Surreality Bites

Monday – Baby Ducks and Observations from a Human Bridge

2008-07-07T20:45:36Z

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I offered my son his choice of places to visit yesterday. I told him we could visit the fountains or one of the two large parks with playground in our town. He didn't want any of those places; he wanted to visit the little playground in our neighborhood with its worn, shabby attractions and all the ducks he could feed. He is an ecologically minded young man who sees no reason to travel someplace by car when he can travel two blocks by little red wagon.

And did I mention there were ducks? Not just the same old ducks, either. There were dozens of new ducks to see, because we are in the middle of hatching season.

The ducks have been hatching for about six week now, and we have them in various sizes, from adolescent muscovies (predators have whittled this brood down to three):

To toddler mallards:

Mallard mothers, from what I've seen, are not as good at mothering as muscovy mothers. This is the first brood of baby mallards I've seen on the lake in a couple of years. After having witnessed the brutality of mallard mating, I wonder if it has anything to do with lingering resentment of the ritual that mama mallards must endure, that makes them fail to roost on the clutches of eggs they lay. If this is the case, I don't blame them one bit.

The newest, shiniest ducks we saw appeared to have just hatched. In fact, there was one unhatched egg still in the nest, and this mama muscovy thought her brood was still too tender to venture into the water.

She also thought my son and I were venturing a little too near, and she puffed up her chest and tried to look as threatening as she could.

"You're standing too close," I told my son, "You're scaring her."

"No, I not," he replied, offended by the suggestion. He doesn't understand how anything can be afraid of him, when he knows means no harm and only wants to look. I finally convinced him to give the stressed out mama some room.

Eventually, she went for a swim and left her babies to look after each other.

As far as I can see, there are 13. If the last egg is not a dud, there could be 14 by today.

After we had seen all the ducks and fed them the last of the stale bread I brought from home, we went back to the playground. On our way there, my son spied two pine trees that had grown together.

"What made this hole?" he demanded to know.

I explained that the trees had just grown that way, and that nothing had a made a hole. He decided the space in between the trees needed exploring, and tried to climb inside it. He was annoyed to discover that he didn't quite fit.

Back at the playground, I rolled up my jeans to try and catch a breeze on my legs for relief from the heat and humidity. Worn out from chasing ducks and little boys, I lay down inside the wooden playground structure and put up my feet.

"Hey! Your legs look like a bridge!" my son exclaimed.

"Do they?" I asked.

"Yes. I wanna climb on them."

So he did.

Some bridges are just nice places to sit and enjoy the view. Apparently, I am just such an apparatus.

After awhile, he decided to lie down and rest, as well.

I have often enjoyed the unique view that you get standing (or sitting) on a bridge, but yesterday I learned that as a bridge, you enjoy a slightly different but every bit as unique a view. As a bridge looking straight up, this is what I saw:

Looking forward a bit, I could see that the playground is enjoyed by teenagers as well as tikes.

Lovers and friends? Here, in a kid's playground? Good grief, who else had been lying in this exact same spot, and what had they been up to? I resolved to take a shower when I got home.

Finally, this is the view a bridge has when someone decides to climb down upon it from a higher platform:

What does a bridge say when a 32 pound boy steps on its stomach?

"Ooof!" just like you would if the same thing happened to you. For once, I was glad my son is the skinniest kid I know. If he were any heavier, the bridge might have responded to being stepped on by saying, "Ugh! Sweetie, please get mommy's cell phone so she can dial 9-1-1."

At last I tired of being a bridge, and I loaded up the little red wagon and pulled my little bridge climber, explorer, and student of all things duck-related back home for dinner.

All and all, it was a nice Sunday afternoon.

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Tuesday – Fountain at Market Street

2008-07-01T15:56:15Z

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If anyone was wondering about the girl at the fountain who had the audacity to stand to close to me and earn the contempt of my son, here she is, playing with the man whose mommy she tried to steal.

Can't you tell she's a troublemaker just by looking at her?

Using the flash on my camera captured better images of the kids, such as here:

But not using it captured the feel of the fountain better, and made the pictures a little more magical. Even the out of focus blur was more realiastic, because children at play don't sit still.

Needless to say, everyone in that picture is up past their bedtime.

At once point, my son came over and announced that he was tired.

"Are you ready to go home?" I asked him.

"No," he said, "Let's take a nap here."

Assuming we could get away with camping on the greens, I could see how it might be an appealing idea for a 3 year old.

There is an ice cream shop on Market Street, so we could eat all our meals there.

There is also a bookstore, so we could go there when we needed to read stories before bedtime (and it's open late, too).

We could play in the fountain all day, and enjoy the company of all the playmates we would ever need in it's waters. It's hard to imagine a better life. On the other hand, his father would probably miss us after while, and he's too cranky about things like sleeping on the ground.

"We can't stay here," I told him, "We have to go home. We can come back another time."

"Tomorrow?" he asked, "That could be great idea!"

A great idea is a great idea, even when it's not doable. "Soon," I told him, and wrapped him in a towel to stop him from shivering in the cool evening breeze.

He sighed, and took my hand to walk back to the car.

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Monday – Hey, Jealousy!

2008-06-30T19:19:27Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how my husband is not a jealous man, but the same can't be said for our 3 year old son.

He demonstrated this to me this weekend. We were at a local fountain designed specifically for children to run though. At night, the fountain lights up, and it looks like the kids are running through wet pillars of color.

This photo was taken last November, when my son was still
too leery of the water to run thought it and be in the picture.
But at least you get a visual idea of what I'm talking about.

We were there at twilight last Saturday, and the only other playing in the water was a little girl about half my son's age. He is just now getting past his reserve about playing with children he doesn't know (he's a cautious little guy), and for the most part he was very amicable toward this dimpled-kneed little lady. That is, until she did something he did not approve of one bit: she ran over and stood within a few inches of my legs. My son stopped playing and walked over to investigate what was going on.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to his little playmate, his voice filled with suspicion and scorn.

"It's a little girl," I told him.

"But what's he doing?" My son uses the pronouns that apply to him as a default for everyone. I've noticed little girls his age who refer to everyone as a "she," so I think it is indicative of a stage of his development rather than a sign of some sort of innate sexism.

"She's just standing next to me," I told him.

"But," he said, looking me in the eye, his voice firm, "You're not his mommy. You're my mommy." His little face was stern and also kind of worried, like there was a chance I might take a shine to another child and just bring her home, perhaps forgetting that the role of "child" in our household of three is already filled.

I heard the little girl's mother, sitting on a bench behind me, chuckle. At least she wasn't offended at hearing her daughter referred to as a that.

"I know I'm your mommy, Sweet Pea. Her mommy is sitting right over there," and I pointed to her so he could see the little interloper was accounted for.

He looked at the little girl, and then at her mother, and then back at me.

"Okay," he said at last, obviously satisfied that any confusion was resolved. He turned his attention back to the fountain, and the little girl followed suit.

It will only be a few years before I, his mother, am too embarrassing to be seen with. Before too long, my kisses will be wiped off his cheek and any attempts at public affection will be greeted with protest and horror. For now, though, I am the apple of his eye, and nobody else had better mess with me. If they do, he will quickly remind them that I am his mommy, not theirs, and they would do well to remember this before they try to snuggle up to my leg.

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Friday – Drawing People Crazy

2008-06-27T19:58:26Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how one of my quirky habits (and take my word for it when I tell you I have more than my fair share of them) drives certain people to distraction: I doodle during meetings. Not just a little, either. I will fill a page with doodles, and if the meeting is long enough, I'll start a second page. Certain people take this as a sign that I'm not paying attention. The truth is, it's the only way I can pay attention.

My Left Brain does not mind sitting and listening to other people talk, but my Right Brain gets bored very fast and demands a distraction. Whenever I've taken those "which side of your brain is dominant" tests, I usually score close to dead even. With no one side of my brain clearly in charge, the two sides constantly compete with each other to be the one running the show.

"Pssssssst!" my Right Brain, in charge of imagination, whimsy and feelings, says to my Left Brain, "Let's get out of here. I want to pretend we're on a pirate ship with Johnny Depp dressed up as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of The Caribbean."

"Shhhh!" my Left Brain, in charge of logic and all things practical, replies, "I can't. We have year-end projection to discuss. Someone might ask us for our opinion at any minute, and it won't look good if all we can say is, 'But why is there no rum?!'"

"That wasn't the kind of daydream I had in mind," Right Brain says. "I wanted to be tied up in the captain's quarters wearing nothing but a corset and offering to do whatever I needed to do to survive."

"Oh, good lord," Left Brain says. "You don't even need me for that."

"But I do," says Right Brain, "You're better at coming up with a reasonable plotline than I am. On my own, the story tends to meander. Come on, no one will miss us. They're talking about stuff us don't even work on right now."

"But the boss likes our insight," Left Brain says, "He always asks for it at the end...probably to make sure we're listening."

"But I wanna play, I wanna play, I wanna play..." Right brain starts chanting, until Left Brain gets fed up and says, "Here's a pen. Draw me a picture. Just be quiet so I can pay attention to what's going on."

