Discriminative Foundering

Oh Ho Ho. Today's little ditty circulates around the beloved AmVets Thrift store and so while I'm at it, had better give you the ins and outs of my preferences. Years ago I was strictly a Salvation Army shopper since that place was well lit and familiar, Grandma would take me to the one on West Ferry Street in the city. It's where I got to get my first sea shells-stuck-in-plaster-with-a-lightbulb decorative piece for twenty-five cents and good things have happened ever since. I rediscovered the shop in my early thirties, and made a nest out of goods found there, not to mention clothing that I could now afford.

I tell you, having to live in clothes you scrounged from other people's garbage may be sensible, but can be personally hurtful...I wore green corduroy pants and castoff beige and blue saddle shoes for over a year. People would invite me to pick over whatever they were donating or tossing out and I only had the sense that as a member of a one-sided marriage, I was doing my job in not asking for things because I once had been in love but saw the result as a pledge to stick it out and pull my weight in a most uneducated manner. Very blue-collar, live on a string martyrdom while the noise had special biking shoes that locked into special pedals, running sneakers, raquetball sneakers, hiking boots, dress shoes, you name it shoes all designed to make him go faster. Didn't work fast enough, I say. So I grew vegetables and found two dollar tops at the thrift shop. It really was a salvation of sorts with the choices I was able to bring home for myself. I shopped there until I found out their Christian values did not include my gay friends. I headed over to the Goodwill.

The prices were maybe a dollar higher there, and they organized clothing by style and color, not size which is fine because that varies so much from each designer. Just remember, if anything is from a Chinese or Japanese line, it won't fit unless you are the size of a wet cat. I found that the dresses from Goodwill were a bit more label-oriented than from the Salvation Army, and was able to dress for my job for five bucks a pop. But something wasn't right, something was calling me to give AmVets another try; my first forays were overcome by the chaos and funky linoleum floor that usually somewhere wore a dried red splatter of Kool-Aid, which had since become a sticky geography of human hair and paper tags. My friend Karima swore by the place, and since she is one of my heroes, I sucked up and proceeded and learned.

The cashiering young women dress in abandonment, layering in oddments and painting spiderwebs at the outside corners of their eyes. Hair is teased into updo stratohysteria, wrapped in bands of scarves or torn tees. The local puppet woman who brings her bike into the store is seen here gathering supplies for her characters and costumes. Gays, trannies, down and outers, college professors, Mercedes-driving suburbanites, Goths, the rambling elderly, and a lot of school teachers shop the aisles for recycled clothing, china, books, furniture, and etc. Head manager Helen is in her late sixties and wears a sensible smock; she can swing an immense canvas bin of items like she was taking a tray of brownies out of the oven. It is art at it's most humane and elevated. Come on in.

Mondays, a 25% discount is allowed for seniors over 55; Tuesday is student day. Military receive 25% off anytime they come in. Local Tops Supermarket prints out $4 AmVets coupons with a purchase of $15 worth of goods on the back of its receipts. You don't even have to buy anything at Tops, just go over to the parking lot and grab discarded receipts as they blow by or check the carts. People leave them everywhere, and to me, that's $4 for myself or the person behind me in line.

Buy good, well-made stuff without stains or rips that can't be fixed; avoid cheap labels. You will find Eileen Fisher, Ralph Lauren, and Kate Hill with some lucky digging. Do not buy anything Banana Republic, the stuff they shill these days falls apart and they are living on past glory. Same for GAP, JCrew, or Laura Ashley. I'm pretty happy with my look and thrift, and if I ironed, no one would know.

So this is the crux of today's submission: I recently watched a Threadbanger vid on YouTube showing how to make several styles of scarf from t-shirts. Looked like cheap fun, which is my middle name. I dropped by the A-V today to see what could be had and went up and down the Ladie's Short Sleeves aisle hunting for colors that go together. Hum, hum, hum. You should stay within the size range, so that you have enough material for each piece especially if you intend to mix 'em up a bit. Each of the Ladie's X-Large tees were $2.48 - $2.98, and I had ten selected for approximately a total of $30. Well, a neuron was coincidentally launched and caught by the related synapse, so I thought geez, how much are the Men's tees? Guess. What.

Bigger, made of thicker material, same selection of colors and only $.99 each for a savings of almost half of what the original booty would have cost. What? Why? Why are the women's tees $2 more? My grand total came to $16 dollars including a Peruvian pima cotton long sleeve tee for four dollars that I will mail out to my son. I was gratified, even though I forgot to turn in one of the four dollar coupons....could have gotten that last item as a congratulatory freebie.

Once I finish this post and launch Snowbelle from my lap, the cutting and experimentation will begin. You may see me wearing something creative and think, now what? I have to decide what to do about the prices, if a letter should be dashed off because for heaven's sake, women are the ones supporting the family or taking a big hit after divorce and sure could use those two bucks for cereal.

This day never saw the sun, it was dreary and dank, undecided about snow or drizzle. I had also stopped at the hardware to scan paint colors and saw ideas that were sunset rose and orange with streaks of purple; suggested dayrooms painted in fresh green hues, all enveloped in the best light the paint company could afford. I brought home more pamphlets than necessary, just to look at those images of light and living saturation, presented as a palette of chromatics bright and clear. Gaudy gold Christmas is done, I am hungry for the luminosity of nature and lots of it. Ah, to go to the tropics in dark Northern winter, now that is rich. I shall jump into tonight's salad bowl, and wallow in crisp, green luxury. If you see me wearing a lettuce leaf, take me by the elbow, gently, but of course you will understand.

