June 25, 2008
Summer is less than a week old and already the pages of the Sears Fall/Winter catalogue are bent and crinkled as society tugs at us to plan what we are going to wear five and six months from now.
And here I am behind the times again, having just found my jean cut-offs and the three tank tops I didn’t give to Goodwill last October.
What’s the sense in rushing things anyway? As it is, I can barely keep up with mowing the grass every three days to stay ahead of the dandelions.
When I’m not thinking about yard work, working, or cleaning the house, I have my face buried in the endless pages of the Undergraduate Guide and “How-To” tutorial that precedes Daughter #3’s impending stab at university in the big city.
Deadlines for post-secondary fee payments loom like bats in the belfry, swooping down and into my wallet only to find food coupons and Canadian Tire money. And if that’s not enough to think about, I find myself measuring the week by the amount of days I have left to write this column in time for the following week’s paper.
When I refuelled this mission to write “The View from Here,” I made a pact with myself that I would have a new column lassoed and tied each Friday morning. The late author Lloyd Alexander once penned, “We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.”
All I know for sure is that for six of the last seven days, I’ve been looking for the answer to this question: “What am I going to write about this week?”
I have a million beginnings running around in my head, 16 pages of snippet notes, and a little brown notebook I carry with me everywhere that is full of chicken-scratch and half-cooked ideas. One of my biggest hobbies is collecting philosophical quotes. I suspect it has something to do with my insatiable longing for another person’s viewpoint.
My husband would beg to differ and he’d be right.
When he’s around and it comes to brass tacks, my viewpoint is the only one that counts (I love you, honey). Column-wise, I had a good thing going for three weeks and then the ’flu bug came a-knocking and relieved me of all grammar and language abilities except for the word “Ralph,” which I repeated several times in the wee hours of a mid-week June morning.
I guess I should have listened to Mrs. S. when I closed in for a friendly hug at the store and she said “Don’t get too close, I’ve been sick and this is the first time I’ve been out and about in three days.”
It was four for me.
Time melted into a big heap and with it, all my energy. My bed never saw so much of me. The dogs—bless their canine souls—slept at the foot of the bed patiently waiting for my “get up and go” to get up and play fetch. When I finally did come up for air and went outside to take in the sun, the grass was around my kneecaps and the dandelions had gone to seed.
“Dot” and “Cash” bounced around in mid-air clearly overjoyed by the rebirth of the one who has treats. Then, as dogs do, Cash took a break from the frenzy, lifted his leg, and peed on an evergreen seedling I planted last summer for my dog, “Griffon,” and whose ashes also are buried beneath it.
I took one good, long look and realized that Cash had been making regular stops at the little tree, and had rendered it a stark and dingy former skeleton of itself (no pun intended).
Dogs pee on trees, that’s the truth of it, but I think Cash has hierarchy issues. He certainly has poetic timing. About two hours ago, he got up from his spot at my feet near my desk chair and put his big, fat mutton head on the keyboard resting on my knees and, with one flick of his snout, deleted all the work I’d just written for this week’s column.
But that’s another story.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Patience is a virtue, right?
June 11, 2008
“I have about an hour-and-a-half of patience left.”
My brother, a.k.a. Mr. Smooth, uttered the statement last weekend after spending three-quarters of his two-day visit here from Thunder Bay trying to figure out why his old truck wouldn’t start.
“Wow,” I said to myself. “That’s impressive.”
The Sunday afternoon was teetering on 5 p.m.—one hour past the time he’d decided to head back to the big city. If it had been me turning the ignition key over and over again, and staring at the engine until my head looked like a question mark, I’d have stomped up and down, lit a match with the lightning bolts shooting out of my eyes, and smoked the half-ton long before my patience had time to run out.
And I’d still have had enough tantrum energy left to clean my entire house in about 15 minutes.
As much as I’d like to boast that I, too, was born with the patience of Job, sadly, I think I was behind the door when the storks handed out that virtue. However, in my neck of the woods of late, matters of normal human tolerance are clouded by merry menopause.
In any given nanosecond, the hormone roller-coaster and its forces of evil cause me to start on fire in the middle of a cold shower or morph into Cruella De Ville and send every living thing in the farmyard scurrying for cover.
A woman’s day-to-day agenda is a big test as it is, without being drafted kicking and screaming by the war department into the Change of Life.
I suppose I should be thankful for some things, though. At least for the moment, it would appear I’m not on the list for symptomatic weight gain. In fact, I’ve lost 15 pounds since January—a direct benefit of no alcohol, no breads, no sugar, and plenty of exercise scrubbing tubs.
On the other hand, there’s a downside.
My apple-bottom and piano legs have shrunk, but losing bulk from “the sisters” and from the skin above my eyelids has caused those parts of me to droop farther south. While an 18-hour bra can improve what’s abreast, where’s the hope for the slinking skin above my eyes, short of a scalpel wielded by a plastic surgeon?
Come to think of it, I could do what my dear Ottawa-based cousin, Carol, humorously suggested. Gals with eyelids like us can self-rejuvenate our smoldering youth by maintaining a constant look of surprise on our faces.
I set a mirror on the kitchen table this morning and tried that pose at breakfast over coffee. I looked 15 years younger for about seven minutes, then my eye sockets dried out and my contact lenses bonded to my pupils.
Peter walked in from his morning rounds, took one look at my wide-eyed “deer in the headlights” expression, and checked his pants zipper and his hair to make sure everything was buttoned up and beautiful.
As if he hadn’t seen that look on my face before. It’s the same one I use to showcase disbelief when the space junkie that I am is overrun by the unorganized territory that accompanies a man about the house after his three-week stint away at work in the far north.
And it’s the same face I confronted Pete with just the other day when he insisted that his new diet program, which he began just two days before his work medical, included of a jar of Nutella and a dozen corn muffins.
It’s also the same bug-eyed look Mr. Smooth did not see when he jumped into the front seat of my new truck and ripped open a big bag of corn chips and a runny jar of jalapeno cheese dip.
He has no idea how close I came to sending him back to 1972 in a sewing basket.
Lucky for him, I was starving—and had about an hour-and-a-half of patience left.
“I have about an hour-and-a-half of patience left.”
My brother, a.k.a. Mr. Smooth, uttered the statement last weekend after spending three-quarters of his two-day visit here from Thunder Bay trying to figure out why his old truck wouldn’t start.
“Wow,” I said to myself. “That’s impressive.”
The Sunday afternoon was teetering on 5 p.m.—one hour past the time he’d decided to head back to the big city. If it had been me turning the ignition key over and over again, and staring at the engine until my head looked like a question mark, I’d have stomped up and down, lit a match with the lightning bolts shooting out of my eyes, and smoked the half-ton long before my patience had time to run out.
And I’d still have had enough tantrum energy left to clean my entire house in about 15 minutes.
As much as I’d like to boast that I, too, was born with the patience of Job, sadly, I think I was behind the door when the storks handed out that virtue. However, in my neck of the woods of late, matters of normal human tolerance are clouded by merry menopause.
In any given nanosecond, the hormone roller-coaster and its forces of evil cause me to start on fire in the middle of a cold shower or morph into Cruella De Ville and send every living thing in the farmyard scurrying for cover.
A woman’s day-to-day agenda is a big test as it is, without being drafted kicking and screaming by the war department into the Change of Life.
I suppose I should be thankful for some things, though. At least for the moment, it would appear I’m not on the list for symptomatic weight gain. In fact, I’ve lost 15 pounds since January—a direct benefit of no alcohol, no breads, no sugar, and plenty of exercise scrubbing tubs.
On the other hand, there’s a downside.
My apple-bottom and piano legs have shrunk, but losing bulk from “the sisters” and from the skin above my eyelids has caused those parts of me to droop farther south. While an 18-hour bra can improve what’s abreast, where’s the hope for the slinking skin above my eyes, short of a scalpel wielded by a plastic surgeon?
Come to think of it, I could do what my dear Ottawa-based cousin, Carol, humorously suggested. Gals with eyelids like us can self-rejuvenate our smoldering youth by maintaining a constant look of surprise on our faces.
I set a mirror on the kitchen table this morning and tried that pose at breakfast over coffee. I looked 15 years younger for about seven minutes, then my eye sockets dried out and my contact lenses bonded to my pupils.
Peter walked in from his morning rounds, took one look at my wide-eyed “deer in the headlights” expression, and checked his pants zipper and his hair to make sure everything was buttoned up and beautiful.
As if he hadn’t seen that look on my face before. It’s the same one I use to showcase disbelief when the space junkie that I am is overrun by the unorganized territory that accompanies a man about the house after his three-week stint away at work in the far north.
And it’s the same face I confronted Pete with just the other day when he insisted that his new diet program, which he began just two days before his work medical, included of a jar of Nutella and a dozen corn muffins.
It’s also the same bug-eyed look Mr. Smooth did not see when he jumped into the front seat of my new truck and ripped open a big bag of corn chips and a runny jar of jalapeno cheese dip.
He has no idea how close I came to sending him back to 1972 in a sewing basket.
Lucky for him, I was starving—and had about an hour-and-a-half of patience left.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Stalk of the dandelion
June 4, 2008
In the news these days, there’s a lot of talk about kids spending too much time in front of television and computer screens, and not enough on physical activity.The truth is what it is.
