Paul & Lisa Are Gone

Paul and Lisa are gone.

Son of a bitch.

They are good friends that we made here at Pre-Death Central. I'm comfortable calling it that because my doctor has been comfortable telling me for 10 years or more that I am pre-diabetic. Every fucking year at the annual physical. Pre-diabetic. Still I eat my Snickers Bars and drink my whiskey.

Pre-death because this place is a prelude to the cemetery. No one here gets out alive. Most of the crowd is older than me and Carol. Many in their eighties, some in their nineties. Been a few deaths since we moved in a year and a half ago.

This is why we treasure Paul and Lisa. Lisa is 60, Paul is 65. And they like to party. 

We get together for dinner - sometimes their place, sometimes ours, sometimes we go out. We run into them out walking, they run into us out walking, we sit together at community functions.

We talk, we laugh, we drink.

I need that. I love that. I worship that.

They spend summers in Maine. They headed up on May 1 and the air got sucked out of the room.

We met them late in 2023 when we first moved here. Got along immediately, but they spent a chunk of the winter in Florida, and all of the summer of 2024 in Maine. So we didn't really get to know them. When they came back in the fall, the friendship deepened.

We spent a lot of fall 2024 with them, all of winter 2025, and part of spring. Now they are gone.

There are a lot of very nice people here. Even a woman (who's name I always forget) who drinks Crown Royal and ginger ale. So we are Crown Royal buddies. Nice lady. But these people are not crazy, unless you count dementia.

So I'm feeling empty. Hollowed out like the Tin Man. And I definitely don't have a heart. But I do have excessive gas.

This place is safe, it is quiet, it is pretty. I love it. But that is not enough for me. I gotta have insanity. Irreverence. I gotta break some rules.

We're gonna go visit P&L in Maine sometime this summer. Spend the night. That will be great. Everything is within walking distance for them so they often do a pub-crawl kind of thing. Grab dinner somewhere, walk to a bar, walk to another bar, and the band plays on. Looking forward to it.

Until then, I'll keep my toenails neatly clipped, and volunteer at the local food pantry every other Wednesday.

Gonna be a big summer.