The Dead Guy in the Attic

This is hereditary, and I am sorry.  I think you've grown out of it, for the most part me too; at least I handle it differently than history would tell.  For many years I was frightened of going down to do laundry in the basement and would make the dog go with me.  If the dog was uninterested, I would drag a cat along, as if a meow would scare away any heebie jeebies; three quarters of the time either species would be totally bored and hightail it back up the rickety wooden stairs that were open at the back so that your ankle could be grabbed by the, by the....by the unknown shiver that ran up my grown adult spine.  Yes, I believe in ghosts.  Yes, I will tell why someday.

Of course, Brian grew up with his flibbertygibbet mother blasting through the basement door, clutching the laundry basket and trying to breathe normally so as to not alarm the boy.    For some reason the attic was not as gruesome, maybe because the intense summer heat would kill all the spiders, but there was still a tension, a quick glance around to see anything amiss.  It was our little grey cat Fiona's favorite place, and she knew how to stick her head out of the eaves and grab a sparrow that had built a nest in the gutter.

Case in point, we were sitting on the couch watching television when the indoor cat ran through the indoor living room with a bird in her mouth.  A living bird.  Where the hell did that cat get a bird?  C'mere, you.  The bird was indeed alive and not much hurt, but the only way I could get her to release the poor thing was to stick the both of them under the cold faucet of the bathtub.  Fiona bulleted, angry at being robbed of her prize, and the bird was stunned at the deliverance by flume.  It was too scared for me to dry it off, so once I opened the back door, it took off in a loop de loop trajectory, straightened out, and headed for the neighbor's tree.

But if Bri wanted something from the attic, he would ask me to get it, and I didn't blame him, it was completely understandable and we had finally gotten him to the realization that there were No Crocodiles under his bed at night.  One step at a time.

I'm not sure who came up with it, but it was decided that maybe the reason the attic contained an air of menace was that perhaps some guy got himself shot up there.  The house was one hundred eighteen years old, and I still have the copper slug I dug out of one of the doors, what other human problems had taken place within the stone walls?  Dead guy in the attic, said son Brian.  Mom, I don't want to go up there.  Would you get my Castle Greyskull, please?

As I said, life was tough enough without bodies in the attic waiting for you to view their shadowed remains.  But how could the dead guy in the attic become a friendly, non-threatening entity?  Christmas!  Sure, Christmas, a time of cheer and presents and sweets and Santas!  On one of the gift tags for Bri, I wrote "To Brian, with Love.  From the Dead Guy in the Attic" with a happy little doodle of a skull with cartoon hearts floating above it.

This was great, who else would give my son a gift?  Tags were made from the dog, the cats, Darth Vader, his bicycle, the peas he hated to eat, the Nintendo, the house, Godzilla, and all the Japanese moviemakers who made those monster films.  You have to see Monster Island.  Everybody is there.  It began a tradition, and he has kept the tags from through the years.

Now he's in DC, and more likely than not, I don't see him during the Christmas season; that's okay, the tags still continue, he just gets gifts mailed or picks things up the next time he's in town.  It's handier for all if he and Dana come up in a rental car; he was once upgraded to a canary yellow Mercedes Benz sports car.  It was awesome.

This year, he sent me several fascinating books and a terrific photographer's set up kit with lights, a tent, and other things that will allow me to take decent photos of my artwork.  On the inner receipt, there were messages; "Merry Christmas, I think you'll like this,"  "Don't let this book freak you out about any of the trips I take; I know not to do what she (the author) does," and then there was the heart-tugger.  "From the Dead Guy in the Attic, with Love."  I'm blinking back tears.

Memories tumbled out and melded into a scene of a young boy, learning to go up the stairs to the attic without fear, knowing that all he would find would be a part of his home, a part of his life.  A part of mine.

The cold is snapping crisp, and the sky is clear to the stars; there is no cloud ceiling to trap the city heat.    Sparrows cluster in pines and hedges to create a mini biome of warmth; squirrels semi-hibernate, packed together into a big squirrel ball, appearing outside only when necessary.  The long nights of winter will be illuminated tomorrow night by the new moon as this year turns into the next; there will be noise and clatter at midnight with fireworks and factory whistles.  Sleep well and reflect on how far you've come, how many stairs you have climbed.  You've done well.  I am proud of you.  Good, peaceful night.

Night City

The snow has melted down to the grass and pavement, yet by the time we walked down the street to a next destination, a thin layer of crystalline ice formed over the sidewalks so that clinging to each other by the elbow made sense.  The air was still, and in spite of the freezing taking place under our feet, it felt warm.  Of course, considering the happy state we were in, everything was perfect.

The battered, jury-rigged outer door of the first establishment leading to the uneven stairs and inner sanctum were lovely in its brokenness.  The totally painted black insides lit by red bulbs and orange strings of Christmas lights, which hung like stars where wall and ceiling met, were punctuated by opinionated scribbles and the throughly welcoming patrons whose feelings were underscored by variously fancy pronunciations of the F word depending on beer intake, and were deemed as icing on the cake.  We settled on layers of duct tape committed to holding the seats together, as the host of the beginning part of the evening, Chris the barkeep, came to attend.  Diane found a dime, declaring that this would bring luck to the goings-on.

The crowd we are part of doesn't have the energy for a bar fight, thank heavens, and most are done by eleven, the starting point for the next crowd of which I am no longer a member.  Sleeping till three in the afternoon just isn't my thing, so fare thee well, early morning breakfasts at 4 a.m., and I don't miss being up till the sun rises.  No, no, no.  The arguments at the other end of a long bar, if that is what you could call them, centered around New York state taxes for businessmen, the stalled building of another bridge to Canada, and who was in charge of what down at City Hall.  Sincerity and heartfelt emotion oiled the wheels of these discussions, and loud approval or dissolution bounced off the black walls.  Diane and I stuck to topics of humanity, film, and who played what in which rock group until we decided we were hungry, and so bade Chris farewell and wished him luck in finding his way to Aruba.

This is when the night people were milling about, and we saw a group of about thirty college age kids traipsing down the street, dressed as though they were putting on a play of Clockwork Orange crossed with Cirque de Soleil.  Other folks were in hoodies pulled up and over faces, tweed jackets, suits, or ninja bandanas wrapped around foreheads.  We were seated by darling waiters wearing long, white aprons next to a small, burning fireplace, which proved that the dime was working and thus preserving the glow of pinot grigio and Coors Light.  What else but wings, and the waitress suggested that we would save four dollars by ordering a double rather than two singles, craftily adding to her tip, for no one else had ever been so thoughtful in evening fiscal expenditures.

The wings were grand, the fireplace was grand, and we were grand.  After an hour or so, it was decided that it was time to go grocery shopping.  Apparently, there is a better selection of coffee creamers on this side of the border, and Diane wanted to grab several before returning to her native homeland.  Me, I just needed milk and a sweet potato.  Grocery shopping after a night out is a hell of a lot more fun than a 4 a.m. breakfast.

Immediately upon entering the grocery in my mostly Hispanic neighborhood, another young man came over and helped extricate baskets for us from the stack.  We weren't having trouble, he just ambled by and was brought up right by his mother.  Hello, ladies.  Mira, por qué necesita una cesta?  Yes we do, sweetie.  Dos, por favor.  Then we wandered the aisles and dug through the half price candy canes, of which I now have three boxes for my kids.  Di was trying to convince me that peppermint is an excellent flavoring for coffee. I'll go as far as caramel, but after that, I'm not messing with mother nature.  It was after eleven, and police cars were starting to cruise the street.  And by golly, it felt like time for bed.

