Facebook Hacker: Come On In, Idiot

If you receive amazing news from me, it ain't me.  As far as I know, no one has gotten any offers of mysterioso money or requests for bank numbers, just be careful as Facebook alerted me to an attempt  based in Nigeria.   I changed passwords and checked with my IT son who said to change all of my passwords, so I did.  Now I have to remember something complicated with letters and numbers, but I think I'll do okay.

This happened a day after I had shown Brian my statistics from Dreamville; see, I have people that read me in Iran and Russia!  He said:  Mom, they are probably hackers trying to get into your account; I was crushed.  What?  This is not an international readership?  You mean there are crooks out there?  They think  they can do what?  I have no credit to speak of and maybe a bag of carrots in the fridge, but that's it. And then the Facebook hack from Nigeria occurred.   Hell's bells.

In other weirdness, while driving home from work I tried to get the charger working for the iphone in the car's cigarette lighter.  It worked last night, why not now?  After wriggling the connector in the port, I noticed air was blowing on me.  What?  A Miracle on Oak Street, my defroster fan was chugging away like a little windmill.  It hasn't worked in a month, and I have been scraping and swooshing frost off the windshield by hand and then driving with the sunroof open in the cold.  The frustration with the charging cable must have drop kicked some defroster god in the behind, because now the thing realizes it has a job.  

Brian is almost to DC, and his significant other has ordered Chinese for them when he gets in.  The dark that is up here in the north is the same dark he sees from a different viewpoint.  Last night we had found ourselves on a side street in a suburban area where the night sky was visible; Orion rose in the southern vault of the heavens, while the Big Dipper spilled in the north.  Watch my son, Orion, you are as familiar as anything found within day.  Point the way north, Dipper, to those who love him so.  

Sleep well, peaceful, safe.

Cycle Eternal

If you have ever had anything stolen from you larger than a twenty, it will appear within your horizontal vision like a phantasm and haunt every eye twitch, resembling a bad case of visual hiccups.  A boy named Precious stole my young son's bike decades ago, riding down the street to a waiting van as nonchalantly as if his own mother had sent him out for a quart of milk.  We got the low-down from the police that he was part of a small time ring of thieves and that the bike was absolutely, positively now pedaling down stranger streets under an assumed name, and probably hanging out on corners, smoking cigarettes stolen from mom's purse.  It took me years to not examine every seven year old child riding a white bike, as if I could have magically leapt forward to snatch it back.

Later on in his life, my son had another bike that he had lovingly customized with some flipped-out handlebars, and left outside a bistro while getting a cup of in DC.  The lock was a Nitro U-Bolt, made of Rocket Space Steel and Wolverine Psycho Dog Nightmare Beat You Daid Titanium.  It couldn't be cut through with an atomic laser, but the guy who stole it within fifteen minutes knew how to jiggle the tumblers with a Bic pen abracadabra, sis-boom-bah, and toodled away.  The seething violation of theft ate at Brian's soul for months, and every bike, every wheeled conveyance whispered Hey, It's Me.  You look and look, and want justice.  You want your bike back.  Gotta get over it, folks.  The only people interested besides you are the shopowners who are going to sell you your next bike.

I have a bike that has been with me for years; even when younger it was difficult and uncomfortable to ride, so now it's impossible to hoist ye fanny up and over the bar--it's a men's style Schwinn, an iron horse.  Riding while leaning forward over drop handlebars was tiring, as I have not ever had arm strength (failed the test in Phys Ed my senior year), but I actually liked the installed toe clips as compared to pedals; it allows you to pull up on one while the other gets pushed down.  Still, the bike gave me emergency transportation whenever the car was at the mechanic's, and frankly, I like a bicycle.

So now I am in the market for a sedate two-wheeler, not so much for fighting potholes and city traffic as for tipping up on the back of a car rack and out to a park.  Son says I should go to a Professional Shop, but he is young and sort of status-conscious; I am looking at the local big box store for a upright handlebar model with fenders and a rack in the back, just in case groceries get involved. The Dutch have very charming bike skirts that wrap halfway around the radius of the wheels to contain mud, and extra wide seats for Mevrouw's big posterior;  I am also sure there is some website somewhere that sells a good bell for startling pedestrians.

The warm weather is coming, and I would like to get out on the trails after all the ice melts into puddles for sparrows.  Nothing like noticing where you are on a bike, and the fresh air would just lift me up.  There is a time during summer that happens just after sunset, that causes the air to settle from daytime affairs into a somnolent coolness that contains the beginnings of tomorrow's dew.  The vapors from the ground, of dirt and grass and small running things rises to meet the roric air, blending into an oxygenated elixir that makes you want to live, forever.  You pedal to home, wipe off bits of grass from spokes, read the paper, shoo the cats, maybe have a bit of a supper; flop down and sigh, happy.

Night is spreading over the city; as the sun dims, the electrical lights plink on to illuminate byways for the remaining travelers.  Myself, there is a bit of supper and then bed, it's been a long day and tomorrow my son returns to his home.  I am sorry to see him go, but I am glad that he still loves us all who are here enough to make time to visit.  He will sleep on the couch one more night, and I will kiss the top of his head one more morning when I go off to work.  I am so proud of him.  Good night; the wheels of the planets cycle, the stars and nebulae all turn, all spin.

You Are Charging How Much??

Got taken out to a sort of fancy restaurant, particulars of the circumstances later, maybe.  Now, you know me.  I shop for clothing at thrift shops and take advantage of senior day for an additional 25% off; I browse the marked-down produce cart, and will stop traffic to snag a banged-up penny from the pavement.  I will squeeze the last stuffings out of a tube of toothpaste and then slit the side of the tube to access additional remains that take me through another day or two.  No cable, no dishwasher, and I have lipsticks from half a century ago.  No, really, I have a tube of my mother's coral that has fake hieroglyphics printed on the tube sold during the time of Elizabeth Taylor appearing in Cleopatra.  I am thrifty.  Not cheap; thrifty.

So imagine the high horse I rode when reading the menu in this place favored by well, younger professionals who don't mind having to shout at each other, it's that noisy.  Fish.  A piece of fish with a few party vegetables arranged around the perimeter for Thirty-three dollahs.  Four green beans, two small wedges of red and yellow pepper, one small roasted potato cut in half, and two oblongs of something orange, maybe a rutabaga, circled above a five inch piece of striped bass, as if the fish were the sun rising on the horizon and the vegetables were the rays of joy.  Yes, the fish was delicious, yes there were chives sprinkled, yes there was a bare teaspoon of glaze de poisson, but for something that is so intangible as this plate of high falutin', I felt something was being pulled, like my leg.

The salad was $9. Nine dollars for lettuce with some cheesy goo on top that wasn't as good as what the host can make himself.  I stayed away from appetizers, but the table ordered oysters that were lovely and another raw something else which was okay but better suited for Sunday mornings with bagels.  I gave up keeping track of price, but lawdgobawmighty, the bill came to more than I have paid for some procedures.  It was said that this was reasonable for whatchoo get, but the next day included a charbroiled hotdog with everything that shifted the world into genuine get you a big Easter hat spring.

The dinner was a coming together of two factions for the sake of a third, and it turned out well in spite of the shouting over the other shouters shouting.  I think the wine pushed the bill up way further, and while it was a nice, dry white from the Russian River, the price of something meant to be whizzed out within the hour was confounding.  The alleged status of food holds an aura for some, and maybe lends an air of exclusivity, of being in the know which performs a proffered social stratification.  Sure, food is meant to be enjoyed, but when it is overpriced and looks like a sixties wall art decoration, or, as the raw smoked salmon, packed and shaped like a can of cat food, I think I am fast becoming a socialist.