In my youth, physical activity was as regular as rain. If my brother and I weren’t digging huge forts out of the mountains of snow piled along our driveway in the winter, we were bag-lunching it across the field or the creek every day of the summer with our cousins.If boredom set in, netting cabbage butterflies from the garden earned us five cents apiece, or we could pick dandelions—the arch-enemy of my dad’s well-manicured lawn.The insect pursuit would land us 10 or 15 cents before the winged creatures figured us out, or we lost interest.As a kid, the stalk of the dandelion lasted only as long as it took to pick a handful of the yellow dander and run it in to my mother who, like all mothers, would accept the bouquet of weeds with a smile.I was just shy of being a teenager when the audio visual entertainment industry became a household commodity called a TV in my parents’ home and computers existed nowhere that I knew about except on the starship “Enterprise.”My parents’ decision to wait to buy a television was kin to an old western gunfight at the O.K. Corral. They were one of the last hold-outs.In hindsight, given the statistics that some kids today are watching TV or playing video games up to 12 hours a week (and getting fatter by the minute), parents like mine had made the best decision of all.Until the early 1970s, if anybody in my family wanted to watch television, we had to go next door to my grandparents’ farm house, where we’d get to sit in on watching whatever the older folks had in mind. “The Wonderful World of Disney,” “Lawrence Welk,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Bonanza” ruled the coop.If I could be a kid again, I wouldn’t change a thing.I have a storybook of fantastic childhood memories built on country living, outdoor play with my cousins, and farm yard fun. Yet, I loved the novelty of television, too, just about as much as I did playing with kittens and baby chicks.And I’m still a big fan of all three.Once TV came to my house, the way things were didn’t change a whole lot. The only show I really was interested in was a spooky black-and-white series called “Creature Features,” and it started at midnight on Friday nights.Of course, the middle of the night was way past my bedtime and I only remember seeing the show once—after tiptoeing downstairs as everyone slept.I remember my dad had two weekly television series favourites—“The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour” and “Hockey Night in Canada.”Back then, I wouldn’t have thought twice about knocking my little brother over and into a sewing basket on the way to the couch when my dad sat down to watch the Loony Tunes.They still rock.On the other hand, I dreaded Saturday night and sitting through the “the good ol’ hockey game.”If I could have managed to slapshot that hour of television into outer space where Captain Kirk voyaged, I’d have done so.And with all due respect to hockey fans, I’m still not among you—though I am very familiar with the terms “offensive zone,” “poke checks,” and “clearing” as they frequently apply to the disaster on Pete’s side of the bed.I also know the meaning of goalkeeper (though I must admit I rarely stay on my side of the centre red line).These half-cooked meandering thoughts of my youth, television, cartoons, and hockey were going round in my brain as I looked back at all the dandelion stalks popping back up in place in the cut grass of my entire yard after a four-hour elimination mission with the master tractor “Big John,” and the push mower, and the cordless weed eater.I wondered if a short-tempered attitude approach, like that of Yosemite Sam, would make a difference. But for every clump of dandelions I hammered back into the ground by jumping up and down, another 300 of them popped up three feet away.Maybe the neighborhood kids could pick them all.But I couldn’t think of anybody under the age of 15 who lives around here—and if there were any, they probably were watching TV or playing video games.Maybe I could pull the “good ol’ hockey game” out of my bag of hat tricks and slapshot dandelion heads into outer space with my baseball bat. Maybe I could just wish them away like I did the wart on my big toe when I was 10 (my dad had told me to do that back then and it worked).I convinced myself that the lawn still looked well-manicured despite the stalk of the dandelion, and then went inside to put on a pot of java for the lone ranger who’d often stop by for coffee at 3 p.m.We were sitting at the kitchen table talking about this and that when he looked out the front window at the green grass and said, “With all the dandelions out there, it looks like you need to cut the grass again.”
The truth is what it is.
In the news these days, there’s a lot of talk about kids spending too much time in front of television and computer screens, and not enough on physical activity.The truth is what it is.
In my youth, physical activity was as regular as rain. If my brother and I weren’t digging huge forts out of the mountains of snow piled along our driveway in the winter, we were bag-lunching it across the field or the creek every day of the summer with our cousins.If boredom set in, netting cabbage butterflies from the garden earned us five cents apiece, or we could pick dandelions—the arch-enemy of my dad’s well-manicured lawn.The insect pursuit would land us 10 or 15 cents before the winged creatures figured us out, or we lost interest.As a kid, the stalk of the dandelion lasted only as long as it took to pick a handful of the yellow dander and run it in to my mother who, like all mothers, would accept the bouquet of weeds with a smile.I was just shy of being a teenager when the audio visual entertainment industry became a household commodity called a TV in my parents’ home and computers existed nowhere that I knew about except on the starship “Enterprise.”My parents’ decision to wait to buy a television was kin to an old western gunfight at the O.K. Corral. They were one of the last hold-outs.In hindsight, given the statistics that some kids today are watching TV or playing video games up to 12 hours a week (and getting fatter by the minute), parents like mine had made the best decision of all.Until the early 1970s, if anybody in my family wanted to watch television, we had to go next door to my grandparents’ farm house, where we’d get to sit in on watching whatever the older folks had in mind. “The Wonderful World of Disney,” “Lawrence Welk,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Bonanza” ruled the coop.If I could be a kid again, I wouldn’t change a thing.I have a storybook of fantastic childhood memories built on country living, outdoor play with my cousins, and farm yard fun. Yet, I loved the novelty of television, too, just about as much as I did playing with kittens and baby chicks.And I’m still a big fan of all three.Once TV came to my house, the way things were didn’t change a whole lot. The only show I really was interested in was a spooky black-and-white series called “Creature Features,” and it started at midnight on Friday nights.Of course, the middle of the night was way past my bedtime and I only remember seeing the show once—after tiptoeing downstairs as everyone slept.I remember my dad had two weekly television series favourites—“The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour” and “Hockey Night in Canada.”Back then, I wouldn’t have thought twice about knocking my little brother over and into a sewing basket on the way to the couch when my dad sat down to watch the Loony Tunes.They still rock.On the other hand, I dreaded Saturday night and sitting through the “the good ol’ hockey game.”If I could have managed to slapshot that hour of television into outer space where Captain Kirk voyaged, I’d have done so.And with all due respect to hockey fans, I’m still not among you—though I am very familiar with the terms “offensive zone,” “poke checks,” and “clearing” as they frequently apply to the disaster on Pete’s side of the bed.I also know the meaning of goalkeeper (though I must admit I rarely stay on my side of the centre red line).These half-cooked meandering thoughts of my youth, television, cartoons, and hockey were going round in my brain as I looked back at all the dandelion stalks popping back up in place in the cut grass of my entire yard after a four-hour elimination mission with the master tractor “Big John,” and the push mower, and the cordless weed eater.I wondered if a short-tempered attitude approach, like that of Yosemite Sam, would make a difference. But for every clump of dandelions I hammered back into the ground by jumping up and down, another 300 of them popped up three feet away.Maybe the neighborhood kids could pick them all.But I couldn’t think of anybody under the age of 15 who lives around here—and if there were any, they probably were watching TV or playing video games.Maybe I could pull the “good ol’ hockey game” out of my bag of hat tricks and slapshot dandelion heads into outer space with my baseball bat. Maybe I could just wish them away like I did the wart on my big toe when I was 10 (my dad had told me to do that back then and it worked).I convinced myself that the lawn still looked well-manicured despite the stalk of the dandelion, and then went inside to put on a pot of java for the lone ranger who’d often stop by for coffee at 3 p.m.We were sitting at the kitchen table talking about this and that when he looked out the front window at the green grass and said, “With all the dandelions out there, it looks like you need to cut the grass again.”
The truth is what it is.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The meaning of 'should'
May 28, 2008
One of my favourite songs to listen to on my iPod is the spoken-word lyrics of “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen),” written by Baz Luhrmann. The seven-minute sage narration has been around for more than a decade and yet remains timeless in its message about what’s important in life.
For me, the “Sunscreen Song” holds some of the best third-party advice I’ve ever laid ears on, and I should listen to it more often because there are many a day when I still need to be reminded of what matters most.
The “Sunscreen Song” is sort of a to-do list for me to check my life against, especially when I think things aren’t going the way they should. If you are familiar with the words, then you’ll understand when I declare I am among the people over 40 years of age who really doesn’t know what they want to do with their life.
However, make no mistake.
Not knowing doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. Where I am—or am not—in this great big world, and that things will continue to change, makes for great adventure. I only get one shot at this particular shift on Earth and I’m keeping the door open to possibility until long after my hair is long and grey.
Of course, if I quit paying attention to what’s important, there’s a good chance my interesting life won’t get its chance at fulfillment, as was nearly the case one evening in late January.
With the deep freeze of winter mighty in the night air, there I was sitting mindlessly in an idling truck after pulling into the garage. For far too long I was oblivious, with my eyes closed and a large smirk on my face, deep into an episode of Stuart McLean’s “The Vinyl Café” on the radio as the engine exhaust cowered in the outside air and backed up around the truck.
As the “Sunscreen Song” touts: “Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you . . . on some idle Tuesday.”
Hmmm. I should thank my lucky stars.
Thank you.
Oh, yes, and I’m supposed to dance—even if it’s only in my living room. As the matter of fact, the last time I danced in my living room was in 1997, all over the new flooring Peter and I had spent hours putting in at the first home we rented together before we were married.
The last time I danced in public was in February at a Collective Soul concert in Thunder Bay, but not until my #3 daughter corrected me on protocol.
I don’t get out much and, consequently, the musical event was my first rock concert ever. Ever.
When it became apparent that no one was going to sit down after rising to a frenzy as the band came out on stage, Mrs. Know-It-All blew a gasket.
“If I have to stand up for the whole concert, I’m leaving,” I scowled to my 17-year-old jiving beside me.
“It's a rock concert, Mother, you’re supposed to stand up,” she replied with the flat stare she inherited from me.
Scream, shine, spit me out “wa huh, wa huh, wa huh.”
All that I know is I should do that more often.
I also know that even though good eyesight isn’t on the to-do list of the “Sunscreen Song,” my husband should never go without glasses. The latest news flash in his neck of the woods is that he can’t tell the difference between me and a vulture.
We’d taken an exciting day trip to the local landfill site to dispose of old farm fodder and as Pete chucked, I snapped digital photos of gigantic eagles and other carnivorous fowl huddling on mounds of muck off in the distance.
After I had downloaded the photos to my computer at home and was checking out my cache for any hint of National Geographic quality, Pete stopped short behind my armchair, his eyes all squinted and wrinkly.
“Is that you sitting on a hill?” he muttered, unaware of the forces of evil about to descend upon him.
“That’s a turkey buzzard,” I said with a whole whack of attitude, clicking the mouse repeatedly on “zoom” until the old bird filled the screen.
Pete, ever the master of recovery, quipped back that if I wore Victoria Secret underwear more often, perhaps it would correct his vision. I just squawked and pecked his eyes out.
The “Sunscreen Song” tells us to accept certain inalienable truths. Contrary to what I thought my intention was last November, when I decided to quit writing this column, clearly that decision was not part of the universal plan for me.
In a quirky sort of way, my writing sits right up there with credit card debt. There are some things that are impossible to run from or forget about.
And to those of you who conspired with the universe to remind me over the last six months or so that you missed me, and that I should write in this space again, thank you.
Here I am.
One of my favourite songs to listen to on my iPod is the spoken-word lyrics of “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen),” written by Baz Luhrmann. The seven-minute sage narration has been around for more than a decade and yet remains timeless in its message about what’s important in life.
For me, the “Sunscreen Song” holds some of the best third-party advice I’ve ever laid ears on, and I should listen to it more often because there are many a day when I still need to be reminded of what matters most.