So Right Brain does just that. I draw a flower, a simple daisy, and then I give it a woman's face. Then I draw swirls all around it, and star bursts, and geometric shapes. Occasionally, Left Brain will grab the pen and write down a key point, or make a note of something we are supposed to do after the meeting, but then Right Brain draws a sunshine around it and makes all the letters look like calligraphy. Left Brain tries to make an outline of what's being discussed, but right brain notices some empty space on the page and draws caricatures of my boss and all my co-workers in it. Still, as long as my Right Brain is drawing, is it quiet, which allows my Left Brain to not only pay attention to what is being said, but to quote back the dialog of it verbatim to anyone who asks.

Sometimes people comment on what I'm doing, and it's almost always a woman. Men notice but usually don't say anything. Certain women, however, are driven up the wall by my doodles. The first one to comment on it was a former boss who after a meeting pulled me aside and asked, "Were you bored by what I was saying?"

"No, of course not," I told her, surprised at the question.

"Then why were you drawing the whole time?" she asked, genuinely miffed.

I didn't have an answer, because I'd never thought about it before. I only knew that if I had not been drawing, I would not have been able to follow what she was saying at all. The doodling keeps me focused. Without a pen in my hand to ground me to the room, I'll crawl off into my head and all but disappear from the reality taking place outside of my own skull.

Not taking a pad to write on is not an option. I've tried it. I have been known to draw on my hands or arms, if that's all that's available. If I have jeans on, I'll draw on my clothes. I can't help it. At least the paper is dignified. If I don't have a pen at all, my fingers start to fidget and grope for a pen that isn't there, and I have to sit on my hands. People notice this about as much as they notice the drawing.

My co-worker, Dixie, told my current boss that my drawing bothers her.

"I've noticed it, too," he told me, "But I also noticed that whenever I ask you a question, you answer right away, so I'm okay about it. But Dixie has mentioned it to me."

I guess if I liked Dixie, I would try to explain to her why I do what I do. But since I don't like her at all, I think the next time we have a meeting I'll write in big letters that look like pillows and clouds and vines and calligraphy, all surrounded by butterflies and flowers, Why do you care what I'm writing here, anyway? Then I'll draw a caricature of Dixie with her eyes crossed and her finger up her nose, and one of me sticking out my tongue.

I wonder if she'll complain that to our boss, too?

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Wednesday – Peculiar People

2008-06-25T20:11:52Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that 3 year olds are peculiar people, and that I'm not the only one to have noticed this.

Back in March when I attended the Democratic Party convention in my county, one of the other delegates from my district was Alex. He was a tall, lean, soft spoken black guy with a 17-year-old daughter about to graduate high school. He showed off a picture of her in her prom dress, and we other delegates ooh-ed and ahh-ed over how pretty she was. The other two women delegates each had teenagers as well. I was the only one who still had a toddler at home. I had just called my father's house to check on my son, and learned that he had thrown a little tantrum because he wanted to go outside, but could not because when I had packed him up in the car that morning still in his pajamas, I forgot to bring his shoes. He had his socks on, but would not take them off.

"Three year olds are peculiar people," I told my fellow delegates.

"They sure are," Alex said, and told a story about his daughter at that age that his teenaged princess would probably be embarrassed to know he was sharing with a bunch of strangers. One Sunday morning when his daughter was 3, his wife had to work and Alex was put in charge of taking both their children to church.

"So I got my daughter all dressed up in her little dress," he said, "and I got her pretty little shoes on her, I got her hair done, and then when we were ready to go, she said, 'Daddy, I need to go pee pee.' Now, she was potty trained, so I asked her if she needed any help, and she said no. I took her to the bathroom and then left her in there to go do what she needed to do. After awhile she came out and told me she was done, so we went to church.

"When we got there I dropped her off in the nursery, and the ladies took her, and she didn't say anything. Then after church, I picked her up and they handed her back to me, and nobody said anything to me. Then I took her home, and my wife was there. I was all proud of myself for doing everything right and not messing anything up. You know, getting the kids to church and all, having them all dressed and looking nice like they should.

"So my daughter walks over to my wife and say, 'Mommy, look! Daddy took me to church without any panties on!' and she lifts up her dress up over her head to show her mother. Sure enough, she didn't have anything on under there."

Alex put his head in his hand and smiled. "My wife says, 'Why did you take to church without any panties?' Now, I dressed that child, and she had panties on her when I did. I didn't know that when she went to the backroom, she always took them off."

My son does the same thing. When the commodes comes up almost to your chest and you have scale it like a small mountain to get on top of it, having underwear around your ankles is an encumbrance you just don't need. Afterward, putting underwear back on can be tricky, what with the inside-out/outside-in issue and distinguishing which 2 of the 3 holes go around your legs and which one goes around your waist. Rather than go to the trouble to figure out these conundrums, many small children are content to leave their underwear on the floor if no one is around to insist they put them back on.

"My wife still doesn't let me live that down," he says. Apparently, the fact that he took his child to church only partially dressed one time proved to her that there are some things a man just can't be trusted to handle properly. No doubt, this has come in handy for him in the last 14 years. On countless occasions his wife has probably said, "Honey, can you....oh, wait. Never mind. I'll take care it of myself."

If he hasn't already, I think Alex should thank his daughter for the favor.

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Monday – Sweet Longings

2008-06-23T20:02:18Z

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Today, somebody brought cupcakes to the office and left them in the kitchen. White cupcakes with chocolate frosting. There they sat as I fixed my morning coffee, tempting all who walked by them. I'm a voyeur when it comes to sweets; I get off to looking at them, but I don't seriously consider indulging in the act of consumption. I imagine them touching my lips, imagine their sweetness, their texture, their decadence, and as I do this, my pulse and my breathing both quicken a bit.

Deserts are culinary pornography to me. Icing may as well be pasties and a g-string.

A guy walked into the kitchenette and eyed the tray on the counter.

"Cupcakes," he said.

"Uh, huh," I breathed, still awash in the ecstasy of standing so close to them. I had just carefully arranged them on the platter so they were more organized, so that the next person to take one would disturb their perfect pattern on the platter and give away that someone had given in to a crass act of self indulgence.

"Those look like they would be a diabetic's nightmare," he said, "At least, I would imagine."

"No," I said breathlessly, slowly shaking my head, "Not at all. Diabetics dream about them, and they're good dreams. Amazing dreams. They wake up happy. They aren't nightmares at all."

He looked at me doubtfully. He knows my face, but not my name. He had no idea I spoke from experience.

"Uhm, okay," he said, backing away from me a few steps. No woman should glow the way I was glowing when she talks about cupcakes. It's not normal.

I have been a diabetic since childhood, and I like looking at deserts. The windows at bakery counters, with pastries and pies and cookies displayed in all their glory, are like the windows of a peepshow for me. I'm not allowed to touch what's behind the glass, but I like to fantasize about it. The fantasy is better than the reality, anyway. I don't have to take an extra shot if I fantasize, I don't have to count any carbs or compensate in any way. It's harmless fun, looking at cupcakes. Sweet, wonderful, creamy, cupcakes that dissolve on my tongue and beg me to take another taste, if only in my dreams.

I walked out of the kitchen with a blissful smile on my face, and ran into the guy whose office is across from my cubical.

"Hi…" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Hi," I smiled back at him. I know how I looked. That dreamy smile, my flushed face, my voice as airy as Marilyn Monroe's: a woman in a state of arousal is hard to miss. There were cupcakes in the kitchen, and they had been teasing me in the way that cupcakes will. How could they not affect me? I'm only human, and forbidden fruit makes my mouth water every time.

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Friday – Death and Smoke Rings

2008-06-20T18:37:33Z

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"What, no questions?" the Carney asked me, "You usually got questions for me."

"Can't I just stop by to say hello? Isn't that what friends do?" I asked.

"I suppose," he drawled.

"Make a smoke ring, please," I told him, "I like those."

"Hang on," he said, "I got to let some people off this ride." I watched as the Ferris Wheel slowed to a stop, and a handful of people got out of their car. They were from all walks of life: a construction worker, a business man, a woman in blue jeans wearing gardening gloves, and a few others. One guy in his late teens or early twenties kept muttering, "My car. Oh, man, my car. How am I gonna fix this?" A pair of small children ran up an old woman standing off to the side who was beckoning to them. She bent down and introduced herself to them as their grandmother before taking their hands in her own and leading them off.

When they all had stepped through the gate next to the Carney and immediately disappeared from my view, he grinned and inhaled deeply on his cigarette, then leaned his head back and blew one of those amazing smoke rings of his. It started off small and dense, then grew larger as it rose above his head, but did not grow any less dense. After a few moments, the smoke began to flutter and writhe, then it turned into a ring of small gray morning doves that flew off in all directions.

"Cool," I said.

"Thought you'd like that," he said. "So what brings you to see me? I just been on your mind, baby girl?"

"Always," I said, "I thought you were coming for my Dad a few weeks ago, and it scared me to d… it scared the piss out of me. Then I saw my aunt on Saturday; she thinks you might be coming for her and she's giving all her things away. Then there's Cameron, who seems to be immune from you. They said that taking that tube out of his bile duct would kill him, but it didn't. They said that moving him from Tennessee back down to Texas would kill him, but it didn't. My aunt said he's in a nursing home down by her now, and he seems to be doing all right. It's like the boy is incapable of dying." Cameron is not a boy, exactly; he is now 33 years old. But the damage caused by about his brain aneurysm changed him in unexpected ways; his skin is still as soft and smooth as the day his brain "exploded," as him mother so elegantly put it, 15 years ago. It's like he asked for immortality, and received by means of a curse.