For supper this evening, Madam opened a can of clam chowder, on sale at 10 for $10.  It was a quiet meal, but happy for the events that had previously taken place such as the Closet Liberation and the Return of the Prodigal iPod, besides having my son up from DC, which is best of best.  He was out with a friend, scooping up a famous pizza from Bocce Club, a leader in the pie and sauce arena.  I am making up the couch as a bed for him, and look forward, as only a mother can, to seeing her grown child sleeping, to seeing that face as innocent and pure as the day he was four.  A month.  Twelve.  Ever.

I will listen for the latch at the door to open later, and get myself turned in as well.  Pillows, quilts, cushions, cats: they are also happy to see him and have played all night in the newly opened closet.  Good night all, be well, eat like kings.

Days When Everything Goes Right

The little iPod shuffle, first generation, disappeared and has been in hiding for almost a year.  It was good enough, and kept me company while doing dishes or fiddling with art.  It kept me sane on the Amtrak train that had a crazy man repeatedly making fake calls on his phone, yelling at his supposed father about meeting his supposed girlfriend, and who said, after the ride, "Glad I didn't have my phone on."

It was gone.  I collected the iPod artifacts and zipped them into a plastic bag, tossed it in a drawer.  Today, son Brian brought me an iPod nano to replace the missing shuffle. Did the old earphones fit this one as well?  Let's see.  "Uh, Mom? Isn't this your iPod?"  I had encased it into a green plastic case, and immediately went into amnesia that this new green thing was: the iPod, and had shoveled it into the fray along with the cords and connectors.  I was happy at his finding it, but also floored at the loss of recognition.  This is one reason why I have everything in front of me.  This is not mess, everything is simply within sight.  My son enjoyed the aftermath of accolades and the promotion he won for being such a smart guy.  

While the iPod discussion trailed on, I pointed to the afore-sworn-at closet door, the one that has locked itself shut over six months ago.  The one that took me three months to work the pins out of the hinges with silicon spray and pliers, the one that refused to budge, the one I was reluctant to drill the lock from the knob, the one more point of failure until I could get a crowbar and pry till I burst into tears door.  

While I was meowing, Brian pulled some sort of gizmo out of his pocket and said wait a minute.  He had a tool with a knife blade that he jiggled and figgled and iggled.  He opened the door in under thirty seconds, by applying the blade to the underside of the bolt as I was saying how I had already done the credit card thing and the knife thing and how I was going to get a titanium bit and finally go through the cylinders.  He just mooched the blade along, pushing the bolt back bit by bit and with flourish, opened the door.

It was like watching a magician separate two halves of a sawn woman.  The door swung free, he unlocked the inner lock, and so performed another miracle in rendering me speechless.  He also enjoyed this, and engagingly showed me his Leatherman tool a ma jig that has these substantial components.  I said, what else can you fix?  He is staying here for a couple more days, and by that time will have raised the non-communicative printer from the dead.  I know he can.  

But there's more:  a beloved friend sent out the SIMs card for the iPhone he is graciously providing for my use to cover an already forgiven debt.  Scotty is a gem, easily one of the most hopeful, encouraging humans on the planet.  He always knows what to say, and lends a solid perspective to both emotional and economic situations deemed unsolvable.  I plugged the thing in, and now have a usable iPhone.  Hip?  Oh. Yes.  A second son if I could ever have another.  

Pauline and I had scoured the West side of the city for pasta and produce earlier in the day, stopped at Ted's Hot Dogs for lunch, and ended up with an impromptu visit to the SPCA.  Oh, so many animals; it was bustling with humans looking for new friends, one can always hope for further happy endings.  She insisted I take some of her bean soup with me; it is in the fridge, waiting for a cracker or two.  What else could happen to make this day extraordinary?  Not one single thing.  I am still astonished, bewildered, and confounded.  Other machinations have turned one notch in the cog, but those are to be examined later, and will be thought about with interest.

Pink at the edges, the night is arriving.  City buildings have turned on their lights, and birds are roosting in the branches of pines.  Today we saw immense turkey vultures gliding over one of the main roadways, and I wonder tonight where those dark birds stay.  Purple clouds umbel out from the central rising moon, children and parents look for a good reading light, dishes are done, blankets are shaken; doors open, lost is found.  Sleep people, sleep dogs, sleep cats, sleep you old turkey buzzards.  New day tomorrow, what will it bring?  Good, sound night.

Viva la Tavola di San Giuseppe

The story goes like this:  starving Sicilian children prayed to St. Joseph to send rain so the crops would grow, and he did.  Wheat, fava beans, and artichokes burgeoned from the drought-stricken ground that season to nourish the poorer families; the people prepared a feast then to honor the good saint on his day as a sign of devotion.  Parts of the celebration include inviting strangers to the table; no meat dishes as the day falls within the boundaries of Lent; no cheese either, for it was an unaffordable luxury; and an altar to be set up in three tiers representing the Holy Trinity.

A friend had been recipient of the religious cards and rosaries that I did not wish to merely discard, she accepted them with good will and as a part of her enduring faith that I had long ago broken away from.  To her, it is a form of contemplation and solace; to me, the Church had become a hypercritical, loathsome finger in the back of who does what to whom with permission.  I still can't sit in a pew without panic rising up to my throat.  Yeah, I know, take a pill.  Don't want to anymore.  You do it (no, don't).  Removing visible souvenirs of the parade of brocaded pomp helps keep me out of that vortex.  No lookee, no see-ee.  

She invited me to participate at her and her family's table and this is part of the gracious design that she weaves through her life.  She is a sprite, if ever there was a changeling from human to fairychild, it would have been this one, this earthbound human who has learned through trial and choice how to make life work, and work well.  Attentive to details, she inspires thoughtfulness as a conclusion of her own energetic curiosity and openness to possibility.  She reverberates as a plucked string does, her cavatinas travel in lateral waves; and if you pay attention, you will notice that her family and friends echo this sentiment many times over.

The beginning was a thick pasta in a lovely sardine tomato sauce, with fresh sardines having been grilled outdoors by the man of the house.  The flesh was wonderfully fishy, the bones crunchy, the blackened crispness spoke of a thousand charcoal fires ignited by a thousand years of history.  The tomato sauce was sweet and smoky, and topping it with the toasted bread crumbs made any Mediterranean angels hovering over the gathering wish for forks and bowls.  That was prima; secondo came the frittatas of spring vegetables, cabbage patties, crumbed and fried burdock, spinach casserole, something else that was breaded and fried in strips, and olives with crackers and a fava bean dip.  Terzo: honey balls and sfinge dressed in confectionary sugar.  Wine throughout and miraculous limoncello as an aperitif.  A stranger appeared, bearing candles: perfect.  He was pulled in and fed.  The gathering was fluid, happy, and overflowing with notions of becoming honorary Sicilians.

The moon finally broke through the layer of clouds just as I was leaving at 11 p.m., a punctuation of brilliant light at the end of a lovely gathering.  This was the perigee moon; by the time it had risen high up in the vault of heaven it seemed a normal size, yet the reflected light was more intense, luminous, and universally present.  Online photos have presented a compendium of size and splendor, and the sidewalks on the way to the car floated in moonlit phosphorescence.

Sweep closets, stack dishes; make dinner, lend a hand, light a candle, say a wish.  Be of service.  Take care of yourself, and by doing so you extend what you have for others.  Sleep well tonight, it is the first day of spring and the earth arises in green shoots and new feathers, blinky eyes are first opening, and mothers nest with their babies.  Isn't it wonderful?  You are too.  Welcome, come in.

