I lifted her from the box in which she appeared to be merely napping, on her side, still soft, though no longer warm. I wrapped her in a faux-needlepoint twin-fitted bedsheet my mother gave to me when my boys were just out of their cribs and which has resided these long years in the same cabinet in the bathroom. I was surprised to see it still there, this afternoon, so long unused.
Tomorrow Reilly and I will take turns digging the hole beneath the Chehalis apple tree, dislodging a few yellow tulips, some sweet woodruff.
Sadness accumulates.
Of course, there have been many deaths, both human and animal, for all of us. This one, though, is walloping me. Marley had belonged to my dearest of friends Carol, who passed away a year ago May 7th....a group of about twenty of us marked the occasion with a special dinner at Carol's favorite restaurant.
I've had Marley for almost three years now, but prior to that, she lived down the street, and often came in the cat door to dine with my three cats (sister to one). The story goes on in more detail, but this is all I can write about now. Suffice to say, she embodied constant gentleness in my life, a part of Carol I was able to carry with me beyond her death.
This is the poem I shall read tomorrow when we've replaced the unsettled earth:
The Mower
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
--Phillip Larkin
---
Friday, May 13, 2011
Artifact
Where to find a space, in a small city backyard, to bury my cat?
Under the apple tree, I think, with its shower of May blossoms.
I could toss my wedding rings in too, a bright glint of surprise
beside bones for some future excavator.
It could be a lucky day for a stranger .
Under the apple tree, I think, with its shower of May blossoms.
I could toss my wedding rings in too, a bright glint of surprise
beside bones for some future excavator.
It could be a lucky day for a stranger .
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Yawn
A gruelingly long day after only three hours of sleep: awake awake awake, from 2am on....
But what woke me up was this stunner of a dream:
There was something afloat in the air beside me, smaller than a hummingbird,
slightly larger than a Western Damselfly,
and glowing, but neither bird nor insect. Although it was clear that it was genderless, it exhibited a decidedly feminine anima (yes, that might be redundant). I was dumbstruck with fascination, clearly agog, enthralled with its other-worldliness and the abundance of benevolence emanating from its presence.
It spoke: "I used to be human."
I said "I want to know everything about you...."
It hesitated, lingered, said "I'm going to change again soon."
---
Early to bed.
Sleep deprivation is the cruelest of states.
But what woke me up was this stunner of a dream:
There was something afloat in the air beside me, smaller than a hummingbird,
slightly larger than a Western Damselfly,
and glowing, but neither bird nor insect. Although it was clear that it was genderless, it exhibited a decidedly feminine anima (yes, that might be redundant). I was dumbstruck with fascination, clearly agog, enthralled with its other-worldliness and the abundance of benevolence emanating from its presence.
It spoke: "I used to be human."
I said "I want to know everything about you...."
It hesitated, lingered, said "I'm going to change again soon."
---
Early to bed.
Sleep deprivation is the cruelest of states.
Monday, May 9, 2011
"D"
I am stunned by the similarities between death and divorce. The two "D" words that intersect and transform our lives. I have never -- until now -- truly understood the trauma of divorce. I only knew it in a more cerebral sense -- as termination, but without the rituals that death afford us. I knew divorce only in its language of whispers and shame, and the ensuing silence, the failure. I knew it as an ending/a severing with its share of heartache, especially in the presence of shared children, but had no concept of its more profound impact.
I am intimate with the knock on the door at 2am by police officers, those bearers of ill news; and now I know the surprise of coming home from work to a dramatically altered reality, in which one has no voice, no choice. As in the unexpected death of a loved one, the axe has wielded its blow, the trunk of the tree which seemed would grow and last far beyond what anyone could ever imagine is now forever sundered, and it's not at all a clean cut but with rips and shreds of still-alive bark, the blood-work, the guts of the tree spilling and spilling.
It's a messy universe.
Now, though, there is not so much (I think, but may be wrong here) the extended grief of the larger community. When M. died, it seemed that a greater share of my grief was borne from the reflection of my own in that of my children, his parents and siblings, my siblings and their spouses, his friends and the large community that loved him, and vice versa. The physical weight of it seemed a living thing, visceral. The only way I could endure the grief in others was to attempt take carry it all myself. (Not recommended.)
This is not the case now. This is an entirely new and foreign social order. Battles lines have been established, defended. There are those who walk both sides, which, though troubling for all my sense of righteousness, illustrates on their behalf a willingness to want to see both sides of the story.
But for me, now, there exists only this staggering sadness, and sorrow for the relationship I loved/love. I don't dismiss the polarity of feelings that rampage through my nightmares, the love/hate, the anger/joy, the confusion, and this teetering on the edge of every day. I am -- as always -- primed for a moment of teary laughter (which occurs more often than not), and also leery of lingering melancholy.
Yet within this past month I've gone from the absolute terror of walking alone down the street to today's confident striding to-and-from the mile-long walk to work.
What is the path?
The destination?
A bucket-load of cash to any of you who can answer that.
I am intimate with the knock on the door at 2am by police officers, those bearers of ill news; and now I know the surprise of coming home from work to a dramatically altered reality, in which one has no voice, no choice. As in the unexpected death of a loved one, the axe has wielded its blow, the trunk of the tree which seemed would grow and last far beyond what anyone could ever imagine is now forever sundered, and it's not at all a clean cut but with rips and shreds of still-alive bark, the blood-work, the guts of the tree spilling and spilling.
It's a messy universe.
Now, though, there is not so much (I think, but may be wrong here) the extended grief of the larger community. When M. died, it seemed that a greater share of my grief was borne from the reflection of my own in that of my children, his parents and siblings, my siblings and their spouses, his friends and the large community that loved him, and vice versa. The physical weight of it seemed a living thing, visceral. The only way I could endure the grief in others was to attempt take carry it all myself. (Not recommended.)
This is not the case now. This is an entirely new and foreign social order. Battles lines have been established, defended. There are those who walk both sides, which, though troubling for all my sense of righteousness, illustrates on their behalf a willingness to want to see both sides of the story.
But for me, now, there exists only this staggering sadness, and sorrow for the relationship I loved/love. I don't dismiss the polarity of feelings that rampage through my nightmares, the love/hate, the anger/joy, the confusion, and this teetering on the edge of every day. I am -- as always -- primed for a moment of teary laughter (which occurs more often than not), and also leery of lingering melancholy.
Yet within this past month I've gone from the absolute terror of walking alone down the street to today's confident striding to-and-from the mile-long walk to work.
What is the path?
The destination?
A bucket-load of cash to any of you who can answer that.
Herbal Update: Breaking News
The one mystery herb we couldn't identify last night has finally been named: catnip.
(I nearly seasoned my red sauce with it.)
(I nearly seasoned my red sauce with it.)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
New/Renew
So much history in this revisited, rejoined house; striving to bring a fresh breath to every room while honoring the past with its span of joys and sorrows. Claiming/reclaiming my kitchen. I spent two hours digging through the jars & baggies of spices & herbs, combining, tossing, sniffing, sneezing, labeling. When I asked my son to identify the last remaining anonymous & mysterious elements, he repeatedly said, "custom mix." Ah......
Could you identify ground cardamom, unmarked, with only your sense of smell? How about ground coriander? We argued about oregano: apparently one was Mexican oregano, which smells markedly more potent than what I would call traditional oregano. Five versions of chili powder, four incarnations of curry, each with its own particular tang. The beautiful star anise, the rolled-cigar-rusty cinnamon sticks, the perfect symmetry of tiny black mustard seeds.
And then there was even more mystery: Grains of Paradise. Identifiable seed pods: keep? Toss? I made the rule that if we couldn't identify it, it had to go. Toss toss toss. I believe that between my son and me we have enough spices to last at least until the next century, albeit most by that time will have long surrendered their zing.
Spice categorization is good therapy, I think. There's the visual component of varying shades of mostly brown/beige/red-brown, and there's the olfactory component which induces any number of sneezes, and when nothing else succeeds in identification, there's the tongue-test. Three of the four senses ain't bad, as these things go. And now all has been condensed, combined, relabeled, rebagged, cleaned-up and shined. It's full steam ahead in SpiceLand.
Could you identify ground cardamom, unmarked, with only your sense of smell? How about ground coriander? We argued about oregano: apparently one was Mexican oregano, which smells markedly more potent than what I would call traditional oregano. Five versions of chili powder, four incarnations of curry, each with its own particular tang. The beautiful star anise, the rolled-cigar-rusty cinnamon sticks, the perfect symmetry of tiny black mustard seeds.