I stayed up for a while, it's always good to get an I've-made-it-home email from the other, and hers came a bit later as there was a back-up at the Peace Bridge from Canadian shoppers returning home.   Jammies, then; brush teeth, feed the fish, and turn out the lights.  Tomorrow is Sunday, beautiful Sunday, a day made for art.  I have my painting clothes on,  I can't tell you what they are, but the functionality outweighs the decorum factor.

Sleep well, we are on the other side of the solstice and I've read that the moon on New Year's Eve will be new, an event that last happened 19 years ago.  Think about a fresh start, what would it take to put one foot forward?  I know that can be a steep step, but as for myself, watch my paints fly.  I dream of canvases to fill with stories and history, of loved ones and ocean tides bringing coquinas and broken corals to the water's salty edge.  Just as the moon pulls on the bodies of water, be assured it casts a net over our human selves as well.  Sleep as the planets spin above, each in its own orbit, each with its own  moons.  What if the earth had two moons, would we go twice as mad each lunar fullness?  Wouldn't that be interesting....get home safe, traveller.

Tiney Blue Stars

"I saw the stars and they wer tiney blue and sparkly and prity and I saw red lights on bildens."

The question was, "What do you see when it's dark out?"  Donald had written this down, asking for help in spelling the word "lights."  He had come in earlier that week, telling me that his leg hurt where his cousin hit him; he was able to pull up his pants leg to his lower thigh where the purple imprint of a belt buckle raised a welt.  How old is your cousin?  One.  He's one and he's mean.  Now, there is no way a one year old could wield a belt for the buckle to land that high up, pointing downward, with such impact.

I sent him to the nurse and called his home, which was a phone number connected with an aunt who would then go down the street to find the father.  The aunt was primarily responsible for Donald, and had little love for him.  He came in unwashed, with a smile and was ADHD, couldn't stay in his seat or focus long enough to stay with a sentence.  He was adorable and drove most teachers nuts, including me.

"Oh, that was Donald's cousin who did that, he's a terror and hit Donald with the belt.  Ha ha.  We put ice on it."  Age?  One.  Of course.  Collaborating with the nurse's examination, authorities were called to go check on things; Donald came back later that week to report that his aunt was treating him nicer and feeding him.  He had difficulty reading, wanted to be loved, and was crazy about his addled father; an older man who loved his son but was lost himself.

Clothing that I gave Donald would get taken by another at home, school supplies that I brought would be given to the other kids; when you have fortune on the street, you share what you have with everyone.  He was under my feet, constantly close;  I ate with my class down in the cafeteria, Donald always wanted to know what was in my lunchbox.  Rice and squid.  Wanna try it?  He was game for anything.  Can I have your grapes?  He often didn't know where he would be sleeping that night.

Donald couldn't draw, but could make a game or a toy out of paper.  He folded notebook paper into a cell phone to call his posse to meet him on the corner, he wrote I love yous to all the girls in class, commendable in that he kept it to one girlfriend at a time.  And that is where his poetry began, in his scrawly, misspelled Valentines.  The boy had observational skills and expression, more than the others, but he didn't want to write, didn't see the value in it.

I can only hope that the constant repetition to him that he had a gifted way with words will serve him in a manner other than impressing the ladies.  It has been five years since his family moved away, and he left the school where I worked.  Cleaning off the notes from my refrigerator this day found his small missive, the answer to what he saw in the dark; he knew enough to look up at the night sky, to see the city buildings blinking red to warn low aircraft.  It was a note, a story of his heart.  He had touched mine.

If you have a place to sleep where you are warm and safe, count your blessings; if you are with people who love and care for you, that adds dimension to the story.  But if you are alone, unsure of what night brings, think of my little Donald who endured adult anger and indifference, but still found it worthwhile to remember what the stars looked like.  Sleep well, dear innocent.

Melted

Remember the toys from years ago that were conceived by designers who thought that heating elements  were essential components?  I had a Vacu-form, a Creepy Crawler Designer, a woodburning kit, a chemistry set with an alcohol lamp, and an Easy Bake oven.  My room smelled of melting plastic and hot metal, with elixirs of sulfur mixing with vanilla cake.  Tonight, my apartment is seething with hot melting plastic and the familiar dizzy high is just kicking in.  I wish I could stop, but I have 90 plastic cups to melt in the oven at 250 degrees and a class that has to make a Christmas present for their parents.  Not only do they have to be melted, but the bottoms cut off and two holes punched in each; what for?

Suncatchers.  Cups made of Number 6 plastic are made of the same formula as Shrinky Dink plastic, and so will melt into circle shapes that are then strung together and hung in front of a sunny window to throw red, yellow and green shards of light all around the room.  This sounded like such a good idea, and fit all the ethnic groups in the room; those who celebrate and those who don't.

But heck, do you realize how many of my kids don't know how to tie?  I didn't, therefore some very fast calculations as to what and when have to be examined since I will be damned if I am tying 90 discs together.  It's taken me two hours to melt cups, and god knows what's happened to my brain.  No wise observations, thank you.

The full moon climbed the sky staircase this cracking cold evening, I had slogged down a snow filled alley to get to a shop for a few packages; a heavy man had to pick up his English bulldog who stood paralyzed in the snow.  Wise dog, they aren't made for plowing through drifts, so stocky and wide.  A couple was in the shop with me, buying everything in sight as they were stoned, a state where every thing is amazing.  Wow, I need that, they would say as articles were examined and held up for scrutiny.  I can only hope they found their way to the next shop down, where empty boxes of Trix and Lucky Charms had been turned into clocks, and a Barbie doll holding Christmas ornaments stood in an aquarium of small silver fish.

Later the next day, after the Jimmy Hendrix plastic daze, the flattened, warped discs were loaded into a bag with string and sparkly gold pipe cleaners.  The kids were enchanted, and as I did the stringing, all they had to do was tie the end off.  Some were tied into necklaces, others were knotted into Gordian mazes.  But just wait till you see them try to fold wrapping paper.  I ended up doing thirty presents, fold fold, tape tape.  Twist on the pipe cleaner.  Voila, le suncatcher; I demonstrated, holding the completed concoction up to the window.  They oohed and ahhhed.  One day left to go.

Several of the students brought in homemade presents for me, drawn pictures with "The Best Teaher" crayoned on them; the best teaher better step up on the phonics lessons.   My favorite was my little guy who had wrapped up books from his own shelf at home.  But, this is a great book, I said, you need this at home....I got three of them, he said, holding up three fingers, first grade style.  I opened his last offering and by jingo, it was one of my own books that he had taken home earlier, my name still in it.  He beamed as I said it was one of my favorites, then read it to the class.  

They just want everything to be all right.  All the hugs I received that day said so.  We sent home bags of food with some, with those living in shelters;  mittens, hats, coats, pants, shirts, you need it, let me know.  They said they would miss me, I told them they would be missed as well, and that's true.  You worry about them, with their stories of rats running over the beds, of break ins, of sleeping on piles of clothes, Moms going off for days, and they end up shuffled to aunts, grandparents, neighbors.  It lends sadness to what I can and cannot do.

In memory, I still smell the heat of Christmas bulbs against resin-full pine needles packed with heavy silver tinsel that became brittle and broke apart.  We had bubble lights, glass ornaments, foil stars.  It was with trepidation that my parents would plug in the lights, no more than fifteen minutes or the tree would explode.  Let's not get crazy here.  Stories of aluminum trees electrocuting their owners verified that Christmas trees would kill you the second you turned your back.  It was magic when they didn't, and became all right, if only for a moment.

Another solstice to stretch into the equinox; there is much to get through before snow melts and buds swell.  Sleep through this night safely, nothing will harm you.

Botanicus splendiferousii

My friend Paul and I put our heads down and pushed into the wind, like lake cutters slicing through ice; it was a drop in temperature from previous days, and went through flesh to bone.  Living here in what is known as a snow belt, it was hardly noticeable to us except that it whipped the small flakes into  stinging punctuations.

We had fiddled about with what to do on a Saturday, landing on the decision to explore the Botanical Gardens, especially since the poinsettia displays were on exhibit.  We both love plants, but my apartment is kept nursing home hot, even though I rarely turn on the steam register; it dries out plants and causes them to resist blooming.  I have bequeathed all my orchids to Paul, whose home has a semi-clerestory window that allows the necessary cold to set spikes and blossoms.  She and her husband maintain their house at a more reasonable temperature than my overwarm apartment; if the older people see a window open you get yelled at, for management will then turn down the heating plant, the boilers run by oil.  The cats and fish have no complaints, and I don't either, truly.  I've been cold before, and this is a minor heaven.

But as soon as we gained the double doors, the flush of humidity and damp soil pulled us into the world of palms and cycads, ferns and banana plants.  And poinsettias, which, I understand, are trees in the southwest; here, trying to keep one alive beyond the season has yet to happen in spite of my following whatever directions given.  My cookie-baking neighbor, Concetta, had one that was going on six years; fat, lush, and exuberantly red.  "You keep inna dark.  See?"  Sure, I can do that; what went wrong is still unknown, but this floracide had to stop, I decided.

So I visit the more ticklish plants at gardens and friend's homes.  Outside, I can grow darn near anything; inside, it's a contest between me and Fate.  But the indoor botany of the immense glass house is enchanting, uplifting; just think of all those plants pumping out oxygen.

There are shapes seen only in fifties science fiction films, coloration and a continuous plunge of growth; there are seven different biospheres of seven different climates, and each has adaptive greenery that has learned through millennium what is required to survive.  After the entryway, which was stuffed with red and green and every variation between, you are led into the rainforest which has an immense koi pond.  Shallow, you can see the beasts as they glide and feed, tails tipping above the surface, wagging like happy dogs.  A vine with cloud blue blossoms spangles through the ferns and bird of paradise flowers; snow outside?  You wouldn't know it.  A waterfall sprays and splashes, adding more to the freshening humidity which is not thick, but cooler.  This is contrasted with the next climate, for a wall of heat hits you in the face just as if you just walked into a restaurant kitchen.

It is the xerosphere, where cactus and succulents abide, most dangerously.  Don't be fooled by fuzzy appearing outgrowths and spines; most have hooks at the ends that will snag into your human flesh.  You might as well stick your hand into a barrel of fiberglass insulation.  Now these are some weird shapes, designed to protect the plant, conserve moisture, and maximize any gathering of rain by having it run down the furrows of growth, down to the roots.  Fascinating, ancient.  Falling on one of the agave plants would send you to hell on a blue green crucifix, the thorny points are that sharp.

We trot through the carnivorous plants and ivies, and into the seasonal display room where a large red velvet throne will hold Santa amid a carnival display of more poinsettias.  Paul and I take a few photos and head through begonias and into the orchid room.  There is one with tiny flowers throwing off a honeyed fragrance, sweet and telling of exotic realms in another corner of the world.  If I could wake up anywhere tomorrow morning, it would be where these flowers exhale; however that would probably be a sky-high tree branch as orchids are epiphytes.  They don't need soil, just something to hang onto.  Still.

We round through the Florida swamp area, dotted with Spanish moss and plastic alligators, with a well-engineered aquarium of gigantic size containing gars and other smaller fish.  Papyrus and waterplants sprout up through the surrounding display, also filled with water and duckweed.  It leads out to the main lobby, where the lemon tree has blossomed, and the date palm is dropping fruit.  We take a final look at the explosions of green, and head out to the greying world, for it is late wintry afternoon, and the sun is descending without fanfare or brilliant farewell.   The chill once again bites at us, snapping at our cheeks with insolence.

Paul has brought me art books that her husband, an art teacher at a private school, is disposing of to make more room for his students.  I take them upstairs and sit with a hot chocolate, perusing what is what.  The green vibrations still reverberate, the voices of plants sigh within.

The dark comes so early, don't feel badly if you don't get much done; we are designed to slow down in winter, at least at this latitude.   Nothing like sitting on the couch with a book and a cup of something or a glass of either; the work week is coming with its own business and time will compress into boxes of hours.  Dream above time, above the fiery stars where the galaxies never end and therefore the corporeality of clocks does.  I am there, I shall watch over you.  Sleep well.

Osso di Morte

Step One:  Crack six eggs one-handed, whip the shells into the sink; get that mess out of the way, now.

Step Two:  After beating the eggs, pour in a two-pound bag of confectionary sugar.  This is not for those who like to measure, it already says "two pounds" on the bag, so get those scissors working and open that rascal. Flour is added, and this is the tricky part; I don't measure.  Put in a cup at a time until it looks like dough, but is still soft.  Try one and a half for starters. Four teaspoons of vanilla, four teaspoons of baking powder at the same time and mix with a spoon, not with a mixer; do that and your cookies will be dry, and there is no room in life for cookies that should be used as styrofoam peanuts.  This is Christmas, so get your tail moving.

Step Three: Roll the dough with both hands so it looks like bones.  Christmas, you ask?  This isn't Halloween, is it?  No it's not, it's a tradition around here and if you don't like tradition, maybe you can tell us when you joined Al Qaida.

Step Four:  Put these bad boys on parchment paper and let them dry overnight.
Step Five:  Bake.  Your friends will lay down on the floor and scream after eating just one, these Christmas cookies are that serious.

Sit down and congratulate yourself on another holiday festivity accomplished; keep the ingredients out 'cause you aren't done yet.  Tomorrow it's meringues.   Find that piping bag.   Merry.

A Chair of History

People know that I can find things, I have always been a good locater of tangible objects at decent prices.  A firm believer in that you get what you pay for, it still rings true that there is nothing like a bargain to make my hunter-gatherer ancestors stomp victoriously around a fire, hooting and reenacting the exact moment the cash register completed the transaction.  Mine.  No, you can't have it.

The school nurse had come to me with two requests, first, a family is currently living in a shelter; one of my students with two grandparents.  She missed school a couple days because she doesn't have a winter coat.  The grandmother comes to me at breakfast time for my kids and asks if it's okay that she takes a breakfast.  I shove as much as I can into a bag for her and hope it doesn't get noticed, for I am breaking a law concerning federal blah blah and blah.  Come and get me.  I have been caught on this before at another school, and got a finger in my face.  That's okay, you gotta shake your finger at me, go ahead.  I silently observed that there was a piece of breakfast hanging off the chin of this digit shaker while her cafeteria uniform was crisply starched.  Go, me.  It's the little things.

The other request was for a wheeled back pack for another first grade student who had recent hip surgery in hopes of straightening out the onset of scoliosis.  So today, even though it was Black Friday, I ventured out to the thrift shop, which happened to be having a half off anything and everything sale.  It looked like a bomb had gone off in the store.  But there was a very new looking L. L. Bean wheeled backpack with nice, tight zippers, wheels, a working handle, and it was pink.  Marked at $3.98, I got it for two bucks after the half off deal.

I congratulated myself with a spin around the store, found a nice leather jacket for $20, and--hold me back!  In the furniture section was an aged, upholstered chair.  A round thing, with a high back, all of it sitting on a spoon-carved base.  Ugly as baboon's you-know-what.  This apocalyptic object was from the late 1800's, recognized by me as an Eastlake piece made of of horsehair, dark walnut, wheeled legs, and it was marked $19.98!  But wait!  The $19.98 was crossed out and below that was scribbled $9.98.  Do you see?  It was half-price day and I could get this thing for five bucks!  Why?  Why this chair, you muse.  Let me tell you.

Years ago, I found most of the pieces of an Eastlake three-quarter bed frame on trash day and carried it home, piece by immense piece.  No one else had scooped it up because of a long, wobbly split in the headboard that was to me, a minor inconvenience.  I'd figure something out, but right now I want this.  It's a free antique.  It's, it's, well, history!  How can you toss out history?  But this was in a neighborhood where the people cut down the city-planted trees in that space between the curb and the sidewalk, because the fall leaves would mess up their yards, gutters, and the driveways that got washed every evening.   A split headboard would send some of them over the edge.

All the bed needed was a few ornaments repaired, the split, and the missing ring which locked one of the four sides together.  I found a foundry that recast antique pieces, got it, and had the headboard repaired.  I love the carvings; it was the seed of the, what the heck was it called, two words, mmmhhhh.  Hang on a sec.  Arts and Crafts, the Arts and Crafts movement.  A turn towards the simple lines of nature as contrasted with the heavy furniture and draperies of the Victorian era.  And I was gonna stuff this chair in the front seat of my Cavalier because it was now part of my boudoir set; it matched the bed.   $5!  Eastlake! But very strange looking!  Whee!

After much geometry and physics, I got the thing into the folded down seat, partly resting on the dashboard, but I could easily shift and see to drive.  I patted the chair and told it that it was going home.
I do tend to anthropomorphize things.  Once I get it upstairs, I'll post a photo, but it is staying in the front seat tonight as I don't feel like wrestling it back out after carrying bags of groceries, and a plan has to be hatched as to getting this beauty through the slush, mud, and salt mixture that is bubbling between the parking lot and the building door.  I often curse the day I gave away my hand truck.

But I am going to Canada tomorrow morning, and have to get the chair upstairs by nine, Canadian customs would not look kindly upon me taking a chair for a ride across the border.  I'll do it, I'll get it inside.  I can lift it for short bursts; nah, I'm not worried.  Maybe it could be balanced atop my shopping cart.  Maybe I can tie boots on the four legs and push, giving the neighbors a Topic of the Day.

The dark sky is lit by the city; several of the tall buildings are festive in red and green lights for the holidays.  December coming is a lovely month, even without the mid-winter holidays; something to be said for staying close to evening home fires, a bowl of soup, lighting candles.  Tuck under the blankets and extinguish the light, say a thank you for another day of work, play, breath.  Sleep is a temporary forgetting, a welcome shade to be pulled down between day and the realm of night.  Orion is rising in the east, the nebula in his belt producing stars approximately 1,300 light years away.  Fascinating, that we can see into our past, for the star light reaching earth began its journey that many years ago.  Our planetary illumination has yet to reach that end, could we pull the beams back to us, read a bedtime story of enormous proportion?

Sleep well, it has been a day of ups and downs; chairs and plans.  Let thoughts travel, speed of light.

Plecky the Plecostomus

It started as a project to entertain the cats, this aquarium.  15 gallons, which in the fish world is small potatoes; in the world of landlords, it means renter's insurance which you should have anyways.  There was an angelfish and a variety of platies, a colorful, prolific breeder fish that soon filled the small tank with bodies of all hues.  Lovely, really; soothing to watch, but there were too many fish and so, my son upgraded me to a twenty gallon tank with a piece of warped tree branch and black sand, populated it with some kind of shrimp besides the fish, and stuck in some plants.  It was beautiful, hypnotic.  The fish were enchanted as well by the surroundings and soon populated the extra five gallons with more platies.

I couldn't give them away, no one else had tropical fish and if I took them to the fish store, they would be used as feeders.  So began this minor cat diversion; it turned into a National Geographic special and guess what happened next.  Yup, I upsized again, but this was sort of a gift of the universe thing, or so I told my gullible self.  The school I work at was getting rid of an aquarium stand, a stand that had once held a 52 gallon hex-front tank that had developed a leak.  The stand was there, free, so of course I grabbed it.

The fish store had started to be happy to see me, and gave me a  deal on exactly the tank that fit the stand; of course, that meant it had to be outfitted with filters, powerheads, gravel, and a couple of rocks for ambience.   But it looked terrific, and the floor held up under the pressure of weight, for one gallon weighs 8.34 pounds; multiplied by 52 equals 433.68 pounds.  Almost a quarter of a ton.  Thank goodness this building is made of cement slabs.   Gunk then began to grow on the side of the glass, so I bought snails.  El Mistake.

They made baby snails, lots and lots of baby snails.  Snail eggs are tough to scrape off the sides, and what kills them would cause a mass extinction of everything, which was not what I wanted.  But there is a species of fish called a clown loach which eats snails, at $10 a pop.  They like to swim in schools, to purchase one would cause it psychological confusion so I came home with three.  The fish store gave me a coupon for goldfish.  These pretty little loaches ate every snail in the park within a week, then looked for more.  I came home with frozen brine shrimp; you know them as sea monkeys.  The loaches grew and the gunk on the plate glass returned; what you need next lady, is a plecostomus.  $3.50.  It'll clean your glass.

I looked at this fish, barely two inches, and figured there would be lots of room for him in the tank, his little sucker mouth hung onto the side, his crescent-shaped omega eyes blinked when he would pull them into his head.  Very primitive looking, as if he knew the time before the dinosaurs.  No fish scales, he was armored with plates and appeared to belong in a Devonian museum exhibit.   Okay, fish, let's see what you can do.  The loaches had begun dining on the platies till the population became manageable, the snails were gone, and all I needed was the glass to have less algae.

He was friendly, and would come up to the top of the water to have his nose rubbed, all I had to do was call him.  And look, he's growing.  Fish sites said they eat fruits, this species originated in South America in mangrove swamps, and they jump.  I bought zucchini (yes), honeydews (yes), cucumbers (no), and watermelon (yes, most of the time).  I anchored the food with a small stainless steel spoon after discovering that silver is an antibacterial and killed all the good bacteria which kept the tank clean and the fish happy.

All the nutrition made this fish grow and grow.  Now I worried about him jumping out of the tank as I would hear the cover bang in the night; there are now rocks on top.  As he reached ten inches, more rocks were recruited; some mornings his nose would be sore.