Perigee Lunaticatle

God Morning cats and kittens, today is a day to be filled with digging out research for a paper on creativity, a paper that is worth my ticket to graduation.  One twiddle in the brain concerned wanting to be a research librarian for I thoroughly enjoy finding evidence; however, the further I got away from kids made me realize I missed them.  Being in the college library, then, is a bit of a treat.  Long ago my other intriguing desire was to be a medical illustrator, but there were no nearby courses available and personal family needs called.  I could have done it, for innards fascinate me like an alien world, only contained inside a neat, epidermal wrapper of skin.

The weather promises to be sunny and pleasant, a gracious welcome back to a warmer season which, in this burg, means a temperature high of 36 degrees.  Tomorrow is predicted to lose it's head at a longed-for 45.  Skies will be clear for the event tonight, happening at 7:49 post meridian when the full moon rises in perigee.  Well, the moon has a perigee every month, a point when it is close to earth; what's special about this one is that it is so near you can taste the green cheese.  Have crackers and wine and a thou ready.

Yesterday I traveled down the long strip of Elmwood Avenue from north to south, stopping at Towne for a fish fry (Greek salad, pita, Greek potatoes and a lovely breaded fish).  The people were out along the sidewalks from the edge of the Strip at Forest Avenue to one of it's perceived borders at Summer Street.  Particularly between Forest and West Ferry, you could see their heads lifted, chins tilted to receive the breeze that told of yes, it's back, spring, spring, spring.  They were happy, busy, and noisy in conversational clusters outside of the many shops and bistros that line Elmwood Village.  At North Street, I saw a long-missed but familiar person, the White Lady, who slowly wends her way to destinations known only to herself, which is at it should be.  She is one of our guardian angels, lord knows how we look for her presence.

I have to run off and do work.  Tonight, the full moon will be looking down on many a St. Joseph's table in the city, meatless and holy in the tradition of bringing people closer to each other.  I will hope to look upwards to see this moon, and also to look across at the human faces circled around a white tablecloth.

Aquarium Cat

I had skipped a week of aquarium care which shouldn't have happened, as I was feeding the plecostomus cantaloupe.  Even though the remains of the melon were scooped out when he was done, the warm weather triggered a response seen in 50's monster movies: fungus.  Underwater fungus that insinuated itself into every cranny of the tank, and it was not pleasant.

Lifting up the lid of the filters opened a whole new world of creeping boogiddy as if the pink insulation from your attic snuck down in the night and blanketed every internal surface of well, everything.  The tubes leading to the filters, the cages that catch debris before it reaches the filters, the inside pump and flanges, the catch basins, and of course, the filters.  I had a paper to complete, would the professor believe emergency aquarium care as reason for delay?  I think not.

Oh, the words.  The plastic plants were removed, half the gravel, the mechanics of the filters scrubbed clean as a baby's bottom, and  the powerheads were defunkified.  I had to remove the whole top which usually stays in place as this is a 52 gallon tank, but the crud was slinking along the underside.  It didn't take long, but the process was drippy and intense and I yelled at Min who was helping by loudly telling me what else got wet.  ROWR ROWR ROWR.  SHUT UP.  She looked at me, stunned, and left.  You can tell when you hurt animal's feelings, they are able to toss a bushel basket of guilt with one look, and their tails go down.  My gosh, she thought she was helping, and I yelled at her.  We made peace after the last paper towel swallowed the sloshings on the floor, me fussing about what a good girl she is and I am sorry.

I got to the paper about 8 that evening, and was up till midnight.  Stevie took a turn, chattering up and down the hallway, singing and calling.  It is pleasant to listen to, but no one beats Min for volume.  Her singing is lovely; it's the raucous good morning meows that find pitches louder than an electric power saw hitting a knot in a pine plank.  Min is Loud.  MEE-YOW!  Okay, good morning, I'm coming.  MEE-YOW!!  MEE YELP!  RAAAWR!  Cats make over 100 sounds, compared to the usual dog's ten.  I get them all within seven minutes of radio NPR waking me with the alarm.

I am hitting the hay early tonight, as the energy level of any fungus is more than the wattage I am capable of right now--you could poke me with a stick and not get much response.  If I sit long enough, I may end up covered with mushrooms myself.

Snowdrops

The first flower of the year appeared two days ago in a city garden, a rarity at this early northern date.  Tiny snowdrops are showing off next to a circular pathway and I am going to get a picture tomorrow as a way of cataloguing the seasons of bloom.   The flower looks like a tiny white lamp hanging from a green post, a  wee flower lantern for the mice.  It is only mid-March, and there is more snow to come, but here from under last fall's brown leaves the first shoots of spring arise.  Never this early.

Each year I count the time as the flowers open, not just by the calender marked on the wall.  After the snowdrops, Siberian squill follows, and then the crocuses.  Crocus are revitalizing in the colors of Easter, the colors you see on a church altar heavy with Lenten purple and golds.  Early daffodils and then the funny looking tulips that look like jester's crowns.  Forsythia. Dandelions and violets, pheasant's eye narcissus, and King Alfred daffodils.  Lilacs and lilies, then the warmer weather really sets in with poppies in May and the blossoming trees of crabapple, cherry, and peach.

Out in the woods, spring comes with trillium and bloodroot, Jack-in-the-Pulpits and Dutchman's breeches.  Wild leeks go into Mayapples, and all the while the spring peepers are yelling their froggy heads off anywhere a scoop of a puddle lies.  Grackles are back, turning over last year's leaves in search of early worms and insect larvae; and today the geese came, heading north in v-shaped formation towards the swamps near Lake Ontario.  I hear robins have returned, but none to my own eye yet.

Vegetable gardens put out a quantity of radishes first, and peas, and lettuces.  The first growth of catnip will be found in scrapyards and roadside plots for it does best in poor soil; after it bolts to seed in the heat, a second, scraggily crop comes and lasts till frost.  It grows everywhere once you learn to recognize the leaf, and makes no sense to buy the packets in the stores, when it can be had fresh and for free.  Just wash your hands afterwards, for it often carries tobacco mosaic which can wreak havoc with tomato plants and orchids.

Asparagus and most wonderful: rhubarb.  One of my best pies has an orange custard base with rhubarb and strawberries between two crusts.  That is spring in a nutshell-pieshell-verywell.  More old yards have a rhubarb plant or two, for it has been used as a tonic by country folks for hundreds of years.  I need to find one of these yards, as the grocery store thinks they can put one over on you and charge over three dollars a pound for a few stalks.  Makes a good jam, and once established--it takes three years--the plants will produce for half a century.

Pussywillows come slow, leave quickly; lilies of the valley fill any room with their fragrance as do hyacinths.  Well, I'll tell you, I can't wait for the show to begin, the flowers, the early greens, the mouse eared leaves sprouting from buds, the miniscule flowers put out by maple trees, the columns of horse chestnut blooms, the catalpa trees waxy white blossoms.  There is always something to take the place of the previous show all the way through to the orange gourds of fall, but there's no hurry.  I haven't taken you up to strawberries yet as they are the first part of summer, nor the sour cherries or peaches.  Spring it is, even though this is an unusual date for things to begin.  What were those snowdrops thinking?

Long day.  Night is here, and the lights of the city are the same in snow, in rain or warm summer evening.  Traffic runs faster with dry pavement, tires hum against asphalt at a higher pitch descending into a far away sigh.  I am tired, did some work at the college.  Looking forward to letting go, to that time between prayers and sleep, when you think of supposed things, of wishes, of purpose; there are seeds to be planted, and roots to be laid under earth.   Rest those long bones yourself, you'll need them for hauling, roiling, tossing forward this life knowing that nothing is as sweet as something you have produced yourself.   Good night, green shoot, spring moon.