And then there was even more mystery: Grains of Paradise. Identifiable seed pods: keep? Toss? I made the rule that if we couldn't identify it, it had to go. Toss toss toss. I believe that between my son and me we have enough spices to last at least until the next century, albeit most by that time will have long surrendered their zing.
Spice categorization is good therapy, I think. There's the visual component of varying shades of mostly brown/beige/red-brown, and there's the olfactory component which induces any number of sneezes, and when nothing else succeeds in identification, there's the tongue-test. Three of the four senses ain't bad, as these things go. And now all has been condensed, combined, relabeled, rebagged, cleaned-up and shined. It's full steam ahead in SpiceLand.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
An old friend welcomes me back....
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary,
out of sight these past three+ years.
Back together again.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Now
A little advice: do NOT move out/in/out/in over a four week period, while working full time and grasping at some contorted semblance of reality.
This day did not border on insanity: it was insanity. Attempted at work to get the last lingering April orders out for UPS so we could clear the deck for the quickly piling-up May orders. This meant an afternoon of aerobic box-building, hefting, up and down stairs, and again, repeat. Paint, fire-on, cool, polish, box, box again, and once more. And at the end, there was some slow-down (computer? printer?) so only three cartons ended up with shipping labels. Sigh. There is always Monday.
Immediately after work, Melinda and I headed off to my play-house temporary apartment to pack all my temporary play-house stuff (I can't believe we filled two cars...where did all this come from??), the we cleaned the place from corner to corner, replaced the bed linens, carted off all the used sheets and towels to be washed and returned next week, then drove the kit-and-caboodle over to the B. Street house, unloaded, up stairs, and up more stairs. Melinda stopped at the store and picked up some deli goodies along with a cut-flower bouquet. Lovely!
R. and I heaved the bed components up from the basement, laughing ourselves silly trying to figure the angles around several tight stairway corners. (Much improvement over last night when I melted down and vented directly at him. ) I sent him off to the hardware store for a few nuts and bolts, and now I'm fully assembled, fully spent, fully ensconced back at the house I first moved into 24 years ago, a rental then, just weeks after fleeing a burning apartment with, well, R. in my arms.
(Always with the drama.)
Cat is back at the vet. Some really weird shit. Dithering over whether to do surgery, whether my checkbook can support such a procedure. Decided to give it until Monday.
Early this morning two of my sisters jetted off to another continent, to enjoy -- I imagine -- the amended version of the trip that I suggested, planned, dreamed about, and ultimately canceled. I would've appreciated a phone call from either, a fare-thee-well, etc., an acknowledgment. Maybe it's just all too much. But I carried a heavy sadness with me all day, weighted and on the edge of breaking down, and worked up a frenzy in the shipping department instead on almost no food and an intense caffeine-induced mania.
Maybe by Monday the fist inside my chest will have relaxed a bit, maybe the swim-and-twirl in my head will ease.
Please.
(I'm asking nicely.)
And remember to be kind, even when it's too fucking difficult.
This day did not border on insanity: it was insanity. Attempted at work to get the last lingering April orders out for UPS so we could clear the deck for the quickly piling-up May orders. This meant an afternoon of aerobic box-building, hefting, up and down stairs, and again, repeat. Paint, fire-on, cool, polish, box, box again, and once more. And at the end, there was some slow-down (computer? printer?) so only three cartons ended up with shipping labels. Sigh. There is always Monday.
Immediately after work, Melinda and I headed off to my play-house temporary apartment to pack all my temporary play-house stuff (I can't believe we filled two cars...where did all this come from??), the we cleaned the place from corner to corner, replaced the bed linens, carted off all the used sheets and towels to be washed and returned next week, then drove the kit-and-caboodle over to the B. Street house, unloaded, up stairs, and up more stairs. Melinda stopped at the store and picked up some deli goodies along with a cut-flower bouquet. Lovely!
R. and I heaved the bed components up from the basement, laughing ourselves silly trying to figure the angles around several tight stairway corners. (Much improvement over last night when I melted down and vented directly at him. ) I sent him off to the hardware store for a few nuts and bolts, and now I'm fully assembled, fully spent, fully ensconced back at the house I first moved into 24 years ago, a rental then, just weeks after fleeing a burning apartment with, well, R. in my arms.
(Always with the drama.)
Cat is back at the vet. Some really weird shit. Dithering over whether to do surgery, whether my checkbook can support such a procedure. Decided to give it until Monday.
Early this morning two of my sisters jetted off to another continent, to enjoy -- I imagine -- the amended version of the trip that I suggested, planned, dreamed about, and ultimately canceled. I would've appreciated a phone call from either, a fare-thee-well, etc., an acknowledgment. Maybe it's just all too much. But I carried a heavy sadness with me all day, weighted and on the edge of breaking down, and worked up a frenzy in the shipping department instead on almost no food and an intense caffeine-induced mania.
Maybe by Monday the fist inside my chest will have relaxed a bit, maybe the swim-and-twirl in my head will ease.
Please.
(I'm asking nicely.)
And remember to be kind, even when it's too fucking difficult.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Cold
The Spanish bluebells are finally in bloom, a month late. Coldest spring on record here. The records are relatively recent in the sweep of history, but still. For twenty-five years I've picked bouquets of bluebells on my son's birthday (April 3rd), but not this year.
Everything is slow this year: flowers, love, resolution.
Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of my dear friend Carol's death: a group of us shall mark the occasion with dinner at her favorite restaurant. My kitty -- who belonged to Carol, and possesses the same gentleness and sweetness -- is back at the vet. It's icky stuff. I'm hoping. Here's a link to the piece I read at Carol's memorial.
It goes on.
Everything is slow this year: flowers, love, resolution.
Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of my dear friend Carol's death: a group of us shall mark the occasion with dinner at her favorite restaurant. My kitty -- who belonged to Carol, and possesses the same gentleness and sweetness -- is back at the vet. It's icky stuff. I'm hoping. Here's a link to the piece I read at Carol's memorial.
It goes on.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Sinking
I'm tired of talking about this here, I'm tired of this being the focus of every day, I am tired I am tired I am tired of not sleeping and the ongoing panic and the anger and loss and betrayal and and and and and and and and
Some moments rise up and smack me in the face, and I pretend it's all okay because it's been a month now -- shouldn't I be getting over this already? -- a month since that D word got under my skin, but, parasite that it is, continues to burrow deeper every day.
And I don't get a choice in this.
In the State of Washington, if a spouse wants a divorce, that spouse gets a divorce. Done and done.
The path from A to Z varies from couple to couple, but the end result is dissolution.
Disillusion.
This is losing.
Bad behavior on the part of either spouse: no matter.
No punishment.
Infidelity?
Not an issue.
Lies?
No one cares.
Outrageous cruelty?
No big deal.
This ain't ethics.
It's law.
Meanwhile, the glass shards and the briars and splinters and thorns I'm certain that I've swallowed grow more diamond-sharp with each intake of breath.
Wave upon wave, gust after gust, this tempest rages.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Every day I see that many of my fellow bloggers have posted anew, yet I can't quite bring myself to read them. The Who and The What is fundamentally off-balance; I'm still living out of a suitcase, digging out the grime at my house on the weekends, cleaning the trail of seeping fluids from my cat who I fear is not making progress to recovery.
But the many layers of accumulated grime are receding, at slow pace, but nonetheless they are starting to wash down the drain. I brought out the Big Chemicals and the stiff brushes, and every square inch of everything is getting scrubbed. Tomorrow the carpet cleaners come, so this afternoon my son and I carted the flotsam and jetsam from carpeted rooms to the bedroom recently (today, in fact) vacated by my paying renter. My house/my home is beginning to come into view.
But the many layers of accumulated grime are receding, at slow pace, but nonetheless they are starting to wash down the drain. I brought out the Big Chemicals and the stiff brushes, and every square inch of everything is getting scrubbed. Tomorrow the carpet cleaners come, so this afternoon my son and I carted the flotsam and jetsam from carpeted rooms to the bedroom recently (today, in fact) vacated by my paying renter. My house/my home is beginning to come into view.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
With/Without
My generous friends in whose duplex I'm camping are out of town for the week (having skirted one of the many tornadoes that have been devastating the southern U.S.), and I'm caring for their three cats -- a mother kitty and her two boy cats. All three many years past kittenhood, but svelte, lithe creatures -- all three. When I enter their kitchen each morning, they swirl about my ankles with incredible grace and gentleness. I feel as if I'm stepping into a slow-flowing and soft stream that swirls and flickers with each step, stripes of black & grey and mottled tortoiseshell, a balm against my skin.