The “Sunscreen Song” is sort of a to-do list for me to check my life against, especially when I think things aren’t going the way they should. If you are familiar with the words, then you’ll understand when I declare I am among the people over 40 years of age who really doesn’t know what they want to do with their life.
However, make no mistake.
Not knowing doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. Where I am—or am not—in this great big world, and that things will continue to change, makes for great adventure. I only get one shot at this particular shift on Earth and I’m keeping the door open to possibility until long after my hair is long and grey.
Of course, if I quit paying attention to what’s important, there’s a good chance my interesting life won’t get its chance at fulfillment, as was nearly the case one evening in late January.
With the deep freeze of winter mighty in the night air, there I was sitting mindlessly in an idling truck after pulling into the garage. For far too long I was oblivious, with my eyes closed and a large smirk on my face, deep into an episode of Stuart McLean’s “The Vinyl Café” on the radio as the engine exhaust cowered in the outside air and backed up around the truck.
As the “Sunscreen Song” touts: “Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you . . . on some idle Tuesday.”
Hmmm. I should thank my lucky stars.
Thank you.
Oh, yes, and I’m supposed to dance—even if it’s only in my living room. As the matter of fact, the last time I danced in my living room was in 1997, all over the new flooring Peter and I had spent hours putting in at the first home we rented together before we were married.
The last time I danced in public was in February at a Collective Soul concert in Thunder Bay, but not until my #3 daughter corrected me on protocol.
I don’t get out much and, consequently, the musical event was my first rock concert ever. Ever.
When it became apparent that no one was going to sit down after rising to a frenzy as the band came out on stage, Mrs. Know-It-All blew a gasket.
“If I have to stand up for the whole concert, I’m leaving,” I scowled to my 17-year-old jiving beside me.
“It's a rock concert, Mother, you’re supposed to stand up,” she replied with the flat stare she inherited from me.
Scream, shine, spit me out “wa huh, wa huh, wa huh.”
All that I know is I should do that more often.
I also know that even though good eyesight isn’t on the to-do list of the “Sunscreen Song,” my husband should never go without glasses. The latest news flash in his neck of the woods is that he can’t tell the difference between me and a vulture.
We’d taken an exciting day trip to the local landfill site to dispose of old farm fodder and as Pete chucked, I snapped digital photos of gigantic eagles and other carnivorous fowl huddling on mounds of muck off in the distance.
After I had downloaded the photos to my computer at home and was checking out my cache for any hint of National Geographic quality, Pete stopped short behind my armchair, his eyes all squinted and wrinkly.
“Is that you sitting on a hill?” he muttered, unaware of the forces of evil about to descend upon him.
“That’s a turkey buzzard,” I said with a whole whack of attitude, clicking the mouse repeatedly on “zoom” until the old bird filled the screen.
Pete, ever the master of recovery, quipped back that if I wore Victoria Secret underwear more often, perhaps it would correct his vision. I just squawked and pecked his eyes out.
The “Sunscreen Song” tells us to accept certain inalienable truths. Contrary to what I thought my intention was last November, when I decided to quit writing this column, clearly that decision was not part of the universal plan for me.
In a quirky sort of way, my writing sits right up there with credit card debt. There are some things that are impossible to run from or forget about.
And to those of you who conspired with the universe to remind me over the last six months or so that you missed me, and that I should write in this space again, thank you.
Here I am.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Slice of Life
October 10, 2007
It’s 9:30 a.m. on Monday, Thanksgiving morning.
I’ve moved my battle with the forces of writer’s block into the bedroom, where I’ve shut the door and set up my stab at quality word soup for the “View from Here” on my bed; pillows at my back.
I surround myself with the usual inspirations; trusty philosophical quote collection, my daily journal of word ditties and funnies, Oprah’s magazine of the month—and food.
Gotta have food for thought.
This morning, it’s my second, big helping of a homemade pumpkin pie sent home with us by my mom after a meal of great proportion at my parents’ home Sunday night. I should have had oatmeal for breakfast, but when I woke up this morning, it was all I could do not to peek in the fridge at the yet untouched pie tucked gingerly atop my husband’s “doggie bag” fourth helping of mom’s turkey dinner.
I cut my pie slices in triangles, one eye closed, the other gauging how wide a piece I could get away with while still maintaining the three-cornered shape.
By now, half the pie is gone.
I plug in my headphones to my laptop’s music department and hit repeat on Silverchair’s “Straight Lines,” followed by three recaps of Feist’s “1234,” James Blunt’s “1973,” plus a dolop of Irish drinking songs and an injection of calypso with Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line.”
Still, 1,000 little jobs are flashing neon warnings at me from my “to do” list and, at points in this struggle to write something worth reading, I’d rather be cleaning the bathroom, doing dishes, or shovelling moldy, old hay out the hayloft.
Maybe one more slice of pumpkin pie would jumpstart my creativity? I think about that for 10 seconds until I look down and see the laptop resting comfortably on my “Buddha” and then get angry with myself for not paying attention—for the hundred-thousandth time—to what I’m eating.
The phone rings, but this time it is not a silent party that precedes a tele-marketer. Nope. This time it’s the “G-Man,” casing for my husband’s wallet and the next payment of income tax he owes. The G-Man speaks in quiet tones of deep, dark intonation and makes me pinkie-swear to have Pete call him back within the next eight seconds or he will be forced to take other methods of collection.
A sudden vision of an old Mafia movie ensues, complete with horse’s head and a guy named “Tony Two Toes.”
Pete, who currently is unavailable to the common man’s wife and to telephone calls from anyone except Cohort #1, or his favourite Music Man, or the lottery corporation announcing that he’s $15 million richer, is busy with Project #45 in the barn, where an amazing transformation has begun.
This undertaking, though supported by the Mrs., faces the same stalled fate as the rest of the great undertakings strewn about the farmyard—when Pete makes his departure next week to far horizons and a four-week stint at his new job in the northwest corner of this great country.
His change in job from one end of the north to the other wasn’t planned, but then given the incidences of coincidence that have spackled his neck of the woods in the last 10 weeks, it comes as no surprise.
The only real surprises of late seem to be in my corner. They come screaming in when I look in the mirror at my bad perm and the hindsight that shakes its finger at me and shouts “You shouldn’t have!”
Surprises also came to me with dropped jaw in the big city, where a recent trip with Daughter #1 revealed to two country bumpkins that there are such things as paved back alleys, taxi cabs that take Visa, and automatic paper towel dispensers in mall bathrooms.
More surprises appear to a wide-eyed me in the shapes of skunks, raccoons, and enough deer to populate Toronto, that wait to cross the road in the dark, just as I am about to drive by in my new and sporty little truck, the colour of which is a grabber blend of orange that mixes a Ministry of Transport vehicle with a school bus.
Like most people who see it for the first time and are rendered speechless, perhaps the skunk, raccoon, and deer just don’t know what to make of it.
But that’s no surprise. Neither does my nay-saying teenager, who would rather I drove up to meet her at work on horseback eating pumpkin pie.
It’s 9:30 a.m. on Monday, Thanksgiving morning.
I’ve moved my battle with the forces of writer’s block into the bedroom, where I’ve shut the door and set up my stab at quality word soup for the “View from Here” on my bed; pillows at my back.
I surround myself with the usual inspirations; trusty philosophical quote collection, my daily journal of word ditties and funnies, Oprah’s magazine of the month—and food.
Gotta have food for thought.
This morning, it’s my second, big helping of a homemade pumpkin pie sent home with us by my mom after a meal of great proportion at my parents’ home Sunday night. I should have had oatmeal for breakfast, but when I woke up this morning, it was all I could do not to peek in the fridge at the yet untouched pie tucked gingerly atop my husband’s “doggie bag” fourth helping of mom’s turkey dinner.
I cut my pie slices in triangles, one eye closed, the other gauging how wide a piece I could get away with while still maintaining the three-cornered shape.
By now, half the pie is gone.
I plug in my headphones to my laptop’s music department and hit repeat on Silverchair’s “Straight Lines,” followed by three recaps of Feist’s “1234,” James Blunt’s “1973,” plus a dolop of Irish drinking songs and an injection of calypso with Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line.”
Still, 1,000 little jobs are flashing neon warnings at me from my “to do” list and, at points in this struggle to write something worth reading, I’d rather be cleaning the bathroom, doing dishes, or shovelling moldy, old hay out the hayloft.
Maybe one more slice of pumpkin pie would jumpstart my creativity? I think about that for 10 seconds until I look down and see the laptop resting comfortably on my “Buddha” and then get angry with myself for not paying attention—for the hundred-thousandth time—to what I’m eating.
The phone rings, but this time it is not a silent party that precedes a tele-marketer. Nope. This time it’s the “G-Man,” casing for my husband’s wallet and the next payment of income tax he owes. The G-Man speaks in quiet tones of deep, dark intonation and makes me pinkie-swear to have Pete call him back within the next eight seconds or he will be forced to take other methods of collection.
A sudden vision of an old Mafia movie ensues, complete with horse’s head and a guy named “Tony Two Toes.”
Pete, who currently is unavailable to the common man’s wife and to telephone calls from anyone except Cohort #1, or his favourite Music Man, or the lottery corporation announcing that he’s $15 million richer, is busy with Project #45 in the barn, where an amazing transformation has begun.
This undertaking, though supported by the Mrs., faces the same stalled fate as the rest of the great undertakings strewn about the farmyard—when Pete makes his departure next week to far horizons and a four-week stint at his new job in the northwest corner of this great country.
His change in job from one end of the north to the other wasn’t planned, but then given the incidences of coincidence that have spackled his neck of the woods in the last 10 weeks, it comes as no surprise.
The only real surprises of late seem to be in my corner. They come screaming in when I look in the mirror at my bad perm and the hindsight that shakes its finger at me and shouts “You shouldn’t have!”
Surprises also came to me with dropped jaw in the big city, where a recent trip with Daughter #1 revealed to two country bumpkins that there are such things as paved back alleys, taxi cabs that take Visa, and automatic paper towel dispensers in mall bathrooms.
More surprises appear to a wide-eyed me in the shapes of skunks, raccoons, and enough deer to populate Toronto, that wait to cross the road in the dark, just as I am about to drive by in my new and sporty little truck, the colour of which is a grabber blend of orange that mixes a Ministry of Transport vehicle with a school bus.
Like most people who see it for the first time and are rendered speechless, perhaps the skunk, raccoon, and deer just don’t know what to make of it.
But that’s no surprise. Neither does my nay-saying teenager, who would rather I drove up to meet her at work on horseback eating pumpkin pie.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Change can be good
September 26, 2007
Of late, I am reminded of the Irish motto, “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
Grandpa Drennan wasn’t known for his height, but he did have a mighty soul stocked with discipline and work ethics that measured hands above any draft horse of his day.
