08 11 10; 6:44 p.m. Sabrina S. as Thelma
Thelma Barnes: Scottie? Is that you?
Scott: Hello Thelma.
Thelma Barnes: Hi Scottie, it's a beautiful day today isn't it?
Scott: You're right. It's not bad. But even this setting can't overshadow the grueling day I've had.
Thelma Barnes: What's wrong? Is it Emilia?
Scott: Ah, that was perceptive. So you remember our little chat about 'Emilia the Untamed.'
Thelma Barnes: Yes, of course I do. How could I forget?
Scott: How can any of us forget. It's as perpetual as the Pyramids.
Thelma Barnes: Yes, somethings are always here...
kind of like the clouds that we see in the skies.
Scott: Some bring shade...other rain...others still, lighting.
Thelma Barnes: That's true, but we have to remember storms pass...
Then comes sunshine, like today. A beautiful day at the park.
Scott: You're right, of course. Hey...how have you been?
Thelma Barnes: As usual...I feel somethings missing...Something just doesn't feel right.
Thank you for caring..
Scott: Of course. Something's...missing?
Thelma Barnes: Yes, I keep having this feeling or something. Kind of like a dream...
Scott: Care to share?
Thelma Barnes: Well, I feel somethings dreadfully wrong...I can't put my finger on it.
Scott: I see. Might I inquire further or would you prefer I not go there?
Thelma Barnes: Well, I would converse but I can't understand it myself...
What does it, um, "look like"?
Thelma Barnes: It's like a dream. I feel like time continues to drag on and nothing changes anymore.
Scott: Oh! That is the story of all of our lives! Except for a handful of people I know who bail out of planes, brave mountain climbing or fast racecars, most of us, by comparison, feel our lives are somewhat listless.
Oh wait...
Um, planes and racecars. I'm not sure if.... well....
Thelma Barnes: what is a race car?
A plane?
Scott: My thinking. Okay, well, um...
Have you heard of 'horseless carriages'?
Thelma Barnes: Scottie? I get this weird feeling...around Sunday and Saturday. I'm terribly frightened.
Scott: Really?
Thelma Barnes: I've only heard of such things.
Yes...It's a loud noise. People gather and I don't understand why they are here.
Some of people leave flowers on the ground and look very sad.
Scott: Picture a very fast horseless carriage -- a lot of them side by side. But let me get back to that in a minute. Let's look at this loud noise and the reason you appeared so scared.
Flowers? You mean here in the park?
Thelma Barnes: Yes, here in the park...
The loud noise happens on Mondays.
It scares me...
Some man pushes this...triangular object...and it doesn't look like a plow, but it's so loud...
Scott: I'm not certain about the noise. I've never been here on a Monday, although you have me intrigued and I'll make a point of being here on a Monday. But where the flowers are concerned, perhaps people want to give back to Mother Nature?
Scott: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Wait! Yes, I know what you're talking about now. Fear not, Thelma.
That is what we call a lawn mower. Cuts a lot of grass at once and in a short amount of time.
Thelma Barnes: Perhaps....That's very sweet if so, but why would you kill a beautiful flower just to give it back?
Scott: Hmm, well, let me ponder that...
Thelma Barnes: Really? well, why would you want to do such a thing?
Scott: Okay, I have pondered it. Here's my thinking.....
Thelma Barnes: Why would you want to cut grass...? Do you harvest it?
Scott: No, and certainly not feed it to cows. However, consider. If we didn't cut it, how would we find each other every week? We'd be lost, I suspect, in a very dense meadow.
Thelma Barnes: Meadows are beautiful. I recall walking through them with my mother....
Scott: How is your mother, by the way? Has she asked about me again?
Thelma Barnes: My mother is fine. She doesn't understand our relationship. She doesn't believe me....
Thelma Barnes: She asks how I could talk of such things...
Scott: Wow, do I know how you feel! My friends and colleagues think I'm a bit nuts.
Thelma Barnes: She says it's not godly.
Nuts? What do you mean? Do you eat them?
Scott: Nuts as in, um, crazy.
Thelma Barnes: or do they eat you?
Scott: Crazy like a squirrel gathering nuts I suppose.
Thelma Barnes: Ohhh, well I guess I can understand that...?
Scott: And no, so far, no nuts have eaten...me! Though that sounds like it might make for an interesting sci-fi!
Thelma Barnes: What's a sci-fi Scottie?
Thelma Barnes: Sounds scary. Is it like a lawn mower?
Scott: Oh, yeah, well, did you ever see Trip to the Moon, by the French cinematographer?
There was a motion picture called 'Lawnmover Man, come to think of it. That was sort of a sci-fi.
Thelma Barnes: The cinema was too expensive, mom promised to take me but she never did...
Scott: Anyway, I think they called it Trip to the Moon. Premiered in or about...1902 maybe?
Thelma Barnes: Scottie, you do realize that your the only one I talk to right? Am I what you call "nuts?"
Thelma Barnes: I heard about it...
Scott: A sci-fi is short for Science Fiction. Like a Jules Verne story, only in this case, for the big screen, er, for motion picture theatres. You know, Bijous and such.
I'm the only one you talk to? Really?
I'm flattered, I guess.
Although, come to think of it, I can't really recall talking to anyone else the last three visits here.
Thelma Barnes: Yes, you are. You are very special to me. I've been waiting a long time for someone to notice me...
Scott: Thelma, please forgive me, but how could they overlook you? You're very pretty.
Thelma Barnes: Oh, gosh, people walk right past. I am very flattered to hear this.
Scott: Well if they walk right past you, that can only mean they have not stopped to smell the flowers, like the very ones they leave behind.
You are a flower, especially to me.
But perhaps I shouldn't have said that. You appear to be...blushing?
Thelma Barnes: Aw, well....they just leave them and are silent and then they leave. I'm very flattered to be compared to a flower...thank you.
I am, my mother and I used to cut some flowers and have tea outside on the porch.
How is little Matty doing? Do you give him tea and sweets?
Scott: Sweets, I feel, he has had too many. I'm looking at $10,000 in braces for all four kids, well, maybe not Emelia. She has decent teeth and a nice smile. But the other three? Did you know that they consume enough high fructose corn syrup to fill a swimming pool every week? Scares me, frankly.
Thelma Barnes: Braces? What are those?
Scott: You know about Christmas tree tinsel?
Thelma Barnes: Corn syrup? what's that??
Scott: Think of it as tinsel for the teeth.' The dentists puts them on to help straighten your teeth....Corn syrup. Wow. Um, I dropped out of Chemistry in high school, but it's like what you get when you put corn in a blender.
Thelma Barnes: Emilia must be as pretty as a rose. But, what's a swimming pool?
Is a swimming pool the ocean?
Scott: A swimming pool? Do you not have a public plunge like they have in Paris?
Thelma Barnes: Like cream corn?
Scott: Yes, a bit like that, only sweet and clear.
Thelma Barnes: I've never been to Paris...
Scott: Ah, okay, well, it's this gooey stuff they put in everything you eat it seems these days.
Thelma Barnes: Well, it sounds delicious!
Scott: Yeah, except for it's causing kids to get fat by 12.
And get Diabetes by 16.
Thelma Barnes: I only read of Paris, I've heard it takes a long time to get there. What's Diabetes?
Thelma Barnes: I don't know anyone who is fat, except the pigs of course.
Scott: Actually, from New York JFK, it takes only about five hours to get to Paris.
Thelma Barnes: We shall eat them in the fall. I feel bad for pigs because they may have feelings like us. They do taste good though.
Scott: Diabetes? It's a disease, sort of like the one that you...oh, nevermind. Um, it's a disease.
Thelma Barnes: How is that? Only five hours?
Scott: By plane.
Oh, right, um....
An airship that moves like a fast horseless carriage with wings.
Thelma Barnes: You never told me what a plane was Scottie!
Scott: What year is it again?
Thelma Barnes: Wow! A bird?
Scott: Yes, a very big bird.
Scott: Not the one on Sesame Street, however.
Thelma Barnes: Does it have feathers too?
Sesame Street? What's sesame street?
Where is it located?
Scott: No feathers, just a fuselage.
Oh, my! Sesame Street. It's a television show.
Thelma Barnes: Oh dear Scottie, so much to learn from you. What's fuselage? Oh, you told me about a television last time we spoke. I remember that one.
Scott: Oh wait. You don't have television, do you? Of course, not. My bad.
Thelma Barnes: Your bad? Why is this bad? Shall we not talk about televisions?
Scott: Right! The 'little one-way window' that presents flat moving pictures?
Thelma Barnes: The magic box !
Scott: Oh certainly not, Thelma! I mean, not 'not,' but rather it's completely ok to talk about televisions.
Scott: Yes! The magic box. Only...
the magic these days costs money, lots of it, and monthly.
Thelma Barnes: Are you sure? I wouldn't want to make you feel like you are being bad or to make mother mad.
Oh, I'm sorry to hear you have to pay for a box!
That's silly!
Scott: Well, the only other mother who might get bad, is my fiancee. She's had it with the kids sitting on the couch like zombies.
Thelma Barnes: Does everyone have a box?
Thelma Barnes: What's a zombie??
Scott: You know something, Thelma? -- I completely concur! Paying for a box is simply ridiculous. Now if I could only convince the kids.
Thelma Barnes: I thought she was your wife already? How could you live with her without being married??
Well, you shall bring them here next time. Then you can introduce me!
Scott: A zombie? You mean other than Emilia, Noah, Matty, and Chloe in front of a TV, um, a television? Well, think of the walking de--. Um, walking people in a permanent trance.
Yes, that living in sin thing plagues me all the time.
My pastor is not happy about it.
But the economy is bad now. Try to support a rent or a mortgage without another adult. Hard to do. And roomies are the worst.
Thelma Barnes: I shall convince them not to watch the box and you should marry her so the town doesn't talk about you badly.
Scott: Good point. Sadly, most of the town is doing the same thing.
I confess that as guilty as I am, I'm not happy about it. It's sending the wrong message to our kids, well, her kids, my adopted kids.
Thelma Barnes: Well, in permanent trace wouldn't be fun. Rent? Roomies?
Mortgage?
What's that Scottie?
Scott: Whoa, slow down, Thelma! Okay, one by one. Let's see....
Thelma Barnes: Sorry Scottie, it's just so interesting!
Scott: Rent -- What you're mother pays to the owner of your boarding house.
Thelma Barnes: Ohhh.
well, she doesn't talk about those kinds of things.
Please continue!
Scott: Roomies, also known as roommates. These are men and/or women who you are generally not related to who help pay the rent. And at $1,500 and up, you seriously need help.
Thelma Barnes: Wow! You can live off of that kinds of money for years! I bet you go the cinema all the time!
Scott: Mortgage? Let's suppose your mother decided to buy the house you're in. She probably wouldn't have the $400,000 to pay the original owner. She would have to borrow from a bank. Every month, the bank will ask for a mortgage payment.
Thelma Barnes: No wonder you can fly on giant birds!
Scott: Cinema? All the time! I wish! No, it's just that rents are so high in this area and now.
Thelma Barnes: Is a Mortgage like the list at the tradestore?
Scott: Yes! Thelma, you're marvelous! No wonder that we can fly on giant birds! I would like to be on one every time the rent is due...heading to Maui.
The list at the tradestore. Hmm...lemme see.
Thelma Barnes: Where's maui? Why would you head there?
Scott: Well, to be sure I understand, what list at the tradestore?
Thelma Barnes: That's where we get our goods, like...at the dry good or fruit confectionery or general merchandise!
Scott: Maui? It's one of the five Hawaiian Islands. Why would I head there? Because I hear it's among the most beautiful islands in the Pacific. Where I'm at now, it's nothing but chickens, cows, and old farm houses and lots of cars...motorcars...um, horseless carriages.
Thelma Barnes: We put our items on a list and pay for it later. Is that a mortgage?
Speaking of stores...
Scott: Um, that's on credit. Kind of like that.
Thelma Barnes: Did you go to the jeweler with your fiancée?
Did you buy a pretty ring?
Oh, umm, sorry to ask again but what's credit Scottie?
Scott: Oh wow, you are perceptive. Why, yes, we're scheduled to go there this Sunday. It's actually not a jeweler. It's an antiques store. They sell vintage rings among other items.
Thelma Barnes: Vintage?
Scott: Older, like antiques. At least 100 years old.
She's very fond of older things. So am I.
By the way, have you noticed all the orange Poppies?
Thelma Barnes: Wow. You mean the flowers around us now?
Scott: Yes, I believe they are Golden Poppies. If my memory serves -- and I confess, it's been some time since I studied this in high school -- they became the state flower in 1903.
Thelma Barnes: Scottie, when's Emilia's birthday?
Scott: January. Why?
Thelma Barnes: You should buy her a teddy bear!
Scott: Oh?
Scott: Porquoi?
Thelma Barnes: That's what I want for my birthday!
Thelma Barnes: Porquoi?
Scott: Because (it's French, at least the little I remember from high school).
When's your birthday, Thelma?
Thelma Barnes: October.
Scott: Oh, that's like soon!
What size Teddy -- Teddy bear, rather -- would you like?
Thelma Barnes: Yes, Scottie. I hope mother buys a teddy bear. Did you know they are named after Theodore Roosevelt?