Door Lock

The door to the front closet has been stuck since before Christmas when I wedged the portable air conditioner into its confines.  This stuffing compressed the coats in the direction of the inner button on the doorknob, the one that locks it from the freaking inside.  Why on earth should anyone be able to lock a door from the inside, unless we are letting grandma hide in there when company comes?

I imagine it performs as a release, in case one of the kids got locked inside.  The problem is, the seasons are changing and I would rather like a raincoat to wear on milder days, besides having access to other things stored in there.  The hinges have been removed.  I have fiddled with a credit card at the bolt.  A steak knife.  Paperclips in the lock.  A bobby pin.  Oh, you know there is no key, but any sundry key laying about has been tried.  There is a tiny release hole in the ring the base of the knob, but it doesn't line up with anything else but a blank wall of brass.

This is a great solid wood door, and an also lovely old brass knob.  I have thought about drilling/sawing a tiny mini door for my hand to reach in and release the lock.  Online do-it-yourselfers suggest drilling out the core of the lock.  I am reluctant to do mayhem in either capacity and resist permanent damage to either, they are so nice.  The hole in the door could easily be patched, or I could just pick up an old door from Habitat for Humanity.  Perhaps there are lockpicking kits available, I am sure a smith would have this thing open in a nonce.  It's only an inner door on a closet, not Fort Knox.

There are very very few mechanical locks on doors that can't be gotten through.  I once bought a $300 tumbler that was allegedly used in the White House; I'll tell you why another time.  It was near useless within three days.  I haven't given up, but drilling a hole through the door is starting to appeal as a quick and repairable way to do this.  I really don't thing the door is coming off, even though the hinge pins are removed.  It is if grandma is on the inside, holding the damn thing shut.

Well, on to the Philosophy of Creativity paper that has been started.  Perhaps creative thinking will allow a suitable solution to appear, an answer towards a stuck situation.  I search.

Pitchforks and Torches

Remember the scene in the James Whale movie Frankenstein where the villagers are chasing the monster into the windmill with farm tools?  Those would have been some of my relatives who,  if it were still permitted, would happily sock you in the eye with a rake.  I come from some of the most superstitious folk who lived in the deep forests of Eastern Europe, and who still torment others with ways that things must be done as proof of family harmony and affection.

In days of yore, at a wedding, the bride would sit on a bucket of water that would be used to wash the firstborn.  Now, a bucket of water kept for nine months without refrigeration probably had tadpoles by the time it was used to bathe the baby.  Adding to the soup, a wolf's paw was put in the water if it was a boy, to give him speed and smarts.  Lord knows we needed all the help we could get.  You could only kill a spider with the back of your left hand, and girls who then ate the dead spider would receive a happy marriage by the end of the year.   I can see my aunt with a scarf tied around her head, crabbing because someone didn't eat a spider and ill would befall the family.

It only takes one crazy babcia to make the rest of the group nuts.  Put this here, cross yourself twice, wear a hat heaped with vegetables on your head if you're the groom, if you don't, you're going to hell and worse, have to live with the babcia telling you so the rest of her life.  Don't talk to the neighbors, don't spend money in front of anyone, have a shot before breakfast, cover everything with Vic's Vaporub, close the blinds, kneel on dried peas; you learn to tiptoe around until you can get out on your own.  The alternative, which I have seen in several families is that the adult children stay, drinking themselves to death while Matka soothes heads and clucks how nice it is that the family is together.  Out of the thirteen surviving children on my father's side, only four married and left.  The others turned their paychecks over to Ma.   I don't like looking back there, it revives the sense of bitterness that permeated them, and most of all, a fear of life.

My Polish grandmother refused to talk to my father until I was nine years old, because he had married my mother, a non-Catholic.  We mysteriously bundled up one Easter and went for a visit with much crying and moaning from people that smelled like mothballs.  It ended with an argument, my father's brothers and sisters running interference between him and his mother when she wanted us kids to have a shot of whiskey for Easter.  It must have smoothed out, for we went back at Christmas and were given brown paper bags of hard candy that had been stored in a cedar chest, and the thick, hard anise cookies called Springerle from the German bakery.

There are some things I miss for not all of that group were dour, but they seemed afraid themselves of my father's temper.  Piorunujący in Polish means "anger" or "thunderbolt", his nickname from his mother.  It was fun to see the strings of dried wild mushrooms, the maszlaki; the homemade jugs of dandelion wine, and the immense feather beds stuffed with thousands of chicken feathers left from Sunday dinners.  It was not fun to be given my first cup of coffee with a bowl of potato chips, or sent to sit in the dark living room to watch television.  Couldn't open the drapes or the mohair furniture would fade, but to turn on an electric light during daytime was wasteful.  There was a chalkware hula girl with her nipples painted bright red by additional enamel paint, and a corner altar of a Pieta.  What on earth?  Clearly, I had dropped through a portal into Wackski-ville.

The house still sits on an East side street, the grey asphalt covering crumbles more each year as that part of the city is now poverty stricken.  I get maudlin around this time each year as Easter approaches, not so much for what was but for what wasn't, but that is the way it goes.  I am drawn to the Broadway Market for chrusciki and horseradish, and to see the various pysanky offered.  You fight it, but it is still an inherent part of you and well, get over it and find some sunlight in whatever existed.  I don't know if I ever will, but would rather just put it behind me and move ahead.  Time doesn't wait for you to backhand any spiders; myself, it's no holds barred and here comes the broom.

Sleep tonight, I think you may go a bit early since the time change took place and we are all short an hour.  The snow is melted, and it seems to be an early spring, with Maple Weekend next Saturday and Sunday throughout the rural areas nearby.   The grackles are back, and a friend saw a robin in the park.  Listen for melting snows, watch for crocus shoots pushing up through ice.  Sleep.  Sleep well and safe, and thankful.

The Smell of Books

I have a library at home, a series of five bookcases packed with books and then some, books on top, books in a side table, here, there, arranged sort of in the Dewey decimal system I had grown up with.  Paring them down was difficult, and is ongoing.  If I haven't cracked it open within the year, I first check Cash4Books.net to see if they are interested, then go and try to find a home for it before donation to the thrift store.  

Many books are keepers, even if they haven't been referenced within the time frame; some are sentimental favorites, some were read to a small boy in footed pajamas, and some took me places away from here.  They were my second refuge, after the first refuge of my mother lost her way in alcohol, only coming back after the alternative of drinking with her sister was taken, before she became chairbound and my father kept her soused with beer after beer.  There was a period between in which her self returned, during the childhood of her beloved grandson.  When she couldn't bear the turmoil, her drinking gave her a supposed life of gaiety and conversation with the other faces reflected in the mirror behind the bar.  I took to books, gladly.

I had plenty of Little Golden Books with their European style of illustration by Gustaf Tenggren, Garth Williams, and Tibor Gergely.   More involved stories began with Aladdin's Lamp, The Blue Fairy Book,   and the intricacies of Alice in Wonderland; then the vastness of The Swiss Family Robinson, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, King Arthur's Knights of the Roundtable, Hans Brinker, Heidi, and Gulliver's Travels told of worlds, worlds I had no idea existed.  In Gulliver, the hero reaches a land of horses and here Jonathan Swift uses the name Houyhnhnms for their equine civilization.  Huh.  Wow.  Could we get a vowel in there?  Nope, just go for it.  