Dark day, darker evening. Cozy and close to loved beings, books, papers, stories, and a bowl of something warm, perhaps. Sleep well, sleep peaceful, rock a bye, nighty night. Love to all.

Christmas Eve

What mischief is this, this Christmas Eve business? Today is Thursday, and tomorrow will be Friday, and what oh what do you mean? I woke up in AmVets today, had taken in some books for donation and rambled about the unpopulated aisles searching for the magic cloak amid racks of women's wear. And there I was. Good Lord, why am I here? Friends had gone off to relatives, household readiness, or were wrestling enameled roasters out of hidden cupboards. Me and four other people poked and pawed like squirrels in the park, looking for acorns under fallen leaves. Ach, I had to get out of there, but did find a text on plant biology that had a chapter on fungi. I saw Becky, the young floor manager, as I paid for the book.

I made a few rounds to other shops, got through a festering line of backed-up carts driven by people who had lost their minds, and loped over to a grocery store to pick up figs and lunch. Again, two-legged humanity waved salamis and loaves in air, harrumphed about ice cream choices, and left footprints on the elderly who didn't move as fast. Murry Krissmuss we growled at each other, over shoulders laden with plastic bags full of tomorrow's sod. To home. I dropped by the post office and gave dear Beverly a gift card, she is a whirl of efficiency and patience, and wobbled under packages as I traipsed up the sidewalk to the apartment building door and ye gods what is that smell? Dark liquid seeped forward from the inner doorway, and I saw men with strained faces wheeling machinery and hoses through puddles of stench. Sewer backed up. I picked around the melee and ran into neighbor Adele as she scooped up her mail. We both shot upwards in the elevator hoping for escape, but by this time the entire building was rife with thick, swampish odors; I lit incense and flung windows open upon entering, leaving my clogs outside the door to disinfect later. Aough.

The tree is lit and soup is in the pot, simmering cabbage for zero points of calories. Christmas Eve was my favorite holiday, even better than Christmas in an imperfect world. Yet it has come to this, a Thursday and tomorrow is Friday except stores are closed. My son couldn't get off from his job, and this will be the first Christmas Eve I haven't seen him. He is thirty, and forgive me for my bad manners and self-pity, but after thirty years of son-centered holidays, it's hard to look at a calendar and then look in the mirror back at myself. Who hasn't gone through change? As my dear friend Barbara would say, put on your big girl pants and get on with it.

And so I will. Tomorrow I will make something. Dunno what, but there shall be art, something I've wanted to fiddle with. The men will have parked their machine away and gone to bed, maybe to wake up to coffee and eggs and Christmas morning. The people in the stores are home and winding down except for those who will be up till three-thirty wrapping presents for children. The bags of groceries will be divided into categories, chopped, stuffed, and baked. Some folks will enjoy their loved ones, others will have tantrums even though they are grown. Really, how is this different from any other day? Only in that we look for our loved ones, urged on by time, constricted by shortened daylight. Years do count and pile invisible weight on our bones that only reassurance and continuation can lift.

But you, you listen for sounds in the night and I don't mean the cat. Tonight is a glory, quietly rich in human warmth for us lucky ones and ever watched by the stars who have seen billions of our years pass in a tumble of eternity. Sleep well, sleep peaceful. Love you so.

Aunt Dorie's Christmas Tree

I loved my Aunt Dorie, and she loved me extra much because of the crazy circumstances in my childhood household. There were summers that my Mom would let me go stay with her and my cousins Ginny and Stevie for a week. It was a break. My cousin Ginny would toss me into the clawfoot tub with bubbles from bubblebath every night before bed. At home, I got scrubbed in Spic and Span on Saturdays, like the floor. I was flabbered at this fuss but it helped me feel elegant, dainty, with no fear that the girly bubbles would turn me down the road of prostitution, as advertised by the noise at my own house. These visits provided relief and a power of choice I had no where else, and helped my sense of another world outside parental walls electrified by lightning bolt fear and honor thy fatherism.

Well, I could recount the hallways, the rackety spiral staircases up to the attic, the beautifully shaped appointments in the bathroom, the creepy basement, the immense rooms with sliding doors, the phone that still worked in the back hall off the kitchen that decades earlier was used to call servants; this house was a part of the years when the City of Buffalo flourished in the quaint grandeur of gaslights and horse-drawn tradesmen. The city was also once a center for wrought iron, and elements of twisted intricacy still remained as paeans to the working man as artist. Railings, gates, speared fences or hitching posts arranged themselves within the neighborhood rising from grass like soldiers on watch, some with animal or human faces meshed in vines cast as medallions, melded amongst the worked undulations of decent iron.