"He's a special case," the Carney said.

"No kidding. Any particular reason why?"

"No reason I can talk with you about. Rest assured, what's supposed to happen will happen in due time."

"What happens in due time often sucks," I said.

"Yup," he agreed, "I guess I can see why you'd feel that way."

"So if we all have to die..." I began.

"Not all. I don't have to," the Carney reminded me with a wink.

"I mean all people, and all puppies and kittens and birds and billy goats, why do we live in the first place? Wouldn't it be better to have never been born than to live our lives worrying about dying some day?"

"Puppies and kitten and birds and billy goats don't worry like that," he said.

"How do you know? Did you ask them?"

"I have."

"If that's true, then why to they get scared and run away when they think they're in danger?"

"They worry about it when it's looming up on them, but they don't stress out about it when they're perfectly safe like you people do."

"Hmmmm. Okay, I'll buy that. But why was I born to live worrying about death? What does life mean if it's just going to end?"

"It means what you make it mean, baby girl. You want it to matter, then make yourself matter."

I sighed. "I guess I'd like it better if I just mattered intrinsically. You know, without having to go to too much effort."

"You and everybody else," he said. "I think that's a basic design flaw with most people."

"You're probably right," I said and watched the Ferris Wheel revolve slowly as I chewed over what he'd said. "Hey, blow me another smoke ring. This time, I want parakeets."

The Carney raised his eyebrows at me.

"Please?"

He laughed, inhaled deeply, then shook his head and smiled before tipping it back and pursing his lips in an O.

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Wednesday – The Barmaid's Earrings

2008-06-18T20:11:56Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how an object's value increases from a small dollar amount to priceless when it has a good story to go with it. I came into the possession of several such objects this weekend.

Take, for example, the pair of earrings that my Aunt Jo gave me. They are small pearl stud earrings, circa 1950. They are a tiny luxury, but a luxury even I could afford to buy for myself if I wanted to. At least, they were until she told me where they came from. Now there is no way I could ever afford such earrings. They are a treasure handed from one hard working woman to another, and finally passed along to me wrapped in a priceless story.

"Here, I want you to have these earrings. I'm not sure, but I think they're real. At least, I was told they were real when they were given to me. And this necklace, too. It might be real, also, but I don't know. I think they are." My elderly aunt handed me a double stranded choker. I could tell at a glance that the pearls on the necklace were not real, because in places the coating was coming off of the glass on some of the beads. Nevertheless, I have a soft spot for vintage costume jewelry, which they obviously were, so this didn't bother me. The earrings looked different, though. They showed no such signs of wear to their surface. Modern stud pearl earrings all seem to have the posts drilled into the back, but these were in settings like you usually see on diamonds, with a circle of tiny arms gripping them around the sides.

"Let me tell you where I got these earrings," my aunt said. "When I was just starting out as a nurse, we had a barmaid come into the hospital. She'd been dancing on top of a table, and she fell off and broke her leg. Now, me, I didn't know any better, so I just treated her like anybody else. You know, I was nice to her and took care of her like I did all my patients." Apparently, not all the nurses did. They were respectable career women, and the barmaid was not.

"Anyway, she came back to the hospital later on and asked for me. She hands me this box and says, 'Here, I want you to have these.' She said one of the men who came to her bar had given them to her. He sent them all the way from Hawaii, and that they were real pearls. The hospital had rules about this kind of thing, though. I told her thank you, but I wasn't able to accept them, and I gave them back to her."

"But a week later they came in the mail for me, so I wound up with them anyway," my aunt said with a beaming smile. "Now I want you to have them."

"They're beautiful," I said, "And with a story like that to go with them, how could I say no?"

"How could you?" My aunt asked. "Doesn't the story just make them that much better?" It really did.

When I got home that evening with the trunk of my car loaded with treasures, including her wedding china, my grandmother's quilt, and an antique carnival glass butter dish, I took out the little jewelry box and looked at the earring. The tale of where they came from had already convinced of their worth, but I did something that I felt too self conscious to do in front of my aunt: I gently scraped one of the pearls across the surface of my front tooth. A glass pearl will feel smooth against your tooth, but an actual pearl feels as gritty as the sand the oyster used to make it.
I am pleased to report that the barmaid's gentleman friend did not lie to her.

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Friday – That's the Way They Wiggle

2008-06-13T19:52:05Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about The Wiggles. For those of you without a preschooler, The Wiggles are 4 Australian guys who are rock stars for the 5 and under set. They sing, they dance, they wear silly clothes, and the travel the world and put on concerts for their tiny fans and their parents (since the fans can't drive themselves to the shows).

The first time I saw these guys on TV, I wondered what would possess a grown man to decide that this was a great way to make a living. Even guys who kind of like other peoples' children only like them so much. Then, listening to the radio one morning, I learned the real reason they do what they do: they're in it for the MILFs.*

A local morning radio show has a segment where listeners called in to talk about any encounters they'd had with celebrities. One particular morning, they wanted to know if anyone had ever "hooked up" with a famous person.

"I made out with a Wiggle!" one young female caller gushed. She worked for a toy distributor and met what she described as "a hot guy with a cute Australian accent" at a trade show. Not having children herself, she didn't even realize who he was, but they snuck off and canoodled off and on all day.

"Is that all you did?" the DJ asked.

"Yeah. He was pushing for more, but, you know, we'd just met and all that. I mean, I thought about it. But I didn't know who he was at the time." She ended the call by saying that if she'd known he was a Wiggle, he probably could have cinched the deal. Apparently, fame is an aphrodisiac for some people, even if the person is only famous to preschoolers and their parents.

I went home that night and told Jeff about what I'd heard on the radio.

"It explains why these otherwise normal looking guys wear stupid clothes, play with a giant stuffed octopus, and sing songs about hot potatoes and cold spaghetti," I told my husband, "MILFs! Think about it: their prime audience is small children, who tend to have young mothers, and how do young women become mothers? By putting out! It makes perfect sense."

"Wow," Jeff said, "That's ingenious! I wish I'd thought about it when I was younger."

"They tour the world, they play major arenas in big cities, and they don't have to call the next day because she knows he was only in town for a gig. Those dogs, I bet they each have a MILF in every town."

"I wonder," Jeff mused, "If it's too late for me to make a career change?"

"It is," I told him. "At your age, you wouldn't get MILFs, you'd get their mothers. Besides, you can't sing or dance."

"You've got a point," said Jeff, "Nuts."

"You'll just have to stick with the MILF you've got at home," I told him.

"That's okay. She's my favorite one, anyways."

I leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "Sing me a song about hot potatoes and cold spaghetti, and maybe I'll let you have your way with me."

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* In case you are from anther plant or live in a monastery, M.I.L.F. stands for Mother's I'd Like to F…uhm…you know.

Wednesday – A Much Adored Curse

2008-06-11T20:30:54Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the times my mother cursed me by saying, "One of these days, you're going to have a kid just like you, and you'll understand how frustrating it is!"

A powerful magic dwells within mothers, and their curses carry great weight in the universe. I realized that this weekend when my 3-year-old son did something that reminded me of myself. I don't have my mother's temper, though, and though all the experts say I should have scolded him, I had to try very hard not to laugh.

When your child acts up do not laugh at his or her actions, no matter how "cute" or "funny" it may seem, the childrearing books all say, A child will interpret your laughter as approval, and it will only reinforce unwanted behaviors.

It's easy to say this stuff when you are typing up a book telling other people how to raise perfect angels. It's not so easy when you are dealing with a flesh and blood toddler who has just pointed out that you are an idiot without saying a word.

Recently, my son has decided that he likes picnics, and this means every weekend for the past few weeks I have been forced to eat one or two lunches outdoors. At his insistance, I spread a blanket under the shady oak tree in our backyard, drag out a couple of throw pillows from the couch (I hate sitting on tree roots), and lay out a spread of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apple slices, and chunks of cheese for us to feast on. The boy thinks this is the best way people could eat. I am not very fond of picnics myself, but I am fond of how excited he gets when we have one.

Last Saturday while we were on our picnic, he decided that he couldn't enjoy his sandwich lounging on a throw pillow and announced that he wanted his Thomas the Tank Engine pillow, instead. After some negotiation, we agreed that I would be the one to go in the house and get it because the desired pillow was last seen in the bedroom his father and I share, and I didn't want him to wake up his shift-working father by looking for it himself.

Our drinks were in a basket I'd used to take the food outside in, because its bottom was more secure than the lumpy ground under the blanket. It occurred to me that, due to the way my son plays so rambunctiously, there was a good chance I would come back to a soggy blanket and a wicker basket holding two overturned plastic cups.

"Don't touch this basket while I'm inside," I told my little boy as I stood up.

A serious look came over his small face. He looked me in the eye, then reached out with one finger that he delicately and deliberately laid on the handle of the basket. Still looking me in the eye, his finger still on the wicker handle, he stood there, daring me to react.

