Monarda bursting in the air….
The best Hosta blooms ever this year……
Echinacea like skyrockets………
Trumpet Flowers trumpeting on the vine……..
Gooseneck Loosestrife tumbling forth……………..
Purple Bindweed pulses with color…………
July garden, in concert…………
The July garden comes forth with its own fireworks of texture and deep, vibrant color.
I am distracted today as I prepare for the weekend ahead, so I don’t have much to say today, but there is an image that keeps popping up in my head.
A few weeks ago I had been walking down the main street of a small Vermont town and stopped to sit on a bench and tie my shoe, when I noticed a young couple walk by, holding hands. He had extremely long, wavy, ginger-colored hair tied in a pony tail, which cascaded down his back. Her hair was shorn extremely short, almost in a crew cut. She wore a long, flowing skirt. Not that this was so unusual, but I especially enjoyed the contrasts of their hair styles. It made me feel happy that they were holding hands. And the sun was shining.
You know that story about the Princess and the Pea…….well, I have my own version now. I just spent the weekend at a sweet first birthday celebration for a sweet grandbaby, which included spending two nights in a clean but somewhat worn beach motel of significant cost (about the only local place still available during this summer weekend on the coast). The room was painted kind of a depressing, dark blue-green, the decor was dated and the bathroom fanlight combo was so loud that you had to use the bathroom in the dark, lest you wake up everyone else in the room. However, the location, which at least was across the road from the water, was ideal and the place kind of grew on us. There were four of us, sisters and a daughter, sharing the room. We made it sort of a fun chick-trip.
The first night, I was settling into bed when I felt what I thought was a metal spring sticking up out of the mattress. I reached about below the sheets and pulled out…….a large screw, like the kind you might drill into sheetrock (the p
icture is about true-to-size). How weird is that? I am perplexed about how it got there. Looking around the room, there didn’t appear to be any recent renovation going on. And it was on top of the mattress but below the bottom sheet, which means that the housekeeper must have made the bed over the screw that was already lying on the mattress. Maybe? Or someone put it there (ha ha, take that, you tourists)? Or there was a screw that had somehow gotten folded into the sheets that perhaps fell out when the bed was made? Or has it been there for a long time, and people have just kept sleeping on top of the screw? We were baffled. And wondering what else might be under those sheets. Something to think about.
Looking for a reaction, the next morning I brought it down to the front desk, where the overnight guy was still on duty. I held up the screw and said, “I found a screw in my bed“. Um, okay, maybe that didn’t come out sounding just right. He looked at me like I was from another planet. Trying again, “There was a screw under the sheets“. Blank face. Actually, I think he was trying to keep from laughing, or maybe it was just the culmination of another long night on the job for him. Either way, not much of a response. I slunk away, maybe a little embarrassed.
When we ran into the changing of the guard later that afternoon, I flourished the screw to the new audience at the front desk. This time I explained that I had felt something sharp under the sheets that I thought was a spring, then held the screw up to the two guys talking there and exclaimed, “But it wasn’t a spring. Look what I found under the sheets!”. The response was essentially something like “Gee, would ya look at that!” and the two guys studied the screw intently, as if it was a relic from space.
In the scheme of things, it really was no big deal, but if this was The Hampton, I bet they would have offered a discount……
Because I have been out and about on an adventure of sorts (to share down the road), I am just going to update my blog today with what is going on in my garden on this, the Summer Solstice.
Primrose opens and closes with the day, in perfume.
Passion Flower – a psychedelic space eye (yes, I finally got one!).
The Monster Hosta bursts into bloom.
Spirea – pink sparkles like fairy dust.
White Astilbe spinning out like the Milky Way.
Spots of yellow sun along the ground.
Fragrant Lavendar near the chimney.
Sweet, wet summer.
Much in the same way I compiled a list of those things my mother had taught us, as Father’s Day comes around, the thoughts and reflections of Dad are strong. Those quirks and qualities, the small observances, have now become part of his children. Much the same as with our mom, after he was gone the emails began to fly back and forth between us as we added our memories. On his birthday and on Father’s Day, I share them with my siblings so we can again remember. As we added things to the list, we smiled, got some laughs and maybe shed a tear, too. What did you learn from your father? Here are sixty-one things (of many) we learned from ours:
The horse barn behind the house, long unused, contained six stalls and a hay loft. The floor of the barn was covered about two and a half feet deep in old horse manure, some of it probably one-hundred years old. I was ecstatic about using it in my garden, as were a number of the neighbors, who showed up with wheelbarrows and buckets to get their free brown “gold”.
However, it appears that over the years, the old barn floor had become a catch-all for garbage, and a number of unwanted items had been tossed there and forgotten. Now that it is raked and spread out in the garden beds, an array of surprises continue to emerge, especially after a rain. Rusty bolts, rubber washers, electric light switches, pieces of conduit, unidentifiable scraps of metal.
The most notable find in the barn was an old, rusted hand gun – still loaded. Not knowing the origin of that one, it was delivered to the local police department. I wonder what story lies behind it.
In the yard, buried in a triangle of dirt and weeds around a lovely Japanese maple tree, I found more garbage – mostly small empty packets of soy sauce.
There have been a number of owners, each with their varied histories. Immediately prior to our occupancy, the house itself, a late Victorian era structure, was home to Chinese boarders who worked at a local restaurant and were overseen by a matriarch. From the basement to the attic, it appears a number of people were living in every available space at one time. Inevitably, whenever we order Chinese take-out, whoever happens to be delivering the food will peek his head inside with curiosity, smile, and say “Ah! I used to live here! Very different now!”
The neighbor told me that the pillars on the front porch had once been painted a vibrant Mandarin Red. Above the porch, covering over an old metal eagle 
decoration, there is a gold medallion with a dragon on it. There were large, outdated Chinese pin-up girl calendars in a few of the rooms.
On the floor of the basement we found a sizable dead starling. I can’t imagine how or why a bird would have gotten down there.
In the attic were boxes of pink tile and a large portrait of Jesus, the kind where the eyes seem to follow you wherever you go. My sister and I were clearing out what was left behind, tossing items out the upstairs window into the back yard below to be dumped. We stopped at the Jesus picture. “You can’t throw Jesus out the window!” she cried. So I respectfully carried the portrait downstairs and pla
ced it out on the back porch until I could find a home for it. The next day I discovered that the Significant Other had placed the Jesus in the barn window, facing back towards the house. Every time you looked out from the kitchen or walked outside, Jesus was looking back at you, watching. Eventually we found Jesus a new home.
While gutting the tiny downstairs bathroom – a later addition to the house, complete with giant orange and avocado daisy wallpaper – a mysterious discovery was made. Tucked carefully into a space between the studs was a neat package of Chinese newspaper. Inside the package was a single bone. What kind of bone was this? Could it be a talisman meant for good luck, or to keep 
harm away? Nobody I spoke with had ever quite heard of this. While I found it curious and a little spooky, the SO easily dismissed the package as no mystery, convinced that whoever did the construction on the bathroom merely finished his lunch and then conveniently built his trash into the wall. He says it’s done all the time. So much for romanticizing.
Some people find money in the walls of old houses, but of course, for us it’s voodoo bones or Kentucky Fried leftovers.
But still…..A loaded gun. A dead starling. Chinese calendars. A watching Jesus. A bone in the wall.
What stories could they tell, these things left behind?
One of our exceptionally sweet coworkers has been out for the better part of the last two months on a serious medical leave. She is finally returning tomorrow, and everyone is anticipating her return. While she was gone, she asked staff to look after her fish, Stanley, which she left at the office. It’s a Betta – one of those male Siamese Fighting fish that lives it’s existence all alone in a fish
bowl.
This particular one, dark blue with a purplish hue to it, has taken up residence in the middle of the table in our lunch room. While you are eating your lunch, Stanley comes up to the side of the bowl and stares at you. That’s about the extent of any communing that happens with him.
Unfortunately, this morning Stanley was discovered belly up in his bowl, this sad fact reported to us by a woman answering a job advertisement who happened to be filling out an application at the lunch room table. I think she was a little distracted trying to do this in front of a dead fish, and duly informed our secretary. Wouldn’t it figure that the fish had made it all these months and then dies the day before his recuperated owner returns?
Feeling badly, staff k
icked into action, ran out and bought another blue Betta to replace Stanley. The thing is, nobody wants to tell her it’s not the real Stanley, but I can’t imagine how she will not know. This faux Stanley is a radiant blue with almost a turquoise hue to him. His fins are long and luxurious. The original Stanley was almost anemic by comparison. I will be interested to see if she will realize right away that something is a bit off.
This situation brought me back to The Story of Petal. We had stopped at a pet store on our way home from visiting someone that day and my first-born child, an insightful and social little sprite who had reached the precocious age of two-and-a-half, became mesmerized by the goldfish. Not your regular .99 cent garden variety of mini-carp that you win at the local carnival, but the fancy $9.99 type with all the fluffed out fins and sweeping tail. This fancy fish even had a thirty-day guarantee! Just bring the deceased fish back for a refund or replacement! She looked up at me with that little face and twinkly, imploring eyes and of course, I just caved. (This was just the first of a number of cave-in’s concerning my kids). So we bought the fish and the bowl, the net and the gravel, the food and the little plastic castle and headed home. 
Bright, articulate, first-born wonder child actually did spend hours contemplating her fish. She decided to name it Petal, “Because he looks just like a flower petal” (Oh, observant, creative first-born!). She made up little tunes and sang these songs to Petal. She told elaborate stories about Petal (“Honey, quick, grab the video camera!”). She said good night to Petal before bed and ate her breakfast in front of Petal each morning.
And so, early one Saturday, barely over a week later, when I awoke to find Petal doing the belly up, I was beyond dismayed. Imagining sadness in that shining little face, in my mom-craziness I decided to take the departed Petal all the way back to the pet store (a thirty-five minute drive), exchange him (Free Exchange or Refund!), and get the imposter Petal back in the bowl before she got up to start her day. I scooped out the dead fish, put it in a plastic bag, set it on my dashboard and hit the road. OK, first kid, so I got a little crazy.
I was barreling down the highway and making great time when I and the five or so cars travelling around me were all pulled over in a speed trap. I could not believe it. When the officer came over to my car and said I was going 15 miles over the speed limit, I sputtered and waved the clear plastic baggie containing a curled up orange lump at him. “Fish! Dead Fish! I am on my way to return this dead fish!” I said. He did not look surprised, nor sympathetic, nor amused. I guess these guys really have heard it all. With an expressionless face he wrote the ticket.
I got to the pet store, exchanged Petal for a live replacement and drove all the way back home at a sober speed. When I got in the house, Precocious child
was already up and had discovered that Petal had vanished. I explained the situation. She was at first a bit taken aback, then rather philosophical about it. She named the new fish “Petal-too” and embarked on a lengthy, very chatty discourse about the new fish (“Honey! Grab the video camera!”).
The ticket cost me $150.
The irises are pretty much blown by and gone here. Last week, my friend and I managed to make a long trek to Montclair, New Jersey to visit the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens, which sits at the bottom of Mountainside Park.
The day was breezy and blue when we arrived. The irises were waving in the soft wind, each a unique and delicate gem. Antique, Heirloom, Siberian and Japanese Irises. Walking down the rows of beds (over thirty-five of them), we kept getting distracted by the variety, the riot of color, the way these flowers on their long stems seemed to conjure images of flying canaries;
dainty tissues;
old chiffon;
How they glowed and vibrated.
All was so appealing……. Iris eye candy.
Amidst the distracting color, there is a peace that descends in a garden, and I could not help but be drawn to the quiet of the people there almost as much as the flowers. Someone bowed at work amongst the beds.
A man diligently tending a water sprinkler. A woman had set up beneath a tree and was painting en plein air.
It was a long ride for a short visit to see this collection of iris jewels.
We left, replenished.
No sooner do we put the trash and recyclables out, and there they are – The Bottle People, picking through the bins. I can put the garbage at the curb, go in the house and walk out ten minutes later, only to find that the trash has been sorted through and all the refund bottles are gone.
There is fierce competition out there among the pickers. There is the man with the 
wheeled, wire laundry basket who makes serious business of sorting through the trash as he takes his time with each item. There is the lady on the bicycle pulling the cart, who will show up in the dark, aim her bike’s headlight towards the “goods” and then fervently dig through everything. There are those who take it to an even higher place, driving right up next to the pails to quickly toss the refundable bottles and cans into their cars. Sometimes they come as a team, so one drives while the other collects.
They often make a mess and leave a mess. Some of them drop the non-refundable plastic containers they don’t want outside the bin and leave them on the lawn or in the road, or – and this is really annoying – when they are finished they leave the bin turned around so the recycling logo is not showing. Of course this happens at night when you don’t know it. In the morning, in what I always imagine is a power moment of civil service spite, sometimes the trash collectors (sanitation engineers) won’t pick up the stuff when they come by with the truck, because technically, they can’t see the logo and so technically, they are not recyclable (even though they can see it is clearly bottles and cans in the bin, and they know that logo sticker is on the other side). So then we are stuck with the stuff yet another week because of the trash pickers.
I have tried to help the people along that make a business of collecting refundables for cash, especially since I am not bringing them to the local supermarket myself to get the deposit back…..at 
this point it’s not worth the gas to drive over there to do that for the small amount we have. I also realize these people are doing it because they must need to. Given this, I have tried to make it as easy as possible for them by separating the cash bottles out neatly so they don’t have to dig through the bins and cans – even going so far as to put them in their own little six-pack cartons and placing them out in front of all the other trash. This way they can clearly see them from the road and just scoop them up, avoiding extra work and allowing them to move quickly on.
Despite my best efforts, I have had two confrontations with the Bottle People. One was with the lady on the bicycle, who zoomed up on me in the dark while I was putting the trash out one night. She actually shined a flashlight right in my face and then started digging frantically through the pails even as I was dragging the pails out to the curb, all the while muttering and babbling. I felt a bit invaded, as I couldn’t even put out my own garbage out without being confronted. But I helped her along, handing her everything refundable. I had to assure her a couple of times that she had gotten all of it, that there was no more and that she could stop now, until she finally moved on. That had been about the most eventful contact, until I encountered one picker that put me over the edge.
As I was dragging the second can out to the street late one Sunday afternoon, a woman pulled up in her SUV, took the deposit bottles I had set aside out of the little cardboard six-pack box and threw the box out into the street. Right in front of me. I just had to say something. I said “Hi, excuse me. I leave these bottles out for whoever wants them, but I would appreciate it if you are going to take them, to take the whole box.” And then she turned around and starting arguing with me, telling me how she fit them a certain way into her car so the box doesn’t work for her, and how I should just deal with the box myself. She was actually yelling. 
Well, this really made me mad. Bad enough I feel violated that the Bottle People are on top of you like jackals the moment you appear with your garbage pails, but the rudeness really was not necessary. Maybe I was having a bit of a bad day myself, and at that point I just snapped. I said “You know, there are plenty of other people who want these bottles and I think I will just save them for someone else, like that nice old man with the wire cart.” Then I picked up the other box with the rest of our deposit bottles and began to walk back up our driveway with them.