'Bout time I got to the Christmas tree part. Christmas in the 1950's smelled different than these safer, modern times. No one was insane enough to light candles on the tree, but the large, hot, leave-a-blister-on-fingers Noma lights glowed like fire on the real tree branches and were just as dangerous. Anything electrical in the Fiftie's was scary and crackly and smelled like a fire was coming, soon. That didn't stop us. My Aunt Dorie loaded her tree with bubble lights and long strands of the incandescents. Ancient real aluminum foil ornaments were heated by the lights and smelled bitter metallic. Foil also starred as tinsel, hanging in heavy, kinked formations--the success of the tree hinged on how well and how much tinsel you got on--and added to the Christmas aroma of pine and blast furnace. Glass balls bobbled in place, giving off a seething incense when swinging over the electric bulbs and the remnants of a clingy attic dust burned off. The lit tree heated the room, the papery wallpaper, the wood moldings, and the mohair upholstery. Garlands curled, wax angels drooped, ribbons on gifts smelled like they were just ironed. My aunt was happy at her exuberant tree decorating skills; she allowed me to have one spinning, metallic decoration, so that my tree at home might create emanations similar to an overheated TV dinner tray. My parents would unplug our own tree after fifteen minutes, just in case.

I admired and envied the exuberance and daredevil ways of my aunt, if you can call a lit Christmas tree an adventurous risk. Well, perhaps back then you could. I envied my cousins, living with my Aunt Doris, for they got to see the glorious, dangerous tree everyday until early January when everything saved was packed in boxes and the remainder taken to the curb.

She took chances in life; not all of them went well, but I could say she always jumped in with both feet. No testing the water with a tentative toe, her motto was to live for the day. You could try that out to see how it goes for you, tomorrow. Enjoy something fun, nice fun. Think about what that might be, as night enters when the lights go off and morning alarms are set. Maybe tomorrow, I'll hold a piece of foil over a flame, or pine needles held in metal tongs and set afire. Could that bring back a moment, a memory of Christmas chances taken, of the pleasure and joy found in ordinary things? I'll let you know. Sleep well, my friends, and dream of life lived.

Sunday With a Purpose

The plecostomus regards me with antediluvian eye, which he pulls into his skull from time to time in a fishy wink. He is happiest after a water change, for he battles the vacuum siphon as an invader and he gets to win every time; it's good for his psyche to imagine victory in an uneven fight. He's a pretty thing, mottled grey and black in spotted camouflage with about thirteen inches to his exoskeletal bulk.

Plecos jump, so there are rocks on top the aquarium to keep him humble. My last large one jumped in the night, and if the cats had anything to do with it, they would have brought him to me in bed as a gift and there would have been reunion and rescue. These fish can stay out of water for a bit, but a sad ending concluded this life, for he was dried out and stiff as a board when I found him behind the tank on the floor, poor creeter.

The recent puddlejumper has attempted escape twice, for his fishy nose gets skinned as evidence and owch, I squirt medicine in the water for healing. Starting out as a $3.50 two-inch baby he is now over a foot, burgeoning upon fourteen inches. He's a good boy. May live for twenty years. Lives like a small, crabbed king.

Oh, I have ideas. I want to paint the apartment in colors deigned to lift mood and O, it's the winter solstice tomorrow! Daylight will begin extending into summer frolic and late nights on porches with cool drinks and friends. Reading the Almanac daily gives increments of hope and light but look at me, living in the future as compared to being here today. What else is new.

I have to remember not to live in the When of time, for When usually doesn't appear. If it does, there arrives another When immediately to supersede whatever victory was achieved in the last uneven fight. Or a cap falls off a tooth, or the car needs repair, or the cat gets sick, or the student loan people don't like me anymore, or too many papers are due requiring in-depth research like I'll remember any of that stuff. Everyone has a When, I think. Or a You. Or an If. Hm. Write me what you think and mail it in with a boxtop from Jesus H. Crispies, the cereal that multiplies and feeds the hoard. See you later, another chill night is coming. Close the doors and pull up the blankets. Count your whiskers, as I tell the cats, and be grateful. Dream.

Oobilldiddy dooo

At least that's what it sounds like, this garbled ZZ Top concert on cable tv, have mercy. I was looking for Christmas music and landed in the eighties. What is news today is that Washington DC has at least a foot of snow and is closed for business, so my son who lives there is showing the populace how to slide down Capitol Hill on a piece of cardboard. My boy. Take pictures, I said.

He'll use his Buffalo, NY ways to maneuver the drifts that throw your everyday DC-er into a milk and bread-buying panic as if they were the feathers of a thousand miniature white hummingbirds. His mighty sneakers will kick that fluff aside, and plow ruts in the road for cars to follow; he'll clean sidewalks with a swing of his mighty northern-born arms using his Blackberry for a shovel. His laughter and Russian muskrat hat will melt icicles and extremist Republicans into puddles. Go forward, my son, I am proud.

Time to push some more things around. Be back later, I can just tell.

Eez Chreestmoose!

I tell you, get an organizer in your life and BAM! they facilitate the necessary details that just are difficult for me to divine. Jeanmarie D. came over to help get the tree up and decorate, and now I also have furniture arranged so that there is more room than ever before. Plus, a narrow, white, pre-lit tree that Lord please Lord the cats will not bother. I tethered it to the wall with twine, but they could still steal ornaments.

Boris the New Cat had started the day with his continued fascination with the bathtub, he jumps in and digs like a badger in the corners. Today he stuck his face into the drain and meowed, so I turned on the tiniest trickle and wow, was that ever what he wanted. He stuck his paw into the stream and licked, he let the water pour onto his head while he drank what ran down between his ears. I've only seen this on YouTube, this weirdness that ended up with a soaked, happy cat. He let me towel him off, and seemed to be smiling. Okay by me, whatever floats your boat, champ.

