stacking up to be an interesting autumn

One of my sisters and I were discussing the weather during a telephone chat today. She lives near Wisconsin's Cave of the Mounds, a national landmark and a fascinating (tourable!) geological wonder. The house is on a high hill with a miles-wide view south and west; behind the house -hell, surrounding the house like a stronghold- are old oak trees. They're surrounded by woods deep and full with them.

She said that the trees there have been mighty stressed this summer, that the leaves have already begun their abracadabra-presto-chango seasonal color change. But the trees seem to be grunting and groaning as their leaves fade into pale greens and sickly yellows, as if to say "Please, just leave us with the small amount of chlorophyll we have left. We're hot. We're tired. We're thirsty. We need our dormancy, dammit. We need rest. Leave. Us. Alone.". We both agreed that the first week of September is unusually early for trees to be changing colors and/or losing their leaves. It's indicative that the summer's drought was very hard on the natural world and I can't help but wonder if that can't be an ominous sign of the upcoming autumn and winter months which I already find to be difficult even in their most boring most regular guises.

Not only have they been seeing leaves changing colors already, but she reports that the acorns are falling by the bajillions. Never having lived in such a rural location I've never had reason to consider it, but my sister reports that an oak forest dropping its collective acorn load on a house roof sounds not unlike an automatic weapon loaded with approximately 10 minutes worth of bb pellet rounds. Every ten minutes.

MORE FUN WITH ACORNS
She asked me to picture a cartoon creature throwing an open package of ball bearings across a floor, just before another character enters the room. Arms flailing, legs scrambling so fast that the eye cannot see them moving, the dastardly do-badder snickering from behind a wall as he hears "whooaaa whooaaaa whoooaaa whoooaaa!" emitted in high-pitched squeals from the slippery floored room... this apparently describes EXACTLY how her family looks when they try to go outside. The only way they can clear the bajillions of acorns off their long driveway (and the porches and the steps, and the...) is to use an electric leaf blower which really doesn't get rid of them as much as it gets them rolling like a big clickety tumbleweed until they hit the ditch at the end of the driveway. And the flat surfaces stay clear for about 4 hours, max. Then it's time to start the whole process over again.

Once she starts talking about how two adults, one child and a dog all turn into cartoon characters when they are forced to walk on said acorns I can't help myself -- guffaws and chortling, blowing coffee up n'out my nose in fact. I say to her, "Gosh I wish you could be at my bedside every morning to wake me up this way. I can't remember having laughed so hard so early in the day. I love how much and how easily you can amuse me".

She said "Amuse? Or abuse. Because the difference is slight but probably fairly important".

I replied, "If you can do the former I probably won't even notice if you try the latter".

We all have to live with a variety of adorable nuts. Some put a wrench in the mobility works while others - like K., simply enhance the experience while we're here. I'm glad I have siblings and I wish our trees a restful season soon.

auction action

It's never a bad time to take a nap. Take these two vintage Santa coin banks, they found a sunny spot and curled up for a snoozer at the auction I attended... if it hadn't have been for the heat and the crowd I may have just laid myself down to join them!

Consider how you spend your time and how much of that time you think 'eeh, it's just sleep'. Pretend your days and nights were magically reversed, and all that time you spent going and doing and talking and seeing and meeting and appointmenting and planning and reporting in on got to be turned into sleep time.

What would that be like, do you suppose?

A whole play. Less than two minutes, start to finish. Tah dah.

Bitch: A one-minute play

© by McBeth

(two quick talking dogs, littermates, are in a shelter cage. MAGGIE, the elder, is primping while young BRIDGET paces and wriggles impatiently)

BRIDGET
Hey, let’s go out into the yard. Wanna? Wanna? Wanna?

MAGGIE
Heavens no, I just bathed.

BRIDGET
(pleadingly) Oh come ON. Come throw the ball around with me. I’m bored.

MAGGIE
(holding paws up) My nails, Bridget. I just had them done and I don’t want to get them messy again.

BRIDGET
(rolling head dramatically, audibly sighing) God, you’re such a fussbudget, Maggie. Come on, play with me!

MAGGIE
I can’t. He’s coming to pick me up soon and I have to look good. I want everything to be just perfect today.

BRIDGET
(crossing paws in frustration, snorting) Fine. I really don’t understand what the big deal is, anyway. He’s just a guy.

