Match-Holders and Candy

When outfitting a rustic cabin, it is important that everything be representative of those earlier memories of coal-oil lamps, wood stoves, and rag-braided rugs.

And when that cabin is only 12’ x 16’, it becomes equally important to concentrate on a simple décor to keep the walls from closing in. So I am really glad I had that old futon in the basement that so beautifully replicates an old Winnipeg couch. And I am really glad we have a lovely old wood stove. I am also glad we have a small table and simple chairs.

So the cabin is cozy and comfortable, and surprisingly roomy. A lovely place to light a fire and have a cozy nap.

But I still think about other things that are missing. And what I think about most often is the little tin match holder that hung near the stove when I was the kid. Other things on the walls were rotated. Stained pictures pulled down and replaced. Calendars recycled that marked the passing of time. But the little match-holder stayed and stayed – for a lifetime. And so, often when I am in the cabin, I think about how much I need a little tin match-holder.

But then, low and behold, I was in a hardware store and what did I find? A little metal match-box holder. It was a small plate glazed with blue and white enamel like old tin cups used to be. A rectanguler match-box holder of the same material was secured in the middle. And on that, was the upper half of a little tin-man, crudely painted with yellow shirt and a brown hat as if standing behind a counter and in his hand he held a ordinary wooden match.

It was no work of art. It was crudely constructed, but in my youth, such things were often crude. And I expect the crudeness of the thing, just made it more appealing.

Still I rotated it in my hands for a time while contemplating if it would fill the need I had for rustic match-box holder. When I finally decided to buy it, and took it to the counter, it was four minutes past closing time. The clerk, with hat and coat thrown over the counter, glared at me, then his watch, and then at me. And if looks could kill, his watch would have stopped abruptly.

I apologized profusely while trying to hurriedly dig out the money for my purchase. But as is so often the case, hurry only causes further delay. And that is exactly what happened. In my flurry, I dropped my car-keys. I didn’t even see what direction they went so while on my hands and knees searching for them, the clerk bagged my purchase and with loud foot taps and deep huffing sighs of impatience, waited for me to pay him.

Eventually I got myself in good order. Car-keys retrieved, payment made, bag in hand, and out the door I went with the clerk’s shoes treading on my heels and his breath still huffing in disgust down the back of my neck.

But even that could not spoil my excitement over my new-found treasure.
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And now, I will try desperately to keep myself together while I tell you the rest. I hurried home and called Hub to the kitchen to show him what I had bought. I pulled my purchase out of the bag only to find it had changed. I didn’t see it happen, but I know what happened.

Here I should tell you that the impatient clerk has a well-known reputation for his lack of civility toward smokers. This man is at the forefront of anything that can negate smokers’ rights. He doesn’t hug trees, or children, or pets. His only mandate is to campaign against smokers even if it means going into hideaways in back alleys to confront them.

And so while I was scrounging down on the floor for my car-keys, he snapped off the end of the little tin-man’s match on my match-holder and replaced it with a small candy and a gob of quick-dry goo.

I am pissed, and don't I have a right to be?

Hub fails to understand the thrill it gave me when I found that little match-holder. He laughs, and I could bloody wring his neck. Like where is the humor in this? They both need help – he and that brain-dead clerk.

I would have happily repaired the thing some way. Returned it to its original state with a new match and goo, but by then the fire had died out in the cook stove. I woke up to find the cabin was getting uncomfortably cool and with only a candy on a stick to restart the fire, there was no point in staying in the cabin any longer.

A Shitty Day

I am so sluggish, my mind it is mush
Incisiveness gone in a circular flush
So gather with me those of similar mind
Let’s toast the raw day in insipient wine.

The dreary of mind can mix with the day
No matter what horrors are thrown in the way
To those others, so happy, with contented appeal
On down days their spirits can quickly congeal.

They say they can rally in the magic of Earth
Me, I’m not so certain if that’s better or worse.
I liken that thinking to scamming and fraud
Those gay songs of sunshine, flora, and sod.

You may find restoration in the song of a bird?
I find more release in a finely-formed turd.

Bake and Plate 2008

The cooks are baking resolutions
That taste like nasty convolutions
So long delayed the restitutions
So why not work with substitutions?

The chastening powder of firm resolve
Is granular—it won’t dissolve,
But I’m not lost in futile time
I’m busy, busy, mixing rhyme.

I’ll cook ’08 with slack protraction
And a gentle fold of interaction
I’ll blend and whip into distraction
A sweeter batter of abstraction.

And this is how the mix is done —
With tone of nature, blaze of sun,
With reflux of nostalgic lime,
A bit of sage, a dash of thyme.

That is how you bake ’08
And then you serve it on a plate!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Good Looking and Funny

With Christmas right around the corner, I want to discuss other ways to pump pleasurable endorphins into one’s brain besides eating turkey and chocolate. And how unfortunate it is that we miss easier ways to find joy in a humdrum day—simply by doing things that are truly stupid and utterly inappropriate.

Now before I continue, let me tell you about my day.