Yesterday, in the startling presence of morning sun, I decided to lure them outside for the day by carrying their bowls across the backyard to the picnic table, and once they figured out where I was headed, they leapt up to the table in nearly a single fluid motion. Clearly these animals are of the same filial unit, and have moved through their existence instinctually aware of each other's every heartbeat.
What does this speak of those with whom we share our most intimate selves? All of us are but pieces of a larger living, breathing organism. We move about each day with our exits, our entrances, our conversations, our patient silences, our trusting shared slumbers. Blind, perhaps, to the possibility of termination. If we did allow this notion to enter into consciousness, the ensuing despair could quite possibly be our doom.
Or one could just shut down, shut out, turn off. No emotion, no empathy. No life worth living.
I choose the life worth living.
This life, right here, right now.
And now it's time to feed those cats.
Yesterday, in the startling presence of morning sun, I decided to lure them outside for the day by carrying their bowls across the backyard to the picnic table, and once they figured out where I was headed, they leapt up to the table in nearly a single fluid motion. Clearly these animals are of the same filial unit, and have moved through their existence instinctually aware of each other's every heartbeat.
What does this speak of those with whom we share our most intimate selves? All of us are but pieces of a larger living, breathing organism. We move about each day with our exits, our entrances, our conversations, our patient silences, our trusting shared slumbers. Blind, perhaps, to the possibility of termination. If we did allow this notion to enter into consciousness, the ensuing despair could quite possibly be our doom.
Or one could just shut down, shut out, turn off. No emotion, no empathy. No life worth living.
I choose the life worth living.
This life, right here, right now.
And now it's time to feed those cats.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Two Things
Something beautiful (some of the new work). (I want to live inside this piece.):
Melinda's new line knocks my socks off -- and apparently also everyone else's socks, because the reactions to the first sets of orders shipped have been incredible. For me, these pieces capture the hazy heat of an August afternoon somewhere deep inside a forest, a hidden glade, a sanctuary. We're still waiting for the pro photos, alas. Any day!
And now this....
The other day, I was painting, and made some kind of movement which caused a paintbrush to flip up nearly to the ceiling and land about five feet behind me, tucked neatly behind the wing of a (decorative) crow:
This moment of flight & subsequent landing seemed like an omen, or something holy -- we have yet to remove the paintbrush.
What is the symbolism here? The metaphor?
Not sure if my brain is ready to receive this message, but perhaps the universe is calling out to me.....
Melinda's new line knocks my socks off -- and apparently also everyone else's socks, because the reactions to the first sets of orders shipped have been incredible. For me, these pieces capture the hazy heat of an August afternoon somewhere deep inside a forest, a hidden glade, a sanctuary. We're still waiting for the pro photos, alas. Any day!
And now this....
The other day, I was painting, and made some kind of movement which caused a paintbrush to flip up nearly to the ceiling and land about five feet behind me, tucked neatly behind the wing of a (decorative) crow:
This moment of flight & subsequent landing seemed like an omen, or something holy -- we have yet to remove the paintbrush.
What is the symbolism here? The metaphor?
Not sure if my brain is ready to receive this message, but perhaps the universe is calling out to me.....
Thursday, April 28, 2011
I picked up my cat from the kitty hospital yesterday after an eight-day in-patient stay. Most of her tummy is shaved, as well as parts of her legs; there are four tubes -- plastic straws -- protruding from her belly. And from these tubes leaks fluid. MERDE. They come out on Monday, so I'm hopeful this flood will cease.
Papers served yesterday.
Today's vocabulary words (just two):
irretrievably
broken
---
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another. --Homer
Papers served yesterday.
Today's vocabulary words (just two):
irretrievably
broken
---
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another. --Homer
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Slán a fhágáil ag duine....
A year ago, my sisters and I had a crazy idea: let's all go to Ireland together and stay in the Carrowholly house. When I put out the suggestion, I expected to be answered with "not possible" -- between us there were so many schedules to coordinate, and so many variables to account for: lack of funds, unemployment, a foreclosure already in the process, illnesses in our families -- and yet miraculously we all not only figured out a way to make this happen, we all managed to get on the same flights. It took months of planning, with ultimate disappointment the expectation, but finally, the first week of January, we scheduled it.
The joy of anticipation was as good as the anticipation of Christmas from a child's perspective. Our paternal grandfather emigrated from New Ross, Ireland, in (I believe) 1912, and only one sister other than me has visited the country of our ancestors. I'm fortunate to possess dual citizenship. For this last Christmas, in anticipation of this journey, I created for my sisters a hand-bound, hand-sewn ten-copy edition of a chapbook, Fiddlehead, Heron: Notes from Carrowholly. It contains photographs from one of the most magical places on earth -- a place wherein resides a large portion of my heart -- as well as journal notes from my many visits there.
An excerpt:
The joy of anticipation was as good as the anticipation of Christmas from a child's perspective. Our paternal grandfather emigrated from New Ross, Ireland, in (I believe) 1912, and only one sister other than me has visited the country of our ancestors. I'm fortunate to possess dual citizenship. For this last Christmas, in anticipation of this journey, I created for my sisters a hand-bound, hand-sewn ten-copy edition of a chapbook, Fiddlehead, Heron: Notes from Carrowholly. It contains photographs from one of the most magical places on earth -- a place wherein resides a large portion of my heart -- as well as journal notes from my many visits there.
An excerpt:
I wished for a blue-speckled eggshell
to place at the feet of Our Lady of Flotsam.
The previous June, in a hazelnut copse I’d found one,
but it’d disappeared since our last visit here.
And I hadn't a clue where I'd find another;
So this afternoon, when Paul called out,
There's an eggshell on the patio,
I answered,
No! It's a snail shell!
(Thinking it was the leftover bits
from a sparrow’s treat.)
And Paul:
T., I know a bird shell from a snail shell!
He was right:
not an apparition
but a perfect half-shell, blue & speckled,
amidst scattered seed.
Not fallen from a tree,
because there is no tree in the yard.
It's as if a bird was doing an exchange:
shell for seed.
The universe was granting my request—
Not a miracle, but a gift.
---
Upon the shattering news I received three weeks ago, this trip fell apart. No longer staying in the property owned by my husband, two sisters were forced to cancel. I can no longer afford to take time off from work. Two other sisters are still going, but on a very different itinerary. This trip of a lifetime -- five sisters stepping back in time to embrace a long-sought heritage -- is off.
I'm not seeking sympathy here -- my trips to Eire have been numerous and replete with generosity. But the cruelty in this decisive blow on the part of one person, the capability to throw what seems like a single stone into a pond, and create a tidal wave of consequences -- is profoundly disturbing.
I don't know what else to say except that my heart -- that 300 gram muscle pumping life through this human husk -- continues to shatter.
More from Fiddlehead, Heron:
and all the low bogland and shallow fields
fill with water, if suddenly on ordnance maps
there appears additional evidence of lakes and ponds?
Over-spilling, and everywhere the constantly
changing sky reflected on the surface of the earth.
There is a beach several coves away
where broken pottery washes up—nothing
particularly special—cheap plates flung to bits.
Beautiful in their disarray, every year more,
and I gather pocketsful and place them
on my kitchen sill. But flung from where,
and by whom? A deceived wife in splintered rage?
Fallen from a boat in a move from island to mainland?
Out of fashion teacups cast-off to sea?
My neighbor Pat tells of an elderly island man
whose body was strapped to a door
and towed to town behind a dingy when he died.
(There are 365 islands in Clew Bay,
some as big as a wink.)
These shards remain a mystery.
---
I've put my requests out to the universe, which, though not without its gifts, remains ever a mystery.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday Poem: Volume of Grief
Volume of Grief
How many cubic units must grief occupy?
And how to measure?
I'd suffer an umbral shadow
in a lunar eclipse, my aura rimmed
with a blistering bruise.
In cotton bales, I'd lumber
under kilo after kilo, mouth dry
as a foolscap-quad of paper sheets.
In hat sizes twenty gallon.
On the Glasgow Coma Scale:
complete gibberish.