MAGGIE
Oh Bridget, no– he wonderful. (dreamily) He’s so tall, and he has such gentle hands. And – get this – he actually LIKES to take long walks with me! Oooh, when he calls and I hear his deep warm voice I swear it just turns me to butter.

BRIDGET
(A look of disgust crosses her face) Gross!

MAGGIE
Honey, (putting an arm around Bridget) when you meet the right one you’ll know it. You just, I dunno, feel it. Like, way down deep inside you gets all warm and mushy.

BRIDGET
(defensively) No I won’t. Who needs that?! No way. I like my freedom and there’s NO way I’m EVER gonna get all bent over someone like that. Besides, once you go and get yourself hitched to – What’d you call him? (mockingly) “That man o’mine” – you’ll have to do all the stuff HE wants you to do. (Bridget waves her paw to and fro to emphasize each point) It’ll be HIS schedule. HE’LL decide what and when you eat. HE’LL pick where you’ll go together. HE’LL decide who you see and how often you go out. Puh-leese. No thank you.

MAGGIE
That’s not true. He already told me that we’ll be seeing the gang all the time. Really! He enjoys hanging out at the park. If I thought for a moment that I was entering into a paternalistic relationship why, I’d … I’d … I’d bite his leg off and run away.

(BRIDGET sidles up to her sister, laying her head on MAGGIE’S shoulder)

BRIDGET
What’s wrong with staying here? Don’t you like it here with me, sis? We’re happy, right?

MAGGIE
Sure, sure. I love you. You’re FAMILY. But there comes a time in life when you have to leap out into the world and just, well, lap it up. Yanno?

BRIDGET
(sniffing) Once you’re with him I’ll never get to see you again. That’s what’ll happen.

MAGGIE
Hey now, don’t think that way. You just never know, maybe we’ll end up living near one another. And... and if we do, we’ll see each other all the time! We’ll visit each other and we’ll hang out and do fun stuff together. (struggling with a delicate fastener behind her neck) Here Bridge, can you help me with this? I’m not sure how to fasten this new necklace.

(BRIDGET moves behind MAGGIE, wriggling her hand near the base of MAGGIE’S neck. In the next room a man’s voice calls out, “MAGGIE! I’m here just like I said I’d be. Ready to go?” MAGGIE turns excitedly to face BRIDGET)

MAGGIE
It’s him! Well sis, I have to go. (embracing MAGGIE) Good luck, and if you ever come around the neighborhood - bark!

MAGGIE
(MAGGIE exits, calling behind her) I love you Bridgie! Byeeeee!

(Alone now, BRIDGET forlornly lays her head on her arm)

BRIDGET
Bye. (sighing bitterly) Bitch.

Who are you?

Recently, I played a goomle (that's a combo google + game, keep up with the hip kids or you'll be eating their dust soon, I swear it's so. What do you mean I made that word up? I haven't any idea what you could be talking about. Go away and let me continue).

Yes. As I was saying. I googled my name in its various forms to see who the world thinks I might be. To keep things simple here I've replaced all of the various forms - including my birth name, my 'daily use' name and my nickname with the one term "McBeth".

Who am I?

McBeth is...
- an associate editor for HR News.
- confident it's as easy as selling
or refilling hydrogen canisters at the local Exxon station.
- thought to be already dead.
- a minister at a church in South Carolina
- out of the office
- also the answer to another Air National Guard trivia question
- a hardworking art teacher
- systemic
- currently entering the 2nd year as Associate Director of Bands
- one of Kansas City's most enduring treasures
- characterized as a tragic hero
- published by Southern Music Company
- not an exception.
- realistic about that, too.
- a native
- called to a strange murder scene
- a scenery-chewing hysteric
- working on the map I mentioned
- sleeping.
- not qualified to hear this case.
- at the low end of the market pecking order

Let's have some writingly creative fun, shall we? We shall. What lines can I shift around to create something that resembles the beginnings of poetry?

* ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ *

A scenery-chewing hysteric
published by Southern Music Company
offering personalised astrology reports
for dogs,
for just $30,
... at the low end of the market pecking order

(She is) realistic about that, too.

* ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ *

A native,
characterized as a tragic hero and
one of Kansas City's most enduring treasures,
was working on the map (drawn by)
a hardworking art teacher.
Called to a strange murder scene
(by) an associate editor for HR News:

A minister at a church
in South Carolina,
thought to be already dead?
Sleeping.

* ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ *

confident it's as easy as selling,
or refilling hydrogen canisters
at the local Exxon station??

Also the answer to another
systemic
Air National Guard trivia question?!!

