Balboa Park

Balboa Park

I am the kinda guy who wakes up in the morning and feels invincible..Like there is nothing I can't do...I've been known to remodel an entire room in the house before anybody else wakes up...Yep, the energizer bunny...that's me.
Only problem is I'm not invincible. In fact the same guy that wakes up everyday with a constant hard on, is the same guy who last night just before he snuffed out his last cigarette of the day, lit the filter end by mistake.
My latest scheme was to take two disabled women in wheelchairs for an outing to Balboa Park. That's in San Diego. Next to the zoo. The women are living in a Skilled Nursing Facility (nursing home) in a suburb of Diego. I didn't just walk in and pick out two strangers either, which to my credit means I actually gave this idea some forethought instead of doing my usual "fools rush in" approach.
One of the women's name is Shirley and the other is Donna.....Shirley is sixty two years and Donna is maybe forty five. Donna is a slim five nine redhead with milk white skin and big blue eyes that.....adore me...
Shirley is five seven and about two hundred pounds...Both of these women are spiritually evolved souls,..even with all they must bear at this time of their lives they can still laugh, smile, and appreciate...What they have in common is that they are room mates in the facility,....and me.
Donna has lived in this "home" for five years....Shirley for six weeks.
Shirley is my estranged wife....Estranged from marriage, however still the best of friends. I have been blessed with her friendship for over twenty years, and am much the better for knowing her...
Donna on the other hand is a stranger I have taken in...The first day Shirley became a resident I visited and learned that in the entire five years Donna has lived at this facility she had never once been "outside". She didn't trust the staff or the other residences to risk being forgotten and had bad visions of expiring outside in the courtyard alone in the dark, just her and her wheel chair...
That changed the first day I visited...For some unknown reason Donna trusted me from the first moment...I told her I was taking Shirley outside so she could enjoy a cigarette and would Donna like to go outside also?....She immediately said "yes please" in her soft as a mouse voice...I swear to God, no less than fifty people at the home were rubber necking, and commenting that "Donna is going outside" as we wheeled our way to the outer door.
I visit every other day to the home and Donna always goes "outside".
Once a week usually Thursday's I bring the two ladies food from the outside world. This is a "big deal" cuz it's what ever they order....Donna is a Italian food lover, and Shirley usually orders Chinese.
I got them Direct TV for their room and each has their own receiver so's they can channel jockey with out annoying one another.
Enough stroking my own ego (somebody needs to slap me sometimes) and back to the Balboa Park outing, or should I I be honest here and call it what it was?...fiasco..comes to mind....
Shirley can walk...I mean she can get from her wheelchair into and out of a car pretty much independently....Not the case with Donna...She weights only about 120 lbs., so no big deal right?....This is what I mean about me, waking up feeling invincible.....I wore a back brace,...I am not completely out of touch with reality....Hurt my back several years ago while working as a landscaper and have learned the hard way how to protect myself. Still, fuck me,...I was okay pickin her up out of the chair, but leanin over to get her into the front seat of my Honda....The roof is too low man, and I really banged the shit out of my forehead cuz I was so worried about my fragile package...I saw stars and I think I like made a quick loop around the universe and back again before I grabbed the door to steady myself......really smooth LooseCanon....I still have a fuckin headache.
So I get in the car right?, my hands are shakin', my head hurts, and now I know just how Donna feels about goin "outside".
Anyway I blow it off cuz I am a man and I don't want to freak out two already freaked out girls...I mean, it wouldn't be cool,..and I am always about the cool...No brag, just fact.
We get to Balboa Park, and it's a nice day. Big white clouds mixed with blue skies, a soft breeze, not cold at all. I park next to the zoo entrance cuz, always thinkin ahead, I know the lanes into the park here are pretty level. Shirley has assured me she can scoot along using her feet as propellers so I just have to manage Donna's wheelchair and get Shirl out of the occasional bad spot.
We hit the Spanish Arts Center, one of my favorite haunts...Lots of artisans hanging out in quaint little shops with the coolest stuff made from anything from tree bark to exotic gold jewelry. The folks working these art galleries are always busy doin their thing, and come on to you real lay back and mellow.....I've done this kind of thing in a past period of my life and I can tell you...They are really sweatin it inside, hoping against hope your goin to buy somethin, any fuckin thing so they don't have to close up later feeling totally depressed. It a tough, scary, insecure, way to go...Man, I got so much respect for all of them...Damn..
Donna is in a lot more pain than I realized...The foot square tile pavers all over the Spanish Art Center are bumpy and she feels everyone. It must have shaken somethin loose cuz next thing I know, ....she's got to "pee".......Like I said Donna is a stranger, and Shirley,...God bless her, can be of no help on this one.....I think it safe to say Donna and I are no longer strangers after today.
We tooled around and made it over to the Organ Pavilion. I am sweatin by now as it turns out there are no actual level spots at Balboa Park. It just appears that way to the casual visitor, the untrained eye, or those that think their invincible...The girls are munching on tacos and sodas while I lay down on some really pretty green lawn. You don't really appreciate all grass has to offer until to can lay down on your back, resting your bones, looking at the faces in the clouds peering back at you with a big ass "I told you so" fucking grin on their faces. The girls ask me why I am not eating with them....Like I am disin' them or somethin...kinda pouty,.. like I just turn down sex with em or somethin'....
...I just tell em' I ain't hungry...Truth is I am afraid I'll puke cuz I am tired, and hot, and horny, but not for them...and I just want to get done with this whole thing and go home....
It's cruel to the undisabled when the disabled try to "show" how much they can do for them selves...Yea, I know, it's a self esteem thing and all,... but in this case,.. "a woman's got to know her limitations". Shirley is always pullin this shit and it pisses me off cuz ninety percent of the time it just causes a hassle. I don't mean between us, we actually hardly ever fight, and in all the years together only have had one major blow out....I mean, it causes "complications"...On one hand it's healthy for her and I've got to grow up to it....On the other, it wears me out...
I am layin on the grass right?, catching my breath, resting my eyes, slowing down the heart rate, feeling the sweat on my brow dryin up, when I hear the soft mouse voice of Donna callin my name...She doesn't have a lot of emotion in that voice I must say...I casually answer "yea?", and after a couple of seconds I look up at her pointin her rail thin arm toward the horizon...Being a smart enough fella I look where she's referring to and see Shirley's run away wheel chair hauling ass down a thirteen percent grade...Napkins flyin off, taco wrapping flappin in the wind, paper plate layin next to the trash can she felt compelled to discard her used utilities into "all by her self"....I caught up to her, ...my left knee will never be the same,....but a nice "guy" saw the whole thing goin down before I ever got off the grass and saved the day....I am thankin the guy, Shirley is cryin and shit...thanking the guy...and I am noticing how my damn knee is givin me shit...like there's just bone on bone holdin it together when I put weight on it....Anyway the nice guy and his girlfriend go struttin off..(he's gettin some tonight, I can tell)......I get,..... to push Shirley (that's the two hundred pound Shirley) back up the hill...
......God hates me.