She actually screamed! She began chasing me! She started yelling about how she wanted those bottles, how she had to have those bottles, how once upon a time she used to be a nurse!!!! (If that was true, I could see why she was no longer one). At that point, it finally dawned on me that she was Not Well. That she was actually kind of Unstable. And suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks. What. Are. You. Doing???? Here I am, trying to make a point by arguing with a crazy person over deposit bottles worth about two dollars? I turned around to her. I handed her the box and asked her to please, if there is any part she doesn’t want, in the future to just please help me out and leave it in the trash can and not the road. She sniffed at me, said “So that’s settled then! We have come to an Understanding!” Then she placed the bottles into a sectioned bin in the back of her SUV, dropped the empty cardboard container by the side of the road and drove away.
I now am trying to remedy the situation further by leaving the bottles out in small plastic grocery bags, which will facilitate the pickers with loading them into their carts or cars. I even try to leave them on the curb the day before, so they will eventually know that there is nothing refundable left in our bins. However, they still leave a mess most weeks.
There are all types out there in this urban Serengeti.
OK, I know, I know,……I realize I have been putting up a number of botanical type posts lately, but I just can’t help it. After being inundated by relentless, ongoing days of rain, we have just been hit with a couple that would probably be considered “One of the ten best” (But how can you only choose ten? I hate such limiting lists). There have been clear, sunny, breezy, fresh, gorgeous days – the kind of weather that probably confirms why so many brides tend to choose June for their weddings. So much is in bloom, which has prompted a few observations in my garden (and my friend’s gardens) this week.
The poppies, those Can-Can girls, are starting to let their petals go like so many skirts.
The Iris is the exclamation point in the garden. As I look around at the varied clumps, it is as if, during their blossoming time, they are calling out and exclaiming, “Look! Over Here! !!! “
Allium in the perennial border is festive, and silly, and weird, like something from outer space. Seeing Allium in a garden is like being in a life-size Candy Land board game. They are the Lollipops of the garden.
And….. has anyone else ever noticed that Wisteria smells like Necco candy wafers? It really does.
It was June, the very end of the school year. I was taking the kids to the bus stop that morning and upon opening the front door, a waft of perfumed air drifted by me. It was such a beautiful scent that for a moment it stopped my progression and I just stood there inhaling it. “Wow! What’s that smell?” Then it was gone.
We drove down the dirt driveway, across a highway and down another dirt road through the woods until we reached the access road where the bus was. I had the car windows open; the scent was drifting in and out. Looking back and forth on the road, I could not locate the source. After the bus arrived and the precious cargo was shipped off to school, I went back up to the house, stepped out of the car, and there it was again. I was determined to find it before I had to leave for work.
A thorough search was done around the back of the house, but it was not coming from my garden. Heading down the drive again, I kept stopping to sniff the air like an animal. The aroma would come and go; almost like a genie from a bottle, I could imagine swirls and tendrils of the elusive scent, invisibly uncurling. Down the h
ill and out to the road again, I started walking alongside the mowed sides of the highway – and suddenly, there it was – wild roses. Shrubs and shrubs and shrubs of white, wild, summer roses (Multiflora Rose, R. multiflora). I just stood there inhaling them. On the side of the road, a piece of heaven. I took a few sprigs with me and kept sniffing them the entire ride to work. When I arrived at work, I discovered that these roses are everywhere.
They come in late spring for a short while, and then they are gone. An annual treat to look forward to, I can barely get enough of their intoxication. Have you smelled them? I am drunk on the heady scent of the wild summer roses of June.
The Significant Other is like a bull in a china shop. That is the image that usually goes through my mind when I take a dish out of the kitchen cabinet and see the condition of it. My dishes, which are a conglomeration of two different patterns inherited from my mother and a grandmother-in-law, have gone through three generations. There are a few pieces I acquired when I got my very first apartment and a few more gathered along the way. With a minimum of accidents, they have made it through our large family when I was growing up. They made it through a number of relationships, two children and two step-children, their friends, a couple of long-term roommates, a multitude of holidays and an ongoing flow of guests. They survived probably close to thirty moves, including four from coast to coast – and that is not an exaggeration. My feeling is that these are made to be enjoyed and used. And yet, as soon as I moved in with The Significant Other, those dishes began to chip and break with increasing regularity. Whenever I hear a crash and “Oh, shit!“, my heart sinks for a second. Then I try to take it in stride.
The Blue Willow plates. The Italian coffee mugs. The Williams-Sonoma bowls. A little white ceramic microwavable plate from the first class section of a defunct airline that my mom found in a close-out, raving about how it was the perfect size. “Oh, shit!” I will admit that losing that one, plain as it was, upset me. Not because it was the perfect sized little dish that she “got for only a dollar”, but because I remember that day we spent together – her voice, her face, her delight. When I used it, I would always recall that moment, if just for a fraction of a second. Now that part is gone.
Years ago, in my communal living hippie days, a few of us were busy preparing a large dinner, milling around the kitchen with the music blasting, having fun. One of the guys, a visiting guest, was in the process of taking a Pyrex baking pan out of the oven and placing it on the counter, when it suddenly made a popping noise and shattered right in his oven-mitted hands. The action stopped for a moment. Somebody said “Wow” and someone else laughed. But the woman who had contributed the Pyrex pan to the group cause burst into tears. We all looked at her like she was from Mars. It’s a Pyrex dish. Just a glass dish. We can get you another one. Bummer about dinner though. Through her sobs, she said, “That baking dish was my mother’s.” Her mother had died when she was a young teen. She had other things from her mother, but now there was just one more piece of her mother gone. I didn’t get it then. I get it now.
I don’t think there are more than a few unchipped dishes left in the house. In the beginning, I was sure that the SO must be acting out some passive/aggressive stuff for some reason. How could this be possible? Why does he do this? What’s wrong with him? Maybe he doesn’t like the dishes because they were mine and from the past? Maybe it’s because I care about them and he thinks caring about dishes is stupid? I used to think that, but now I think there is more to it. He’s generally rough on things 
– he drops plates in the sink, slams them down on the table, leaves them on the very edge of the counter or coffee table, just waiting to be knocked onto the floor. He has no qualms about taking a knife and using the tip as an impromptu screw driver, or using a fork to pry open a paint can, even though he has a house, a basement, a barn, and two trucks filled with tools. He does not discriminate. The flatware is in about as rough shape as the dishes. The tips of the knives are bent, the fork tines are at crazy angles. We bought some new dishes together and he breaks those too. He would prefer if all the dishes and glasses were plastic. He just is not conscious of it and he just does not care. I consider it one of his mental illnesses. Conversely, he considers my attachment to stuff one of mine. But that is another story.
OK, I have attachments. I will admit that I love some of my stuff. Unfortunately, it is one of those traits I have trouble transcending on my path to enlightenment – the gathering and keeping, the holding on of “things”. It is only particular things though. The possessions that I am attached to are the ones that have people, or stories behind them.
Mom loved her dishes and kitchen ware. She grew up poor, and so everything she saved for and bought was carefully chosen and lovingly cared for. I still have one of her Revere Ware pots that must be almost sixty years old. She kept them nice and used to polish the copper bottoms. She bought me a set of my own when I was first married. When I find them sitting in the sink with the bottoms burned, I try not to get even a little upset. At this point I am just weary. 
My mom also had a few decorative plates from Portugal that were given to her for her bridal shower. She called all these things part of her “trousseau”. Some of the plates hung on the wall in her kitchen. When she died, her “trousseau” plates joined my collection. I tended to follow suit and was soon hanging up plates that I had collected here and there.
I was upstairs cleaning the bathroom and the Significant Other was downstairs, actually vacuuming one Saturday morning, when I heard the familiar “Oh, shit!” On one wall I have a number of plates from Morocco and three from Turkey. The ones from Turkey are very old to begin with, and I have had them close to thirty years. Out of the three, there is one that is my favorite. You guessed it.
I gathered the shards from the dustpan and laid them out on the table to see if I could repair the plate. It’s in pretty bad shape – some of the pieces are dust. He said, “You’re crazy, you aren’t going to be able to put that back together”. And then he said, “Well, you are going to Turkey in a couple of weeks, you can get another one when you are there”. But it’s not the same, and I deliberately didn’t get another one. You cannot bring back the past; you can only create a new past in the present to look back on in the future. Life is transient, I know that. But still….
The broken plate has been sitting on a large piece of paper on the dining room table for over three months. That is because I can’t locate the special glue I bought last time there was an “Oh shit!” event. I haven’t put it together to get more glue, sit down and try to arrange and repair this ceramic puzzle. The SO says the glue is not going to hold it. I don’t know; it was so pretty, I just don’t want to throw it out yet. If this doesn’t work, maybe it can be used in a mosaic. Of course, I am not making mosaics, although in metaphor, creating a mosaic out of the shards of our lives is probably a healthy thing.
Today was the opening day of the season for our local Farmer’s Market, which is one of the nicer perks of living in a small city. Even though it is early for some of
the produce, we grabbed our little eco-friendly shopping bags and walked uptown to support the local farmers and vendors. On the way, I kept stopping to admire all my neighbor’s flowers. Someone has these charming purple sweet peas growing up their fence. Another has a lovely show of irises. The sun was shining and people were smiling.
I have a few favorite vendors at the Farmer’s Market and have some small rituals upon arrival. I usually head straight for The Pie Lady to buy some pies, because if you arrive too late in the morning, the best are gone. There is always an enticing display of pies in different sizes, different fruits pies and then a rich chocolate one. My habit is to buy one small chocolate kind and one fruit type. But this morning, because I am still on The Diet, I did not pick out my own favorite pie but let The Significant Other choose instead. I figured this might help keep me from scarfing one down while standing at the kitchen counter with a fork. As it is, he already beat me to it, because one lasted about fifteen minutes
once we got them home.
I love The Bee Man table. There is a wooden display of a tray from a hive with bees encased in glass. You can stand there and watch them busily doing their bee thing in and out of the cells of the comb. I always look for The Queen. Sometimes I can find her. Sometimes I have to ask the Bee Man to show me where she is. He always knows.
Today I bought a variety of young lettuces for salad, and a coriander plant to start in my garden. We also bought some pesto from The Pesto Lady to add to the stash of pesto in the freezer. I put up my own homegrown pesto every fall, but we also buy the type The Pest
o Lady has to offer. We try to keep enough pesto to get us through a long winter. It’s like bringing a little bit of summer back. The S.O. keeps buying them and then I think he forgets about them. It’s OK though, because pesto is our emergency back-up when”there’s nothing in the house for dinner tonight.”
A stop to try a sample from The Cheese People is next. I like their Spanish Manchego. Sometimes you can buy a “surprise bag” where for one price they fill a whole bag with different cheeses and other odds and ends, like crackers or fig jam. Occasionally you can end up with some real unusual stuff (surprise!).
As the summer wears on, more vendors appear and more and more produce becomes available. Stops will be added to The Orchard Girls, The Organic Egg Man, The Seafood Guy, The Flower Lady and The Venison Woman. Everyone seems to bring their dogs and you get to see a lot of interesting pets and their owners. We stop and chat, we people-watch and we sample. The produce is so beautiful to look at. It is a work of art upon itself. This will be the pattern now, early most Saturday mornings, right on th
rough until almost the end of November.
Driving down the shade-dappled road with the sun sparkling through the leaves on a brilliant morning, singing with the radio, and out of the corner of my eye I saw it coming. It ran in front of the car and suddenly froze in a moment of indecision. Hitting the brakes, I swerved to avoid it, when it suddenly unfroze and bolted in the direction I was now heading. Swinging the wheel the other way and hoping for the best, it zig-zagged and ran under my wheels – all in the blink of an eye. Was that a thunk, or just my imagination? Looking in the rearview mirror, I hoped not to see a little lump in the road. I think most of us have been there. If he got away, you sigh with relief and keep going – he made it. If you see the little lump is there, your heart sinks. If that little lump is still moving…..well, those are the moments that I feel physically ill, because really, there is not much to be done at that point.
One sure-fired guaranteed bummer, at least for me, is running over a squirrel. I imagine this stop/freeze/reverse/reverse/reverse action is an instinctual survival tactic to evade predators. Although the squirrel in the road is doing it’s best to outwit the oncoming vehicle, it seems some of them don’t even consider crossing until they see you coming and are just hell-bent on suicide.
Every day I drive through areas that are filled with squirrel, hawk, coyote, deer and wild turkey. Each has its challenges. Of course there are variables, but after enough animal/road encounters there are certain things you can come to expect. If a deer leaps in front of your car, it is as likely there is at least one, maybe more, waiting in the woods to bolt right behind it. Whether they decide to all come forward and follow or not, I try to look ahead for that. If they do bound out in front of you, they will probably continue in the same direction as they were heading to get to their destination on the other side. They usually do not change their mind.
With turkeys, if there is one on the side of the road, there is usually a flock in the vicinity. They are a little more confused when you drive by them. They often will hesitate and run back into the woods, or anxiously mill around together at the side of the road until you pass. Although one time one massive tom insisted on strutting right in front of my car – actually took his time and poked his head over the hood to get a good look at me while I waited for him to move on. This is not the norm. But squirrels – trying to anticipate and avoid them is like trying to navigate a road video game.
My days of thinking “Awwwww, aren’t they cute” are long over concerning Sciu
rus carolinensis. Inevitably, whenever I plant anything and disturb the ground, there they are, digging up what I just put in. After planting over thirty gladioli, only one came up by the time the squirrels were finished. I actually watched them scamper away with the bulbs in their mouths. Last year I planted a bag full of what were supposed to have been spectacular red dahlia bulbs that someone gifted to me and never got to enjoy seeing even one.
The Significant Other has no mercy on them and will eradicate them when necessary. They have chewed through the soffits of the house, the ultimate violation in his book and a declaration of war. They have turned even the most artfully desi
gned squirrel-proof bird feeder into a squirrel buffet, sitting there binging while keeping the birds away, and leaving a heaping mess of sunflower hulls all over the porch. They have become so bold that when I stepped out the back door, they would shoot out from under my feet and then perch on the back railing, looking almost insulted that they had to move out of the way to let me by. They are nervous, skittery and freaky, and not nearly as sweet as chipmunks. And did you know that like most rodents, their teeth would continue to grow, up to six inches a year if they didn’t keep gnawing? That sort of creeps me out.
But still, there is also that Beatrix Potter type thing about them. When I have had the misfortune to hit one, I always cry. Then I say a silent prayer/apology for it and move on. On having to drive past the scene of the Terrible Accident later, I am always apprehensive, guilty and sad if it is still there. Sometimes there is a little comfort in finding the crows are dining, that it is not such a waste; part of the cycle, if you will. At least the one this morning made it across. It was probably the best thing that happened for me today.