Then I called up Jeannie, who had said she could help with the tree. But, she wanted the tree in front of the mirror, not in the corner I had cleaned out. Sure. She directed the moving of rugs, the couch, chairs and sundry and it looks terrific. She made me straighten the curtains, suggested I go back to the pink walls I once had, and prodded the plastic tree into glory. Myself, things usually look like of course this matches when I have no clue to decorating, which is part of whatever charm I can claim. Things are dashed together and as long as there is cat food in the house, the rest can take care of itself. Jeanmarie has subtly pointed out the ways of symmetrical peace, and well, she is right in that balance makes a better picture. At least, today it does.

The white tree sparkles. So do you. Nighty night.

Self-indulgence

Something inside is trying to get out it aches like anticipation. Apprehension and joy in one torn scab of pain and pleasure. Here I am again in the sterile environment of blog, sans paper and pen only because it's quick and easy to edit, this electronic robotic mechanism of keyed words.

What is it? The holidays? Raymond Scott's Powerhouse? The new cat? That I found a penny today, looked for someone I knew, or am full of milk? You may suffer, O Anonymous Reader, whilst I plod forward. Paint the apartment. Toss out junk. Feng shui myself into arranged auspicious life. Everything at once, and make that now.

Zounds.

Quick Saturday Morning

So much so much to do, I wish humans only needed four hours of sleep. This is a busy Saturday, cleaning, cookies, gas fill-up, fabric shop, groceries, post office and solace, I need to schedule some of that in also. I cannot pass the image of my friend Nancy without a pang, it is not real to me that she is gone. I miss my colleague Barbara, another friend who passed on two weeks before my girl's death. Ah, sadness performs the necessary contribution to hope. And so life does not stand still after that moment of the first gasp when the news comes. Oh speed, it does not allow withdrawal, but you dig in and leap forward, only older in body and mind.

Jump in with both feet, my loves, for that is the continued contribution to creative success. There is a new cat. I finished this semester in bumps and starts at college, few more to go. Milk tastes good. The aprons arrived to make for my students. A little girl gave me a beaded necklace she made herself, all more precious as she can only read a struggling 20 words a minute and lives in chaos. Kai plays with her cat toy as if it had a heartbeat, doing somersaults of brown furry victory. My son Brian. My sort of son, Scotty. Friends and new avenues of thought pull me forward.

This post is only a map of destination and travels from before. I must write, write, there is so much that needs to be charted.

Coming changes...

Really, I would like to refine my style of writing since re-reading several older posts have left me with the sensation of a ping pong ball explosion. Lord, I am scattered and often ambiguous. Obscure. Eccentric. But, I am lovable; sort of like your Aunt Millie after a shot of Seagram's mixed with a little soda.

So, the solution is to write in short bits, in between assignments for college. Much has happened and frankly, writing is a favored catharsis for exposing myself to well, myself. Tomorrow is December first, near to the end of 2009 which contained more loss than the last ten years altogether. Yet the year itself was successful regarding new experiences and changes.

Tonight we are to have snow, the first with staying power. Flakes and tiny particles have flung themselves earthward but nothing with any serious intent; swirls in the wind, then gone. It feels chill, you can tell in this brick building when cold arrives and of course there is the smell of snow in the air. I don't know what creates it, but snow has a smell and that smell is so enjoyable that it induces people to drink urns of hot chocolate and bundle up in thick socks and mittens. Soups and chili appear, big-handed men tear loaves of bread for dipping in filled bowls, the laughter is deeper, the blankets are alive like in a fable and hug us.

We aren't quite there yet, but the forecast says close, it is close. Listen for winds, feel the building shudder, there will be ice on the sidewalks, and happy people looking forward to stay-at-home nights given us by Old Man Winter. Stay well.

Nancy Ann

Never knew who her biological mother was and that bothered her, this possible other family that might want the return of their blonde, blue-eyed Irish daughter. She knew her birth name was McMahon, that her mother was fifteen years old and second generation Irish, and that her father was a toy maker. No further information could be gotten from the records the day we went to Our Lady of Victory orphanage, even though it was there in black and white Courier font. the woman who searched for the birth date given said with a direct look at Nancy, "Sometimes our parents are right..." when told that her adoptive family said her name had possibly been McMahon. That seeming bit of information gave her a window to look in, an opening to imagine a family with brothers, sisters, and a heritage of Irish belonging here in Buffalo, New York. We searched, I searched microfilms of old newspapers in college and the central library downtown with no luck in finding a girl born under the name of McMahon in 1952, November ninth.

She once was beautiful to the point of disbelief. She taught me how to put on make-up, hitch hike, and walk with a swing. Her adopted family was not what anyone would hope for, and it wasn't until adulthood that she developed a loving relationship with her father. I am not going to disturb memories of her mother, who may or may not have known how to love her new child throughout her life. This question of lost love, unattainable love, just out of reach if only I can be good love drove Nancy to search for pieces that she tried to glue together into one human being, herself.