OUT OF THE OFFICE!!
(I'm) not qualified to hear this case.

* ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ * ~~~~~ *

aah. that felt good.

roots and wings

My mother had a plaque she'd hang in each of the homes we lived in. I no longer remember the background graphics (probably some cheezy sunset), but I do remember what it said:

There are two things we can bequeath to our children: one is roots; the other, wings.

When it came time for me to make that weird-ass decision to become a parent sixteen years ago I felt constant guilt for all the things I did provide my child. Am I giving him too much? Should I be letting him learn this particular lesson on his own? I should quit buying those ten cent Matchbox cars at Goodwill; he might get greedy. I'd feel guilty for what I could not provide him. Thought bubbles would percolate to the conscious level constantly: Real families do not live in a one-room studio apartment, nor do they delight in the fact that the one extra non-room (a narrow walk-in closet) will fortuitously double as the baby's room. Good parents do not buy bunkbeds in order to share them with their children. Good parents don't have to fill out piles of paperwork each new school year to prove they're unable to pay for lunches. But I tried hard to remember the timeless words on my mother's plaque and I tried to relax into my parental role.

My curly haired tot is now a good 3/4 of a foot taller than I stand. He's got sideburns, for petessake. He's not finished being my child, nor is he done being A child. Nor am I done parenting him. We still have driving lessons to screech through. We still have PSATs to decipher. He has his basic form and personality; these next few years are just the final brush strokes to the canvas he will be when he leaves my house for his next set of adventures.

The thing is -- in many ways he is who he will be. All these years I have been tending to him like one of my garden perennials: nutritional feedings, consistent watering, weed pulling, and the little seedling starts growing his own set of roots. They weren't something I could forceably attach to him; they just sort of got there on their own each time we met up with an encounter.

The days I let him figure out his own way to school because my two wake-ups and an alarm clock didn't outperform his sleepiness from staying up too late the night before? Scrrrrich! His tiny feeler roots grew millimeters, barely noticeable but there they were.

We've had discussions about trying to have a balanced life and how anything - drugs or alcohol or shopping or a friend or reading or fishing or cars - can so easily tip the balance out of whack. Little roots grew.

And when I embarrassed him beyond belief yesterday at Best Buy for speaking to both a clerk and a manager about my opinions re: what the Geek Squad's repair team did and did not do to his broken Ipod, he didn't really want much to do with me the rest of the afternoon. But on the way home I explained why I felt the way I did, I apologized for having embarrassed him, talked about why I expected integrity from those people, and why "it's fixed, isn't that's whats important?" really was not the point. And his roots grew.

At sixteen he has the majority of the roots he'll need for early adulthood, but he desperately wants his wings, this boy. He wants to work so he can save money to buy nifty cars and gadgets for the cars and tinkertoys for the gadgets for the cars. He takes pride in the fact that his friends all think he's weird because he is the only one among them that actually likes to save money. Now - I'm not sure where his joie de savings came from exactly but - it heartens me to know that he's got a remarkably steady head on his hormonal shoulders.

De-cocooned, he has discovered friendships worth maintaining and, together, they fly hither and yon each day. I'm told the very basics ('we went to the mall/park/garage'); I'm told all he wants me to know.

He wants dry wings. He wants a good clean breeze and a steady lift. And one day - probably sooner than I'd like, like most creatures in the natural world and just like the way it should be, he'll fly away from me.

slung sucklings sleep snugly

Nephew Theo naps in his hotsling

taking a second look

Two days before the skunk incident (as reported in the entry just below this one), I was sitting outside. I was engaging in what is a newly-established habit for me of smoking at least one cigarette per day mindfully. Some other day I might get around to yakking more about the interesting experiences I've had via my participation in a University of Wisconsin Health Clinics research project on the effects of mindfulness and yoga/relaxation on smoking cessation, but for now, I was seated on the cement front porch at KD's place - mindfully inhaling, making note of which part of my tongue felt what, watching what my hands were doing, yadda.

There are at least three neighborhood indoor/outdoor cats in KD's neighborhood: A tuxedo, a tabby and another one that (coincidentally?) looks a lot like my FartieArtie. While I sat there on KD's porch I noticed the Artemis-looking cat curled up beneath a tree, sleeping soundly in that certain way that only a cat can circularly sleep.

