A Double Cheeseburger & An Apple, Please

It's been over a year now since Carl had the stroke. He's long out of the hospital, but he's still living in a nursing and rehab facility. He's able to get around a bit with a walker and does great with a wheelchair. He goes to physical therapy daily and has most of the strength and control back in the hand an arm that was just hanging limp not all that many months ago. His speech is pretty much back to normal. Considering that he's 73 years old that's some amazing progress.

Claudia, my ex, visits him every week, and most times I join her. We've both known Carl since before we met one another. I've known him for nearly forty years now, ever since I did the newspaper story about about how a black shoe repairman had a successful business in a white neighborhood. Claudia met him a few years later. She had an apartment perhaps a block away from his shop and needed somebody to keep her shoes in top shape.

He hates the assorted concoctions of tasteless mush they serve at the home, better suited to people on restricted diets, and perhaps with no teeth to chew their food to boot. Claudia makes sure to always pick up some fresh fruit for Carl, and on the way over gets him a double cheeseburger at Burger King.

He was kidding me about my needing a haircut, but I reminded him about the huge Afro he sported back when we first met. I told him that he was lucky to have a good friend like me, somebody willing to grow enough hair for the two of us.

Those legs on the left? Claudia's legs. Even the extreme wide angle view of the 15mm lens wasn't enough in the tiny room. I remember the first time I met her, and those legs were the first thing I noticed about her. Two dozen years later they still look damned good.