If grief is measurable,
then it should be disposable,
like a broken bed, or a newspaper.
Burnable like a cord of wood,
expendable like wattage. Frittered away
like minutes and hours.
Walked away from, like the bad job.
Downed by the pint.
Shed like a pound.
Subtracted from, divided by.
Deleted.
© T. Clear
Monday, April 25, 2011
This Necessary Silence
No words these past days.
The vortex continues its all-consuming grip-- my cat has been at the vet for a week, and I don't know if she'll come home. And now my son just informed me tonight he needs surgery. Cat: surgery. Son: surgery. Too much, is what I say.
My question: if I go to the Southern Hemisphere, where centrifugal force moves in a direction opposite to that here in the Northern Hemisphere, can I possibly slow things down enough to enable me to step away from this ever-compounding chaos?
It's certainly worth a try.
---
Meanwhile the world spins on.
Spring is ridiculously hesitant in Seattle this year, weeks behind the expected relief of flowers in bloom. Morning dawns with a winter chill, and the rain just seems to go on forever. I hunch into the wind on my walk to work, a leopard-print umbrella offering meager protection.
---
I love my job.
We are hustling orders out the door,
and reorders trickle in steadily.
I crack the whip whenever there's a pause in production.
And yet.
This afternoon while we painted, we listened -- on YouTube -- to Wanda Sykes and George Carlin. How can one fail to find cheer and optimism in laughter?
The brain is easily distracted, and for that I am grateful.
The vortex continues its all-consuming grip-- my cat has been at the vet for a week, and I don't know if she'll come home. And now my son just informed me tonight he needs surgery. Cat: surgery. Son: surgery. Too much, is what I say.
My question: if I go to the Southern Hemisphere, where centrifugal force moves in a direction opposite to that here in the Northern Hemisphere, can I possibly slow things down enough to enable me to step away from this ever-compounding chaos?
It's certainly worth a try.
---
Meanwhile the world spins on.
Spring is ridiculously hesitant in Seattle this year, weeks behind the expected relief of flowers in bloom. Morning dawns with a winter chill, and the rain just seems to go on forever. I hunch into the wind on my walk to work, a leopard-print umbrella offering meager protection.
---
I love my job.
We are hustling orders out the door,
and reorders trickle in steadily.
I crack the whip whenever there's a pause in production.
And yet.
This afternoon while we painted, we listened -- on YouTube -- to Wanda Sykes and George Carlin. How can one fail to find cheer and optimism in laughter?
The brain is easily distracted, and for that I am grateful.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
This Single Day
Dancing at work while making photomasks, eating chocolate and drinking plum vodka. (Thursday Happy Hour.)
And damn, did we hustle.
It's not all bad.
But it's not all good either.
Mostly, it's not good.
It's a minute-at-a-time slog.
It's anger, betrayal, rage.
It's a loss of faith and trust.
Fragile, tender things, those.
Elusive things.
---
May you show kindness to everyone you meet,
and may they extend that kindness in return.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Erasure
1. On Sunday, Bank of A. refused me access to any of my account information, necessary for completing my tax info due the following day.
2. On Monday, I changed my email password, and Comcast promptly blocked access to me from even their site -- I could log onto any other internet site except Comcast.
3. On Wednesday, I called Rite-Aid to have my Rx transferred, and upon giving my name and birthdate, was told that they have no record in their computer system of my ever having purchased a prescription from them. (Despite the fact that I was holding one of my Rx bottles in my hand, with Rite Aid printed clearly across the top.)
4. My computer died, and when I finally pulled my warranty out of one of the many boxes I hastily packed upon vacating my home, saw that the warranty had expired the day before. When I called Apple and gave them my name and warranty #, I was told that there was no such warranty or name in their system.
The good news is that I'm the squeakiest of squeaky wheels, and after an hour on the tech support line with B of A, I convinced them to release my -- my!-- records.
After an hour and a half on the phone with Comcast, we/they managed to allow me access to their site and my account, for which I pay honest $$ every month.
Rite Aid finally confirmed my existence, but only with a single outdated prescription, and then proceeded to fill it with 2/3 less than the amount I paid for, which required a second trip to the store.
The customer service at Apple, though, was stellar. I pulled out all my saved cards, and allowed the goodwill of the universe to do its work, and they decided to grant me a grace period on the warranty. They not only fixed the technical issues, the also replaced cracked keyboard parts, cleaned it up, and charged me zilch. Apple for life.
My cat is spending night #2 at the vet with a perplexing and unable-to-diagnose condition, and I awoke yesterday morning to blood all over this play-house apartment.
But the piece de resistance in this scenario? It's what I christen the new "F" word: foreclosure. After spending two hours on the phone with a mortgage counselor, I've been informed there is not enough, the ratio is in the deficit, there is less than, it expires soon, etc. etc., and I better start getting ready for the inevitable.
And so the circus side-show that is my life continues.
2. On Monday, I changed my email password, and Comcast promptly blocked access to me from even their site -- I could log onto any other internet site except Comcast.
3. On Wednesday, I called Rite-Aid to have my Rx transferred, and upon giving my name and birthdate, was told that they have no record in their computer system of my ever having purchased a prescription from them. (Despite the fact that I was holding one of my Rx bottles in my hand, with Rite Aid printed clearly across the top.)
4. My computer died, and when I finally pulled my warranty out of one of the many boxes I hastily packed upon vacating my home, saw that the warranty had expired the day before. When I called Apple and gave them my name and warranty #, I was told that there was no such warranty or name in their system.
The good news is that I'm the squeakiest of squeaky wheels, and after an hour on the tech support line with B of A, I convinced them to release my -- my!-- records.
After an hour and a half on the phone with Comcast, we/they managed to allow me access to their site and my account, for which I pay honest $$ every month.
Rite Aid finally confirmed my existence, but only with a single outdated prescription, and then proceeded to fill it with 2/3 less than the amount I paid for, which required a second trip to the store.
The customer service at Apple, though, was stellar. I pulled out all my saved cards, and allowed the goodwill of the universe to do its work, and they decided to grant me a grace period on the warranty. They not only fixed the technical issues, the also replaced cracked keyboard parts, cleaned it up, and charged me zilch. Apple for life.
My cat is spending night #2 at the vet with a perplexing and unable-to-diagnose condition, and I awoke yesterday morning to blood all over this play-house apartment.
But the piece de resistance in this scenario? It's what I christen the new "F" word: foreclosure. After spending two hours on the phone with a mortgage counselor, I've been informed there is not enough, the ratio is in the deficit, there is less than, it expires soon, etc. etc., and I better start getting ready for the inevitable.
And so the circus side-show that is my life continues.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
This New Life
Day 10: Limbo.
Between, neither, nether, without.
An absence of.
An abscess.
Foreign/fallen/futile.
Final.
---
(No ability whatsoever to respond to your unceasingly generous comments. I am struck dumb with this entirely newfound grief.)
Between, neither, nether, without.
An absence of.
An abscess.
Foreign/fallen/futile.
Final.
---
(No ability whatsoever to respond to your unceasingly generous comments. I am struck dumb with this entirely newfound grief.)
In a Dark Time
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
--Theodore Roethke
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Door is Bolted
I made a commitment some years back -- after 9/11, I believe -- to approach every single day from a standpoint of love. Not an easy thing to accomplish. Some days all I can manage is the faintest glimmer of an expectation that, when successful, gives depth and meaning to every step, every encounter. It's a "practice", much like yoga is a practice (and, I'm finding out, so is law). Allows us some measure of failure, allows repeated attempts at a measure of success. No surprise then that I'm struggling tremendously with this at the moment, attempting to keep the black beasts of spite/bitterness/betrayal/revulsion well back from the door.
But the betes noires claw at it ceaselessly and howl well past midnight, the bastards.
The cruelty of the world knocks me to the ground.
Be kind, to those you love
and those that you no longer love.
But the betes noires claw at it ceaselessly and howl well past midnight, the bastards.
The cruelty of the world knocks me to the ground.
Be kind, to those you love
and those that you no longer love.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Tuesday Poem: The Quangle Wangle Quee's Hat
What hoojoob madness is afoot?
The Quangle Wangle's Hat, below,
resides inside my skull at the moment;
and the Blue Baboon, and the Pobble who has no toes,
and the Dong with the luminouse nose and everyone/everything else
in this poem are in there clacking and jangling
and otherwise creating their own hullaballoo
resulting in a condition known as Bedlam of the Brain.
