summer vacation

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Finished.  I’m finally finished.  

I was hired to photograph a wedding earlier this summer, a wedding that seems to have taken place what seems like anywhere between four and seventeen years ago.  At the time I accepted the request I hadn’t the first clue what chaos would break out beginning that very day.

It was the call from one of my sisters that started the ball rolling.  Her manfriend who cannot hold his liquor had pushed beyond the pale this time, battering her and ripping his own home apart.  It was time to get out permanently, for real, no going back.  Time stopped for the following three days while we worked out where she and my niece would go to live temporarily, while she drove back to the place where their final argument began to try to recover her purse and cell phone (which she did eventually recover from between branches of a tree).  During those three days I obtained boxes, newsprint paper and packing tape; we figured out during phone calls between five or six numbers when and where to rent a moving truck and how to pay for it, and between the two of us we divvied up the rooms of his house (for which there was a restraining order preventing him from entering) to hastily pack their material lives away in search of a safer refuge.  

My sister made arrangements during those three days with our other family members; if nothing else she wanted to have her five year old looked lovingly after and help her life stay as close to normal as possible.  Enlisting the help of our brother-in-law, we had her life packed into a seventeen foot U-Haul trailer and a Toyota Camry wagon.  The stuff headed for storage in a garage; the loved ones headed for our sister and brother-in-law’s up north, and we moved all her plants and flowers into my garden.  And it was during those three days when I began to understand a little more about myself and just how deeply I love my so beautiful so strong so frail siblings.

Well, yeah, so that was three days – where’d the rest of the summer go?  There were sibs + family living with sibs + family, which inevitably leads to one sort of misunderstanding or another for which a good deal of time is spent listening, hearing, sharing.  There was my own child who was working and socializing who, yet without his drivers license, needed the services of the momtaxi.  And when my child got around to getting serious about getting his license that began a rash of activity that took on its own life (he got it).  There was my partner being her pretty great self, trying to figure out how this weird collection of related people relate (well, and tick), attempting to be patient and trying to get more time alone with me than she probably preferred.  There was my partner’s mother’s 10-day visit, which I ashamedly admit I skirted through as much as possible, but not because my someday mother-out-law is a beast, no!  She’s a lovely woman!  It was because there were ‘personal stuff’ things that had been bothering me but I hadn’t raised the issues with those whom I probably should have.  I think it was because I distance myself in anger out of respect, some kind of warped exercise in self-discipline, and perhaps out of some fear of what I may say or do if I get within biting distance.  At any rate, some of that time was spent frustrated by, or to, others.

Some of the time was spent trying to relax from being tense from worry for my family, worry for my personal relationships, and worry that my kid will never be responsible for himself.  I found the best therapy with J&L – specifically, in their garden.  J. is the gardener while L. is the appreciator of all-things-J.-grows and I hired on as Official Weed Puller.  J&L live out in the country (as in soybean field in the backyard, looking out on a cornfield from the front yard country) and their lot is actually two house lots.  They have gradually filled the empty half with fruit-bearing trees and vines: three or four different raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries (I think that’s what they are), kiwi, cherry, plum, apple.    The front and side yards are filled with perennials and barrels for flowery annuals.  They constructed raised beds (three very very long parallel beds, five triangles arranged in a pie shape and two rectangles for strawberries) in their backyard, into which, with the exception of the strawberry rectangles, go all the garden vegetables and herbs.  There are MANY areas that required weeding.

When the conditions are perfect, when the soil is just moist enough, when the weed is healthy but not too healthy, when the sun is present but not beating me into a gelatinous puddle, when the wind is freeform dancing around me stopping every few seconds to pause and kiss me, when my head is not exploding but just nearly too full of noise and information – when all of those conditions exist and I get a good handhold on a weed beginning with my index finger, coiling my thumb around it softly, the rest of my fingers digesting the tall or leggy bits – and then I give the TUG and the entire mass of webby root system comes grudgingly from the ground with a rrrrripping.  Oh, if that’s not ecstasy!

It was while in the garden with J. this summer when I lit upon the ugly explanation behind why I get such a thrill from weeding.  Really, it’s not pretty so you might want to plug your ears if you don’t want to hear a potentially nasty secret about me.  Fine.  Don’t blame me if you can’t sleep tonight; it’s your nightmare.  

While I have pulled my own hair hard enough to do it, I do not recall ever having pulled another person’s hair hard enough to tear any out by the roots.  From my own experience (on my own head) I know the following:

1. It takes some strength to accomplish.


2. One must hold on tightly.


3. One must mean to rip hair out.  There’s nothing accidental about it.


4. It hurts.


5. There is a ripping noise as the hair shaft is yanked from the scalp.

After considering various options I settled on the one that felt most accurate:  I like weed pulling because of the force, the sound, and that analogous hair-ripping thing.  I get to channel my energetic negativity into weed pulling.  I can essentially rip people’s hair out without harming (ha, quite literally) one hair on anyone’s head and do it in a garden-responsible, socially sanctioned way.  There you go.  Happy now?  Sleep well (with your head well covered under a babushka and two stocking caps.  For good measure).

And when I wasn’t seeking refuge in the Garden of Violence I was attending concerts and weddings, making sorry attempts at decluttering my home, trying to maintain regular correspondence with friends near and far, trying to do the regular things one does in everyday life and doing a ‘hey, can you help us out?’ week-long photo shoot for a friend who was filming a movie in town.   I produced well over 1500 shots from that gig in addition to the ~800 from the wedding.  That’s a lot.  And given that the film was shot during nighttimes only and the backyard wedding was held under a yellowish-white tent (and with two cameras) that meant a lot of digital images in need of work.

In addition to learning this summer that I have a penchant for indirect violence, I reinforced my suspicion that – not counting the times I’m manic – I cannot multitask.  I can’t multitask and I can’t work with frequent interruptions.  Man, I’ve got a lot to update on my resume. Given a four hour window of time after my son is dropped at work I’d take two or three phone calls, do the dishes, feed the cats, growl at the pile of laundry, smoke, work on two or three photos, grab a bite, take another call, take a pee break, work on another photo, put the laundry in the machine … and it was time to pick up the kid from work.  I guess I need more time to focus and concentrate than I previously thought.  I got little done that I really wanted to accomplish, not unlike taking a squirt gun to a house fire then wondering why the flames feel so hot and look so large.

My partner, bless her heart, tried to help me.  In part because her reputation is important to her (she had taken some of the wedding photos and had been part of making the connection for the job) and in part because she just likes to help, she began asking how the photos were coming because the days were beginning to drag on yet I had nothing in absolutely completed form to give the bride and groom.  I read her question as doubt in my ability and responded in a Garden of Violence way.  She wanted to help but there really wasn’t a way she could without some knowledge of PS-CS2.  My snarky suggestion was that she sit and watch if she wanted to help.  Yeah, nice move McBrainiac.  Then one day a magical fire got lit.

I don’t know why, I don’t know from where it came, I don’t have any way of explaining it but finally I put nearly everything but the photo work indefinitely on the back burner.  I told my child that he would have to really work on asking me for rides more than ten minutes in advance of when he wanted one and I explained why.  I told my friends about the fire so when they called to ask me over to play we were much more careful about talking about what kind of time I actually could afford to spend playing (or if I could).  I bowed out of potential activities and cancelled some which had already been scheduled.  I resisted many of my partner’s requests for time together (though I’m not sure if this choice was for the better yet), staying at my home instead of hers so as to have constant PS-CS2 access and digital file time.  I significantly reduced the amount of time spent talking on the telephone with sibs too.  Finally left with only myself, the monitor flicker and a coffee pot I started ripping through the digital images like nobody’s business.  Even after sister and niece came to live with me for a couple of weeks (upon my insistence, after I learned that they’d spent a night at the manfriend’s home) I still miraculously managed to go go go.  The five year old resented me for getting dibbs on the computer but as long as she was also given computer time to play games at Cbeebies, Cartoon Network, PBSkids, and NickJr., it was all good.

