“If It Isn’t Broken”

 

          We try to take a frugal, practical path in life. If something can be repaired, refurbished, or refinished it remains in our household. We don’t ditch something because it’s no longer “in style”. My kitchen cabinets went out of fashion twenty years ago, and I’ll never paint them as is the trend. Appliances like our fridge and dishwasher have been repaired first before we resort to replacing them. My stove top and oven date back to 1993 because we replace elements when they burn out. Other furnishings, purchased during the first years of our marriage, get switched from room to room. My son’s baby rocker gets treated with Murphey’s oil and now sits in the family room. Most of the time my attention skips over the older pieces. They form a comfortable, familiar background. Occasionally, I’ll zero in on something and think, “How old is that crockpot?” or “Those lamps have ancient wiring.” Replacing these items shift onto my “To Do List”.

            A few weeks ago, our alarm clock, the one EVERYONE has, began gaining time. We swapped out the batteries, reset everything, and set it back down into the background of our routines. This morning, the 7:15 alarm sounded. I punched snooze and took my morning medications. Over the last nine months, I’ve added putting on my watch as I head into the bathroom. This morning, when I checked for the outside temperature, I noted it was only 6:30, not 7:15! Our clock gained time again.

            We won’t replace the clock. Like everyone else, we’ll set our phones with an alarm. I do feel a little sad as this piece was a wedding gift. Normally, I get rid of things break, but I think I’ll find a place to store it, even if it’s broken.

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Sirens in the Distance"

 

            Before this morning’s freezing daybreak, emergency sirens sounded in the distance. Sympathy seeped into my waking thoughts. With all of the construction surrounding our home, that wail signals an accident on the highway. Someone’s day sucks before sunrise. The single scream lasts only seconds as a second and third join in with discordant harmony.

            My imagination transports me to the scene where crumpled cars with unpaid balances block the road. The incessant red and white of flashing ambulance lights dance in the soft morning light. Police honoring their code to protect and serve hover nearby. Fire trucks stand alert. The injured drivers and passengers, attached to monitors, get loaded and zip away.

           

            What tragedy awaits these people? Vehicles demolished beyond repair. One trip to an emergency room, even with insurance, costs too much. An accident caused by one second of inattention in a high construction area, and every person impacted faces financial disaster. I don’t allow myself to envision death within the destruction.

 

            I don’t attend to the returning siren songs as my morning routine pushed away their lament. Only now, with my mug of hot tea and keyboard before me, do I wonder and worry about the sorrows of these strangers.

Daylight and still dangerous!

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"273 Days"

 

 

            May 2020 found me with a knee injury after I did a slip-n-slide and to the ground dive while mopping the kitchen floor. I bounced up from the twist and fall, cleaned up the bucket of water slopped everywhere, and continued on with my routines for several days. I washed the cars. I raked leaves. I walked a thirty minutes a day up and down our hilly neighborhood. During one of those strolls, my left knee snapped in protest. I kept my weight off of it, iced it for days, wrapped it for compression, raised it up “just so” and had it examined by my doctor’s PA two weeks later. She checked it thoroughly; approved of the leg brace I wore into the appointment, and gave me slow, specific rehabilitation guidelines that I followed obsessively.

            My goal, to get back onto my feet again, took months of incrementally pushing my knee forward. Once it was totally back to pain free movement, I returned to life pre-knee injury. Eventually, my daily walk included a hike up the steepest hill in our neighborhood. My self-challenge, to scale the slope five days in a row, proved my downfall when my other knee fizzled out midway up the hill. By the time I hobbled home, my right knee doubled its size, swollen and painful. RICE again for almost two weeks, and then my new doctor checked my right knee. He listened to how I’d rehabbed my left knee and approved of my methodology. Again, the process to regain my knee’s usage without pain took many months with daily goals adjusting gradually. At first, I couldn’t exercise every day without my knee puffing up or nagging me with a hint of discomfort. I would alternate using the recumbent bike with short walks at the park. Eventually, I rehabbed well enough to walk to our park and home again every single day.

            Biking and walking, walking and biking through my days. During the last month, I’ve added dancing to my routine. Dancing stresses knees differently, and I waited a long time to add it back into my life. Waking up today, I checked my exercise progress on my Fitness read-out: 273 days under my Longest Move Streak!

            My challenge for this next year (other than remembering to don my watch) will include dancing more to favorite songs and walking longer distances. Days on the bike, I can nudge the resistance up to reach a new goal.

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman    

"Heartbreak and Horror"

            Right now, my throat tightens to fight back tears as today’s events play out. Only it isn’t some kind of game. It isn’t a distant country. It isn’t someone else’s home or problem.

            This reality is our problem caused by angry, gutless people who cultishly defended a sociopath. He twisted and manipulated with ease all of the weakest points within our society. He and his enablers stoked the discontent of racists and misogynists and fanned their smoldering embers of distrust into flames of “righteous” outrage. He had no substance. He relied on smoke and mirrors—magic tricks that never hold up in the light of day.

            In horror, I watch the evacuation of members of the House and Senate. I listen, dumbstruck, as reports come through that key people responsible for the function of our government have been swept away to safety. A woman, trying to break into one of the chambers holding congressmen, was shot. I celebrate her death. Consequences are a bitch.

            There’s no control over the Capitol right now because we have no leadership. We have a want-to-be dictator. The full measures of our legal system need to come after Trump, all of his enablers, the followers. White House officials huddle in their offices and wait for Trump to give a longer, stronger statement than a few inept tweets. 

            Biden, the President Elect, supplies a need our resident narcissist cannot fulfill. Biden renounces the insurrection and rejects the selfish interests of the anarchy and chaos spawned by Trump’s insistence that our election was fraud-filled. His call for Trump to step up will set a tone for Trump to stop the siege. “The words of a President matter.”

            However, we all know that Trump is incapable of doing what is best for anyone but himself. Instead of showing leadership, he posts a short Twitter video that continues his lies about a “landslide election” that was “stolen” and although the election was taken away from him, his followers, and the country, they should “go home in peace.” He doesn’t denounce the mob rule that spews throughout D.C. screaming, “This is Civil War!” An unstable despot-wannabe grabs hold of conspiracy theories, making them true and real while undermining evidence and data by shouting louder than anyone else, “Fake!”

           

            The optimist in me stays glued to our reconvened Congress’s speeches, and the heartbreak weighs heavily on me. Some determined words bring me hope. I listen for those who will change the horror of today into honor for tomorrow.

Frozen in place?

Copyright 2021 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

"Squishmallows Madness"

 

            Whimsy dances into my life from unexpected things. Several years ago, we purchased three bat pillows for my husband’s ever evolving collection. Extra soft and cushy, they sat along the back of our family room sofa for easy access. Within a few years, Squishmallows reigned in every store we entered. My son, the ultimate toy collector, picked up different ones that struck his fancy or tickled a childhood memory. This year, a large Squishmallows fox “fell” into my shopping cart when I wasn’t looking. By Christmas, I relocated him to my bed, where his comforting softness provides an armrest when I read in bed. Obviously, my fox doesn’t fit within decorating rules and guidelines, yet he will remain front and center upon my bed!

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman