Shit for Dinner

Sorry, guys and gals, I can’t tell this story without using such indelicate language, but still I hope it is a story you will enjoy.

This is Dee-oh-Gee (D-O-G) and you are not going to believe me when I tell you how spoiled my Dee-oh-Gee-Dog is. How I cater to him to make his life the very best it can be. How much time and effort I put into his meals.

First off we have a wooden bowl because he prefers to eat outside on the deck. The other puppies eat in the hall out of metal dishes but D-O-G has this wooden bowl so that in cold weather his tongue will not stick to his dish. And for dinner we have a grand assortment like you see here.

Canned moist food, moist crumbles, dry food, and a cooked bit of meat scraps, that must not be clamored together or he just turns his nose up in disgust.

Amazingly too, if bowl is not washed daily, he will also refuse to eat. And the garnish, as silly as it sounds, serves a solid purpose. D-O-G doesn’t know when he is hungry. But once he eats the garnish which he eventually does, the digestive juices start flowing, and then he realizes that it is time to chow down.

So every day, just before our dinner hour, I go through the same routine. Dicing up cooked meat scraps, sorting out his menu, and garnishing the plate with small treats.

Still, despite all my efforts, D-O-G does not think for one fleeting moment that he is treated as royally as I think he is. Now this past week for four days, D-O-G did not eat a thing. Not a bloody thing. I did everything to enhance those already grand meals to no avail. He just sniffed at the bowl and walked away.

I was tired and cranky with catering to him. And close to tears with exasperation when I saw D-O-G out on the deck sniffing the contents of his wooden bowl and yet again walking away in a huff.

That’s when I said to Hub, “Hub, look at D-O-G. Refusing his food again. I make him the best meals and despite all my efforts he hasn’t eaten a thing for four days. I’m tired of making his exotic meals. The other two dogs don’t care how their food is arranged or if their dish is sparkling clean. But that dog…I’m bloody fed up with him. I might as well quit all the effort and give him shit for dinner!”

In that very instant, D-O-G heard me and plunged into the house through the dog door and did a happy twirling dog dance for the other puppies in the middle of the kitchen. Gyrating like a fool and yelling at the other puppies in dog language, “Woohoo! I’m getting shit for dinner! I’m getting shit for dinner!”

“No way,” said old dog. “You’re not getting shit for dinner. You know the rule. We never get shit for dinner or any other time. It’s not allowed!”

D-O-G just snickered. “I am so getting Shit for dinner. And I’m going to eat up everything in my wooden bowl right now, cause next meal, Roberta said, I heard her…that I’m getting Shit for dinner!”

I was so relieved to see that D-O-G finally ate all his food. Please don't tell him even though you and I know that it’s all a misunderstanding. He doesn't need to know he will NOT be getting Shit for dinner.

It's probably better this way cause as long as hope and faith exist, maybe he will eat his regular food each day in cheerful anticipation of that which he thinks will eventually happen.

Them Bones, them Bones...

Alright, you people, of today’s social order – you academics, scientists, archaeologist, authors, film makers, etc. – enough already!

As I’ve said before it is not easy to scuttle that which I have always believed. Hard to compromise on the stuff resident in my mind since I took my first steps. It is painful to rip stuff out of my chest. To discard it and then restuff that void without causing lumps and painful cramps. But I do it. Oftener than I would like to. I grit my teeth, brace my feet on the floor, chuck in my chin, and I do it.

Because of you I am now convinced that margarine and pig fat are not good for me. That purple no longer complements orange as it did in the late sixties. That smoking is a wicked, degrading, perverted act and the people that do it the scum of the earth. I have subscribed to the belief that gender preferences have to do with biological order rather than brain disorder. And that if a car goes into a skid, steering in the direction of the skid is the wisest thing to do.

But some other things I could not buy into. I still think that “The Little Match Girl” and “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” should be read to children in their original form. These are stories that impart empathy, compassion, and a deep-seated concern for others that are less fortunate. And I don’t wear it anymore, but I still like purple and orange.

And the Bible, I don’t want anyone monkeying with that either. The DaVinci code was fiction and I read it as fiction so there was nothing disturbing in that for me. But now we have the finding of an ossuary that so many are convinced is Jesus’ tomb. So that of course fires off the initial thought that if remains are found in a tomb of a resurrected figure, then I’ve been duped again. Going have to rearrange my stuffing.

But not so fast. Let me think about this just a bit. We don’t know a lot about death, but this much we do know. That in near-to-death experiences, people leave their bodies as it were and then find themselves at another vantage point looking down on their situation. And these have reported that they see their physical body as it initially was, unmoved and unchanged, although for a moment they are not in that body.

It has so often been said that “Faith would not be faith if it could be scientifically proved”. Faith is about that which some outward power compels our inner being to accept and believe without hard logic. And furthermore, although the Bible says we will be resurrected in like-form and that others will recognize us, I don’t think it insinuates that we will be earth-based bones, and cells, marrow, with specific blood types and DNA wrapped in heavenly flesh.

So now, you may call me delusional if you like. You may say, I just foolishly believe what I want to believe. But hold on just a minute. I am no more delusional than those who believe our justice system is just. Or that professionals can always be trusted. That health care and law enforcement, and other public service providers, can remain cleansed of corruption through internal investigations. And that some day as we plunder down this new path of enlightenment, equality, respect, non-discrimination, and democracy will rule the globe. That environmental warming will be stopped in its tracks. And that the U.S. will end the era of WMS’s and biological warfare with a biological weapon of its own. A philosophy of liberty and freedom so contagious that when dispensed over rogue countries, all who breath it in will succumb to its septic drift.

Nah, I’m not too concerned about the finding of Jesus tomb, or his bones, or other body debris. But still if your religion is more superficial. More about status and respect in your community, about being well thought of, rather than an unwavering conviction within your soul, this tomb-business could be very upsetting.

So as a final thought I have to wonder at the purpose of these journalists, film makers, and archaeologists. What kind of people are embedded in this project? Is financial greed at the root of it? Yes I think so. But that doesn’t bother me near as much as a suspicion (and it is only a suspicion) that there may be an alternative intent to deal a crushing blow to Christianity while at the same time bolstering other beliefs that counter that Jesus was only a prophet, historical figure, or common man, but not a Messiah. Like political campaigns that smear the opponent to increase their own popularity, could the intent of this effort be a determination to sway Christians away from Christianity to redemption through a ‘holy war’ rather than a Jesus-based belief? And could it be we are too dumb to realize that?

Crime Walks Upright on Two Feet

It is amazing to me how intent we are in pursuing justice for victims of criminals that walk amongst us upright on two legs. People like the peeping tom, the intruder, the thief, street beggars, and terrorists.

But meanwhile, we are so oblivious to the crimes of the thieves and swindlers that embed their horrendous crimes against innocent individuals in print. Things like home and car insurance policies, bank service policies, and utility policies. Things like user fees, carrier charges, hidden fees, customer fees, and fees for access of our own money. We all have stories to tell of the contract that wasn’t even worth the paper it was written on.

I can’t help thinking about the “Gas Cost Recovery Charge” I paid on top of current charges for several years to the gas company. The explanation being that they charged less in previous years than they should have.

And since when should I have to pay a deposit on a vehicle that I am interested in buying? No matter what retailers are selling, whether vehicles or major appliances, if my choice is not a special order, there should be enough inventory that they would be happy to hold the specific one I’m interested in for a measly 24 hours without me giving them a generous deposit?

And I think it’s criminal to have to ‘buy’ a warranty for anything. Isn’t a warranty intended to demonstrate the seller’s conviction that they are selling a quality product? And then there’s the magazine companies that renew subscriptions without authorization from the subscriber and then send bills and bills and more bills. The only way out is to send a letter of cancellation for something you never even requested. And if you buy a toilet, for cryin’ out loud, it will be displayed in the store in it’s completeness but no one is going to tell you that it comes minus a tank and lid, unless you happen to ask. And what’s with those sale tags that are so carefully placed on shelves to cover the regular price? Don’t retailers want customers smiling about the bargains they got on sale items? Makes people like me skeptical about whether sale prices are more or less.

Or the sale tags that say butter that normally sells for $3.69 is only $2.15 a pound and then in tiny unreadable print there is the condition that you must buy four pounds. Of course you can’t hope to read the small print so you are totally happy with that reasonable pound of butter until you get to a busy till and find out that it is even more than normal price cause you didn’t buy four pounds. That is a fraudulent business as well. Or prices displayed that are really quite impressive but when you get to the till you find this shop is a club or sorts, and without valid membership in the club, the prices you pay will in no way resemble those prices posted.

And isn’t it fraudulent practice for investment advisors to neglect to say, “I think this is what is going to happen with this investment, but the truth is my opinion on any of this amounts to nothing more than guesstimates. I laughed when one of the television channels did a small investment test a few years back. One all-knowing investment expert chose her preferred stock according to experience and wisdom, the other pinned the stock page listing to the wall, threw some darts and accordingly choose her stocks. The archer ended up with radically greater profit through this endeavor two years in a row.

It is getting to the point that there are more scammers in our day-to-day lives, then there are spammers on the internet. And there is too much skulking going on for me to be convinced that there is ‘nothing to hide’. But why the skulking, I have no idea. It’s not as if we see any of this as a crime. Crime walks upright on two feet.

The "New Fear"

How is one to interpret the ‘new fear’ that parents have that their children won’t like them? I say ‘new fear’ because I’ve never heard of such a thing until recently. But now I see evidence of it coming from so many places. I see evidence of the ‘new fear’ on “Dr. Phil”, when he says to parents dealing with a difficult child, “Did you ever trying saying ‘No’?” And the parents say, “Well no, because my child may not like me anymore.”

The loss of a child’s affection is the ‘new fear’ and it is spreading like a plague. You know it is because I’m sure you’ve seen it on “Dr Phil”, “Supernanny”, in child-rearing magazines and other various places including young parents in your own neighborhood.

And so, I begin to wonder what spawned this ‘new fear’. If parenting is akin to the workplace, here are some basic truths that might help us understand. In the workplace, if you don’t have a job description, you are dispensable. And if you go on leave, and no temp is needed to cover for you, you are dispensable. And with profits declining, if you are part of a pool of workers doing duplicate work, that’s not a good place to be either. But on the other hand, if you are highly skilled in critical and specialized tasks, your unique value will make the boss very reluctant to replace you with another.

And so, now I wonder, could there be something in the workplace analogy that comes to bear on the ‘new fear’ of rejection that parents have? Maybe here there is something that can explain parents living in such fear and making such concerted efforts to retain their children’s affection through soft discipline, rewards, bribery, and proffered amusements.

You see once-upon-a-time, children were reared in homes where the job descriptions of a father and mother were uniquely different – without overlap. Fathers could not provide mother comforts and mothers could not provide father comforts. And children knew that. So it mattered not to them if one was more patient and the other a harsher disciplinarian. Both parents, because of the unique aspect of what they provided, were equally valued by their children and as parents there was never a concern that the children would love one less and the other more.

The ‘new fear’ was absolutely unheard of. But all that has changed. Now parent job-descriptions overlap. Men have moved into the kitchen and routed out the vacuum. And although the children probably give this little contemplation, the parents are contemplating it. And from that contemplation springs parent insecurities that stem from knowing that if one or the other is absent, the children will continue to have normalcy in their daily work, play, and other routines. Whether the children will miss that parent, and how much they will miss that parent, is an intangible thing to assess. What is apparent is that day-to-day activities and routines of the children will not suffer in a drastic way. And from hence comes the ‘new fear’.

And so now we have parents with job-insecurity competing like children against each other for the approval and affection of their offspring. Butting their heads together over basic things like discipline, allowances, personal hygiene, chores, plus dozens of other ridiculous things that aren’t even worthy of discussion. And with overlapping job descriptions, no matter what situation occurs, neither can be held responsible, cause each can blame the other.

And so as insecurity builds, the competition increases in direct relationship to that insecurity. Soon it is a household with two parents secretly and separately scheming at how to make themselves more appealing to their children than the other parent. Secretly and separately scheming how to excel in a marketplace that is all about profiting from children’s affection rather than from wisdom and leadership.

And so, with overlapping job descriptions, internal rifts develop as both parents become exhausted in their efforts to compete, and soon, rather than because of adultery, the competition has them headed toward divorce court – maybe in some sick way to discover which of them their children love more!

Easy Solutions

I like to think we make life far too complex. I like to think there is a simple solution for everything. And so, in recent days and weeks with the ongoing saga on the news of Brittany and Anna Nicole, I became embedded in thoughts about intervention in the lives of other young people who may end up losing their way like these two. And to myself I thought, “There just has to be a simple thing that has escaped us all that can prevent these sordid things from happening.”

Maybe it all boils down to simply encouraging young people to ‘love themselves’. That is, once the definition is fully clarified. I say that because I misinterpreted that bit of advice for more than a decade. I thought it meant having support for all my personal endeavors, having the latest fashionable clothes, a professional do, a fitness membership, and time to luxuriate in a foaming bath with perfumed candles. But I found that interpretation did not fit with my obligations as a wife, a mother, and the nurturing needs of those around me. My first faltering steps in living up to this mandate brought only conflict with those dearest to me.

And so, upon contemplating what was happening, I came to the realization that marriage is about frequent self-sacrifice and raising children is about daily self-sacrifice. And when I let myself ‘fall off the wagon’ things radically improved. I began to understand about loving myself when I started facing each day with the question, “What can I personally do to make things better?”

It worked so well not only for me, but for my boss at work, my Hub, neighbors, close friends, and my children that I became convinced that this must be the proper interpretation of the new approach-to-life policy about loving ones-self. It certainly worked like magic once I got rutted in the grove.

So now, moving on, what can we do with young people careening down the same disastrous road that so many of the celebs find themselves on? “It’s simple. So simple,” I thought. In adolescence we need to give them a clearer understanding of what it means to ‘love themselves’. That this does not refer to the latest most fashionable goods but rather to being the best kind of person they can be today and a better person than that tomorrow.

For instance, – Teen waking up today and thinking about last night’s party. And thinking, ‘Eww – skull cramp – guess I drank too much last night. I won’t be doing that again. And today I feel like such a fool for dancing on the table. I’ll not do that again either.

And so with this kind of thinking upheld, here are two steps made toward young person become a better and more responsible person. How simple is that?

I really thought I was on a roll at this point and more than a little anxious to share my new-found method of gradual healing of the lost with ED (Eldest Daughter).

In two seconds flat, ED shut down that grandiose theory. “You’re too easy forgetting the competitive spirit of young people trapped in a culture of semi-developed brains where only peer approval counts”, she said. “And you’re also forgetting that young people do not only dress the same, they think the same. Sure Teen will wake up the next day and reflect on yesterday’s frolic. Only you’re dreaming if you think it will be with regret. This is what she will think…”

“Oh, I had such a grand time last night. Drank more than anyone and didn’t even puke. I was definitely the sexiest girl there. My skirt was the shortest. And I’m so glad I was bold enough to dance on the table. That showed my sexy bod off to the fullest extent.”

Well, that sure shot that theory full of holes. Oh well. Back to routing out another problem in today’s world, that I can fix with a really, really simple solution.

My Little Shadow

It was a wonderful day of discovery, the day I discovered this poem as a child. (I’m reciting it from memory, so I hope the words are correct aside from my choice to substitute “she” for “he”.

“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me
And what can be the use of [her] is more than I can see
[She] is very, very, like me, from my toes up to my head
And I see [her] jump before me when I jump into my bed.”
- Robert Louis Stevenson.

I always liked this poem because it celebrates the intangible part of a child. So comforting to think that my shadow could even be endowed with such importance by stressing it’s unimportance and giving it properties so appealing to a child’s sense of fun.


(Now this is where you need to back out of here and go elsewhere cause the rest of this is just a miserable whine).

________

Still reading? Oh well, that's your choice.

So now what I want to tell you about is yesterday’s shopping trip.

When I got to town I went to a shop, selected my purchases, and took them to the counter. There were two clerks at two separate tills. Clerk I had a customer; Clerk II had none. Clerk II’s till light was on, but she was busy as could be. She was busy fluffing papers. So I lined up behind the customer at Clerk I. But the transaction would not complete, so after several patient moments of waiting, I moved my stuff to the other till. And there I waited and waited.

Now you know when you watch someone shuffling papers whether they are counting, doing math, recording, even alphabetizing. And when this is the case, that person deserves the patience and respect to complete that task. But Clerk II was doing none of these. She was, as I said, fluffing papers and frequently looking out the window. Eventually she looked up. “Oh,” she said, “could you go to the other till?”

I glanced at her till light and then obediently lined up once again behind the customer at the other till. Clerk I was still fighting with the transaction. She finally managed to cancel her second attempt and with the third, ding-ding, another error message. So I waited and waited while Clerk I continued to fight with her till and Clerk II continued to look out the window and fluff paper.

Finally I moved back to Clerk II and put my purchases down on her counter. “I can’t wait any longer,” I said, and turned to leave. Clerk II responded amazingly fast. “Oh no, oh no, don’t do that. I’ll get that stuff for you right now.”

But then, instead of ringing up my few items, Clerk II disappeared behind the counter and began re-arranging boxes. “I’ll be right with you,” she said, while popping her head up from behind the shelf.

I waited and waited. And after ten minutes or more, with Clerk II still behind the counter re-arranging boxes, I finally said, “I am leaving,” as I turned and headed for the door. That’s when she dashed out from behind her counter and hurried after me yelling, “Lady, come back, come back. Please come back.”

As the door was closing behind me, I turned to her and said, “No point, my dear. You are much too busy today.” And so I left.

Leaving didn’t make me happy. Staying and waiting longer would not have made me happy. Now if clerks are busy with customer line-ups I don’t mind waiting as long as it takes. But this was not the case.

And then I got that ‘chip on the shoulder’ mentality that so many minorities have. You know, thinking that because you are ‘different’ from the rest of the line-up that the push you just got was not accidental or coincidental, it was bloody on purpose. And the reason you were overcharged was not because of an honest error but because, as a native, people assume you don’t have the intellect to notice. These are not the best examples but I think they adequately reveal what I mean.

So now I’m thinking, that I have differences from the mainstream that are starting to show. Because of my gray hair, slow amble, and other’s assumption that I am retired and have all the time in the world to make my purchases, service need not be a priority. And so in that moment, a chip settled down on my shoulder and I became convinced that elder-bias was involved. As the situation unfolded Clerk II’s behavior was far too deliberate to believe that this was the standard of service to all customers.

So now I’m heading home without vacuum bags and a couple of other things I needed and again I’m reflecting on my status in society and thinking about a poem that was the sweetest, loveliest thing I had ever read, when I was a child. But now it suddenly seems all wrong. It really needs some editing to reflect today’s realities. And so this is my new recital.

My shadow has a ‘being’ that goes into town with it
It drags along its ‘being’ that is slow and hardly fit
There is no need to hustle with a shadow in your day
Shadowed-beings are no matter. They just get in the way.

Today was not exactly a celebration of my physical shadow or the seemingly intangible being that accompanies it.

Battling Wits

I laugh. Hub is always battling wits with the little twins from next door that love to come to walk the dogs with us. After our walks they usually stop in for a visit and some juice. Yesterday I had fresh cookies so they had cookies as well.

Now Girl-twin doesn’t eat raisins, never has. So, although she asked if the cookies had raisins in, Hub didn’t think they did, so he said “No, just chocolate chips.”

So twin-girl took two cookies and immediately said “Ewww. These cookies have raisins in them."

Of course she badgered Hub for telling her there were no raisins in those cookies. But in the end she ate them while slowly and cautiously extracting every raisin. Two cookies and out of those two cookies, an unbelievable 15 raisins. Now there she sat across from Hub with a messy pile of cookie crumbs and 15 raisins on the table.

And that’s when the sparring of wits began. “I’ll give you two dollars if you eat those raisins,” Hub said. Of course, Girl-twin said eating 15 raisins was certainly worth more than two dollars. So then some serious negotiating began. They went from one dollar up to ten dollars and then back again. Finally girl-twin upped the ante by agreeing to eat the 15 raisins in front of her plus another cookie for an agreed on fee of three dollars.

And so then the debate began that in this ‘survival test’ of raisin eating whether she should eat them one at a time, two at time, or three at a time. Hub said it was her choice so she decided to eat them two at a time.

She asked if she could be permitted to swallow without chewing and Hub said she must chew them. So she put two raisins in her mouth, made an awful face, and chewed them gingerly and swallowed them. Hub said that wouldn’t do. That she must smile and look like she really enjoyed them and say “Yum, Yum.” So she grimaced a smile and said “Yum, Yum.”

Next two raisins, here comes that face again. “Wait, wait, wait,” Hub yells, “get on your pleasant face. Yum, Yum, Yum.” And again with more too-doo than anyone could imagine, with much grimacing and painful pulling of her face from sad to glad and mutters of “yum, yum,” twin girl continued.

It was a long process with much banter about her doing it the proper way and in the meantime I laughed and laughed. Half-way through twin-girl begged for a drink to wash down the nasty taste, and of course Hub got her one while shaking his finger at her yet again because of the flash of I’m-going-to-be-sick look on her face.

Occasionally she turned her back to Hub and heaved her shoulders as if silently retching and of course he responded by saying, “Oh, we’ll certainly have none of that or the deal is off.”

Eventually through much process, delay, and resetting of her countenance, interspersed with a less-than-convincing "Yum-yum", the raisins and the extra cookie were all down the hatch and Hub handed her the money. She told him it was the hardest bit of cash she ever worked for.

And then, as she pocketed her money, her face lit up like morning sunshine, and she laughed and laughed. “Guess what, Mr. Smith, I’ve always eaten raisins. I’ve always loved raisins. I can eat a whole bag of raisins without even blinking!”

I knew that wasn’t true, that she really does hate raisins. But I didn’t say a word. Hub, on the other hand, believed her. Felt ‘taken’.

I laughed some more. Not sure who won this round.

Lord, Preserve Me From Repetition

As I child, I disliked repetitiveness, and I still do. I am unable to mentally relate to individuals that can nestle for a lifetime in strict unchanging codes of conduct and belief. Who can watch the same movie ten times, or talk the same talk and walk the same walk. Systemic paths so deeply rutted in the brain that they can’t be ruffled in a breeze or soaked by a shower. (I can’t help but reflect on a few war-mongering VIPS as I type this).

But I am guilty in some respects as well. Every morning when my feet hit the floor, I go through my repetitive physical routines of morning grooming and coffee drinking. But, at the same time, from the first slant of dawn I am on the hunt for a new discovery.

And though I find physical ease wrapped in this old housecoat, and these same old slippers, sipping coffee and poised in front of this same old laptop, mentally, I need change. The old, worn, and familiar is as distressing as being incarcerated.

So I wake up each day searching for a new thought, a new outlook, a new understanding, a new conviction…to override the ‘old thought’ that was pertinent to yesterday. And, for me, it is the best kind of day if I route out something new in your mind, or mine, to admire, evaluate, ponder, maybe even abhor.

This is my kind of radical sport -- the thrill of free-fall after another fresh mind-expanding discovery.

Oh, Sweet Valentines!

That which to adults appears as nothing more than a superficial act, often holds much deeper meaning for children.

Do you remember when manufacturers of Valentines made books for children with cards to cut out and envelopes to cut and glue as well? Even in our one-horse town, my mother could always find me a Valentine Card Craft book for Valentine’s Day.

And so for a week or more before Valentine’s Day, I’d be busy as a little bee, cutting out my Valentines. Cutting out the little arrow that went through a slit in the Cupid-angel’s heart and the tiny hearts that needed to be pressed into a slit in his basket. Every Valentine absolutely unique and every Valentine a work of art. Then there were the envelopes that also needed to be cut and glued. It was such fun. It was a grand occupation.

But it was more than that. It was a reflective occupation that magnetically inscribed things into my inner being. While I crafted with scissors and glue delightful little cards, a similar crafting was taking place in my soul. Empathy, tolerance, understanding, and a new appreciation for others was being cut and pasted into my childhood convictions through the context of the paper icons that I was so patiently cutting from each page.

And Valentine’s Day. How exciting. Recognizing the wonder of giving. Thrilled by the kindness of getting. And when he, who my heart painfully longed for as a ‘boyfriend’, but yet so disappointingly never gave me notice, sent me that cut-out bouquet of roses stuck and glued so carefully in that Valentine heart with his own hand, that was as good as it gets.

Valentine’s Day was the special Day that our classmates bonded together as an affectionate group. Sure there were kids in the class that I sneered at as kids are wont to do – but they got Valentines from me and I got Valentines from them, and even that small act corrected rifts in our subconscious. The exchange of Valentines was like a peace offering between all parties, even the school bully, or the misfit. An offering with meaning that I guess I never fully realized until today even though some cards were only sent because the number of Valentines at my disposal exceeded the number of classmates I had.

But than some a--, who will never be my Valentine, started manufacturing books with die-cast pre-cut Valentines. And no envelopes. No scissors needed, just press out the valentines. This effort, without fail, ripped the best cards. And the die-cuts were so sloppy most of them were farther outside the line, than I have ever colored. And so, when pressed out, the Valentine was too much of a disgrace to even give to someone I didn’t care about. Even receiving these Valentines from others meant so little. There was no ambiance of affection in the preparation of these Valentines. Anyone who had them was too buried in the frustration of sloppy cuts and torn edges to think affectionately about anybody.

And then some other a--, who will never be my Valentine, got the crazy notion to package valentines, custom made, ready to go, most of them duplicates of another, in plastic bags. What fun is it to have no hand in the Valentine-assembling process? To have no need for scissors, glue, staples, or tape? To displace the sweet basic meaning and intent of Valentines to a mindless dispensation of a pack of shuffled cards? Even the puns and clever witticisms of the cards, juvenile as they were, had sadly weakened and waned.

So why didn’t I send you a Valentine this year? Because, my heart wasn’t in it? Someone stole my heart years ago when they made ready-made ready-to-send Valentines. At least I have my glue and staples and tape at-the-ready to try and repair some of the damage.

P.S. Amazingly the Grandchildren did get Valentine books from which to assemble Valentines. Yes, they were pre-cut as sloppily as ever. But still, the Grandchildren couldn’t have been more thrilled. Daughter told me, she was thrilled as well to find these books though the search for them was a truly difficult quest.

I WAS NOT so thrilled. Why? She didn’t buy me one!

When Old Friends Meet

Normally, it is a treat to be an observer when old friends meet. That is generally the case, but I saw two old friends who seldom rendezvous meet and greet this morning when I got up and it did nothing for me but send cold chills down my spine.

Forty below Fahrenheit and minus forty degrees Celsius met at the exact same point on the thermometer this morning. And there they were kissing and embracing, and for me, watching it happen was worse than a crime.

Brrr.

Resourcefulness

The older I get, the more resourceful I become. Resourceful enough that people, who hardly even know me say to Hub, “Man, your wife is an easy-keeper.” And when those comments come back to me I wear them like a badge of honor.

But maybe, just maybe, resourcefulness is as slippery a slope as paranoia, or depression, or some of those other ills of the mind that can so soon become chronic and difficult to cure. I don’t know. Let me tell you about today, and then you be the judge.

Today, I’m baking muffins. It’s not that I want to bake muffins today but I can’t be wasting food, you know, and I have one banana left in the fruit bowl that is going to expire within the next seven minutes. Sure, I could freeze it, but frozen bananas should be used within 6-8 weeks, not four years later. So I will use it now.

But there is no such thing as a recipe for 12 muffins made with one lonely banana. The best I can do is a recipe that calls for one cup. And I know at least two bananas are needed to make one cup. But then, while pivoting my head around in the fridge, I notice a bowl of mashed potatoes left over from last night. That’s when the thought came to me that I could simply expand the mashed banana with mashed potatoes (that thankfully were not seasoned with dill, garlic, rosemary, thyme, or cajun)? So mixed together, we now have one cup of ‘generic’ mashed banana.

Now I have muffin papers but I am disinclined to use the bloody things. I buy parchment paper that is non-stick to bake cookies on, so why can’t affordable muffin papers be non-stick? Don’t manufacturers know how much I resent eating the top half of a muffin with all decorum and then in the end being forced to awkwardly apply a disc of pink or yellow accordion paper to my face so I can eat the bottom half?

That’s why muffin papers don’t appeal to me. And so I grudgingly greased the muffin tins, (which means washing them later will be such a pain) and flung the muffin papers back in the drawer. Then I popped my pan into the oven I just cleaned last Wednesday but isn’t it already smoking because of errant raisins that leaped off yesterday’s raisin bread? Oh well, by now they’re probably close enough to charcoal that it doesn’t matter.

But aren’t we just always thinking? Burnt raisins? I have a purpose for them. I’ve wanted to show the grandchildren how to make a colorful miniature garden of stalagmites but I needed coal or charcoal. Now where is one going to find coal in this day and age? As kids we used to seed miniature rock gardens in rose bowls and grow beautiful stalagmites in lovely rainbow colors. I had forgotten how we did that but I found a recipe recently in a really old cookbook – first coal or cinderblock in the bottom of the bowl, covered with a mix of salt, water, ammonia, food coloring, and bluing.

So now, coal, charcoal, burnt raisins? Is it all one and the same? I’m half convinced it is. So I’ll use those raisins as a charcoal substitute.

And so now, the potato-banana muffins are baked and coffee is poured. I am so amazed. You would never believe how good they are.
And, in case you’re interested, this is the garden that I grew with scorched raisins. Cute, but obviously a different recipe from the gardens we grew when I was a child. Still the grandkids might think it is pretty awesome.

Meet D.O.G.

I want you to meet D.O.G.


I am so excited today about showing you this picture that I can hardly take the time to write this. The big dog in this picture is Dough-Gee. His Christian name is “D.O.G” but it is pronounced with a slur, Dee-oh-Gee, that ends up sounding like ‘Dough-Gee.’ Dog’s mother was a basset and I think his father was a Rottweiler. Despite his overly long body and stocky crocked legs, Dog is so special because he has a sweet and mild nature that still continually astounds us.

Hub and I were shocked when Dog brought this little fellow in through the dog door early one morning. We could not imagine that anyone abandoned him but that must have been the case because after advertising and calling others in the neighborhood in order to find his owner we were finally forced to give up. But thankfully, through a local animal rescue group, Dog’s little friend was quickly adopted into a loving home. I have heard reports since then and his new owners love him to death, the way Hub and I love our Dough-Gee Dog.

Spontaneous Acts

When I was in the Romantic stage of my life, that would be my youth, a hug could fix just about anything. And still it’s a good fix when everything is beyond human control. But having reached the reflective stage of my life, where romance is no longer the be-all and end-all, sometimes a hug is not the fix I need. Not if there are more practical options.

Now over the many years Hub and I have been together we have had numerous philosophical discussions. And what consistently comes to the fore is Hub’s philosophy that if a man has to be told to send flowers, to date his wife, or take her to dinner – if this is a taught and learned protocol rather than a spontaneous desire, he might as well not bother. And yes, I agree this is true.

But this week we got right down to the application of this theory and there seemed to be a problem with it. With my recent eye surgery, I’ve had my days. Days when I felt whimpy, days I felt a little down, and days when I needed spontaneous acts of reassurance from Hub.

But what I’ve come to realize, upon reaching this reflective stage of life, is that men are lacking a vital piece of thought-processing, that women have. The uncanny ability of intuitive empathy and understanding of other’s needs. It’s the thing that tells us the other half (or the kids) are not feeling up to snuff even if they don’t complain. Women know. It’s the thing that makes us seize control of the moment.

Doesn’t this all sound too familiar? “You’re looked a bit peaked this morning. I think you better stay home today. Does your head hurt? Are you in pain? What did you eat yesterday? Better let me take your temperature. Here’s a cool cloth for your forehead and let me put this warm pack on your back. You aren’t hungry? Well, you should eat something. If this doesn’t appeal to you I’ll make some broth? When did you last have a bowel movement? Do you want your pillow fluffed? Should I turn off the TV?”

So now the other day I was feeling down. Eye just a bit too uncomfortable for me to have confidence I was doing okay. And of course, what furthered my distress, was thinking how quickly doldrums can root and blossom into full-blown depression. What I needed was ‘spontaneous’ emotional support from Hub.

But, as I’ve already stated, men lack that thing so ever present in women’s psyche. They never notice if the wife is pale, or hollow-cheeked. If the eyes are worried, the face sad. How could they when they even fail to notice she cut her hair or colored it? So since Hub lacks feminine intuition, there is no point in me remaining silent. I might as well stop pulling a sad face and tell him.

So, “Hub,” I say, “Today my eye is uncomfortable. I’m feeling anxious, sad, and depressed.”

That was clear enough, don’t you think? Shouldn’t need to say more.

“Chin up,” Hub replies. “The Doctor said you need six weeks to heal so you’ll just have to wait it out.”

Now Hub already knows one thing I want. I want the color and contrast on the television minimized so that watching it will be no different than looking across the room at the bookshelf. I want my computer set the same way. But if it is going to happen, it isn’t going to happen until he finishes tweaking up the computer on the diningroom table and after he replaces a switch and a broken antenna on a two-way radio. So I told him my woes, but nothing happened. No one wiped my forehead, gave me a warm pack, or made me a cup of tea. No one adjusted the TV or suggested I relax in the big chair. When Dough-Gee dog rattled his empty waterdish and booted it down the hall, no one said, “Roberta, don’t move. I’ll get that.”

So I didn’t want to say it, the thing that can’t be learned or lectured. Yet, I needed to do something to clue this man in. So I tried an oblique approach that I hoped would not irreparably damage the wholesomeness of heartfelt spontaneity.

“Hub,” I said. “You know how often you’ve said that if the experts tell you to give the wife flowers, the gesture becomes meaningless. Well, we have that same situation here and I have no idea what to do about it. Except to tell you, you have a few dead brain cells and I can’t reactivate them without the meaning of all that is connected to spontaneous acts of kindness being destroyed.”

Hub looked at me blankly and went back to watching ‘Lone Star’ and tweaking up the computer on the diningroom table. I sat in the kitchen feeling woefully sorry for myself. Faced with a difficult quandary that obviously had no easy solution.

Later, much later, I saw Hub adjusting the contrast and brightness on the TV. Later, much later, he appeared by the big chair with a freshly-made sandwich for me. And tea. They were small steps, but admittedly they are steps in the right direction.

And amidst all this Hub would not have hesitated to give me a hug. Yes hugs are okay, they’re nice, but when you’re past the romantic stage of life, might as well reserve hugs, as I said earlier, for situations outside of human control. In the reflective stage of life, when I’m slipping into the doldrums, hugs don’t have the same impact they once did. This is not a situation beyond human control. What I need is the magic of ONE day, so seldom requested, so seldom expected, of emotional support through a servile attitude and a fresh cup of tea and a fluffed pillow.

The Surgery

We sat lined up in little chairs in the waiting room. We chatted with dim, inattentive eyes, about things beyond our control. About weather, temperatures, roads, and travel time. I didn’t want to talk but I wanted to eavesdrop. I wanted to find something in one of those conversations to lower my alarm about the here and now but there was nothing. Discussions about eye surgery – right off the agenda. It was as if we were all pretending we were waiting for a call to dinner rather than a call to surgery.

Then one by one we pealed off those chairs and moved into another room. The nurse looked at my name and looked at me and said, “Roberta?”.

“Yes, I said. We spoke on the phone.” And no, we didn’t embrace and mingle tears (see previous bog), but she gave me a wry little smile and flourished one hand under each eye than shook it out over the floor. I grinned and mimed the same.

So now here we sat in groups of five while another nurse dropped drops in our eyes. A stinging drop followed by a soothing drop. Over and over again. Now you know how reluctant even a dim sighted eye is to having anything dumped in it. And the eye is even more reluctant when the thing is expected. So with a running commentary that this ‘may sting abit’ and ‘this will feel okay’ she re-cycled drops into the corners of our eyes. We, with our dim little pigeon eyes, that can’t even read the first ‘E’ on an eye chart, saw them coming, and of course we blinked. And when she tried again we blinked. With tissues, we mopped up hoards of solution spilling down our cheeks, as we consistently blinked in smooth synchronization with each drop that hit.

And when she said with impatience, “you must hold your eye open”, of course we agreed. But the mechanism of unconsciously controlled body movements disagreed so always18 trilla-seconds after her demanding we keep our eye open, without willing it, we breathed and blinked which of course was just as the emulsion dropped. None were talking, we were all too busy willing ourselves not to blink, and wondering if we had any of the critical solution in the eye. I only knew for a certainty I had some of the stinging variety.

With our upper bodies dressed in hospital nightgowns, tied but still gaping at the back, we were each given a sheet to wear as a granny shawl to keep our teeth from chattering. And eventually each of us were transferred from our chairs with our sheet shawls to wheel chairs and transferred to the operating room. An intravenous was set up in my right hand by another individual after three painful failed attempts in my left by the first individual. And then I was left on a stretcher in a hallway. My God, what I wouldn’t have given for a warm quilt? I keep asking for one, they said they’d get me one, but no one ever did.

Discomfort in such circumstances is the not knowing what is going to happen and how it is going to happen. But when it came to parking the guerney I was on in the hallway, that was familiar within the context of my mind. Gurneys are somewhat like taxis on a slow day, are they not? Only taxis wait and wait at a sidewalk entry, and gurneys wait and wait anywhere in a hospital where there is room - hallways, alcoves, etc. So when placed on a gurney and parked in a hallway, I felt the comfort of familiarity with that event.

Across the hallway, but not directly in line with me, was a body under a shawl-sheet identical to mine, with navy dress socks sticking out from under the sheet. I recognized the socks and realized it was the patient that had gone into surgery two patients ahead of me. His feet were parallel with my waist, he was parked a little farther down the hallway, so I had to raise my shoulders and tip my head backward to see the rest of him. But the sheet was bunched around his head making that part of him invisible. So I was left to examine his feet and lower torso.

The feet were positioned like those of the pope when he was packed around during his funeral procession. The body was very still, the face hidden from me, but I watched the feet and lower body very carefully. No twitch, no movement, nothing. I wondered if he had an adverse reaction to something. A sedative or freezing stuff. Maybe he wasn’t moving for a very good reason. If that was the case, maybe I could borrow his sheet. I was becoming so rapidly convinced that he was dead. After all, doesn’t it make sense that with our present health care situation that takes a critical patient 17 hours to get through the convolutions of the administrative process in Emergency, it might take as long, or even longer, to get a dead body transferred from a hallway to a morgue. Less the hurry really. Less the emergency at that point. No one to call up their Member of Parliament to complain or lobby for change. The deceased are the silent minority – and when they succumb on gurneys in hallways they are statistics of a kind that in their dumb silence are, it seems to me, not even counted. We’ve all seen the stat counts – numbers of deaths from homicides, vehicular accidents, drownings, heart disease, cancer, but I’ve still yet to see on the list – death from “unattended gurney in the hallway”. There must be enough to warrant adding these to the list.

Now moving on to another thought, I know that it is true that if you are driving on a slippery road, and you go into a skid, you need to look where you want to go rather than where you are going. Because if you look at the ditch, you will go in the ditch. So I realized if I seriously didn’t want to swipe his blanket, I had to ditch such thinking by turning my head. It was the only way to avoid scuttling across the way to snatch his blanket. Taking it would be so unkind, regardless of what his situation might be. So I turned my head away, and wrapped my sheet tighter around me. I sniffed the air but I could not smell death.

Just then my gurney was wheeled into surgery and my head put into a snug cradle. Something was hooked up to the intravenous and away we go. Finally warm. Finally, oh so comfortable. Not one negative or anxious thought. Loving myself, the world, even the incompetent that couldn’t plant an intravenous in my arm. Still able to hear conversation and able to respond. Thinking what a lovely place to be. Doom and gloom eradicated. Thinking positive thoughts about the Iraq war, politicians, even global warming and the president of the U.S. Loving what I love, and loving what I hate. Wanting desperately to write blogs from that wondrous place. Thinking about them, coining them. Knowing that readers of those blogs would weep tears of boundless delight.

I had no idea what was being rotated through my veins. Whether it was morphine, Novocain, Valium, banana peel with nutmeg, or poppy seed elixir. How would I know? I’ve never tried a street drug, not even marijuana. Or does an occasional poppy-seed bun count? And I’ve never taken pharmaceutical drugs beyond an extra-strength aspirin. But I certainly know now how people get hooked on drugs. If this is what drugs do, life just doesn’t get any better.

So in summary these are the events of today that impacted most on me.
1. Them asking me, of all people…”What eye are we doing?”
Response: It’s my right from behind the eye where I am positioned. It’s the left from where you are standing but if you turn your back to me it will be on the right. (pointing to eye). It’s this one….I think… (all the while thinking ‘why are they, the experts in this business, asking me? No one gave me a print-out of what they found in the assessment of my vision. Even verbal discussion was as limited as a dot-dash telegraph transmission.’
2. Most painful part of the day – all those intravenous attempts with that gigantic needle.
3. Most dubious part of my day – time spent in the hallway on a gurney gazing at a pair of navy blue socks.
4. Most orgasmic part of my day – the feeling that came over me when I entered that drowsy, comfy, positive-minded, cocoon of time and space just before surgery.

So now, it’s healing time and I’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.

As a final thought, I must tell you that only a couple weeks before surgery I happened to notice in a magazine a method for putting drops in one’s eyes. You pinch the bottom eye pouch between a thumb and first finger and pull it out into a pocket. Then drop the eye drops in that pocket. Couldn’t be happier I discovered that little trick. Although I couldn’t put drops in my eyes for an entire lifetime, now I can do it slick as you please. Which is good cause I have to put drops in my eye every time I turn around. I should have told that frustrated nurse, but experts seldom want advice and oft times don’t take kindly to it. So I guess today she’s probably back flooding faces with eye drops while patients wonder if they have sufficient of the stuff in their eyes to safely prepare them for eye surgery.

The Inevitable

I can afford an overly-long rant today because I may not be posting again for a good while. Cause tomorrow is my eye surgery so I’m forced to let it creep back into my thoughts. If you read my last blog you can readily see the stress of the effort of controlled ‘not-thinking-about-it’ has been making it impossible for me to intelligently string rational thoughts together.

But this morning, I finally allowed myself to contemplate what is so soon about to happen. At 8:30 when I woke up I felt good. Rested. Sun streaming in the window. Still lying in bed I covered my good eye and looked across the room. I could see. And then I thought, ‘Why am I doing this scary thing, when I can see? Maybe not so good, maybe not well enough to drive, but not so bad either.’

Then I began wondering. Is cataract surgery elective surgery? And isn’t elective surgery something that the patient elects to have? Something offered as a possible alternative, but not necessarily accepted? Is that what it is? A mere offering? Then why was I told, point blank, by two separate specialists, that I couldn’t have glasses? Why did they say, ‘You HAVE to have surgery.’

I’ve never involved myself in all those other elective offerings, so why this one? No spinal whatever it’s called for childbirth, no hormones for hot flashes, no drugs for the prevention of osteoporosis. My mother did perfectly well with none of it and so can I, or should I say, so did I – up until now.

But this morning, that’s a whole different matter. For tomorrow I want hormone therapy pills to chase away the blues, I want a spinal thing to numb my senses, and I want the bone thing so I can kick and flail my arms wildly enough to retain control over the whole process.

When I went for a physical three weeks ago, my doctor didn’t check anything. He went through one quick motion with his stethoscope of listening to my breathing. He did not check my heart-rate, my blood pressure, my throat, ears, or blood. Sure I look healthy, feel healthy, can walk and sit upright in a chair, but Gees, doesn’t he understand what comforts come with attention to details? How mind settling it can be for me when he shows an interest?

I want health care the way it used to be. It would be so nice to think the eye surgeon has a hospital room reserved for me in case I need it, with little terry slippers laid out, a soft quilt folded back that invites one to crawl into the bed. Crisp white linens, and a pair of cozy pastel pajamas that you tie at the waist. And nurses in crisp white little hats and rustling uniforms hovering over me like angels. Bringing me a cup of weak tea and telling me the discomfort will soon pass as they stroke my arms and hair. Nothing is as healing as that kind of rapport. The comfort is the solid knowledge that preparations have been made and no one will be going home until recovery is guaranteed. These are the comforts I want.

But this doesn’t happen anymore and added to that are new hate-crimes that society is insidiously blending into the fabric of our thinking. Hate-crimes that are happening that we see, but prefer to ignore. But the evidence is there. While I was in my G.P.’s office getting a pre-opt check, he asked me if I smoke. And yes, although my breath was mint-fresh, my clothing odor-free, and Hub and I came to town in the ‘town car’ rather than the ‘dog car’ (that would be the car that no one smokes in), I was still honest. “Yes,” I said, “I do smoke”.

I had indicated so on my pre-opt form. And with that honest confession, he suddenly pulled the stethoscope from my chest, ignored the tongue depressor set out on the table, and the blood-pressure monitor hanging on the wall right next to my shoulder and backed away from me like I had the plague. And that’s when he wrote “N/A” as fast as he could down my form next to “Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Lymph Nodes, Nose, Throat, and Lungs”, then rose quickly and steered me by the elbow out of his office.

