet! Is there a theme more important than this one that YOU see? If so, what is it?