UnderWoman

Remarkably, UnderWoman returns home to have a “hunting accident” of her own:

So many factors are at work here. So many things known, seen, felt. And so much more that remains unsaid, unseen, unknown….

Amidst all of the trackings of sun and moon, in the intimacy of morning coffee with March Hare, UnderWoman has not even told Brian that it is her birthday. He has no idea (or does he?) that she is in the midst of a myasthenia flare, wherein Mestinon will keep her symptoms at bay early in the day, but by afternoon, she must return home for IVIG infusions, and by evening, her voice unravels, and she poses a choking hazard (to herself).

And while Brian and the officer had once “dropped her at the door,” she believes/hopes he has forgotten what door it is. She is still unsure where or how he lives. And she wants it to stay that way.

Often, Brian and UnderWoman linger at park gates before saying goodbye. When silence and a sense of longing overtake them, she turns the talk to park gates: Most of them have names etched on their stone selves – names given to them by park designers Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux in the 1860s.

UnderWoman proposes that they meet at Hunters’ Gate the next sunrise.

He says nothing in words and everything with eyes, which she takes to mean YES.

“But I have to go, NOW!” She pulls away.

Like Cinderella in reverse, the Mestinon is wearing off, and her voice catches in her throat as she makes her way home.

Upstairs, there are packages at the door and messages on the machine.

From Scoot and family: A quilt of old socks. Camouflage duck tape. A wallet made of camouflage duck tape. Camo gloves. A camo hat. A message that says: “Appy Irthday Endy!” – a salute to the fact that “Endy Ubit” has returned with the myasthenia.

Fom Merrie Do-It and EdLectric Seltzer, stunning flowers and this message: “We love and miss you very much. We will celebrate together soon. Meantime, maybe Elmer Fudd will hire you? We saw him on a TV commercial last night… ‘hunting wabbits.’”

From Bro Grog — who somehow carries the guilt conjecture that Wendy was stricken with myasthenia as payback for all the times the three of them imitated “special people” in the back seat of their parents’ car — a LONG message that includes songs from his kids while he drives them to school.

UnderWoman feels lucky beyond words to be part of this family!

If her health and the weather had permitted, they would all be together now – singing badly and butchering the words to songs, eating heartily, drinking heavily.

But just as her myasthenia was flaring, blizzards were blanketing the southern and western states.

So this afternoon, UnderWoman will be alone with Nurse Helen for IVIG infusion # 3.

And at sunset, a handful of friends will arrive. Wine and conversation will flow. She might sound and look drunk even before she actually is. But what of it?!

Mind you, UnderWoman’s apartment is SMALL…

When she says she is “going down to the wine cellar,” she ducks beneath the kitchen counter and comes up with a bottle.

Her “sewing room” is a miniature mending kit snagged from a spa trip with Merrie a few years back.

On the other hand, plants, garden tools and picnic baskets festoon the place in such a way as to form a promontory onto the park. There is no separation…only invitation.

As always, her soirées are multi-sensory adventures. Guests are savoring wines, fruits, flowers, cheeses, charcuteries, each other…and are passing the sock quilt amongst themselves.

When a squeamish friend-of-a-friend inquires whether the socks are dirty or clean, UnderWoman (who had already breathed deep of this gift’s fabric softener and wood smoke scents) urges the woman to sniff each sock separately and report back.

The olfactory heat gets turned up a notch….

Captain Quirk — who has come in smelling of vetiver, moss and sandalwood, — gifts UnderWoman with Luca Turin’s book, Perfumes, and pulls out vials of synthesized civet, castoreum, androstenedione, musk.

UnderWoman pulls out her collection of doe and buck urines and other big game attractants, as well as a book on the art of whitetail deer deception.

She brings up from under her sink some badly canned deer meet from a rogue hunter down south. The ever-evolving fat globules and likelihood of botulism have relegated it to the “failed science experiment” section of her apartment. But it serves as a failproof dividing line that determines who can stomach what….

Meantime, although Captain Quirk has promised not to open her Buck Bomb in the house, he of course locks himself in the bathroom and “accidentally” sets it off.

Suddenly, 100 % Pure Doe in Estrus Whitetail Deer Urine (also called Doe P.) — under pressure adequate enough to assure a quarter mile of coverage in any direction — blasts forth.

It is as if 100 sweaty mares had urinated down their hind legs onto dirty stable floors and steeped in it; as if every horse-drawn carriage of Central Park had convened to combine and distill their droppings and to blast them forth through a fire hose….

Guests overturn wine glasses and bottles and hors d’oeuvres trays in an attempt at fast escape.

But it is too late! The stench clings to and penetrates every thing and everyone.

Even her normally anosmic super, when the rowdy crowd returns from dinner, looks forlorn and tells UnderWoman that somebody…maybe even several people…have urinated in the halls and elevator.

At this point, with her voice unraveling significantly (myasthenia talking, or the wine?), UnderWoman tries to apologize, to take the blame, to explain the unexpected “hunting accident” in her home. The Super probably does not “understand,” but seems relieved. For all the times this week that she has sternly lectured him on working heat, doors that stay on their hinges and dry feet, he might have one on her….

Upstairs, even with the windows wide open and winter winds whipping in, UnderWoman’s apartment smells like the kind of high-rise stables you can still find in some city police precincts…and will unwittingly cross the streets to avoid odors from when you do.

She would not have planned it this way. But HOORAY!

It is turning out to be one wonder of a birthday!