I was trying so hard not to smile that my face almost hurt. I understood him perfectly: he was touching the basket, and we could both plainly see that nothing bad was happening because of it. I, too, have always want to know why a rule existed, and have a hard time following the ones that don't make sense to me.

I sighed. "Okay, see the drinks in there? I don't want them to fall over and get spilled. Please don't pick the basket up or hit it with one of your toys, because if the drinks spill we won't have anything to drink and the blanket will get all wet. Understand?"

Satisfied, he nodded and took his finger off of the basket. I went inside the house to fetch his pillow, and returned to a basket that had not been moved or messed with.

My parents were old school; if I had done this as a child, I probably would have gotten spanked, and certainly would have gotten yelled at. I still remember being a child, though, and I remember the lesson I picked up was not blind obedience, but not to get caught touching the basket. I would have waited until the adult went inside, and just like my son I would have taken one finger and touched the basket while they weren't looking. A stupid rule is a stupid rule.

There is a school of thought that says I am too indulgent of a parent, and perhaps it's right. Perhaps I have no business raising a child when I, myself, am able to relate to his behaviors on a personal level. To those people, I say this: just wait until you're out of the room, because I am going to touch everything in there and rearrange the objects on your knick-knack shelf and write "dust me" on the windowsill with my finger, just because I want to. So nnnnyyyyah!

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Tuesday – A Leaf On the Wind

2008-06-10T22:35:18Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the day I first learned the Leslie's son had an aneurysm. It was spring of 1993, and I was a few weeks away from graduating from college at the age of 23, because I couldn't think of any way to put it off any more. I put a whole 6 years into getting that 4 year degree, because my father was willing to pay for it and because I still didn't know what I wanted to be or where I wanted to go in my life. To tell the truth, I still don't. Stalling, by taking a minimum class load and changing majors ever so often, in order to keep my diploma at bay was the best tactic I could come up with, but my scheme had just about run it's course.

I was born with brains and just enough charm to get me by, but these things could not make up for an appalling lack of ambition. I am one of those quaint, useless people born to follow where ever the wind blows me, like a small autumn leaf. When there is no wind, I lie on the ground and molder with all the other useless leaves.

I was alone in my college apartment sitting at the dining room table, when the phone rang. It was my kid sister-in-law, Pat, and she was almost hysterical.

"Your cousin Cameron had a brain aneurysm last night, and he's in the hospital in Houston and he's in a coma and they don't think he's going to make it," she said breathlessly.

"Oh my God," I said. Then, after a pause, I asked, "What's an aneurysm?"

Pat didn't know, either. "I think it's like bleeding on his brain or something," she said, "He's in a coma. They don't expect him to live. They told me your cousin Carol, his mom, is just beside herself." She sounded like she was going to cry, which was odd because she'd never met Cameron or his mother either one. She was 17 years old and she'd only been married to my oldest brother, Randy, for about 6 months (and wouldn't be married to him much longer than that). My 31-year-old brother had fallen in love with a child bride, much to our father's chagrin. Like most 17 years olds, Pat loved drama and since Cameron was now family she reacted to the tragedy like she had known him her whole life. It only occurs to me now that she and Cameron were the same age, but worlds apart. Pat was a small-town high-school drop out who married a man she barely know on a whim, because she never had much of a future to look forward to beyond being someone's -- anyone's -- wife. Cameron was an honor student looking forward to college in the fall, and his future was wide opened. At least, it was until he went to bed one night shortly before he was due to graduate and failed to wake up the next morning.

I felt for Cameron the kind of remote sadness you feel for a stranger because I didn't really know him. We'd played together as children at family gatherings, but the last time I'd seen him was at his grandfather's funeral 4 years before. I liked my Cousin Carol (as I still thought of Leslie at the time), but since she was almost 13 years older than me (and a 13 year age difference is an eternity when you are young), I wasn't that close to her, either.

Still, I knew I would need to down to Houston that weekend and put in an appearance to represent my branch of the extended family. My father wasn't going to do it, and neither were my brothers. I went because I was the daughter of Carol's Aunt Ruby, the one she had always turned to in her hour of need. I went because I know Leslie Carol would want my mother to cling to, but unfortunately my mom had been dead for 8 years and couldn't make it. I went to offer myself as a cheap, sorry substitute; a person with my mother's eyes, but none of the strength and wisdom that Leslie needed.

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That Saturday when I arrived at the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at the Methodist Hospital, Leslie was nowhere to be seen among the crowd gathered for Cameron's vigil. Only two people were allowed to visit Cameron in the ICU at any given time, and Leslie was at his side. I saw my aunts as well a lot of my cousins, including ones who had never liked Leslie and who Leslie despised right back. A few of these particular cousins lived for funerals and tragedies and they weren't about to miss this one, no matter how they felt about Cam's mother. My aunt Jo, Cam's grandmother, introduced me to her pastor and ladies from her church that were there to offer comfort.

"This is the one that got arrested," she told them with a smile, and they all smiled and told me they'd all heard all about me. It seemed pretty surreal to have a Baptist pastor and my aunt's matronly friends all speak so approving of my encounter with the Texas A&M campus police, but I guess my vengeance on my ex boyfriend and his adulterous paramour struck a moral high-note with them.

Cameron's father, Jack, came up, shook my hand and said he remembered me. I, on the other hand, barely recognized him: the scruffy guy who could never get his act together when he was married to my cousin had gone back to college and was now teaching at a community college himself, and fully looked the part of a graying scholar. A few of his students were with him, trying to offer support and maybe bolster their grade point averages in the process. The rest of the room was filled with Cameron's worried teenaged classmates.

I was talking with my Aunt Jo and her pastor when Leslie walked into the waiting room. My aunt Jo, whose face was full of warmth and love a moment before, turned to stone when she laid eyes on her daughter and she began to criticize Leslie for random inconsequential things. Leslie didn't seem to notice and blew her off, like she was used to this. In the coming years, I would learn how complex and strained the relationship between these two women was, but at that moment I was shocked at my aunt's coldness toward Leslie. It dawned on me of why Leslie had always clung to my mother instead of her own.

After a few minutes of enduring her mother's company, Leslie pulled me aside.

"Nina, let's get out of here, I need a cigarette, girl," she said in her husky drawl reminiscent of the late Janice Joplin. The she stopped, pointed to a pretty teenaged girl with long brown hair, and whispered, "See that girl? She doesn't need to be here. That one," she pointed to another pretty teenaged girl with long brown hair who looked a lot like the first one to me, "is Cam's girlfriend from school. The other one goes to a different school, and they didn't even know about each other until today." The two girls sat on opposite sides of the room hunched over in their misery, occasionally exchanging baleful glances.

"Come on," Leslie said, pulling me from the cramped waiting room. We took the elevator down to the ground floor, and Leslie headed toward a side door. We sat cross legged on a short wall next to the stairs while Leslie lit a cigarette. She was pumped up on adrenaline and a little crazed from lack of sleep.

"We aren't supposed to sitting here smoking," she said, "We're supposed to move like 20 feet away from the goddamned building. I dare anyone to come up and ask me to move. Let 'em try, Nina. I feel like I need to hurt someone right now, and anyone who wants to give me crap about needing a cigarette while my kid lays upstairs in a coma has it coming."

"Nina, this is the worst thing that's ever happened in my life; you have no idea." I really didn't, I and I didn't want to have one. "Everybody's trying to help me, but all they're doing is getting on my nerves. I swear I'm going to bash in the head of the next goddamned person who tells to 'let go and let God.' I know where they're getting all that shit, I've been through AA and I've done the whole 12 steps myself. I can quote those damn sayings backwards and forwards, but they don't apply here. I'm not letting go of him, he's my baby, goddamit. That's my kid up there whose brain exploded! How the hell am I supposed to let go? Fuck them."

"You know who I wish was here right now? Your mama, because she would know what to do. She'd know how to handle the doctors, who to talk to, how to fix this. I know she would. I really need her right now, Nina."

"I know," I said, not offended in the least that I wasn't able to offer Leslie what she needed. It was the whole reason I was there that day: to apologize that my mother could not be.

The sun was setting, I was being charged by the hour for parking, and I needed to leave. It was obvious that Leslie had enough people around her. In fact, she had more people than she needed.

"I have something for you," I told her, "it's not much, just a little thing." I handed her an envelope with a bulge in it.

"What is this?" she asked. "Is it something that will make me cry?"

I don't her I didn't think so, but that she could open it later. She tucked the envelope in her jacket. What it had inside was a letter from me, telling her I knew how much she loved my mom and saying I knew she would want her help right now. The bulge was a single stud earring – a little ruby that had belonged to her beloved Aunt Ruby. I had written that I hoped it might make her feel like my mother was there with her, at least in spirit.

She never mentioned the letter, and I never saw her wearing the stud. Months went by; Cameron came out of his coma, and for awhile he showed improvements on a regular basis, but that is a cruel joke of brain damage; tiny glimmers of who the person used to be appear in the beginning and offer false hope, but after awhile you realize that the glimmers are just embers of a fire that will never again burn like it did before. A few years went by, during which I heard about Leslie and Cam through the family grapevine.