Having my sister living with us was a gift.  It was the kind of gift that comes unexpectedly, all wrapped and boxed so you don’t know until you read the fine print that the new toy requires batteries which are available but not until tomorrow because who’s gonna pay $5.42 for a 2-pak of double-As at 11:20 at night?  My niece, perhaps imbuing the tension in everyone else through the surface of her skin, misbehaved for her mother, who was smack dab in the middle of obtaining:

• a job


• permanent housing


• borrowed funds to support herself for just a little while longer


• another U-Haul


• all things required to enroll the child in kindergarten within weeks, like


• official copy of her birth certificate


• appointment for and subsequent doctor visit


• school supplies


• clothing


• after-school child care arrangements


• their possessions back from two different locations


• détente with the child’s immature and selfish father

My sister and I sat outside late at nights, smoking too much and talking smart.  We laughed into breathlessness about things so inappropriate I will not mention them here.  You’re already headed for a rough night with the hair pulling revelation, why push it further by knowing the terrible things two parents fantasize about doing to their own young?  There’s some truth to that old chestnut ‘misery loves company’, there really is.  I mean, if one misery at least has a sense of humor and identifies another misery with a funny bone it’s totally true.  But if one misery is a dried-up apricot and the other is an orange left in the fruit bin too long?  I don’t have much hope for either of them.  We guffawed over the heiress life of my jobless homeless sister who, at one point, was buying the groceries for us because she had more cash than did I.  After my niece got to know my neighbor’s three visiting granddaughters (who called her ‘that girl’ and whom were addressed as ‘the girls’… so much for those formal introductions we made) and had rolled her entire self in a mud puddle so the Mud Monster could be terrorizing the People of the Village, my sister and I pretreated and laundered niece’s dress three times before sis decided it had simply become a “play dress”.  We jeered back at all the rotten dogs yapping at our heels.  

My parents always moved one or several of us kids out of our beds when company came to visit during the years of my childhood.  I did learn respect because of this choice, but I also felt an awful lot like my needs didn’t matter so much as the old people who smelled funny and who I didn’t know who were putting their funny smells and noises all over my stuff.  So as a gesture of understanding and good will to my own child (who undoubtedly doesn’t even know to appreciate it) I give up my bed before I consider asking him to give his up.  For the past few weeks this has meant that my sister and my niece have been sleeping in my bed and I’ve been collapsing in a heap on the couch in the living room each night.  My sister would try to argue me into a swap almost every night but considering all the things I have been unable to give her, if there was one thing I did have to give her it was a soft comfy place to sleep and I wasn’t going to be swayed if it took stapling myself to the couch to ensure that exactly that would happen.

During each of the little battles my sister waged against each item on her ‘to do’ list I noticed that she started seeming more like herself, more like the old feisty sister I knew the years before she’d moved into the Barbie Country Dream House, quit her previous job and had begun relying on the iffy temperament and wallet of her ex.  Yay, she’s coming back! She’s coming back!, I’d think to myself.  She got the cooking job she’d sought – a good one, with benefits and everything.  She found a townhouse apartment within blocks of her daughter’s new school and within a five minute drive of the new job.  Last Friday my son, my brother, my sister, my niece and I U-Hauled their possessions into the new place, sister took niece to her first partial day of kindergarten.  Meanwhile I drove the rental truck back to the lot with a full tank and a wish that none of us have to see the inside of another orange and white cab for a long time.

And the wedding photos are finished.  The bride and groom have been generous and extremely laid-back, not audibly worried about ‘where are my pictures?!’ in the face of my rather rubbery and extended deadline.  I figured the least I could do was to get 4x6 reprints for them of the finals so they have some small additional ‘thank you’ for their patience.  I’m heading out to pick the prints up now and I’m very much looking forward to handing over my work.

And that is what I did on my summer vacation.

risks

“Courageous risks are life-giving, they help you grow, make you brave, and better than you think you are.”

the relationship between blackberries and blueberries

Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

when mom's away...

... the goofy little brother type kids will play dress-up with their stuffed animals' clothes and the family pet.

(this, according to my 12 yr old neighbor kid Kimberly, who is overseeing her two younger brothers while dad is at work and mom is having her tonsils removed)

reading

Those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot. - proverb

.

a note to beth, the other

The unnerving thing about trying a potentially scary thing ...



is that you cannot with any accuracy predict the outcome beforehand.



Sometimes you just have to sorta leap and flap like hell.


I'm very proud of you.

can.

While in a spate of bloghopping today (avoidance, thy name is McBeth) I came across lovely Sara's blog.

One of the entries pointed both toward another blog and to a youtube.com video which, if I do this thing properly, should imbed itself into my own blog (with props to all the aforementioned).


I'm feeling useless worthless less-than overscheduled underrested uninspired not-exactly-loved-in-the-way-I-need-it and mostly like eating worms. Additionally, I'm premenstrual, which means for me that if my emotional pressure could be measured with a cuff like my blood's is, I'd be tachy and unstably heading toward stroking out.

So the following message, while potentially cheesy to those of you who have better things to do than listen to an oddly unsettling contemporary Christian soundtrack background while receiving a potentially profound lesson, hit me with a sucker punch to the diaphragm.

Big tears, lost air, you can imagine the rest on your own. It weren't pretty but it was necessary and it felt positively awful and wonderful. But that was my mess ... go make your own.

If, after watching the 4:14 video you realize that you are the father, or if you wish you could have had that father, or if you are being called upon to be that father, or if you are that son, or if none of that makes any sense but you just having a hard time of this life you're trying to live moment-to-moment it may help you to remember, as it did me: you can.

*if you want to learn more about the Dick and Rick, check here at TeamHoyt.

hard and amazing work

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

- Anna Quindlen

what's not to love?

theo, cloudia and the magnificent molars by McBeth.

I was so lucky this weekend. I got to spend a couple of hours in Iowa with one of my sisters and her growing family. My youngest nephew, Theo, is happily and comfortably making his way in the world so far. Whenever he can, and even when he knows he's pushing his luck to do it, he grabs up his big brother's Barbie (Charlie's renaming is pronounced 'Cloudia') for a nibble.

When I look at Theo I see the very young version of my only brother, who was the youngest of five kids. The eyes, the sweetness ... if Theo turns out anything like Quinn has so far, he's going to be a heartbreaker. And to continue the comparison, Quinn is gentle and kind. He learned that no hearts need be broken, even when he was turning down potential love interests right and left.

When I look at Theo I see my own baby who had pretty blonde ringlets until that first painful (for me) haircut. My baby is dating now. He's busy making plans about what he wants to be and how he plans to do it. I think I've done an adequate job thus far in my own parenting but whew, those years FLEW by. He was a baby and then he wasn't.

I wish there was some adequate way to communicate this to my sister, who is in for her own discoveries raising her boys. I suppose she'll learn it for herself quickly enough.

finally

it's about time! by McBeth.

Michana and David have been together for 19 years. During those years they have raised her son into adulthood together, they have seen serious health crises through together, they have built their lives together.

Mike and David got around to getting married last weekend. Their wedding was the nearest thing to uncreepy and anti-society-says-we-should weddings I've ever had the good fortune to be asked to attend.

Some (probably well-intentioned, but) misguided pal suggested to Mike that she shouldn't wear her wedding band (which they've had for several months) until after the ceremony. Pardon? 'Sez WHO?', sez me. So this expression, to me, was priceless.

"FINALLY."

promise to remember

sharing secrets by McBeth.

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

- A. A. Milne

summertime

relax. it's summertime. by McBeth.

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

- John Lubbock

dove love, pt. III

full bellied by McBeth.

While gardening today at J&L's I discovered a nest that had fallen from a tall tree last night. Nearby there was a dead baby bird. I pointed it out to J. and we both sighed sad sighs for the little one who didn't make it. One more eyeball scan across the grass and I spotted another nestmate - still alive but injured and not looking so great.

With no parents in sight anywhere and feeling some urgency about getting care for this one, I scooped it up and we created a little homemade nest out of paper towels and a tiny wicker basket. I picked up a small canister of baby bird food on the way home (a formula mix similar in consistency to human infants' mix-with-water stuff) and hand-fed it every half hour or so until I could locate a wildlife center (at our county Humane Society) who would know far better than I how to best care for the orphan. Little bird is there now, as is the baby bird food which they can use to feed it and others; no doubt they'll be far neater with the hand-feeding than was I.