Today I brought home a few of the guppies from my class to live in the big tank over Thanksgiving vacation, figuring they would have a better chance here if they all weren't squooshed into the small tank in my class.  This is just lovely to the pleco, who thinks dinner arrived a day early.   Like a shark, he's positioned himself under the small group and bam!  Jumps.  The cover rattles when he hits it, and since he has now grown to fifteen inches, I just piled more rocks atop.  Have to go rescue guppies, they can sit inside a plastic container for the night, poor things.  I'll find some fake plastic seaweed, there's some in the cabinet under the aquarium stand, so they can hide.  It will work.

One of my little boys who is in the after school program was waiting in the class for it to start; he was looking out the window and called to the girl who was waiting for them, both six years old.  "Look, look," he called to her, "Come here and look!"  I thought he was watching the buses load and saw a friend.  She went over to the window, and he made room for her to see.

"Look," he said, "isn't it beautiful?  The snow is covering the branches of the trees, it's beautiful."

A six year old boy not only commenting on the glory of a scene, but also having a desire to share it with his classmate.  Of course I was turned to mush.  This kid is not in a good place at the moment because of family crises, but he was able to be enchanted by the lacy branches heavy with winter.  I was so happy for him.

The season has settled in, and the children were wild to see the snow.  It's the best to play tackle football in, they tell me, because when you fall the soft snow cushions the impact.  They will be able to run and jump themselves, and carelessly let themselves flop into the blanket of white.  It will be years before someone tries to put rocks on top of their exuberance, to contain them under the weight of decorum.

What do you hear in the night?  What dreams and visions appear?  Stories, they are all stories brought forward from the depths of memory and of hope, of beauty and of pure winter snow.  You do so much good for this world.  I can just tell.

Millipedia Manyleggeda

You may have heard them, they were squealing for the fun of squealing; EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.  It really depends on context, each of these children had seen bugs before; hell, most of them have seen rats, loose dogs, and crazy adults.  How is a bug, a relatively small creature, able to pull out screams not echoed between walls since I brought home that lab mouse?  Maybe it's a territorial instinct; I don't think millipedes have ears, thank goodness.

The science kit offered by the Board of Ed had a coupon for moss, water plants, insects (said the label, but wait...), and guppies.  I was the only teacher who ordered them for the kids, heck, what can happen with bugs and guppies?  The kit was to demonstrate the interdependence between species and kingdoms; water plants give off oxygen for the fish, the fish and snail excretions feed the plants.  The Circle of Life, in Room 219.  I'm not sure what circle the millipedes were to exhibit, they are nocturnal and have mostly stayed bunched up under the moss.  We also received a packet of Armadillidium vulgare, or what I called potato bugs when I was little.  Roly Polies.  The little grey bugs that roll into balls when disturbed.  You've held them, or should have.

I put the box covered with Warning!  Live Animals! stamps on a desk in front of everyone, and opened each box with ceremony and a short science lecture.  Say Arma. Dilli. Dium.  Very good.  Now try "Armadillidium."  Yes, ha ha that's fun to say, isn't it?  Okay.  Okay.  OKAYYYY.  STOP.  They were deposited in the terrarium and one of the kids was assigned to walk around with the small plastic case so each kid could get a look at something they've seen almost everyday during the summer.  This is when the squealing began if the bugs moved, which they did.

Well, okay, they'll be talking about this at home, telling their families what they saw today; let's open the millipedes next.  A white paper canister was loaded with damp sphagnum moss, and even I had a jolt when I lifted it and saw the size of these things.  Up to four inches long. Four, with anywhere from 80 to 150 pairs of legs.  They were curled up like cinnamon buns, just like the little millipedes that I was sort of expecting.  Hokay.  Segments, antennae, legs, blah blah, as I held one of the cinnamon buns in my palm.  It reacted to the warmth of my hand and without a drop of shyness, uncurled and started waggling its antennae, then took off on a trip up my arm.

It was fascinating to watch, and I believe my kids think I'm a physicist now that a bug has crawled up my arm.  It tried to go up my sleeve at which point I picked it up and put it back into my palm.  They don't move quickly, but this bug was determined.  It was a female, which is determined by the legs; females have an unbroken line of legs, the males have seven up front and then a gap before the rest of the legs are aligned.  They are rather graceful in a rippling gait, their little jointed feet moving like waves, with the antennae gently tapping and testing.  I have to say, I like them.

But they aren't bugs; they are arthropods, related to spiders, crabs, and barnacles.  This surprised me, for they sure look like bugs, but I have never read up on zoology, so the division of subphylums is a mystery.  They eat rotting fruits and vegetables or conveniently, a sprinkle of fish food; there is a tiny saucer of water that they can't drown in, and since one got out the other night and the maintenance engineer flushed it, the plastic container is inside a giant ziploc with holes poked.

The potato bugs need nothing but a spray of water to keep the environment moist, they'll be satisfied with the detritus from the leaf mulch that came with the pack.  Now, we tend to think these things are bugs also, but they aren't; let me tell you that if the cats began to bark, it would be as logical.  These little dudes are crustaceans, one of the few terrestrial species on the planet, cousins to lobsters, crabs, and shrimp.  To me, that is fancy.  They breathe through gills.

We did the snails without a lot of fanfare, I'll get some of my seashells out for comparison and wait till they wake up.  Then we got to the big event of the afternoon, the fish.  Good thing I had prepped the three gallon aquarium the day before, for the kit came with gallon tubs that had to be returned after we humanely disposed of the fish.  Plastic, they were plastic for heaven's sake; I get more in Chinese take-out, and the supplier wanted them back?  What, they cost more than 27¢?  And just how do you humanely dispose of guppies?  Flushing isn't it.

Anyways, as I lifted the plastic bag, there was quite a bit of thrashing.  These guppies were big, and there were nine males and nine females.  No one at the supply house had read of the two or three females for one male ratio in Guppyville, so if I don't split them apart, we will have very stressed fish, 18 in a small tank that are producing fry like bunnies.  I could have 100 fish in a month.  Some will have to come home to my tank here, but I have a feeling the angelfish will be a little too happy for the step up in its diet.  So this means I should get water plants for my own aquarium which means I'll probably have snails hitchhiking on the plants, which means a gabillion snails.  This circle of life has rippled out to my home address already.

There are nose prints on the outside of the glass tank, the kids are fascinated, and that is my reward.  I don't care what they learn about the critters, as long as they see them and know that you treat animals kindly, that's all I ask at six years old.  And what are the potato bugs called, I asked.  "Daffadillies."  That they got that far was amazing, it shows they were paying attention and gave it the old college try, belying curiosity and a pride in being the only classroom with pets.

I've been thinking of a snake for years, but would have to bring it home with me during the summer, and frankly, a growing snake should have room to slither about.  I don't mind feeding it a thawed dead mouse once every few weeks, just that wiggling the dead mouse to make it seem alive, well, I couldn't do it with a straight face.  I'd be making it talk like Mickey, and since I can't stand Mickey Mouse (I liked Donald Duck, who seemed more true to life, at least in my childhood), it would be dramatic and full of false hope.