Today Hub and I are making the dreaded trip to town. So Hub showers, shaves, puts on clean clothes, a splash of after-shave, and grooms his hair. Soon after I see him examining his image in the hall mirror. He puffs out his chest, sucks in his stomach, and turns left and right examining his profile, his hair, his physique, his biceps, and sniffs the citrus odor of his aftershave.

“You are such a fortunate woman,” he says to the mirror, though his comments are meant for me. “You have a man who smells good, dresses good, looks good, has a sense of humor, takes good care of you, takes you to town” and here he does a clumsy little jig and says, “and is agile as well!”

I laugh at his silliness, at the bold way that he is breaking all the rules about what is and isn’t appropriate. Being so silly when we are too old to be silly. Immature, some would say. With no serious thought given to appropriate or inappropriate behavior.

So many, having seen this display, would be as one is expected to be – appalled rather than allowing themselves to find humor in it. Isn’t it sad, that in our somber judgment, we have forgotten that silly-laughing is every bit as authentic and therapeutic as jokes that play on a comic clash of intellectual thought.

Knowing that laughter is linked to life and longevity, we still feel it is necessary to sneer with sophisticated rigidity at dumb acts and dumb conversation. We feel socially compelled to make discriminatory judgments minute-by-minute of each day of what is funny and what is ‘not funny’ because it is such nonsense. So there is a bareness of laughter in our lives that causes us concern. Enough concern that some communities form Laughing Clubs. Members get together where in desperation they force laughing sounds in the hope that eventually the culmination of their efforts will create enough of a ripple to spawn heartfelt laughter. But I digress.

And so, returning to our topic, social influence has us believing that with maturity it is imperative we act our age and reject silliness rather than seize it. I don’t know why when silly-happy brings its own sweet level of pleasurable endorphins and gaiety.

It’s easy to keep cynicism at bay through mid-life and latter years if we allow ourselves to be happy even if that happiness is prompted by utter foolishness. The complexity is how to shelf the part of us that wants to reject outright silliness thinking that such rejection enhances our own intellect. It’s really quite sad when we can no longer roll on the floor with laughter and find easy joy through exposure to someone who is happy, even if it is silly-happy, rather than practicing sober immunity.

If I were to sum up what gives life special meaning I would have to say dry humor is good. Intellectual comedy is good. But silly-happy is hilarious. With that kind of joke, we don’t have to worry whether our laughter breaks out in a snort, a cackle, a hiccup, an explosion, or even if we dribble a bit in our underpants, because sophistication, delicacy, and decorum have no part to play in silly-happiness.

And so, as Hub puts the car in drive, he says to me. “By the way tomorrow you will be more fortunate than you are today. Bet you thought it wasn’t possible?”

And so, I have to ask, “What is happening tomorrow?”

Hub grins. “So soon not noticing? So soon forgetting the obvious?" Here he breaks into a happy singing voice...

"To know me is to love me. I get better lookin' each day!”

Thanksgiving Levity

(News casts have 'filler', movies have 'filler', commercials have 'filler', so why shouldn't my blog have 'filler'. This is 'filler'.)


Thanksgiving is over. The monstrous turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce are all gone and the houseguests have left. Now its oft been said that turkey produces sleepiness and that feel good byproduct called serotonin. But there is more to turkey-lurky than just that. There are other things turkey does, that I am now more aware of as an ‘old fart’.

I worked hard last Friday. Baking and tidying up everything for the Thanksgiving event. I washed all the floors, but that was downright silly. I should have washed the chandeliers and ceilings instead.

Cause yesterday was a day of levitation. Even the puppies, after eating all those turkey scraps, hovered over the lawn instead of resting on it when I looked out the window. Hub jokingly asked this morning if it was finally safe to cut the mooring lines that kept us from floating near the ceiling.

Of course by now you’ve figured out that the reason we were all levitating is because turkey-gas is lighter than air. Exactly like helium, it would seem to me except for one small difference. Helium is odorless.

The Psychology of Gizmos

I’m so not good at waiting. It is distressing. It makes me anxious, and uneasy. It is worrisome and unpleasant. But yet, with my gizmo in my pocket or purse, I can endure endless hours of waiting, without nervous energy spinning me into a state of nausea.

How do I do it? I have the primordial gizmo of all time. The ‘adam’ of the species. It is a button and a bobby-pin. And how do you play with it? You put the bobby pin in the button, you squeeze it, bend it, unbend it, and twirl the button and create unique b & b associations.

It’s a diversion. The same kind of diversion as that provided by high-tech gizmos. It is a diversion for easing the discomfort of idleness. It works to quell the irritation of feeling alone in the crowd or the oblique thought that I am waiting for something, without the slightest notion what I am waiting for.

But bobby-pins are scarce, hard to find, and I’m not too sure everyone has a button jar anymore. So while I calm and sedate myself with my button and bobby pin, you go ahead and get downtown (if you must) for the latest gizmo.

P.S. If you want to be resourceful, you might want to try a piece of velcro and a barrette.

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?