I'm starting to see this mourning dove/bird pattern emerging in my daily life. I wonder what that's about.

on purpose

the kiss by McBeth.

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

- Dolly Parton

jealous of the moon

Jealous of the Moon

Trying on a brand new dress
But you haven't worn the old one yet.
You've come too far, to turn around now.
Giving up a good fight.
You're as strong as anyone.
You're back when you started from,
I see you're back where you started from.

Staring down the stars, jealous of the moon
You wish you could fly.
But you're staying where you are,
there's nothing you can do,
if you're too scared to try.

Drag your pretty head around
Swearing you're gonna drown with a beautiful sigh and a river of lies.

Staring down the stars, jealous of the moon
You wish you could fly.
But youre staying where you are
there's nothing you can do
if you're too scared to try.

Why don't you call me, I could save you.
Together we'll find a god we can pray to that will take you by the hand.

I hate to see a friend of mine,
Laughing out loud when she's crying inside,
but you've got your pride.

Staring down the stars, jealous of the moon
You wish you could fly.
But you're staying where you are
There's nothing you could do, if you're too scared to try.

You're staring down the stars,
You stay where you are,
You're jealous of the moon, but there's nothing you could do if you're too scared to try,
If you're too scared to try.


- Nickel Creek, from 'Why Should the Fire Die?'

adapt

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
-H.G. Wells

if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck

Yes, and even if it has four legs and has a mysterious "ook" message encoded on its side, it's still probably a duck.



My niece and sister came to visit overnight this past weekend. At five years of age Audrey is, as a close friend of mine once put it, a force of nature. Maybe she's making up for the lost time she missed in utero having been born three months early back on Thanksgiving Day '00. Maybe there's a genetic wildness - an edginess - which the womenfolk in my family have passed along through generations. Hard to say. She's certainly something.

Whatever the reason, she's testy and cranky and demanding, joyous and silly, exhausting and exhilirating and this year I tell her that she's my very very very favorite five year old niece in the whole world. And in return, she draws me beautiful animal pictures on Post-it notes.

Saturday morning I woke to find Audrey and my son talking to one another in quiet voices in the kitchen, each selecting doughnuts from the box I'd picked up the night before. I wasn't aware either knew to use their quiet voices without adult intervention, and I watched them working together, their comparative big- and little-nesses such a contrast to one another but their cousinness a solid lifelong bonding relationship.

I sat on the stairs watching down on them, thinking about the weird and often hilarious secrets my sibs and I share with my cousins. As far as I know, nobody ever told the grownups the truth about Pat's lip burns. He was a guitar-playing rocker teen who'd done his personal interpretation of one of the guys from the rock band KISS. One thing became clear: the KISS guy was much more experienced in holding lighter fluid in his mouth then blowing it out to 'breathe fire' than was my cousin, who set his fuzzy pubescent moustache aflame. I wondered what stories my son and my nephews and nieces will hold as their common history when they're older.

After breakfasting I set Audrey up with drawing materials, and unobstructed access to both the toy box and Saturday morning cartoons. I told her that it would be so nice of her to let her mama sleep in and I promised that I'd play with her when I returned from providing momtaxi service for my son who had to work that morning.

Aud was ready and waiting for me when I returned. She had a list yea long of activities she really really wanted to do and each had to be done immediately. I reminded her of rule #1 (frankly, it's rule # only since once we can get it going, the rest mostly falls into place): First Things First. What did she want to do FIRST? And then what? And what after that? Once we talked through her eagerness to do everything and had seperated it back into smaller pieces she visibly relaxed back down from the spiral she'd been whirling herself up into.

The first activity she selected was a bath. She raided the plastic storage container drawer in the kitchen, precariously balancing as many bowls, lids and storage containers and she could fit between her belly and her chin. I dribbled some bubble bath into the running tub water, hoping she wouldn't ask me what kind it was because, well, because she's the question-asking kinda kid who does ask such questions and I wasn't sure how I would answer ... "Well sweetheart, this delightful lily scented concoction is called Total Bitch. Now enjoy your soak darling!"

She flipped and flopped, sliding back and forth, pretending she was a shark on the hunt. Sharks are very spashy creatures, I said. I'd never had a shark bathe in my tub before so we agreed that it would be a good idea to lay a few towels along the floor side of the bathtub to prevent water loss, since - as Audrey pointed out - sharks really need all the water they can get. Aud ingested mouthfuls of water, spouting portions of it straight up over her head in a human girlish illustration of what she called 'a whale fountain', giggling fantastically at herself each time gravity yoinked the stream back into her face.

One of the cats meandered into the bathroom. He was visibly torn between his fearful dismay for that girl in the bathtub who makes unanticipated splashy fast moves and his magnetic attraction for the warm water in the bathtub he so loves to drink. Artie's fear was prevailing, so in an effort to keep him in the bathroom Audrey sat down a plastic bowl of bathwater for him to drink from the floor. I appreciate that she at least recognizes that she can be a little too much for the critters; that she tries to accommodate them whenever possible.

One of Audrey's favorite games right now is Let's Pretend. The tubbie version she was attempting to play went something like this:

Okay let's pretend that someone is the parent and someone is the baby. Whoever wants to be the parent raise your hand! (I remain blank, unmoved.)

Whoever wants to be the baby raise your hand! (Still unmoved.)

She becomes concerned that I am not participating in the game and, possibly thinking that I do not understand them, reviews the rules for me. She is mid-sentence in the review when I raised my hand.

Yes?

I become animated and clap my hands eagerly. 'I want to be the marmoset!'.

Beffie, there is no marmoset... (dramatic sigh, clear commentary on what dolts old people can be sometimes) Okay, whoever wants to be the paaaaarent raise your haaaaand!!! (I am watching attentively, silent.)

Okayyy whoeverrrrr wants to be the baaaabyyyyy raiseee your haaaa--
I thrust my hand into the air repeatedly, like what's his name on 'Welcome Back Kotter': Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Mista Kottah, pick me! pick me!

Yes? You want to be the baby? She's using the pretend voice of a teacher.

I want to be the marmoset!

She rolls her eyes and hits the bath water with both hands palm-down. You are not very good at pretending, Beffie. You don't understand. You can pick the baby or the parent. You can't be anything else, only the baby or the mommy. So what's it gonna be?

I do so love to tease her.

My sister woke during the Let's Pretend game. She peeked in to see what we were up to in bath land. I pointed sleepy sis to the fresh coffee in the french press pot downstairs and by the time she returned to join us I was in the process of flummoxing Audrey with my desire to be a pretend marmoset.

Mama was back on active duty Audrey geared up both one silliness notch and three volume degrees, but the remainder of the day's visit, complete with her admonishing warnings like 'Not YOU, Mom. I want my favorite aunt in the whole wide world to do that with me', was a sweet reminder of the power of our connection.

comfort zones

"If we're growing, we're always going to be out of our comfort zone."

- John Maxwell

courage

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."

- Mark Twain

karmic justice

sideswiped by McBeth.

All I can say is this: when we actively make the choice to lie about something - before we open our mouths to let that first slippery word slide out - we'd best be sure we're willing to live with the consequences of the matter for which we are about to create untruths.

i.e., wanting to get your boyfriend to work on time so he won't lose his job = one thing. Making up a story to the police to make it look less potentially haphazard? Hmm.

mourning: dove

fly away home by McBeth.

I’m finding myself unexpectedly sad today.

I was shooting some self-gratification and record-keeping photos of what and where I had planted in the garden earlier this afternoon and accidentally disturbed the mourning dove father who, as I’ve come to understand, is the parent who sits on the nest during the morning/afternoon periods, later spelled by the mother dove who takes the later afternoon/nighttime shift.

The doves made themselves a cozy nest in the flowerbox immediately outside the back door of my home. I hadn’t planted the pink cascading petunias quickly enough into it and the day I had set in my head to get the flowers planted, well, those birds had agreed upon an entirely different use for my planter – and their idea won.

In an overnight operation they first hastily threw together some grass and discarded brushed-out cat hair into a nest-like pile. The day after the nest appeared, the eggs appeared: two tiny white eggs kept warm under mother or father dove for the next two weeks.

