The second lunch with Barney began with both of us thinking the other one would not show up. Because we did both show up the conversations about catching up on the last eleven and a half years flowed more easily.
He told me he had sold two houses that week and was writing a book on real estate. I thought that was pretty impressive but I remembered all the papers he had typed in college. He suggested to me that I never write a book unless he could type it. I was a little surprised at that statement but he explained that the reason he always asked me if I had any papers I needed typed was that I was no doubt the worst speller in the entire world. He said he could not believe I could write such intelligent essays with perfect sentence structure and flow with so many misspelled words. I had to admit that I knew that and although little Miss Prudie Patillo, my second grade teacher with her sturdy teacher shoes, wispy grey bun at the nape of her neck and flowered silk dresses, had tried to teach me phonics I was more interested in skinning up my knees playing baseball and ripping the hems out of my dresses to learn how to spell. He took great pride in my having passed my American Authors class because of my perfectly written essays.
Luckily the restaurant was pretty empty by the time I told him I remembered what a great dancer he was. He said he didn't go dancing much anymore at which point I told him it was too bad he never learned to disco dance. He flashed that smile at me, pushed back his chair and proceeded to do the John Travolta walk from Saturday Night Fever while humming the song. Back at the table he struck the classic Travolta pose and said "How's that?". Louie, the maitre d' and the few people left in the restaurant were applauding and I was laughing so hard tears streamed down my face. Thursdays were turning into my favorite day of the week.
Back to reality on Friday since we were going to go pick up the boys that weekend. I managed to get their rooms put together so it would feel more like home when they arrived. Interesting that Levelor Mini Blinds had just come on the market when we built the house. The Interior Designers that helped our builder with the houses suggested those for the windows. Pricey as they were then I had ordered them for all the front windows of the house and they came and installed them that day. The wall paper and bedding would have to wait but at least their rooms looked pretty good.
Needless to say the boys were glad to come back. It took them about fifteen minutes on Sunday afternoon to meet all the other kids on the street of which there were about twenty mostly in the same age range as Wes and Wally. That was really fun for them as they played outside and rode bikes or were all together at one house or another. After the summer they had it was so great to see two such happy faces all the time. What was really nice about the neighborhood was that the majority of the women were stay-at-home-moms so there was always someone home to watch over a gang of children.
The other great thing about the neighborhood was that fences were not allowed. Moving from the Dallas area where the first thing anyone did when moving into a house was to put up a wooden privacy fence made it seem strange not to have one. It did not take long to enjoy the fact that you could actually see and talk to your neighbors. Lenexa West, as the subdivision was called, was built on gently rolling hills and all the yards with no fences really created a beautiful landscape. You were allowed to build a small dog run but that was a problem for us as the English Bulldog had difficulty breathing outside in any kind of weather.
Needless to say I was never crazy about the dog. We had her for three years in the same house and the move was traumatic for her. She could not make it up and down the stairs and ended up spending most of her time in the basement and was never a dog the boys could play with. It was also worrisome that she had bitten a child while she was staying in Oklahoma. So we ran an ad in the paper to give her away. To make a long story short the dog bit a high school boy right in the mouth when he was sitting on the floor with his Dad who was interested in the dog.
It was terrifying as she gave no warning whatsoever. I got the boy upstairs and tried to stop the bleeding while his Dad called a friend who was a plastic surgeon to meet them at the emergency room. Dennis and Wes were gone somewhere to a race or something and when they arrived home I told him the dog had to go and right now would be fine.
That evening the boy's Dad called me and said everything was fine, not too much damage but needless to say he was not interested in the dog. I offered to pay the medical bills but he very nicely said not to worry about it that accidents just happened. The dog was gone in a few days and I didn't care where Dennis took her as I had become afraid of her. Some would say that someone was watching over us that the man was so nice about his son being bitten but I just chalked it up to how nice all the people were in my new city. Goodbye dog number six.
Wes started school and I found a Catholic Mother's Day Out program for Wally on Tuesdays and Thursdays which gave me time to begin studying for the medical school entrance test I was scheduled to take the end of September. The New Neighbors League lady showed up on my porch one day with a basket of goodies and explained the program to me. In order to join you had to have moved to Kansas City from another town within the last six months. She explained that friends do not just pop up on your porch but you had to go out and find them - the group being a great place to do that. It sounded like fun but I put off joining for a month as my mind was a little boggled by everything I had to do. Plus I already had a steady stream of new friends in the neighborhood popping up on my porch.
The lunches with Barney continued each week. It was interesting that we had so much to talk about without hardly ever a mention of our spouses. One day he asked me just when I had gotten so funny. Was that funny as in haha or funny as in strange? He said funny from the aspect that I always made him laugh and feel good about everything. That was a pretty nice compliment and rather hard to answer. The best I could come up with was that you could dwell on all the bad things that happen to you in life or you could look hard and find some humor in every situation. Maybe my dear college roomie, Cathie, had taught me how to do that through the years. Anyway you may not see the humor at the moment something is happening but if you keep looking it is always there. Mr Eagle Scout was a little perplexed by that thought and said he was going to have to think on that.
Maybe I should have known it was bad luck for him to ask me that question that particular day. Maybe I should not have been so cocky in my flippant answer about there being humor in everything. The following evening Dennis got a call from his sister that I would have great difficulty finding any humor in for months.
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