Surprise.

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…. He sailed and he sailed and he sailed and he sailed – And he found this place for me and you!
I woke up at 3 am singing this song. I imagine old Columbus and his merry mates were pretty surprised to find that what they thought was going to be China turned out to be somewhere close to Nassau – or did they ever know?
Normally, Columbus Day wouldn’t make that big an impression on me, but I’ve been planning, for several months, to be in Fulton, KY on Columbus Day to rescue Mom and Dad from the train. (They've been to Reno to visit my brother for a whole month!) But Saturday Mom called to say, “We’re stopped dead in our tracks – hahahhahahahhaha” in Greeley, Colorado and it took almost five hours to repair the tracks from something or the other. Surprise - they arrived in Chicago last night too late to make the connection to Fulton. I’ll go to Kentucky tomorrow morning instead of today.
After breakfast, I set a timer and started cleaning out the front closet; you know, the one that extends w-a-y back under that stairwell. I was surprised that I was not surprised; I didn’t find one thing in there that I didn’t know was there. Now, given the general status of every storage area in this too-large house, that may be akin to a miracle.
I was surprised by how long it took me to go through that closet. I thought forty minutes would get it. Then I added twenty more. It finally took me an hour and a half to find, organize, and return the contents to the closet.
Then it was off to the new house to unload our pickup truck. Dave and the boys had filled it with junk from under the deck and the Capuccino Brothers (that’s what we call our contractors – C’mon, I met them at Starbucks) just hauled in a dumpster to the new property. Truck unloaded and the rescue of several terra cotta pots and sauces complete, I opened the basement door to check on the leveling of the floor.
Nothing. Nada. Just like I left it on Friday. Yikes, I said to myself. Actually, I said “yikes” without even a capital Y; I’ve surprised myself with my ability to respond calmly to these little up-enders. The carpet guys will be here tomorrow morning at 8, I reminded the air. So then my calm left and I said all manner of words except “yikes” and they all had capital letters.
“Are you going to call Johnny?” Dave interrupted my cursing.
“Yes, but I need to wait. I’ll call him after my pedicure.”
Why, you ask, is a pedicure even a second thought during this season of household purging, moving, and rooting around, not to mention the trips to Kentucky and the attention to the new eating program? Well, it’s like this: a chunk of my big toenail tore off and it looked ugly and felt even worse. My hands are dry and crackly. And, besides that, Lan Nguyen always makes me feel better.
Dolce Nail was full, but she was waiting for me at the front door. “You come in and I help you. You caught me at a good time today. You pick out color.” I grabbed the lightest pink I could find on the carousel shelf and held it out to her.
“You want light color? Why you want light today? How about this?” She showed me the brightest, darkest fuchsia in the new OPI colors. “It’s new color.”
“This toenail, Lan.” I pointed to my right foot. “Don’t you think I should use light so it doesn’t show so much?”
“It’s okay.”
“Light?”
“Yeah, if you want light. You don’t like this?” The fuchsia again.
“You want me to get dark, don’t you?”
“Well, you need be happy, Diana.”
“So – the light pink.”
“This make you happier.” She showed me the fuchsia again in her palm. She’s going to win this one, and I am not surprised.
“Okay, okay,” I said, and then I picked up a deep cherry. “This one – it looks like my new kitchen.”
“Oh yeah, you gonna like this. Come – sit in chair.”
Lan brought me a glass of wine and insisted that I lie back. I don’t like to lie back but I obeyed. She promised me that, even though she would be speaking Vietnamese to everyone around her, none of it would be about me, or even anything I wanted to hear. (Isn’t that what we worry about?)
When she answered the phone in the middle of scrubbing my heels, her face lit up and I heard “Miss Diana” in a torrent of other words.
“Is that Hyung?” I sat up. “Tell him hello for me.”
“You tell him,” she said and handed me the phone.
“This is nice surprise. I have not seen you for a long time,” he said. “Every time I am in town, you don’t come.” He pauses. “But I’m so happy you are there and you still support my business.”
“I wouldn’t ever leave Lan, Hyung. Are you in New Orleans?”
“Yes, and I will be in Nashville next on October 23 – that weekend. I bet you don’t need to come on October 23.”
I will make a point of having a manicure that weekend just to surprise Lan’s long-distance husband, who I’ve come to love as much as I love her.
“You go out to dinner tonight?” Lan asked.
“No, I’d have to clean up and I don’t have that kind of energy,” I answered.
Tell me what she says, Lan asks her employee at the next footbath.
”Ahhhhhh,” Lan tells me with understanding. “So you want another glass of wine?”
“No, thanks. I’d have to spend the night with you if I had another glass of wine.”
Tell me what she says, again.
“That would be fine. My mother - she could cook for you.”
***
I called Dave at 4 pm, just driving out of the parking lot in Nolensville. “I’m on my way. Did you put the turkey in?”
“Yep – she’s cooking.” (I suppose he said "she" because it's really not a whole turkey - it's a turkey breast.)
“Okay, I have some instant dressing and we have a can of green beans.”
“Did you call Johnny?”
“Just did. He pretty much told me off.”
“Really? You mean, he was ugly to you?”
“No, I think he wanted to be mean but he was restraining himself. He just said this is his deadline. ‘You have your deadlines and I have mine – You worry about your deadlines and I’ll worry about mine.’”
“So, do you think he’ll be done by tomorrow morning?”
“Don’t know. We’ll just have to wait until the carpet guys get there.”
***
The turkey breast, Stove Top, and green beans were wonderful but I had no seconds. Dave cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. The remaining turkey breast needed to cool before we refrigerated it. Mom called to say that they would not know for sure when they would be in Fulton until they got to Chicago – about 8 p.m. our time – and that she would call as soon as they let her know the plans. There was some possibility that a bus would take them to Fulton.
Dave and I agreed that I would go to bed early in case I still had to drive to Kentucky. Mom would call and, if necessary, Dave would set my alarm for 4 am. At 1 a.m. I sat up in bed and looked to see if the alarm was set. It wasn’t.
It was a day of small – or maybe not so small – victories. Front closet done. Big crafts closet upstairs half done. Hands and feet so much better. “Home-cooked” meal enjoyed. I stayed within my alotted calories – and did not take even one little pinch of that scrumptious turkey breast when I put it in a plastic bag and stowed it in the frig. Surprise.