Looks like it’s going to be yet another week of rain, or at the very least, “percent-chance-of-rain”. Thirty percent chance of or forty percent chance of is still pretty good odds, at least around these parts. Everything is lush and verdant. The hostas have already achieved massive girth this season. But the garden is wanting some sun, and so am I. Seriously. Enough already. The good part is that the weeds come out easily. I have been clomping around in my rubber gardening shoes in spite of the rain. The smell of the damp earth, the glow of green with snips of bright color against a gray sky also has its charm. This week’s garden discoveries include a lot of mushrooms popping up here and there. Some other gems to share:
Deep in the shade by the Japanese maple trunk within a bed of creeping myrtle (Vinca), I find the delicate columbine (Aquilegia) has returned.
The Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) is a member of the pea family. Although it is a noxious, invasive weed on the west coast, in the east it is limited. Actually, every broom I have ever had in my garden has not made it through a harsh winter – until this one. The reason it survived might have something to with the fact that it is planted along side the house near where the furnace vents out. The flowers on the side of the plant facing near the vent began to bloom today. They remind me of the open mouths of baby birds.
The hellebore (Helleborus) has been in bloom since late March. Now, in May, each flower is filled with seeds. The flower heads bow down. I turned one up to show you.
Buddha grows moss in the Rain Garden and has become hidden among the ferns. I planted some Lobelia there to bring a piece of sky to the ground.
Traffic was moderate and moving steadily yesterday on the two lane road that is the middle leg of my commute home from work, when I spied a chicken on the edge of the northbound lane, waiting to cross the road. I looked again to make sure it wasn’t a wild turkey, but no, it was actually a chicken. A very anxio
us chicken, which walked up to the edge of the pavement, backed off, and then bobbed up again as the traffic whizzed by. Everything in this chicken’s own yard appeared just fine; there was probably nothing across the state road that it really couldn’t get at its own place, at least nothing that seemed risking its life for. I was too far past it to see if it actually attempted to cross, but that chicken probably did not have much of a chance if it did.
Automatically, the next thought that popped into my head was, “Why is that (foolish) chicken trying to cross the road?” Followed by (of course, what else?) the response – “To get to the other side”. How conditioned we are! As children, that line has most likely been as drilled into our brains as the Knock-Knock joke. And it’s still ingrained in our heads. What is it about the chicken question?
It reminded me of one hot, lazy, late summer afternoon, when a number of old friends and our young children were winding down from a barbecue. The kids had been running around all day, leaping through the sprinkler, piling into the hammock and swinging madly until somebody f
ell out of it; slamming in and out of the back screen door with handfuls of chips and watermelon juice hands. They had reached that point where they were done racing around and were a bit tired, gravitating back to the parents; that point where they hurl their sticky little bodies into our laps, maybe start to whine a bit, complain about scrapes and boo-boos that they were too busy to care about all during the day; that point where they begin to get silly. Those moments somewhere before roasting marshmallows on a stick; before the fireflies come out, before the bath and PJ’s.
They were at that age where they ask the same thing, or something close to it, over and over again and then laugh hysterically at any answer. I indulged them.
Kids:“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Me: “To get to the other side”
Kids: Hysterical laughter.
***
Kids: “Why did the elephant cross the road?”
Me: “To get to the other side”
Kids: Hysterical laughter.
***
Kids:“Why did the boy cross the road?”
Me: “To get to the other side”
Kids: Hysterical laughter.
***
Kids: Why did the MONSTER cross the road?”
Me: “To get to the other side”
Kids: Hysterical laughter.
***
Kids: Why did the GHOST cross the road?”
Me: (using a spooky voice and laughing at the double entendre that went over their heads): “To get to the Other Side!”
Kids: Hysterical laughter.
Adults: Laughed too.
***
It’s all just a string of fleeting moments, isn’t it? I hope the chicken made it.
~*~
Yesterday my friend di
scovered a stunned little mouse lying out in the parking lot of the condominium where she lives. What had happened to it is a mystery, but I speculate that perhaps a cat had been playing with it, as cats tend to do with their prey while working up to the finale. Being the animal lover that she is, she scooped it up and took it into her home, where she fed it milk with an eye-dropper and provided it with some crumbs to eat. It soon revived, started leaping around the box she had it in and then promptly got loose. Luckily, she was able to find it and set it free outdoors – where it belongs. This incident prompted a long ago memory, only one in a long repertoire of my own Mouse Tales, but one of my favorites.
Once upon a time, long ago, I had a Svengali of a boyfriend who lived in a cottage in the woods. The cottage, which sat alone off a dirt road and up a hill, overloo
ked a misty lake. It had a magical quality about it. The neighbors had nicknamed my boyfriend “Hikey the Lover” (his name was not Hikey, or even close to that. I never got the details on exactly why they called him Hikey, and I really didn’t want to know). Looking back, I guess you could say Hikey was sort of a free-spirited, crazy hippie guy . He was worldly and almost a decade older than me in years. I was just at the end of my teenage years, young and still green. Because of this, I tended to be somewhat in awe of him at times, which resulted in occasionally going along with some of his adventures, whims and ideas against my better judgement.
Hikey had his ways about him and was a creature of habit. He liked to grow vegetables. He liked lemongrass tea. He would dance around the house naked while playing his flute to Jethro Tull. He would reheat his day-old coffee in an old, stainless electric percolator. He ate almost everything with chopsticks – even steak and Italian food. He wore clogs. He was always trying to beat the system. The only television he would watch was the CBS morning news. He spent his spare time taping music and live concerts. He was fanatic about his dogs. He was very smart and sometimes had a little bit of a superior attitude about it. He was an arrogant guy. Although most of this is irrelevant, I am mentioning it just to give you an image of Hikey in your mind.
One morning I opened a small, rarely used utility drawer in his kitchen and discovered a little mouse sitting in a small nest filled with tiny babies. She peered up at us with eyes
like shiny black beads of onyx, looking worried and vulnerable. My first response was surprise. I didn’t exactly say “Eeeek”, but I froze for a few beats there. Opening a kitchen drawer and finding a mouse will usually catch you off guard. Following this discovery, I suggested that we move them outside. I mean, this was a kitchen drawer, and cute as they were, I didn’t think it was a very clean situation. But Hikey said “Let’s leave her alone until the babies grow up and leave”, and he shut the drawer. OK, I know, that’s kind of weird, but that’s how he was and it was his place, so that is what we did – it just became part of the fairytale, little country mice living in the drawer of the magic cottage. Svengali spoke, I stayed quiet.
About a week or so later I opened the drawer again to see how they were doing and found they had vacated, so I figured he must have been right.
A number of weeks after that, the cottage was overrun with mice.
Those who live in the country or in the woods, and especially in old farmhouses and cottages, will be familiar with finding dog food or bird seed stashed in your shoes, mouse turds on your windowsill and your favorite things gnawed and ruined. I have had my 
children’s home-made Christmas ornaments decimated by mice who gnawed through the storage box in the attic, which has enraged me. The spines of books chewed. In one place I lived in, I could not find my favorite gauze shirt from India. Eventually I located it – the mice had pulled it out over the top of the lower drawer and dragged it to a hidden space under the bottom drawer of the dresser and turned it practically into lint, creating a beautiful Mysore patterned nest out of it. I have read that they have the capacity to make themselves almost flat in order to squeeze under a closed door. They proliferate and they are a nuisance. I don’t care how cute they are, they are still rodents. Cats can help, but we had dogs. Hikey was not into traps. You can imagine the field day they were having in that cottage.
One particular morning Hikey was lying in bed watching the news while I was fussing around in the kitchen before work, fixing breakfast and trying to please by appearing useful and mature (remember – Impressionable Teenager vs. Worldly Older Guy). I was making us some rye toast with Danbo cheese (because that is what he liked most mornings) and asked him if he would like some lemongrass tea. He said “No, just plug in the coffee pot and reheat what’s left in it from yesterday”. Well, yuck. The thought of reheated electric perked coffee sounds pretty awful to me, and I am not even a coffee drinker, but this is kind of how Hikey was. So I gave him breakfast, we finished up the toast and cheese, I had my tea and he had his coffee. Then he continued to watch TV and I started to clean up the breakfast dishes.
When I opened the coffee pot to wash it out, I discovered there was a dead mouse at the bottom of the pot. It must have squeezed in through the spout the night before (I can’t imagine how else it would have gotten in there), couldn’t get back out and drowned in the leftover coffee. When I plugged in 
the coffee pot to reheat it for Hikey the next morning, I guess it boiled up the mouse with his coffee. And Hikey drank all of it. Mouse coffee.
It was another one of those frozen moments. And then, as awful a discovery as it was, I started to laugh. Maybe it was more of a dark, hysterical “Oh My God” kind of laugh, but there you go. As a matter of fact, as I write this I am smiling (darkly) again. I guess I could have said nothing, but I felt the right thing to do was to tell Hikey there was a dead mouse in his coffee pot. He came over and looked at it. And then he ran into the bathroom and hurled. All arrogance gone.
I bet he never reheated old coffee like that again, and I bet he checked any container he left out from that point on. Even though there is no mouse problem here and it’s been decades, I still do.
A few years ago I discovered this seriously cool looking plant growing at the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C. It was a vine-like plant growing on a fence with fringed flowers that I can only describe as psychedelic space eyes. The docent at the gardens told me it was called a Passion Flower (Passiflora spp.).
“Native to southeastern parts of the Americas, passionflower is now grown throughout Europe. It is a perennial climbing vine with herbaceous shoots and a sturdy woody stem that grows to a length of nearly 10 meters (about 32 feet). Each flower has 5 white petals and 5 sepals that vary in color from magenta to blue.The passionflower’s ripe fruit is an egg-shaped berry that may be yellow or purple. Some kinds of passionfruit are edible.”
I don’t think they are hardy enough for the zone I live in. Subsequently, after seeing this trippy plant in Canada, I had not come across one again until recently, when my friend received one from her daughter on Mother’s Day. This has revived my interest, and I have decided I really want to try to add one to my summer garden. Check out the picture – is this oddly gorgeous or what?
I have a Sears Countercraft blender, probably circa late 1970’s, color Harvest Gold. I hadn’t seen it for a while though, as it got lost in the bottom cabinet that contains the large rotating lazy susan that is overstuffed with items, wobbles and doesn’t go around very well. Since the shelf doesn’t freely turn, you rarely see what’s on the back side of it unless you make an effort to dig something out, and I rarely do that. So the blender was somewhere behind the 1980’s food processor, a giant box of kosher salt, an array of liquor bottles and some extra cereal and juice that I stocked up on during the last marathon trip to Trader Joe’s. With all good intentions, I finally unearthed it, where it then sat on the counter next to the juicer, circa 1990’s. For some reason, I had temporarily lost my juicing and blending mojo, which resulted in the two machines taking up valuable countertop real estate while not really earning their keep. This went on for an undetermined amount of time.
But then I started again, and I am thrilled to report that despite the sorry appearance of my blender and the Significant Other’s mocking (“You’re still using that dinosaur?“), the blender still works just fine. My favorite morning drink has been a base of either soy or almond milk (both unsweetened), with a banana and whatever other fruit might be available at the moment. Cantaloupe, mango, strawberries, blueberries, apple, pear – really doesn’t matter. It’s been delicious, low-calorie and (as I have just d
iscovered this week) only one point on the Weight Watcher’s system.
But here is my discovery thrill of the month. While discussing a variety of random, somewhat mundane topics with my friend K one morning (as we often do), she clued me in about adding a handful of fresh spinach in with her smoothie. She said you can’t taste it at all and it gives you a nice vitamin boost. So I started throwing spinach into the morning drink. It turns out whatever you are making turns either green or a weird brown, depending on the ingredients, but she’s right – you can’t taste it at all. It’s totally yummy, light and refreshing, and I have to say I am getting some mental satisfaction out of thinking I am doing something healthy.
The SO has been watching me drink my new, improved, green smoothie every morning for the last couple of weeks, while making a variety of jokes and skeptical comments, which I do not bother to grace with the effort of a response….. until this morning. I finally said “Why don’t you just taste it?” He did, and he couldn’t believe how good it was. As a matter of fact, once he tasted it, he had to have his own glass. I put the leftover smoothie in the refrigerator, but now that he’s enlightened, I am wondering if it will still be there when I reach for it again.
I was always the skinny girl. Not the long, lithe, willowy model skinny girl, but the gawkishly thin, angular, hollow-eyed skinny girl. A skinny girl in school who looked like an X-ray…….with knobby knees, tiny bones, all feet and nose and elbows and spine. The one whose go-go boots slapped the back of her calves like a bell when she walked instead of fitting snuggly like everyone else’s. The one who looked like a malnourished poster child, but wearing contemporary clothes. The Olive Oyl, the Twiggy, the T
oothpick. All legs and ribs and a late bloomer. That was me.
Despite what some might have speculated behind my back, I did not have an eating disorder. There was no anorexia or bulimia happening here. I ate what I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I ate plenty of it. My metabolism just was not conducive to putting on significant weight. Those were my genes. It was a very self-deprecating, hard road.
You would be surprised how callous and clueless people can be when they make disparaging comments aimed at very thin people. Just as it is considered incredibly rude and unkind for someone to mock a heavy person, it always seemed to be rather remarkable that many people – and often those who are considered “overweight” and have experienced pain over being called “fat” (or worse) – have no qualms about making cruel, hurtful, or insensitive comments about someone thinner than “average”. Ironically, it is just as difficult for someone who is extraordinarily thin and conscious of it to reveal themselves at the beach in a bathing suit as it is for someone heavy. I never understood why some people didn’t get that.
Even after I started to level out a bit after being That Skinny Girl in primary and secondary school, I remained “underweight” for most of my adult life, never weighing in enough to meet the minimum weight to donate blood, never quite pulling off whatever look was in fashion – tight pants would hang off me, my knees would stick out, the butt would droop, there was nothing to fill the blouse. If the waist was small enough to fit, the length was ridiculously short. There were no curves. Nothing quite fit. The snarky comments continued. By this time I had no compass regarding my own body image.
But meanwhile, I continued to thoroughly enjoy eating whatever I wanted, and with gusto. Never gave it a second thought, beyond actually trying to eat more fattening food to bulk up.
Watching calories just wasn’t on the radar screen. There have never been any qualms about binging on a pint of Haagen Daaz, a bag of tortilla chips or a box of nonpareils. There was never any concern about having the second helping. Or the third. Or two desserts. Or four. Weight just did not stick to me. This persisted well into my late forties, when I finally hit a size that would probably be considered “average” for my height and frame. For the first time in my life, I felt that I physically fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I laughed to myself that here I was, in my forties, and had finally arrived. And yet, with the compass broken I could not accept a compliment as genuine.