And if 13 months ago, an Irishman had bet that by now I’d be leaning towards changing the face of this old farm—no matter how tall my grandfather was—I’d surely have flat-stared the bloke to under the ruins of Blarney Castle, shaking my head in disbelief that I would ever consider such nonsense.
After all, I was living at the gathering place of my childhood. What possible reason would possess me to change it? Like a page from an old storybook, I wanted to leave things the way they were—albeit more organized and with new paint.
For a long time I adamantly preached preservations of countless details . . . believing many things should look and be as they always were in all those years. Then in March, I wrote in my column that I’d moved on and stepped over the threshold of accountability to a place where I could be a lantern to the past and know that it was still okay to forge my own path.
But I didn’t really do that.
Sure, I spent the summer cleaning up farm debris and clearing more area where grass could grow and make work for the grass-cutter. But I didn’t want to make any major changes. I would rather old, dilapidated buildings be left as they were, much to the disappointment of my husband, whose patience was exemplary in the face of such a stalemate.
I was afraid if things really changed, my past would fade away, lose its identity, and I would forget.
When a loved one dies, we keep all sorts of things close to our hearts for memories’ sake.You keep an old shirt, he a ball cap, another a favourite piece of jewellery. Sometimes you just leave their bedroom alone for a very long time because if you keep the door closed, yesterday remains.
Or, like me, you want to keep the farm status quo and, therefore, do what we’ve always done and get what we’ve always gotten.
Then, in mid-August, the winds of change stepped in and left Pete with a foot injury and a short-term disability that—by mid-October—will have totalled 10 weeks off of work. Having him home for more than 55 days so far has had its challenges for the wife and some of those days—complete with tickets to the moon—are best left for another story.
Today, I want to thank him for all he’s done around here since he’s been home. And I want him to know that I am glad for his insistence that some things must change and we must grow on into our own design—no matter how tall my grandfather was.
Pete’s vision for this old farm often has met with more resistance from me than he deserves, and building on his own dream of improvements here is long overdue without so much interference from the peanut gallery living for yesteryear.
I’m always going to have a soft spot for leaving old barn doors on rickety hinges and 60-year old windows intact in the porch.
But change is a good idea and—no matter the change—I will never forget.
As for a clear line of sight to the creek from the kitchen window, free of light poles that resemble railway crossing lights, I win.
And I will call on Oscar Wilde’s saying, “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise,” when I am standing in the basement, surveying with a scowl the piles of upended boxes of nails, countless scattered tools, and the like, and grumbling under my breath, “Once upon a time, I had this place so neat and tidy. And then came Man.”
I’ll also remember that on his way to the barn is my husband, who is building me a stairway so that I may climb safely to the hayloft.
Thanks Pete.
Of late, I am reminded of the Irish motto, “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
Grandpa Drennan wasn’t known for his height, but he did have a mighty soul stocked with discipline and work ethics that measured hands above any draft horse of his day.
And if 13 months ago, an Irishman had bet that by now I’d be leaning towards changing the face of this old farm—no matter how tall my grandfather was—I’d surely have flat-stared the bloke to under the ruins of Blarney Castle, shaking my head in disbelief that I would ever consider such nonsense.
After all, I was living at the gathering place of my childhood. What possible reason would possess me to change it? Like a page from an old storybook, I wanted to leave things the way they were—albeit more organized and with new paint.
For a long time I adamantly preached preservations of countless details . . . believing many things should look and be as they always were in all those years. Then in March, I wrote in my column that I’d moved on and stepped over the threshold of accountability to a place where I could be a lantern to the past and know that it was still okay to forge my own path.
But I didn’t really do that.
Sure, I spent the summer cleaning up farm debris and clearing more area where grass could grow and make work for the grass-cutter. But I didn’t want to make any major changes. I would rather old, dilapidated buildings be left as they were, much to the disappointment of my husband, whose patience was exemplary in the face of such a stalemate.
I was afraid if things really changed, my past would fade away, lose its identity, and I would forget.
When a loved one dies, we keep all sorts of things close to our hearts for memories’ sake.You keep an old shirt, he a ball cap, another a favourite piece of jewellery. Sometimes you just leave their bedroom alone for a very long time because if you keep the door closed, yesterday remains.
Or, like me, you want to keep the farm status quo and, therefore, do what we’ve always done and get what we’ve always gotten.
Then, in mid-August, the winds of change stepped in and left Pete with a foot injury and a short-term disability that—by mid-October—will have totalled 10 weeks off of work. Having him home for more than 55 days so far has had its challenges for the wife and some of those days—complete with tickets to the moon—are best left for another story.
Today, I want to thank him for all he’s done around here since he’s been home. And I want him to know that I am glad for his insistence that some things must change and we must grow on into our own design—no matter how tall my grandfather was.
Pete’s vision for this old farm often has met with more resistance from me than he deserves, and building on his own dream of improvements here is long overdue without so much interference from the peanut gallery living for yesteryear.
I’m always going to have a soft spot for leaving old barn doors on rickety hinges and 60-year old windows intact in the porch.
But change is a good idea and—no matter the change—I will never forget.
As for a clear line of sight to the creek from the kitchen window, free of light poles that resemble railway crossing lights, I win.
And I will call on Oscar Wilde’s saying, “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise,” when I am standing in the basement, surveying with a scowl the piles of upended boxes of nails, countless scattered tools, and the like, and grumbling under my breath, “Once upon a time, I had this place so neat and tidy. And then came Man.”
I’ll also remember that on his way to the barn is my husband, who is building me a stairway so that I may climb safely to the hayloft.
Thanks Pete.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The battle for the last word
September 12, 2007
For weeks now, I’ve been battling with the forces of writer’s block and going blue in the face trying to unload some sort of quality word soup into the form of a newspaper column.
My neck of the woods continues to brim with “believe it or not” episodes that make for great literary fodder, but for whatever reason, my ability to translate to text has met head-on with “blah, blah, blah.”
No doubt part of the reason for this is the fact that I don’t work in the newspaper office anymore. While it often was one of the most annoyingly busy environments in which to get things done, I’ve since discovered that the incessant newspaper talk and the underlying smell of ink from the press played their part in the recipe that spelled out “The View From Here.”
Now, my creative space is a small station tucked beside the fridge in my 280 sq. ft. farmhouse kitchen.
Strategically placed, indeed.
Shifting ever so slightly, I can watch television 10 paces to the right while, to my left, keep an eye on what I’m cooking on the stove for supper. On each side of my wooden “office chair” sit two canine capers turning blue in the snout as they use all their brain power to convince me to let them have the rest of the cookie I’m eating and then let them outside to terrorize the cat.
And if they aren’t staring me down, they’re lying about grossing me out with noises of the sloppy, wet licking associated with cleaning themselves.
Behind me, the door to the outside world swings open and shut as Pete and Cohort #1 walk in and out wearing wet, sandy running shoes and looking for help with a computer project from “Mrs. Know It All,” who is about to erase both of them with a flat stare.
Just when I have an epiphany on an idea for a great story, Daughter #3 opens the door from her bedroom and lets out 75 decibels of rap music smothered in heavy bass tones which ricochet off the kitchen cupboards straight into my left ear and out my right—taking with it every letter of the alphabet from my brain.
When I get back in the groove, the phone rings. I answer ‘Hello” to a silent party, followed by the sudden onset of voices and the relentless spiel of a tele-marketer.
A TV commercial I just saw, in which “Darth Maul” from Star Wars sends lightning bolts from his hand through the phone line, comes to my mind.
Right then and there, I decide to drop everything and go mow the lawn, hoping some sort of head laundry will ensue and a great story line for my column will appear somewhere between the front lawn and the grassy knoll to the creek.
Three hours of grass-cutting and weed-eating later, I’m still grasping at straws and fall into a kitchen chair next to my “office” and slam back a cold drink of water. Pete walks in behind me, sits down, and tries to draw out some sort of literary plan for me. Maybe I could talk about the next chapter in the “Rusty Bachelor Diaries,” or the 15 unfinished projects lying around the farmyard this week.
Yes, I could.
He continues to chat about this and that, and gets up to make himself a sandwich. I decline his offer to join in the afternoon snack while lamenting my need to watch my diet.
“You always watch your diet,” he retorts, followed by a long bout of silence as he makes a ham sandwich heavy with lettuce, mayo, and onions.
“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this but . . . .,” he begins to say.
Okay, wait a minute, folks.
I’m guessing most husbands wouldn’t have even opened their mouths and spoke those words and if they had, would smartly retrace their steps.
Or, in the New York minute it took their brains to wave a caution flag, have changed the ending in order to avoid having harm done to them by the wife.
Not my man. Nope.
Granted, I know he loves me inside and out, with my Buddha or without it, but this time he’s toast.
“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this but . . . you work so hard at it. . . . So why aren’t you skinny as a rake?” he queried, ever so the innocent.
My answer was another story—yet by the laws of the written word, not printable by a long shot.
For weeks now, I’ve been battling with the forces of writer’s block and going blue in the face trying to unload some sort of quality word soup into the form of a newspaper column.
My neck of the woods continues to brim with “believe it or not” episodes that make for great literary fodder, but for whatever reason, my ability to translate to text has met head-on with “blah, blah, blah.”
No doubt part of the reason for this is the fact that I don’t work in the newspaper office anymore. While it often was one of the most annoyingly busy environments in which to get things done, I’ve since discovered that the incessant newspaper talk and the underlying smell of ink from the press played their part in the recipe that spelled out “The View From Here.”
Now, my creative space is a small station tucked beside the fridge in my 280 sq. ft. farmhouse kitchen.
Strategically placed, indeed.
Shifting ever so slightly, I can watch television 10 paces to the right while, to my left, keep an eye on what I’m cooking on the stove for supper. On each side of my wooden “office chair” sit two canine capers turning blue in the snout as they use all their brain power to convince me to let them have the rest of the cookie I’m eating and then let them outside to terrorize the cat.
And if they aren’t staring me down, they’re lying about grossing me out with noises of the sloppy, wet licking associated with cleaning themselves.
Behind me, the door to the outside world swings open and shut as Pete and Cohort #1 walk in and out wearing wet, sandy running shoes and looking for help with a computer project from “Mrs. Know It All,” who is about to erase both of them with a flat stare.