The library was fairly nearby and Mom was going through her Mandingo phase, so we went every few weeks.  I had watched the movie starring Charleston Heston on television, so the first adult book I picked from the library shelves was The Agony and the Ectasy by Irving Stone, the story of Michaelangelo as he painted the Sistine Chapel.  I was thirteen and wanted to advance my literary acumen beyond Edward Eager's Half Magic.

I loved holding the book in my lap with my legs hanging over the side of the chair arm.  The noise in the house had complained that I was avoiding him by staying upstairs and reading in my room. Um, you bet I was.  So I read in a chair in the living room, and that seemed to shut him up for a while.  The older children's books had mostly lost their dustjackets, so you were holding onto the plain hardcover of canvas over hard board.  Yellowed pages smelled well, old, kind of in an acrid, woodsy manner, some almost a perfume, some like a box that grandma kept her scarves in, and some really wonderful ones that smelled like ironed cotton.  Newer books were fresh and sharp, adding an often crisp chemical smell mixed with the glue used to bind the cover to the folios.  

But you can hold a book, carry it and read it without plugging it in or having to recharge the thing at night.  You can hug it like a teddy till Nana pries it away after sleep comes, or you can revisit phrases again and again, and explore the depths of meaning and landscape.  You can turn the pages and hear the gentle flip of paper against your fingers, paper that will be there for centuries long past any cyberattack or viruses or war that stops energy production.  Pass them down to the youngsters, heaven knows a hardcover book is almost a rarity, and who will know the pleasure of propping one up on a chest while reading on a blanket under a summer tree?

Sleep comes easier with a bedtime story or song, slowing us down and readying our senses for the bridge into dreamland.  Oh, me?  Yes, there is a pile of books next to the bed, a few by Salvador Nutjob Admirable Dali.  Reading has become a guilty occupation, competing with all the college text I am required to get through, with all the paperwork attached to my job.  It will change soon, for nothing ever stays the same.  

Be well, be happy, be thankful you can read.  Google "global literacy statistics" to get an idea of which countries teach their people to read, and which do not.   It is not a good surprise.  The time change forward happens in a few hours, causing us Americans to lose an hour of sleep.  Tomorrow's Sunday funnies and Prince Valiant may be read with one eyelid propped open.  In the meantime, dream of books, of stories, of Aladdin cramming his shirt full of rubies and diamonds, of Heidi running with the goats, of eating breadfruit on an island, shipwrecked in the sea.  So you do.  Sleep as a child then, safe and loved.    

Caput Mortuum

The cold has crept in a little closer, for the heater fan in my car has stopped whirring forth heated air and the chill gets into every crevice.  No defroster, no heat, no air.  Poof.  Gone.  Have a great mechanic, this is a minor inconvenience.  I got off the elevator early and trudged up the next flights in the stairwell, just to think.

The snowstorm blowing in from the lake was blasting around the hollows and corners of the building, prying the cement from between the bricks, whistling and screaming in undulating choruses.  In a stairwell of cement block and glossy grey paint,  the sound magnifies to a hollow wail for there is nothing to catch the waves and break them apart.  The windows are leaky and allow the rushing wind to pull the interior air out, forming a temporary vacuum that gives the uneasy sensation of being underwater.  It's enough to give a suggestible person the wim-wams, for under these circumstances the wind has a pre-human voice.

The sound pierces whatever logic you live by, and tells you of secrets you thought no one else knew.  The force sometimes trails off and mutters itself quiet, only to start up again higher, pitchier, in a wavering, shrill jabber of dramatic babble and bark.   However, it is not Friday monster movie night; my talisman is a bag of take-out Chinese whose aroma wafts towards the higher atmospheres of home.  The noise pulls me upwards, and once you remove the anthropomorphic allusions, takes on a wheezing, orchestral hurdy-gurdy persona,  I climb up the stairs of a giant harmonica, with shrimp rolls.

I have a college education and a required master's degree, having gone back later in life; I am nearing sixty.  I have been through rigorous certification including a video taping of me teaching and several expensive (over $100) written tests.  Currently in the tenure process, I assume that this state has taught me to their qualifications and that I have met them.  I am in an inner city school labeled as failing; we are short handed and overcrowded, support staff has been reduced from fifteen to six for several years.  I owe Sallie Mae and other loan programs several thousand dollars for getting this education.  I stay at work till four or five, and take more paperwork home.  I sew their winter coats and bring them gloves; I supply notebooks and pencils, and send them to the nurse when they are ill.  I bring in treats, and geegaws for prizes.  A hired spokesperson for the city has come in and said "Maybe you need to tell yourselves that you don't do this job very well."  We are being blamed for the consequences of mismanagement from on high.  Kids don't sit still these days, and often the baggage they carry outweighs any interest in learning adjectives or fractions.  We are an elementary school, from grade three up to grade eight; we deal with crowded classrooms of students bringing in weapons, parents that physically attack us, student promiscuity, fights, screaming in hallways, children in need of services, counseling, and structure.  We need help in staff and faculty to manage the loads of emotional and learning based issues brought on by poverty, drugs, or getting home from daycare at midnight (yes that has happened).

The sound of the wind doesn't frighten me in the least, the screaming gusts whipping around corners only mimic the howls of my own thoughts.  The cats greet me at the door and I am blessed to have a warm space protected from the elements, running water, electricity, and choices.  I shut the windows that were cracked open to let in air, and go through the events of the day. Wondrous dark, that old equalizer, has fallen.  Time will change, springs forward, at 2 a.m. Sunday.  Spring forward says I, you will be alright no matter where you land.  Let go of worries and devious designs by the predators who feed their own coffers, they cannot take away that most precious commodity: what you have learned.

Sleep well; deep dreams.

Afternine

Dark covers everything, and hides the bruises of the day.  We flop to sleep, to temporarily forget the unsolved and allow the body to restore used energies.   Muscles that bore a load during the day have sustained thousands of tiny tears; the healing process fills in these microscopic crevices and builds resilient tone.  We get strong enough to move forward again, as the sunrise commences in gold and rose regalia.

But for now, lay quiet under the tiny stars that spin through the eventide, they weave a tale of creation, and have witnessed the chronology of the beginning.  When we are capable, perhaps we will recapture the emitted light of a thousand years, and watch time crumple from trilobite to sauropod to first barking human.  There are about 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and in the first Hubble Deep Field Image there are 3,000 galaxies visible.  Perhaps among them is a solar system where Quaggas still bray in deserts and Thylacines pounce, where dodos waddle or you can get a cuppa coffee for ten cents.  Double cream, hold the extinction.

The sky roils like the waves do in the ocean, it just moves so slowly from our viewpoint that we hardly notice what's going on unless we become astronomers.  There are a few planetariums in the area, you should go just to see a perfunctory introduction to the possibilities surrounding us, the noisy little planet that thinks it's king of the hill.  Or better, and if you can, make friends with a telescope.  Not only will you see things unknown, but you'll be outside in the lovely dark with others interested in looking up.

Sleep now and peaceful.  Say thank you for the day and return to the deepest part of the circadian cycle, where dream dogs run over cool grass and stars twinkle in glimmering orchestra.  Sleep whole, descend into the depths where you know your earliest, first name and who told it to you.  Rest under the vibrant stars.  Good night.

 

On Sale Ice Cream

If it wasn't for the scream of sideways tires or the image of the oncoming SUV in my rearview mirror or the look of horror on the driver's face just as the out of control truck came within inches of me, I may have resisted the carton of vanilla ice cream easier.  But this was Perry's ice cream, and it was on sale.  And, that idiot in the knit sherpa hat who was not paying attention to the fact that the line of traffic was behind a Metro bus that occasionally stops to let people out even if the left hand lane continues to flow needs an emphatic slap in the head.  Going too fast to begin with in congested traffic.

