I Will Do No Man’s Laundry (unless he does mine)

Thursday, which was a glorious sunny, warm fall day, I hopped on the Long Island Railroad to go play with the Ex. He just got a new old car and because of the old old car situation, I had not been out on the Island in a very long time. You can’t do anything on Long Island without a car, and one in working condition, so the Ex has been coming west for our playdates. If I may be allowed a small tangent here, the LIRR, no, the whole MTA, sucks. Nothing specific. It just does. Maybe not as bad as New Jersey Transit, but this isn’t a contest (It should be noted that I wrote this 6 hours before there was a major LIRR accident on Saturday night).

Of course, we did our traditional breakfast thing and were going to see either The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, which obviously we didn’t, or this post would be all about that, or The Dressmaker, because I loved Kate Winslett in Steve Jobs, a movie I highly recommend, but you need to see it from the very beginning. But, I miscalculated the times and both movies would be starting at the Huntington Cinema Arts Centre in three hours from when we left the diner. So, we went for a drive. The Ex loves to drive, and I love to be driven. I missed that before the new old car came into being, and if the window on the passenger side of the new old car worked, I would have been driving along with my head out the window like a dog.

We drove south to the ocean and wound up on Fire Island, going over the bridge to the eastern tip, which, as I learned, had extended itself further east over the past century. We strolled to the lighthouse, passing a deer that just ignored us. The museum gift shop on the bottom floor was roped off though it was supposed to be open, and this very nice man who was dry mopping the shiny wood floor gladly removed the barrier for us, explaining that everyone was upstairs having cake for someone’s birthday, and they didn’t even invite him. I did get the feeling that it was more like he volunteered to stay downstairs, because someone had to, while everyone else had their fun. He did, after all, know that the cake was of the carrot variety.

The Ex wanted a T-shirt, and I wanted a stuffed animal for my colleague’s three-year-old niece, with whom she lives. Frankly, clothes shopping for the Ex was always a bigger deal than need be (it should be noted here, that when we were together, he had a knack for helping me pick out clothes, but I promise I did not subject him to that often). So of course there was a decision to be made about which T-shirt, and which stuffed animal, and before we knew it, the lovely woman who was supposed to be manning the shop, had returned. She was helping the Ex with his decision and I heard her explaining how to properly wash the T-Shirts. I looked up and realized she was talking to me (yes, I can hear the gasps coming from all of you who know me best). “Oh,” I chuckled, “don’t be telling me about washing instructions.” Everyone chuckled as I went back to choosing between the baby seal or the red fox that were the two finalists in my stuffed animal selection. The seal won. I was not annoyed at the two assumptions being made, rather amused that it was perceived that the Ex and I were a cohabitating couple, and, had we been, I would be doing his laundry.

BTW – It did not go unnoticed nor unmentioned that while we were enjoying this lovely weather and the ocean air, which seemed to temporarily clear up both out eyesight issues, that our countrymen and women down south were awaiting the impending storm and that the hurricane they were dreading had already caused much devastation in the Caribbean.

Now, I am preparing for the second debate, and regardless of what has recently been disclosed, I am still nervous about the possibility of having a truly bad man leading this country. And, I am doing this sans Jack tonight.