She was found by a housekeeper in the bathroom of the house she rented. I don't have the particulars yet, but two hours ago spoke to a voice on the line telling me she had passed away. I am in shock and feel odd that no tears have come. The day was spent at SUNY Fredonia for a problem-solving session related to my graduate courses and conversation in the car surrounded events we had experienced with ghosts. After reaching my car and driving back home through West Seneca, I wondered why I wasn't spooked by the talk, usually that sort of thing stays with me and sends tingles up and down my spine. Instead, there was a warm closeness around me, as if I were folded in wings, a blanket, loving arms. I thought it was my Grandma or Mom, there to keep me safe and protected. Now I know it was my girl Nancy, stopping in to tell me she loved me still. I love you too and will grieve, but now I am still in shock at this circumstance of events and the death that was expected to be soon, but not so. Thank you for letting me know that you are well and safe and in the care of the angels. I love you so, from Susan.

Suffering journalism

Time falls into silent crevasses without an eek, and before you know, the year is going into winter. Again you can see through branches after leaves are pushed to the ground; buildings and stop signs appear which once were hidden by green; a new landscape, a revelation of grey amid bone-bare branches. November is a brown month, even before the gravy pools in the mound of mashed potatoes that you shaped to hold a cup of the good stuff. Oh, gravy!

Too soon to look back to debrief the goings-on of the first eleven months, or should it be done with foresight so that the remaining month is planned out to the max? I consider myself lucky to be overloaded with the demands of this world, for it means I am alive and engaged with others. Sure, I'm the monastic sort with preferences leaning towards a porch and a shotgun, but to exist without interaction or risk isn't of worth to me.

This year me and my little cat family lost our Martian, whose remains are boxed and sitting on a dresser. What happens when I die? By law, they are not allowed to be put with me...my vet said to have their ashes sewn into pockets of my dress when buried. My lord, if they dropped me, such a foof of dust would arise from all of my cremated pets hidden in the seams. I will think of something. Martian's absence is still obvious.

And this. My friend Barbara also died recently on an early Saturday morning. She wanted to live, but faced the inevitable too soon from cancer. She was dignified, full of fun, beautiful in face, mind, and spirit. Her love continues. Pshaw, she would say.

Looking forward, what else can one do?

Thoughts on an agate bead necklace....

My grandma Ida, whom I loved madly, grew roses that blossomed in crashes of color and scent, their heavy heads nodding under the weight of the petals. Huge, round, cabbage roses they were, perfumed of attar that drove bees mad as well. When the big flowers relaxed and let go of their petals, I would gather them in the folds of my dress and take them in to spread on a towel so they would dry. Their heady scent would hold, and ply within the drawers of my dresser throughout seasons of snow. My grandma, I would think of my grandma when opening, searching through a drawer for a hankie or winter layers.
Here are the petals, almost alive. Deep rose colors, magenta scarves, the dry pink rouge she wore on her cheeks, it is here. The whorls of ruby magenta blending to white are spread before me, and fifty years of life have fallen away. I am seven, in my grandma's garden, and know a love so desperately deep that years later, when fingering a necklace made of rose agate and pearls like dew, her flowers, her voice, the sound of her skirts rustling speaks to me and I cry with longing and love. It is perfect, this piece.

Welcome back to my planet, currently viewed in the southeast nine degrees left of Calcutta. Thunder and lightning are traversing the lower atmosphere, much to the cats indignation except for Min, the black and white former porchsitter who lived outside for over a year before allowing entanglement with our big indoor orange boy Martian. Living outside would shake the phases out of me too, to the point of unphasement by usual sky temblors.

Min loved Martian, she fell hard to his indifferent treatment. Any time the hyper orange bastard would escape into city life, she followed. After she came to live inside with us, I would send her out after to bring him back as his outdoor sense could fit into the center of a Cheerio. He chased squirrels for maybe ten feet before the squirrel turned and chattered at him, causing him to puff out and turn tail, humbled and sorry. For all his forays, he never succeeded in bringing a mouse or bird home. He did exuberantly run up a very tall pine in the next door neighbor's yard--top of the world, Ma--got himself stuck, yelled his head off for two days before falling down half the height, saved himself on the branches before falling down the remaining way on the third day. Came home with resin and twigs in his fur and slept next to Brian, who he loved best.

Later in his life (it was only yesterday he arrived...), he developed heart, kidney, and pulmonary failure plus diabetes. I ministered medications and diets designed to ease nature, until he couldn't eat because he couldn't breathe, gasping in short movements. June 19th I took him for euthanasia and cried in his fur when he went. Min, who had fallen so hard for him, searched and searched throughout the apartment in deep resonant calls for a month past. She still misses him. I do too. He was a handsome piece of work.

I will write his story in my book journal, but maybe not yet. His ashes are still at the vet's; if I go there and pick them up, then it's really over. But I will, I have always retrieved the animals' ashes to bring them home quickly, but this, well geez, I don't know why the hesitation other than the closure to his life.

The storm has moved further south, echoes of rumbling fold clouds together still. Min sits behind my head as I type, her black and white self no longer able to sleep next to the orange cat, in Halloween repose. Let the storm shake out the heavy air.

Spring Post

One semester into this degree and I have earned a 3.91 average! Go me, but it takes a toll on life unless accumulating drifts of cat hair in corners is an accomplishment. I hardly had time for fast food and there were phases of grab and go starring raw carrots. The food at the college can only be called food because it was the same color as food but once bitten into cried aha I fooled you, now you can cry about the seven bucks you just laid out for this fake sludge more molecularly akin to rubber cement. Even the cheese on the crap pizza was a disappointment, and for lord's sake, how can you screw up cheese? No, no, I already know. Would you like to live next to the fake cheese factory? Me neither. What pumps out of those extruders is also found under the fingernails of every religious order. Off we go.