Then the letters started coming from her, and then the phone calls. Through these comunication I grew to be close to her as I finished growing up. In the beginning, I reached out to her because my mother was not there and someone needed to help Leslie since she couldn't. I reached out because I was Ruby's daughter and Leslie was her protégé, and Leslie began reaching out to me for the same reason. I started off as a proxie for a mother figure, but eventually I grew into the position of a sister figure.

I am one of those quaint, useless people born to follow wherever the wind blows me, like a small autumn leaf. Leslie was a gale force wind that made me rise up a bit, to be what she needed in a friend and in a sister.

"You were one of her happy spots," her husband told me on the phone after she died this last December. When her own aneurysm happened, it was merciful and quick; she collapsed and was dead before she hit the floor. In the meantime, Cameron still lingers after 16 years. "She kept everything you ever sent her, and she'd read it over and over. She'd read it to me over and over. She say, 'Hey, here's something she wrote that I didn't notice before, listen to this,' and she'd read me whatever you'd written."

I guess my life has more meaning than I thought. It turns out I had a purpose but didn't know it until my intended task was over and done with. At one time in my life, I was a happy spot for someone who really needed one. Despite all my wasted talent and my lack of ambition, I have this one shining accomplishment to my name.

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Friday - Rusty's Wise Ex Girlfriend

2008-06-06T16:10:09Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about Mrs. Shepherd, my favorite of all my mother's friends when I was growing up. Like many of my mother's other friends, we knew her from church, but she was like no other lady at our church. A good decade younger than the other women my mother hung out with, Mrs. Shepherd was a tall, big-boned, bleach blond woman with a tattoo on her ankle who swore like a sailor. She said "sh*t" all the time, even at church, much to my mother's chagrin.

"I love that girl to death," my mother said more than once, "But sometimes I want to wash her mouth out with soap." My mother did not approve of swearing in general, especially not at church.

From the moment I met her, I was intrigued by Mrs. Shepherd's tattoo, which was a homemade one that said, "Rusty" in faded purplish-blue India ink. Mr. Shepherd's name was not Rusty. I asked my mother if I could ask Mrs. Shepherd who Rusty was, and she told me absolutely not, that it was none of my business.

Mrs. Shepherd was the second wife of Mr. Shepherd, who was a stocky, unassuming man with a receding hairline. He had grown children from his first marriage as well as two young children with his current Mrs. Shepherd. I'm not sure where he found her, but she was not from Texas. There is a breed of Texas woman who are bold and sassy, but Mrs. Shepherd was a more exotic brand of sass, without any of the addressing people as honey and sugar or excessive but sarcastic politeness that homegrown Texas sass would have exhibited. She talked loud, she laughed louder, and when she wanted her husband's attention she shouted, "Hey, Shepherd!" When she disagreed with anything he said, she would roll her eyes and say, "Sh*t!" I thought she was the coolest grownup I had ever met.

The memory of Mrs. Shepherd that stands most out in my mind happened in the springtime after my mother's death when I was 15. One Sunday morning, long after I thought I should have been past all of that, I slipped into a state of what is called "magical thinking." In the wake of grief, a person will become convinced at times that the loss never happened, that if they pretend it didn't, they can undo it. I was sitting alone in church that day; my father was an usher, my kid brother was sitting with his friends, and my best church buddy was on a trip with her family.

As the organ began to play and the choir prepared to walk down the church from the back up to the choir loft, I convinced myself that my mother would once again walk in with them, the way she had for my entire life up until she grew too ill. Maybe it was because of up the upcoming Mother's Day, or maybe it was because I had been watching other people interact with their mother's and it made me miss my own. Whatever the reason, I was certain I was going to see her, and I eagerly sat up and watched for her.

The organ played and the choir marched in and took their seats. Of course, my mother was not with them and I realized she would never be with them again. I felt tears begin to well in my eyes, so I slipped out the side of the church through the kitchen and out to the front porch, where I leaned my face against a brick pillar and began to sob.

A few moments later, I realized I had been followed. I looked up when I heard someone softly say my name, and Mrs. Shepherd pealed me off of the pillar and held me against her body, instead, where I proceeded to wet the front of her good Sunday dress with my tears. She didn't ask any questions, all she said was, "It's okay, sweetie. I know it's hard sometimes," as she held me tight.

After I stopped crying and composed myself, she made sure I was all right and we slipped back into the church to catch the tail end of the sermon. When the service was over she told my father that she and her husband were going to the medical center downtown to see his daughter's new baby that was born the day before, and she thought it would good if I went with them.

At the hospital, I remember being introduced to Mr. Shepherd's grown daughter, who I didn't know, and being shown the new baby. I had never touched a newborn before, and I was amazed at how soft her skin was; softer than down, softer than silk, softer than anything I had ever touched before in my life. I didn't know anything could feel that soft, much less human skin. Twenty years later, when I would first hold my own newborn son in my arms, I would not be as amazed at his softness as I was with Mrs. Shepherd's step-granddaughter when I traced my fingers over her tiny body as she lay sleeping in her bassinette. Something about touching that new human life that spring day filled me with enough amazement to ease my grief and lift me out of the depths of my melancholy.

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In my life, I have figured out a few things, but there are a lot of mysteries that still elude me. For example, I still don't know who Rusty was, and I still don't know how my mother's bold, brassy friend know that touching a new baby would help me realize that, in spite of all the hurt, life really does go on.

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Monday – A Royal Wedding at the Travis Country Courthouse

2008-06-02T18:31:49Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the fact that my friend, the Cajun Queen, got married the Friday before last. She notified me by sending an email with photos taken at the courthouse where it happened. This casual method of notification didn't hurt my feelings one bit, because I suspect she probably notified her parents the same way. She queen likes attention, but she doesn't like fuss. If the spotlight is going to be on her, it needs to be on her simply because she is fabulous, not because of anything her fabulous self is doing.

She didn't actually even say in the email that she tied the knot, at least not in so many words. The subject line of her email was "Mrs. L." The message it's self was an invitation to view an on-line photo album entitled "Wedding Day." The first photo shows her wearing a white mini dress and bright yellow high-healed sandals, sitting on a plastic chair in a stark civil-service type room. Her long legs are crossed, and in her hand she is holding two little red ring boxes from a jewelry store. She is smiling, but not beaming. She looks a little nervous to me.

The next picture shows the man who won the heart of the Cajun Queen, a truck driver from Baltimore that she met at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans in 2004, the year before Katrina tried to wash the city off the map (and ruined their plans to celebrate their one year dating anniversary, in the process). He is not a stereotypical trucker; he loves art and music and reading, and he adores the Cajun Queen. In the photo, he is standing in front of the windows at the courthouse under the word Criminal with his arms crossed over his chest. He does not look nervous at all; his eyes are bright and it appears he is trying hard not to smile too big, but is about to fail in his effort. He had been trying to talk her into this since shortly after they met.

The next photos are of their hands adorned with rings, of them smiling at each other, and of them kissing. There are a few of a tiny wedding cake (two tiers) sitting on what I recognize as the Queen's dining-room table, and another couple who I suppose were their witnesses and the only other people invited to this smallest of wedding receptions.

I emailed her back to let tell her congratulations, and asked when this had happened. She wrote back: Thank you :) I know we talked about you presiding* but it was a rush deal and no I'm not pregnant. (haha) Yesterday was the day. We had to rush because of the move to Pennsylvania and all the relo stuff I would have been screwed out of if we weren't married. I also had to get him on the deed of the house ASAP. We are a little crazy right now. How are things there? We're going to have some sort of small reception in Houston and [you all] are so invited. Here's 2 pics that you'll love...I'm still me!!! :)

The photos she send with this email showed her gripping the sides of a beer keg while two men held her legs in the air over it and a woman fed the nozzle directly into her mouth. The pictures put me at ease, and I am pleased to say that the Queen is still her royal self. A nice boy from Baltimore may have made an honest woman out of her, but that doesn't change the fact that a Cajun woman is the one creature in this world that can't be domesticated or tamed in any way.

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* Because I am an ordained Universal Life Minister, meaning I can legally perform weddings, if I wanted to. You can, too, by logging onto http://www.ulc.net/. It will take you about five minutes. No kidding.

Thursday – Back From the Dead

2008-05-29T18:38:38Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how my father had to get deathly ill in order for his once-favorite son to come back into his life. Visiting my father in the hospital this Sunday, I saw my middle brother, Russell, for the first time in over 8 years.

Tuesday of last week, my stepmother called me to let me know that my father was in the hospital with pneumonia. He'd been feeling poorly for some time, but last Monday night he began running a high fever and they went to the emergency room. I stopped by and saw him after work, and was stunned at how weak and frail he looked. For most of last week, I was worried sick about him even as I tried to keep up with the business of the training seminar was were doing at work. I considered calling my brother myself, but thought it wouldn't make any difference: he seemed to already consider my father and the rest of us dead.

My stepmother must have made the call.

"They both came by yesterday," my father told me from his hospital bed, before my brother arrived for a second visit. "Michele cried and said she was sorry. I don't know why. I guess this was mostly her fault, them not being around. She said if I was still feeling bad she would have her doctor refer me to someone. She'd got this Jewish doctor she really likes, and I guess he's a big deal and has some pull."