Mickey:  "Help, help me, pleeeease."
Me, Wiggling the Dead Mouse By the Leg: "Oh Mickey, hang on, I'll save you!"
Mickey: "Oh thank you, thank you, I will never forget this. The Mouseketeers will throw a big party,
               and sure, you can bring your friends, too!"
Snake:
Me, WDMBL: "Aw, gee, Mickey!  That's great!  Come on, buddy, give me your hand.  Say, you think
                          you could get us a few bottles of Taittinger's, you know, to celebrate?"
Mickey: "Uh, I don't think Walt would like that..."
Me, WDMBL:  "Gee, Mick.  Too bad.  See ya."
Snake:
Mickey:
Me: "And I don't even care for Taittinger's."

The End, by Susan Coburn

The winds are blowing in a change of weather; tomorrow the temperatures are to remind us of gloves and mufflers, and to stick a snow shovel in the car.  Sleep comes easier under thicker blankets, and pillows are deeper; the world itself has gone into a dream, a somnambulant stage of stasis where millipedes and tiny terrestrial crustaceans have dug in and entered hibernation.  The birds have gone south but for the hardy red cardinals, the starlings, sparrows, and juncos.  Wild ones are in nests and caves, sleeping, metabolism slowed just enough to prevent freezing.  Take care of them, take care of yourself, sleep well; go down into the depths of cyclical sleep, rise and fall, ebb and flow.  The tides of night.  Let them come.

Let It Sand

When stellar dust particles collide with molecules of gas, those molecules are knocked into others, subsequently creating wind that reaches light year proportions.  If you want to view stellar dust in action, view a nebula for a few million years or so to see the bumper car reaction. These winds carrying stardust move from 20 - 2,000 km/s and are a continuous emission from stars made not only of dust, but of metals, the ingredients for new stars; thus new solar systems.

These stellar winds are either visible or seen only through ultraviolet light; you've seen them at work in the constellation Orion, in nebula M42.  Look to the middle "star" in Orion's sword, if it looks fuzzy, that's because of the gases and dust being blown around within the nebula.  There are about 2,000 stars inside, spreading across 20 light years.  Go get binoculars.

So then, there is dust being carried about the welkin of the celestial sphere by wind; eventually it piles up and forms stars.  Here on the planet. we have snow which piles up into great, arced drifts also shaped by wind, often burying the car if not the house.  Each flake forms around a particle of dust or pollen and when it has enough weight, descends to earth, carried by wind.  The temperature determines what type of flake forms and how it lands, in the world of snowflake chemistry.

Last week this area received the first snowfall, enough to bring out the plows to salt and clear the city streets; it had been raining, and as the nighttime temperature dropped, the groundwater became ice, slick and near invisible.  Over that came the snow in a steady flurry, just enough to coat the cars and grass; I could hear the joy in every child's heartbeat as it arrived.

I live next to a raised highway that has to be heavily salted, and so for the first time this year, the sound of a plow carving through the slush rattled under the orange glow of the old sodium vapor streetlights.  It was a familiar, unwanted noise that reminded me another year had passed.  Goodbye summer, goodbye late fall, goodbye the last of the homegrown tomatoes at the Farmer's Market.  Hello, winter squash.

Then it came to me via a friend who knows that plows were out also to the west of my own lake, plowing sand.  Sand?  Snowplows plow sand?   I had never thought of it, but if you live near a substantial beach, wind blows sand across roadways, up driveways, and buries the sidewalks.  When the winter winds rise from the southwest across this other lake, dunes will form in your front yard; one of the local signs of spring are the "Free Sand" advertisements that residents hopefully post, optimistic that others will come and claim a truckload.  The thing is, any blizzard will not only drive snow halfway up your door, but sand as well.  So, what does that portend?

You can take the kids out and build a snowsandman, pack a darn heavy sandball that will knock out a neighbor, and build a fort that will take mortar shells.  I imagine many a garage holds a Bobcat Front Loader for deeper mounds; while hand shoveling smaller drifts calls for strong coffee, a stronger back, and sympathy afterwards.  This area has the largest tract of freshwater dunes in the world, created by glacial movement; living by these clear waters is more than worth dealing with the inconvenience.

Years ago, when living across on the other side of the lake in a large city, I lived two blocks away from the shore.  No sand blew in onto the streets, for much of what was there is anchored by the most colorful array of smooth pebbles that I was always stuffing into my pockets.  Granite, quartz, gneiss, greenstone, and feldspar found their way home with me, and I still have many which I use for balancing stone towers.

Tonight, as I drove along a far road,  the full moon was pink; a blushed, golden pink  like a luminous shell glistening wet from salt water ablution as it climbed the great circle of the meridian.  Hanging over the fields filled with old goldenrod stems, now brown with their stalky, skeletal spines, this disk was a liquid, radiant counterpoint to the scumbled wildflowers.  Funny to think that the lunar surface is bleaker than the last few stems of a hibernating field, yet upon solar illumination, appears incandescent.
I felt lucky to see it rise, an illusion of depth making it appear larger .  It isn't, you know; measure it sometime, and you will find it is the same size at moonrise as it is at zenith; it's only the nearness to the horizon that makes it seem large.

Sleep well, it is a quiet night without storm or wind, and a low cover of clouds hides the stars, the progeny of nebulae, the makers of star dust.  Dream of where you came from, that the iron which sluices through your veins was once carried by stellar winds.  Earth, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are part as well, and spin through space around their human offspring.  Let the planets intermingle orbit, cross paths, and speed on; they will mark the ticking of time as you let go of day and visit the soothing night, you piece of starlight.

The Old Pink

It has frozen a slice of time so that you can walk into a piece of your past, the shivery excitement of either walking into a possible bar fight or a slide across the floor on a puddle of Miller's. Oh, those 7 ounce Miller's splits, three for a dollar.  Heavens.  I don't even like beer, but it was a cute way of drinking out of the little bottles, like you were playing dolls and here were doll-sized beers.  "Now lay down and have a nap, Thumbelina, Mommy is cracking open a cold one."

Actually, you couldn't slide on the floor unless you went straight down and even then, someone would catch you since it was so packed.  This is The Pink Flamingo, as it was called, and a good way to end a night out with the crowd.  Now it's referred to as The Pink, and I guarantee you will not find a friendlier dive bar in town.

We decided to go for a drink after some crazy purse shopping at KMart, of which I had not been in for years; I avoid it as the one near me usually looks like a bomb went off in it and a few of the employees appear to have plates in their heads with matching silverware.  But I was pleasantly surprised at the success my friend had, and she then showed me where there are good jewelry deals.  Really, I thought, and then saw the $2,449.00 gold chain for sale in the case.  KMart sells $2,000 dollar chains?   Yup.  Other pieces also carried labels for hundreds, hundreds of dollars, right next to the aisle where you can buy stick-on plastic tiger fingernails.  It was too much, and I am always glad to get out of there, for somehow that particular store latches onto my psychic aura and has tried to jump me in the Electronics Department.  I have evidence that the store is a breathing organism, with the staff as it's minions doing the bidding of Cthulu the Unspeakable.

We were ready and headed for the part of the city called Allentown, originally an area of cow pastures but now the Bohemian hub of the city.  Once gentrified, it has gotten a reputation for being a rougher part, there are no illusions on Allen Street.  First of all, you must have your ninja driving license for there is parking on both sides of the very narrow street and so it always looks like you're headed into oncoming traffic.  But every knows this, and mostly take their turns without scraping off the side mirror.