Last Thursday I carried my camera with me when I took a brief walk around the block, and when I returned from my mailbox I discovered the freshly-hatched first dove chick, its sibling not yet done with his or her own incubation. On Friday I peeked from a window to check their progress and found chick #2 fully hatched, nestled in next to the slightly larger, slightly more robust older sibling. Hurrah, they both made it!

Over the weekend I found a couple of opportunities to share the little bit I’d learned online about mourning doves with adjacent neighbors’ three granddaughters. They really wanted to play with my three cats, two of whom had escaped while I had been taking baby bird pictures with the door half-open, but the girls’ love/hate relationship with all-things-fanged-and-clawed made the petting too difficult and exciting to do without giving Puppy (the cat) a nervous tic, so I’d suggested that there were some wild birds that were not my pets but they’d be welcome to come look at the wild birds as long as we all could agree that we’d only use our eyes ~ not our hands ~ to see them. The girls agreed and we’d all tiptoed quietly over and they took turns being lifted up next to the flower box to see the new little lives growing in the nest.

The youngest granddaughter (oh, maybe 4 years old?) wanted to know if the birdies would bite her. Would they bite her with their sharp teeth? Why are they looking at us? Where’d their momma and daddy go? Why won’t the baby’s momma want to come back if we pet them? Her mouth couldn’t issue the ticker of questions as fast as her brain seemed to be tapping them out.. Later she announced that they were going to get cats and dogs. I asked her if her momma knew that they were going to have lots of pets. ‘Not yet, but we’re gonna. Because I like them’.

I watered the plants late last night and, as I stood in the dark with my hose spraying a cold stream of water over the white columbine and the pink pincushion flowers, the girls reappeared, asking if my cats could come out to play. It was past the kitties’ bedtimes, I said, but maybe the next time the girls were visiting I could bring one out if it isn’t too late. They asked to see the birdies instead and I said it wasn’t a problem as long as they remembered our agreement. Headsful of braids bobbed eagerly as they slowly approached the nest. Middle sister squealed about how cute the little birds were and she proceeded to show me the way she could jump rope three different ways. Shortly, they were off to the local fireworks with their family and we waved goodbye to one another.

In part I’ve been so eager to watch these mourning doves because I’ve never had the opportunity to have them nest and reproduce literally in my backyard, on the back of my home. In part, I’ve been so eager to watch these mourning doves because I like having that everyday piece of the natural world to share with the kids in my neighborhood, who for so much of the time are unsupervised or who just might be up to something naughty – who could possibly be redirected into something less troublesome if a grownup could simply notice them and give them a few minutes’ attention. In part I’ve been so eager because despite my increasing age there is still a wondering child alive and well in me, a young child whose grandmother used to say ‘Oh! Look at THAT!’ and she meant it sincerely: let’s look at this amazing thing together!

When I peeked into the unattended nest I discovered one robust young dove blinking back at me. Hello sweet little confused bird! But the second baby was no longer alive. There’s no clear indication of what happened or why it did not survive; its body had been pushed to the side of the flower box, out of the nest, and I imagine eventually the parents will fling it over the side for the four foot drop to the ground, where another animal will find a valuable and necessary use for it.

In the meantime, I’m trying to keep a healthy perspective about how nature works in the perfect way it should work- and completely without my interference. I’m awfully sad, though. I imagine it will be a hard thing to explain to three little girls who made a promise to me to be gentle with these wild animals that sometimes there are things completely beyond our control – even beyond the promises we make – that cause unexpected results and there’s no amount of discussion that can change them...

I’m not ready just yet to put my completely support and enthusiasm behind the remaining (surviving, healthy, lambchop chubby) little bird. Maybe in 24 hours I’ll feel less tired, less overcome. For now, I’m mourning the dove.

my baby love

double dove love by McBeth.

mourning doves, for their quiet beauty, have such inauspicious beginnings.

going postal

going postal by McBeth.

Hi. My name is McBeth and I have a thing.
(you: Hi McBeth.)

We all have our things, yeah, and that helps me to keep my own thing in a kind of well-but-barely-balanced perspective.

My thing is mail.
I don't mind receiving it.
I just somehow forget to check it in any regular kind of way.

And then even when I do remember to unstick the 43 pieces of junkmail mixed in with the 11 important things from the tight confines of the corner cluster mailbox over and across the street, I just can't get myself to open and respond appropriately. The stuff just piles up like Pisa waiting waiting waiting. It's practically a dare for me, the mail pile hoping I'll add that final camel's back breaking postcard.

And then the thing that happens is that kind'v 'if I'm not looking at it, it ceases to exist' profundity that we marvel at in young infants because they're actually WORKING ON overcoming the thing. But I can vouch for not being the slightest bit admirable in that "awww lookit there, she's growing up so quickly!" ways because I'm nearly 40 years old and the cuteness goes away for those near and dear to me after various agencies over time have temporarily shut off various functions important to my life to get my attention about how important it is to--

(a) receive the bill
(b) open the bill, reviewing carefully
and then
(c) pay.thedamn.bill.


I felt rather proud of myself today for bringing the mail in. My son approached me, asking if I had. "Why yes darling, I did in fact bring in the mail - what, it's not like I don't always eventually get to it. Anyway, why do you ask?"

He was looking for his paycheck. Now I cannot say with one hundred percent assurance that I did not see that paycheck in the tiny pigeonhole of a mailbox, but I WAS juggling a camera and about 62 pieces of mail. So it is within a certain realm of possibility to me that his paycheck could have accidentally been "misfiled" along with the crappy junk mail into the big garbage dumpster outside.

I've crawled into that big ol' stinky dumpster before for lesser things, but I'm not excited about second-guessing my second-guesses, so if his paycheck IS in the dumpster, it'll stay safe and sound for one more day. Otherwise, the check might just show up in tomorrow's mail.

The entire episode has exhausted me to such a point that I believe I shall take a headache remedy and lie down for a while very shortly.

merge

ooh by McBeth.

Wordlessly, she cast aside for me any misunderstandings I might up until that point have had of her.

She was a woman in her late 50s, her ash colored hair coiffed into the style she’d seen what seemed like only days ago, modeled on the front of that Jiffy pattern by the petite blonde for the Surfside Blue butterfly dress she made for the luau-themed party the neighbors had thrown in ’82. She herself was also petite and, she had recently learned, receding into her own shell, as her bone density had been busy structurally deteriorating without ever even having had the decency to utter a sound. She and Dale, her husband of 40 years last June, may have thought they had reached a polite but final détente over the toilet seat issue early on in their marriage, yet it continually found new and different hosts in which to implant itself between them. This newest incarnation was the forward and backward adjustment of the driver’s seat in their car.

Why it was just this very morning while he was searching for a tie to match the loafers he would wear – the ones that don’t pinch his corns quite so much – when Dale had bellowed from behind their bedroom door about how he’d nearly ruptured his spleen yesterday because she’d neglected to put that goddamned car seat back where it’s supposed to go. She distractedly sighed ‘Sorry honey, I guess I forgot.’ in the general direction of the hallway while sopping up a small coffee spill on their otherwise spotless Formica kitchen countertop.

He emerged from the bedroom whipping the tail of the tie around in a circular motion a final time. He slipped the wagging tail through the ball of tie material below his neck and wiggled it into a neat knot, muttering to no one in particular but in her general direction.

“A man has to be able to count on a few things, yanno. Think of the medical bills we’ll have to wade through if I’m injured! You’d have to take care of all of ‘em on your own because I’d be laid up in a goddamned hospital bed, that’s where I’d be. How’d you like that, hunh? I have. To be able. To get into my own damn car. Without. Having to check it out first. Do you understand that?”

She kissed him on both his cheeks the same way she’d kissed both his cheeks every day without fail for 40 years, and as Dale shoveled his arms into his suit coat she reminded him that supper would be on the table at 5:30 tonight. He left the house grousing about last week’s meatloaf leftovers and after the door slam echoed for a few seconds, she was again alone in the tidy and quiet kitchen.

‘Dale just doesn’t understand’, she thought to herself. ‘He is a good man and he has provided well for the two of us over all these years. I suppose the thing is his strength lies not in any deliberate flexibility he may have, but rather in his ability to push through’.