Well, “average” did not last very long at all. Must be those damn hormones, because something changed and the pounds have decided to stick. And because I have been “spoiled” all my life in respect to what I fuel myself with…..because I have really had no concept of awareness, no discipline or control regarding food….. I have been at a total loss to stop it from happening. I am hungry all the time. And I eat all the time. The word graze, or rather browse (I prefer to think deer, versus cow), is exactly what I do. According to my doctor, I have just crossed that little line on the chart – past “Underweight”, right on through the “Healthy Weight” shaded area and into the “Overweight” balcony section. Bam! The Skinny Girl has crossed into the zone. And she is not prepared. I weigh more than I did in my ninth month of pregnancy. The pounds are 
mostly in the middle. As my arms and legs are long, I am starting to take on the build of a spider. I have incrementally managed to artfully camouflage the rolls for quite a while, but cannot anymore (see Speechless). I have no control. I am a serious foodie. I dream in chocolate. I cannot believe it, as I am The Skinny Girl!
On the way home from work yesterday I took the plunge and joined Weight Watchers. I pulled off the highway at the very last minute and I did it. I realize I need to be held accountable and I can’t hold myself to it. After the meeting, I came home clutching a bag with my little point calculator and booklets…….when I w
alked in the door, the Significant Other gave me what I imagined was almost a wicked smile before immediately opening a large bag of blue corn tortilla chips and a container of salsa….. and began to indulge right there standing in the kitchen. I didn’t even have one minute of respite before the temptation began. Demon.
All day today I counted points and followed the diet religiously – Day One.
I am starving.
What’s up with the strawberries lately? Has anyone else noticed these mega-giant, shiny uber-red strawberries that have been appearing for sale in the supermarket? The last few containers I bought seem to be filled with behemoths. I have been marveling over the size of them. They don’t look real! Some of them are big enough to stuff! They are bigger than kiwis! Do you think they are genetically engineered or what? Just saying……
Feeling intoxicated by the scent of Lilac, Allysum and Lily of the Valley that perfume the garden. Sweet spring……
It has been an adjustment getting used to living in a small city, with neighbors dwelling very close by. Most of the homes on our street, built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, have weathered, stockade fences between them. However, this house came equipped with a rusty chain link fence separating it from the properties which buffet it on 
either side. Aside from the lack of privacy, I find this fence to be tasteless and depressing. It’s the kind of thing you would see around a vacant lot, except that it’s lower. It practically screams “junk yard”. You would almost expect a couple of Rottweilers to be hurling themselves at it with bared teeth.
On the left side of us lives a lovely, recently retired school teacher who is also an avid gardener. In addition to an abundance of perennials in her yard, she also has a Koi pond and bird baths. She has a sweet little back deck and a tidy lawn. When I am out working in my own garden, I love to peek through the trees which, thankfully,
mostly obscure the chain link fence between us, to enjoy a glimpse of her world.
The house on the right side of us is split into two units and is owned by an absentee landlord. There has been a pretty steady stream of tenants living there who have been real losers. It appears the people who rent the upstairs unit tend to be systematically evicted after they cause problems or don’t pay their rent. We have had our share of dealers, crack-heads and general bone-heads, including some people who moved in stating they were a family unit of three, only to find out they were really a couple of unemployed women with six teenagers and a Pit Bull that they refused to pick up after, letting it crap in everyone’s front yard. When politely asked to please tidy up after their pet, they actually outright refused and gave us “the finger”. The parents, not the kids! Nice, yes? It is clear this landlord is not screening very diligently and even more clear that he really doesn’t care how his neighbors feel about it.
The downstairs unit has been occupied by the same couple rather steadily. We rarely catch a glimpse of the woman, but the husband is a friendly man who regularly walks over or engages in conversation over the fence. The problem is that the adult children of the wife tend to regularly drop off their own young children to be watched…..or not watched. The back yard, which we have a full view of through the chain fence, has essentially become an unsupervised playground for anywhere from three to seven cousins and grandchildren at any one time, complete with trampoline, kiddy pool, day-glo pink plastic slides and toys, canopies, tarps and rusted chairs. Just about every weekend and throughout the summer starting at roughly 7:45 in the morning (yes, that early), the kids will be out there emitting high-pitched shrieks as they ride their bikes around, splash in the kiddie pool, leap up and
down on the enclosed trampoline or bounce a basketball over and over…….and over….and over…… on the cement patio. This goes on all. day. long. During the school year they are also out there most afternoons. These are actually nice kids. Often I have encouraged them to pick the cherry tomatoes or snap peas I have planted along the fence, show them how to crush the leaves to experience the aroma of mint, cilantro and lemon thyme, or helped them collect those roly-poly pill bugs from the dirt. However……it’s all the time. And then, there is that shrieking. They don’t even actually even live there. Having already done this scenario in our lives, we really didn’t plan on signing up for another tour.
In addition, the adult children of this family, who do not live there but show up with their kids and their laundry regularly, pick up where the kids leave off, tending to hang out in the back yard, where there seems to always be a large party or barbecue going on. They are also friendly enough, but when I am outside working in the area of my garden along this chain fence between us, which happens to be the sunniest spot on our property, there are often people standing on the other side of the chain link smoking cigarettes literally a few feet from my head. There I am, weeding around my basil plants and there will be a couple of women standing around with baby strollers, smoking and flicking their ashes, while we all politely try to ignore each other.
From their downstairs side window facing our house, there pours an ongoing cloud of cigarette smoke generated by the chain-smoking fifty-something grandmother who rarely emerges outside as she is in need of a triple by-pass. It is disconcerting and it really disturbs my serenity to be out in my own yard and unable t
o enjoy it. It’s often so noisy that it disturbs the neighbor on the other side of our house. In addition, their little dog, who is actually very sweet, tends to pee through the fence onto my plants. I have been laying plywood against the fence where I grow vegetables to protect them. Lastly, when I look out the window over the kitchen counter, I have a nice view of their garbage pails.
The Significant Other and I have been discussing putting up a stockade fence between us and the tenant house for the last few years. While it would not stop the noise, it might buffer it, and it would also afford some privacy. With so many other things that need to be repaired in this old house, the time and expense of doing a fence was something that sat on the back burner. But as this spring approached and the thought of going through another invasive summer loomed ahead, I really started to amp up the requests and it finally happened this past weekend. It was not without sacrifice, however.
Right along the line where the fence needed to be placed sits a crab apple tree. I was
under the impression that somehow the fence-line could be adjusted to detour around the tree. Due to the nature of the property line and the space available to put up the fence, this was not going to be possible. This tree has just completed a spectacular show of fragrant flowers before dropping its petals (see Just Married). However, the rest of the year it’s a nuisance. It bombs both yards with inedible garbage that makes a mess and attracts hornets. Even with that, realizing the tree was going to have to come down in order to put up the fence was somewhat upsetting.
The teacher neighbor from the left side came over to watch as the Significant Other got the chain saw going. Although she was possibly even more excited than I was for the privacy and peace we will be gaining, we were both disturbed about the loss of this ornamental tree. Turning my back, I heard it but could not watch it happen. We actually had tears in our eyes as he took it down. When it was over, I helped load the branches into the dump truck, stopping to smell the sweet fragrance of some of the remaining blossoms. Then I went inside, lit some Tibetan incense and quietly mourned this tree for a little while before returning back to the garden and to help with the rest of the fence. 
The downstairs neighbor husband watched us but didn’t say much. I don’t think he understood the problem and I sensed he was a bit insulted. He looked a little bit upset as the fence was going up. You would think he would be as welcoming of the privacy as we are, but I got the feeling he wasn’t. I tried using that old adage that fences make good neighbors. The kids were disappointed and wanted to know why we were doing it. I felt a little guilty……but not too guilty.
The fence on the right side is up. It is neat and private. However, this six-foot high solid barrier now blocks the sunlight where the tomatoes and basil have been planted and thrived every year. Short of planting these things in pots, there really isn’t any other place to put them, which is a loss. Although it is sad, in balance it is apparent that the sacrifice of that tree was worth it. I planted a small Japanese maple sapling in the place where the crabapple tree once stood. Overall, our place looks so much more inviting. I would bet that putting in this fence has probably increased the value of the house.
Even though I am a mother, and even now the mother of a mother, each year when the Mother’s Day holiday comes around, instead of celebrating my mother status, I find myself mostly reflecting on memories of my own mom. There are those things that you learn from a parent that stick in your head forever, that become that little voice of reason, the small reminder nagging in the back of your mind, the ingrained habit or something to chuckle over if we think about it. We all have them. It can be something as simple as “Don’t go out without a hat in the cold weather”, or “Take an umbrella” or a little more philosophical, as in “If everyone jumps off the cliff you are going to jump off the cliff too?”
After my mom passed away, I began writing down those things; the mom-isms and sensible advice that she instilled in us. With the help of my siblings, so far we have come up with a list of 100 things our mother taught us that we incorporate into our daily lives – things that still randomly pop up in our heads – some of which we have passed on and instilled in our own children. Each year I resend the list to all of us in order to remember, laugh, and honor the beautiful person who raised us and is still in our hearts.
I am not going to post our entire list of “100 Things I Learned From My Mother”, but I will share some of them:
My car sat parked out in the driveway beneath the crabapple tree overnight. When I went out to it the following morning, the blue car was totally covered in bright pi
nk petals. Actually plastered in pink. It was enough to cause me to laugh out loud, all alone, standing in the driveway. The sight of this also brought out a sudden, child-like urge to scoop them up and throw handfuls of petals up in the air and over my head. Resisting that, I gathered a significant amount off the windshield and actually took them to work with me, where I deposited them on the desks of a couple of my coworkers (how could you not share such seasonal joy?)
Once I started driving, they began to blow away, dots of streaming fairytale pink flying out from the sides and roof of my car. It was so celebratory, as if I was riding in the car that says “Just Married” on the back. By the time I arrived at my destination, most of them had gone to the wind.
Ok, it looks like I am actually going to recant something I said earlier about hardly ever winning anything, because I actually just won something of significant value. Almost every year for the past fifteen years I have attended a work related conference. Towards the end of the conference a couple of drawings take place – one is for a two night stay in a very upscale resort and the other is for a laptop. I have consistantly been trying to win that laptop for years. The drawing for the laptop requires visiting a number of trade show vendors for signatures on a card and then dropping your card in the drawing box. I have always been very diligent about collecting these signatures, which is a timely process. Each year I actually expect them to call my name for that laptop, but they never do.
This year we could not stick around for the drawing. As my coworkers and I were heading home from the conference, I reached into my purse for a tissue and found that I still had my signature card for the contest with me. “Oh no! I forgot to drop my card off!” was followed by a resigned “Oh well, I never win anything anyway”. One person said “Mail it in”. Another one said “Let’s turn around and go back so she can drop it off”. I don’t know if it was out of kindness or because I also happen to be their Supervisor, but everyone looked at each other, then turned around and drove back to the conference center, where I quickly ran in to leave the card.
A week later I received a call from the hosting agency. Expecting it to be a reminder to pay our conference fees, and then blaming it on my hearing issues, I had to ask them to repeat ” You won a brand new”……which ended up not being the coveted laptop, but a brand new iPad 2, which would be sent to me directly from Apple. Well, amidst my jubilation rose up a bit of strange….not exactly anxiety, but a fleeting moment of a pause. Although I have managed and been able to trouble-shoot issues with my desktop Windows PC fairly well, I am finding myself increasingly technologically challenged regarding certain things. I have very little experience with Apple products, having an older model iPod with no updated music, as I keep bumbling the uploads and everything
keeps mysteriously disappearing off of it. I have a basic cell phone with a conventional keypad and am very slow on keeping up with all this texting that everyone seems to be doing now instead of making voice calls. Not up to speed with the latest tech stuff, I wasn’t totally sure what an iPad 2 was, beyond knowing that it has a touch screen and is like something out of The Future.
Although I know I just won something expensive and wonderful, part of me was actually scared of it because instead of being an item that is more familiar, like a laptop, it is now something new I am going to have to learn. Of course, my children let it be known they would be happy to lighten my concerns by taking it off my hands were I so inclined to pass it on.
The Free iPad arrived by mail to the office a couple of days ago. The box was so much smaller than expected that I actually exclaimed, “That’s it?” From what I can see, it is a rather cool little invention once you figure it out and become proficient on it, which it seems almost everyone half my age already is. I have been muddling through getting it set up, and I have made a few discoveries about my prize.
First, in order to run the thing you have to register with iTunes. This part costs nothing, and it appears I am already connected to iTunes by the mere fact I have an iPod. When I plugged in the new iPad 2, it already had all my information and my name popped up. This was amazing to me and also a bit disconcerting for some reason. We Know Who You Are. Next, I didn’t have a wireless router, and to connect to anything, at least if you want to use it at home, you need wireless service. I found this out when I turned it on and it told me so. So I had to go out and get a new router, which will hopefully get hooked up in the next few days by the Significant Other, who appears to be in no hurry. After that, given this is a fairly pricey piece of Free equipment that I won here, it seemed a good idea to get a protective film to put over the touch screen to keep it from getting scratched, and also a case/cover so you can carry it around and not damage it. Even though I did not choose top-of-the-line versions of these products, these items were of significant cost for what they are. Ka-ching.
It appears that The Future is not cheap, and as with other situations in life, things that are Free often come with hidden costs. But still, I actually won something. And thus, I am in it now, boldly moving forward with technology! That is, hopefully, once a wireless connection is hooked up….
During this time of renewal, it is as if we, too, are uncurling from the winter darkness and reaching towards the light. It is exciting and joyful to be amidst the awakening garden.
Bad news today for all you connoisseurs of that little armored road possum of the south, the armadillo. According to the latest findings, something like fifteen percent of armadillos carry leprosy, and one-third of the cases of the disease in this country appear to be caused by humans preparing and consuming them.
My first thought – OMG, people eat those things? (Do one of these look even remotely appetizing?) Followed by the realization that there are probably people somewhere out there at this very moment shaking their heads and saying “Dang! Gonna have to figure out something new for the next barbecue“…..
The group is bantering witticisms back and forth and raucous laughter ensues. I am standing among them, nodding and smiling, and my brain is working hard and at double time. I am trying to string together the words I missed with the words I could hear to form a cohesive sentence. I can do this. But by the time I have put it together (a
nd even laughed) the conversation has swiftly moved on to the next concept or topic. Because of this, I usually will not chime in with a comment; when I do, I have often found that I have entered the dialog with a total non-sequitor. A couple of beats behind, I am out of synch – I have missed the conversation bus. The blank stares, the occasional smirk, the looks between others, or worse, being totally ignored as if invisible tells me so. Because of this, I am now usually a passive participant. Because of this, I am on the outside of many social situations.
Back to the group, who are clearly having a bonding moment of levity. I turn to the person next to me and ask, “What did he just say that was so funny?” That person turns back to me (sometimes they practically have to wrench themselves away from the conversation out of what appears to be a sense of guilty duty) and says, “Never mind, it wasn’t important”. If not that, I will sometimes get “I’ll tell you later”.
Those words. When I hear those words, I feel like I have just been slapped hard in the face, or worse, discarded. I have been reduced. Because that person, who could be a coworker, a friend, a lover, a family member, whether they intended to or not, has just discounted my presence. Those words, to someone who cannot hear well, are hurtful and enraging.