Though I didn't realize this at the time, I must've been looking for some serious distraction - I hoped for something to take my mind away from my less-than-great habit, something new & different to turn my attention TO... hey, why not make pals with the sleeping cat?! YEAH! I called out to the little sleeping circular cat "Kiiiii-tttttyyyy! Wake uuuuuuuup little kittyyyyyyy. Want some petting? I'll pet you if you'll come ooooooo-oover hereeee".

Kitty stayed right where she was. 'She must be a good sleeper', I figured. I called to her again a couple of times, both with similar results. Kitty cared very little for me or for my desire to escape the mindfulness exercise. Kitty stayed very certainly put.

Not one particularly interested in ruining the good rest of another slumbering soul, I left her alone with high hopes of returning my mind to a calm open broad calm space of contemplation and relaxation. Then my mind hopped off its stool and meandered off again, taking me far and away down ghoulish pathways where mean people do terrible things to indoor/outdoor neighboorhood cats and the cats just die out on the curbside, right there where people don't even see them because they think the cat is sleeping. Like... how I think the cat is sleeping right now. And the more I tried to convince myself that I should leave her alone and just let the sleeping cat lie, the more image passed through my brain of the possible tragedies that may have befallen the sweet little critter.

I was way past mindful cigarette smoking at this point - this was life or death and I was out to save a vulnerable cat. I called to her a final time and when again she didn't move, I stepped up off the porch to come closer to her in hopes of learning more (but please god not too much. I don't need it graphic if something bad has happened, really I don't) about why the cat wasn't responding to my calls.

As I rounded the tree it became instantly clear why kitty wasn't waking up.
Kitty, as it were, was actually a big knob of tree root at the base of a curbside tree.

I was talking to the rootball on the back side of a tree.
Great. Super!

I suppose the good news tucked inside all my crazy cat seeingness is that a.) no cats HAVE died recently, including Artie, and b.) it is cheap and harmless fun. I didn't get skunked and other than the slight embarrassment of admitting the way my brain occasionally [read: frequently] misfires, it's all good.

Cats, cats, everywhere cats

I’m not sure what it is lately, but I’ve been seeing cats in strange places.  I’ve been seeing them everywhere.

Maybe the fact that we just celebrated the 16th birthday of our oldest cat along with my son’s 16th birthday (yesterday, in fact) is weighing in somewhere deep inside my subconscious, bringing Artie’s kittenhood to the forefront of my active thinking.  More than those early fuzzball years, when J. would toss Cheerios over the edge of the high chair tray to the tiny purring mouth far below, I watch Artemis make calculated decisions to or not to leap up onto the high places that used to be easy jumps for him and ultimately, I consider the approaching end of his life and what effect that will have in our household.

Two nights ago I sat outside on my front porch in the dark.  The sky was surprisingly bright for all the light pollution in my particular neighborhood, in my particular city.  The air was so cool, so crisp a reminder to me that despite the sweaty summer, autumn is fast approaching.  From the far left and behind a bush, a wayward pumpkin vine, numerous perennials and the three clumps of daylilies that have caught their orangey third wind this season, I peripherally noticed a cat poking its nose around some sunflower plants.  She had a coat similar to our middle cat Puppy, who is a dark coated, and somewhat dimwitted but always loveable Tortie.

“Heeeeereeeee kitty.  C’mere kitty”, I stage whispered across the garden.  I was interested in making a connection – to the cat, not to neighbors I might inadvertently wake by cat calls.  Kitty stopped sniffing around, but she didn’t make any movement indicating she wanted to be friends.  I made soft low clucking noises to her.  What appeared to be her head rose up to sniff the air, but she wouldn’t come closer.  

When my six or seven further attempts at “Here kitty kitty” and clucking to the frightened cat over the next ten minutes didn’t produce any signs of confidence, I decided to move me closer to her.  Bridge the gap, so to speak.   I quietly padded across the strip of sidewalk onto the wet grass and neared the daylilies where she was hiding, then immediately retreated.

Sweet little shy kitty who wasn’t responding to my love calls was, in fact, a skunk.  

I must admit to the whoosh of the adrenaline rush as well as the Homeresque ‘D’oh!’, but I was awfully gratefully for having met the one who was kind enough to give me ample time to get myself out of the way before she had to do what comes naturally when feeling threatened.

little fish in a small pond

"A recent checkup showed [President Bush] is arguably the healthiest Chief Executive ever. His secret? Daily exercise and near total disengagement with reality."
-Jon Stewart

Beautiful sister

Butterflies are free (and, if you give them a lil sugah, they're also easy)

Photo Op

In a strange Six Degrees of Separation kind of way, I was introduced to the art director of a popular local weekly paper at the wedding of yet more friends-of-friends several weeks ago. KD suggested to me that I send the photos I shot at the wedding along to her. My internal response was something along the lines of 'no fucking way. She is Someone; I am Not', though my thoughts rarely include curse words so I may have made that one word up while typing this.

At any rate, I thought more about it, said 'mmm, yeah I suppose I could. It'd be good practice for being polite in the face of ridicule and guffaws. Sure, why not?'. So I sat down with the digital images I'd shot, cropped and cleaned them up a bit, then sent them along, attached to an email that said "Thought you might like to see pictures from the wedding. Please feel free to pass them along to any other folks who might like to see them" She responded with a lovely note that said she thought they were great, she thanked me for sending them to her and added that she'd send them on to The Bride (a photographer by trade). I felt instantly shy, but I was proud of myself for having successfully overcome the negative What are you doing?? Are you nuts?
thoughts long enough to follow through on something that I knew on a gut level would be welcomed and, I reassured myself, the photos weren't THAT horrible.


I was visiting a close friend in Washington D.C. last week when I received an email with the subject line 'Isthmus Photo Assignment'. It was a note from the art director, who wrote that she liked how I had no qualms about getting the angle I was looking for at the wedding and that she liked the end results. There would be a group playing at a local joint [which used to be a cigar bar until the very recent city smoking ban ordinance was passed, but that's a whole 'nother bag of butts and is, perhaps, best left for another entry]. Would I be available to take pictures of them to accompany the upcoming music column?

Given that it was nearly 2:00 a.m. I decided against issuing out a whoop of overexcited delight, mostly to spare my hosts from being forced to sleepily celebrate this unexpected good fortune with me. I worked out a response that I hoped would sound confident, easy, relaxed. 'Don't be overeager about this, you'll look completely desperate', I chided myself.

One email exchange later, I had the details I needed and she had my agreement to shoot Machiavellian Machine, a techno-ambient electronic musical duo. I had a day and a half to go through the shots, weed out the best from the truly sucktastic, then get an acceptable product back to her. With slight concern about the short turnaround time and my general sense of organized chaos, I woke unconscionably early on Tuesday to ensure a rush-free zone because those are the times I tend to pull my cart (uphill) while leaving the horse standing in the stable. Later Tuesday morning, like when regular people are awake, I received a response to the double batch of photos I'd sent along: The photos were great - I'd captured real feeling in the shots. She also asked for my address so she could send me a check for my work and thanked me again for taking on the assignment.

I was tempted to do that whole 'they like me! They really like me!' routine. It didn't matter to me if anyone ever asked me to shoot photos for them ever again, I'd been given the opportunity to experience the process once, and that was swell.

Yesterday I received another email from the art director. It bore the subject line 'Isthmus photo assignment'. I thought for a moment that she'd accidentally resent her original email to me, so I quickly scanned the short email message while simultaneously considering how to respond with an OOPS message - something along the lines of either "I'm so sorry to bother you, but I think I may have received this in error", or "Grab yourself a cup of caffeine sistah, you're sending outdated emails".

But it was a new request - for an upcoming assignment later this week.
Holy wow. I was truly surprised!

Now I have a new dilemna ... I keep thinking I really can't keep using the fairly outdated Fuji Finepix S5000 I bought several years ago and have been using on a near-daily basis ever since. Not when the camera of my dreams is out there, just waiting for me. Or the big girl's little sister, also a camera I wouldn't kick out of bed for eating crackers. I'm craving a hi-res camera with more functions and lens adaptability. Me want. Me want. Me want. Me will have to wait a little while longer.

Crabby crab crab

Scheduling ourselves has become a very complicated thing as we launch into these days that grant us the earliest whiffs of autumn.

This evening while ripping through a late dinner, KD and I discussed my upcoming school schedule, a trip she's planning that we had hoped we'd both be able to take, the impending arrival of my manchild back to the state after his vacation to visit Dad's side of the family up nort, ya hey dere ... I wondered to myself 'how did we suddenly become so busy?'.

Though we disagree on very little, we don't always agree on what should be the most important thing, my gal and I. I've been through the burning fires of nighttime feedings, the earliest fledgling days of cries and gurgles and stitches to his mouth which came the one day I wasn't watching closely enough and he whacked his face on my bed frame: all these things that have gone into forging my maternal relationship to my kid. I absolutely do not fault her for not having a constant clinging cobweb of parental guilt hanging over her head like the stormcloud-for-one I seem to stand beneath. Rather, I love her all the more for trying so hard to understand my perspective, and moreso - for loving me despite it.