She transferred the remaining cup from the sink into the dishwasher and set to making a list of needed items from the grocery store. Anticipating another potential meatloaf tirade, she opted instead to prepare the baked chicken Dale liked so much. Rice, chicken breasts, cream of mushroom soup … oh, and maybe a salad on the side. She performed a perfunctory check of the canned goods cabinet to verify that she would need another can of soup. ‘Oh dear, when did I use up the last can of beef broth? I’d better add that to the list too’.

A brief moment of panic set in as she reached for her handbag and the key ring. “What day is today?” she asked herself. If it was Wednesday Dale would have taken the car to drive to work. If it was Thursday he would have taken the public bus to meet with John for coffee at the diner after which John would drop him off at work. But a quick scan from inside the front door window of the short driveway and along the street revealed no vehicle.

She moved to the door separating the house from the garage, unbolted one lock and unchained the safety lock while she peered from the open crack into the dark garage. There it is. That Dale, he has a way of making his opinions abundantly clear. Just to hammer home his point he’d rather let her do the insignificant extra work of opening the garage door than having to admit that he may be overreacting.

With purse and keys in tow, she slipped between the driver’s seat and the steering wheel. Reaching below her she fiddled with the seat adjuster until the seat skimmed forward, repositioning her torso to within inches of the steering column. She backed carefully out the driveway, apprehensively looking over both shoulders before entering the stream of traffic.

It was when she merged into the fast-moving highway traffic in which I was already driving that our lives intersected.

The on-ramp, a usually empty and extra-long stretch of here’s your chance, was full to bursting behind her. A driver somewhere fairly far behind in the pack impatiently honked a car horn, frustrated with her puzzling adherence to the 55 mph speed limit. I glanced briefly out the passenger side window of my car at the weary look in her facial features; at the droopy edges of what I estimate was once a very pretty mouth. She clenched her elbows against her sides, the ‘7’ and reverse ‘7’ shapes of her arms meeting up at two matching steering wheel points, around which her small bony hands were wrapped like two terrified starfish.

Tentatively, she glanced up and out her driver’s side window toward me. Our eyes met; the edges of my eyes curled slightly upward into what I hoped would look to her like gentleness, like nobody demanding something other than goddamned meatloaf, like the possibility of merging without always having to submit to the faster and larger vehicle.

She looked toward me for only another second or two. Her veiny starfish fingers clutched tightly at the wheel, then relaxed, then fastened themselves firmly again as she pitched her steering wheel to the left, merging ahead of me with increasing speed into the swift flow of speeding commuters.

“Dale is lucky to have you in his life”, I whispered to myself. I tried to keep her car in sight, but as the traffic unremittingly washed around and over her, she was gone.

and in other news...

bill bennet explains marriage



My vote for best quote of the interview:
"Divorce is not caused because 50% of marriages end in gayness"
-Mr. Jon "They're Sensible but They're Lucky Underpants" Stewart

call me McXuanzong

There's no particular reason the photo there is accompanying this; I simply shot it and liked it.

Maybe it's the perspective of a wedding that few of us pay attention to any more (unless 'we' are under the age of five)? Do you pay attention to what you are looking at in an active way, taking in clues from the scene to put together an apt explanation for what might be happening? Cool, me too. At least I try to fill in the missing bits with sensible details.

So who needs the heads and faces (if 'we' are five years olds attending a wedding) when the pretty golden shoes, the lacey gold thread on your aunt's pink linen dress and the strange habit of throwing flower petals onto a white runner are the details you remember of this event when you return to reflect upon it in 25 years?

-----

I took a Discovery Channel quiz this morning; again - with no real purpose in mind. I sweat through a very tight tiebreaker (all metaphorical, I assure you. My eyes weren't even fully open yet. The morning coffee ritual, you understand...) which revealed that if I was to be suddenly imposed as Empress of Everything it is most likely the latest incarnation of Tang Xuanzong that I would most resemble.

But see, I have a theory about what I'd want to be Empress OF. Being shot into a position by no other reason than people just stroking their chins and suddenly coming to some enlightened decision could have disturbing and far-reaching consequences not only for me, but for all those poor fools who would say 'You are our next Empress, McBeth. It's true! We read it in our morning tea leaves which are NEVER known to fail'.

Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. There are our two givens, right? So if I can convince the sages to let me be the Empress of My Own Self (EMOS, for short) I would be ruling over a kingdom of ...baa-daa-bing... one. The damage I would probably inflict no matter if it was purposeful or due to neglect would be mitigated somewhat by the citizenry stats in my kingdom.

Sure, if they're willing to just let me sit there looking like the Empress of Very Much More Than She Really IS, I'd willingly fill in and hold the spot until the tea leaves revealed a slight miscalculation which would lead to a new Empress being installed. But only as long as we all understand I don't want to rule everyone else - not really, I just want to be the Queen of Me.

Pissed Off (tm): new and improved!

Yah, so it's not going to be my ideal Barbie doll dreamhouse kind of day.

First things first. I walked out the front door of my house to inspect the front flowerbed while chatting with a friend on the telephone. Two neighbors (one, a real and permanant neighbor; the other, the latest in a string of man-friends to the real neighbor who owns that unit to my right. The way that household seems to work is that her men get ordered around to do everything she says. She says jump and, while it may be slow and not particularly high, the menfolk will eventually move in what appears to be a jump-like gesture. The lady neighbor can do that because (a)it's her home, (b)she's the working person and (c)those men she finds have noplace else to go. The unfortunate thing for them is that (a)she's mean (b)she's never NOT pissed off about something, (c)she uses the menfolk as built-in babysitters for her grandchildren. I don't think those fellas knew they were signing up for babysitting other people's children gigs before they begin to woo her, and they most definitely wouldn't have stayed on had they known what a fun-filled tot jamboree it was going to be. When the grandkids are around it means (for me) going inside and closing the doors until late night until the children have been collected. Otherwise I am forced to witness the car wreck that is the 'watch your brother' system, where bigger brother does not, in fact, watch his two smaller sibs but instead, finds a stick and starts whacking the youngest (also a boy) against the throat with it.

SuperDEEduper.

I didn't intend to vent about My Bad Neighbor(pat.pend.). I guess their household just caught me offguard again today when the landscaping company owner came to speak with me at the same time I was being approached by both my Good Neighbor and the man-friend of My Bad Neighbor. Let's call the man-friend George. It might be his name but at this point it could be ANYTHING (I'm having "I'm Darrell, this is my brother Darrell, and that's my other brother Darrell" flashbacks) and I've lost track of which one he is. Chances are good his name is not George, so George he'll be.

George, who had gone missing the past oh, 3-4 weeks had suddenly resurfaced (as, curiously, seems to be the habit with so many of My Bad Neighbor's exes). I had begun to relax during the lengthening days of his absence: I didn't have to sigh through his painful attempts at flirting any time he happened to see me outside, I didn't have a drunken man pounding on my front door at 11:30pm looking to bum a cigarette again (oh, that's one of his best habits. Borrowing. My favorite!). I didn't have to make the decision to either shut myself up indoors to escape him or have to listen to another late-night verse of George's song, 'My Girlfriend is Bad Crazy'. I mean, even creepy people can grow on me if they can manage to mind their own business, and in some ways George HAD grown on me in that creepy keep-to-yourself-please-and-don'tthink-I'm-inviting-you-to-dinner-anytime-soon way. But he'd returned.

George had clearly been given orders to tell anyone who got within a yardstick of one particular shrub in front of their place that IT IS NOT TO BE PRUNED. Never mind that George himself had offered (to me) to trim up the matching shrub in front of my home when he was supposedly going to trim theirs, and that was long ago, before he took his act on the road a month back. Nevermind that earlier this week I'd taken a hand pruner to both the shrubs to begin the process of rodent relocation for whatever it was that had taken up residence below them. I trimmed the very lowest branches to let the vermin know that the space was going to quickly be opening up and they'd probably need to move along, thankyewveddymuch.