Snowy

So what else is new? Snow, snay, and schnee. I've already been through the couch for loose change. The water quality in the fish tank must be good, as there are more new babies zipping around. They look like tiny apostrophes with eyes.

Today I killed a spider, I think. Something black RAN when I flipped up a winter scarf that hadn't been worn in a while and tried to hide under a paper, so I know it wasn't fuzz. Didn't have the reading glasses on, so I wasn't sure what it was, but whacked it because something that can run that fast doesn't deserve to live for inspection, judgement, and then possible sentencing.

There are friendly bugs, even spiders which yeah yeah aren't bugs but arthropods related to crabs and lobsters, but this wasn't one of those. I like slower bugs, for they have no intentions to hide. If a bug runs, it's because it's up to no good. And, if in the middle of winter, in a dry apartment with no insect food source a spider can run that fast, where is it getting the energy from? A dopey, lethargic spider makes more sense than one running like hell. What food source? Sucking the life out of my cats? Out of me? Villain!

Still, I couldn't see what I was doing clearly, but anyways smashed it with a homemade knit hat that embarrasses my class when I wear it to school. At least, I am hoping it was deposed, for there were No spider remains to point at and say gotcha.

A good vacuuming in that corner will relieve the anxiety that this spider shall return when we sleep, to leave skid marks on exposed skin. Roadrunner arachnid, beep beep. It was only as big as a large pea, but for heaven's sake, a fast pea it was.

The building is abuzz with conversation, music, spoons stirring pots, it's early in spite of the dark sky that has a deep red overtone from low cloud cover. Shake out the covers, chase the villains out of your blankets, be they hiding there. Really, the thing was just doing it's spider job, but I hadn't the patience to discuss his/her longevity plan. Thinking of spring, that spider was. Me too. Night.

All and Sundry

I threw bird seed at a man today, by accident. There were these two crows outside of the pharmacy, huddled on the metal railing. Aw. Cold. During winter, spring, summer, and fall you will find a bag of bird seed that I randomly toss out like I'm the float at the Mardi Gras with beads. I drive one handed and spread millet down the medians of town, probably helping out the rat population as well as the birds.

Now, crows eat what, bigger stuff than seed? Mice, smaller birds, corn, bread, I really don't know but in winter you can't be picky. The two are watching me, looking all Hallmark card blackbird on a rail and I think Oh! Bird Seed! I make kissy noises, and launch a handful over the parking lot drifts so it hits the sidewalk where this man is maybe one foot away from site zero. He gets hit with only a few, but gives me a look and holds his hand up to say stop it, woman.

I apologized profusely and he smiled. I think he smiled. Maybe it was a teeth clench. The seed disappears through the poof of snow covering everything and one of the crows flies down and discovers a slice of Italian bread by the curb. The other crow, seeing this bonanza, hops onto the railing directly in front of my car and starts bobbing and fluffing feathers. I am behind the steering wheel, telling the crow that I don't have bread only bird seed, but of course she is trying her best for a slice; she lowered her head and Looked Me In The Eye.

It almost got me to go into the store and buy a loaf: Yes O Crow, I heed and obey. But really, the place is next door to a McDonald's across from a grocery store and several small restaurants. She was okay. I was extremely impressed by the act of communication. We are all probably on record with some corner security camera, that part of the neighborhood is rough. The McDonald's has previously been busted for dispensing LSD of all things from the drive through window.

Cheese

What on earth makes cheese, you know, the blocky stuff, so expensive? Isn't this labeled under "Economy Meals" in the old Betty Crocker cookbook, and I do mean the Old One from the fifties? It has no reason to be expensive, certainly not looking the part.

It's almost like making a car payment, this buying of cheese; but folks, lemme tell ya, don't go cheap. You will suffer through lord knows what sort of edible additives the manufacturer puts in as a stretcher. Chalk, for example. Glue. Old yellow and orange crayons. You Just Don't Know. Buy the better grade in smaller quantities.

This I have learned, in my living on a string days. The affordable in larger quantity tastes like phooey, but if you search among the varieties of finer cheeses, take the time to learn which gives the most bang for the buck. Case example, your Auntie 2seahorses was demanding a nice parmigiana romano to go on top of some bland vegetable but was scorched by the prices for a plastic tub. I put it down like it twere afarh, afire, or afur, depending on what part of the country you are from. I went for the cheaper store brand.

And then everytime I put that crappy cheap mess that looked like shredded fingernails on my food, the chalky, grainy, thick taste yelled "IDIOT! SUFFER!!" which I did to the last little granuale. Lord knows what chemical ingested produced the chacha in my gizzards, but I won't throw things out if they have been approved by the FDA. This fake cheese was from probably fake Italy, where there ain' no sucha thing as rules. It said it was food on the package.

After that experience, I denied myself cheese, you would of thought it was sin to purchase expensive. But I broke. Down. And got a container of parmagiana from the co-op for five dollars, but if you sprinkle it in eensy bits, the flavor awakens the tastebuds with less.

Again, I had been buying the two for four bucks rectangular chunks of alleged cheddar and layering it on to achieve flavor. This week, a smaller square of a 'farm-made by the family and the happy grass-fed cow that is so sweet she could watch tv in the living room with them and the kids just snuggle and lay back on her warm black and white cow belly' extra sharp cheddar squeaked hello in the cheese aisle at a greater price, but a sliver, a sliver, I say, of it sufficed and filled my quota for mold for the day.