"I wouldn't recognize the kids if I saw them on the street," he said, handing me pictures of my nieces and nephew. Looking at the photos, I told him I wouldn't know them, either. My oldest niece was 11 the last time I saw her; now she's a freshman in college. Her brother was 9, and her baby sister 6; now they are both in high school.

A few minutes later, Russell entered the room, as casually as if it had only been a short time since we'd last seen each other. Us both being cut from the same piece of reserved Scandinavian cloth, neither of us made a big deal about the encounter. We barely spoke, really. Each of us nodded and said "hi" to the other when he entered the room. He did not ask about my husband, and I did not ask about his wife or children (though I was curious). I made the assumption that his re-entry into my father's life is a fragile thing, and I didn't want to risk shattering it by being too intrusive.

He smiled at my son, who (having uncommonly good instincts for a 3 years old) backed away and looked at his uncle warily from the safety found behind my legs.

"This is my son," I told my brother.

"Oh!" he said. He asked my son's name, and I told it to him. Three and half years ago, I mailed a birth announcement to his house; I guess it got tossed out with the junk mail, along with all my Christmas cards and the gifts I sent for his children. I also mailed him two invitations to his nephew's first birthday party – one to his house and one to his office – with a note begging him to contact our father and allow him to visit with his grandchildren; he did not respond.

After awhile my son began acting restless, and I made the decision to leave.

"Good to see you," I said, and put out my hand for my brother to shake.

"You, too," he said. We smiled the smile you give a stranger you have just met, but aren't feeling partial toward.

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When I called my father last night to check on him, I asked if Russell has been back. He hasn't; he works on the other side of town, so this is understandable.

"So, is all forgiven?" I asked, "Are we going to be killing any fatted calves here?"

"I don't think so, not yet," my father answered, "Let's give it awhile and see." He has not yet seen his grandchildren. He doesn't know what they've been told about him, and if they think we all stopped caring about them years ago when their parents cut us out of their lives.

My father is doing better should be coming home sometime tomorrow. I suspect that he won't be updating his will right away, though. It's going to take more than a couple visits to the hospital before my extended family sits down to eat veal and raise any toasts to this long, lost prodigal son.

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Tuesday - Stay Tuned: Regular Scheduled Postings will Resume Next Week

2008-05-20T16:24:49Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that I will be either off site or busy this week, and won't be doing any real posts.

On the other hand, I may have more photos of the Funeral Museum to post next week. It seems I didn’t get one of the eagle-shaped coffin, the crab-shaped coffin, or of the mock up of an old-timey embalming room last time. If I’m lucky, I may even get a chance to slip back into the mortician’s collage and get a shot of the heads in a glass case. I think that everyone will agree that the woman's head in the middle has a pretty face.

Thursday – Service For Almost Eight (times 2)

2008-05-15T19:28:57Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about my cousin Leslie. I got a call from her 82-year-old mother the other day, inviting me to come visit her. She wants to personally give away her things to insure that they don't wind up in the hands of Leslie's first husband. Her nursing-home-bound grandson, Cameron, is her next surviving kin, and his father is his next of kin. My aunt shudders at the thought of her ex son-in-law getting his hands on her wedding china or her prized doll collection. While I am not sure how much interest this man would have in such things, it means a lot to my aunt that he not get them.

"Now the china, it's a rose pattern, and I've got most of the pieces," my aunt told me. What she meant is that there is full service for 8, provided half the people leave early and won't want coffee afterward. "I'd like you to look at it, and see if you want it. It's nice, but if it doesn't suit your tastes, it won't hurt my feelings at all if you don't take it."

I don't have room for this box of china. My house is in a perpetual state of renovation, and Jeff and I already have boxes of dishes we don't use. In fact, I have a box of china that my mother-in-law gave us that at some point I labeled "China – Service for Almost 8." I don't remember what kind of pattern it is. Soon I will have service for almost 16.

I should decline the china my aunt is offering me. Still, when she asked me if I wanted the china that was given to her when she got married, I realized that Leslie would have been the one who would have gotten this china, if she were not dead.

"I would be honored to have them," I said. I want the china desperately. I don't want it because it belonged to my aunt, though I have a great deal of affection for her. I want it because it should have gone to Leslie. Leslie had no wedding china, as she eloped to begin her first two marriages, while her 3rd marriage was recognized by God, but never by any legal authority in this world. This is Leslie's china I am getting; the only set of china she ever counted on owning.

"I've got some other things I want to you look at, as well. I've got a quilt that your grandmother started and that I finished. She pieced it, you know, back in the 30's, and when it got passed along to me I put a backing on it and a border. It's not fancy, just a simple hand-stitched quilt, but I think it's sweet and your grandmother and I both worked on it."

The quilt is made from scraps of patterned flour sacks left over from the dresses my grandmother made for my mother and my aunts when they were little girls. During the Great Depression, flour companies sold their product in bags made of soft cotton in pretty prints, because the fabric could be used to make clothes for poor people who stretched every penny. They constantly changed the prints on the fabrics to encourage people to buy a lot of flour at once in order to get enough of the same pattern for a whole outfit.

I told my aunt I would love to have the quilt, as well. I have a similar, unfinished quilt of my grandmother's that was given to my mother that she, like my aunt, intended to finish. My mother died within a few years of her own mother, though, and never got around to it. As for me, I never learned to sew.

"You know, Carol and I talked about you a lot," my aunt said as the conversation grew to a close. She has always referred to Leslie by her middle name, as does most of the family. I only began calling my cousin "Leslie" after noticing that it was how she was addressed by people outside of the family, and she confessted to me that she hated the name Carol. My friends call me Leslie, she told me, only family calls me Carol. After that, I began addressing all the letters I sent her to both her names – Leslie Carol – I suppose as a way to let her know that I was both friend and family. "She loved you dearly," my aunt told me, "You were very special to her. I love you, too."

I told my aunt I love her, as well, and then cried a little after we hung up.

The call, and my upcoming trip, got me to thinking that love and grief are funny things. I hadn't seen my cousin Leslie for 5 years when she died in December. In fact, I can count the number of times we saw each other face to face in the last 20 years on one hand. We grew close over the phone and through long rambling letters decorated with cartoons we drew to amuse each other. When we were younger, we liked each other, but our age difference kept us from palling around. It was as two grown women that our relationship developed, and she became more my sister than my cousin.

Though my husband says we have no room for it, I will accept Leslie's china and treasure it. The fact that some of the cups are missing makes it more precious: it has service for eight, complete with a reminder that some people in life are just destined to leave too early, and won't be around for coffee at the close the day.

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Monday – Flower Pit

2008-05-12T20:44:29Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that total honesty is the worst thing in the world for a relationship, and anyone who thinks different is single and destined to stay that way. The best things for a relationship are diplomacy and tact, which are expressed not as complete honestly, but as white lies. The problem I have with telling white lies, though, is that I'm a really bad liar unless I'm well rested and prepared (even then, I'm only a mediocre liar). This made the moment Jeff handed me the bouquets of cut flowers that he had painstakingly picked out for me for Mother's Day kind of awkward yesterday. It was early, and I had only drunk half a diet Coke with my breakfast. In order for me to fake getting excited about a gift I hate, I need a lot more caffeine in my system.

"Happy Mother's Day!" he told me, presenting me with a bouquet of roses and a bouquet of miscellaneous blossoms. He always looks like a schoolboy when he hands me flowers: sweet faced and proud of himself for doing something right.

He got up early Sunday morning to go out and buy these for me, which is why it was awful of me, in my sleep-addled state, to take the bouquets and say with a wan smile, "Oh, how pretty. You really do like buying me cut flowers, don't you?"

The devil on my left shoulder was saying, That's it! Tell him! After 20 years together, it's about damn time he learns how much you hate cut flowers!

Jeff's face was crestfallen.

The angel on my right shoulder reached behind my neck, grabbed the devil's pitchfork, and stabbed me in the ear with it.

You bitch! the angel said.

You really are one, the devil agreed, I like that about you.

"You don't like flowers?" my husband asked, once again looking like a schoolboy, but this time one who has been told to sit in the corner.

Tell the truth, the devil said.

Be kind, the angel said.

"They're beautiful," I said.

Wimp! the angel and devil cried in unison. The angel stabbed me in the ear again.

"But..." my husband said, "Why don't you like flowers? I thought all women liked flowers."

My face told the whole story; there was no going back now. "Well, they'll be dead in a week, for one thing," I said.

Point out that he left the price tag on them, the devil suggested, and list off the things he could have bought with that money that won't be dead in a week. Things you want and can use.

"Oh," my husband said.

"But they're lovely. Really. Thank you, Sweetie." I reached up to kiss him.

"I'm sorry. I should have gotten you something else."

"No, no..."

Yes! Yes! He really should have! the devil said. Hey, gimme my pitchfork back. She was apparently talking to the angel.

You want it? Then come and get it, the angel said. The devil muttered a string of epithets and began using my hair to pull herself over my head and get to the angel. The angel began doing the same thing on my right side.

"What would you like next time?" my husband asked.

"I don't know. A live plant is always nice; at least they last longer than these things. There's always jewelry, too." There is no way my husband will buy me jewelry. He did a few times when I was much younger, and noticed I never wore his offerings. He tends to buy cutesy things – like little dolphin-shaped earrings – that I would really have loved when I was 12 years old, but that don't suit my tastes now.