Now that he's nearly 16, maybe I should focus a little more intently on letting my kid go; maybe I should focus on being nearby. Maybe I should remove all the alcohol in the house in preparation for the day he suddenly develops a taste for something throat burningly room temperature. Maybe I should put him in one of those newfangled playpens (sure, call it a Pack n' Play if you want, but c'mon, we both know it's simply a glorified, wordified playpen), complete with the breathable mesh zippered lid to keep him from climbing out. It's for HIS safety, after all. Yeah yeah yeah, the idea that locking him down is primarily to serve his safety, but my contantly worrying mother mind finds the concept consoling.

Needless to say, my main concerns about the upcoming travel plans initially circled like vultures primarily over the kid. He will be starting his junior year in high school which by definition automatically marks him as no babe in the woods, but I worried: what kind of responsible-appearing mother leaves her kid home so she can have a fun birthday cake eating visit with the out-laws? Would I be able to sit with these people I'm still just in the beginning stages of getting to know as Family when the specter of my child's image floats around me, index finger pointed accusingly?

I was surprised at how long it took me to connect various other scheduling issues into the melee of chattering brain monkeys, but a few days ago it occurred to me that I will also be in school in a matter of weeks. When I thought of this it was 3:00 a.m. and I was lying in the dark, in the Baseball-slash-Guest Room at my friend's home in Arlington, Virginia. I didn't have the copy of my class schedule with me and couldn't do a thing about it so, instead, I turned the Discman volume up just a little higher, rolled over to my other side and hoped I'd remember this issue long enough to check the details when I returned home. A-yup, I've got classes on Thursdays and Fridays, both. Shit. I had forgotten that I'd scheduled that digital photo class for Fridays. Shit.

So tonight, between dinner and my house, my favorite gal (ooh, I think I'll call her MFG now, what a nice ring that has!) and I tried to figure out how all these flagrantly unmatched schedules (hers/mine/his/ours) are going to work out together. I don't go along with her to her family gathering... Check. Neither of us are particularly thrilled about my cancellation, but I do feel grateful and I have a sense of relief for having examined my initial guilty hesitations in some depth. What's more, I won't be double-booking my calendar accidentally - or worse, purposefully - in order to try to make everybody happy. Sometimes things just don't work out the way we hope. It happens and, generally speaking, we live to tell about it.

MFG had a long day today, with some unexpected twists and turns that had her feeling crabby, she said. Once we had waded through school calendars and came to realize that I wouldn't be able to travel with her as she/we'd hoped, she got just the tiniest bit crabbier, poor gal.

But she hung in like a trooper - well, not a military trooper because that image is way too formal and involves weapons - just a loving kind trooper who surprises her girlfriend with roses, just because girlfriend arrived home and was missed. That kind of trooper. We waited to claim the long legged baggage that is my child at the bus depot, and once his bus arrived we zipped home. Shortly thereafter Kid drove off with his friend, and MFG & I were left to do some late-night grocery shopping (while the boy was gone I hadn't powershopped like the provider of a male teenage mouth must do on a semi-regular basis; it had to be done).

One of the items on KD's grocery list was canned crab meat. We hemmed and hawed about which of the three varieties of two available brands would be best ...
'are the expensive cans better meat?'
'that one only has eight ounces in the pack, this one is twelve ounces.'

She picked the largest can (you can buy a pound of canned crab meat at the local grocery. who knew?) and we made our way through the aisles as hastily as possible.

When it came time to check out, the clerk swiped the can across the scanner. The can price rang up as $9.50 (give or take a few cents). I asked my gal, 'wasn't that price marked at $8.99 back on the shelf?'. She'd had a long day, she was crabby (and I'd perpetuated the feeling somewhat); this was late night for her -- as much as I wanted to fight in the name of accurate pricing, I also totally understood how ridiculous this could seem to someone who is not-me. Really, who the fuck cares about a 50 cent difference?

The freckle-faced clerk said he'd take over bagging if the bagger dude would go back to doublecheck the shelf price. KD and I chatted away as the clerk scanned and bagged the rest of her items. Bagger Dude returned, mumbling 'Eight ninety nine'.
DING! I did remember that correctly! I can't remember what I'm doing from day to day but hallelujah, I can remember the shelf price on a can of crab meat.

