“Find My . . .”

                                                                              

“Where’s my watch?” Panic flooded through me when I noted my naked wrist. I glanced into the clean clothes piled on my bed, lifting and shifting in careless desperation. I backtracked into the bathroom, glancing at the countertop where I place it when bathing. Nothing.

Not too concerned yet, I attacked the mound of sheets in the laundry room, as it would’ve been a possible hiding place. Closing my eyes, I visualized whipping them from the dryer. Finding nothing, I got on my knees to search the floor while listening to the load tossing in the drum. Hearing nothing, I popped open the door, dragged out the nearly dry towels, and searched frantically through them. Nothing. I eyed the washer, hitting the spin on its cycle as I watched, and shot out a silent prayer that it wasn’t in that load. It wasn’t.

By this time, I recruited my husband to help with the search when he asked the obvious question, “Have you checked Find My with your phone?”

Of course, I hadn’t. I grabbed my phone and queried, “Siri, find my watch” with confidence its location would be revealed immediately. Nothing. As I’d never used this app before, I noticed it had a PLAY SOUND option, which I tapped. Still nothing.

Shaken, I convinced myself that I may have lost it outside. I’d watered both yards and rewrapped three hoses. My watch band could have caught on one and slipped off without me noticing. Phone in hand, I retraced my morning routine feeling dread as I found absolutely nothing again.

My anxiety notched up with each silent minute with my phone in hand. With absolute certainty I knew I’d set my watch on pause while at the park doing the weight machines, but maybe it dropped into my KAVU pack when I’d taken out water. Returning inside, I inspected it quickly. Nothing. 

“Could I have lost it on that last stretch of my walk?” I mumbled to myself as I  pulled on sandals and retraced my morning route. 

Eyes scanning the ground before me, I walked all the way to the park. Nothing. Discouraged and defeated, I called my husband to retrieve me there as I could’t muster the energy to climb the final hill near our house. 

Once home, I decided to retrace my movements one more time while my husband insisted on taking my phone with him on another park pass. 

I sat on the bed, reached inside the black bin before me, and lifted out each item.

My watch hid under the final piece I withdrew!

Relief flooded through me, and then a wave of foolishness to realize that the first moment I’d noticed my missing watch was the very place it lay hidden.

But another problem surfaced. Why hadn’t my app revealed my phone immediately as it never left the room? I’d thought that the Find My app had loaded automatically when I’d replaced my watch in December. It hadn’t. At the moment, our attempts to remove the old watch and add the new one have failed although we’ve gone through one step-by-step process after another. I suspect I may have to reset my watch, which I refuse to do as I prefer to leave my watch history alone. I joked that if I misplace it again, I’ll just have to buy a new one!

Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

IOUNIO's "Invisible"! The perfect piece to listen to today!

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"Umbrella Paradiddle"

 

 

walking in the morning rain
steps confidently secure
not a single fret for pain
morning’s aura warm and pure
thunder threads a distant plane
raindrops offer a soft cure
bold grackles dive into drains
tempted by the water’s lure
paradiddles tap refrains
against my shelter’s contour

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

x

“Walking Stick Mandate”

 

            Our cooler mornings translate into the luxury of a later morning walk on the weekends. That also means more people populate our popular city park than at my usual 8:30 AM trek. This Sunday, I stuck to my sidewalk route while my husband, with his faster pace and longer stride, opted to take a broader loop through the park. As I approached the corner of the park, I knew his steps had him about ten feet behind me. I wasn’t worried when two large, brown and white dogs swirled around a black pick-up truck that was stopped up ahead and to my left. At first, I thought the dogs belonged to the truck and had jumped from its bed, but it took me only a few seconds more to realize the man by the tuck was keeping them away from his cab where he’d placed his own dog for safety. Next to me, an SUV halted as the two dogs dashed from pouncing against the pick-up into the path of that car.

            In a heartbeat, the pair turned their attention to me, where I froze next to the SUV in hopes that they wouldn’t go around the car to get to me. That didn’t happen. In a vicious, snarling team, they encircled me with one of them snapping for my right hand, which I pulled away even as it connected with my finger.

            “Call 911!” I screamed. “They are biting me! Call 911!” A quick check let me know there wasn’t broken skin. The man at the pick-up truck waved his hands in the air. I felt my husband running up from behind me while I still yelled for someone to call for help.

