The Cowsills in Westerly, Rhode Island ... Bill Yells at Me ... and I Finally Meet Bob Cowsill

Well, THAT didn’t work.  You know, you start out on a venture, thinking you’re going to have this nice, peaceful trip to a sleepy seaside town, and assume you’ll meet (finally!) your childhood crush, discover he’s as normal as everyone else in the world, say, “Gee, what a nice guy”, and come back home, pleased but glad to be home and getting on with your life.

As I said, well THAT didn’t work.

Instead, I came back to the hotel that night – still in something of a state of shock – and wrote down my first memory of the evening: 

“Oh, (bleep).  He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life.”

Okay, I was probably still a little dazzled maybe, but ... well, let me start over.

Once again, the concert was perfect.  Note perfect, pitch perfect, banter perfect, joke perfect, song list perfect ... those Cowsills have their act down to a science of perfection, really.  They’re that good.

But there was no official Meet & Greet after the show, so I’m now devastated for a second time.  To actually speak to Bob, I would now need to jump right in front of him or something ... and there was no way in hell I was going to do that.  Fortunately for me, other people had more courage than I did.  Stopped him to meet him, take a picture with him, chat with him.  I still am too terrified to try the same thing, so start walking away.  I’m halfway out of the tent when I hear Bill Cowsill’s voice.

No, it wasn’t Bill Cowsill himself – trust me, I’m not THAT psychically adept – but what I heard was someone who sounded just like Bill Cowsill saying in a loud, “I will brook no argument from the likes of YOU”  voice:  “Get back there!”

I’m sure whoever it was had no idea of the impact the sound of their voice and that particular command had on a complete stranger, but at the time, I jumped right out of my skin, turned around and went back to meet Bob.  Thinking back on it, dollars to doughnuts it was a Cowsill relation – so many of them were there – who no doubt would have sounded just like Bill.  But I wouldn’t question whether or not it was Bill Cowsill until later. 

At the time, I just went, “Okay,” and turned around.  Went back to meet Bob, so I wouldn’t have to explain myself to Bill in the afterlife.  (“You know I THOUGHT it sounded like you, but then I thought ...”)  And waited patiently, looking down at my feet until the huge guy in front of me moved away.  And there was Bob Cowsill, looking at me, waiting for me to say something.

And you know, I probably would have been fine if I hadn’t made the fatal mistake of looking at his face.  That was my first reaction, the first one, the one I wrote down:  “Oh, (bleep).  He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life.”

I just froze, I think because I wasn’t expecting it.  That’s when I went ice cold and started shaking.  Oh, it would have been so much easier if he were --  there was one video where he described himself as “old and worn”, and I thought he was wrong then, but I didn’t realize just how wrong he actually was.  It would have been so much easier if he’d looked “old and worn”, but he didn’t.  He just looked beautiful.  A strange thing to say about a man’s face, but that was my first reaction.  Maybe I should say “handsome”, but my first thought, unvarnished and unedited, was just that:  “beautiful.”  He looked better at that moment than all his teenage pin-up photos from my pre-teen years.  I inhaled in surprise and went a little dizzy.

Picture it:  I'm a corporate trainer, can teach classes with 20-30 people in them all day long without even blinking.  In fact, I enjoy it!   Public speaking?  I'm fine.  People who know me would describe me as confident and outgoing.  But none of them would have recognized me, meeting Bob Cowsill for the first time and looking right into his face.

I immediately regressed to the age of 12 and started shaking like a leaf, to the point where he was now probably afraid I was going to drop at his feet like a stone.  I did manage to give him the letter, but my voice was shaking so badly, he had to lean forward to hear me.  He did take it and said he was glad I had finally delivered it.  Then he reached for my hand and discovered it was ice cold and trembling.  He looked at me, and here’s where he was probably thinking, “Uh-oh.  She is about to drop like a ...” and wondering if he remembered any of his EMT training, because he might have to use it.

Although, on a side-note, I’m not sure that would have worked all that well – imagine coming out of a dead faint and discovering Bob Cowsill giving you mouth-to-mouth.  Would have no doubt undermined all of his heroic efforts, having me take one look up at him and passing out again ...

But, fortunately, I somehow managed to remain conscious, and no doubt impressed him to no end with my witty repartee:

Bob:  Are you okay?
Me:  No.  Yes.  No.  Yes.  I'm sorry!
Bob:  (reassuringly, in a gentle voice)  You'll be alright.
Me:  (as though I've just been hypnotized)  Yes, I'll be alright.

Then he hugged me.

Me:  (5 minutes later)  Oh, GOD!  He probably thinks I'm an idiot!
Bystander:  (who photographed the show and witnessed the whole thing):  "Yup!  I sure would have, if I were him."

(The authorities will someday find Mr. Bystander's remains in the sand dune where I buried him.)

Finally.  After 45 years, I finally met Bob Cowsill.  Even if he does think I’m an idiot.  I’m okay with that.  And he is the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life.  Still.

Before I left for Rhode Island, I heard from a friend of mine.  We were discussing plans for me to pick her up at the Kingston, Rhode Island Amtrak station and take her to Newport for a memorial service.  At the time of this memorial service, I will have been at a concert in Westerly, Rhode Island – which is why I was picking her up in Rhode Island.  I get up the next morning and find a message from this friend.

She was trying to book the train, but then she read in the Amtrak booking page that trains in the northeast corridor might experience delays due to track work in Virginia.  She panicked, wanting to know what the plan was when she went through Virginia and got held up by track work.  Keep in mind that she is traveling from Boston to Kingston, Rhode Island, a trip of maybe an hour in length.  So she hasn’t purchased the ticket yet because she’s now afraid of what will happen when she goes through Virginia.  Not the train alone.  Her IN the train.

I just stared at her message and went, “Wha ...?”  Read the message again, just to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong.  Nope.  Hadn’t read it wrong.  Sat in front of my computer with my mouth hanging open in shock.

She’s afraid she is traveling through Virginia – going from Boston to Rhode Island.  Virginia.  O ... M ... G.  Just for the record:  she went to elementary and high school in Quincy, Massachusetts, and has no idea what or where the State of Virginia is.  They must be so proud.  As I said, I was just stunned.  Spent a good ten minutes trying to compose a reply that didn’t start with, “What are you, an IDIOT??”  Way to go, Quincy, Massachusetts School Systems.

AFO Leg Braces, EZ Pass, Blowing up Balls, Jeans! and Summerfest Looms

FUN WITH LEG BRACES
While maintaining balance isn’t quite on the horizon yet, walking without tripping, falling, shuffling and general exhaustion is on the far horizon ... I finally have an appointment with an orthotics place for an  AFO brace.  I’d never heard of those before.  Apparently, their sole purpose in life is to hold my left foot up as I can’t seem to manage that on my own, and make the whole “struggling to learn to walk again” a bit easier.  The neurosurgeon is the one who is supposed to figure out why I can’t feel my lower legs anymore and struggle so hard for balance when I try to stand unsupported.  Once I get the brace cast to my left leg, it should take 2-3 weeks to receive it.

And naturally, I’m looking at yet another road trip on May 9th that may knock me for a loop if the brace doesn’t arrive before then.

FUN WITH NEW HAMPSHIRE EZ PASS.  (NOT):  I have never used EZ Pass.  Simple reason:  never needed it; used the commuter rail.  Now, looking forward to May 9th, I realized I needed one.  Simple enough, right?  Dead wrong!

No matter what variation of my address I put in the online application, it came back as a non-recognizable address.  I tried every variation I could think of, and it continued to reject it.  Tried the mailing address.  Tried the house address.  Tried “Rd” instead of “Road”.  Tried omitting “Road” altogether.  New Hampshire EZ Pass didn’t recognize any of them – and I think I should know what my own address is; I get mail at that address every day!  It’s not as though I was mis-typing the bloody thing!  By the end of this hour-long exercise in blood pressure-raising frustration, I was ready to throw heavy objects at the computer screen.  Who writes these online applications???  Fire them immediately!

As it was, when they open in the morning, they are going to get railed up one side and down the other.  Idiots.    Flagrantly ill-bred, illiterate, malformed idiots.  Nothing like wasting hours of people’s time, is there?  I could have waited in line at 2,000 “CASH ONLY” toll booths in all the time they wasted singlehandedly on their idiotic website.

FUN WITH BLOWING UP BALLS:  So I had two exercises I was supposed to also do at home ... exercises with leg weights (5 lb. each) and the balance exercise ball (56 cm diameter).  The ball exercises were actually beneficial during physical therapy ... for one, they loosened and elongated the spine area, and two, they helped me learn how to balance my lower legs on top of the ball, which required a certain amount of abdominal control.  Went to a local department store sporting goods area and bought them both.  What I hadn’t realized is that I would need to use a hand pump to blow up this rather large ball.  (I’ve never blown up balls before – what did I know?  I must have thought it self-inflated or something.)  Started around noon ... and was still pumping air into that thing when I went to bed that night ...!  Woke up the next morning and went, “Ow!” – apparently, my elbow joint was a little cranky from the workout. I fully expect to do major damage to myself with this ball, so stay tuned for future emergency room visit details ...

FUN WITH JEANS:  So once I started getting the blood sugar under control ... I was going from normal to hypoglycemic in mere seconds; it was frightening ... I stopped needing to use as much insulin as I was taking ... and the weight started dropping off of me.  Part of me was thrilled with that ... the other part was looking at the doctor’s weight loss records in some concern and suspecting that the weight was coming off faster than it should have, because at some point, it is definitely NOT a healthy development.  Meanwhile, the level of exercising I was doing increased, in an effort to get my legs working again.  Combination of the two:  I started running out of clothes!  I’d really had no idea how fast inches and pounds were dropping – I don’t have a scale at home since I learned that you come to depend way too much on a scale, and even the slightest variation can drive you nuts.  I did know that nothing I had in my clothes closet fit me anymore.  I had been thrilled a month or so earlier when I’d unpacked my skinnier clothes from the storage shed and they fit perfectly again, but even they were looking baggy now.

Fortunately, the weight loss slowed down to more reasonable levels, and I now had to find some clothes that fit.  I had thought at one point of sewing my own clothes, and even that wasn’t working.  I started a test sundress in the size I thought I would need ("test dress" meaning a dress made of muslin, so I wouldn’t waste good fabric on it if it didn’t work out) – and when it came time to try on the thing before finishing it, it was too big!  Stared at it.  Said, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”  Am now going to have to take it in, before I can even think of making it for real.  Was thoroughly annoyed at the time spent with nothing to show for it, and went about measuring myself again, mumbling under my breath.

Unfortunately, the loss in inches was not consistent ... as always, I tend to lose inches from the extremities first and the core last.  And that meant:  I was two different sizes, depending on which part of me I was buying clothes for.  Jeans that fit perfectly in the legs and hips didn’t close at the waist; jeans that closed at the waist were too loose and baggy in the legs and hips.  Drove me nuts, trying to find anything that fit.  Was all over the place trying to find some decent jeans.  And finally found them – at Walmart of all places.  Was shuffling back to the register on my rollater with my exercise ball and ankle weights and passed right by the jeans area.  Stopped.  Said, “Hmmm.”

Came home with a pair of Levi Strauss Signature “Modern Skinny” jeans – and discovered they fit!!  No way I was trying to fit into a dressing room with the rollater – had to wing it.  Finally – a pair of jeans that fit.  Don’t know how long that will last ... like I said, I’m still losing weight and inches ... but for now, you’d be amazed how happy a good pair of jeans can make a person feel, after they’ve been shuffling around in loose, baggy and unflattering ones for so long.

As I said, being taken on a road trip on the 9th to Summerfest, which is on the beach ... I truly needed a good pair of jeans for that.  Ahhh, life’s simpler pleasures.

NOTE:  No, the photo is most decidedly NOT me ... you couldn’t put me in heels like that and expect me to last longer than two-tenths of a second with my balance issues, trust me  (can we say ‘Wobble, wobble, wobble, CRASH!’, boys and girls?)  Those are the jeans, though.  Now ... if I could only find them in a boot cut, I’d be in ecstasy:  reason, I’m worried that the lower leg brace won’t fit under those.  Argh!  Wouldn't that just be my luck?