It is my right and my choice to determine what is or what isn’t “important”, and telling me “later” decisively cuts me from the moment and removes me from the opportunity of being on the same page as everyone else. What those words have accomplished is to socially discount me. It has isolated me. Perhaps what was just said was mindless drivel, but it is really up to me to make that discovery. And if it is, so what? Not every single thing in every discourse need be important, or a masterpiece. Sometimes it is the small nothings that allow people to connect. I am 
disconnected by “Never Mind”.
I realize it can be a pain-in-the-ass for whoever needs to stop and translate. Could it be that it might be inhibiting their own opportunity for socialization to have to pause and make a quick translation of what is going on? If so, how does that feel? Often I don’t need the sentence verbatim. To rephrase or throw in a few key words will usually allow my brain to figure it out and be part of what is happening.
Never mind. It’s not important. I’ll tell you later. To a hearing impaired person, saying those words is comparable to letting a door slam on a person in a wheelchair who is trying to enter a room. It’s like leaving a blind person standing on a curb when you know they are unable to maneuver across busy traffic. It falls far beyond being rude. I have given a lot of thought to this. Perhaps, because those kinds of disabilities are visual – you can see the broken or missing limb, the dark glasses or the cane – there is more of an awareness that seems to induce more of a kindness and reaction in the unaffected person.? Deafness is, for the most part, an invisible disability. It does not seem to generate the same degree of tolerance. Holding the door for the wheelchair, guiding the blind across the street, these simple acts take mere minutes, and to ignore them would be incredibly bad-mannered and uncivilized. But to have to translate, to have to stop yourself amid conversation to cue in a hard-of-hearing person, that takes patience and pausing and repetition – it slows down the flow of your own conversation and socialization, doesn’t it? Is that why people hate to do it? Regardless, it is equally as offensive and unkind.
Just because I don’t hear you does not mean I am not paying attention to the whole picture. Just because I don’t discern everything that is being said doesn’t mean I have not picked up on the joy or anger or excitement or guilt or anxiety or emotional pain radiating from someone’s face, in their movements, their body language, their aura. Sometimes I can see if someone is earnest or dishonest without having to hear any words. Other senses are heightened to compensate for the lost one. Sometimes what I observe is a whole lot more than what is being said.
As my hearing continues to deteriorate, my social world has gotten so much smaller. There are venues where it is just impossible or too exhausting to n
avigate. Big parties don’t work well anymore. Places with constant, loud music or crowds are no longer fun. I get lost in busy, chaotic scenes. Given this, there have been a handful of people who have graciously, either consciously or unconsciously, shown incredible patience, tenacity and creativity when we are together, and who continue to seek out my friendship, regardless of the extra efforts it might require. They have been willing to work through or overlook the frustration. I thank those who have easily slipped into the habit of rephrasing amid conversation, or those that step forward to make things clear when I am looking a little lost, and those who offer help or give cues before I have to ask for it. I thank those people for their kindness and for being real friends, for it lets me know that our relationship is valued. You know who you are.
This Earth Day marks the 12th anniversary of my mother’s death. A day filled with golden daffodils, warm soil, the haze of soft greening and points of pastel color just emerging – much like an Impressionist painting – essentially the same as it was on the day she left us years ago. I have been dragging today. I feel the loss of her as a hollow ache. It is as if I moved the wrong way I might tear some ligament within, or rupture something in my heart.
When those Important Events arise that someone you love should have been at, you always take notice. There have been those milestone moments where we would say “Mom would have loved this”. How we wish she had the acknowledgement that her children were settled and doing alright. How I would have loved to have her here giving her opinions on decorating my first home. Seeing her grandchildren grow up, graduate high school and college. Being present at her granddaughter’s wedding. The thrill and disbelief of holding her great-grand baby. Taking a “girls vacation” and walking on the beach,which she loved so much, with us, who she loved so much. The holidays. However, as much as her absence is felt at those eventful times, it is the myriad of simple, routine actions that trigger the emotions that I feel so acutely.
I was rinsing spinach for dinner tonight and decided to use the salad spinner. I had never wanted one, and yet my mother had kept insisting I have one, extolling the virtue of hers. I was not into kitchen gadgets at the time. I thought it was one more ridiculous plastic piece of junk that I didn’t need cluttering up the few cupboards in our farmhouse, which was filled with heavy cast iron pans, ceramic crocks, an old-fashioned stainless Oster blender, wooden spoons and a crescent mezzaluna hanging on the wall. I thought it was just a piece of plastic infomercial crap. She gave me one anyway, and I let it disappear. When I was at her house and she used hers to rinse the salad, always commenting how marvelous it was with an almost child-like appreciation, I would laugh at her.
I was such a brat.
But of course, she was right. The salad spinner works. It’s a simple, great invention. Every time I make a fresh salad, I use the spinner I bought years after her death and think of her. Every single time. Tonight, as I rinsed my spinach, there she was. I just wanted her to know, “Check this out…here I am, using the salad spinner and you were right.” You were right about so much. How I wish there was a way to convey the belated appreciation for all of it. I breathed through the sudden wrench in my chest, blinked back some tears, and finished preparing dinner.
In the misty pre-dawn haze of a Saturday morning I awoke to an urgent voice that appeared to be vocalizing right near my head. “Betty-Anne!” In that surreal aura that surrounds you when someone shouts you out of a dead sleep, I shot bolt upright. “Betty-Anne!” I could not locate the source, nor could I identify if it was a man or a woman calling. My not-awake mind was trying to put together who Betty-Anne was, because Betty-Anne is not me. A neighbor, or a neighbor’s child perhaps? The voice was very serious and sounded worried.
“Betty-Anne? Betty-Anne!” The person appeared to have moved just outside my bedroom window that faced the back of the house. The voice alternated between a loud whisper to a terse, almost panicked call. I shifted from being startled to feeling curious, then anxious about having someone right outside my house at this hour. Getting up out of bed and looking to see what was going on, I found nobody there. “Betty-Anne? Betty-Anne! Betty Anne? Betty-Anne! BETTY-ANNE!!!!” The voice kept on, and as it did, it became more and more mechanical and repetitive. I went back to bed and listened as the calling continued with increasing insistence. “Betty-Anne? Betty-Anne? Betty-Anne? Betty Anne! Betty Anne! Betty-Anne??? Betty Anne!”
As the day dawned and the spring sky began to lighten, the usual avian cacophony started up, and it was at that point that I realized that whoever was calling Betty-Anne must be a bird. Once I had determined this, I was a little bit relieved and amused, too. An hour or so later, when Betty-Anne did not let up, it was not as cute. So much for sleeping in on a Saturday. As the day warmed, the anxious caller appeared to have moved on.
Sunday morning, still dark, and it started up again. “Betty-Anne? Betty-Anne! Betty Anne? BETTY-ANNE??? Betty-Anne!!” It was definitely a male voice, a sort of robotic male voice. This got old very quickly and became relentless. Resigned to not sleeping in on a Sunday either, I lay there for a while and just marvelled at how human the bird-call sounded. The Former Fiance was not as entertained and awoke with a bad attitude; “I’m going to kill that fucking bird.”
I climbed out of bed and went in search of Betty-Anne, but never was able to visually locate him (I refer to this bird as “him” because it sounded like a guy). Soon the rest of the birds woke up and Betty-Anne was lost amidst their clamor 
and din.
I did a little research and determined that Betty-Anne must have been a Red-eyed Vireo. “This bird, not always seen, may sing for long periods of time; it appears to be endlessly repeating the same question and answer. It holds the record for most songs given in a single day among bird species.” That pretty much sums it up. Although after listening to a number of Vireo songs, none of them really have said “Betty-Anne”.
By Monday morning, Betty-Anne had moved on. Despite the disrupted weekend sleep, I was kind of sorry that he left.
After spending the day exploring the Spice Market and touring around in the Sultanahmet district, it finally got to the point where I seriously had to pee, and very soon, so the search for a bathroom began in earnest. In the middle of a large, open square with cart vendors selling roasted chestnuts and hot tea and men hawking boat tours on the Bosphorus, I located the public toilets, a big sign overhead reading TUVALET.
Of course, there was a waiting line on the women’s side, which led to a window where you had to pay one lira for the privilege. Slowly shuffling closer to the front revealed three stalls. As each woman finished her turn and came out the door, I was able to catch a glimpse of what was in store. Stalls one and two contained squat toilets, essentially a porcelain hole in the floor that you hover over. The third one was a western style toilet, the one we are most familiar with at home. I decided I really would like to end up with the friendly western
bowl behind Door Number Three, but it really was a matter of Tuvalet Roulette. Depending on who finished when would determine where I would end up. As I moved closer to the front of the line, I actually considered possibly giving up my turn if any other door besides the third became available. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
Finally I was next. I was psychically willing Door Number Three, but it was Door Number Two that opened for me. A squat toilet. I looked around at the other expectant women and suddenly decided to just go for the experience when in Rome (or in this case, Istanbul). So I went for it.
OK, I will tell you that I wasn’t really sure which way one should be facing for this event. I don’t have experience in this department and it was not very apparent to me. After a quick deliberation, I decided facing the door and always keeping your back to the wall, be it a saloon or a toilet stall, was probably a good idea, so that is the way it went. Behind the door, on the floor next to the squat was a little plastic pipe with water running out of it into a plastic bucket that had a drain in it. Presumably this was meant for “the wipe”, in lieu of paper. Traveler that I am, I was happy to have a packet of tissues with me.
I know this probably sounds silly, but I walked out of there actually feeling a bit satisfied, not just at the relief of finding a bathroom, but at having had yet another small adventure. Cheap thrill…..
It is with a great, disheartening sigh that I have just seen a number of recent 
photos of myself. After such rude and irrefutable proof, there followed the panicked realization that I have let my hair go for waaaaay too long without a hair cut and it has become a bit outrageous.
I have long, very curly/frizzy, gray/white, berserk hair. It does not grow down, it grows Out. Due to a history of repeated haircut disasters, I have tended to avoid them at all costs. Even after having my hair cut and styled by people who specialize in cutting curls, in the long run this hair just does what it wants. Because of this, I have become so scissor-shy that I have been known to go many months, or sometimes years, before I will allow shears to be taken to my head.
But today, I suddenly looked in the mirror and realized it had to come off – immediately. It has reached the point where from behind I look like a geriatric “Cousin It” when I wear it down. When it’s up, the effect is somewhat like a fountain of white spray sticking out of the top of my head. I realize I have been wearing scarves and hats and elastic bands in my hair for months.
There is a big part of me that wants to chop it all off, super short and carefree. In my fantasy mind I will look great. But I know what will become of my face if this happens. Super short is meant for those with that gamine look…..waifish, with big doe-eyes, little noses, elfin ears, defined jaw lines. I can’t pull that off and never could. I would need a nose job and a face lift and Japanese straightening to get that look. If I cut my hair short, I will look like an old man. When I cut my curls short, I actually look like Harpo Marx. I have been the victim of scissor-happy stylists who have turned me into Harpo.
Falling somewhere between It and Marx, There is a point between, usually on dry days, when my hair will suddenly take on this Über Cool look. During those magic times, it can be funky and almost Medusa wild, in a good way. Total strangers will
even stop me on the street and say “I love your hair!”…”Don’t ever cut your hair!”…”Don’t let anyone talk you into coloring that hair!”. I am always amazed when this happens. But then, whatever it was that generated the attention is gone again, as unpredictably as it appeared, and Medusa Wild will inevitably morph into Medusa Scary.
Ironically, the place I have found that I trust to cut my hair is not an ultra chic salon, but a private shop that a local young mother runs out of the basement of her home. I go there and tell her what I want and she does it and does it for a very decent price. I go there so infrequently that I always get her name wrong, which is kind of embarrassing. Today, when I showed up after work 
in my Cousin It Phase distress, she literally cut about five inches off it and seriously thinned it out. When I looked on the floor, the remains of my hair lay there in a giant heap which resembled an animal; kind of like a dead possum, or at least a possum playing “possum”. But when I looked in the mirror, I could still see a woman with a massive amount of hair on her head.
And now, I am home, feeling pounds lighter but still with Big Hair. I am going to go into the bathroom, try to get it wet and put some Product into it in an attempt to tame the beast. I think almost all women with Very Curly Hair know this predicament, and sometimes despair.
This hair defines me, and sometimes it owns me.
Yesterday was an overly warm spring day, one of those flukes where it got up to eighty degrees when temps are normally in the fifties. Things are just starting to blossom and bud around here; it’s been a slow start. A few of us in the office took an exercise break and went for a walk on the property surrounding our building, down the shaded road buffeted by deep woods on either side, then up the hill onto a flat, open area that affords a view of some foothills beyond the river.
Up on that flat area, there was a strong, pleasant breeze blowing that was whipping my hair back. I could feel the steady cadence my feet were making on the road up and throughout my bones. Subtle wafts of green scented the air and came in waves that literally made my nostrils flare. The electric awareness of the season awakening, the pure instinct of it, and that of being present and alive was so powerful. At that moment, a childhood memory came to me with a crystal clarity – that of prancing and running through the fields and neighborhoods, one with the wind, the sky and the earth, pretending to be a wild horse.
I took a deep breath of this spring air and it was as if every molecule pulsed – a reaction to the season on the most visceral level. The intoxication was almost too much to bear. It was all I could do not to shake my mane, let out a whinny and gallop away.
It was through my then fourteen year old that I first became aware of online social networks and blogs like Live Journal and MySpace, where it seemed kids were regurgitating the minutiae of their lives ad nauseum and flaunting their bootie for the world to see. At first I thought it was just silly, juvenile narcissism, its only usefulness to me as a tool to check up on where my own children were at. But the deeper I looked into it, the more uncomfortable I became.
The lack of discretion, control and general awareness of what these kids were putting out there seemed unbelievably foolish, and sometimes even dangerous. Half-dressed teenage MTV wannabes posting pictures of their sexiest faces, raciest outfits and raunchy innuendos – both my own daughter and step-daughter included in this – went from the ridiculous to the disturbing. There also seemed to also be a lot of nastiness between people going on – backstabbing comments, mockery, belittling, all in public.
When Facebook came along, my kids told me it was just for college students to connect, that it was much cleaner and mature than what was happening on MySpace, and that was where they would now be communing. I was relieved. I was told No Parents Allowed. But slowly it seems everybody has jumped on the FB boat. I resisted for a long time, until the desire to be connected to what was going on with my kids from afar found me finally caving in and joining the masses, albeit with privacy restrictions and blocks in place.
It’s been a strange road on the social network. The positives are those everyone raves about, like finding a few long-lost childhood friends who I had wondered about for years. That, and making a number of wonderful new friends though different mutual interests; people who I have actually met in person and since shared experiences with. It has been a fascinating and connective adventure. However, I cannot help but feel uncomfortable about the invasion of privacy. I mistrust the vehicle. I also feel that those who are growing up with this technology have thrown caution to the wind and I fear some of this lack of discretion could will come back to bite them later on. I am constantly
lecturing my children to show sagacity; sharing stories about weirdos and stalkers and human resource departments doing a search on job applicants, about employees who have not used sound judgement in their posts or photos and the repercussions of such, all to drive home the point. For example, if we were considering hiring an applicant and discover that he is flipping the bird to the world in his Facebook profile picture, there is a good chance there will be serious reservations about employing someone with that attitude and lack of maturity.