This is why I leave extra space between me and the car ahead, especially when stopped in a line.  I was able to zip forward just enough for physics to work, avoiding lord knows what.  It shook me up, the nitwit and I exchanged 'sorry' and 'I'm okay' waves, and the SUV then cut across a parking lot to avoid the red light at the corner and sped on.   A version of hurried drivers also happens on the way to work.

In the morning, I drive up an eastbound four lane one way street to make a turn onto a northbound one way arterial that heads out of the city.  Two lanes of cars are able to make the left hand turn, and when the light changes, they try quickly as possible to get through and here's the problem: pedestrians are using the cross walk that cuts through this left turn onto the one-way connecting street during morning rush hour and they take their life in their hands.  Not only are the drivers huffy, but often are facing directly into the sun, which blinds them.  I have seen more people almost get hit by cars and wonder for heaven's sake, why not cross on the opposite side where traffic is not trying to turn into your pathway?  

The point is, pedestrians have the right of way so stop already.  Point two, these cars are in such a hurry but they only get to make the turn around the corner and then Bam! are stopped at the next very close intersection by the light which is always red because it is synchronized with the rest of the lights still holding northbound traffic.  You ain't gettin' anywhere, Geronimo.

My car is small but weighs about 3000 pounds.  In an accident, hitting an object at 35 mph causes the front end to stop first, but the rest of the tonnage is still moving forward at 35 mph; things are compressing like an infernal accordion.  This continues, finally with your bones being stopped by the seat belt but your internal organs are still going at 35 mph until they hit your skeleton.  Anything in the back seat or anyone not wearing a seatbelt keeps traveling at thirty-five miles an hour, and hits the dashboard or windshield hard enough to cause death by being crushed.  Imagine if you were being whipped about, just you, into a tree at thirty-five mph and what happened next.  Newton's Law of Motion says that you should slow the Friday down.

But now, I am thinking that a bowl of Panda Paws might be nice.  Calcium, I say, right before bed helps induce sleep and makes memories of mindless zombie drivers fade into shadows surrounding the rising moon.  Tulip has found a catnip mouse upon which she is using cat kung-fu.  Tulip is shaped like a teapot; round everywhere with a stub of a tail as the spout.  Kai enters and flops onto her back, one arm extended in my direction.  This is to compel me with deliberate begging to hand out ice cream, but she has already had a bit of chicken and her nightly whipped cream.  Her blue eyes are drowsily half-shut but my brain is still able to resist cat rays.  Maybe ice cream for her tomorrow, since I also brought home some plain vanilla to share.

A bit of work before bed, a slice of melon for the plecostomus.  Pancake Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, clocks change this weekend.  Ah well, work to do.  Shake out the winter blankets, toss them over the line to air; too early to put them away, but I can tell you know there is a change coming.  Start some seeds, it's about that time.  Sleep away, soon the first robins will be yelling their heads off at dusk.  Maple sap rise, head tuck under wing.  

Hello, Russia!

Years ago, when the tanks were encroaching upon Moscow, my son came home from high school and said, "Mom, I'm going to Russia."  The trip was being arranged by the American Field Service, an organization dedicated to promoting a more peaceful world through intercultural exchange.  Brian was chosen as one of the students to go, and I can only guess that his Russian great-grandfather smiled down from heaven. 

He went in October and stayed with a family that he loved; the father spoke little English, but took Brian under his wing as more than a guest.  They would watch soccer together.  The mother made him a strawberry drink, and filled a large plastic bottle for him to bring home to the States.  "Mom," he said, "they are just like us, with a great sense of humor." 

He got to see St. Basil's, the Hermitage, St. Isaac's, and rode on the Trans-Siberian Railway.   He bartered with shopkeepers and brought home an immense ushanka, a beautiful shawl, matryoshka dolls, and tea.  They had the best chocolate he ever had, and still dreams about the ice cream.  He saw men and women jumping into cold rivers to swim, gathering mushrooms, sweeping streets, and learned about the depth of pride contained in the heart of the Russian people. 

Can I say thank you for how you helped shape my son?  He got to see the other side of the world, yet not so very far concerning in the basic goodness of people.  Vadim, Evgeny, Max, and Igor.  When you look to the North Star, it is the one we see, too.  Spokoynoy nochi.

St. Petersburg, Florida

It was beautiful to drive up the boulevard onto Treasure Island, to watch the sun extinguish into the waters of the Gulf.  You were looking at the edge of the world, for all you knew, and what lay beyond could only be found by traveling to the next horizon in your boat of sails, pushed by a wind from the east.  We once rented a catamaran for an afternoon on a bit of rough day.  That part didn't frighten me, but all I could think of was the fin, the immense fin extending above the surface that I had seen while crossing over one of the nearby bay bridges.  It was lazily wending back and forth, searching for what I imagined would be tasty and go goosh in its mouth.  Me.  So while the catamaran plunged and shuddered, I hung on tight and prayed we wouldn't flip.

St. Pete itself was not flourishing in the seventies, there were strips of empty plazas and storefronts even as the main drag reflected a busier end of the economy.  It was loaded with elderly folks and my gosh, their elderly cars that lived as long as they without rust, unlike the metal shells we drove around in up North, where the roads are salted during winter storms.  I shopped for what groceries we could afford at the time at a place that sold Donald Duck orange juice and lemons as big as my whole hand.  We lived on eggs, and I dug clams for broth at the shoreline.  But nature-wise it was beyond compare for landlocked me, who had previously been to Chesapeake Bay in Scouts, but never close enough to examine what lived in those depths.

After a particularly harsh storm, a rainbow of sponges had been tossed onto the sand; finger sponges in purple, red and bright orange came home to dry on the back porch with hopes of color and shape retention.  We'll never know, because the plain truth was they stunk to the highest level of heaven and tossing them out became sensible even to me.  A fish jaw and some sort of spine went with them, but what was left was lovely clusters of cockle shells and whelks, jingles and calico scallops.  I was rich, and the neighborhood cats left those alone.

Forty years later, I wonder what part of the ocean is the same; if I walked those white sand beaches, would there be the same speckled stingrays where the waves rush; the starfish, the shells?  Nothing stays the same, ever.  The sun still descends, the stars still shine on water, the sharks feed at dawn and dusk, the dolphins arc in pods.  Shrimp that I pay $10 a pound for up here are used as bait down there.  The palms lean at crazy angles, their fronds sluzzing in the breeze.  Lizards run shilly-shally, and white egrets angle for frogs and fish.  I missed the seasons when living down there and looked back with little regret when we left, for I missed my mom at the time, and called her from the corner payphone with three dollars in quarters when I could.  Yes, I made up the word sluzzing.  Onomatopoeia, kids.

My shell dealer friend lives on the panhandle, further up from St. Pete in Northern Florida and loves it.  I should go and visit.  Until then you may have to listen about the ocean, it pulls at me so, like the moon itself tugs at the earth, causing the crust to bulge as well as the water.  Feel the movement as you sleep, no matter where you are in this rocking cradle of minerals, slumbering as innocent as any newborn.

Who Dat?

You know I believe in the existence of ghosts; well, things have been turned up a notch lately.  Let me know what you think, it helps balance life out.  The other night, something woke me, vibrating against my left cheek.  I wear a CPAP mask these days, with a chin strap to help hold my mouth closed (wisecracks welcome); somehow the chinstrap was being pulled down and away from my mouth, wiggle wiggle.  Was I frightened? No.  It felt like someone was making an adjustment, just that it wasn't me.

