Shining

I don't usually gripe about books, but some are over the top. For example, The Shining. A writer gets trapped in a house while it snows and snows and snows. The writer vigorously types red rum over and over, slips the frail bonds of sanity, and makes life, quite literally, impossible for just about everyone around him. Any writer worth her salt will tell you that winter snows envelop true wordsmiths in a coccoon of creativity. Words flow faster to the gentle drip of the faucet and the soft buzz of computer speakers. The hum of the refrigerator and the sniffs of family members gathered close spark inspiration. Cats rushing to the door every five minutes to check for sunshine provide powerbreaks. Dog toenails clicking up and down the hall mark passing minutes like word counts and editors define articles--too many words or not enough, inconsistent, rigid, not our style, not quite what we're looking for, not feeling it, haven't looked at it. But that's o.k. The soft snow restricts my donut breaks, my walks, my lunches out and my swim time. I'm fine with it. I am so much more creative when I'm snugged tight in my cozy home. The family sniffs. The dog clicks. A cat meows. That damn cheerful fabric softener smell permeates the walls. Or maybe the scent is shampoo. Or sour milk. Or fish food. It can't be fish food, we don't have a fish. If I could get to the store, we might have a fish. That would explain the lingering smell. And if I could get to the store to buy the fish, I could get to the donut shop. Maybe I will purchase a dolphin and a dozen glazed donuts. Or two dozen glazed and no dolphin. What if that scent isn't fish food? It could be elephant chow, but that smell isn't peanuts. But what else would an elephant eat? Would an elephant let the cats out, hand Birdie a tissue or convince Big Guy to cut back on bacon. Bacon. I haven't thought about bacon. Now I'm thinking about bacon. The editor didn't ask for a bacon article, but she needs one. That's what the elephant says. It is right here, but on my left. The elephant, not the bacon. I'll cry if she wanted an article on ham, not bacon. Maybe they'll pay me any way. Stunod. Stunod. Stunod. Stunod. Stunod.

Ticks

If it looks like a tick, it is probably not a mole. I have more experience with ticks than I would care to have. Summertime walks in South Georgia along paths lined with tall grass occassionally resulted in a tick or two hitching a ride. Those I'd fling back into the grass. There, the parasites would wait knowing I would eventually return only to fling them once again. Yes, I shuddered as I flung them. But flinging a tick is better than feeding one. The tick I recall best is one I found latched to the middle of my back. It was after midnight. I was checking into my second hotel of the evening--the first having given me the "smoking room," saying that is what I reserved. The desk clerk knew, and I knew, I was getting the smoking room because I'd checked in at nearly midnight and they didn't think they would have to honor my guaranteed reservation. Shame on you, Country Inn near the Omaha airport. But, back to ticks. I was already feeling sorry for myself with the hotel change. The tick almost sent me over the edge. Do I go to the front desk and beg some overnight shift clerk to pull it off? Certainly it wasn't to remain bound to me for the night. Not wanting to test the clerk, I somehow managed enough weird contortions to dislodge it. Unfortunately, I don't know where the tick went. My bet, a few nights later a guest filled out a complaint card about finding ticks. At that point, not my problem. And I slept fine. I've also removed ticks from Girl Scouts and, one time, 40-plus ticks from a dog. So I was disappointed and a bit grossed out to discover Flonotes picked up two ticks as followers. One is fairly benign as far as ticks go. Her follower icon looks like a crab and it seems that she "follows" hundreds of blogs to get her crab logo displayed, generate interest and sell her art. If her art looks like her follower icon, I'm thinking the public health clinics are her natural market. My other tick is the kind that I hate to think will move on to be someone else's problem. He is a racist hatemonger. If he were the tick on my back, I would have carved loose a huge chunk of flesh to be rid of him. If he were a tick in the grass, I would have burned the field. I hate to imagine a tick like this near Girl Scouts, dogs or anyone I care for. So, I've made a few changes. No more blog followers. It is too easy for one follower to contact another. Also, I see any comments before they are posted. I haven't had many comments, but this way I know hatemongers and their friends can't get any farther than my words. Keeping reading. I'm tick free.