Clerk was about to go back into the register tape to review the scanned price when I noticed a sign next to the ATM swiper machine and quickly interrupted him. "Say, does that mispriced can count in this 'if you are charged incorrectly for an item and you bring it to our attention, the item is free' deal?" He thought for a few seconds and responded that yes, yes indeed it does. He'd forgotten about that program. After all, he said, it's not like the higher-ups at the store like to remind staff to actually catch errors or encourage customers to do the same.

So the $8.99 can of crab meat came to KD totally free, making my previously crabby girlfriend quite smiley indeed. In noticing and standing up for her mispriced can I certainly couldn't have erased her sense of disappointment at my trip cancellation but I hope I was able to adequately communicate that even during our crabbity crab crab times I'll have her back.

Tunes for wing-walking

As much as traveling completely excites my electrons and my sometimes napping restlessness, I'm not terribly fond of the thirteen million others traveling with me.

Strangers, to be more clear, are strange.

I have a thing about sharing my body space with people I've never laid eyes on until the awkward moment we meet while tossing our bags about, grasping for a book or a pillow while shoving the unnecessaries out of our way.

I'm not sure what the fabulous Universe is trying to teach me about men and fear, but I seem to have a peculiar knack for being seated next to (probably otherwise very sweet) nervous single male fliers. The foot-tapping, nail biting, fidgeting praying eyes shut men who would never admit to the fellas at the club to having kissed that golden crucifix dangling from a gold chain (and no longer hiding under their business shirt) while summarily kissing their own asses goodbye, just in case. But there it is, my dumb luck and the Universe's amusing little sense of wry humor.

I don't mind sharing the space that exists between the hair on his arms and the hair on mine, but there seems to be a slightly discourteous attitude that accompanies nervous fliers which causes them to completely forget courtesy in the midst of their unravelling. You see, if they're going to be sharing any part of my body at all, my unspoken rule is that they're going to have to make eye contact with me at least once before we buckle ourselves in for the adventure. And it would behoove them to make the eye contact right off the bat because I WILL have eye contact before we land, dammit. I will talk, I will ask questions, I will counter-wiggle against his shifting nervousness and silently mouthed praying ('oh god, I really wanted to date that woman from the next floor up. Please just let me live and I promise I'll talk to her. Please lord, do not ignore this plea, please let me live and land safely and I'll fuck her in the name of all the saints, if that will please you and get me from here to there and back safely').

Pray all you want, sweetieboy, but until you look me in the eyeballs and exchange one simple pleasantry with me -just one!- I will make your nervewracking trip something out of a Hitchcock film, I swear I will. Try me. Wanna know exactly how many times I can have to get up to use the airplane bathroom in two hours? Keep not looking at me and you'll certainly find out.

Pretend I'm not there, will you? Fine. I hope that wasn't an engine falling out just now, did you hear that noise? Naw, probably not the engine. Maybe just a thingie that is supposed to be underneath one of the wings. See how that works?

Where was I? Oh, yes. Sharing body space. We don't have to exchange personal details, nor will I expect a greeting card from you to let me know you've remembered my birthday. I won't follow you in your dreams, mocking your terror of the friendly skies ...

That's all. Yes, that's it, the whole shebang. I'll pop in the earbuds to my discman and go merrily on my photographic playtime way. Just please very simply admit I exist.

Pardon me, but I have a banana in my ear

EROTICA! - Wet, salty and delicious You are driven
to excite the reader into a literal froth with
your literary talents! You are a connoisseur of
the carnal side of humanity from Kink to
high-speed BJs in the front seat of a speeding
jag! Sex is GOOD. Penthouse and the Internet
after dark are your inspirations!


What Kind of Novel Should I Write?
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the act of the break

McBeth.

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

-James Earl Jones

... you know you want to.

Lost in the storm

McBeth.

once again, the neighbor children called upon me today to help them rescue the local fauna.

Though the stories all sound slightly different (insert slightly skeptical furrowed brow here), the basic story goes that the nest was found upended underneath a tree, with two other babies already dead. One of the girls said it looked like the mama bird was trying to kill one of these remaining live young, which could have been mama bird trying to *save* the baby by returning it to the nest. The kids apparently tucked these two new hatchlings into a shoe overnight for safekeeping but freaked today when they ran out of bird babysitting ideas. Yanno, like how does one feed something this small with no feathers and no eyes, this thing that cannot even hold its head up on its own. I'd freak too if I was seven years old.