Here's the thing about living in a condominium association type community... we got these funny things here called bylaws. Rules. Ways to get along with the other people with whom you live in very close proximity. One of the rules we have is that the outside grounds are all considered common areas. This means that yeah, I love to garden and I've worked on planting lots of perennials and cleaning up around the entire property and specifically around *my unit*, but the land officially belongs to our entire association, not to me. It's weird, but that's the way it is. So if I ever move I will either be leaving all the plants that I've established (since I bought them) or I will be digging them up and bringing them with me. It also means that even if I plant my own stuff outside, there's no guarantee that someone else won't mess with it, either for good or for ill. My Bad Neighbor doesn't understand how it can be that she doesn't own the earth surrounding her condominium. My Bad Neighbor doesn't like rules and laws. Apparently they only serve to make her life miserable and all law-abiding and stuff, so she chooses to stay silent, she attends zero meetings, she does zippo for anyone but herself. And, I guess, that's supposed to help her keep below the radar. Or something.

My Bad Neighbor and I both left our strings of ornamental lights up after Christmas two years ago. The problem for me was that the tree I had strung mine into grew like a summabitch between the time I'd strung up the lights and the time I was in take-down mode. I was no longer able to reach the strand to pull it down! I worried about the tree - c'mon, it's a living breathing thing! So I found an old mop handle and worked on yanking down as much of the strand as I could, then I manuevered the mop handle + pruners to snip the wires of sections that I could no longer just tug down so at least I wouldn't be destroying tree by binding its branches with my stupid lights.

My Bad Neighbor, on the other hand, thinks Christmas decorations should be left outside 24/7/365. She ordered George to declare a prune-free zone on the woefully overgrown shrub because their Christmas decorations were still hanging somewhere inside the leggy branches of the bush. It's better that that though. In fact, as the landscaper tells me that George reviewed for him, two years ago those lights were put into the bushes and the following spring (at pruning/cleanup time) the string of lights was accidentally snipped by an overzealous pruner. And THAT is why nobody should be touching those bushes now.

Is it just me or would it make better sense to take the dagblasted Christmas lights out of the bushes, let it get trimmed (as is supposed to happen to such growing items, duh?), then take the broken string of Christmas lights and ... oh, maybe THROW THEM AWAY??!

I waved into the air and said to the landscaper that it's not worth a battle over a bush, fine, don't trim that one. But wow, I can't believe that there is now a system in place to further protect the well-being of a broken strand of Christmas lights that shouldn't be hanging outside in the public "general space" area in JUNE anyway.

I've been eyeballing my front door this afternoon.
I'm waiting for George's first knock.

Can I bum a ....?
I may very well suggest to him that he get it, whatever it is, from My Bad Neighbor, His Bad-Crazy Girlfriend.

if you and I don't speak up, we'll ALL be sorry.

is it capital or capitol?

State Cap at night by McBeth.

Never ever keep all your capital at the capitol.
Gobbling gremlins may very well greedily gorge.


[The good word for today: the only dumb grammatical question is the one that you do not look up the answer to and try to remedy.]

self-determination

*image and notations by my grandfather, Elmer Rognlien of my grandmother, Audrey, who he affectionately called 'Toby'.


"My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do. "
-- Ani DiFranco

hulking

partners in crime by McBeth.

Tornadoes ripped through my fine state a couple days ago, touching down hither and yon, making nonlinear paths where they saw fit. Seems like the nasty stuff split right into two sections just west of the city in which I live and then passed along completely without incident.

No rain, no winds, nothing.

Just some big ol' monster clouds and tornado sirens that -along with the ever so slight amount of common sense I allow to prevail every so often, just to make sure I still have it and know how to exercise it - prevented me from traveling out to deliver another load of moving boxes to my sis that night.

keeping away, for good.

The last keepaway game by McBeth.

Katie and Aud play for what they've no idea is the last time. The next day Aud would call her mama from her other aunt's house, in IA, to report nervousness due to her first 'leuse teuth'. Noone in my clan will see the goofy dog again. I'm temporarily broke. But they are away from Him and they are safe, and that is what is most important to me.

Please don't purposefully hurt the people you love.
If you can't use big boy or big girl words, under no circumstances will it ever be okay to resort to using your hands or your feet, or even bad little mean words, to try to get the attention you seek.

Take a break.
Call someone. Sleep it off.
Write, or walk, or cry.
But first and foremost: do no harm to another.

The costs are astounding. Your stupid stupid costs, you abusers, are remarkable and sad, while you yourself will remain completely unremarkable.

praise be

following the lord? by McBeth.

sense and senselessability

It's not that I usually hang out on State Street in the middle of the night.

I mean, I've come to realize that my calm, relatively quiet life isn't such a terrible thing and I think I'm better for it. Fewer stories to tell, but in the long run I'd rather have a titch of stability than ... well, the alternatives, fill in the blank.

Last night I was working in my official unofficial capacity as still photographer for a film crew shooting locally. While moving from one location to another a number of us happened by an after-hours brawl taking place on the 200 block of State Street.

No idea what started it, but, from the outside looking in, it appeared that one group of men clashed with another group of men and women. The first group began physically attacking the women of the second group. The men in the second group then began fighting with the men of the first group in defense of the women. There's no way of an outsider knowing what happened. Maybe a couple of the women got mouthy or taunted the men in the first group or claimed that alien spaceships were landing soon. I don't think it matters much really.

I don't condone violence of any kind - not emotional, not verbal and certainly not physical damage - but I also have the sense to not insert myself in the middle of 10+ probably-drunk and angry people. The one thing I could do in hopes of getting them to chill their asses out was to quickly pull out my camera and start shooting. It's a ridiculous time to be technical, but because I yanked my camera right from my bag I didn't have the flash attachment on so the pictures turned out grainy, dark, and green. At the time I didn't much care, I only hoped that from far across the street where I was standing I'd get someone's attention.

The people deepest into the feud wouldn't (couldn't?) pull themselves out, but their cohorts did notice us, did notice me snapping away, and did begin trying to yank people off one another.

A few minutes later two of the instigators from group one had slunk off into the shadows, but two police squad cars arrived to sort things out and, moments after that, an ambulance was dispatched from the fire house behind the Overture Center (handy location, that) to treat the injured.

here come the brides!

Who says it's unnatural? by McBeth.

Liz's inaugural Running of the Brides began with a bang last year, and it looks like this year's fundraiser, scheduled for June 3, should be all that and a pack of tissues.

Whether you are a running aficionado or whether you'd prefer to sit back to watch the chaos ensue before your porta-lounger, have some fun helping a good cause. Strap on your favorite wedding attire, lace up your tennies and come out to run or come out to cheer on the brave, the silly and the downright goofballish.

divining rod

Not unlike a water witch, he senses the sugar rush about to spring loose. by McBeth.

Water witches claim that by using tools - generally a divining rod, gems, or a pendulum - they can locate local underground water. Now the way I look at it, simply because tests have not supported their claims does not necessarily mean that their abilities do not exist; it simply means that the tests have not supported their claims.

In such a tradition children also have gifts, including their uncanny ability to dowse a sugar source sight unseen. Sure, go ahead and blindfold them if you don't believe me. Blindfold a kid then spin him around just to try to disorient him.

Try as you might to set the test against the kid, you're bound to observe the same results again and again once you've put a solid stick into the child's hands and placed him near a pinata...

Sniff sniff. Shuffle shuffle. Sniff.
WHACK.

In some magical way that grownups cannot understand, they just know.

truth is a silver strand

I imagine that parents the world over have been keeping one eye on their children, even while asleep, watching for anything untoward happening either to or because of their offspring. Probably since humanity began there were hunched-over cave dwellers peeking out from the sides of hillsides to see if little Unk would really level Yar with the mini boulder she is threatening him with while gleefully tickle torturing her younger brother.

While there have been times in my own parenting of J. that I wondered when will this part be past us?, I can’t honestly say that any of the stages demarcated within the wise guides gathered in text by (surely?) learned professionals have been much of an issue for us. It was during his second year of living that he was working out how to put his Power Rangers underwear onto his lean little body without my assistance, and with the mini trap door facing front. He meant nothing personal when he’d flail against me, shrieking “do mah-sehhhhhhhf!” it was just something he wanted the opportunity to try on his own, and how can a person possibly be faulted for that? If I was the one who had just figured out that I had some self-possession I most certainly would want to be able to put on my own Power Ranger undies too. It just makes sense.