Not Gonna Share

Snow Sidewalks

I never thought about sidewalks and snow until I had a dog to walk. For the typical no-snow, nighttime, winter trip out, I slip on whatever shoes lay by the kitchen door, grab a coat, a leash and Tequila--the dog, of course. She trots out to sniff delightedly at secret dog messages that mark her path and eventually does her duty. I follow along, gazing at stars and wondering why some neighbors never close the drapes, while others never open them. Snow changes everything. Even as the first flakes fall, some sidewalks are shoveled; other sidewalks are not and within a few days, these turn into lethal ice patches. All of which compells me to put on snow boots to traipse through a mishmash of shoveled and unshoveled paths. Worrying about undignified slips and wrist-breaking falls cuts into my star-gazing and neighbor-watching. Tequila still sniffs and does her business, though keep in mind she has four feet and is much closer to the ground. If I were a better person, I would pick up after Tequila  no matter what. But I'm more selective. The spring thaw will yield a few surprises along the unshoveled stretches. Tequila is a tiny thing, so the gifts will likely go unnoticed. But I will know and that is good enough.

A Night Out

It has taken a few days for Big Guy and I to recover from dinner with Brad and Angelina. Flaming cheese, Brazilian sugar cane and sangria drinks, martinis, baklava and even a belly dancer--a professional belly dancer, not me and not Angelina. Add to that, the ability to keep tabs on the teens, via cell phone. I don't know that our Birdie or their Swan appreciated the blaring middle eastern,  Greekish music in the background when we called to confirm their evening plans. After all, Birdie and Swan are supposed to be foot-loose and fancy-free. Our role is to be old and home at night, as God intends. In the natural order of things, teachers live in classroom closets, police officers hang at yellow traffic lights, dentists invest in candy companies, doctors make up reasons to give shots and parents have no life. Proper parents watch history on t.v., cook vegetables, put away things so they can't be found, comment about how someone (else) needs to get the trash and say, "Do I look like an ATM?" They always wear bad clothes. And like chickens, as soon as the sun starts to set, parents head to the master bedroom coop to sleep. Parents with friends or lives totally apart from parenting buck everything that is known about adults. That is the good news for Birdie and Swan. One day, they will discover being a parent of teens beats being a teen. We have money and commonsense. We don't have a curfew clock for anyone to watch. But we will be home by 11 p.m. because that is way past our bedtime.

Snow Cat

Shovel Time

Yesterday's snow shoveling provided ample time to think, especially as there was nearly a foot of white stuff covering the driveway. First, I figured out why Big Guy went to work--that would be to limit his shoveling to two tire tracks worth of driveway. Second, I dwelled a bit on how I was moving mountains of snow while Birdie snuggled in bed reading a library book. I quit dwelling when Birdie appeared a few minutes later. I observed the elves across the street briskly shoveling their driveway. The elves grew up in a war torn east European country. As a young couple, with a baby, they were kicked out for believing in God their way. I wondered if they missed their childhood winters of endless snow. Probably not. But they shovel really well. Once they cleared their driveway and sidewalk, they shoveled the trolls' sidewalk and even a path from the troll mailbox to the troll front door. Elves keep busy. Although I wish they would rethink surrendering the cookie business to the Girl Scouts. Not a single Girl Scout has tempted me with Thin Mints. Neighborhood kids emerged. An eight-year-old convinced another eight-year-old to be partners in a snowball fight against a five-year-old and four-year-old. Not a fair fight, but eventually the younger ones will become the older ones and a new set of babes will be pummelled with snowballs. At some point, Birdie determined we were done shoveling. I reminded her about the walk to the front door. I cleared it while she swept snow from cars. Much later, the mailman trudged up the walk to deliver the mail. I was glad I cleared the way for him. I would have been happier, if he were a Girl Scout with a cookie order. With all that shoveling, I earned my Thin Mints.

Tequila Snow

Fresh Blood On The Block

Six houses in my neighborhood, 10 percent of the total, are vacant. Three of them are shells left behind by owners too old and frail to live alone.  The others are for sale, and have been for more than a year. That's why house number seven--the McCubbin house--is so promising. Mr. and Mrs. McCubbin raised seven children in their two-story house. Mr. McCubbin kept a Model T in the garage and always had a yard cat. Mrs. McCubbin rode herd on the kids, and later volunteered as a reading specialist at the elementary school. A few years ago, Mr. McCubbin died. And last summer, Mrs. McCubbin died. Unlike the other houses on the market, the McCubbin house sold fairly fast. I think the children, now grown with kids and grandkids of their own, priced it to sell. The family that bought the house didn't move in immediately. Contractors bumped out the back of the house, tore down entire walls inside, added new windows and siding, redid the kitchen and bathrooms. They hauled away three dumpsters of construction debris. A fourth dumpster sits in the drive half-filled with the last of remodeling. Last week, the family moved in. There are two parents, two high school sons, two much younger children and a dog. I haven't met them yet, except for a quick hi in their driveway months ago. But I'm thinking they might need some welcome Brownies. Make that thank you Brownies. This new family saw their future in our neighborhood. They turned a 1960s house into a home for a 2011 family. We have sidewalks, trees and the annoying deer required of any neighborhood in West County. Now we have fresh blood with new ideas about what to do with tired houses. Maybe our other empty houses will find forward looking families, too. As for my house, I'm thinking about knocking down a few walls. I won't do it. But someday, a new family will live here, and they just might.