Just when I have an epiphany on an idea for a great story, Daughter #3 opens the door from her bedroom and lets out 75 decibels of rap music smothered in heavy bass tones which ricochet off the kitchen cupboards straight into my left ear and out my right—taking with it every letter of the alphabet from my brain.
When I get back in the groove, the phone rings. I answer ‘Hello” to a silent party, followed by the sudden onset of voices and the relentless spiel of a tele-marketer.
A TV commercial I just saw, in which “Darth Maul” from Star Wars sends lightning bolts from his hand through the phone line, comes to my mind.
Right then and there, I decide to drop everything and go mow the lawn, hoping some sort of head laundry will ensue and a great story line for my column will appear somewhere between the front lawn and the grassy knoll to the creek.
Three hours of grass-cutting and weed-eating later, I’m still grasping at straws and fall into a kitchen chair next to my “office” and slam back a cold drink of water. Pete walks in behind me, sits down, and tries to draw out some sort of literary plan for me. Maybe I could talk about the next chapter in the “Rusty Bachelor Diaries,” or the 15 unfinished projects lying around the farmyard this week.
Yes, I could.
He continues to chat about this and that, and gets up to make himself a sandwich. I decline his offer to join in the afternoon snack while lamenting my need to watch my diet.
“You always watch your diet,” he retorts, followed by a long bout of silence as he makes a ham sandwich heavy with lettuce, mayo, and onions.
“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this but . . . .,” he begins to say.
Okay, wait a minute, folks.
I’m guessing most husbands wouldn’t have even opened their mouths and spoke those words and if they had, would smartly retrace their steps.
Or, in the New York minute it took their brains to wave a caution flag, have changed the ending in order to avoid having harm done to them by the wife.
Not my man. Nope.
Granted, I know he loves me inside and out, with my Buddha or without it, but this time he’s toast.
“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this but . . . you work so hard at it. . . . So why aren’t you skinny as a rake?” he queried, ever so the innocent.
My answer was another story—yet by the laws of the written word, not printable by a long shot.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
There should be a higher law
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
When I go to bed at night, there’s at least one thing that I’m very good at.
The other is being able to empty my mind of the woebegone happenings of the day.
A long time ago I learned how, at shut-eye time, to pack a mental suitcase with any worries, fretting, and negative thoughts I might have and give them up to God for safe-keeping until the next day.
I’m a firm believer that on any given night, we all deserve a restful sleep free of the dark, regurgitated materials that might have crossed our daily path.
I also love to get up really early in the morning, especially during the summer months when, at 5 a.m., I can catch a glimpse of the sunrise not yet written upon by the events of the coming day.
And I can achieve the wake-up call without the mechanical warning system of an alarm clock.
These night and day rituals renew my trump hand on positive thinking, which aside from my appreciation for small wonders, is the currency of my endurance and my existence.
My beef thus lies with the media powers-that-be—who for reasons beyond my comprehension—believe that bad news is the way to jump-start the coming day.
In my view, it’s a sucker punch and something’s gotta change when it comes to the morning news.
I woke up at 5 a.m. yesterday morning pulled to consciousness by the rare use of my alarm clock—set because with Pete being home and putting me in my happy place, I usually sleep in.
The very first words that came out of the national newsman’s voice at the top of the early hour were that “The head of the State Food and Drug Administration in China had been executed.”
Though I am smart enough to know at least some of the harsh realities of the world we live in, visions of a bullet to the head or death by firing squad are not the first conscious thoughts I want planted in my soul at the start of a new day.
What happened to good news first?
If you do an Internet search on this subject, it’s all about the art of sensationalism, what sells, and the public’s thirst for the negative. Sorry, bucko. I’m an optimist.
And while I’ll admit I’ve still a lot to learn in this Earth school and that I may be a small fleck of influence in the argument for the positive, I’m not alone.
The fate of Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu of China, who was convicted in May of taking bribes worth $850,000 to approve the manufacture of an antibiotic blamed for 10 deaths, and other substandard medicines, no doubt is news.
Yet, the poet Pindar wrote, “Unsung, the noblest deed will die.”
Some 14,000 firearms were melted down in Colombia to highlight the danger of illegal arms proliferation, and the molten metal was used to make school chairs and build a monument in memory of victims of violence and kidnapping in Colombia.
That’s hope.
It’s also what my old wicker couch is for on the banks of Frog Creek. It is as Wendell Berry penned, in “The Peace of Wild Things”
"When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
When I go to bed at night, there’s at least one thing that I’m very good at.
The other is being able to empty my mind of the woebegone happenings of the day.
A long time ago I learned how, at shut-eye time, to pack a mental suitcase with any worries, fretting, and negative thoughts I might have and give them up to God for safe-keeping until the next day.
I’m a firm believer that on any given night, we all deserve a restful sleep free of the dark, regurgitated materials that might have crossed our daily path.
I also love to get up really early in the morning, especially during the summer months when, at 5 a.m., I can catch a glimpse of the sunrise not yet written upon by the events of the coming day.
And I can achieve the wake-up call without the mechanical warning system of an alarm clock.
These night and day rituals renew my trump hand on positive thinking, which aside from my appreciation for small wonders, is the currency of my endurance and my existence.
My beef thus lies with the media powers-that-be—who for reasons beyond my comprehension—believe that bad news is the way to jump-start the coming day.
In my view, it’s a sucker punch and something’s gotta change when it comes to the morning news.
I woke up at 5 a.m. yesterday morning pulled to consciousness by the rare use of my alarm clock—set because with Pete being home and putting me in my happy place, I usually sleep in.
The very first words that came out of the national newsman’s voice at the top of the early hour were that “The head of the State Food and Drug Administration in China had been executed.”
Though I am smart enough to know at least some of the harsh realities of the world we live in, visions of a bullet to the head or death by firing squad are not the first conscious thoughts I want planted in my soul at the start of a new day.
What happened to good news first?
If you do an Internet search on this subject, it’s all about the art of sensationalism, what sells, and the public’s thirst for the negative. Sorry, bucko. I’m an optimist.
And while I’ll admit I’ve still a lot to learn in this Earth school and that I may be a small fleck of influence in the argument for the positive, I’m not alone.
The fate of Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu of China, who was convicted in May of taking bribes worth $850,000 to approve the manufacture of an antibiotic blamed for 10 deaths, and other substandard medicines, no doubt is news.
Yet, the poet Pindar wrote, “Unsung, the noblest deed will die.”
Some 14,000 firearms were melted down in Colombia to highlight the danger of illegal arms proliferation, and the molten metal was used to make school chairs and build a monument in memory of victims of violence and kidnapping in Colombia.
That’s hope.
It’s also what my old wicker couch is for on the banks of Frog Creek. It is as Wendell Berry penned, in “The Peace of Wild Things”
"When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
The foundation needs a change
August 1, 2007
My flat stare has come full circle and squarely back at me.
At 46 I should already have learned the following lessons; makeup doesn’t work in 33 degrees celsius weather, gin on the rocks doesn’t mix, and that even though I am a multi-tasking, female entity I should wave a white flag sometimes.
I also should have come to know that even though the humid weather makes my fingers swell to the size of small sausages, it is not the culprit behind my “Buddha.”
But let’s get back to the makeup thing.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror all I see are crow’s feet, grey hair, and crevices deep enough in my forehead to plant seeds in. I’ve thought about standing back a bit to the point where everything is blurry, but if I did that I wouldn’t know where I was, as my eyesight, too, is on a racetrack to reading glasses.
My laugh lines are not funny, the bags under my eyes aren’t welcome and double chins should have been left on the list of things that happen to women as we age (not to mention the host of dark hairs that sprout there after the age of 40.)
If women could pocket the monies spent on makeup foundation since the beginning of our time slapping on the stuff, we’d be richer than Oprah Winfrey.
It purports to blend like magic or last until the cows come home.
While most of us “know-it-alls” have found at least one ounce of a brand that works half the time, I’m still waiting for a company to use their breakthrough hocus pocus to “moo-ove” me with a foundation that also doesn’t slide off my face and into my lap in hot weather, ever.
This undoubtedly happened with incredible coincidence when, after years of not seeing a high school girl pal, I bumped into her at an outdoor concert in the hot July sun.
Before I could throw down a black circle from the cartoons and jump in, the jolt caused my otherwise youthful and lifted visage--courtesy of the latest technology—to slip off and down straight past my breasts already in south-mode and ricochet off my “Buddha,” (which was in competition with my spandex underwear) and land in the “gin on the rocks” I was holding in a plastic cup.
Stupidly, I took a drink from my glass hoping by some miracle I might regain my composure and that even though it looked like iced cappuccino, it wouldn’t taste like natural beige.
In the end though, losing face wasn’t as traumatic as I anticipated when as I took one horrible gulp, I realized that unlike the woman standing in front of me, at least my moustache was bleached and not black.
And thankfully I was still wearing a tried and true lipstick (tested innumerable times by the kisses of my Superman) that has allowed us both to leap tall buildings without losing its color.
Meanwhile, the psychologists and psychiatrists of the world tell us that we teach people how to treat us. This is true in many aspects of our lives, the least of which exists in mine when I am headlong into DIY projects.
Peter leaves me to my hive of industrious behavior because I’ve taught him that I can be a bit of a control freak in the departments of housecleaning and gardening.
His life is simpler and safer if he just lets me “bee.”
Case in point.
Eight willow tree trunks in my front yard have been eye-sores to me since I moved here with Pete last August. I mowed around them in frustration and left the weeds to grow around them purely out of spite.
I had always wished the trees had never been cut down and burned out all those years ago, but then I wasn’t living here and wasn’t the one who had to clean up the mess of broken branches which willows are notoriously known for dropping, even at the slightest breeze.
I had briefly envisioned making the old trunks into planters but the already overworked weed maintainer and flower garden technician in me said, “Whoa!”
Instead, I hired the local #1 tree-trunk-mulcher-guy, who then devoted hours of his time meticulously grinding up what was left of the “old girls.”
Unbeknownst to me, he also was going to neaten up the sawdust into heaps, easier for my hauling, before the mulching was done.
In the days that followed, as Pete and I sat outside admiring the great job done by the #1 tree-mulcher guy, I couldn’t figure out why there was only three small heaps of sawdust and what seemed like 18 million piles more waiting to be raked up.
“Oh, I told him he didn’t need to do it--that my wife would take care of it,” Pete replied.
Oh, white flag were art thou?
My flat stare has come full circle and squarely back at me.
At 46 I should already have learned the following lessons; makeup doesn’t work in 33 degrees celsius weather, gin on the rocks doesn’t mix, and that even though I am a multi-tasking, female entity I should wave a white flag sometimes.