Without further ado:
The Quangle Wangle's Hat
--by Edward Lear
The Quangle Wangle's Hat, below,
resides inside my skull at the moment;
and the Blue Baboon, and the Pobble who has no toes,
and the Dong with the luminouse nose and everyone/everything else
in this poem are in there clacking and jangling
and otherwise creating their own hullaballoo
resulting in a condition known as Bedlam of the Brain.
Without further ado:
The Quangle Wangle's Hat
--by Edward Lear
| I |
| On the top of the Crumpetty Tree
|
| II |
| The Quangle Wangle said
|
| III |
| But there came to the Crumpetty Tree,
|
| IV |
| And besides, to the Crumetty Tree
|
| V |
| And the Golden Grouse came there,
|
| VI |
| And the Quangle Wangle said |
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Ordinary
Pruned my roses at the house today in the wind and rain, neighbors stopping by to chat, my son cooking up a big vat of chili, a Mariner's game on the TV. How spectacularly ordinary that all was.
I admit to a general neglect of my garden, having lived elsewhere these past years. Actually, it's a full-on neglect with English ivy run amok, thorny sprouts from the neighbor's locust tree popping up in too many places, blackberry vines clearly in control of it all.
My neighbor had just listed a nice queen sized bed on Craig's List -- hot deal -- and I snatched it up immediately. Here's a glimpse of its journey:
I'd wanted to get a shot of them walking down the middle of the street but by the time I noticed them, dropped the clippers, shed the gloves, fished the iPhone from my pocket (two, three seconds) they were already stepping up to the parking strip. The sky was ready to let loose, but we tucked the mattress into an open slot in the basement just in time. A spot of drama.
But there's a rosebush I've been loyally pruning every March for twenty-four years -- a bush with the most perfect coral blossoms -- keeping it in check even during the neglectful years. And this year I'm late with it all, and for the first time I discovered that it's actually a climbing rose who has never had to opportunity to climb. It isn't what I've thought it was, all this time. (Oh, those metaphors keep popping their little reminders into my consciousness, don't they?) But these immediate times being what they are, it got lopped yet again. Planning on a transplant next March.
Watched a silly Queen Latifah movie with C., piled on her sofa with the dog and assorted cats and a bottle of wine. Happy ending, etc., no terminal disease after all, she gets the man/the man gets her. She kept saying that she couldn't figure out if the setting was the French Alps or the Czech Republic, and I said, "Connie, the set(ting) is Hollywood." (And no, I didn't vocalize the parentheses, but that was my emphasis when I spoke.)
Perhaps this can all be just a movie?
I'm ready for the closing credits.
The End.
Alas.
I admit to a general neglect of my garden, having lived elsewhere these past years. Actually, it's a full-on neglect with English ivy run amok, thorny sprouts from the neighbor's locust tree popping up in too many places, blackberry vines clearly in control of it all.
My neighbor had just listed a nice queen sized bed on Craig's List -- hot deal -- and I snatched it up immediately. Here's a glimpse of its journey:
I'd wanted to get a shot of them walking down the middle of the street but by the time I noticed them, dropped the clippers, shed the gloves, fished the iPhone from my pocket (two, three seconds) they were already stepping up to the parking strip. The sky was ready to let loose, but we tucked the mattress into an open slot in the basement just in time. A spot of drama.
But there's a rosebush I've been loyally pruning every March for twenty-four years -- a bush with the most perfect coral blossoms -- keeping it in check even during the neglectful years. And this year I'm late with it all, and for the first time I discovered that it's actually a climbing rose who has never had to opportunity to climb. It isn't what I've thought it was, all this time. (Oh, those metaphors keep popping their little reminders into my consciousness, don't they?) But these immediate times being what they are, it got lopped yet again. Planning on a transplant next March.
Watched a silly Queen Latifah movie with C., piled on her sofa with the dog and assorted cats and a bottle of wine. Happy ending, etc., no terminal disease after all, she gets the man/the man gets her. She kept saying that she couldn't figure out if the setting was the French Alps or the Czech Republic, and I said, "Connie, the set(ting) is Hollywood." (And no, I didn't vocalize the parentheses, but that was my emphasis when I spoke.)
Perhaps this can all be just a movie?
I'm ready for the closing credits.
The End.
Alas.
Unmoored
Morning is the advent of a pure and ill-wrought terror.
The same words from everyone: it will pass.
Tick.
A minute went by.
I recall something the father of my first (and late) husband said to my chosen brother Tom as we were walking down the steps of the funeral home after the visitation (oh sweet jesus this was only a little more than eight years ago):
"I just got through another minute."
Tock.
There went one more.
From Mary Oliver:
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.
I welcome grace, but for this moment, and, I expect, many still to come, there is only the heave.
---
Your comments are sustaining me. I don't have the energy to respond individually yet but know that I've read them time and again for the light they shine.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Playing House
Playing Life.
My most overwhelmingly generous and kind friends Connie and Charlie have set me up in their duplex furnished apartment until the end of the month, two blocks from work, a cozy nest.
I placed my most treasured icons on the sill -- remnants from this life whose path has taken unexpected and zig-zagged switchbacks. Out of breath, this time. Gasping, too far above my accustomed personal sea level. Oxygen -- well, I could use a tank of it right about now. These altitudes contribute to a dizziness with every step, an inability to focus on the inexorable task of moving one foot in front of the other. It's all sludge. It's quicksand. It sucks. And it sucks.
While packing up today, I recall telling myself "now I am going to get some boxes so I can pack up the stuff in the bedroom" -- as I'd repeatedly attempted this task of box-fetching and failed. Speaking the words activated my brain, a direction, command to which I responded. My friend Robin commented on my organization as I labeled every box. Ha! My attempt at sanity included writing something -- anything -- on the top of each box. Funny, though, the categories kept shifting. What/where/who?
Distractions. A bit of my life here, a remnant of memory there, every step up and down recalling such sweet/now-bittersweet events, moments, dinners, the quiet holding that lovers indulge in, no words necessary.
And while I anticipated that my accumulated possessions would overfill the newly-vacated space in my Brandon Street house basement, there was space galore at the end, which felt good, cleansing, finally a clearing of all that I/we no longer need/want.
But blow upon blow: two of my paying renters have decided to give notice, young men that they are, not wanting (most understandingly) to live with a "mother". We roll and roll in these waves.
Yet it's a high and crushing surf.
And then there's scheming and more scheming: how to compound dollars to balance the crush, the deficit. I'm open to suggestions here. Rooms for rent!
But oh....the wreckage.
The rubble/flotsam/the-undoing.
I am undone.
I am pretending.
And a glass of white Rhone wine makes everything better.
xxoo
My most overwhelmingly generous and kind friends Connie and Charlie have set me up in their duplex furnished apartment until the end of the month, two blocks from work, a cozy nest.
I placed my most treasured icons on the sill -- remnants from this life whose path has taken unexpected and zig-zagged switchbacks. Out of breath, this time. Gasping, too far above my accustomed personal sea level. Oxygen -- well, I could use a tank of it right about now. These altitudes contribute to a dizziness with every step, an inability to focus on the inexorable task of moving one foot in front of the other. It's all sludge. It's quicksand. It sucks. And it sucks.
While packing up today, I recall telling myself "now I am going to get some boxes so I can pack up the stuff in the bedroom" -- as I'd repeatedly attempted this task of box-fetching and failed. Speaking the words activated my brain, a direction, command to which I responded. My friend Robin commented on my organization as I labeled every box. Ha! My attempt at sanity included writing something -- anything -- on the top of each box. Funny, though, the categories kept shifting. What/where/who?
Distractions. A bit of my life here, a remnant of memory there, every step up and down recalling such sweet/now-bittersweet events, moments, dinners, the quiet holding that lovers indulge in, no words necessary.
And while I anticipated that my accumulated possessions would overfill the newly-vacated space in my Brandon Street house basement, there was space galore at the end, which felt good, cleansing, finally a clearing of all that I/we no longer need/want.
But blow upon blow: two of my paying renters have decided to give notice, young men that they are, not wanting (most understandingly) to live with a "mother". We roll and roll in these waves.
Yet it's a high and crushing surf.
And then there's scheming and more scheming: how to compound dollars to balance the crush, the deficit. I'm open to suggestions here. Rooms for rent!
But oh....the wreckage.
The rubble/flotsam/the-undoing.