A few days later I phoned the hospital to get final pre-opt instructions. I ended up whining to the receptionist in the OR about my General Practitioner’s sudden change from a partnering rapport to rejection. “I know,” she said, “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. I understand because I am a smoker too.” And then she said the kindest most comforting words I could hope to hear in all this bloody melee.

“We are so close to extinct, I can’t help thinking that when I see you we should embrace and let our tears mingle.” Now I’m not being over-dramatic when I say that her words really touched me. My heart, having suffered for so long the pain of the new societal hate crimes that have even invaded doctor’s offices, connected to hers and in those kind words I found sweet bonding.

Now, back to a discussion about my eyes. Doesn’t anyone appreciate what my eyes mean to me? Seeing is a small part of it. Besides sight, my eyes are where I store so many treasures. I store everything in my eyes. My remaining beauty (now that I have crows-feet, frown lines, and withered skin), my love, my care, my empathy, my longings, my romance, my pleasure, my displeasure, my satisfaction, and my reflection.

So can I let a surgeon take out the lens on my right eye that reflects all these emotions and change it to a man-made mask that lacks the natural luster needed to convey my innermost soul? Can I put a generic lens under the delicate mesh of my retina and still be the same person I am now? Will the emotions resident in my soul that come frequently to peer out at others through the windows of my eyes, become shadowed and sealed away from Hub, the grandchildren, my sweet daughters, and their husbands? Will I look at them after this as if through a distortion of emotions that makes it impossible for them to read in my face feelings of appreciation and joy that go well beyond what words can express?

You know, for the most part, as a human race, we are thoughtful and clever. Always seeking, it seems to have understanding take precedence over emotion. So I can’t help thinking that something yet undiscovered by scientists is causing the new hate-crimes against the obese, smokers, couch potatoes and choco-holics? Could it be that the perpetrators have all had eye surgery and through that process now have a ‘mote’ or ‘beam’ in the eye that distorts what they see? And so prior to instalment of an artificial lens, they saw and felt unimpeded acceptance for all of society, included those whom they now see as ‘misfits’. But since surgery, that acceptance has been over-ridden by a changed image. A distorted image that now sees warped reflections through a man-made lens of a world with two distinct races/species not dictated by birth. A race/species of plague-carrying degenerates and a separate race/species of supremes who are Journeymen of self-discipline and self-preservation.

Now I started this post out suggesting that I see well enough to forego surgery. That was my first excuse to cancel. But now I have a better excuse to cancel. To preserve my clear understanding and perception of ‘what I see’. But, unfortunately, it is too late to cancel now. I will have to go with the flow and hopefully when the eye scars are healed I will still see ALL mankind and womankind as one race and one people.

You know it. I am very stressed. I may not be back here for several weeks, at this point I don’t know. And yes, I am scared, I think more so by the unwritten exclusionary clause because I smoke. But I am going to embrace the nurse in O.R. as promised, mingle my tears with hers, and then turn myself bravely over to a surgeon, who I hope, deep in his heart, harbors no bias.

“See???” you all later.

A Picture of Fear

I took the dogs for a walk today as I do every day. I wanted to get a picture of them on the dog trail but it was so difficult. Trying to keep the camera warm enough but not too warm so it wouldn’t steam up the lenses. Trying to get all three dogs in the same frame at the same time. Meanwhile knees vibrating and trying to take a picture and at the same time look over my shoulder to see if I was being stalked.

Neighbors, bless their souls, they mean well, but some things I’d rather not know. Last fall they told me there was a bear in these woods. I was a little disappointed to hear that but a bear should be okay. He’s probably just out for a walk ‘cause his porridge is too hot or he’s on his way to a teddy bear picnic so why would he dally around here where the only fare is one aged, tough, sinewy old woman.

But now, just this weekend, the neighbors told me there is a wolf in these woods. They know because they saw him. A wolf? Now that is scary. They blow down houses, gobble up little girls with red hoodies, and even disguise themselves as grandmothers. They probably even chase little helpless road-runners as ruthlessly as coyotes.












So, there you are, that’s why I didn’t get a better picture.

Want to Make a Zillion Dollars?

It's too simple. Just create an electronic eye to put in classroom doorways that will disengage cell phones on the way in and re-engage them on the way out.

The Righteous Virgin

A needy soul, without notice, without prize
Without descendants or indiscretions
Gray temples, dim eyes, and wasted loins
The offset for honor that was hoarded
‘Til out-distanced by decline.

Night, repressed and unaccented
Daylight, a separate liberation
From urgency, but weighted
By attitudes external to her world
Of shallow indifference, even scorn
No applause for the spinster whose
Aching longing was purified
By a righteous fire lapping
At her withered loins

Senses thicken, memory fades
Dispassionate and hollow
Long ago, like a volcanic eruption
Passion heated, melted, and erupted
From the core of her being

It is nothing more than fiddling
In the transparency of day
The bleached desert a wasteland
Where she still battles with chaste intentions
Empty and alone she vaguely recalls
A battle neither lost nor won.
The long struggle and the ultimate
Exodus of the courage she
Needed to weakly surrender.

NOTES: I have a creative personality. So I sometimes have to square off with a kind of ‘weirdness’ that attaches itself to creativity that leaves me red faced and a bit squirm-ish. If you knew me personally, my real-life persona, you would find this work quite shocking, considering I’m stone sober, I only pop calcium pills, and I take life seriously. So I am a bit uncomfortable about this post and you might be too. But still, the question is, is this any different than painting nudes? I don’t know. Can this be called a creative work? Or is it just so much rubbish that reveals far too much of my foolish nature?

So do others write poetry like this? How would I know? I'm too straight-laced to read them.

Silent Rabble

The ice leaps, and the day
Withers to the lesser
The silence is formless,
Simplified, quietude. I long
For clamor and complexity
Tumult and loquacity,
For words and voices
To absorb me.

The ice compresses
Air, liquid, matter
Into unrelenting
Hoary auspices of the
Migration of glaciation
And perceived permanence
Of the polar ice,
The accordance
Of that significance
One and the same.

While the ice leaps, and the day
Withers to the lesser, the cold
Matrix of silence and ice
Bonds together
Without change but yet an opening
Drives me
To without myself
To where I stand apart
The only exchange
The silent rabble of the day
Withering to the lesser
And steaming breath.


NOTES: After Christmas, I drank the dregs of the leftover wine and let the silence, the ice, and my own aloneness overwhelm me.

The Talisman

Every small town has one. That rather eccentric soul that walks the streets in a repetitive pattern, that haunts the coffee shop twice a day, and guards the square in between. And this he has done for so long that he has become an icon or town mascot – a talisman of sorts. And the longevity of his appointment, the years and years this has been so, has the rest of us thinking that he leads a charmed life with magic powers of invincibility.

In our small town, our mascot is a thoughtful philosopher of politics and religion. With totally fresh, and never before contemplated thoughts for every day. Oracles from the gods that he is anxious to expound. And for this reason, I’m ashamed to say, so many of us avoid him.

But he might have written the book on public relations. We skirt him because he has the special talent of seducing and solidly magnetizing total strangers into conversing with him. And if you don’t keep a greater than twenty foot distance, before you know it, you are floundering in the middle of a conversation that sinks to the core of your being. I swear the talisman is capable of altering DNA linkages within and the only suspicious telling of that alteration might be a goose bump or two. So knowing this, if you have neither the time, or the inclination, or the fear as I have, you concentrate on a game of out-maneuvering.

And yet, although we avoid him in a physical way, we think of him in an endearing way. As representative of our town, of our people, of what we were before the now…when hope was compact and living was simple.

But only last week, our physically rejected, yet emotionally beloved, mascot passed on. How could such a thing happen to an invincible talisman with more spirit than body form? With a reliability and longevity that suggested permanence? But it happened. And if we were remiss in his life, we were not remiss in his death. The ‘obit’ in the paper did him proud justice.

This is what it said.

“We laughed at him because he was different. He laughed at us cause we were the same.”

When I read that I felt such overwhelming pride in our talisman and such an unexpected sense of loss. He did, for certain, go amongst us altering our DNA in ways that will forever defy understanding.

The Evil Eye

Now you know I’m uneasy about my upcoming eye surgery and so I appreciate the kind people who have given support. My neighbor is one of those kind people. To the extent, that last week, when her Mother came for a visit, she called me up and put her Mother on the phone to give me her cataract surgery testimonial.

Truth is, I really didn’t want to discuss it, but what could I say? ‘Cause you see I was doing pretty well up to this point. With only a few weeks to go, I found that circumventing thoughts into other channels was the best way to escape my fear. So I kept my mind firmly planted in the crease of refusing-to-think-about-it. With pre-opt conditions (dental and physical health check behind me), thankfully there is no reason to return to thinking about it, until the scheduled day of surgery.

I know the neighbor had the best of intentions when she put her Mother on the phone. And her Mother, though she doesn’t know me from Adam, was more than a little flattered to tell me the ‘really important stuff’ that she was quite certain I didn’t know. Things I would never think of (which as I said previously, is okay with me).

So she told me what was ‘really, really important’. That for six weeks or more after surgery I must not sew, knit, crochet, read, watch TV, or use the computer. That’s when the darkness began closing in and my present life of watching CNN while playing computer games, reading blogs, and writing blog posts flashed before me.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just wait a minute here. This is a lot to digest. This goes way beyond my fear and anxious foreboding. Now I am really upset. Isn’t that what I do each day? Is there anything she missed? Seems like not. And that rapidly scrolling thought of all those things in my current life? That’s not a good thing either.