I also should have come to know that even though the humid weather makes my fingers swell to the size of small sausages, it is not the culprit behind my “Buddha.”
But let’s get back to the makeup thing.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror all I see are crow’s feet, grey hair, and crevices deep enough in my forehead to plant seeds in. I’ve thought about standing back a bit to the point where everything is blurry, but if I did that I wouldn’t know where I was, as my eyesight, too, is on a racetrack to reading glasses.
My laugh lines are not funny, the bags under my eyes aren’t welcome and double chins should have been left on the list of things that happen to women as we age (not to mention the host of dark hairs that sprout there after the age of 40.)
If women could pocket the monies spent on makeup foundation since the beginning of our time slapping on the stuff, we’d be richer than Oprah Winfrey.
It purports to blend like magic or last until the cows come home.
While most of us “know-it-alls” have found at least one ounce of a brand that works half the time, I’m still waiting for a company to use their breakthrough hocus pocus to “moo-ove” me with a foundation that also doesn’t slide off my face and into my lap in hot weather, ever.
This undoubtedly happened with incredible coincidence when, after years of not seeing a high school girl pal, I bumped into her at an outdoor concert in the hot July sun.
Before I could throw down a black circle from the cartoons and jump in, the jolt caused my otherwise youthful and lifted visage--courtesy of the latest technology—to slip off and down straight past my breasts already in south-mode and ricochet off my “Buddha,” (which was in competition with my spandex underwear) and land in the “gin on the rocks” I was holding in a plastic cup.
Stupidly, I took a drink from my glass hoping by some miracle I might regain my composure and that even though it looked like iced cappuccino, it wouldn’t taste like natural beige.
In the end though, losing face wasn’t as traumatic as I anticipated when as I took one horrible gulp, I realized that unlike the woman standing in front of me, at least my moustache was bleached and not black.
And thankfully I was still wearing a tried and true lipstick (tested innumerable times by the kisses of my Superman) that has allowed us both to leap tall buildings without losing its color.
Meanwhile, the psychologists and psychiatrists of the world tell us that we teach people how to treat us. This is true in many aspects of our lives, the least of which exists in mine when I am headlong into DIY projects.
Peter leaves me to my hive of industrious behavior because I’ve taught him that I can be a bit of a control freak in the departments of housecleaning and gardening.
His life is simpler and safer if he just lets me “bee.”
Case in point.
Eight willow tree trunks in my front yard have been eye-sores to me since I moved here with Pete last August. I mowed around them in frustration and left the weeds to grow around them purely out of spite.
I had always wished the trees had never been cut down and burned out all those years ago, but then I wasn’t living here and wasn’t the one who had to clean up the mess of broken branches which willows are notoriously known for dropping, even at the slightest breeze.
I had briefly envisioned making the old trunks into planters but the already overworked weed maintainer and flower garden technician in me said, “Whoa!”
Instead, I hired the local #1 tree-trunk-mulcher-guy, who then devoted hours of his time meticulously grinding up what was left of the “old girls.”
Unbeknownst to me, he also was going to neaten up the sawdust into heaps, easier for my hauling, before the mulching was done.
In the days that followed, as Pete and I sat outside admiring the great job done by the #1 tree-mulcher guy, I couldn’t figure out why there was only three small heaps of sawdust and what seemed like 18 million piles more waiting to be raked up.
“Oh, I told him he didn’t need to do it--that my wife would take care of it,” Pete replied.
Oh, white flag were art thou?
In the heat of the moment
August 8, 2007
First of all, I have to set the information straight from my July 2nd column.
My laugh lines are not funny, the bags under my eyes aren’t welcome and double chins should have been left OFF the list of things that happen to women as we age (not to mention the host of dark hairs that sprout there after the age of 40.)
And while we’re back on that score again, I’d like to add hot flushes to the series of unfortunate events that I’d like to see gone from this menopausal galaxy.
As if the female species didn’t already have enough to deal with, having stopped doing laundry and vacuuming long enough to bear children, carried the “Buddha” reminder ever after, survived on three hours sleep for the next 18 years while raising said children through brat-hood, the immature teenage years, and on into “adulthood” wherein mom’s pocketbook still carried no money because the $20 bill that was in there was perpetually loaned to offspring.
And then – after all the little chickens have flown the nest and we overworked and underpaid mothers find ourselves again, everything suddenly heats up at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
The internal barbecue ignites at the most inconvenient time of day when we are standing in the vegetable aisle amongst strangers in the grocery store and are possessed with an overpowering urge to rip off all our clothes and run naked into the lake.
And why do hot flushes also have to burst out of you like on the movie “Alien” during that one night a month when you are deep into sawing logs and lying there on your side of the bed in a Tutankhamen-like sleeping position?
And to our poor husbands, who awaken to the sight of us ripping off our pajamas and taking fast shallow breaths – and then realize this is not going to be the night of their dreams – we apologize.
Or not.
To head off hot flushes at the pass I gave up pajamas before I hit the pillow, jumping into bed in my birthday suit until I realized that my husband thought my new look was carte blanche on a seven-night-a-week love boat.
To make matters worse, when I told Pete that I thought this was it and that “the big menopause was inevitable,” he started bringing a roll of duct tape to bed with him. When I asked him what it was for--expecting that perhaps it meant we were going to embark on a new love adventure on the one night a month I was in the mood, he shook his head.
The duct tape was there in case menopause struck at the full moon and he needed to secure me to the basement wall so that I would hurt him.
But he won’t have to worry about doing that, I reported. Before he knows it, the lunar lander-- with Pete duct taped to one of its jet engines--will have delivered him to the moon.
Hot flushes would be gratefully accepted by moi, if all that heat would burn off the little roll around my middle and the calorie intake from the cold beers thoroughly enjoyed over the last two weeks of warm weather.
And like clockwork, the tops of my ears turn beet-red at 2 p.m. every day thanks to Mother Nature’s little play on my evolving womanhood. I don’t even need to wear a watch anymore. As soon as my ears light up, I know it’s time to the put the coffee on for the afternoon break in the work day.
Maybe I could harness these internal heat blasts into energy capsules and use them to run my truck or keep my house warm over the winter. Heaven knows I can heat up the bed to the boiling point in the time it takes to flick on a light switch.
And if I could just figure out how to channel it, I’d also have-- at a moment’s notice-- my own fuel source for the space ship.
First of all, I have to set the information straight from my July 2nd column.
My laugh lines are not funny, the bags under my eyes aren’t welcome and double chins should have been left OFF the list of things that happen to women as we age (not to mention the host of dark hairs that sprout there after the age of 40.)
And while we’re back on that score again, I’d like to add hot flushes to the series of unfortunate events that I’d like to see gone from this menopausal galaxy.
As if the female species didn’t already have enough to deal with, having stopped doing laundry and vacuuming long enough to bear children, carried the “Buddha” reminder ever after, survived on three hours sleep for the next 18 years while raising said children through brat-hood, the immature teenage years, and on into “adulthood” wherein mom’s pocketbook still carried no money because the $20 bill that was in there was perpetually loaned to offspring.
And then – after all the little chickens have flown the nest and we overworked and underpaid mothers find ourselves again, everything suddenly heats up at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
The internal barbecue ignites at the most inconvenient time of day when we are standing in the vegetable aisle amongst strangers in the grocery store and are possessed with an overpowering urge to rip off all our clothes and run naked into the lake.
And why do hot flushes also have to burst out of you like on the movie “Alien” during that one night a month when you are deep into sawing logs and lying there on your side of the bed in a Tutankhamen-like sleeping position?
And to our poor husbands, who awaken to the sight of us ripping off our pajamas and taking fast shallow breaths – and then realize this is not going to be the night of their dreams – we apologize.
Or not.
To head off hot flushes at the pass I gave up pajamas before I hit the pillow, jumping into bed in my birthday suit until I realized that my husband thought my new look was carte blanche on a seven-night-a-week love boat.
To make matters worse, when I told Pete that I thought this was it and that “the big menopause was inevitable,” he started bringing a roll of duct tape to bed with him. When I asked him what it was for--expecting that perhaps it meant we were going to embark on a new love adventure on the one night a month I was in the mood, he shook his head.
The duct tape was there in case menopause struck at the full moon and he needed to secure me to the basement wall so that I would hurt him.
But he won’t have to worry about doing that, I reported. Before he knows it, the lunar lander-- with Pete duct taped to one of its jet engines--will have delivered him to the moon.
Hot flushes would be gratefully accepted by moi, if all that heat would burn off the little roll around my middle and the calorie intake from the cold beers thoroughly enjoyed over the last two weeks of warm weather.
And like clockwork, the tops of my ears turn beet-red at 2 p.m. every day thanks to Mother Nature’s little play on my evolving womanhood. I don’t even need to wear a watch anymore. As soon as my ears light up, I know it’s time to the put the coffee on for the afternoon break in the work day.
Maybe I could harness these internal heat blasts into energy capsules and use them to run my truck or keep my house warm over the winter. Heaven knows I can heat up the bed to the boiling point in the time it takes to flick on a light switch.
And if I could just figure out how to channel it, I’d also have-- at a moment’s notice-- my own fuel source for the space ship.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Once, twice, three times a stooge
August 22, 2007
Dare I assume a double, super-dog-day spent fetching sticks and running in circles after each other, would leave “Dot” and “Cash” sapped of energy and prone to the “sleeping like a log” syndrome.
And dare I assume that just shy of dusk on any given summer evening, my neck of the woods be a candidate for the quiet slumber of night, fragrant with the smell of fresh cut field hay.
Nope.
Instead, 30 seconds before the water boils for my cup of “caffeine-free sleep well” tea, and while the arc is high on the last doggie pee break of the night, “Pepe La Pew” is spotted minding his own business along the fence line.
While I understand the deep-seated canine instinct to chase anything that moves, could the “powers that be” please explain one more time, why my dogs don’t get it about skunks?
Like a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day,” did the same scenario unfold two consecutive nights last week, and four times in June and July, when after a spirited pursuit, both dogs slammed headlong into the scent glands of the white-striped varmint.
And once again there I was, standing outside on the porch step at 8:45 p.m., in the middle of a slow-motion movie shouting expletives at my stooges and watching in disbelief as Pepe stopped short to spray at the same time the tea kettle whistle blew.
And in a New York minute, as the sun went down and the wind shifted and brought the consequence to my nostrils, I wished I lived in the Big Rock Candy Mountains where the land is fair and bright and the wind “don’t blow” and the chickens lay soft-boiled eggs.