Maybe the reason J. and I have rarely butted heads is that in raising him up I’ve tried to keep in mind that I don’t want to behave toward him in any way that I myself wouldn’t want to be treated ~ granted, with an invisible ‘give’ space where my decisions as the grownup have to have just a little flexibility and, sometimes, a little more weight, but I try to treat him with the same kindnesses and the same patience as I’d hope to be given. So yeah, I’m not horrible, I’m not terribly demanding and that fact, coupled with his easy-going temperament, makes for a fairly idyllic parenting situation in which one could easily become complacent.

And then there was Sunday.

I walked in the front door. My heavy winter comforter – the one that one of the cats recently peed on which has been sitting in a pile in the hall for weeks because I can’t seem to get it to the cleaners so rather than feeling bad about not getting to the cleaners I simply picked it up and folded it over the railing next to the hall to make it seem as though I had done something but J. didn’t know about that – was laying on the living room couch. Hunh. Well … I guess J. got tired and decided to just sleep on the sofa. Yeah. He probably stayed up way too late and couldn’t bring himself to walk the 18 steps to his bedroom, so he walked 14 steps to the comforter and called it quits in the living room.

I walked downstairs into the kitchen. Sitting around on countertops there lay a number of empty food containers and what looked like take-out remains, including a plastic Chinese soup spoon. J. doesn’t eat anything Chinese but subgum fried rice and does that even count? I considered for a moment that he might be branching out in his culinary tastes. Hmm. Then I found a jug of fruit punch in the refrigerator. We never drink fruit punch from a jug. Maybe he had buddies over for video game playing and they were thirsty so they made a grocery store run? Sure, that would explain it.

The previous night I’d stayed at KD’s place. We had all planned for it and, like any night I spend away from home, KD had checked her calendar, I checked mine and, because I’m also responsible to J’s schedule, I also knew he would not be working and that he’d made no solid plans with his friends. He was home Saturday night. I mean, he was home alone on Saturday night. Right. Alone.

I deliberated whether it would be better to keep my hmmms to myself or to raise them with him but in the end I elected to at least temporarily consider them privately, and after finding J. in the Den of Iniquity (the hang-out room w/computer, TV, video game, stereo) and catching up with him for a few minutes, I took my bag to my bedroom to unpack.

I dropped my bags and studied the extra row of ‘for show, not for sleeping’ pillows on my bed. Well boy howdy, lookie there. My bed is not the way I made it yesterday. It’s probably such a trivial thing, but I know how I make a bed, and this is not the arrangement for pillows that I would use. Someone has been sleeping in my bed.

It was one of those moments when it wouldn’t have surprised me if Goldilocks would have popped out from a closet yelling “Surprise”.

Not that leaping to conclusions isn’t my personally favorite hobby, but in keeping with the (hopefully, constructive) way I’ve tried to parent J. these past 16 years I did think that making conclusions about something for which I hadn’t even asked the first question didn’t seem particularly smart, so I let myself have 30 minutes to obsessively count each and every heinous activity that I was ABSOLUTELY SURE took place while I was not at home. And when time was up I told myself that I had to be done, really done, with pre-judging the situation. Good. Calm mommy good.

Finally feeling more relaxed and still pondering the strange things I had noticed, Sunday night I pulled back the sheets to crawl into bed. Just before stepping up off the floor to be carried away on dreamland travel I noticed a sparkle next to my foot. I crouched down to see which of my necklaces the cats had yanked off the dresser this time.

It was not one of my necklaces. No, it was much smaller – ankle sized.
I don’t wear, nor have I ever worn, ankle bracelets.

I really did my best to rationalize the blanket on the couch. I thought did a fine job explaining the soup spoon and the jug of punch. And though I didn’t find a precise explanation for the bed pillows, I did calm myself for which should at least get me partial points. But a delicate silver ankle bracelet next to my newly-made bed?! That scene snakes itself around a story I am not prepared to answer for, an answer I somehow believed was not one I would find personally applicable for at least a few more years, a story of weaning and nest-flying and saying goodbyes.

Carefully I gathered the ankle bracelet and placed it on the dresser with my unruly collection of jewelry, receipts and single buttons, and eventually I drifted to sleep feeling troubled and slightly dizzy.

I held onto the information until Tuesday, when two of my three sisters and I got together to plant some herbs and annuals at one of their homes. While picnicking under a lovely shade tree in their yard, we were discussing our families’ latest goings-on. Normally I wouldn’t share this kind of information until after the fact, but out the details blurted themselves, bubbling and blabbing all over my mouth. My sister’s visiting mother-in-law was horrified, suggesting that I should immediately be having a Serious Talk with my son. I saw the trouble reflected in my siblings’ faces, a push-me-pull-you of confused What the Hell forehead muscles counter tensed against don’t jump to conclusions mandibular pressure.

I told them I’d decided to talk with J. about it, but I was still undecided about how to do that. We bandied a few amusing ideas back and forth. Not surprisingly, the suggestions that met with the greatest approval were those that revealed that no matter how old we get, we’re still naughty children at heart. Let him dangle. Make him sweat. Tell him that someone called our home asking about, oh I dunno, some jewelry or something? Despite the entertainment value of those kinds of ideas, we did manage to scrap together a few slightly better ones and I narrowed it down to either (a) show J. the ankle bracelet immediately and ask him to explain it or (b) ask him if he had anyone over on Saturday night. I chose B, reasoning that it was the option that would give him the first chance to come clean on his own. He could save a little face and not have to feel as though I’m shoving distrust in his face. Good! That was decided. And now, on to obsessing about how to bring it up, and where, and do I talk to him in the car where he’s trapped or at home where he might be distracted or or or …

That night I picked J. up from his part-time job at a local grocery store. When he works weeknights he doesn’t generally eat well during break time, so after I’d shifted from behind the steering wheel to the passenger seat he drove us to a muy festivo fast food establishment.

We waited next to the drive-thru window for our order. Try as I might to focus on what he was saying which, by what I did hear (a little) was his opinion (high) of his friend’s new (used) VW Scirocco (classic, not too much rust), and find something appropriate to say in response, instead I felt the persistent ping of ask him, ask him, ask him, ask him ricocheting off the lining of my skull.

Did you have friends over on Saturday?
Oh dear god, I just blurted it out, right then, right there at him. This is getting so easy, this blurting thing. I could become a full-fledged blurter without having to finish the classes. I won’t even have to defend my thesis, they’ll just say no, go on y’know since we voted unanimously that you know more about blurting than all of us in our collective 5822 years of blurting academia. I’ll graduate early and with honors, and I’ll be celebrated the world over: The Most Honorable, Her Excellency the Queen of Blurtdom. What can I say, I’m gifted.

Um, yeah.
Hey, look at that, the ball actually started rolling!

Who was at our house?
Uh, B. and his girlfriend K., and her two friends.

Oh. So um, were you going to eventually let me know that they were over?
(throwing hands to air) What’s to let you know really? I just had some friends over.

(suddenly channeling my parents)
What’s to know is that I’m your parent, I’m the adult in our house, and I’m responsible for what happens there.
Previous history has proved one infallible truth: once I have channeled The Parents while speaking with my own child, things are not going to go as well as I had previously hoped. A younger idealistic chunk of who I am falls away from me in slow motion, replaced by an old fissured spike of granite. Before my own ears I age into a shriveled old woman squawking out the window at kids to stay out of her flower beds. However frightening, however instant this transformation has occurred, I appreciate that it has not always proved to be permanent. When I have caught myself uttering the moldy phrases my parents used that meant absolutely nothing to me as a child and I replace it with something entirely different – a new way of looking at the same issue, but with a twist of ‘so what?’– I can undo the lock that some of my own parent’s senseless rulemaking had, and still can have, over me; I think I can also help J. (and J., me) as he learns to make bigger and more far-reaching decisions for himself while I learn to trust both myself (to let him), and him (to make them).

Was someone in my bedroom?

Yeah.

Oh. pause Who was in my bedroom?

C.