Just tell him not to bother, the devil said, because he sucks at buying presents. Hand over my pitchfork, you albino canary, or I'll take it away from you and shove it where the sun don't shine!

Like I'm afraid of a little red shrimp like you, the angel retorted, Don't think I can't kick your ass. They began to tussle on top of my head.

"Let's put these in water," I said.

"Aren't we supposed to cut the bottoms of the stems off?"

"What's it matter? They're going to die either way."

Ain't that the truth? the devil said, Let go of it! It's mine, you mealy-mouthed piece of sh..." I ran my hand through my hair and knocked the two of them to the floor, where they landed with a couple of Oooophs!

"Thanks a lot," Jeff said.

"They're beautiful. Right now, they really are. Thank you so much for going out and getting them for me."

"Next time, I'll do better. Next flower holiday...which is Valentine's Day, I think..."

"That's fine. Don't worry about it. I love you." I hugged him.

"I love you, too. No more flowers. I'll do better next time," he said, and hugged me back.

He'll forget, the devil said from the floor behind me, just wait. Still hugging my husband, I kicked the little devil across the kitchen floor, and glanced over my shoulder to watch her slide under the door to the pantry.

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Friday – The Best Mother a Boy Could Never Know

2008-05-09T17:41:11Z

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how my friend the Cajun Queen always gets depressed on Mother's Day, which is this Sunday. She is a mother, but she won't get a card or flowers for being one. Her son has another woman's name is on his birth certificate, and that woman will get his kisses and the card he made at school this week. That is his real mother, and the only mother he knows. The Cajun Queen is only his birth mother, and not real to him at all.

"Look," The Queen told me one day shortly after we met, and handed me a photo. It was of a dark-haired little boy about 4 years old.

"Cute! Who is it?"

"He's my son."

My eyebrows must have gone up, and I opened my mouth to ask a question that I couldn't quite find the words for. I knew she didn't have a child in her life; her lifestyle was quintessentially, even stereotypically, that of a single, childless adult.

"He doesn't live with me, he lives in [another state] with his adoptive parents. But I get pictures and letters from time to time, if I ask for them."

I looked at the picture a little closer.

"He's adorable," I told her, "He looks just like you."

"Doesn't he? He's even got my ears, poor kid." The little boy's ears stuck out a little, just like her own ears. She kept her hair long to hide them, though they weren't near as bad as she thought they were.

She told about her son, and her ex husband, and how both of them came into her life, and then left. Her husband was another Cajun from her hometown. She claims she married him only so she could later divorce him and make him quit following her around. I think she did it to tick off her mom, who hated the man with a passion.

"She couldn't stand him, then I told her, ha! You have to invite him in the house, he's family, now! She still hasn't forgiven me," the Queen said.

The marriage was rocky from the start, and had reached a level of mutual loathing by the time the Queen learned she was pregnant. Her husband claimed the baby wasn't his, probably because he had told his girlfriend that he and his wife were no longer having sex, and this evidence to the contrary was very inconvenient. Estranged from family, despised by her husband (who she couldn't divorce until after the baby was born), and financially in ruins, she made the decision to give the baby up.

"At the time, I couldn't even take care of myself," she told me, "How could I take care of a baby, too?"

She contacted a local adoption agency, who picked up her medical expenses and allowed her to handpick the couple that would raise her son. Prospective parents make scrapbooks of themselves and their lives for prospective birth mother to look through, and the Queen found a family she thought would be perfect. She only had one stipulation for them, and they agreed to it: the little boy must be named after the Queen's grandfather, who had died recently.

When she went to the hospital to give birth, her son's new mother and father were there. None of the Queen's family knew about the pregnancy, so it was the adoptive mother who sat with her and held her hand through her labor. When the baby was born and the doctor tried to hand it to the Queen, she shook her head and pointed to the other woman.

"Give him to her," she told the doctor, "she's his mother, not me."

The adoptive mother broke down in tears and accepted her newborn son from the doctor's hands.

The Queen's husband visited her at the hospital, and saw his son one time before he signed over his rights. Seeing the baby softened him, and he told the Queen that he'd changed his mind, and she and he could keep the baby and raise him, if she wanted to.

"He's not a puppy," she told him, "you can't just walk in here, take a look, and go awww, he's cute, I think we'll keep him. I've already told them they can have him, and I'm not backing out on them at this point."

So her son went home with a different set of parents than the ones who brought him into the world. She divorced her husband, who married his girlfriend a few months later when she told him she was pregnant (an irony that still irks the Cajun Queen to this day).

Everywhere she goes, the Queen carries a picture of this little boy who looks just like her, and she shows it to people once she decides she likes them enough to share this treasure with. She still has the scrapbook with pictures of his parents and the house he is growing up in. She keeps a teddy bear in her room that wears the t-shirt her baby boy wore at the hospital (one of her single, childless friends once told her this was creepy).

Every Mother's Day, she told me she cries a little. She is reluctant to have another child, fearing it will make her re-live the nightmare that first pregnancy. She told me she doesn't think she deserves a baby, since she was such a pathetic mother that she couldn't take care of the one she already had. She thinks maybe she is being punished by God, for being such an awful mother.

"You have to forgive yourself," I told her, "God has never held this against you, not even for a minute. You did the best thing for you and your son, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. Your ex is the one God thinks is a jerk." I don't think she believed me.

I hope this year, she will finally have a happy Mother's Day. She deserves it more than anyone I know.

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Wednesday – You Can't Always Count on Dying Young

2008-05-07T20:50:55Z

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that I am special. Not only am I special, I'm a walking miracle. I've had at least two doctors tell me this, so it must be true.

"If I ever get to work on a study of why some people get complications and some don't, you're the first person I'm calling," my endocrinologist, Dr. Thomas, told me yesterday.

"I'll give you a vial of blood, if you think the answer is in there somewhere," I told him.

He gets excited when he sees me. Like a kid at Christmas, his face lights up when he walks into the examining room, not because of who I am but because of what I am: hope. Thirty one years of insulin injections, and my kidneys are not failing. Thirty one years since my diagnosis, and my eyes are so healthy that I don't even need corrective lenses. Thirty one years, and my arteries have not hardened and my heart is not giving out. The nerves in my feet – instead of giving out – are so sensitive that when a doctor holds a vibrating tuning fork to my foot, telling me to tell him when it stops vibrating, I can feel the light subtle movement of the metal to the point that the doctor gets bored and says, "That's good enough; obviously, your feet are fine."

I'm a freak.

Or a miracle.

Maybe both.

My eye doctor was the one who first made me aware of what an anomaly I am.

A compact, graying Columbian with a pencil-thin moustache, the last time I saw him for my annual am-I-going-blind-from-diabetes exam, he said, "There is something special about you."

"Thanks, doc!" I responded. It's always nice to hear you're special.

"No, no, what I mean is, most people at your stage, they have problems. A lot of them. Then someone like you, nothing, not even after 20, 30 years."

"I keep pretty tight control," I offered, meaning I keep my blood sugar level at close to normal levels.

"That's not it, though. Some people, excellent control, but three or five years later, they still have problems. There is something in your blood that makes you different, and whoever figures out what this is, that guy is going to win the Nobel Prize."

My endocrinologist concurred. I get the impression that his encounters with other patients in my boat are more depressing.

"Amazing," he said, shaking his head. "I'm going to have them run all the usual tests, but I'm not worried about them. I should tell you not to come back for another year, but I'll tell you to come back in 6 months, just to be safe."

"It'll probably be a year before you see me again," I told him. The truth is, the only reason I see him once a year is so that he can refill my prescriptions.

Instead of frowning, he laughed. "That's fine." We bade our goodbyes.

Waiting for my lab work, I found myself humming the tune to Wonder, by Natalie Merchant, while the lyrics drifted through my head,

They say I must be one of the wonders
of God's own creation
and as far as they can see
they can offer no explanation

I believe Fate smiled and Destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle,
"Know this child will be able."
Laughed as my body she lifted,
"Know this child will be gifted;
with love, with patience and with faith
she'll make her way…"

I am happy to be healthy, but it brings with it a sort of survivors guilt. I think I understand how the lone person to escape a burning house, or the sole survivor to a devastating car wreck, must feel. Why me? Or, more to the point, why not me? Better people than I am have not had my good fortune, and it's not fair.

Maybe my cousin Leslie was right, and there are powerful ass-kicking angels watching out for me, protecting me from the ravages of what should be a devastating disease. Maybe the ophthalmologist is right, and there is something different about my blood. Maybe God really does look out for drunks, fools, and children, and as a child-like fool whose mood is always drunk, I am benefiting from this in spades.

Whatever it is, I'm not ungrateful and I don't want it to change. Knowing the course of diabetes from an early age, I never made plans to grow old. I actually used to brag about it, telling people that I didn't plan on ever collection Social Security or worrying about retirement, because it was a moot point for me. After my doctor visit yesterday, it appears I need to rethink this, and maybe start putting a little more money in my 401K. You know, just in case.

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Friday – Home Invasion

2008-05-02T18:44:59Z

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about home invader Jeff and I threw in the back of his pickup truck and dropped off in the woods yesterday evening. It's alarming to discover that someone has taken up residence in your garage without asking. Especially when they are the sort to go through your garbage and leave the place spelling like urine.