Having said all that, I have just made my own first (that I am consciously aware of) Discretionary FB Faux Pas. Having recently returned from a trip abroad, one of the interesting things I did while there was to smoke apple shisha (apple flavored tobacco) from a hookah. I am not a smoker – my last cigarette was well over twenty years ago – 
but I wanted to try it and see what it was about. I shared this experience with a group of other travellers in the middle of the afternoon, sitting in a sunny public cafe filled with people having tea and coffee. A man came to each table with a little bucket and tongs and put the flavored tobacco and coal into the bowl of the hookah. He would occasionally come around to turn the little log of tobacco to make sure it was still burning It was tasty, as tobacco goes – like apples! – but my first smoke after decades made me a little light-headed. It’s not a habit I will be picking up – you won’t be finding me frequenting any hookah lounges in the future. It was a kick. I urged my friend to take a picture for the archives. Subsequently, it was posted with the rest of the travel pictures in my FB album as part of the experience, with a little caption beneath it explaining what it was, and forgotten.
Last week, during a lunch function at the agency I work for, I was sitting between two CEO’s when suddenly one of them turned to me and asked me if I was smoking hashish. After I stopped choking on the pasta salad which I reactively inhaled, I asked him where he would have gotten that idea. He told me he saw a picture of me smoking a water pipe on Facebook. Well.
I explained what it was and I had to laugh. I mean, aside from being a non-smoker, I am a fairly intelligent, educated grandmother. To imply that there would pictures of me smoking hashish on Facebook, and pictures I posted myself no less, was kind of funny. And honestly, if I was inclined to imbibe in such a way, that would have been a personal matter. I certainly would not be so foolish as to put pictures like that out there for the world. But apparently some people do post just about anything. And you know, perception can sometimes count for more than reality.
As I said, I have many blocks and controls on my settings. I know that sometimes they fail, and I know that sometimes there is a work around and you can end up connecting to other people’s information via their friends. I have been very careful. I am not connected to anyone at work on FB, and that decision is deliberate. Neither my supervisors nor the people I supervise can see anything about me, which is exactly the way I want it. But as it ended up, the executive’s wife is a friend of mine. Even though we have never had reason to communicate through this social network venue, at some point we m
ust have “friended”. I guess she was enjoying my travel photos. And she showed her husband. My direct supervisor, who supposedly is blocked from my albums, also saw it and highly suggested I remove the Misleading Photo, which I did. Then I had to contact other friends on FB and ask them to please remove any Possibly Offending Pictures. Because even if I am not “tagged” in the photo, it’s still out there. It’s me. And I am an administrator and a professional……of sorts. Misleading Photos can create all sorts of Perceptions. And I think that stuff is out there forever, isn’t it?
Makes me think twice about blogging too.
I just shared this “perfect example” of public posting gone awry That Can Even Happen To Your Mother with my daughters, who I have had numerous clashes with about privacy and impressions on the social network. Ironically, the younger one, who has historically shown the least discretion, responsed, “When I saw that picture, I had a feeling something like that might happen”. It is probably a good thing that I am the one able to be the example, and that it was resolved without any serious repercussions. Clearly no one is immune. You just never know.
After all this, I just have to mention that the little bit of immature rebel still resonating deep inside me had one fleeting, amusing fantasy of a thought………… posting a profile picture of myself on FB, smoking that hookah – and flipping the bird. 🙂
A friend of mine who has travelled the world and has made her life in a foreign country once shared a word in the German language which describes the yearning for travel which we both share. She told me I have “fernweh”, which roughly translates into “far-sickness”; that being a craving or ache to go to other places, the opposite of homesickness. The wanderlust within has been building, and so I have recently been away satisfying my fernweh.
Having returned from my adventure, I sit here among a mess of small packages, plastic bags, laundry, an open suitcase, a dumped backpack and all the extraneous Stuff that I had packed “Just In Case“. It’s been about a day and a half since my return and I am disoriented still, not getting with the flow of being home yet and stru
ggling with a little exhaustion. Along with some Nazar Boncuğu (Turkish Blue Eye Beads) to protect against the Evil Eye, I also brought home a nasty little sore throat which I am starting to think might be some Turkish variety of strep. One of the things I did not do was keep a journal to document those small but poignant observances unique to this trip, which is a regret. In other posts I will probably expand upon some of the delights I stumbled across. Right now I am just trying to settle in.
I travelled to Istanbul with my drum to study a recent style of playing darbuka called the Split Hand Technique, which was developed in Turkey. Istanbul was someplace I had wanted to go for years….something on my “Bucket List” if you will, so the opportunity to learn something became the impetus for this trip, which would also alleviate the fernweh. My first attempt to go there happened maybe fifteen years ago but it fell through. Being acutely aware that Time seems to be slipping away, I looked up flights just to see what the current availability and price was, when suddenly a wave of weird electricity seemed to roll over me, causing me to spontaneously click Book Now . This occurred without further rational thought. After confirming the flight, the next wave to hit was sort of an “Oh My God What Did I Do???” vertigo. To make it worse, the Significant Other was dubious about the whole idea of me taking off alone for this, causing the “Sinking Sensation” wave to follow. After those waves passed, I realized I was awash in the tide of another adventure.
Aside from one man who attended this music retreat, I was the oldest person at the training by at least ten years – and in some cases closer to thirty years. I was the only student who is a grandparent. It was interesting to discover the similarities and differences among this span in age and even generation. While I felt for the most part totally comfortable with everyone, mostly what I did notice was the energy level – or lack thereof, in my case. This could have been either age related or fitness related. Not being able to stay up with the late night party crowd, I would be the first to retire back to my hotel room – a room which was on the fourth floor of a quaint little Otel, 
up sixty-four stairs rising in a steep, narrow, tight spiral (sixty-six going back down to the lobby – figure that one out…). There was no lift. For the first six days or so I could make it up to level two before my legs would start to go into spasm and I would have to stop to breathe while my heart was crashing around all the way up to my skull. By the last few days I did manage to get to level three and a half before that would occur. Seeing the woman who cleaned the rooms bounding up the stairs with no problem made me feel out of shape and old. I would pretend it was a Stairmaster as I steadily ascended. I was under the illusion I was dropping pounds by the day. (Upon arriving home, I find I weigh exactly the same). I will say since I am home I practically levitate up my own fifteen measly stairs.
Where I stayed the roads were mostly paved with cobblestones and were steep, narrow and hilly – the closest I can compare it to in the U.S. is San Francisco, and it really isn’t even quite like that. Whenever we would break out into various groups of people for impromptu exploration, that is when I would notice everyone else was zipping up these hills and I was working hard to keep up while trying to look nonchalant, hoping that I was not getting Tomato Face.
There were other issues to navigate. I have a serious hearing loss, which heartbreakingly occurred when I was still a young mother . I don’t think I have mentioned this anywhere in my blog before, but I do. There are things I can here quite clearly, some sounds which are distorted, and there are some sounds I don’t hear at all anymore (thus taking up the drum vs. another instrument). This presented a challenge on many levels during the trip. Mostly the struggle involved basic conversation among the other participants, many who were from a number of other countries and spoke English as their second language. Trying to catch and decipher the jokes and learn 
about my new friends and their lives, to be part of things, was at times daunting and exhausting. Having enough trouble hearing English, trying to communicate in Turkish was interesting. I carried around a small phrase book in which I pointed out words in as much as attempted to say, often pantomiming rather than speaking. When all else failed, I had a little note to show that said I could not hear well (Benim işitme pek iyi değil). This was especially helpful in the hotel and airport, as well as with merchants. People were understanding and kind. Because I cannot hear a motorcycle or taxi roaring up behind me, a couple of these younger friends also took me under their wing (unasked) and steered me across streets of insane traffic madness. I felt like an old granny as they looped their arms through mine and rushed me across. I am not that old, really!!! But I was glad for their concern and support.
Along with visiting the tourist sites like The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofya), savoring locum (Turkish delight) at the original location in the Sultanahmet district, and playing music, of course, there was a small list of experiences I wanted to do and managed to accomplish:
A few confirmations, discoveries and self-discoveries on this trip:
Travel afar is imminent and suddenly I have become totally dysfunctional. Once upon a time I threw a few scant items in a backpack a few hours before leaving and travelled to the other side of the world with open-ended plans. Why can’t I do that now?
From the backpack I graduated to the overhead carry-on and it’s pretty much always been that way since. I have always packed efficiently (have managed to do a tour of Europe with just what was in my carry-on suitcase) and try to adopt the business person’s method of traveling practical and light. As a matter of fact, when I have seen people in the airport waiting to check in with all their Stuff, I have silently scoffed. But now I am going on a ten-day trip via a very long flight and I am suddenly paralyzed with indecision. I am assuming this slight bit of insanity has come with age. I have become one of those people who I secretly mocked. I don’t want to leave anything out, just in case…..
Because I am carrying an instrument on the plane with me (this is a musical adventure), it means having to check my bag. Since I have to do this anyway, I made the decision to use the “next size up” suitcase. You would think it would have lots of extra space (for bringing Stuff back home). However, my open suitcase has been sitting on the floor in
the next room for the last week and a half (at least), where things have rotated in and out of it, chosen and then discarded. What’s worse, it is filled up to the very top. What every happened to the free-spirited me?
Five pairs of pants? Nine shirts? Four pairs of pants? Five shirts? Long sleeve or short? What if I get cold? Do I really want to bring a sweatshirt and a sweater… just in case? Should I bring a fleece? What about a raincoat? Layers? How many layers? Should I bring just sneakers or should I add shoes just in case? What if I need to dress up? Am I bringing too much stuff? It’s ridiculous and it’s gotten out of control.
Then there is the carry-on backpack. Something to read. Headphones for music or movie. A little neck pillow. Snacks, just in case the airline food doesn’t cut it or just in case we get delayed. Little bottles of travel items to hold me over just in case my suitcase gets lost. In addition, I also have a little zip bag filled with every kind of medication for every possible malady I can imagine or have ever had in my entire life…. just in case.
Tomorrow morning I will take it all out of the suitcase again, lay it out on the floor, do some difficult elimination and then re-pack it yet again. I’m off on a what I anticipate could be a grand adventure. I am hoping on my return that Spring will be in full swing. I’ll write when I get back…………..
In the wake of such disaster as has occurred and continues to occur in Japan, most other issues suddenly become less significant and actually trite by comparison. The physical shock that has radiated out from Sendai and beyond also translates into a psychic shock felt by humanity worldwide. It is difficult to focus on other issues without returning back to an awareness of the tremor within and around the edges of our own consciousness, as if we feel the vibrations of the psychic human cry emanating after a disaster of such magnitude.
We are so small. In all our technology, our achievements, our self-aggrandizement and introspection….. in all our largeness, we are so very small in perspective to the power of the earth and of the universe. It is boggling to watch from afar. To be there, unfathomable. The relentless news videos of such destruction from the quake, followed by a twenty-three foot wave hurtling six miles into towns at jet speed…..it is mind-blowing. The collective helplessness and fear as we watch explosions and smoke pour from the nuclear reactors recalls the same feeling of dread as we watched video streams of the oil spill from the broken well in the Florida Gulf. And yet, diminutive as we are in relation to the magnitude of the disaster, as reports will continue to pour forth over the upcoming days I believe there will be stories of the largeness within mankind, again shifting the perspective.
How can we help from here? On the physical plane, donations to disaster relief. That, and to perhaps embrace these traumatic, emotional aftershocks and return them with our own outpouring waves of caring, strength, prayers and love. 
There is a woman in a Subaru at the traffic light. Bill Wyman’s bass from the RollingStones “Gimme Shelter” is booming through the speakers and she is singing Merry Clayton’s legendary screaming harmony to Mick Jagger at the top of her lungs, oblivious of anyone who might see her. She’s making these rock star faces as she sings and is shaking her head around. She plays a little Keith Richards air guitar. She has sunglasses on and this wild ponytail of crazy hair pulled high at the top of her head which is sticking up like the spray from a fountain, sort of like a Cockatiel. On closer inspection, she’s not especially young. She looks at least middle-aged, if not older. As a matter of fact, her hair is white.
The woman in the Subaru – a Subaru wagon no less – is me, and I am on my way home from work.
Sometimes I just can’t help myself. Lately, when this feeling comes over me (and it often happens in the morning as well as any other time) I will periodically check to make sure that my cell phone has not accidentally dialed someone (like my boss) who could then be receiving a ten minute recording of something incredibly embarrassing that might someday be used as leverage. I also try to check my speed while this is happening, because being a rock star in the car seems to also correspond with being a lead-foot on the gas pedal, at least for me. I have to watch that.
what the Hairbrush Diva sees in the mirror....
The truth is, I am a Hairbrush Diva. I spent my youth belting it out with Patti Smith, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick and Aretha Franklin, standing there in front of the mirror and using my hairbrush as a microphone. With such incredible, raw power in their voices, how could you feel anything but powerful yourself while emulating them? OK, not that I did it especially very well, mind you, but it’s the emotion that counts when you are doing the diva-in-the-mirror routine.
The Hairbrush Diva thing is not just limited to singing though, and it’s not just limited to women. I had a few Jim Morrison and Joe Cocker moves down, have done a little Roger Daltry and even my version of a Bob Dylan monotone. I also play a whole lot of air guitar. Carlos Santana, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton leads; some bass lines that Noel Redding did with the Jimi Hendrix Experience or a little of John Entwhistle with The Who, among others. More contemporary stuff too, but I really am attached to the original rock greats. I know this dates me. I don’t care, I am a Diva in my own mind……
At one point, as part of my Bucket List, I actually started recording with an incredibly patient and encouraging musician friend, who joked that we should make an album and call it Hairbrush Diva (actually, I think there might be a group called The Hairbrush Divas, but, whatever…); he had some great ideas. The fact is, I really can’t sing very well anymore, not that I ever did. We had a lot of fun with it, but it didn’t go anywhere…. I think it was almost as much fun just to think about it – the fantasy was a pretty entertaining ride, maybe more entertaining than the reality.
So….my secret is out. That might be me flying past you in the left lane, drumming on the steering wheel to Baba O’Reilly…… I guess it’s true that you’re never to old to rock and roll……
I ventured out to the mall the other night in search of a purse with lots of compartments and zippers so you can find all your stuff easily. Of course, I got side-tracked and ended up on a fruitless quest for some of those longish type shirts that will cover your rear end. They seemed to be in style last year but suddenly I am not seeing them around as much now. Failing at that diversion, I ended up trying on some yoga pants. Stripped down to the basics, I suddenly saw what that ruthless dressing room mirror reflected back at me…..
A SharPei. 
I am speechless.