So I was close to tears when I got off the phone and turned to Hub.
“Oh my God, Hub, do you know what I have to do for six weeks or more after surgery?”

“What?” he said, with bewilderment, no doubt thinking it must be some undignified, ghastly, painful routine. And if that’s what he was thinking, he was right.

“For six weeks or more all I can do is sweep or mop floors, vacuum, iron, do laundry, shovel snow, re-organize cupboards or closets, bath the dog, clean the basement. How depressing is THAT???”

And you know what Hub did? That man who I thought would always be there for me?

He said, “Good! Very Good! And when are they going to do your other eye?”

Writing Diagnostics

I sit down and write words of random prose, and when I get to the end and look back, I see a skewed and unexpected image of what others might see.







But when I write poetry,
And get to the end, and look back
All I see, is a mirror image,







Of the emotion within my soul
That compelled me to write it in the first place.

Passion or Obligation

I have two approaches to writing. I write either out of conviction or obligation. When I write with conviction, writing is such fun. I would like to always write like that. But it’s doesn’t always happen. Some days, I end up writing because I have a Blog, and because of that Blog I feel obliged to write.

Now although writing isn’t categorized into ‘passionate’ or ‘obligatory’, readers know. Which leads me to a whim I’ve always had. I wish bookstores categorized their books that way. It seems to me, the only books worth reading are those written by a passionate author. Fact or fiction is of little matter. Truly the greater appeal is not so much plot or complexity, but the spirit with which the thing was written.

And that leads me to wonder if “The DaVinci Code” was written out of a calculated obligation to strike at a sensitive nerve that has forever overwhelmed society? Society’s need for implicit understanding of all mysteries. Was the story written as a political project or passionate project? I tend to think of the story as a passionless work because writers of passion never display dogged and deliberate attempts to weld theories into fact. The passion of their convictions spontaneously does that for them.

But, from my own perspective, I have to tell you, that in reading “The DaVinci Code”, despite the shock value, despite the expert analysis at work, and despite complexities that are stunning, unexpected, and wisely sorted, I find passion lacking. The characters are not bathed in blood, sweat, and tears. I just find them way too reckless considering their frail cardboard construction. In fact the author gives more life-giving breadth and breath to the characters in DaVinci’s paintings, then he gives to the characters integral to the plot.

I haven’t the right to suggest this was part of Dan Brown’s endeavor. But still it is a final reflection about writing that I want to share with you.

In writing, obligation wearies content. Passion is so easily marred and chaffed by more practical considerations. The need to make a work marketable. It is like anything else in life. Passion wanes when one is obligated to pursue their craft according to price indices, consumption and demand – with obligatory modifications to widen the appeal. So obligatory writing always has that stilted bit, that surgical bit, that is there to appease journalistic, editorial, investigative, or skeptical minds. And though these implants are carefully integrated, these are the parts most damaging to the wondrous appeal of a passionate work.

So now, I confess. Because I have a blog, I must write something, and so this is my ‘obligatory’ rant for today.

The Look of Destiny

NOTES: I learned something about birds this winter. They have an uncanny sense of smell. I was amazed at how quickly ravens zeroed in on meat scraps in the snow that I tossed to my dogs. Bewildered, I said to Hub, “Can something with a cardboard face and a rigid nose have such a sense of smell?”

“Certainly,” Hub said. “That’s what tells them which bags to rip open in the back of a truck. Bread bags, grocery bags, stuff like that.”

All quite amazing to me but I have something to tell you that might be equally amazing. You probably think that with a rigid template encompassing their mouths and noses, birds cannot smile. But, oh yes they can. They smile with body language. With a cocky strut, like fashion models proceeding down a runway. They smile with bright little eyes, and stretched necks, and perky heads. I’ve seen them smile. I know they can.

The following poem takes this into account. I’m not a polished poet but these are special feelings about situations that I wanted to put in a “poem treasure box,” an idea recently inspired by one of my favorite poets, Pauline.


The Look of Destiny

I pull him from his hiding place so timid and withdrawn
And peer into the little face hiding in the lawn.
He shivers as he looks at me, I see a cloud of fear
And I begin to tremble at the image in that mirror.
He is the Ugly Puppling, with crooked legs and black
He has no sporting nature to make up for that lack
I study in those little eyes the look that he sends back
And in that exchange I promise him that we will make a pact.
This puppy, he will never go; He will stay with me

Those pleading eyes
Have yielded him
A happy destiny.

I head toward the hen-house, pail swinging from my arm
Ax safely in the wood block, nothing threatens harm.
I hear the hens all cheering, “Yea, Yea, the time has come!
For us to share a morning meal and loiter in the sun.”
Some hitch a ride upon my pail and stretch their necks with glee
They cluck with sweet contentment, with peepers fixed on me
And in that bartered vision, that opaque and ‘fowl’ blink
A transitionary message, uncanny and distinct

“Today the world is well with we,
A safe and happy destiny”

A sparkle flashes in a truck
Among the cattle, fumes, and muck
And there, behind a narrow board
A diamond tear in a great brown orb.
A giant orb that stares at me
Begging redemption, “please set me free.”
The cattle truck can no longer be seen
The light has changed from red to green
But now a flood of hopeless rage
Like the hapless beast in that mobile cage


That pitiful eye welded on me
Told me so plainly what was to be…
And it, my friends, was a sad destiny.

My Timepiece

My timepiece is a simple strand
Of upward trees and traverse land.
And shadow pointers wrapped in rhyme
Translate for me the march of time.

Ejected

I don’t know how much free license one has to say what they think on a Blog. But my understanding of freedom of speech is as long as it is true there’s no great risk. I hope that is the case. Because I am feeling so low I need to tell someone.

Now this may not sound like a serious question, but it is a serious question, and don’t even read the rest of this until you give it some thought.

How would you feel if you shut down your blog for a few days to put up a new template, and when that new template was ready, you found someone else living on your site? Decorating it their way with their color values and their words? Remodeling what was once yours to suit them? How would you feel?

Well, that’s more or less what has happened to me. Starting in March of 2003, I had a quaint little place called “Abbreviated Abstractions”. This was my fledgling blog. But I was forced to build another spot because it was a blog that allowed a maximum of 300 posts and I had 311, which caused the indexing page to scramble and overlap. And made it impossible for me to continue posting there. So I moved. But still I spent a lot of time at the old place and so did my visitors.

Then just before Christmas, Hub said to me, “You’re not posting on ‘Abbreviated Abstractions’ anymore. So why don’t you clean up that site? You are a rather unorthodox thinker and if nothing else, a lot of the stuff you write is original. Original thoughts are at a premium these days and if you leave those ramblings too long, they could be plagiarized by others.”

Now I probably would have stood my ground and let the site stand as it was, but this remark was the closest Hub has ever come to complementing my blogging efforts. In an oblique way it seemed to me he was saying that I occasionally write worthy stuff. So although I wavered for the rest of that day, the next day I backed up my rants and took down the site.

And then busy with Christmas and New Year’s. So it was January 6th before I set about to resurrect that familiar old place, where I had always felt such magical inspiration, and move back in. But it could not be resurrected. URL - No longer available.

So now, my heart is breaking, as I tell you this. In the space of less than two weeks, someone else moved in. I guess to be fair, I have to admit it, the title and URL were up for grabs for a few days. That is, if we ignore the rules of plagiarism. But it still showed up when Goggled. Even though on Blogger it was now available. But Gees, I made up that title with no one’s help. So can’t others do the same? But no, we have a new resident in my old place. And guess who it is?

None other than Martha Stewart. My Title was “Abbreviated Abstractions” and my URL was “abbreviatedabstractions.blogspot.com” and her title and URL is now exactly that. Words cannot express how heartbroken I am. I know I’m partly to blame but couldn’t I have had a longer period of grace?

I moved out on the 23rd of Dec and as far as I can tell, she took up residence January 5th. I am so sad. My only comfort in this fiasco is that the place is haunted. When I was there, there was Spam lurking everywhere.

By the way, just so you know, I noticed when I googled what once was my place, that some of my older blog friends still have links to my old calling card, so don’t be surprised if Martha greets you, instead of me.

And now, by writing this, I’ve probably offended Blogger, and they’ll kick me out as well. But that would be too unfair. They have a shared responsibility in this matter. They have been telling me, and telling me, for probably two months or more that my old blog was unstable and that it MUST be moved.

Narrative About Creation

An amazing new discovery. A new source for a generous supply of stem cells for medical purposes without death to embryos. The article is here.

Stem cells extracted from amniotic specimens that are normally discarded. Such good news, but what was more fascinating to me is that researchers put the cells into a print cartridge, installed that cartridge in a printer, and than the cells were “literally printed out onto sheets and grown into functioning tissue.” (CTB.ca. News Staff). Seeded onto sheets with the spray of an ink-jet printer.

A page with an encrypted message of the true story of creation, that when translated, developed, and fleshed out, forms sheets of new liver tissue, bone tissue, and skin tissue.

For those of us who love to write, and know the awesome power of the printed page, were we surprised?

A little, but (as Glenn Beck of CNN would say)...'Not so much.'