Lessons Learned At Carrington Junior High

I first realized black and white people didn't like each other when I was eleven years old. My family moved from a military base in Hawaii, where rank mattered a lot more than color, to Durham, NC, a town caught in the racial turmoil of the late 1960s. I spent my junior high years there. I vaguely recall integrating classes. I really remember when the school system decided to integrate the buses. School ended for the day. I started up the bus steps, a girl I didn't know screamed at me, then kicked me, daring me to ride the same bus that she rode. Somehow, I made it home, on the bus, in tears. There were other bad times at school. I remember a riot one day, although in fact there may have been only one mother who actually showed up at school swinging a gun. Looking back, I don't know how mothers and fathers--black or white--sent their children into such turmoil, uncertainty and hatred. But they did it. And I am the better for it. Spending time in the same space, no matter how forced and artificial the effort, gave me the opportunity to learn to see beyond skin color to the person within. And over time, good days started to outnumber the bad. And then we moved, so I don't know how race relations at Carrington Junior High really worked out. I'm not naive enought to think racial divisions are gone, or that kids don't self-segregate, but things are so much better than they used to be. If I met her today, I doubt I would like the girl who kicked me--not because of her skin, but because she hurt me. It's the same dislike I reserve for Kelly Nelson, the white boy who bloodied my nose in fourth grade.

Ketchup, On Monday

If you want to align your planner with Martha Stewart's, she has made it more difficult. The January issue of Martha Stewart Living features a less detailed calendar. The new one is a timeline, something I've avoided ever since a math teacher demonstrated how timelines could reach back to before zero. Maybe that is Martha's point. If her timeline stretched back to December maybe she didn't celebrate Kwanza's start by washing linens. If her timeline really stretched back, maybe she never spent time in prison knitting ponchos.
     If I could rewrite history, I wouldn't have complained about the blind dog's gas problem. Not that he ever thought it was a problem. Chuck's ashes, in their tinned glory, rest at my mom's house, next to the wine glasses. The location guarantees we won't forget to take Chuck home next time we visit. Every day I miss scratching his belly, pulling him on walks and tripping over him. I am trying out a new dog, Tequila. Yes, a real dog, not the bottled stuff. Although, both sometimes come with worms.
     My sheep farmer in Peru is repaying his Kiva loan, early. And I loaned $25 to another Peruvian farmer. This one's day job is driving a motorcycle taxi that resembles a sitting room on wheels. I understand wanting to invest more time and energy with the backyard animals, not the ones being driven about.
     The odd Chinese drawings live on at my house. Now I know why I kept them 30 years. Big Guy likes them. Also living on at my house are Menorah Martinis. Big Guy likes them, too.
     In the time spent writing about bacon and Crown Candy Kitchen's emerging status as a Christmas tradition, I'm sure Daisy, Birdie and Big Guy felt confident I had forgotten to mention waffles. At our house, waffles are a Christmas tradition--not for breakfast but for hanging on the tree.

Cat Eyes

It's In The Stars

Now that I know the stars in the sky have shifted, or technically the Earth has bobbled, I have a much better understanding of the Today Show's unending fascination with Ted Williams. This panhandler "with the silky voice" apparently has a zodiac sign suddenly working in his favor. At a traffic intersection somewhere in Ohio, his cardboard sign touted his status as a down-on-his-luck former radio announcer with an amazing voice. The signal must have been stuck on red as someone with a camera recorded Williams singing. From there, suddenly Williams was on the Today Show with Matt (who brings out the female in him, declared Williams) and the sincerely sympathetic Meredith. I'm sure Ann and Al were involved, too. Williams talked about life as a recovering addict and his estrangement from his children, whom he hasn't supported. His mother, dignified and elderly, reunited with him on the air--although she seemed very skeptical of his desire to change. Williams went on to receive numerous job offers and make other t.v. appearances. Only a few days later, police broke up a quarrel between Williams and his daughter. The Today Show called in the experts to analyze the situation and squeezed out more sympathy for Williams. I'm saving my sympathy for Williams's mom. She reluctantly aired dirty laundry on t.v. I doubt she is pleased about what the neighbors know now. And my real befuddlement--there are lots of dads, with and without silky voices and addictions, who pay child support and occassionally show up in their children's lives. Ted Williams isn't one of them. Maybe the Today Show program planner should reread his/her horoscope. Surely it didn't say, "In January,  you will revisit the tragedy in Haiti, explore winter clothing bargains with Stacy London and salute a deadbeat with a silky voice."