The interior of funeral homes generally look tacky to me. I have yet to experience one that is totally tasteful (in my opinion), although I will say one of the wakes I attended last week was in a lovely old Victorian house which had been redone true to the period, complete with knickknacks in the wooden book cases of the former livingroom where the departed was laid out. But generally, fake ionic columns, creepy torchiere floor lamps and maroon velvet are serious cheese. What’s with all the maroon velvet? Who designated heavy velvet upholstery and drapes as the official decor in the Waiting Room Before the Final Destination? As if the situation is not depressing enough. During the in-between time when not giving condolences or socializing but just sitting there reverently for a respectable amount of time, I tend to look around at the decor.
What I noticed during the last three wakes I attended was that the artwork on the walls of the first funeral parlor had paintings of Botticelli type angels in ornate frames. The second one had pictures that depicted little blonde children praying and rosy-cheeked angels waiting to escort the deceased to their heavenly rewards. The first two people waked had been white. For the third wake, the person was black. Subsequently, the third funeral home viewing room was decorated with peaceful paintings of little brown children waiting by the river to be baptised and families in prayer. The angels in the paintings were also brown. Of course, this makes perfect sense, but it got me thinking about the color of angels. 
I have met a few people who I am sure were angels in disguise. I think they walk among us and no two are the same. And when a new baby comes into the world, it is almost as if they have just shed their wings moments before arrival. But the classic, ethereal depiction of angels – who is to say what the color of angels really is? I would like to think maybe the angels, with wings of iridescence, are sort of a transparent gold, and glittery silver…and blue. A universal, Everyman’s angel. I love that Krishna is blue. A manifestation of the sky and the ocean, a color of depth, purity and calmness. As I sat there, inhaling the scent of refrigerated lilies, I thought if you are going to assign a color to something like an angel, which is a presence that you feel, shouldn’t it be the serenity of blue?
On my commute to and from work I sometimes call into radio contests trying to win tickets to concerts and events. I have my Blue Tooth on and if there is something that interests me, I make a call. “Trying” is the operative word here though, because I never get through. There is one particular venue that I have been attempting to win tickets for over the last two years with no luck. Two entire years. I never call fast enough. There must be scores of people sitting out there with their fingers poised on their phone buttons, just waiting for that crucial fraction of a second to get their call through and win. I am slow on the draw and I am always met with a busy signal. That is, except once.
That one time, I could hardly believe it when the DJ picked up the phone and said “Congratulations, you’re our winner! I felt an incredible rush. But as I began to give him my identifying information, I happened to be passing through that zone-where-there-is-no-cell service, and the connection was broken. I could not believe it. I wanted to scream. I did scream. When I got through the dead zone, I kept calling back so I could say “It’s ME! The Winner! We lost our connection!” But the line was busy, and soon they were congratulating a different winner. I tried to rationalize that it was meant to be. Or that it was the Universe making a joke. But I was seriously bummed out.
Conversely, one evening last year, on the way home they announced free tickets for a concert happening which was not in my area, but I thought one of my kids might want to see the show. It was a strange moment; I took my time and everything seemed to go in slow motion. As s
oon as I hit “Send” I knew that it would be me. As I exited off the freeway and cruised down the ramp, they answered my call and told me I had won Chrissy Hynde and the Pretenders tickets. I wasn’t the one going to the show, but it was still exciting, and it was a first.
Yesterday morning I found the radio was left set to a station that I don’t usually listen to, one that The Significant Other had turned on. As I was just about to change it, they announced free tickets for a show to Caller Number Three. I was heading towards the no-cell-service-zone again, but my hand automatically reached for the phone. I could not stop myself. As I pushed “Send”, I suddenly realized I was not even going to be home this weekend to see the show. I also knew with absolute certainty that I was going to win these tickets for a show that I could not see. The line rang. And I was Caller Number Three.
I passed the tickets on to a friend.
Last night I dreamed that I was looking out the window at a very tall tree which stood in a field. A feeling came over me that the tree was going to fall down. I knew that it would, I was totally sure, and then it did. I watched the tree spontaneously topple over. It made a loud, aching sound as it slowly slanted towards the earth. It was very strange to watch. Instead of coming up by the roots, it fell rather as if sawed off at the base. There appeared to be no one in sight who had cut the tree. As it was coming down, I yelled out into the house “Did you see that?”, but there wasn’t anyone else around to witness it and I was met with silence. It was like being Caller Number Three with nobody to share it with. Then I woke up.
Two wakes and a birthday party in one week. It’s enough to really give you pause for thought. One woman was the mother of a co-worker. The other one was a neighbor, not much older than I am now. A friend’s father also just passed this week, and I came to work to discover a coworker’s husband has also died. February has certainly gone out with a lot of loss and change. So it was with a sort of irony that I found myself remembering the life of the departed in the morning and that very evening heading off to a birthday party to celebrate the ongoing of the living. Yin. Yang. 
I met my friend K about thirty-six years ago. We did the math the other night during her party. Then we looked at each other and screamed. This does not sound like a real number to me when referencing relationships. It seems so ancient, yet as clear as yesterday. We were lean, leggy women with any possibility waiting to unfold before us. We did not appreciate how cute we actually were back then, always finding the flaws. We hitched our lives onto musicians and lived the perks and pitfalls that tend to ensue in that realm. We moved around a bit, we had our children, we divorced, we had other relationships that blew up in our faces, we kept moving. Throughout this time we have touched base and had a connection to each other’s lives.
K is a very attractive woman. She also has eyes very much like my mother, who was also quite beautiful. I find this fact somewhat haunting and pleasant at the same time. It triggers many pauses and reflections. Whenever I see K, although I can see the obvious changes of age, she tends to still look the same to me because I am seeing her twenty-something self through my twenty year old eyes. She never appears especially “old”. This tends to be the case with most of the friends I have maintained over the long haul.
Her daughter, a wild mustang of a young woman – strong willed, pretty and talented, hosted the birthday party for her mom, inviting both old and new frien
ds to a dinner celebration in her honor. I watched the mother/daughter interaction – their body language, the way they moved around each other, their inherited mannerisms, the way they looked at each other….their dance. Seeing this young woman together in the same space as her mother, so similar and yet not the same, the contrast suddenly manifested itself as quite clear. Suddenly I saw the “outer” K, and then myself, for the true age in years that we have become, parallel to our timelessness. Another piece of who we are. It was a brief moment of dawning comprehension and I actually felt our place in time make a shift. It really is all relative.
Finding out someone has hit your car and taken off is an upsetting and enraging experience. A couple of weeks ago, my daughter called to tell me that she came out of work to find that someone had hit the side view mirror holder on her car (my car), breaking the part of the body that actually holds the mirror. The car is not new and does not have collision on it. While this was not major damage, it was disheartening for her to find this and for me to hear about it, and I felt saddened.
Trumping that event, this morning my nephew came out of his house to find someone had actually skid/driven off the road and hit his car which was parked i
n his own driveway, with such force that it knocked the car clear across the yard. Witnesses saw two men get out to look at the destruction, then quickly get into their own car (which I seriously hope was equally as damaged) and speed away before they could be stopped. My nephew’s car was totalled. Because it is not a new car, he does not have collision insurance on it and will now have to rent a vehicle to get to school and work while searching for another vehicle, which he cannot afford.
I think people who do things like that are scum. I am sorry, but I feel that way. They are scum, and if there is such a thing as Karma, I hope it is coming around in spades to those who do things like this to others. I have been a victim of this variety of dishonesty and scummy-ness myself twice already. The first time I was house-sitting and came outside in the morning (the morning after St. Patrick’s day,as if that might explain it) to find that our Chevy, which had been parked in front of the house, had been hit so hard that the entire driver’s side, from front to rear, had been smashed in. I don’t know how it is that we didn’t hear it – possibly because we were sleeping in a room facing the back. I recall standing out in the road, on the edge of tears and somewhat in shock, looking at that ruined car. The damage was incredible and the car was totalled. This was not an incident where someone “wasn’t sure” if they had “tapped” the other car. They hit the car with tremendous force and took off. No note was left – nothing – and our financial situation at the time did not warrant being able to afford another vehicle.
We had no choice but to continue to drive that car in the condition it was in by bending the metal off the
wheels and prying the doors out with a crowbar, and trying to patch the undercarriage of the car as best as possible. Due to the impact, it was left a pathetic, creaky eye-sore and anuisance to get in and out of. The damage was so severe that pieces of the car continued to drop off at any given time, earning it the nickname “Skylab”. We drove Skylab for another couple of years until it would not pass inspection due to the rust that set in following the accident. When I think back on that situation years later, it still can make me angry.
The second time it happened, I came out of the supermarket to find the rear door and panel by the gas tank on my one year old Toyota (still brand new in my mind) had been hit and creased in. Once again, no note or message left. It is an incredibly violating experience.
When these things occur, I feel emotionally hurt. Not just because someone has been so inconsiderate and unkind after inflicting damage on my property, which is in essence damage to me, but because it invokes a lack of faith in mankind which I find particularly painful. It is a feeling that causes me to mistrust and dislike people, not a good feeling. It is times like this where I want to go back to the “Leave It To Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” world, a time when people appeared to have a conscience, appeared to be more decent and honest. Actually, a time when you didn’t even have to lock your car, or even your house for that matter. A era long past that is as ancient now as the typewriter and the dial telephone. Very sobering.
She came walking into the Yoga I class tonight leading with her chest, the small of her back slightly arched, wearing a teeny tiny yoga tank top and perfectly fitting yoga pants clinging to her tight little yoga butt. Even though there was plenty of space in the room, she made her way right up to the very front and unrolled her mat directly in front of mine. After tossing around her thick, waist-length blonde hair a couple of times, she twisted it up in a neat knot upon her head and began to stretch out, exhibiting some rather impressive flexibility. Although I tried to focus on my own practice, she was distracting, and it was almost impossible not to notice.
She was able to raise herself way up high in the Cobra pose (Bhujangasana). Her Bow pose (Dhanurasana) looked like a perfect rocking boat. Her Triangle pose (Trikonasana) was quite aligned. About ten minutes before Final Relaxation (Savasana), she released her hair from its moorings and shook it around a few more times, which seemed as if for effect. After class she rolled up her berry-colored mat, threw back her shoulders, pulled in her already flat stomach, tossed her hair around yet again and just stood there for a moment or two with a self-satisfied look – I would call it the Notice-me pose (Egocentrasana). And then she left.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I am not supposed to notice, and certainly not to care. I know I am supposed to keep my mind clear. She probably just came to this particular class to keep up with her own practice, and I will say I did admire what I saw. But I have to tell you, what I really was wondering – did she come to Yoga I to strut her stuff to the mixture of newbies, inflexibles, the overweight and the middle-aged people who come to this class? I was questioning why she wasn’t in Yoga II or Vinyasa Flow, or one of the more advanced and challenging classes. I was considering if, in a way, her presence was meant as a challenge to my own ego, and if I should explore that. I was speculating if she was going to come back next week. I was kind of hoping that she wouldn’t…and that she would.
Perhaps the Universe placed her there meant for admiration or for inspiration…… or as a taunt. I meditated on that for bit…….and then I let it go……
Adjusting from a rural/exurb environment to a small city has been a very big head realignment for me. There are many things I have had trouble embracing about relocating into the House of the Significant Other, but the one thing this urban scene has going for it is the variety of local restaurants. Being a foodie of sorts, this perk has definitely helped with the transition.
The idea originally came up one November a couple of years back, while sitting in the new Afghan restaurant our neighbor had just opened, eating some wonderful kebabs with a couple of friends. They just kept gushing, “This is so good! We should do this again! We should do this once a month!” The Significant Other and I are not especially social people…..we hardly socialize at all. Given this, I
thought our gushing friend’s idea was terrific, and so we all decided to get together the following month. But when the next month rolled around and I tried to set it up, I discovered this was just lip service, because every weekend was met with varied excuses. The month following that produced only more of the same vapid response. Finally, I gave up asking. It was really too bad, because meeting friends over food, especially people you don’t have a chance to see often when life just seems to get in the way, or especially when you tend to avoid social situations, is a rather nice connection I think. It was an idea that was shot down before it began. I was disappointed, but I have to say I think it’s their loss.
Fortunately, the idea was revived with some very good, not-very-social friends who are into maintaining those connections and are also serious foodies who are up for monthly restaurant exploration and a little hanging out. We all boldly came out of our shells to meet on a fairly regular basis. And so The Dinner Club seems to have been born after all.
Afghan Kebab House. French Bistro. Northern Italian. Neapolitan Italian. Seafood. 
Classic American. Nouveau Cuisine. Japanese sushi. Thai/Chinese fusion. Indian. Tapas bar. The list of what is out there and a mere few blocks away is impressive. Some of these places we have returned to, some we have decided not to return to, and some are yet to be discovered. We have visited both the established and the brand new ventures. A routine seems to be evolving.
Dinner Club has occurred about once a month on a Saturday night, between 6:00 and 6:30pm, when our friends arrive. A few days before this, we decide what kind of food we might want, banter around some ideas, and then I will make the reservation. I don’t know what goes on at their place in the hours prior to their leaving, but at our house it is an incentive to tidy up. Significant Other will usually have worked that day and will often get home less than an hour beforehand. He will be tired but hungry. He will retreat to his Man-Cave, where he will lie in front of the television, beached like a walrus on the couch. I will have to prompt him to put on a clean shirt. 
Our friends will arrive when they say they will, almost always upbeat, and sometimes, while not expected, we often have some sort of cool little surprise for each other; a CD of music just discovered, a book to share, a project in the works to show, some chocolate, some cuttings from a plant. It could be anything, or nothing too. We exchange pleasantries, drink some ice water or hot tea, and then we will inevitably stand there and wait for the SO to put on his shoes at the very last-minute before we head out the door to make dinner by 7:00pm.
We have made some discoveries. We have realized that 7:00pm on a Saturday night guarantees a crowded place. We have tried to adjust the time but we can’t pull it together to do that, so this is what it is. We have found that some of these restaurants are 
acoustically uncomfortable and we have decided the noise level is too much, so in spite of the good food, we will not be back to those – at least not at that busy hour. My friend tells me that there is actually an acoustic rating given by restaurant reviewers, but I don’t think this feature is occurring in our area yet, although I think it is a wonderful idea. We have discovered a couple of restaurants that are expensive but worth it, and some that are not.
We are in search of the economical also, but often we end up pigging out on the appetizers, and then at least two – sometimes three of us, will order a drink, so we usually spend more than we expect. At the end of the meal we will say we are too full for dessert and often end getting one anyway, or at least splitting one or two between us.
We are food critics in our own minds. We rate the calamari and the tiramisu. We discuss
the speed of service, the presentation, our waiter/waitress, even the chef or the owner if they make an appearance. We note the decor and ambiance. We chat about other stuff. We decided if it was a success and if we should return some other time.
Afterwards, on the way to the car, two of the four will stop outside the restaurant for a quick smoke. The other two who don’t smoke will always make a little comment about that when they join them. We will laugh. Then we will head back to the house where we will hang out in the front room and relax. We usually find ourselves in the same seating for some reason. Inevitably, the SO will eventually get quieter and quieter until he starts to nod off and the evening winds to a close.