C? (I’ve never heard him mention this girl’s name before)

Yeah. B.’s girlfriend K.? C. is one of her friends.

Uh-hunh. And, uh, she was in my room why?

I guess she was really tired because she’d worked all day and she kept almost falling asleep on the couch where we all were so I just told her she could go upstairs and lay down, so she went up there to sleep.
(Damn! He’s either telling the truth –which does explain everything, really, or he’s a really great liar. He might be such a great liar that he could become a full-fledged liar without having to finish the classes. He might not even have to defend his thesis, they’ll just say no, you go on since we voted unanimously that you know more about lying your head off than all of us in our collective 5822 years of blurting academia. Maybe he’s so great a liar that he’ll graduate early and with honors, and he’ll be celebrated the world over: The Most Bold, His Excellency the King of Liarobia. What can I say, my son may be gifted.)

See, here’s the deal … not that anything DID happen, but if something WERE TO happen and not be a good thing and I’m not there? I mean, like, if I don’t even KNOW about it? Man, that’d really turn out badly. It’d suck a whole lot for you and it would really suck for me too. And aside from that … you know … I’m your mom and it’s kind of my job to know what’s going on. I’m not doing my job if I don’t know what’s going on, right?

Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was a big deal but yeah, I get it.

There is a long silent pause during which I retreat into my own thoughts. I imagine he is doing the same thing.

And by the way, C.’s probably missing an ankle bracelet.
I feel some of my tension and worry wash down my arms from my shoulders when he begins to chuckle.

During our conversation, (specifically, between chipping away at my stony past to get to my own history and future in order and J.’s apology) our beverages had been passed through the heptuply-layered bulletproof drawer-slash-window. At my response to J.’s laughter, the orange and brown uniformed guy mistily appeared with the rest of our order on the other side of the window’s scratched glass.

He drove our taco-smelling car home and, once inside, we divvied up my order of nachos and his value meal. He immediately retreated with his food to the dark mystery that remains the Den of Iniquity, leaving me to ponder the questions regarding the moment he hit this stage.

april showers bring ... may showers

blue storm by McBeth.

We've been having an awful lot of rain lately.

I'm not keeping track of the measurements by inches, but I do keep a rough measurement by my own scales - having to water newly planted seedlings and time spent either entirely indoors for safety's sake or time spent waiting out a meteorological outburst until I can get out to do whatever I'm hoping to do.

I surely haven't had to water plants in many days and I've spent much time watching out the window, waiting for storms to pass.

The thing is, I don't really mind it. Not really. I can't begin to understand the complicated process by which the earth refreshes and replenishes itself, but I'm happy enough to wait my turn.

to the mother of us all, my thanks

lightward leaning by McBeth.

I'd like to wish Nature a happy day.

Locally, she's been dosing out what may be meteorological equivalent of castor oil, but I have to trust that she knows a lot more than I do - than WE do - and that she's taking care of us the best she knows how to given her resources and how naughty we can be sometimes.

If I was to make a handmade card for her today, I'd draw rainbows and flowers and birds and a ridiculously large (and probably revolting) rendering of the circle of life around the border of the paper. I would draw a big heart right smack dab in the center. I'd sign it 'With love, from creature # 426,174,265,441,692,038,185,228,391,339,381,668,372 and one of your greatest admirerers, McB.'

Happy Mothers Day to you.

she took a leek in the garden

leek babies by McBeth.

Ah, we've arrived.

The gardening days are here and, for once, I have the assurance that I'm more prepared than I have been in previous years. What turned out to be a long depressed winter spawned just enough creativity and gardening enthusiasm that all I needed was the slighted nudge from a friend about her garden ideas to get my own rear in gear. It got moving, that's for certain. The friend, who uses a wheelchair, had someone else helping her with All Things Garden last year was bummed about that helperfriend having moved to Arkansas over the winter and wondered if I might be interested in lending a hand.

Interested?! 'Hallelujah', I said!

This country mouse friend and her partner live, oh, 20 minutes outside of my fine city have a large yard, raised garden beds and oh-so-much room for vegetable garden planting, annual flowers, perennial flowers, rasberries, blueberries, cherries, fruit trees, and whatever else might tickle her fancy. I believe their home and surrounding land is called NIRVANA.

Jo and I have been busy these past few weeks out playing in the dirt but before we ventured out, she had mapped out the raised beds and read up on companion gardening. We want to make the best use of the space and to (hopefully) get the best results at harvest. We both have learned plenty of little interesting factoids about veggies; stuff I never thought I'd know or even have the slightest interest in. Did YOU know that kohlrabi are snobby? It's true. They only prefer to grow with 'like' veggies. Bee-leeve it or not.

Earliest on, we planted seeds that needed the extra growing time and that could probably survive a surprise frost if one arrived unexpectedly: IN went the radishes, two different varieties of peas and sugar snap peas, and two carrot hybrids.

Since then we've added quite a bit, both seeds and starter plants: three varities of dry beans (red kidneys and green bush), leeks, green onions, lettuce, broccoli, kohlrabi, collards, two different hybrid green peppers, plus six plants that will bear yellow/red/green peppers, strawberries and garlic to the 8th power.

Still to plant? Well, let's see... the red and yellow onions, tomatoes, the herb garden (hoping for both a kitchen variety and a healing variety), the zucchini, muskmelon, honeydew, pumpkin and whatever other mystery treats we *ahem* accidentally purchase from that crack dealer others politely refer to as the nursery supply store.

When not elbow deep in Jo's beds I've been working in my own home on bringing up the annual flower seedlings. Using the 2" starter peat pots I've planted enough seed (both in # and in variety) that if all goes according to plan I'll have some for my own flower beds and still have plenty to share with my sisters and friends.

The list of already-growing-in-pots includes five different Cosmo varieties (yellow, pinks, seashell, peach), two Sweet Peas varieties (lt. purple, dk blue/purple), two varieties of Morning Glory (a climbing blue & a mounding purple), Moonflowers, three varities of Nasturtium (maroon, cherry jubilee and scarlet), and two others whose names escape me at the moment.

Additionally, I started the seeds for the honeydew, the muskmelon and Jo's pumpkins yesterday and I hope to be able to plant the two melon in both our gardens. I haven't grown melons before but Jo tells me they require contant watering and she wasn't sure she'd be able to get to that daily @ her house, but if I manage to get a few planted in the bed behind my home I could probably handle the task and incorporate it into my own daily routine fairly easily.

I HAVE the seeds and supplies for a heap more but, um, I ran out of window room so plans for those will have to wait until my first starter batch can be moved out into the earth.

I'm so grateful for the warmer temperatures, for the spring rain showers, for the friends I've made through KD. I'm grateful for the inner peace I find while being quiet, just pulling weeds or hoeing rows. I'm grateful for being in an emotional space where I have been able to rediscover my gratefulness.

children

red boy by McBeth.

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you’re two, turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of the door

Where are you going my little one, little one
Dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone
Turn around and you’re tiny, turn around and you’re grown
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own

Turn around (turn around)
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you’re two, turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door

Turn around (turn around)
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door

Where are you going my little one, little one
Dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone
Turn around and you’re tiny, turn around and you’re grown
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own

{Words & Music by Harry Belafonte, Alan Greene and Malvina Reynolds}

on canines having the upper paw

this human is not yet doggytrained by McBeth.

it is said that a well-adjusted dog will understand that you, the human, are the Alpha in the pack.

Sure this happens, so long as one doesn't use a soft 'here kitty kitty' voice when trying to be the Alpha.

Say, for instance, when a dog is lying on a sofa behind a person seated on the floor. Lets say for illustrative sake that the dog really really would like to have her belly rubbed and that she knows that if she can just reach one long leg around from behind, she can essentially 'tap' on the human's face, thereby garnering the attention the dog seeks.

Then let's pretend that the human uses a soft friendly voice to say "NO, OFF". Yeah, here's the lesson part: it doesn't work very well.

I am, however, considering asking to borrow my friends' dog to do the taptaptap repeatedly and, if I can train her to use fine detail paw/claw work, she could possibly create a semi-permanent eye liner, thereby saving me a good deal of time applying eye makeup. How cool would THAT be?!~