The saga began last week when Jeff announced: "We have a possum* living in our garage."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because I saw it. It's a baby one."

"Awwww. What do you want to do about it?"

"There's a guy at work who has a trap he said I can borrow."

"Cool. Why does he have a trap?"

"Let's put it this way, we call him Roadkill Robert. He lives in the woods and eats whatever he finds out there."

I just looked at my husband.

"I'm not kidding."

"You aren't going to give him our possum, are you?"

"No, I'm going to let it go somewhere that's not here."

"Well, until then, he's part of the household," I said, "Let's name him Eddie."

Yesterday morning, I went in the garage and found this note on top of the cage:

It seems Eddie is a girl.

A very small girl; she was too light to trip the trap, and the first few nights happily ate all the hotdogs (being so young, healthy food didn't interest her much) we put in it without triggering the door to close. Jeff had to rig it with a string and lay in wait until he saw her go inside, and then pulling the string to manually shut the door and capture her. She couldn't have weighed more than a few ounces.

She tried looking sad.

She tried hissing like a cat and growling, too.

As much as she didn't like being imprisoned, she didn't seem to mind the food.

"Tell me you gave her the Oscar Meyer and not the Hebrew Nation hotdogs," I said, "Those things are expensive."

"The Kosher ones were all I could find."

"Now she's never going to want to leave," I told him.

When we took her to the woods, the place where a possum should feel most at home, we almost couldn't get her to leave the cage. I think, in the back of her little marsupial mind, she knew that there would be no more high-end frankfurters just laying around. She would be back to eating the grubs and June bugs that her mother had raised her on. Poor thing.

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*technically what we have is a Virginia Opossum, but no one ever pronounces that O.

Thursday – Can I get a Witness? Jehovah's Witness, that is.

2008-05-01T20:27:43Z

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how most of the sickly sweet "forward this if you love God or God will smite you" emails that I get are from a former co-worker of mine who smokes more pot, drinks more booze, says more swear words, and has more casual sex than anyone else I know. This makes the emails less annoying than getting them from a truly pious person, because the fact that they came from her makes me giggle.

This young woman, who I call Vee, does not attend any sort of religious services. In fact, she is what I call a "spiritual refugee," in that she was raised in one of those religions that leave people twitchy once they distance themselves from it. Her sole nod to theology is filling my inbox with emails filled with cherubs and flowers and praying hands that tell me that the more people I forward them to, the faster my prayers will be answered, and if I delete them I'm probably going to hell.

Vee, who used to ride to work with me some years back, was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. She told me a little about their beliefs.

"We don't believe in hell or anything like that. We think that God will come to Earth, and make paradise here. It'll be really nice, no one will get sick, everyone will get along, and the animals won't bite you or anything like that," she said.

She hadn't been a Witness for years at this point and had even gotten excited when we gave her a birthday cake at the office – her first one ever, at the age of 20 – but she still referred to the church as we.

"I don't think I could belong to a religion that makes celebrating my birthday a sin," I told her.

Learning about their beliefs got me thinking, what if we're both right? What if the Jehovah's Witnesses are right about paradise and I am right about God having a quirky sense of humor? What if, by virtue of God's sense of humor, I alone were the sole non-Witness to granted access to paradise? What would it be like to live in a world for all eternity where everyone except me was a Jehovah's Witness?

The idea makes me shudder.

Can you imagine knowing that every time someone knocked on your door, it would be a Jehovah's Witness? Can you imagine a world where the only publication to read was The Watchtower? Can you imagine a world where no drinks containing caffeine or alcohol were allowed?

I can just see myself post Armageddon, holed up in a mansion that one of the sinners more wealthy than myself was no longer around to enjoy. The rooms would be stacked ceiling to floor with bags of coffee, Coca Cola products, bottles of wine, cases of Jose Cuervo Gold, magazines salvaged from abandoned convenience stores, DVDs of banned movies, forbidden novels, and all the worldly pleasures these people don't believe in.

Every time the doorbell would ring, I'd be still and quiet, hoping they'd go away. They never would though. They couldn't; it just wouldn't be very Witnessy of them.

"Yoo-hoo!" the Jehovah's Witnesses would say, "We know you're in there!"

After awhile, I would open the door just a crack so I could peer out at them.

"How did you know I was home?"

"Because you always are; you almost never leave unless you need to find food, and you did that yesterday. We couldn't help but notice you haven't picked up the last few issues of The Daily Watchtower, so we brought them to the door for you."

"You can throw them away," I'd say, "I mean, this is paradise, isn't it? No one ever gets murdered, no one ever steals anything, or assaults anyone, or has their life dissolve into scandal. No houses burn down, no cities get bombed, no drunk drivers run over innocent bystanders, and all the corrupt politicians are gone for good. Newspapers just aren't as much fun to read as they used to be."

"But look," one of them would say, opening up the paper and holding it up, "Here on the front page, there's a picture taken on Main Street yesterday of a lion laying down with a lamb! Imagine that! Isn't that sweet?"

"Yeah, it was kind of cool the first thousand times I saw something like that. Now it doesn't do anything for me. Sorry. Look, I was kind of in the middle of something – I don't have time to talk."

"That's fine. But before we go, we wanted to invite you to services this evening. We think it would do you some good to get out of the house. You're looking a little, you know, pasty these days."

"Not tonight. Thanks."

"Well, maybe tomorrow. We'll drop by again later."

"I know. You always do."

After they left, I would go back to reading my book, only to hear another knock at the door. Enraged, I would throw it open and begin shouting, "Look! I already told you, I'm busy! Just go away! Leave me the #$%^! alone... Oh, it's you. Hi, Jesus."

"Hi. Can I come in?"

"Sure. I gotta warn you, though, the place is a mess. I don't do much entertaining these days, on account of the fact that I don't like one single person left in the world."

"It's quite all right. I understand completely."

"Can I ask you a question? Why me? Why did I wind up in paradise with all the Jehovah's Witnesses? I always made fun of them. I made paper airplanes out of their Watchtowers. I slammed the door in their faces. And yet, here I am."

Jesus would grin. "Remember how you always said you though God has sick sense of humor?"

"Yes."

"This kind of proves it, right?"

"Oh my God. I mean... oh my goodness."

"I know what you meant."

"This is so wrong."

Jesus would shrug. "They live for trying to convert people. It wouldn't be much of a paradise for them if I didn't give them someone to convert, would it?"

"Son of a... I mean..."

"I know what you meant. I'm divine like that, remember?"

"I'm in hell. This is hell."

"Just for you, though. Everyone else here is happy."

I would groan and put my head in my hands. When I regained my composure, I'd say, "Hearing this kind of makes me need a drink. Can I get you something, too, Lord?"

"A beer would great," Jesus would say, "They've closed down all the bars and the liquor stores. too. I thought you'd never ask."

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Tuesday - Dandelions Are Forever

2008-04-29T19:15:10Z

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how some people are like how the friendships you want to keep are like African violets; unless they get the right amount of sun and water, they tend to wither. The friendships you want to end, however, are like dandelions; once they have invaded the lawn of your life, you just can't seem to kill them, and they have a way of popping up again when you least expect them.

Take my old friend Patty, for example. She'd a dandelion of a gal, for sure.

"Oh! Mygod!" Jeff called me up on the phone last week, and that is how he started the conversation.

I asked what the matter was.

"Oh! Mygod!" he said again.

I suggested he take a deep breath. He seemed to be freaking out.

"I went by the Cricket in Pinehurst to pay Mom's phone bill today," he began. My mother-in-law's Sprint phone would not work in the nursing home she is in (ours won't work in there, either), so we bought a pre-paid phone for her so she can keep in touch with people. "I walk in, and the girl behind the counter has her back to me and she's talking on the phone, right? And I'm just looking at her back and thinking, something about this girl is familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"So she's waiving at me, to let me know she's just going to be a minute, and I get a good look at her face, and it's Patty!"

I gasped. "Patty actually has a job? When did that happen?"

"I don't know," he said. "I was as surprised about that as I was to see her."

I asked if she recognized him.

"I don't think so. I had my sunglasses on and my hat on. I just started backing up and said I needed to go back out to my truck, because I'd forgotten something, and that I'd be right back. She was still gesturing that it was just going to be a minute, and I was walking backwards and tripping over myself trying to get the hell out of there before she realized who I was. Then I got in the truck and pealed out of the parking lot. All I need is for her to have Mom's phone number and start leaving calls on her phone like she does on yours. You know what this means, don't you?"

"That the guy who runs the Cricket store doesn't check references?"

"Well, obviously. I mean besides that. It means she's still around, and we could run into her at any time."

"I know she's still around. She still emails me and tries to friend me on MySpace. What are you going to do about paying you mom's phone bill?"

"There's another Cricket store in town, I paid it there. It's just not as convenient."

I thought for a moment. "You can always go back to the one closer to us next month. Knowing Patty, she'll be fired within a week for showing up two hours late or getting in a fight with someone. It's the one thing about her you can kind of depend on."

Indeed, it's the one thing you can always count on for a chronic screw up; as long as they are still drawing breath, they will always be screwing up. God love 'em.

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