I look forward to Dinner Club – both the food and the company. It sounds like such 
a suburban, middle-class thing to do, or at the very least a “grown-up” thing to do, but somehow when we get together, in many ways it is as if we are back in our twenties. At least it feels that way to me, and it is a good feeling. We have batted around some interests that might even expand our horizons; taking advantage of what the area has to offer beyond restaurants – things like historic tours, music, art.
Ironically, I don’t think any of us are overly social individuals. As a matter of fact, we jokingly refer to ourselves as The Anti-Socialites. Having this collective routine and steady contact fills that space for me. It gets all of us out in the world for a little while. Dinner Club for the Anti-Socialites. I would love to hear others share how they preserve their friendships and ties through distance and these busy times.
The parallel lines between my eyebrows appear to have deepened into a permanent number eleven, giving me a perpetual look of worry, concern or anger that I do not necessarily feel inside. I scrutinize these changes in the mirror with surprise and dismay. In addition to The Eleven, could it be that 
my cheeks seem to be sliding down? And then, there is the neck.
Over the years I have gone from a thin, dark-haired, wild-haired and somewhat funky woman to becoming the oldest woman in my office. Despite what I consider my contemporary look, the reality is that I am gray, tired, faded, no longer have a discernable waist, and am now surrounded by younger people with bright, clear eyes, fresh skin and highlighted hair, sporting cleavage and tattoos. It is at the same time both amusing
and sobering.
Wiping the steam from the bathroom mirror, I back up from the image and then get closer again – not quite in focus because of the middle-aged eyesight thing. The Significant Other says that the blurry vision one acquires in midlife is a natural built-in emergency feature – your close range view blurs as you get older so that when you look at your partner’s face it is just out of focus enough so you don’t see all age lines. Nature’s solution (unless the partner happens to have good vision and is shallow, in which case they run off with someone younger and line-free…isn’t that the way)? What a crappy joke that as your perceptions deepen and your awareness expands, the outside starts to crumble. That is the trade-off, or so we convince ourselves; because really, there is no 
option.
Not having ever been too seriously into make-up or beauty routines and generally having had an attitude about this kind of thing, it is with slight disappointment that I admit to now reaching for a hint of color, the moisturizers and “repair serums”. Always in search of the easy and affordable fix, a perusal of what’s out there reveals that the recent catchword on a lot of these products seems to be “Radical”, “Age Reversing” and “Age Defying”. The radical part of this really caught my eye (guess it’s a Boomer thing). The defying thing was also really so much me….and the reversal part – implying that you can “go back”…..well, I have caved to it.
This stuff is not cheap. And once you put on your glasses and read the fine print, they all tell you they can “reduce the appearance of fine lines”. I am not sure if this means that it will reduce the instances of new lines that were planning on defying you and making an appearance, or of it just is giving you the impression that your fine lines are disappearing, when in rea
lity it’s just an illusion. (I could get deep right now and say “age is just an illusion”, but we are dwelling on the superficial here anyway, so I won’t). In either case, shunning anything surgical or invasive out of sheer fear of a worse outcome, not to mention cost, I have embarked upon a quest for the magic cream that will eliminate The Eleven and possibly put my cheeks back wh
ere they used to be. Preferably this magic potion would also be something organic, although I realize that is really asking way more of what is already asking a lot.
The quest and experiment began with some pricey overnight retin-type stuff that turned my skin dry and red but did not reduce any appearances…..plus it irritated my eyes. Over the 
summer I explored using a famous brand-name product promoted by a famous, lovable and believable Boomer-age actress that contained an SPF 15 sunblock. The sunblock worked great but three-quarters into the jar the observation was that nothing radical had occurred and the appearance remained the same.
As luck would have it, one of my friends happens to work in the natural products section of a store and sometimes sends samples to try. This perk provided a very tiny vial of a European radical serum which promised to reduce the appearance of just about everything I had ever hoped to have vanish. It came in a fancy organic carrying case too. The label advised that the action 
of this serum would probably inflame your skin a little, but not to worry, as it is just the action of the organic magic blend doing its radically defiant thing. After using it for about a week or so, my kids did mention that Mom seemed to have “a glow” and looked less tired and a bit more youthful. It could have been the new dark circle concealer, but I think it might be because the magic serum is making my face swollen and the swelling subsequently filled in the “fine lines”. However, confusing the experiment, I simultaneously began using the sample of another brand, which also claimed to be organic and radically reverse any kind of “damage” that has occurred to your skin. The fancy European stuff in the tiny vial would cost $90 if I chose to buy 
it. The other radical organic stuff is about a third of that price and still more than I want to pay. It is not inflaming anything though, but the jury is still out on the results two months later.
Having had two very serious California beach sunburns and one very dangerous and stupid tanning booth overdose fiasco in my youth, I will freely admit there is some “damage”. The smile lines are getting deeper and there is that horrible word – crepe – starting around the eyes. And so, the Defiant Radical Reversal Regime has begun in full earnest. I have a Routine. It 
includes using a Radical face wash and methodically rubbing in the various Reversal creams in all the Defiant places…..especially into The Eleven. Although I have sped up the process, this is still time-consuming, and the only changes the The Significant Other has noted is that I am now taking up valuable bathroom time doing this. I scrutinize my face daily to see if the appearance of anything is being reduced. I still see fine lines. I still see crepe through all this crap on my face. The Eleven also remains, although I am not sure if the depth of The Eleven has lessened. Somehow I think, probably not.
I’m writing this post while eating lilac-colored chocolate covered sunflower seeds and waiting for the next episode of a series I watch once a week on television. I should probably turn on the set and try to figure out which station it is on ahead of time so I don’t miss the beginning of it. I go through this every week. I keep meaning to write myself a cheat sheet of my favorite few stations and tape it near the TV. I don’t need nine hundred channels, I only really need a few.
I have become one of those people who cannot navigate their television/dvd/cable box at the same time. What is the difference between “Power” and “On”? If you turn one on, the other goes off. Sometimes if you push one of them, all the lights on the remote start going crazy like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. If you turn both the box and the television off, the dvd player turns on and a little light says “Welcome…..Loading….”. Then you have to get up and turn off the dvd
player manually, which usually happens as I am falling asleep and don’t want to get up to turn it off. There are too many buttons on the remote the same way there are too many stations on the TV. And there are too many remotes. I really don’t think all this stuff is necessary, and yes, I get confused.
Other than that, I am kind of disconnected from everything at the moment. If you asked me what I did this weekend, I would have to say I don’t remember because it wasn’t particularly productive. And speaking of another kind of “stuff”, there are piles of stuff all over the house waiting to be dealt with and I am not dealing with any of it. I actually bought plastic tubs in order to organize things and haul them up to the attic (where there is more stuff), but I haven’t even gotten around that either, so everything is sitting in the hallway, including the tubs. The only neat spot in this house at the moment is the made bed, which is kind of an oasis.
I know George Carlin has written the ultimate discourse on “Stuff”, and funny as it is, it’s all true. The problem is that a lot of the stuff I have is Good Stuff, or Cool Stuff, and you just don’t want to throw out good, cool stuff. The other thing is that I have become the Keeper of Family Stuff, which means that I am storing things from deceased loved ones that I cannot bear to part with or feel obligated to pass on to future generations, and yet most of it is not doing me any good. I had hoped that I could pass down some of this Family Stuff to my children, but they seem to have little interest or emotional attachment to most of it. To me, it seems sort of disloyal to not make sure it keeps on. But they are not ready for more stuff anyway. As a matter of fact, a lot of their stuff is stored with me.
I occasionally get to a panic point regarding all the stuff around me, at which point I manage to get rid of some of it, but something always comes back to fill the space I just emptied…it appears to breed when I am not looking. I yearn for a serene white space, but then something interesting always appears. So I guess I can say I spent part of the weekend wor
rying about things, and Stuff was just one of those things.
How did I waste all these hours? I don’t know. I would not say I was luxuriating in any way. OK…I did manage to get some laundry done and cleaned the bathroom. The SO and I went grocery shopping. I made a fig/arugula/pear/goat cheese/rosemary pizza tonight, which had potential, except the crust ended up being too thick and it was a bit leaden instead of light. I threw out a huge accumulation of catalogs….and…well…..as I was throwing them out I looked at some of them first and got into my catalog day-dream mode so it took longer than it should have. I practiced playing my drum a little bit. I went out shopping for sneakers but met without success as every time I settled on a pair, they were out of my size. There were a lot of little errands. However, this does not add up to an entire weekend. If it does, then “time management” might be something to look at more closely.
I feel like I am going to have to make up for this lost weekend somehow and get really productive. That’s the goal. I will start with a list. Tomorrow.
There are two different cactus plants, two spider plants and an Air Fern “growing” in my office. The cacti are crammed into pots that are pathetically undersized. They are also missing most of their soil because they have been knocked off the window sill so many times and never refilled. The arm of one of them has actually been broken for months and yet continues to grow, propped up against the side of the pot. That cactus is very small, but it is about ten years old. I do not understand how it is these neglected plants continue to subsist, but they do. I suspect that the spider plants might be surviving because the woman in the next office gave them to me and I think she secretly waters them when I am not looking. In contrast, her office looks like a greenhouse in a botanical garden. It is filled with all types of plants with lush, healthy foliage. She cannot understand why I keep plants and am not taking care of them. She keeps giving me “easy” plants in hopes I will pick up the ball. Two of them seemed to be doing very well – the Air Fern and a cactus with remarkable yellow flowers.
The Air Fern – well, that gift from my botanical coworker was specifically aimed at the reputation I earned at work for
being a “Black Thumb”. The Air Fern is supposed to thrive on neglect, requiring no water, no light, nothing but air – and I will say, my Air Fern has been doing terrific under these conditions. It didn’t seem to grow very much but at least it has been alive. It was almost a year before we figured out that the Air Fern has not been growing at all as it is not even a real plant, but some sort of dyed coral in a pot. If that wasn’t bad enough, we also figured out that the beautiful yellow flowers that have remained ever in bloom on one cactus were actually fake flowers made of yellow paper and stuck on with glue!
I don’t know how I have deteriorated into this state of house plant neglect. It seems to go in cycles. Once upon a time my windows were like a verdant, flowering jungle – honest! Next thing I know they are curled up and brown and the plant police are giving me disapproving looks. I will also admit that I have deliberately committed planticide.
My first official houseplant was a Wandering Jew (Tradescantia or Spiderwort), originally by way of cuttings given to my mother by her bohemian artist 
friend named Billy Hoffman; thus the plant took on his name. I took the plant away with me to my college dorm, where it thrived and occasionally even flowered. It got huge. It was incredibly healthy. I gave cuttings away to all my friends and anyone who happened to admire “Billy”. I took Billy Hoffman every place I moved to subsequently. I schlepped Billy Hoffman across the country in a Volkswagen, packed between the dog, the guitars and the duffels. Billy has lived in three states, on two coasts, and many locations within those states. I kept Billy Hoffman for over fifteen years and it was a hardy, healthy plant.
One summer I decided to hang Billy H. out on the side porch of the carriage house we were living in (see Little Brown Bat). I don’t know what happened, but I guess since it was out of sight (nobody ever went out on the side porch) I really didn’t think much about watering it. When I did happen to notice that the plant was getting straggly, leaves were dropping and it clearly was drying out, I would reluctantly give it water, but something – and there are many theories here – caused me to start neglecting my plants. Billy H. wasn’t doing well, I knew I had to take care of it, I knew I had a long-time relationship with this plant, and yet I wasn’t fixing the problem. This was also occurring with a Christmas cactus that was hanging inside the main room of the house and a very large, old jade plant on the front porch– both which I had also had for years . I had to force myself to water them.
At the very end of autumn I noticed the remnants of Billy, straggled, limp and mostly dead, looking pathetic. I supposed I could have taken it inside, done a major cut-back, cleaned it up, fed it and revived it. But instead, I unhooked the hanging pot from the overhang and drop-kicked it over the railing of the porch into the woods below. Planticide. And to an old friend no less. I just didn’t want to deal with it. I don’t know what came over me. At that moment I didn’t care, and I think I was almost relieved for some reason. Of course, years later I came to regret that act, and sometimes I still do. Metaphor for a marriage, perhaps.
Since that time, this same phenomenon will occasionally occur. I managed to keep an Oncidium orchid going for nine years and then – Blam – I let it dry out. It was a beautiful plant with a spray of flowers like a cloud of yellow bees, although I will admit it did not take well to
the last two moves. Perhaps I started ignoring it because it wasn’t responding and I didn’t want to nurse it. Orchids are fussy anyway. Or perhaps it was time to break the connection of where it came from. The jade plant made it to over twenty years, and was a regular fixture, although there was not the same attachment as there had been to Billy Hoffman. The jade also needed to have more soil added, and I think it got some disease because all of a sudden it turned mushy and died. Gone.
The oldest plant in the house now is an Aloe I have had for decades. I have given pieces of it to almost everyone I know. This original grandmother of an Aloe is crammed into a pot and also needs more soil. I recently divided andshared some Clivia with a friend and one of my daughters, ensuring that someday maybe it will come back to me if this one doesn’t make it. After dividing, it actually flowered for the first time in a couple of years, so you see, I can still manage houseplants if I want to. I also have a very cool purple Oxalis and a couple of cacti that are bursting out of their pots. I hate wrestling with cactus; I just have been putting that chore of repotting them off. They do so well with neglect, but when you have to deal with them, they are really unpleasant to handle.
I did lose my Venus Fly Trap from the NY Botanical Gardens gift shop though. I was bummed about that. It was doing great until we had one of those visitors who lets their kid run wild and touch everything. She kept messing with the traps and within days they had all turned black. I kept hoping it was just going dormant and would revive, but I have been staring at a dead empty pot with a couple of shriveled, blackened little leaves for months now and it’s not looking good. I have a collection of dead plants in pots interspersed with the live ones. I will get to it eventually. Despite all this, I have managed to keep the plants on the home front going for the most part.
The ones at work are another story. I just cannot get excited about them, which probably is a direct reflection of my state of mind. The same coworker who so thoughtfully gave me the Air Fern and the cactus with the fake blooms on it found yet another perfect gift for “The Black Thumb” and presented me with a Resurrection Plant this past Christmas. The Resurrection Plant is a little brown tumbleweed that you water and
it “comes to life” by rehydrating and turning green as long as you keep it wet. If it dries out, you can rehydrate it yet another day. Supposedly you can do this over and over again for fifty years! It says so right on the box! However, my Resurrecti
on Plant has never even made it to the green stage. It has only gone from wet brown tumbleweed to a dried out brown tumbleweed and back to a wet brown one again. Over and over. I must have tried ten times already.
I have to wonder – if the condition of my plants reflects the state of my present mood/emotion/mind, could it work in reverse…..? If I tend all my plants to vibrant health, could this reflect on state of mind, which in turn might translate onto everything else in life?
daeja's view 