I am undone.
I am pretending.
And a glass of white Rhone wine makes everything better.
xxoo
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Dissolution
I might be absent from this blog for a while, dealing with some profound and unexpected changes in my life.
On Monday morning, I left for work saying "goodbye, love you" to my best friend & husband, and arrived home that evening to an enemy. The marriage is ending. Relationships, children, lives -- complicated things. He wants me out of the house immediately.
It's yet another death, with the searing pain of rejection and abandonment heaped on top of it.
And of course it's not only the marriage, but the loss of his extended family, whom I love dearly. It's the loss of our life together, which I have treasured beyond words.
There is a grief which fills every cell of one's body, and it is all that I know at this time.
With love to every one of you who takes the time out of your day to stop by here. I treasure all my blog friends -- yes, you.
xoT.
On Monday morning, I left for work saying "goodbye, love you" to my best friend & husband, and arrived home that evening to an enemy. The marriage is ending. Relationships, children, lives -- complicated things. He wants me out of the house immediately.
It's yet another death, with the searing pain of rejection and abandonment heaped on top of it.
And of course it's not only the marriage, but the loss of his extended family, whom I love dearly. It's the loss of our life together, which I have treasured beyond words.
There is a grief which fills every cell of one's body, and it is all that I know at this time.
With love to every one of you who takes the time out of your day to stop by here. I treasure all my blog friends -- yes, you.
xoT.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Happy Tuesday Poem Birthday!
It's the one year anniversary of Tuesday Poem, the New Zealand based blog I stumbled into last April, resulting in my being pulled kicking and screaming back into the poetry scene, albeit an online one.
Other than my monthly writing group (which has met continuously since 1991), when my first husband passed away seven years ago, I pretty much made an exit from any public poetry life. Not exactly sure why. I stopped going to readings, lost interest in any weekend poetry events. I've continued to write, and to submit poems for publications (but much less than previously). Priorities shift when one's life is dumped out in the middle of the freeway.
Anyway, it's been a delight making fresh connections around the globe and being part of this energetic & inspired/inspiring community. Thank-you, fellow Tuesday Poets!
This week, on the masthead blog, something new and ambitious:
Welcome to our First Birthday Party! We're celebrating with a communal poem that will skip backwards and forwards across the world and between time zones over the coming week (NZ, Australia, UK, US), with the finished poem posted next Tuesday.
My contribution goes up tomorrow -- Wednesday -- evening. Fun!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Glass Breaks.
We have a saying at work, at my job where we skedaddle regularly around tipsy fragile martini glasses and delicate vases whose structural integrity has been compromised by an abrasive blast of sand: glass breaks. No matter how careful we are, it still happens. Sometimes it happens spontaneously, which is freaky. I'll be working on a piece and suddenly there will be a cracking sound and bingo! Glass breaks.
This evening Paul and I were hosting his school group -- five fellow students and assorted spouses, some whom I've met briefly last fall. I was up to my elbows in pizza assembly, chopped salad, platters of chocolate. We'd anticipated half-wine-drinkers/half-beer-drinkers, but tonight the desire was for wine, and I had to reach up to the back of the top shelf of the cupboard for yet one more glass. Paul was in the other room, being the charming host. The doorbell was ringing. The timer was tick-tick-ticking. I reached, reached, grabbed the glass -- and suddenly the shelf tipped towards me, loaded down with pint glasses, champagne glasses and lord only knows what else. The bracket had snapped off, and a top shelf of glassware came roaring, tumbling down towards my face, onto the granite countertop, onto the stacks of glass & china plates on the countertop, the liqueur glasses ready for Cognac and Vin Santo -- Glass! Breaks! Holy crap! The shattering tumble seemed to go on and on in glassy aftershocks as I tried, in vain, to catch every piece, and of course I caught nothing.
When the screech finally subsided, an acute silence filled the room. I said, "Paul? I need some help here." The guests who had been ringing the bell appeared around the corner, looking as if they'd just arrived into chaos, which, of course, they had. I tried for some presence of mind as I attempted to hold back the tide of shards, actually managed to laugh. No blood, no severed veins -- all good. But there were fragments and splinters everywhere -- in the unbroken glassware, on the plates, on the coffee pot, on the counter, spread out and splayed across the floor. Good god almighty! What a way to make a first impression!
I admit I always do like a little drama, but this was off the charts. Significantly off the charts. Yikes.
Anyway.
The four pizzas were enough of a distraction to divert everyone's attention from the wreckage:
1. Italian sausage and crimini mushroom
2. Sopressata and artichoke hearts
3. Feta, Kalamata olives, oregano
4. Ricotta, garlic, Italian parsley, mozzarella, parmesan, etc.
Mmmmmmm.
Dessert, though, was, and is always, the prime distraction:
1. Scottish shortbread
2. Strawberries
3. Five types of chocolate, all bittersweet, all marked with little flags designating their country of origin: Iceland, Mexico, France and god only knows where else I'm too tired to think any more.
But one of the guests, the wife of one of Paul's classmates, said, just prior to dessert, that she felt as if she was at a play: the broken glass act, the pizza act, the chocolate act. Said that the platter of chocolate looked like a platter of little boats, with tiny paper sails.
At which point I thought that perhaps I should take a bow, exit stage left, and retire to my dressing room.
Which I did, shortly thereafter, upon chasing the guests out the door. Bye now!
Ta ta! Crash crash!
---
Tomorrow evening: different script, new audience, and I'm determined that there will be not a single piece of broken anything.
This evening Paul and I were hosting his school group -- five fellow students and assorted spouses, some whom I've met briefly last fall. I was up to my elbows in pizza assembly, chopped salad, platters of chocolate. We'd anticipated half-wine-drinkers/half-beer-drinkers, but tonight the desire was for wine, and I had to reach up to the back of the top shelf of the cupboard for yet one more glass. Paul was in the other room, being the charming host. The doorbell was ringing. The timer was tick-tick-ticking. I reached, reached, grabbed the glass -- and suddenly the shelf tipped towards me, loaded down with pint glasses, champagne glasses and lord only knows what else. The bracket had snapped off, and a top shelf of glassware came roaring, tumbling down towards my face, onto the granite countertop, onto the stacks of glass & china plates on the countertop, the liqueur glasses ready for Cognac and Vin Santo -- Glass! Breaks! Holy crap! The shattering tumble seemed to go on and on in glassy aftershocks as I tried, in vain, to catch every piece, and of course I caught nothing.
When the screech finally subsided, an acute silence filled the room. I said, "Paul? I need some help here." The guests who had been ringing the bell appeared around the corner, looking as if they'd just arrived into chaos, which, of course, they had. I tried for some presence of mind as I attempted to hold back the tide of shards, actually managed to laugh. No blood, no severed veins -- all good. But there were fragments and splinters everywhere -- in the unbroken glassware, on the plates, on the coffee pot, on the counter, spread out and splayed across the floor. Good god almighty! What a way to make a first impression!
I admit I always do like a little drama, but this was off the charts. Significantly off the charts. Yikes.
Anyway.
The four pizzas were enough of a distraction to divert everyone's attention from the wreckage:
1. Italian sausage and crimini mushroom
2. Sopressata and artichoke hearts
3. Feta, Kalamata olives, oregano
4. Ricotta, garlic, Italian parsley, mozzarella, parmesan, etc.
Mmmmmmm.
Dessert, though, was, and is always, the prime distraction:
1. Scottish shortbread
2. Strawberries
3. Five types of chocolate, all bittersweet, all marked with little flags designating their country of origin: Iceland, Mexico, France and god only knows where else I'm too tired to think any more.
But one of the guests, the wife of one of Paul's classmates, said, just prior to dessert, that she felt as if she was at a play: the broken glass act, the pizza act, the chocolate act. Said that the platter of chocolate looked like a platter of little boats, with tiny paper sails.
At which point I thought that perhaps I should take a bow, exit stage left, and retire to my dressing room.
Which I did, shortly thereafter, upon chasing the guests out the door. Bye now!
Ta ta! Crash crash!
---
Tomorrow evening: different script, new audience, and I'm determined that there will be not a single piece of broken anything.
Weekend
One of these moons I'll figure out that I'm no longer twenty-five and stop planning back-to-back dinner parties on the weekend after a full week of work. Or maybe not. This compulsion to entertain might be incurable.