At the corner is the apartment building where the Bubble Man lives....haven't seen much of him, only once this summer.  He thought a way to make people happy was to blow bubbles out his window and there would be billows of bubbles weaving in and out of traffic in rainbow iridescence.  It was historic.

One of the trickier things is to find a parking spot.  Yes, there are cross streets, but they are all one way leading into Allen so you have to find the block before and then sluice down wherever which landmark you would like to end your journey at.  The homes are enchanting, gingerbreaded, creaky tales with enormous tree roots pushing up the sidewalks.

We walked up the stairs in anticipation and entered a long, dark room with stools pushed up to the wooden bar.  Four men were sitting in front of a television and my friend and I went to the opposite end.  It was very dark, and an odd aroma redolent of bleach was permeating the atmosphere; the bartender came over, and we thought we would stay for one drink and then move on down the street to Gabriel's Gate, which has brighter lights and popcorn.

Having not seen us before, the bartender dropped by and asked if it was our first time in.  Oh, no no no, the both of us had been there in earlier incarnations, this was a trip through nostalgia.  "Well, welcome to The Pink," grinned the young man and raised a glass with us.  It was an eventful evening, for after other people filtered in, everyone talked to everyone else.  Drinks were bought for us, and conversation was happily argumentative and not brilliant.  Eventually, the bartender showed us his tatts, a Buddha on his chest, elaborate sleeves, and after my friend asked if he had any Jewish tattoos, he said yep and pulled up his pants leg.   Something in Hebrew.  The word "forever", perhaps.

This inked man, whose name was Chris, was commenting on how the bar has a rep for being friendly, and told us how a group of older women comes into the bar to watch General Hospital at two in the afternoon, Monday through Friday.  Rules, there are rules.  No one can talk while the program is on, only during commercials or you will be told to get the hell out.  This, happening in what was once one of the toughest bars in the city.

Now a crowd was coming in, younger folks, and Chris had to go to his next job down the street.  We hung out for a while, as the music ranged from Peter Tosh to X, then decided to say our farewells and trot over to The Gate for food.

One other thing about The Pink: toilet paper.  In the Ladies Room, each partition had at least seven rolls of toilet paper hanging on a clothesline running through the center of each roll.  Do you know how reassuring that is?  It was a lovely, considerate gesture, along with the layers of graffiti that would hypnotize an archeologist.

So we went and had wings and a tuna melt, then found the way back to the car.  Now, my friend was wearing her biker jacket and boots and across the way a man was singing a one o'clock in the morning song, loudly.  Very explicit words, making it up as he went along.  We walked by and got caught up in his impromptu rap and the leather boots and jacket became verse number 27.  My friend was so tickled she let him know with an appreciative yell back.  He said thank you.  I couldn't see where he was because I was focused on where the curbs were, and grabbed her arm tighter in case I had to pull her out of some Allen Street paramour's line of vision if he came over to introduce his cray cray self.  My adrenaline was getting ready to administer a beat down, when she told me that he was inside a house, just hanging out a window.  Oh.  Thank god, for these days I couldn't knock over a french fry, but I pretended to put my super powers on hold anyhow.  You're lucky this time, Rapper Nutjob Guy; to infinity and beyond.

The night was damp with drizzling rain, we missed most of it by luck and timing, and yet it was as phantasmagoric and thick with night breezes as any walk in the dark could be.  Something clicks in the human mind during the hours after sunset, whether fomented by stories, cultural training, or an outer zeitgeber pushing the temporal rhythm towards night.  Our vision is limited, so our other senses are heightened; hearing and touch, and the air is filled with odors made clearer.  Is it the sensory input that provokes night behavior?  It was a different world on Allen Street after dark; during the day, it's dress and antique shops.

The moon was a sliver run over by clouds, winter is coming, dark has its rule.  Stand at your outside door and breathe in the sharp air of the coming snows, the tannins of the dying leaves; breathe in as an animal, and learn your world.  Sleep well and sleep deeply, dear friend, the moon will set as it rounds the horizon, then will descend further to the other side of the planet as it travels before the constellations of Pegasus and Sagitta.  Lay still, be warm.  Good night.

Stipe, Pileus, and Cap

Look; get over it; I like IKEA.  In fact, I would have IKEA's child if that were possible.  I know, I know; not only have you heard that before regarding clam chowder and Buster Keaton, but you also know that some of their products last, yet others disintegrate upon the first washing.  Nonetheless, I generally like the style plus the idea of family as it's incorporated into the furniture settings, and love to put things together.  So I subscribe to their EXCITA UPDATUM emails and well here we are, God Jul.  The Swedish Christmas decorations are now available, and oh, hold me back, THERE'S MUSHROOMS!!  Enchanting fabric mushrooms to hang on the tree, the kind with red caps and white stems, known to us mycology folks as Russula emetica.   

This calls for a run up to the Canadian IKEA.

Now since you thought this was to be about furniture, let me clarify: no.  This is about my fascination with that creature who has now claimed an entire kingdom for its own, the fungi.  Specifically, the fleshy fungi we call mushrooms; the rusts, yeasts, blasts, smuts, molds, and the very interesting slime molds are left to high-powered microscopes.  I'm a visual sort, and like to hold what I'm looking at, if not eat it.  Don't get all goosey-loosey, because if anything, I am not advising that you go out and pick mushrooms; lord, lord no.  Too many chances for near misses, and one variety, Amanita phalloides, the Death Angel, makes you sick as hell, lands you in the hospital where you feel better after three days, and then wham, kills your liver in hours and you die.  It tastes lovely.  There are a number of them that will allow you to think you are going to see your next payday, but then ha! the rug of life is pulled out from under your feet.

So, if you get lost in the woods during mushroom season, try to be lost with me along, cause I can probably pull you through and deliciously, as well.  But please don't forage and then toss a silver dime into the cookpot.  Allegedly, if the dime turns black, the mushrooms are toxic; if it remains shiny, they are safe; this is a lie the neighbors will tell you when they are trying to get rid of you, permanently.  Do buy them from either the grocery or one of the mushroom vendors recently found at Farmer's Markets.  Or go to an Asian store, they usually have fresh specimens of unusual varieties which are edible.  Okay, enough lecturing scholarship.

Neither animal nor plant, their cell walls are composed of chitin, the stuff of crustacean and insect exoskeletons.  There were two species my family would gather when I was little; Suillus luteus, and Boletus edulis; they both surprised me with their undersides, for there were no gills, just a layer of a porous, spongelike surface.  The Suillus have an aroma of wild woods and wet grasses; they like to grow under larch trees and have a viscous cap, their common name is Slippery Jack.  The Boletes are a dry mushroom whose stipe is thicker than the cap when young; it smells almost of ammonia until fried in butter or added to a soup, and then it shines.  Buy them dried in cellophane bags, they're called Porcini.

I studied wild mushrooms as an adult with a local mycology group at the Museum of Natural Sciences, then found courses in college, both giving me enough training to identify at least twenty edible and eighty toxic species.  Small beans in the mycology world, but enough for me.  I will never eat anything that could possibly be cross-identified with a poisonous species, there is just too much variation to make it either safe or worthwhile.  But in the meantime, they are as beautiful as seashells. and as curiously engaging in every rainbow color, a few will glow in the dark; they are anti-carcinogenic and good for you; eat one like a vitamin pill every morning, before your daily apple.