Scott: The president?
Thelma Barnes: There are sizes?!
Yes, Scottie.
Scott: Why yes, many sizes. Some are as small as a puppy...others as large as a car, or house, or carriage rather.
They were named for the former president?
Thelma Barnes: Well, it would be nice to have a small one, so I could take it with me everywhere.
Scott: Why a teddy bear, Thelma?
Thelma Barnes: Because then my friends could think that I am special because there are only one million of them around the world.
Scott: Teddy bears or friends?
Thelma Barnes: Both are special, but a teddy bear is a friend as well.
Scott: Oh, forgive me. I was thinking you might have a million friends around the world. That's a lot of Christmas cards!
I mean, to write anyway.
Thelma Barnes: I only know of a few people. This town isn't quite big....That's why your my closest friend. Mom keeps me very close to home.
I enjoy writing. I wouldn't mind that many letters.
Scott: I was going to ask you about that. Forgive my assumption, but she strikes me as a bit, perhaps, overprotective?
Thelma Barnes: Maybe I wouldn't be so lonely. . .
No, she's just like the other mothers and fathers.
Scott: Lonely!? How can you be lonely surrounded by so many -- oh, um, well, as you were saying.....
Thelma Barnes: I understand why she would be overprotective...
Well, I only know a few people...
Surrounded by so many what?
Scott: Nothing. I've already forgotten what I was thinking. Do you miss your father?
Thelma Barnes: Yes, dearly....
I think of you as another father....I hope you don't mind.
You remind me of him.
Scott: Oh, that's okay, Thelma. But it makes me feel a bit old.
Thelma Barnes: Oh dear!
Scott: I do?
Thelma Barnes: You are not old!
Wait...
I don't quite know how old you are...
but you don't look old!
Scott: Ummm, well, let's say just north of 39. Yeah, that's the ticket!
Thelma Barnes: Ticket? For a train?
Thelma Barnes: Where are you going?
Scott: Like that.
I was thinking more like a ticket as in a horse race.
Thelma Barnes: Like what?
Scott: A horse race.
Thelma Barnes: Oh...Scottie, I must say, as interesting as you are. You are very confusing.
Scott: I saw a musical once, Guys and Dolls. There's a song in that show, something about, "I've got a horse right here, his name is Paul Revere..." They were a bunch of street gamblers in Chicago. Always on the take.
(You know, my fiancée often says the same thing.)
Thelma Barnes: Hehe, well, at least I know I'm not "NUTS!"
Scott: THELMA! YOU'RE ADORABLE!
Thelma Barnes: Oh gosh! You make me laugh!!!
Scott: You make me laugh, too.
Thelma Barnes: Thank you...
Scott: Thank YOU.
I suppose that's why I like coming here.
There's not enough laughter in the world.
Thelma Barnes: I do enjoy chatting with you. I just wonder if your children are the same way. Just like you.
No there isn't! Laughter is the most priceless thing in life. Don't you agree?
At least you don't have to pay for it like the magic box!!
Scott: I do agree. Yes, true! Laugher is, at it's core, free. And it's available to you no matter what's the situation or the time. Speaking of time, oh wow! Look at it. I'm afraid I must go.
Will I see you again, soon?
Thelma?
Thelma Barnes: Sure is! Aw, I shall miss you Scottie. I do hope to see you soon. You know where to find me! Please bring the children next time!
Scott: I just might do that. One thing is certain......
Thelma Barnes: That you will be back?
Scott: I will be on the lookout for the perfect Teddy Bear for you.
And yes, I'll be back!
Thelma Barnes: Ohh! I'm so excited!!
Scott: Thelma, I've really enjoyed this. I so look forward to our next tête-à-tête.
(That's French you know)
Thelma Barnes: Teddy bear or not, your company is the best thing I know.
As do I!
Scott: Bye, Thelma. What is it you always say? Ah yes...Blessings.
Thelma Barnes: Blessings Scottie. May God watch you.
Scott: Thank you! And you......................................................
Thelma Barnes: and me what?
Scott: May God watch over you too. Somehow, I'm quite sure He is and all the time.
Thelma Barnes: Thank you. I believe god watches all who want to be watched. Have a safe horse-less carriage ride home!
Scott: You bet, Thelma! We will meet again soon. Count on it (wink).
Thelma Barnes: I will count on it! I will wait for the day you come back. Watching the sunsets...Blessings Scottie.
Scott: Blessings, Thelma.
(7:58 p.m.)