Tonight Paul's school group and significant others are coming over for homemade pizza -- last count, there were going to be twelve of us. Tomorrow is my son's twenty-fifth birthday, and I have no idea who's coming, but there's a five pound beef chuck roast in the fridge, and a cake waiting to be whisked/whipped/wrangled. The painters finished Wednesday, and we've been reassembling our disassembled interior(s). The house is beginning to look habitable again, finally. Inch by inch. A little domestic shake-up can be a good thing, after all. (The cats heartily DISAGREE.)
Meanwhile, March rains have prevailed into April, a constant wet curtain through which to trudge. Part of me actually loves this rain, with clouds settled in at treetops, the world at hand snuggly swaddled. But I'm itching to sit out on the back porch under the Douglas firs and Western Red Cedars, martini at the ready, listening to the robin's evening trill.
Soon.
Tonight Paul's school group and significant others are coming over for homemade pizza -- last count, there were going to be twelve of us. Tomorrow is my son's twenty-fifth birthday, and I have no idea who's coming, but there's a five pound beef chuck roast in the fridge, and a cake waiting to be whisked/whipped/wrangled. The painters finished Wednesday, and we've been reassembling our disassembled interior(s). The house is beginning to look habitable again, finally. Inch by inch. A little domestic shake-up can be a good thing, after all. (The cats heartily DISAGREE.)
Meanwhile, March rains have prevailed into April, a constant wet curtain through which to trudge. Part of me actually loves this rain, with clouds settled in at treetops, the world at hand snuggly swaddled. But I'm itching to sit out on the back porch under the Douglas firs and Western Red Cedars, martini at the ready, listening to the robin's evening trill.
Soon.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Turn Around
My sentimental husband has been playing a Rosemary Clooney/Keith Carradine version of this song (which unfortunately is not on YouTube), and I've had to tell him to stop. It makes me cry every time! This Kodak ad, which features the song, made me cry as a child, alas. I'm a damn sap, that's what I am.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday Poem: Nettles
Nettles
For so long they contained all
that was evil, fear comprehensible
as a bully, a threat
to push me deep into the stinging
heart of a thicket –
I hacked a risky path.
And while dreams sifted through green nights
nettles sprang up, impossibly –
silvery undersides welting my ankles,
a poison assuaged with fern sap:
thin veil of defense
only a child could believe.
© T. Clear
---
Please do take the time to visit the Tuesday Poem masthead site for a bevy of poetry from New Zealand, the UK, and the USA.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Old News
From 5,000 New Answers to Questions, by Frederic J. Haskin, copyright 1933:
What was the largest cake every made?
Probably the largest cake was that ordered by Frederick William I, King of Prussia, in June, 1730. It is said that this contained 36 bushels of flour, 200 gallons of milk, one ton of butter, one ton of yeast, and 5000 eggs. The finished cake was 18 yards long, 8 yards broad, and more than half a yard thick. It was so large that 30,000 soldiers could not eat it all.
---
Just in case you wondered.
What was the largest cake every made?
Probably the largest cake was that ordered by Frederick William I, King of Prussia, in June, 1730. It is said that this contained 36 bushels of flour, 200 gallons of milk, one ton of butter, one ton of yeast, and 5000 eggs. The finished cake was 18 yards long, 8 yards broad, and more than half a yard thick. It was so large that 30,000 soldiers could not eat it all.
---
Just in case you wondered.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Benign Chaos
The family room is in the living room, the master bath is in the closet, the basement rooms are heaped into themselves, boxed and condensed. Closets lie in silent linen white, emptied of the accumulation of years. The kitchen is yet negotiable, stalagmites of cookbooks rising from the counters. The cats creep these sudden new alley-ways between paintings leaned against a wall. Fumes pervade everything. An architecture of ladders on the porch. Change is afoot and each newly brightened wall glows with its own light, delight, a calm uplifting of winter spirits cast out with the waning month of March.
I had sushi with a friend last evening and listened to her travails in dealing with her irrascible, ninety-year-old failing father who lives 1800 miles away. The father who, on oxygen and refusing to move to an assisted living facility, insisted on driving twice-weekly to the senior citizen center to play poker. When my friend's brother quietly confiscated the car and locked it up, the dad called the police on him. Three times. And then tried to convince his home-care-giver to drive him to his son's house, break the lock on the garage, and get the car back.
There is a blessing in timely death, I suppose. My own father died an untimely death at age 46, and god only knows the kind of elderly man he would be. In my few short years with him, we were very close -- we fished and gardened together -- but after so many years, in some respects he's like a fondly remembered character from a novel that someone read to me in my early years, from the past of the previous century, mythologized ever more with each fleeting year. There's a bittersweet blessing in these preserved memories, absent of the trials of the teen years, and of what would inevitably be his own declining vitality had he lasted longer than four+ decades. I look at my sons, also facing adulthood with their own abbreviated version of a father -- gone seven years now -- and wonder which glimpses of him they'll carry with them on their own roads into the future.
But enough of that. The painters have arrived, weighted with spattered drop-cloths; paintings are stacked out of their way. Paul is just back from a trip to the vet with one of the cats who has a giant swollen mass on her abdomen, which turns out to be a bruise. I cooked him up a plate of bacon and eggs, and there's a moment of quiet peace in the house before I launch myself into traffic and another day of shuffling glass vessels from paintbrush to packing box.
There is a blessing in timely death, I suppose. My own father died an untimely death at age 46, and god only knows the kind of elderly man he would be. In my few short years with him, we were very close -- we fished and gardened together -- but after so many years, in some respects he's like a fondly remembered character from a novel that someone read to me in my early years, from the past of the previous century, mythologized ever more with each fleeting year. There's a bittersweet blessing in these preserved memories, absent of the trials of the teen years, and of what would inevitably be his own declining vitality had he lasted longer than four+ decades. I look at my sons, also facing adulthood with their own abbreviated version of a father -- gone seven years now -- and wonder which glimpses of him they'll carry with them on their own roads into the future.
But enough of that. The painters have arrived, weighted with spattered drop-cloths; paintings are stacked out of their way. Paul is just back from a trip to the vet with one of the cats who has a giant swollen mass on her abdomen, which turns out to be a bruise. I cooked him up a plate of bacon and eggs, and there's a moment of quiet peace in the house before I launch myself into traffic and another day of shuffling glass vessels from paintbrush to packing box.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
%$&*(#$
Something nags at me to sit down in this space and type a bunch of letters that make sense. So.
Isn't there some rule where you shouldn't work on two houses simultaneously? We're nearly finished with the seven-year excavation of the Brandon Street house basement; this afternoon I got all the way down to vinyl, which I mopped, until the mop did itself in. This is the rule: stuff fluffs. When you think you're finally done with most of the stuff, the remaining stuff plumps up to fill the newly vacated spaces. It's not just a rule: it's a law. The Law of Stuff Plumping. My advice? Throw it away. Now.
My son informed me that the furnace died today, and I discovered that the main floor shower is leaking and rotting out the floor. (%$#&*$!) (But mostly just $$$.) (Again: #%$&*#!)
The Redmond house, where I actually do most of my living, is boxed and dismantled for painters. And then it will be the wood-floor refinishers, and then the carpet installers. It will be beautiful, eventually. But the general lack of order and disarray addles my brain. This morning I continually tripped on box edges, caught my elbow on stacks of bowls sticking out from where they don't belong. At one point, fallen nearly face-flat, I decided it was wise to just lie there and straighten my banged knee for a few moments, let the sharp sting of the tumble pass. All balance is askew, all centers tilted to the left.
But the good news is that Spring has officially kicked Winter off the calendar. Not much in the way of seedlings in the garden yet -- a few straggly daffs, some teensy violas. And we have new neighbors -- from Hungary -- who pre-empted us yesterday in the Welcome Wagon department when they showed up at the door with a plate of Hungarian apple cake. Neighbors! Friendly neighbors! Almost feels like I'm back on Brandon Street.
Isn't there some rule where you shouldn't work on two houses simultaneously? We're nearly finished with the seven-year excavation of the Brandon Street house basement; this afternoon I got all the way down to vinyl, which I mopped, until the mop did itself in. This is the rule: stuff fluffs. When you think you're finally done with most of the stuff, the remaining stuff plumps up to fill the newly vacated spaces. It's not just a rule: it's a law. The Law of Stuff Plumping. My advice? Throw it away. Now.