Dot and Cash should have used their supersonic hearing to catch the message from “The Duke,” who in the minutes prior to their odorous episode barked down the countryside to his canine colleagues the sage advice that, “Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”
After legendary face-to-face consultations with Pepe’s backside, “The Duke” now concedes right-of- way and his food dish to “Mr. Stinky.”
But despite my canines being able to hear me open a can of dog food at 600 paces, they apparently didn’t catch that doggy memo.
Instead, ripe with skunk and soaked in my anti-toxin of “Febreze” plus hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, water, and baking soda, the stooges sit shunned at the backdoor puzzled as to why, once again, they are excommunicated from the farmhouse.
Not to mention me, having come into contact with a fresh recipe of “Pepe on dog” while trying to expunge it, carry fragments of the affair with me into the kitchen where the tea kettle has boiled dry and a husband shouts from his dent in the couch, “What’s that smell?”
Right then, I wanted to burst into flames like Nicholas Cage in “Ghost Rider” and scare the pants off everything that moved or spoke.
But instead I just took a deep breath and said, “Second hand skunk”—which immediately affected Pete to jump to his feet and run to draw me a bath.
(I guess the unexpected can have its rewards).
Dare I assume a double, super-dog-day spent fetching sticks and running in circles after each other, would leave “Dot” and “Cash” sapped of energy and prone to the “sleeping like a log” syndrome.
And dare I assume that just shy of dusk on any given summer evening, my neck of the woods be a candidate for the quiet slumber of night, fragrant with the smell of fresh cut field hay.
Nope.
Instead, 30 seconds before the water boils for my cup of “caffeine-free sleep well” tea, and while the arc is high on the last doggie pee break of the night, “Pepe La Pew” is spotted minding his own business along the fence line.
While I understand the deep-seated canine instinct to chase anything that moves, could the “powers that be” please explain one more time, why my dogs don’t get it about skunks?
Like a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day,” did the same scenario unfold two consecutive nights last week, and four times in June and July, when after a spirited pursuit, both dogs slammed headlong into the scent glands of the white-striped varmint.
And once again there I was, standing outside on the porch step at 8:45 p.m., in the middle of a slow-motion movie shouting expletives at my stooges and watching in disbelief as Pepe stopped short to spray at the same time the tea kettle whistle blew.
And in a New York minute, as the sun went down and the wind shifted and brought the consequence to my nostrils, I wished I lived in the Big Rock Candy Mountains where the land is fair and bright and the wind “don’t blow” and the chickens lay soft-boiled eggs.
Dot and Cash should have used their supersonic hearing to catch the message from “The Duke,” who in the minutes prior to their odorous episode barked down the countryside to his canine colleagues the sage advice that, “Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”
After legendary face-to-face consultations with Pepe’s backside, “The Duke” now concedes right-of- way and his food dish to “Mr. Stinky.”
But despite my canines being able to hear me open a can of dog food at 600 paces, they apparently didn’t catch that doggy memo.
Instead, ripe with skunk and soaked in my anti-toxin of “Febreze” plus hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, water, and baking soda, the stooges sit shunned at the backdoor puzzled as to why, once again, they are excommunicated from the farmhouse.
Not to mention me, having come into contact with a fresh recipe of “Pepe on dog” while trying to expunge it, carry fragments of the affair with me into the kitchen where the tea kettle has boiled dry and a husband shouts from his dent in the couch, “What’s that smell?”
Right then, I wanted to burst into flames like Nicholas Cage in “Ghost Rider” and scare the pants off everything that moved or spoke.
But instead I just took a deep breath and said, “Second hand skunk”—which immediately affected Pete to jump to his feet and run to draw me a bath.
(I guess the unexpected can have its rewards).
Friday, July 6, 2007
'Paws' for thought
July 5, 2007
The anonymous author who penned “Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree” also should have added dogs to that discipline philosophy.
In my neck of the woods, I’m quite sure the few smart brain cells my canines did have, fell out and into the hole where they buried the last meaty beef rib bones I doled out to them.
That deduction would at least explain why “Dot” and “Cash” seemingly never can find their secret stashes again.
It also might explain why Cash evidently didn’t remember what happened the first time a skunk lifted its tail in his face two months ago—as he rolled around and drove his face into the grass 16 times Saturday night after a second ill-fated chase.
What I know for sure is that all the hours of my hard work under the sun were destroyed by the likes of two tomfoolery dogs not nailed to a tree.
Dot is a mix of fox terrier and border collie. In other words, a digger that understands 500 words—with the exception of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Cash is all Labrador retriever and could outswim a fish if the prize was something to eat. If only he would just learn the meaning of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Though I’d been gardening since early May, I was busy connecting again with Mother Earth over the long weekend planting orphaned flowers rescued from local greenhouses as they geared up to empty out their nurseries of the over-rooted six packs of plants bypassed by other green thumbs.
That’s when I saw Dot make a beeline for a small propane tank situated at the side of the house where I was gardening, her nose then jammed in a small air space underneath.
That’s when I heard it—the telltale squeak of a mouse that also had prompted Dot to crank her front paws into dig mode.
“No!” I scolded, thwarting the excavation of new ferns and flowers I’d just finished planting close by.
In my wisdom, I decided to encourage the little critter to exit his hideaway by poking a broomstick under there, which would send it scurrying onto the lawn and into whatever fate awaited.
Cash loped over, dripping wet from a swim in the creek to check out Dot’s mission, and joined the ridged and shivering canine with equal anticipation, forgetting to shake off his excess coat of water.
I poked the broomstick under the tank.
I had about a two-second warning, during which time my brain processed the impending swath of destruction of everything I’d just spent hours working on.
All of a sudden, a little brown body with saucer eyes, a furry tail, and the telltale signs of a chipmunk stripe bolted out from under the tank and down the flower bed.
Have you ever seen someone shouting in slow motion in a movie during a fleeting action scene? “Nooooooooo!”—three octaves lower than my normal voice—spilled out of me and my eyes popped out of my head as the dogs, in hot pursuit of the frantic chipmunk, trampled all the delphiniums that had been standing proud and tall in their transplant.
And as most any panicked animal would do, the little chipmunk took the closest exit from terror and ran at the speed of light through the open porch door and down the basement stairs, followed within a tail hair by two barking dogs—one of which was soaking wet.
If I hadn’t known where the trio had gone, I would have first checked the toilet to make sure “Chipster” wasn’t swimming in the bowl like his town cousin recently did while visiting Jack Elliott’s house in Rainy River.
(But then we put the seat down at our house, Jack).
Luckily for the chipmunk, it eluded the dogs altogether and in the end (though I’d assumed a successful escape back up the stairs and into the free world during the pursuers’ pit stop at the open bag of dog food in the basement), the chipmunk had, in fact, chewed a hole through a storage bag containing Christmas garland, where it was a stowaway for more than an hour.
I managed to haul the bag outside before the chipmunk shot out of the hole and across the yard—much to the dismay of two dogs, locked just then in their kennel (paused for thought) after I found them eating the uprooted flowers I could have salvaged from the chipmunk chase. Alas, the dogs days of summer are here.
The anonymous author who penned “Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree” also should have added dogs to that discipline philosophy.
In my neck of the woods, I’m quite sure the few smart brain cells my canines did have, fell out and into the hole where they buried the last meaty beef rib bones I doled out to them.
That deduction would at least explain why “Dot” and “Cash” seemingly never can find their secret stashes again.
It also might explain why Cash evidently didn’t remember what happened the first time a skunk lifted its tail in his face two months ago—as he rolled around and drove his face into the grass 16 times Saturday night after a second ill-fated chase.
What I know for sure is that all the hours of my hard work under the sun were destroyed by the likes of two tomfoolery dogs not nailed to a tree.
Dot is a mix of fox terrier and border collie. In other words, a digger that understands 500 words—with the exception of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Cash is all Labrador retriever and could outswim a fish if the prize was something to eat. If only he would just learn the meaning of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Though I’d been gardening since early May, I was busy connecting again with Mother Earth over the long weekend planting orphaned flowers rescued from local greenhouses as they geared up to empty out their nurseries of the over-rooted six packs of plants bypassed by other green thumbs.
That’s when I saw Dot make a beeline for a small propane tank situated at the side of the house where I was gardening, her nose then jammed in a small air space underneath.
That’s when I heard it—the telltale squeak of a mouse that also had prompted Dot to crank her front paws into dig mode.
“No!” I scolded, thwarting the excavation of new ferns and flowers I’d just finished planting close by.
In my wisdom, I decided to encourage the little critter to exit his hideaway by poking a broomstick under there, which would send it scurrying onto the lawn and into whatever fate awaited.
Cash loped over, dripping wet from a swim in the creek to check out Dot’s mission, and joined the ridged and shivering canine with equal anticipation, forgetting to shake off his excess coat of water.
I poked the broomstick under the tank.
I had about a two-second warning, during which time my brain processed the impending swath of destruction of everything I’d just spent hours working on.
All of a sudden, a little brown body with saucer eyes, a furry tail, and the telltale signs of a chipmunk stripe bolted out from under the tank and down the flower bed.
Have you ever seen someone shouting in slow motion in a movie during a fleeting action scene? “Nooooooooo!”—three octaves lower than my normal voice—spilled out of me and my eyes popped out of my head as the dogs, in hot pursuit of the frantic chipmunk, trampled all the delphiniums that had been standing proud and tall in their transplant.
And as most any panicked animal would do, the little chipmunk took the closest exit from terror and ran at the speed of light through the open porch door and down the basement stairs, followed within a tail hair by two barking dogs—one of which was soaking wet.
If I hadn’t known where the trio had gone, I would have first checked the toilet to make sure “Chipster” wasn’t swimming in the bowl like his town cousin recently did while visiting Jack Elliott’s house in Rainy River.
(But then we put the seat down at our house, Jack).
Luckily for the chipmunk, it eluded the dogs altogether and in the end (though I’d assumed a successful escape back up the stairs and into the free world during the pursuers’ pit stop at the open bag of dog food in the basement), the chipmunk had, in fact, chewed a hole through a storage bag containing Christmas garland, where it was a stowaway for more than an hour.
I managed to haul the bag outside before the chipmunk shot out of the hole and across the yard—much to the dismay of two dogs, locked just then in their kennel (paused for thought) after I found them eating the uprooted flowers I could have salvaged from the chipmunk chase. Alas, the dogs days of summer are here.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tension over comprehension
June 27, 2007
“Yearn to understand first and to be understood second.”
Well, Ms. Beca Lewis Allen, I keep trying to get my husband to take this advice, but he’s not getting it.
Though I’ll admit I’m not following my own counsel— as I yearn to be understood and to understand second.