At any rate, we've had some whopper storms - severe storm warnings, tornado warnings, the works - the past few days (followed by killer heat today) and the very nice intake lady at the Humane Society said that they'd been taking in lots of bird babies the past couple of days who had been experiencing the same unfortunate results as did these two wee ones.

Hope

McBeth.

Such a funny intangible thing it is, hope.

Most of us carry some of it around in tiny invisible pockets, buttoned securely to our hearts, always right there in case we need to slip it out to touch it caress it remember it reidentify it.

If you grow crops, it is likely that at least some of your pocketed hopes involve that which you have absolutely no power over - wind and weather. Weeks of unending dryness can rattle your hope like a racking cough. Will these dry days ever end? I hope some rain will fall soon. Dark skies come as a sparkling signal of potential goodness.

I find it a difficult task to remain true to my hope. It is much easier to morph into whatever seems most flexible, most content in the now than to check into my little pocket to remember what it is that I truly hope for.

But every time - EVERY time - I neglect my hopes, they find a mysterious way of creeping into my day to day life. In discontented feelings, in frustration, in my aggressiveness and defensiveness. Every time I deny them, my hopes find a way of demanding acknowledgement.

I'm learning not to say 'no, I don't really have hopes'. Because I really do. They're there. They exist.

Dial A Cliché to the rescue

In those rare occasions during which I am feeling verbally lackluster, unable to put the cartoonish thought bubbles together with real live fiery communicative words, it can become a slightly spirit-lifting (or, perhaps, spirit leveling -depending on how desperately one needs a lifesaving cliche to fit a bill and then how poorly it stands under the scrutiny) test to turn to Dial A Cliché for a tiny palate cleansing taste of inspiration.

Thinking that my cartoon thought bubble neuropathy had something to do with a sprain in my decision-making lobe, I headed directly to the category 'For When You Cannot Make A Decision', wherein lay the golden nugget I'd sought:

If it doesn't come naturally, leave it

OF COURSE! THAT is what I've been missing all this time, leaving things alone! The dirty dishes, the laundry, the vacuuming, the dusting, the dried-up grass cat pukeballs, the kitchen floor crumb-combo-cat hair layer, the stacks of unread mags, the still larger stacks of unopened mail, the clutter, AND my wordlessness -- I should be leaving them alone, untackled, because for heaven's sake none of them feels natural to address.

Only ... um, well that's exactly what I have(n't) been doing for months now. Oh I have with near religious university science department fervor observed them each, collectively, mounting, growing, morphing. But I've done little to nothing about any of them, with the possible exceptions of 'ignore', 'pretend to not see', and quite possibly the additional 'swallow my feelings of revulsion/alarm'.

Obviously, that cliché has gone the way of so many over-hunted, over-eaten delicacies that now line the extinction charts. New cliché; I need a new one.

I'm trying to figure out where my words went; I'm trying to understand why I can't get a solid grip on all the things I can't get a solid grip on. And I'm certain there must be a cliché that will explain the phenonema. Hmm, this category seems to fit: 'When you are trying very hard and not having any success'.
Aaaahh, here it is:

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

How to redefine these glaring omissions of daily personal care and activities?
Well, I might not have opened the mail for going on two months, but nearly ALL the mail previous to that time has seen the sharp side of the letter opener. (hey, this is interesting. Makes me feel tingly.)

Ooh Ooh Ooh - that was good, let's do another! mmm... I may have a contant sludging flow of dirty dishes stagnating near the kitchen sink however I have not resorted to using the antique platter that is stored in the bottom bin of the oven for serving macaroni and cheese, nor have I brought out the Easter egg style Jell-O Jigglers molds to be used in place of the grubby ice cube trays. (wheee! I think I'm liking this! It's so easy!)

Don't stop me now! Three cats' worth of tracked litter, hairballs and barfed-up grassballs is so much better non-managed than, say, six cats' worth. Just think how messy that would be; my floors are positively sparkling in comparison! (I think I need a private moment here - this is a reverential experience I'm having. Do I have a glow? Can you see my Holy Glow?)


I'm positively giddy.
I've turned over a whole new leaf.
I'm a blushing bride.
I'm happy as a schoolgirl.
etc.
etc.
etc.
blahblahblah, yadda yadda.

Nothing like a good cliché to purge the demons. In fact I feel so swell I think I'll just pull over a stack of years-old magazines and put my feet up for a few. Aaahhhhh...