Who knows why, it was a gesture almost as if the blankets were being tucked up by a loving parent, and why this sort of thing happens is beyond me.  It doesn't change anything, except my doubt of personal sanity and besides, reality hardly exists anymore anyways, with all these real world budget cuts and complaints by crooks and nitwits preserving their high falutin' jobs anyhow.

I think I said "knock it off" to whatever, and it stopped.  With the chin strap, that would have sounded like "Nod id uff," but the message was clear.  Because so much ethereal else has happened lately, I have gained more of a sense of humor about it compared to being frightened but that doesn't mean I'm inviting anyone over for ectoplasmic tea.  Go find something else to do, leave me alone.  Don't you have a few purgatorial courses to get through?  Skedaddle.  Git.  The power of Christ compels you to hit the road.  Few exceptions, like Mom, but I don't get the feeling she's hanging around, I imagine she's busy with other things and knows that I'm okay.

Maybe I'm too porky about the alleged visits, and should welcome them as friendly drop-ins.  It's the unknowing of who is who that bothers me, combined with the why of it all.  I have seen long-gone cats out of the corner of my eye, and felt their presence near me or on me, wherever their preferred place was while here.  That sort of event is much easier to understand than a strangely timed wiggle here and there. What do I know?  If you cross the street when you see me coming, I understand.  Completely.

It's later than I like but the writing itch was energetic and industrious today.  I played hooky from half of the vacuuming and cleaning the fish, but will catch up tomorrow.  Dear tomorrow, see you soon, don't be in too much of a hurry to get here.  I will be bright and on task, and will toss only one entry into the maw.  Tomorrow.  What a nice word.  See you then, be at peace.

Tidal Pool

When I was a kid, one of my dreams was to visit the edge of the ocean for I wanted almost more than anything to see the fantasy world of a tidal pool.  I now live only about eight hours away from the ocean, but it may as well be eight years for lack of time or money, yet the finger of a small god digs into my back, saying. "Go."  Ah, it would be a move, but there are close friends in Quincy, Massachusetts who would help me get set up.

Seashells were given to me by my godmother Eleanor, just simple halves of an oyster, a shovel clam, and two kitten paws.  I may still have them from over half a century ago.  A book fair at my elementary school gave me the chance to get, after much pestering of my mother, a book on shells that had pictures of the creatures that also inhabited this planet; they looked nothing like me or any animal that danced for Disney.  Corals, sponges, sea lilies, and nudibranchs undulated in saltwater pictures temporarily corralled by the ebb tides, just waiting for the humans to come and see and wonder.  It's all an understandable wonder.  Not like, say, economics.

The seashell collection grew to cypraeidae and strombidae, cowries and conchs, all spotted or bloodflushed pink.  They now lay in clusters on glass shelves, distinct exoskeletons like nothing else on earth unless you count flower blossoms, unless you count fungi, unless you count the myriad forms of minerals, unless you count the miracle scales on butterfly wings.  Jewels, all.  Wait till the first flush of fungi and I will tell you how beautiful the thing is, with red cap and yellow stem, bruising blue at the touch (Boletus bicolor).

Perhaps I just need to go and see and feel the sting of saltwater on legs, to breathe the air shared by dolphins, to walk up the beach to see the bubbles rise in the sand from the little coquinas, the tiny clams living at the edge of the water.  It calls to me, the ocean, with a primeval tug at whatever part of the brain was once found underwater and gilled.  I don't think I was a fish, but maybe there are some atoms left from being a clam, a whelk, or a volute sliding along the coral floor, teaching little clammies, whelklets, or voluteenies to walk in a straight line.

Bed is bed is now, and I welcome this end of day now dark.  Close the shutters, draw the curtains, slippers on.  The ocean waves curl night and day in the rhythm of pulsation, of all the living things it contains.  Draw in the sand, toes lapped by salt edges of liquid passion, watch the little silver fish as they dash forward to escape.  Night loves you, so do I.



 

Museum

It started with cleaning off the bathroom sink.  I'm not telling you what I found, but it was organic, human, and came off of me obviously as I am the only primate in here.  No, no, don't worry, nothing like that, it merely had fallen off after years of stubbornness, and after application of some sort of dermatological magical ointment.  Oogy.  Don't know why it wasn't tossed immediately, it's not like it deserves a ceremony, but there it was, winking up at me.

Okay, it was a callus.  Just a hard nodule that honest to goodness, developed on my finger from: opening endless pull tabs on cans of cat food.  It wasn't large, just there, and I wanted it off.  I don't even like nail polish, it makes my fingers feel numbed as if end caps sealed the ends of my fingers.  I hate most lotion and will wear a ring on rare occasion.  Get it off.

To be honest, it fascinated me back to the days when I owned a microscope and would put hair (looks like a pinecone), sunburned skin peels (porous), and pinpricked blood (cells!) on slides.  Got a dead frog from the science teacher to examine, dragged home found animal skulls from the woods, and had a small box of snail shells, freshwater and land.  Science of growing and the materials produced by it fascinates me.

For example: horns, which stay with the adult animal its lifetime, and antlers, which are living bone that is shed each year.  And why don't people find the hundreds of discarded antlers each year in spring?  This is because the shed antlers are a source of calcium and phosphorus for mice, squirrels, porcupines, and the deer themselves during a time when little else is available.  So, I thought, what else am I collecting?

Seashells, and vintage Halloween.  Reasonable.  Eggs, sort of connected to sea shells and I make pysanky, the eggs colored by bee's wax and a patterned dyeing process. I have a small glassed in cabinet filled with a couple of bird's nests, broken eggshells from robins, feathers, and here we go, any intact dead insect like bees, butterflies, or cicadas.  I put some animal figurines in there also, to make it look like a forest diorama.  A tiny woods house.

The oddest collection, I guess, is the cat's whiskers.  Anytime a shed whisker is found, it gets put in a green hinged box; along with this is a tooth that dropped out of one of the cats head when he became elderly.  I still have some of my son's baby teeth, most of which have split in half for some reason, and a snippet of his baby hair.  Those are in a drawer, not on display like the shells or dead bugs.

So the piece of hardened callus that was there this morning has been discarded for heaven's sakes already; if I was younger and armed with a microscope, I may have stuck it under the lens for examination, but these days, well, no.  It's no wonder I had interest in becoming a medical illustrator at one time, this sort of thing was probably my beginning.  Makes the world go round, you know.

It's midmorning and there are errands, the fish tank needs cleaning, and a cat has to be chased down and brushed.  I hear Min snoring in the carpeted cat tower during her after breakfast snooze, and Saturday traffic rushing up and down the highway.  I need to get out there too and see a few folks.  Maybe you.  Maybe you looking at me, and trying to see which finger the callus recently inhabited.  Gotcha.  It's all a hoot.  Be safe, be well, be nice to others.  It's so attractive.

Steve the Cat

The last cat I brought home was supposed to balance out the clique of girl cats; the previous owner of the job, Martian, had succumbed to respiratory failure after a long life of girl cat adoration.  Min loved him with every whisker, and had followed him in to become a housecat after a year of advertising herself around on my old back porch.  She called and called for him once he had gone, and I know her heart was broken.  This turned into a clobbering of the other three girl cats who responded with girl cat hissy fits and sneak attacks.  No one liked anyone else, clumps of different colored fuzz left in the hall would tell who did what to who during the wee hours.

What could I do?  Four cats for me was enough, but to bring stabilization to a cracked foundation, I needed a boy cat to ignore the females and thus cause frantic bids for attention from him; no deliberate searches, but I had taken Tulip for shots and my vet always always has a cat or two on the premises available for adoption.  Sitting on the white linoleum in the back room was a large grey and white fellow, watching in a nonchalant manner.  Unfazed by dogs, humans or other cats, this cat appeared as meh as anything.  I walked over to him and he offered his head, still in a take it or leave it way.