Check-Ups or Check-Ins

This week I phoned my family doctor for a Physical before my scheduled eye surgery. Before surgery I needed a physical examination by my local family doctor, who then would sign forms that the Eye Specialist required. So I asked the receptionist in my doctor's office if she could make an appointment for me so I could get the forms signed that I needed.

The receptionist replied, “We can’t do that, Roberta. Dr. East cannot fill out the forms. They need to be filled out by your regular doctor”.

”Dr. East is my regular doctor.”

Silence as if waiting for an explanation and perhaps I owe her that much. She probably can't remember ever seeing me in the doctor's office before. So I continued.

"I haven't been there for a long time. I just happen to be healthy. I only go to the Doctor when I am sick and I have not been sick for five or six years.”

Silence for a long moment on the other end. “Oh, hmm. Well…Okay. I’ll put you down for 9:00 a.m. on Monday.

I sighed with relief. Guess it’s true. What you don’t use, you lose. So are people like me a liability rather than an asset to his practice? I thought it was good to be healthy. Approved of by government, medical providers, and society in general.

Well I may be a liability to my doctor but I’m certainly not a liability to private Health Insurance with gratuities of more than $1500 per year. So if I am to fix this, what can I use a Doctor for besides medical attention? Should I pop into his office occasionally for a coffee and a casual visit?

We, The Ordinary People

We, the ordinary people, have done it all – the crying, sobbing, and weeping. But you know, and I know, what we most hate about melt-downs.

There is the contorted countenance, the runny nose, and the unstoppable sniffles – always when one hasn’t got a Kleenex. There is the soppy pillow or shirt, the shiny nose, the red eyes, the tear-streaked face. And for woman, even worse, is the sooty rivers of mascara or muddy rivers of matte make-up descending down the nose and cheeks. There is the need to awkwardly wipe the face on one’s sleeve until one is bathed from the waist up in an awkward bath of phlegm and salt water. And when one looks to find a Kleenex to mop up the mess, there is none. A friend may eventually hand over, from the bottom of a dusty purse, a tightly wadded tissue or napkin that although dry is still highly suspect of being used. And always when we just get ourselves pulled back together, there the contagion factor. The need to weep on seeing the face of another, even a stranger, with tears in their eyes. That is the face of sad, but ordinary people.

But we, the ordinary people, are doing it all wrong. I see politicians and starlets and other of the rich and famous on TV every day, particularly on News briefs and talk shows, not ‘weeping’ (which means to shed liquid), not ‘crying’ (which means to shed tears of grief, sorrow, or pain), but ‘sobbing’ which means ‘convulsive gasping’. But for simplicity sake, we’ll just call it ‘crying’.

They don’t cry the way we, the ordinary people, do. Yes, they speak in the husky choked voice of the melt-down, but there are no tears. No sniffles. No slimy drops of nose phlegm or rivers of tears with all their converging tributaries. No soggy sleeves. No smeared make-up. No frantic searches for tissues.

So if you haven’t been paying close attention, this is how it’s done. You cover your face with your hands, or bury your knuckles into your eyeballs. You talk in a choked voice. You shake your head and droop it to your chest or look away. You wring your hands. You contort your face and say, “Excuse me” in the middle of a sentence and refuse to go on for a time. You stutter and sputter fractured speech. You run a finger tip gently along the underside perimeter of each eye frequently, but not too frequently. And without tears, the grandest part is you won’t need a tissue to blow your nose or mop up the mess.

You see it’s not so hard to do. And like coughing into the crook of your arm, this approach is so much neater, dryer, and hygienic. Give it a go.

Oh for cryin’ out loud. That performance was terrible. Guess I forgot to mention that you also need to ignore empathy, sympathy, and sincerity. Don’t let the situation touch your heart. You’ll end up drowning in another slimy phlegm and salt-water bath and crying like we, the ordinary people, do.

My Holy Grail

(with apologies to Dan Brown, author of “The DaVinci Code”)

When I retired suddenly and unexpectedly from work after a long career, I was sent a parting gift a few weeks later. It wasn’t a gold watch, or a pin. Instead it was a rather heavy, ornately carved, velvet-lined redwood box with inlaid filigree around the lid. It was in truth, a beautiful thing. And in the center of the lid was a raised ornate frame with a photo of the facility I worked at mounted under glass. And that photo was the only clue as to what the box should contain. And since ‘retirement’ is right up there with the other milestones of life – birth, graduation, marriage, and death, I could only surmise that this miniature casket should contain a keystone of articles related to the turning point and distance of my career.

So what should I put in it? My application letter and a copy of the working covenant I signed my name to so many years ago? My stapler, my pen, that bloody alarm clock that whined and wailed all those years and roused me from sweet slumber? None of that seemed worthy of such a fine treasure house. Or should I put a copy of my unorthodox resignation letter? Written with such unexpected suddenness that I was as surprised at what I wrote as the recipients of that letter.

The letter I sent to the President (with a cc to my Supervisor), after spending a morning at the office covertly stashing all my personal stuff in a box hidden under my desk, read as follows:

“This e-mail is just to let you know that at lunch time I am leaving and I won’t be back. I am sick to death of the acts of political corruption, rather than a mandate to clients, that rule this establishment. I will no longer be a part of it. I know the rules but I don’t care about the consequences of leaving without notice. I don’t know how I’ll feel once I walk out those doors. But I am fairly certain I will feel a whole lot better than I am feeling right now.”

Or maybe I should stash the response that came directly from the President.

“Roberta, this is so not like you. I am well aware how valuable and reliable worker you are. Why don’t you take a couple days at home to think about this? Contact Human Resources and then go and see your doctor. You may just need to take some stress leave. I know arrangements can be made for you to take as long as you need.”

My response, sent from my at-home computer, “If I am sick in the head, I am too sick to recognize my sickness. You have enough abusers of sick days, stress leaves, and long-term disability that you don’t need any more. I will not even consider stress leave. I am done. If you require a formal letter of resignation, this is it. Print off this exchange and put it in the file.”

I guess I sure had a pickle up my a-- that day. It’s that pickle I should put in the box, but I guess it got flushed. Oh well. Probably the best thing to put in the box is an ecclesiastical manifest of the dramatic disclosure of facts, not known or realized, until the day I walked out. And so this is my manifest.

This is Book of REVELATION of Roberta Smith, to show all things sent and signified by her retirement.

Chapter I, Verse 1.
“And the vision that came to me were the things I had forgotten. I forgot I would not be alone if I quit work. I forgot I had a Hub with a sense of humor that delighted in my presence. I forgot that the world doesn’t have to spin like an out-of-control merry-go-round every hour of every day. I forgot that I have creative hands and a severely damaged imagination that perhaps can be resurrected. I forgot there are other challenges in life to give me worthy purpose, sensibility, and accomplishment. I forgot that contentment comes from liking the person I am. And most of all I forgot that life is for living.”

That is what I will put in the box. It’s no Ark of the Covenant, but for me…it’s my Holy Grail.

What Words?

Every mechanism has a dependency. Even a light bulb. The dependency is a source of power. People are no different. We have dependencies. And if we ignore those dependencies, we might as well attempt to vacuum stars from the sky with the shop vac. That’s how ridiculous it would be to attempt to have a happy heart and contented mind without being mindful of our own unique dependencies.

But throughout our lives, dependencies evolve and change. A simple example might be that an infant’s dependency is food and the comforting smell of his mother. Adolescent dependencies are friends and fashion. Teenage dependencies are love and romance. Family dependencies are good health and financial success. So you see as we travel through life, our dependencies change. Weaving, overlapping, sometimes being dismissed and supplanted by another. And when the dependencies of any one season are met we are happy and well satisfied.

And so that brings me to my current dependency. It is words. The unshakable confidence that I can create, settle, explore, resolve anything, with words. Words are the oil for the efficient function and satisfaction of my soul and body and mind. But as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, a ghastly realization hit me. That 2006 dependency on words suddenly rotated in to some other dependency.

I discovered at that particular moment when others were setting off fireworks that I had thoughts I couldn’t express in words. Profound thoughts. Thoughts with purpose, and mandate, and meaning that could not be expressed. I guess as we flipped to a New Year, at that very moment I graduated to another stage of dependency. A place where I felt emotions that were not in the dictionary. A collection in the mind of light-weight teasers and, at the same time, consequential ponderings. Thoughts of pleasure and pain. Love and friends. Mortality and immortality. But all of those thoughts suddenly outside any context that could be accomplished with words. And furthermore, they were thoughts that could not be mimed with interpretive dance (though God knows, I tried). Thoughts that could not be mimed through music (tried that too). Thoughts that couldn’t be expressed in rhyme, unsteady rhythm, or rap (I went there as well). Thoughts that couldn’t be painted (at least not inside the lines). I could no more wrap a solid in liquid than wrap those thoughts in words.

But I have just finished reading “DaVinci’s Code” and perhaps that is what has uncovered this ghastly truth. But I am undaunted. I’ll tell you my thoughts but circumstances force me to tell you in the secret cipher of cryptography.

This is what I was thinking on New Year’s Eve.
“




....“. (hic)

Good thing we understand the DNA that links us all together isn’t it?
Causeyouwerethinkingthesamething – Right?