Public Service Announcement.

There is a mother/daughter housekeeping team that come here a couple of times a month to do the deep cleaning.  They are the sweetest ladies, and we always have fun chatting with them when they’re here.

Dot made us all get up at 6am today because she was so worried about making it to her 9am hair appointment on time.  Ugh.

The housekeepers got here after Joe and I had already dropped Dot off at Toot’s place.  Just a reminder:  Toots is the only hair stylist in town and she’s kind of a big deal around here.

Of course the first thing that the housekeepers asked me is “where’s Dot?”  Me:  “She’s visiting Toots.”

Joe cracked up and said, “Yeah, she needed to see Toots.  You should’ve seen how FUZZY her hair was!  I didn’t want to say anything to her, but her hair looked pretty wild.”

Me:  “You did tell her that, Joe…”

Joe:  “Is that right?  (laughing) Well, SOMEONE had to tell her!”

We all cracked up.

The housekeepers were telling me about their weekend trip to Seattle, and how they got stuck in terrible traffic.

Me:  “Seattle traffic is the WORST!”

Housekeepers:  “Well it was even worse than usual because they had a section of the city closed off for the Naked Bike Ride…”

Joe was napping in his chair while we were talking, but he perked up when he heard “Naked Bike Ride”.

Joe:  “What’s that you said?”

I explained to him how in Portland and Seattle a group of folks get together and ride their bikes through the city naked.

Joe raised his eyebrows and giggled:  “Naked?!”

Housekeepers:  “Yep.  Some people are into that kind of stuff…”

Joe:  “It doesn’t seem like that would be very comfortable.”

We all agreed with him and were unanimous in saying, “I know!  I’d never do it in a million years.”

Joe looked very concerned:  “Yeah, but I mean…It’d be worse for guys.  I mean…their parts could get caught up in the spokes!”

We all cracked up.  The housekeepers said, “I hadn’t thought of it exactly like that…”

Joe:  “Well you’d better really think about it before you just get naked and jump on a bike!  I hope they warn people about that!”

I attempted to look serious when I said, “I’ll be sure to call them up and tell them to add your warning to the flyers that they hand out to everybody.”

Joe:  “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

THUD THUMP THUD – George went back to reclining in his chair and napping.

"The Help"

Dot got a bunch of new movies as gifts on Mother’s Day from her daughter, and she asked me if we could watch one of them yesterday.  I read through the titles for her, and she chose “The Help”.

She asked Joe if he wanted to watch it with us, but he was fully reclined in his chair (all we could see were the bottoms of his feet) and sound asleep, so it seemed as though he didn’t care.  This was the first time that I had ever attempted to watch a movie with Joe and Dot, and it turned out to be a less than enjoyable experience.

First of all, Dot is completely deaf in her left ear, so I had to pause the movie every fifteen minutes in order to shout at her about what was happening.  Joe is not nearly as hard of hearing as his wife, so he would practically jump out of his recliner every time I gave my running commentary of the movie.  When George came flying out of his chair, he opted to add his own thoughts throughout the movie as well.  The entire event can be summed up like this:

Me (shouting):  “The curly-haired girl wants to write a book from the perspective of the maids.  This is during the Civil Rights movement and it’s based in Mississippi…”

Dot:  “So the white girl is writing about the black women…?”

Me:  “Yes.”

Joe:  THUD THUMP THUD (the sound of his recliner closing down) “Oh God…”

Me:  “The mean red-headed lady is trying to get all of her friends to build separate bathrooms for their maids.”

Joe:  THUD THUMP THUD “What the Hell is all this…?”

Me:  “The red-headed lady fired her maid because she used their toilet.”

Joe:  THUD THUMP THUD “Oh Hell, this again?!”

Me:  “The maid got back at her by making a chocolate pie and getting her to eat it.  Turns out, she put poop in it…”

Dot:  “That’s disgusting!”

Joe:  THUD THUMP THUD “What’s so disgusting, Dorothy?”

Dot:  “Never mind Joe, we’re talking about the movie…”

Joe:  “What movie?”

Dot:  “The Help.”

Joe:  “Oh…is that the one you’ve been watching here?  With all the black people?”

Me:  “Yes.  It’s about the Civil Rights movement.”

Joe:  “Is that right?  Oh I remember all that…  Portland was a scary place back then.  A scary, scary place…”

Dot:  “Oh, it was not Joe.”

Joe:  “Oh yes it was.  We were outnumbered…”

Dot:  “Just never mind Joe.  (Looking back at me) – So what happened after she ate the pie…?

Joe:  “What pie?”

Dot:  “The one lady ate pie with poop in it…”

Joe:  “Well what the hell did she do that for?”

Dot:  “The black maid…she put poop in the pie to get back at the white lady…”

Joe:  (Laughing) “Is that right?!  Well that’s one way to make a point I guess…”

THUD THUMP THUD – and we were back to looking at the bottoms of Joe’s feet again…