Gifts That Keep Gifting

I weeded out wedding gifts today. After 30 years, the pair of odd Chinese drawings that I'm not sure I ever loved as much as I thought I should (as a dear friend gave them to us) are finally, nearly, on their way to Goodwill. Perhaps they will turn into wedding gifts for someone else. Perhaps even Goodwill will not want them. But somehow that's OK, too. Three decades of consigning them to the seldom used guest room is enough admiration on my part. I hope that anyone who received a doubtful gift from me has cheerfully regifted it. I remember the needlepointed wallhanging that featured a lot of orange and purple. What was I thinking in gifting it? More to the point, what was I thinking in stitching it? For quite a while, I thought the large metal country goose key holder was a terrific gift that I gave. Now, country cute is over. I just hope the goose was deep-sixed about the same time Big Hair died. Books seemed like a good gift idea especially as they're easy to mail. I shipped one to a youngster one year as a birthday gift; his mom told me he loved it. So I sent him another. Turns out he hated both of them. I wish he'd turned those unwanted albatrosses into paper airplanes, but I suspect he simply suffered through them. I gave an eclectic wine decanter to someone fairly normal that I thought would like something decidedly odd. I later saw it regifted to someone who was so decidedly odd that the decanter seemed mainstream. And there's at least one winter scarf at our house that was regifted from one sibling to another. A risky, yet bold move that was found out by the original gifter. I don't know what that original gifter really thought about her gift moving on, but it landed with the right person. Big Guy looks distinguished, and much warmer, when he wears it.

Get Ready For Dance

I found a big, plastic, pink tub of squished dance costumes as I cleaned the storage room. As it was a "snow day," I asked Birdie and Daisy to sort them and toss anything they didn't want. They made two separate large keep piles and one tiny toss pile. Both declared that one day their daughters may want the costumes for dress-up. I didn't tell them that saving dance costumes pretty much guarantees you'll only have sons. I blended their keep piles into one stack and shoved it back into the tub. My daughters danced for most of their elementary school and middle school years. We followed the dance family drill--come home from school, do homework, eat dinner, go to dance, come home, do more homework and go to bed. If hanging on to old costumes is an accurate measuring stick, my daughters enjoyed their time spinning, leaping and skittering across dance floors. But I'm glad they knew when to quit. I would have kept paying for dance lessons and chauffered for another few years, but they moved on to other things. And so did I.

Clean Up

I don't know if it was too much vacation or missing my dog, but I was having a bit of a struggle getting back into blogging mode. So I cleaned the storage room. After two days, the nasty job is almost complete. The prize finds--my Christmas stocking that a friend's mother made 42 years ago and Birdie's Christmas stocking that my mother made. While these items had only been missing for two years, enough time had passed that they'd been replaced. So, now Birdie and I each have two Christmas stockings for Santa to fill 340 odd days from now. They were in a box labelled Mexico. That might explain why they, and a bunch of Christmas ornaments, were missing in action. My least desirable find--a dessicated pile of cat turds. The offending cat has been lounging in kitty heaven, or somewhere, for a year and a half. I'm sure she is disappointed that Big Guy didn't discover her souvenir as the two of them enjoyed a love-hate relationship. I also found Big Guy's forgotten first set of fishing supplies, still in the store bag. He replaced them with more hooks, sinkers and such last fall. Fished. Didn't catch much. Maybe he needs a new occassional hobby. He used to hunt dove. I found his hunting vest. It "shrank" to itty bitty size and is heading to Goodwill. Buried in an old school desk I found a handful of Girl Scout SWAPS. If you don't know what those are, ask a Girl Scout. And while you're asking, buy some cookies. Where I live, it's about one week away from cookie season. And it looks like I have found space in the storage room.

Fast Friends

Sometimes, it is o.k. to judge a stranger by her appearance, at least when she obviously has such good taste. I met this fashionista in Mexico walking along a sidewalk with her two young daughters. We laughed at our shared Old Navy bargain fashion choice, snapped a photo and went our separate ways. I never saw her again. But for a moment, we were friends.