"This is the most mellow cat I have ever seen," said the vet tech who I admire in that he adopted a crazed cat from my son and reformed the animal into a babysitter of his three year old daughter.  They now pal around everywhere together with the golden retriever.  I trusted him not to steer me wrong.  "He's only got some issues with being picked up, but that should disappear."  Dokey.  More of the story from the vet herself revealed that this once housecat, whose paws show a crummy, lumpy job of declawing, had been abandoned.  He became almost a feral, but some neighbors looked after him, feeding him and making sure he was okay.  Named him Mr. Pickles, I guess from the comic strip character who also has a white mustache.  They brought him to the vet's for adopting out, and left him with a cat bed and a one hundred dollar fund for care; this must be some cat to generate that sort of kindness.  I took him home.

He never hid, but was wary of me and of course the hissing Furies that let him know who was what.  His boy cat charms were not apparent to them, and I hoped time would engender some interest.  Not overly affectionate, this is a cat who needed to trust something first and lucky him, I am a patient person.
He learned to enjoy petting and brushing and now he leans into me and cackles with joy.  Still not overly affectionate with anyone, the girls did begin to tease and paw at his dignity.  He ignores them, but the balance has been returned to a horizontal level and there is less snottiness between the girls.  

He now has the first name of Stevie after a favorite cousin, and has boundaries.  Being declawed, he has become a biter, and will put his teeth on an unwanted hand.  He had to go in to have some maintenance work done; Stevie, the aforementioned Mr. Mellow, is a terror with intent to rip out tendons when faced with an examination.  The vet tech was called in to pin him with ninja cat-hold moves and was taught; eventually with exhaustion all around, the tornado was tranquilized.  After administering the pill, you wait for the cat to vomit, indicating that things are winding down.  It took him longer than usual to go under, but chemistry finally won and the examination proceeded.  His royal pain vomited for three days after.

Here he is, a year later, and has announced his arrival into the living room with a trill.  He knows where the catnip is and how to get me to dispense it.  Really quite smart, he will lead me to what he wants, talking away like we are old chums and has become much more comfortable with touch, to his surprise.  I am pleased to have him here.

He yodels up and down the hallway in a pleasant tone, not overly loud, and I sometimes hear him in the night.  It has become a familiar sound to me, this chatter, and brings a sense of normalcy.  The girls are happier, too.  There is to be an ice storm in the early hours of night, and I wonder what sounds will accompany the falling rain as it ices.   I am tired, it has been a hell of a week at work, and turning out the lights is looking really good to me.  Maybe put an extra blanket at the end of the bed tonight, the wind is kicking up a bit and the cold may seep into the crevices of the house later.  Stay warm, stay bundled, let the night people do their jobs so that you can do yours during the day.  Rest those bones and wish them well as they sweep and repair, guide and watch.  Sleep well, good night.

Out in the Woods

There is a wide variant in temperature when the change goes from winter to spring; this morning was a balmy 26 degrees, by late afternoon the wind was cracking around the corners of the building in a chill equal to 6 below zero.  Walking into it created tiny stabs of pain anywhere the coat didn't cover.  It reminded me of Girl Scout camp in January and all the frickinna outdoor activities scheduled, including going to the bathroom in a frozen outhouse.

We hiked, cleaned trails, cooked outdoors, looked for constellations, and played guitars around the fire which was the only source of heat in the lodge, so you climbed into your sleeping bag with your winter jacket on. Every surface had the potential to freeze to your skin.  We got to walk over to a farm on the frozen mud ruts in the road, found a piece of a dead porcupine, and then got to ride around a corral on an old white horse with yellow eyes.  He had a thick coat developed by the cold country season, and whuffled sweetly as we young girls hoisted ourselves up to the saddle.  It was just too damn cold, but we kept moving.

Meals were Girl Scout recipe weird, like the old standby of Bisquick dough glommed onto a freshly cut green stick, held over a campfire to bake, then pulled off and grape jelly mashed into the hole where the stick had been.  Either burned black on the outside or raw on the inside, that was that and you didn't complain, nothing else was available.  This was usually accompanied by hot chocolate made with water pumped up from the well if the handle wasn't frozen.  In order to free the handle, you melted snow in a pot over the fire and then doused the thing with the boiling water.  Most of the time was spent gathering firewood, and boy we smelt like a four alarmer.  You just needed the wood for so much, and to get warm meant standing by a blaze.

Toast was made by holding bread over the fire, then topping with sliced oranges and confectioner's sugar.  The gung-ho leaders did allow supper to be cooked indoors, as the size of the pot over the campfire would have been unmanageable.  Hamburger was fried into brown crumbles with celery and onions, then mixed with cans of Campbell's Alphabet Soup and poured over cornbread; dessert was Indian Pudding: molasses and cornmeal.  After a day of clambering up and down hills, you ate.  Then the group sang inane camp songs around the fire such as "Eddie Kucha Kacha Karry Toast Mary Toast Mary Allen Paddawacky Brown."  We were so suburban.

One of the most sage pieces of advice came from my best friend Nancy.  Upon arrival, you had to sign up for a job such as sweeping, hauling firewood, dishes, garbage detail.  Nancy got me to sign up for latrine duty for the hard fact that it was the easiest and quickest job around.  Two sides to one outhouse; all that had to be done was to replenish the toilet paper supply and toss a shovelful of lime down the chute.  We'd be done in less than five minutes, and would trot back in while the other girls spent the next half hour hauling wood in the subzero dark.  Cries of not fair would be countered with offers of trading jobs, which none of them wanted which made no sense because anyone using the outhouse was required to leave it with enough toilet paper and sprinkle lime afterwards.  We were only follow up, and had no squeamishness about our reputation.  Besides, in winter the outhouses were spiderless; woodpiles, on the other hand, often housed desperate things with legs or worse, weasels looking for them.

The clarity of the cold heightened your senses, especially of smell.  If walking down a road, you learned to get into a pine woods if possible as it would be warmer, the trees kept the air more still and the needles were perfume.  How to describe the smell of snow, or the way it muffles sound, or how it catches you softly if you fall.  How very clear a night miles away from city lights is, and the path that the Milky Way actually takes through it.  Or to watch the Northern lights that shimmer and crackle.  Or to find the freshly frozen guts of a deer dressed in the field by a hunter, and not so much be horrified as to be fascinated by the recognition that you know this is the gut, this is the liver, this is the intestine, all in iced crystalline forms usually seen in your science book, back in the real world.

Taking a hot bath once you got back home was reintroduction to civilization as well saying hello your friend, a Real Toilet not Made of Wood.  You made your hot chocolate with milk, and ate meals that were not different food groups mixed together to save washing pots.  Out in the woods with other girls you had to use social skills you had little understanding of; at home you could hide in your room and read a book.  Thank God for Nancy, she was the wild one who pulled me out into a life of sorts after we met in Scouts.  My girl.

Even if you cannot hear the coyotes or see the rush of the Milky Way, know that it is only a few steps away from where you live.  No state in this union is totally citified, you only have to get away from the lights by about twenty miles to see anything different.  Then, look up and feel humbled by what is beyond us that has circled the heavens for billions of years.  Most of us are able to be warm if we want, most of us have a place to sleep with blankets to huddle under.  Sleep well, dream of wheels in the sky that turn the planets and stars, of winds that blow in changes that starts the sap to rise in our trees.  Sleep like a log.  Good night.