You know, I think I need to buy a cheese shaver, one of those flat blade slotted utensils that slices in thin, delicate design. Ooo. No, I won't go to the dollar store for that; metal utensils made in China frighten me. I'll have to find a 'craftsman smithy with brawny forearms in the Alleghany foothills forging iron and kitchen gadgets' kind of cheese shaver. Local, y'know.

It has been a long long day, and the continuing saga of qi gong has worn out my knees and my arms, but this is good. I am rolling the chi between my hands very close to what the two instructors display. Really. I will get this any minute now.

It is evening, time for getting the last of the responsibilities finished. I dusted the shell cabinet and was horrified at what names I just don't remember. They are in the cerebellum, somewhere. Maybe in a dream, cypraea, murex, cymatium....sleep well, hear the tides.

Argle Bargle

Good gravy, had to get used to standing on my feet for hours again, not to mention the alarm back to going off at 530a. In the spring the birds help you get out of bed, for the hormonal robins start yelling hey baby just before sunrise. During these winter days, the only thing awake at that hour are people coming home from an all nighter and they aren't particularly cheery. I've run into them in the elevator.

Me: Good Morning!
Them: grnfx

I spent Sunday with Scott, we went to see The Reader at the last large cinema in town, the North Park. It has a large circular opening in the ceiling painted with golden chariots and people in vaporous togas, surrounded by plaster doodly-doos that look like meringue. The seats are old, the paneling of wood, and the concession stand pops its own corn. Really fun, cash only.

Then, Monday morning hit, glazed in ice from the west. The city wasn't too bad, but other regions lost power and everyone slid sideways on the roads. Dark when I leave, dark at return. The sun set at 4:57 pm today. By Friday, it will not set until 5pm, which means we gain three minutes of daylight this week. It don't take much, folks, to make me happy. Pop that Vitamin D, brethern.

Not much to report, and I am numb from acclimating children back to a schedule. Just like me, they have to wait to go to the bathroom, get water, have lunch. Life. Argle bargle.

I can't wait to hit that pillow tonight. My bones are tired and want to be still. Tomorrow I get yelled at by my doctor for not getting blood work, not losing weight (she wants me to weigh what I weighed in high school. I think one of my legs may be eligible), and not going for a colonoscopy. Brrr. Well, has to be done, but tonight, I sleep. You too. Night.

Do You Know...

Becoming a teacher, I realized the pitfalls of living with so many students early on in my younger days as a teacher's aide. It happens so often, you are pulled into the world by your heels, into situations you wouldn't find yourself, into neighborhoods you wouldn't go. A profession that interacts with people comes with one of the most primitive realizations of survival whether medicine, education, military, or any of the other social systems constructed to make society function.

There is death in everything, our food system, our families, our newspapers; no getting around it. It doesn't make it any easier to face, this commonality that links us together. Being a teacher comes with knowing death too often. At one time, it was rare to know of a student's death, and the reason was usually medical. Not here. Tragedy at your service.

How many now? Students that have been murdered that were once under my care and sit down, time to sharpen pencils is over. Making better choices is what you try to educate them with, teaching them how to negotiate socially, how to regard authority without reacting in violence, how revenge is not justice. Read, think, decide. Read, think, decide, discuss, look it up. That is what school mostly is.

Family dynamics, street ethics enter. Solutions are bullets and knives, "I just found it under the seat" said the assailant after he stabbed a boy who threw a carton of milk at the other's head in dispute. The victim was stabbed six times, and bled to death before he could be taken off the schoolbus. The boy was a good humored leader, a singer in his church choir, an achieving teen who threw a carton of milk. He ran into the instant power rush gotten through murder. Does the assailant ever think beyond the action? How do they think their life will go on? Do they imagine that the victim will reset, as in a video game, and rise again in onscreen resurrection?

Neglect comes into view. Children home alone, seven year olds left to watch many and much younger siblings. Fire. Can't get out. Matches, candles, furnaces, too near combustibles, faulty wiring, no one to lead them to safety, no plan to get out, balloon construction wooden housing. Drugs, alcohol, lead poisoning, brain wiring damaged in grandparents, parents, children.

In the paper today another one, she had gotten as far as her twenty-third birthday. House fire, boyfriend got out, she didn't. I see her second grade self, being mean to the other kids, picking on the nerdy ones, growing with abuse problems herself. She liked to write stories. She was crazy for animals. Alcohol problems in her teens. Family broken, arrested, drugs, shootings.

Katie.

Green, Where Art Thou?

Oh where are you, seed catalogues? It's that time of year when holidays end and the dark winter days stretch into months of ice and barren ground. This year I will have a bigger garden if things go well, and of course part of the fun is perusing which vegetables to try. I am easy to amuse; but really, pick your own green beans from the back yard and see the difference in a variety grown for tenderness, not durability in shipping. Same with broccoli, tomatoes, tiny, nibbly carrots.

I would like to plant a sour cherry tree which needs no cross-pollination, and Asian pears, which do. Always fun to get results, and I would be queen of sour cherries, pies for everyone! Espalier is the medieval method of growing trees in small spaces to get a maximum yield of fruit, and it sounds maybe fussy but not impossible. You see what keeps me up at night.