The Christmas tradition of mushroom ornaments seems to come from the European fairytale, and my tree is full of Deutsch Pilz fungal festivity.  Really, it looks better than it sounds; I'll take some tree selfies this year.  See if you can spot the new IKEA additions, you'll win a hard Christmas candy filled with raspberry that's stuck to the bottom of the bowl at Grandma's.

To the south of this city, there was given a blanket of snow, and as I walked to the car earlier, the bite of winter blew around me even though it was still in the 40 degree range.  You could see the snow falling in dark bands over the Boston Hills, causing a tentative look towards the last remaining bright fall leaves clinging to the trees.  Dark in the morning when I leave, dark at night when I return.  No wonder I feel like soup and a blanket on the couch.

The crescent moon is low in the sky, the two Dippers are to the north, ladling and pouring out the Milky Way.  Sleep well in the same gravity that holds us all safely, tethered to the ticks and rhythms of living.  Be at peace, be at rest.  Good night.

Free Flowing

I am doing a little dance because after two days of clogged mess, my tub drain is working again without retching up chunks of black.  If I ran water in the bathroom sink, it backed up, if the guy next door took a shower, it backed up, bringing select, viscous clods of black matter.  This was a sudden affliction, there was no slowing or gradual clog, I just heard a gurgle and backwater was coming in like a hell tide.

After just going through this in the kitchen last week, I have learned not to get the Drano that flashes the "Commercial Strength" logo or the word "Guaranteed".  I'm not driving back to the hardware for a $9.00 refund when it costs me near five dollars in gas and time to get there.  That stuff doesn't work, in the past I have poured bottles of it down the drain for one big reason.  Hope.  Hope that it provides resolution and be done with it, because the one true way to clear a stubborn drain is with a homicidal dose of sulphuric acid.  If you've ever read the warnings on the bottle, you make arrangements for who will take care of the cats after your demise.

The font is in red, and yells, WARNING: MAY CAUSE SEVERE BURNS OR DEATH.  The bottle is plastic and contained within a separate, ziploc bag for storage after, so nothing made of meat, including you, comes in contact with spillage.  It can burn a hole through a hand and the label advises in a serious tone heard in documentaries narrated by Calvinists that you should hold the bottle at arm's length while pouring it into the water supply.  I searched for the industrial goggles I wear when dealing with power tools, couldn't find them, so I grabbed my plastic rhinestone sunglasses.  Check.  Put on the elbow length rubber gloves from the kitchen, buttoned up every button on my shirt and tucked sleeves into the tops of the gloves.  Got a box of baking soda to neutralize accidents, of which I wasn't going to have any.

Had to chase the cats out of the bathroom, opened a window and poured approximately a cup of acid into the abyss.  The bottle also mentioned that once the product was out in the open and down the drain, a bowl or a bucket should be inverted over the opening in case of eruption.  What?  A miasma of fumes emitted up from the drain, with hissing and internal bubbling sounds echoing through the Stygian pipes; I covered it with a bucket, and then it erupted.

Scads of black bubbles roiled like a geyser from the seventh circle of hell and began to fill the tub;  if blood and fire had begun to rain down from the bathroom ceiling, I wouldn't have been surprised.  See?  Messing around with dangerous chemicals attracts trouble and plague said my mother when my chemistry set filled the house with noxious gases.  Well I wasn't messing, this was serious business and  besides, my Mom was frightened of mustard, for heaven's sake.  The phone book touted mustard as a useful emetic and it killed ants.  Proof enough for her; don't put too much on your sandwich, it could kill you.

The acidic froth billowed out from under the bucket and covered the bottom of the tub before subsiding.  Black.  Hissing.  Ebbing and flowing as if it had breath.  Yikes, I thought and imagined if it continued, if some neighbor decided to pull the plug on their nightly bath, would it then find a path into the community drain via Apartment 9?  Overflow the tub?  Dissolve the cats?  Checking to make sure the gloves and goggles were secure, I grabbed the box of baking soda and mixed a solution in the sink.  The wicked foam was finding it's way back down into the depths of the pipes, and after the last vestige of liquid disappeared, I poured a cup of the solution into the drain, just like it said to do if you were in the State of California, for neutralization.

Oh, that was fun.  Another flume of water and acid sluiced up, bubbling like we had hit oil.  Brown, this time; viscous; was this progress?  Again the tub was filled with an inch of death, again I waited it out until the fluid slunk back into the mystery of city apartment drains.  C'mon, c'mon, I gotta get to bed; but by that thought I recognized my usual turning point where I would have said the hell with it and poured the whole bottle down the pipes, closed the door and went to bed.  Perhaps age brings sanity and patience, for as appealing as this was, being dog-tired and having driven home in the rain, at night, with my eyes dilated from an exam, impatience was pushed aside, and prudence sat down and smoothed her apron.  I actually have an Aunt Prudence in the family history.  By her looks, she could have taken on a bear.  This was a drain.  Calm down, girl.

After the tub emptied again, I spent time being fascinated with sprinkling sodium bicarbonate directly into the drain and getting the hissing going again.  As long as there was a reaction, there was still acid that required neutralizing.  But heat, wasn't heat being produced, could it explode the pipes, and what if this backed up into another local tub?  Would I have melted someone's toes while they were showering?  It was scientifically exciting until the baking soda ran out.  Time had passed for the required remedy to be achieved, and so I tried flushing the drain with cold water.  Har de har.  Nope.  More sludge, more foam, more chunks of black.  That went down and then without me doing anything further, the tub filled with yellow liquid.  Clear yellow.  Like urine.  Now what?   I had had enough science and scary chemicals for the evening, and so closed the door to the bathroom and went to bed.

Morning.  All ablutions and fussing were carried out at the kitchen sink, I put my contacts in by looking at my reflection in the microwave door.  Before heading out to children, it made sense to do a test run to see if water would successfully vortex down and out the pipes.  Nope.  More resistance like a relative that won't go home, fingers dug into the door frame.  Well, something to look forward to after work, the whole bottle of murder will go down next; I can only hope that the Water Station has the wherewithal to handle corrosives in city sewers.  Hm, need more baking soda.

That late afternoon, there were no new clots of black slime mapping out a history of further backwashes; the tub was clear.  Uhhhh, okay, let's go slow.  First a cup of water, another, another, turn on the faucet, it's running, turn on the tub and wow!  Done!  It's gurgling like a spring brook!  Unknown whether the drain cleaner did the deed, or if maintenance kicked in from another tenant calling in a complaint.  The bottle of miracles and peril is now in the ziploc bag, in another plastic bag, in another plastic bag; three plastic bags ought to do it, don't you think?

I scrubbed out the tub with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (it's melamine, folks; no magic), and Googled "sulphuric acid".  It's the most important chemical in the world, and is used in manufacturing almost everything.  I found a recipe for making your own.  Geez.  No thanks; says to boil it down on an outside barbeque grill.  Are they nuts?

But now I'm content, one more piece is back in place besides my pupils returning to normal size; that was freaky, looking at myself in the mirror with those immense black holes staring back.  I scared me a bit.  Fit perfectly with the sulfuric fumes, all I needed was a pitchfork.

Sleep well tonight, dream of solutions and flow, structure and plans.  The planets spin and stars wheel through the celestial vault, while our Northern Hemisphere falls quiet with the early lowering of the sun.  You have earned your rest, all will be well.  Good night.