It’s a woman’s prerogative, right?
So around and around we go.
The sages believe that souls attract to those who are on the same frequency and that if you move out of frequency, or out of sync, life doesn’t flow and goes into gridlock.
Let’s put that into the context of Mr. and Mrs. If the soul be wife, and she supposedly attracts a soul called husband who be on the same wavelength as she, then why, oh why, is it so much work keeping said man on the same page about a myriad of things, including the toilet seat rule, doing the dishes, vacuuming, dusting, taking out the garbage, and the importance of choosing the Oprah Show over Battlestar Galactica?
I love my Pete and we are lifers no matter what. Yet, it still be hard work to keep him tuned in to the household facts of life that frequently slip between the cushions on his side of the couch or collect with all the whisker hairs behind the sink taps in the bathroom, where I invariably drop my toothbrush.
I was sitting out at my spot by the creek the other evening, listening for sage comprehension advice on the wind, when four male mallard ducks flew by chasing one reluctant female around the sky.
“Oh, brother, all males are alike. They have one thing on their mind,” I blurted out loud.
Suddenly, after nine years of marriage, I had the answer to the law of attraction and all the frequency problems with my soulmate. I quickened my pace back to the house and peeked around the corner into the living room.
In a sultry voice aimed at the man prone on the couch, and raising my eyebrows up and down, I asked, “Honey, would you draw me a bath?”
“Sure, dear,” he replied, moving to sit and get up. I went off to brush my hair, get undressed, and find that little black number I had bought in the city.
I was gone from his sight about five minutes and still hadn’t heard the rush of hot water running into the tub. I came out of the bedroom wrapped in my bath towel to find Pete sitting at the kitchen table with his reading glasses on, pencil in hand, and studying something in front of him. As I drew near and saw what his interpretation of my request was, even my best flat stare impression couldn’t express how sure I was that aliens had just kidnapped my husband and replaced him with a space cadet.
There on a piece of grid paper was his pencil sketch of the new bathroom he’d envisioned for our remodelling project due for construction in 2015.
“Is this what you had in mind, dear?” he queried, ever so unsuspecting to the immediate frequency static and gridlock being drafted in a stalled woman.
Yet I couldn’t help but smile because the moment was just too misunderstood not to be funny.
Author Christina Baldwin once said, “When you’re stuck in a spiral, to change all aspects of the spin you need only to change one thing.”
So I just dropped my towel.
“Yearn to understand first and to be understood second.”
Well, Ms. Beca Lewis Allen, I keep trying to get my husband to take this advice, but he’s not getting it.
Though I’ll admit I’m not following my own counsel— as I yearn to be understood and to understand second.
It’s a woman’s prerogative, right?
So around and around we go.
The sages believe that souls attract to those who are on the same frequency and that if you move out of frequency, or out of sync, life doesn’t flow and goes into gridlock.
Let’s put that into the context of Mr. and Mrs. If the soul be wife, and she supposedly attracts a soul called husband who be on the same wavelength as she, then why, oh why, is it so much work keeping said man on the same page about a myriad of things, including the toilet seat rule, doing the dishes, vacuuming, dusting, taking out the garbage, and the importance of choosing the Oprah Show over Battlestar Galactica?
I love my Pete and we are lifers no matter what. Yet, it still be hard work to keep him tuned in to the household facts of life that frequently slip between the cushions on his side of the couch or collect with all the whisker hairs behind the sink taps in the bathroom, where I invariably drop my toothbrush.
I was sitting out at my spot by the creek the other evening, listening for sage comprehension advice on the wind, when four male mallard ducks flew by chasing one reluctant female around the sky.
“Oh, brother, all males are alike. They have one thing on their mind,” I blurted out loud.
Suddenly, after nine years of marriage, I had the answer to the law of attraction and all the frequency problems with my soulmate. I quickened my pace back to the house and peeked around the corner into the living room.
In a sultry voice aimed at the man prone on the couch, and raising my eyebrows up and down, I asked, “Honey, would you draw me a bath?”
“Sure, dear,” he replied, moving to sit and get up. I went off to brush my hair, get undressed, and find that little black number I had bought in the city.
I was gone from his sight about five minutes and still hadn’t heard the rush of hot water running into the tub. I came out of the bedroom wrapped in my bath towel to find Pete sitting at the kitchen table with his reading glasses on, pencil in hand, and studying something in front of him. As I drew near and saw what his interpretation of my request was, even my best flat stare impression couldn’t express how sure I was that aliens had just kidnapped my husband and replaced him with a space cadet.
There on a piece of grid paper was his pencil sketch of the new bathroom he’d envisioned for our remodelling project due for construction in 2015.
“Is this what you had in mind, dear?” he queried, ever so unsuspecting to the immediate frequency static and gridlock being drafted in a stalled woman.
Yet I couldn’t help but smile because the moment was just too misunderstood not to be funny.
Author Christina Baldwin once said, “When you’re stuck in a spiral, to change all aspects of the spin you need only to change one thing.”
So I just dropped my towel.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Boost or no boost
June 13, 2007
If at bedtime you find your husband lying prone and beating his chest with a pair of drumsticks, it can mean one of two things—either he’s in the mood for more than music or the “Rock Star” energy drink is taking effect.
Knowing my neck of the woods, life’s like that, and you never know what you’re going to get.
I have yet to find the need to partake in the caffeine punch that, from time to time, makes its way home with my groceries, and that a certain someone (who shall not be named) says he’s just as surprised as I am to find in the bag.
Besides, with brand names that include “Venom,” “Dynamite,” “Go Fast,” “Flying Horse,” “Monster,” and “AMP,” I’m afraid to ingest the stuff for fear that I’ll grow fangs, blow up while speeding, sprout wings, neigh, turn green, or morph and become a sound system for any number of guitars growing in my living room.
Furthermore, and for the most part, I already have more than enough energy for the two of us anyway.
My energy is palpable, especially when a certain trip is looming on the horizon and into the heart of Minnesota for the annual community garage weekend.
Never mind the fact that the day before we left, I literally spent 12 hours pumping and hauling rain water out of my basement by myself since “Mr. Incredible” wasn’t home from work yet.
But even after that “slave to a soaker” affair, I didn’t crack open a energy drink.
I didn’t have to.
Although I scraped my skeleton off the floor to go pick up my beloved at the bus station, my energy quickly returned looking up at the full moon, pondering the distance, as I fed my flat stare with fire balls at listening to him lament how tired he was from the long ride from the city.
I returned to full throttle energy levels after my shower, but not due to the regenerative powers of the hot water.
A certain someone (who shall not be named) had snuck in to the bathroom to relieve himself and forgot to put the seat down when he flushed, wherein I dropped my toothbrush on the way out of the shower.
Energy drink-free, I blew out of the bathroom with my dripping toothbrush, hair askew and growling loudly at my husband to check his head and also take Jack Elliott’s advice about said seat in his “Squirrel Pie” column in last week’s Times.
Thankfully for all parties involved, there were more important things to focus on, like garage sale issues.
And because it is a fact that what you focus on expands, over the day-long spree of 18 garage sales in Minnesota cottage country, I managed to amass some of the best buys known to woman-kind, including an ornamental hedgehog that promptly drove “Dot” into a barking frenzy when she found it sitting in the screen porch.
And while I know that more junk is just what we didn’t need after down-sizing last year, at least we didn’t have to worry about importing a pathetic piece of sponge half-covered in fabric remnant like we tried to do last year.
But living here on an old farm has its benefits when you find treasures that rival even the best garage sale finds. Finding cool stuff, like an old car parts, gives me energy to do more yard clean-up.
René Panhard and Emile Levassor, who were credited with inventing the first automatic transmission in the late 1800s, were geniuses. But I’d almost bet they never guessed anyone like me would come along and tear apart an old one for innovative candle holders.
If at bedtime you find your husband lying prone and beating his chest with a pair of drumsticks, it can mean one of two things—either he’s in the mood for more than music or the “Rock Star” energy drink is taking effect.
Knowing my neck of the woods, life’s like that, and you never know what you’re going to get.
I have yet to find the need to partake in the caffeine punch that, from time to time, makes its way home with my groceries, and that a certain someone (who shall not be named) says he’s just as surprised as I am to find in the bag.
Besides, with brand names that include “Venom,” “Dynamite,” “Go Fast,” “Flying Horse,” “Monster,” and “AMP,” I’m afraid to ingest the stuff for fear that I’ll grow fangs, blow up while speeding, sprout wings, neigh, turn green, or morph and become a sound system for any number of guitars growing in my living room.
Furthermore, and for the most part, I already have more than enough energy for the two of us anyway.
My energy is palpable, especially when a certain trip is looming on the horizon and into the heart of Minnesota for the annual community garage weekend.
Never mind the fact that the day before we left, I literally spent 12 hours pumping and hauling rain water out of my basement by myself since “Mr. Incredible” wasn’t home from work yet.
But even after that “slave to a soaker” affair, I didn’t crack open a energy drink.
I didn’t have to.
Although I scraped my skeleton off the floor to go pick up my beloved at the bus station, my energy quickly returned looking up at the full moon, pondering the distance, as I fed my flat stare with fire balls at listening to him lament how tired he was from the long ride from the city.
I returned to full throttle energy levels after my shower, but not due to the regenerative powers of the hot water.
A certain someone (who shall not be named) had snuck in to the bathroom to relieve himself and forgot to put the seat down when he flushed, wherein I dropped my toothbrush on the way out of the shower.
Energy drink-free, I blew out of the bathroom with my dripping toothbrush, hair askew and growling loudly at my husband to check his head and also take Jack Elliott’s advice about said seat in his “Squirrel Pie” column in last week’s Times.
Thankfully for all parties involved, there were more important things to focus on, like garage sale issues.
And because it is a fact that what you focus on expands, over the day-long spree of 18 garage sales in Minnesota cottage country, I managed to amass some of the best buys known to woman-kind, including an ornamental hedgehog that promptly drove “Dot” into a barking frenzy when she found it sitting in the screen porch.
And while I know that more junk is just what we didn’t need after down-sizing last year, at least we didn’t have to worry about importing a pathetic piece of sponge half-covered in fabric remnant like we tried to do last year.
But living here on an old farm has its benefits when you find treasures that rival even the best garage sale finds. Finding cool stuff, like an old car parts, gives me energy to do more yard clean-up.
René Panhard and Emile Levassor, who were credited with inventing the first automatic transmission in the late 1800s, were geniuses. But I’d almost bet they never guessed anyone like me would come along and tear apart an old one for innovative candle holders.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)