            At that point, a little girl ran crying over and over again, “Don’t call 911!” She threw herself onto the ground sobbing the dogs’ names, but they ignored her as they ran circles around the intersection, their orange neon leashes whipping behind them. Some man, perhaps the girl’s father or grandfather, came out and began yelling at the girl and made absolutely no effort to gain control of the dogs.  Then, their tandem hunting brought them back to me where I knew they intended to strike me again.

            I grew as large as I could, threw my arms into the air to look more menacing, pitched my voice into a massively low growl, and commanded, “Go home! Go home! GO HOME!”

            I don’t know if I scared them, but by that time, my husband’s approach made us a two-on-two wall. The dogs disengaged from me, headed again toward the pick-up truck where that man waved his arms to force them into their own yard. As quickly as they appeared, they vanished behind closed doors.

            Trembling, I stood on the corner across the street and a few doors down from the house that the dogs went into. I waited for someone to come out to check on my wellbeing, and when no one did, I took down the house’s address. One corner of my mind, aware that many people shoot first, now in Texas, I stayed on the other side of the street with no intention of stepping on their property. As I noted the address into my phone, a witness came up to tell me that her husband had been bitten by those dogs last week. She begged me to file a report against them, which I did as soon as I walked home.

            I walked yesterday to Live Oak’s Animal Care and Control to follow-up on the incident. The address was in their files because an Australian Shepherd, with “the old soul of a wanderer” gets out occasionally and his owners have been cited for him straying. The attacking dogs were brown and white, short haired, hunting type dogs, with no resemblance to the dogs on record. An investigation started yesterday, and I know that the “control” part of our city ordinances will kick into hyper-drive.

            In the meantime, I’ve received instructions to carry a walking stick, something I never thought I’d need, along with me from now on.   

Heading out for today's walk!

Coipyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

                                                                                                           

             

                 

"A Walk in the Woods"

 

The woman stood in the sunlight, swiping the beads of sweat that smarted her eyes to tears. Her tongue licked her parched lips. Her hands plucked at her t-shirt, pulling it away from her saturated skin. She puffed hot breath down her shirt front, but only succeeded in hastening the roll of perspiration down her cleavage.

           “You could strip down,” her husband teased from the open doorway as he yanked his own soaked t-shirt over his head. Swiftly, he unfastened his Cargo shorts and stepped clear of them as they pooled on the deck.

           The look she shot his way momentarily heated the air another degree or two, and then a smile broke across her face. “You’re right, of course,” she agreed as she hastily kicked her sandals aside. With an ease her husband admired, she freed herself from t-shirt and shorts. For a moment, she hesitated as her eyes held his in challenge. Then she stripped down to bare skin. She pivoted on the deck, raising her arms in supplication to the hot July sun. Closing her eyes, she whispered an incantation calling for the slightest breeze to tease across her heated skin and dry the moisture that slicked her figure.

           “I think I’ll take a walk in the woods,” she held out her hand to her husband. “Are you coming?”

        He took her hand and swiftly guided her into the cool canopy created by the trees. Once out of direct sunlight, he felt a subtle shift in temperature as shade and shadow played across his skin. A breeze as gentle as a sigh whispered to him, and he grinned crookedly at the cross expression that still played over his wife’s countenance. Bird song encircled them as they moved further down the path, and eventually he sensed the easing of her tension. His muscles relaxed, and he shortened his stride to match her more leisurely pace.

           In silence, they walked hand-in-hand. Carefully, they picked their way over the trail and eased out of the hard work they’d done all day. So many days, they rushed through obligations and responsibilities. Today, at this single moment, they set aside their toils and troubles, stripped away their stress, and took a simple walk in the woods.

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“One Step Forward. Two . . .”

 

            Many months have passed since my last musings. I often think, “I need to write about this” or “Maybe I should record THAT”. Yet nothing propels me to my keyboard. The more time passes, the more often I self-censor ideas. “This really isn’t my story” pushes me into stepping away from the commentary swirling around in my brain.

            Before Christmas, we traveled to my sister’s home for an extremely small family gift exchange. My husband and I joined my sister, brother-in-law, and brother for one brief afternoon. As all of us felt well, no one did any COVID-19 testing. Within the first hour of our visit, my brother asked if there were any allergens in the air. His eyes started burning, and he asked for a hot cub of tea to ease his throat that suddenly had a tickle. His symptoms, absent when he joined our gathering, manifested quickly but looked like his typical allergy reaction to something in the air. We spent less than five hours together, with an open window close by, but that’s all it took for me to pick up the virus and eventually pass it on to my own small household. Fortunately, all of us are vaccinated and boosted. After a few days of misery, we all recovered well enough to return to our usual daily routines.