Today was one of those days when you see that everything is all right. Two friends from different ends of my social spectrum were in town, both incredibly nice people. It was wonderful to see them, they are both good souls.

Darlene brought me a jar of broccoli sprouts, their little rootlets are just starting to appear. This shall be my mini-garden till spring, this jar, and they only need rinsing twice daily. Nutritionally, they contain more than the mature head of broccoli; I don't know what I'm going to do with them as I am not a salad type of person, but I'll figure that out.

The other dab of information that she ladled out was that in keeping her blood pressure down naturally, a tablespoon of molasses provides one third of necessary potassium to do that. Hokay, a spoonful of molasses I can do, I thought at the time. Organic! Natural! Time Honored! said the label. Who could argue?

I got the bottle home, cracked it open, measured out a spoonful and holy moley, it made my eyes water and new hair sprout on my chest. Good lord that stuff is strong. Part of becoming an adult means you can sort of do what you want, you can have potato chips for dinner if you like, your rules are your own. My lord in heaven, so who is going to make me take this molasses? There is no adult hierarchy in place to enforce a daily spoonful, so suck it up, it is my own responsibility.

Can you see where this is going? I'd have to guilt myself into taking it which would work until rebellion wagged it's tail. Then I'd have to set up some sort of reward system, say a Dove chocolate square for each spoonful except you know I would skip the medicine and go right for the candy. Why? Because, I'm in charge! I'm the adult! I know that I don't really have to take any fake medicine if I don't want to before diving into the chocolate. God, I'm a pain in my own ass.

It is simply a Friday night, a night for staying up late. First supper, then some reading. With a low cloud cover, the city light bounces back from the sky, giving everything a warm glow, like dull embers in a dying fire, ending day. Sleep well and long, busy day tomorrow.

Nuthouse

I have been cleaning most of the day, heavy-move-the-furniture behemoth on your knees with a bucket cleaning. It is satisfying, and I have found the missing dvd Neverending Story and twenty-five cents. The cats are delighted in new spaces and flat surfaces, perfect for cat surfing. Run run run run hairpin turn slide. Crash. Fight.

Fight over the new spaces, everyone wants territory, no one likes to share. I have no buddy cats in the household, each individual believes it is the cat of cats and due obeisance from the others. Many times therapy sessions have been held where I make them smile at each other and share their feelings which goes poorly and ends in war. They count every nuance, every petting, every word until the angst levels froth into crisis mode. Slap. Hiss. Growl. Wonderful.

In a Disney world, Snow White got the cottage clean Because Forest Animals Helped. Cinderella got her dress Because Mice and Birds Sewed. I have to keep Snowbelle from jumping on Tulip causing her to panic and cough up dinner. Min will turn and give Snowbelle the what for beyond what's necessary, Kai will bite Tulip, Snowbelle holds nothing back from slapping Kai silly, Martian hates Snowbelle with good reason, Min is jealous of anyone going near Martian, and no one likes the vacuum cleaner except me.

I brought a live lobster home once and it scared everyone. Maybe I need to get another to keep order around here, the Lobster Squad. Armored and pincered, lobsters are the cat police in this house until they run out of oxygen and can't breathe. Then you pick Officer Crustacean up off the floor, rinse the cat hair off, then do all the stuff that supposedly finishes off the dazed animal before you stick him in the pot. It didn't convince me, no matter how primitive you tell me that nervous system is.

I've done the lobster cooking experience and won't do it again; like hamburger and chicken, I like my meals pre-dead, preferably cut in familiar shapes. No farm girl 4H sell my steer to the highest bidder for me. I'll find something to eat that doesn't fight back or have eyes, and has a happy name, like Cheerios. See how that works? When I bought frozen Japanese squid, the company had put a hat-tipping squid on the package. Happiness lucky! I wasn't fooled, but the thought was there.

Oh I am tired tonight from scrubbing and moving big furniture. Tomorrow I want to find wires so the cd player that I bought a year ago can get hooked up. Then later I'll knit while watching The Neverending Story. Neverending Storeeeee, la la la, la la la, la la laaaaa. Whoa. I am tired.

Sleep well, sleep peacefully, dream deeply, love mostly. Good night.

Houseworks

Your busy Auntie 2seahorses has been cleaning and hauling today. After digging through the cushions of the old orange flocked chair for loose change, I dragged it to the trash. Just is no room in this apartment for extra furniture, and I now have an open area to do yoga. And stuff. This was the premise, to make room for exercise.
Oh, and I did find a quarter.

I did some hand washing today, and I think I killed a blouse. Sure, it said 'dry clean only' on the tag, but who listens to that? 100% rayon, which I have washed many many times before, just not this individual piece. What happened is too weird, maybe one of you can explain, but seriously, it stiffened up. I gave a blouse rigor mortis. It became like a super power cape, able to repel bullets and hard stares. I could bend it into any shape and it stood up, like a ghost blouse.

What the heck? I bent it over the shower rail to dry, and if the fibers stay stiff, it's art. Because rayon is made from trees ironing won't melt anything, so the flatten it out experiment will occur tomorrow, and maybe the heat will soften it back up. It was a nice tunic sort, covered the butt but looked sporty. If you know what happened, please post. If you know how to make it unhappen, even better.

Talk to you later, kiddos. Mwah.