            For me, that meant increasing my walking goals. In June of 2020, I slipped while mopping the floor and slightly twisted my left knee. I gave it little thought as I continued with my daily walks through our neighborhood, until one morning when I took one step too many, heard a pop, and stepped into excruciating pain. RICE for seventy-two hours, plus another seventy-two using heat saved my knee. When my doctor’s PA examined it around day ten, she pronounced it on the road to recovery and gave me exercises to utilize to regain strength and motion. She said my knee definitely had arthritis in it, told me to “be careful” in my rehab and remember that it could happen again.

            Recovery crawled at a slow and steady pace. At first, I couldn’t even walk my entire back yard to water it without giving my knee a break. By the fall, I could walk to the corner of our street and back. I changed doctors and the goal of walking thirty minutes a day became my new focus. January of 2022 found my pace so slow that I’d drive to our park, hit the smooth sidewalks there for an entire hour. By June, I could walk to the park from our house. My pace picked up, too. I began walking different areas of our neighborhood. The hardest route, walking up “Suicide Hill” became my choice for once a week. My knee handled these challenges without a complaint!

            Moving into this January, I fixated on the idea of going up that steep incline for an entire week without shifting to a different direction. On day seven, I felt triumphant! Up the hill in record time, around the block to hit the hill by the elementary school, and then pushing the final stretch to home all in my half-hour goal. Approaching our home, I noticed our neighbor had removed all of the leaves from the front of his house. I dashed inside, grabbed a broom, and cleared the leaves from our front, too, forgetting that the motion that first injured my left knee was the side-to-side sweep of a mop.

            By the afternoon, my entire right leg muscles screamed for a hot soak in the tub followed by a slathering of Bengay Maximum. The next morning my leg didn’t scream, but I decided to spend my thirty minutes spinning on the recumbent bike we purchased just before Christmas. No problems. On Friday morning, with temperatures dipping pretty cold, I decided another round on the bike would keep me at my exercise goal. No problem with my right leg muscles at all.

            We decided to eat lunch out, walk over to the gym to cancel our membership, and run more errands. Heading toward Target, I felt my pace slow down as we entered the store. No pain or discomfort anywhere. I simply couldn’t keep up with my husband and son. Swinging to Hobby Lobby to spend a gift card, my steps slowed even more. Still, nothing hurt. I just shifted into a lower gear as we walked.

            Once home, I headed to our bedroom to put some mail into the drawer and took ONE STEP TOO MANY.

            This time, my right knee popped loudly with pain firing fiercely! Our bed, a couple of steps behind me became unreachable without help. I called out for aid. My husband and son guided me into bed, removed my shoes, and propped up pillows. We began RICE immediately. This time, our quick action means my right knee’s recovering at a faster pace. I’m not going to be heading up “Suicide Hill” anytime soon, but I’m able to move around the house pain free today!  

Shoes waiting for my next walk!

 

 

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

“Morning Musings”

Deer in the morning at the park

            Yesterday’s misty gloom slicked the roads and sidewalks, making me hesitant to venture outside. However, today’s glorious sunshine enticed me from bed by 8 AM.  I couldn’t wait to tie on my Skechers and head for the park. I can now actually walk from my house to the park, do the hiking loop there, and return home without a single nag from my knee. My snail’s pace slowness means joggers on the trail loop me, but every step I take makes me sing, “Victory!”

My son and nephew in 1988

Feeding the ducks in 1988

            With today’s trek, my mind slipped back to all of the times we’ve enjoyed our local park. Passing the mother with her pre-school kids playing on the equipment shot me back to walking my son to the park in his red, wooden wagon. As I looped around the pond, ducks and geese stirred to see if I carried any treats with me. The park now has trails that are paved or graveled in areas that in the past bore feet hardened tracks. When I stood atop the dam today, I saw the past views overlaid with the present.

            Gratitude fills me that we have this lovely place to hike. I love that the playgrounds and baseball and soccer fields get daily use. Disc golf enthusiasts and dog walkers join in with those who fish in the lake. The park’s past, present, and future mingle in my mind as I walked today.

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

Spring wildflowers at the park