My son informed me that the furnace died today, and I discovered that the main floor shower is leaking and rotting out the floor. (%$#&*$!) (But mostly just $$$.) (Again: #%$&*#!)
The Redmond house, where I actually do most of my living, is boxed and dismantled for painters. And then it will be the wood-floor refinishers, and then the carpet installers. It will be beautiful, eventually. But the general lack of order and disarray addles my brain. This morning I continually tripped on box edges, caught my elbow on stacks of bowls sticking out from where they don't belong. At one point, fallen nearly face-flat, I decided it was wise to just lie there and straighten my banged knee for a few moments, let the sharp sting of the tumble pass. All balance is askew, all centers tilted to the left.
But the good news is that Spring has officially kicked Winter off the calendar. Not much in the way of seedlings in the garden yet -- a few straggly daffs, some teensy violas. And we have new neighbors -- from Hungary -- who pre-empted us yesterday in the Welcome Wagon department when they showed up at the door with a plate of Hungarian apple cake. Neighbors! Friendly neighbors! Almost feels like I'm back on Brandon Street.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sitting here this morning, aware and grateful for even the most elementary of blessings:
--clean water from the tap
--a roof
--an abundance of food on the shelves
--calm
--safety.
---
Glaringly aware of the near-impossibility of wrapping my brain around the scale of devastation in Japan. Consider this photo:
Besides my being nearly completely unable to conceive of a massive ship perched on a breakwater, there is the question of how exactly does a city/country cope with this amount of chaos? And then there is the fact that this photo of a single thing is but a fraction of the disaster.
This is a brutal reminder of our vulnerability, as residents of the planet. Nature is without mercy, and cannot know mercy. I stand in awe.
--clean water from the tap
--a roof
--an abundance of food on the shelves
--calm
--safety.
---
Glaringly aware of the near-impossibility of wrapping my brain around the scale of devastation in Japan. Consider this photo:
Besides my being nearly completely unable to conceive of a massive ship perched on a breakwater, there is the question of how exactly does a city/country cope with this amount of chaos? And then there is the fact that this photo of a single thing is but a fraction of the disaster.
This is a brutal reminder of our vulnerability, as residents of the planet. Nature is without mercy, and cannot know mercy. I stand in awe.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sleep Country
We went to a mattress theme park yesterday. Free admission!
Upon entering, a child, who was bouncing from mattress to mattress, was joyfully belting out the theme song! We removed our coats, were given our own pillows, then were encouraged to lie down on any of the many beds while the attendant operated the controls. Lying there, side by side with eyes closed, our legs were raised up slightly, then our heads were raised up, then were lowered down! Amazing! Boy was I glad I hadn't eaten anything for several hours!
The park was organized by theme; our favorite attraction was the Foam Mattress Display. We bought extra tickets for this one so we could return and lie down time and again. The movement was very subtle: upon lying down, we could feel the foam beneath us slowly relax and conform to our bodies. Wow! What a ride!
The Beauty Rest Display was not terribly exciting -- all you could do was lie there. No up-and-down action, no sinking into oblivion. Yawn.
The Stearns & Foster Display had some mighty pricey tickets, so we didn't even bother getting in line for that one. (Actually, there was no line.)
And then there was an interesting set of mattresses with black trim. For these, you paid extra. What the heck? Aren't mattresses usually covered with layer upon layer of decorative trim anyway, trim in which one sleeps? Why spend more for extra (ahem) trim underneath all the usual trim?
We were so impressed with the Tempurpedic Ride that we decided to purchase our very own! It's being delivered Wednesday! Instead of cotton sheets I thought I'd get us some pink cotton candy
and now I have to redecorate the entire room so that we can lie in bed and throw impossibly soft pillowy balls at a pyramid of glassware. Maybe Paul will win me a mammoth turquoise stuffed elephant. Damn, but life is good!
Upon entering, a child, who was bouncing from mattress to mattress, was joyfully belting out the theme song! We removed our coats, were given our own pillows, then were encouraged to lie down on any of the many beds while the attendant operated the controls. Lying there, side by side with eyes closed, our legs were raised up slightly, then our heads were raised up, then were lowered down! Amazing! Boy was I glad I hadn't eaten anything for several hours!
The park was organized by theme; our favorite attraction was the Foam Mattress Display. We bought extra tickets for this one so we could return and lie down time and again. The movement was very subtle: upon lying down, we could feel the foam beneath us slowly relax and conform to our bodies. Wow! What a ride!
The Beauty Rest Display was not terribly exciting -- all you could do was lie there. No up-and-down action, no sinking into oblivion. Yawn.
The Stearns & Foster Display had some mighty pricey tickets, so we didn't even bother getting in line for that one. (Actually, there was no line.)
And then there was an interesting set of mattresses with black trim. For these, you paid extra. What the heck? Aren't mattresses usually covered with layer upon layer of decorative trim anyway, trim in which one sleeps? Why spend more for extra (ahem) trim underneath all the usual trim?
We were so impressed with the Tempurpedic Ride that we decided to purchase our very own! It's being delivered Wednesday! Instead of cotton sheets I thought I'd get us some pink cotton candy
and now I have to redecorate the entire room so that we can lie in bed and throw impossibly soft pillowy balls at a pyramid of glassware. Maybe Paul will win me a mammoth turquoise stuffed elephant. Damn, but life is good!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Five American Sisters
In a short two months time, I'll be on a plane to Ireland with four of my sisters. (There's one more, who will not be joining us.) We'll stay a week at Holly Hill, then three will depart, leaving my oldest sister and myself for another week. As seems to happen in families with lots of women, the pre-trip gossip has begun to simmer. It's already been decided who rooms with who (as the host, I get my own room -- ha!). I've winnowed down the possible day trips to two -- Achill Island and Doo Lough/Leenane. So much to see in so little time! Most people who stay at our house, once they get there, don't want to leave. Why would you, waking up to this each day?
One of my brothers-in-law thinks we're nuts: five middle-aged women, some of us outspoken, most of us opinionated, with varying degrees of tolerance and adaptability (myself included). Will we revert back to our roles we played as children? (God I hope not.) Will we all respect the individual each has grown into during her lifetime thus far? (I hope so.)
I'm working on a set of rules to which we must abide, the first one being:
1. No whining about malfunctioning body parts. Holly Hill is a place of refuge from all ills and whatever ails you. This rule prohibits the discussion of cholesterol levels, arthritis, colonoscopies, mammograms, biopsies, valves, joints, supplements, pharmaceuticals, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.; except in the event of a medical emergency.
However, the following anatomical-related subjects are exempt: menopause, teeth.
This list will be updated as more rules make themselves known.
In the meantime, the countdown has begun.
One of my brothers-in-law thinks we're nuts: five middle-aged women, some of us outspoken, most of us opinionated, with varying degrees of tolerance and adaptability (myself included). Will we revert back to our roles we played as children? (God I hope not.) Will we all respect the individual each has grown into during her lifetime thus far? (I hope so.)
I'm working on a set of rules to which we must abide, the first one being:
1. No whining about malfunctioning body parts. Holly Hill is a place of refuge from all ills and whatever ails you. This rule prohibits the discussion of cholesterol levels, arthritis, colonoscopies, mammograms, biopsies, valves, joints, supplements, pharmaceuticals, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.; except in the event of a medical emergency.
However, the following anatomical-related subjects are exempt: menopause, teeth.
This list will be updated as more rules make themselves known.
In the meantime, the countdown has begun.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The Blog Brain has been mysteriously silent of late. No accounting for it.
---
We're revved back up to ramming speed at the Ferdinand Street Glass Factory. M. returned from her wholesale show with an armload of orders; her best show yet. Yesterday we received back from Philadelphia the three pallets that we shipped out a month ago, and as I was unpacking I contemplated just how many times these pieces of glass go up-the-stairs/down-the-stairs. I think that I don't really want to know. It comes in, it goes out, it comes back, it goes out again, etc. Lots of tinkering & fussing occurs in the interim. I often feel like a dentist with a drill and my tiny knife-tip: scrape scrape scrape. When M. gets the photos back of the new work, I'll post some here. The newest line is called "The Dream Line" and it's indeed dreamy. I'm all in a swoon over it.
---
Part of the recent silence reflects my desire to write, in this format, something that matters. There's so much crap out there in the way of navel-gazing and self-aggrandizing. (The letter "Z" twice in one sentence! I love Z.) It wears me out.
---
We're revved back up to ramming speed at the Ferdinand Street Glass Factory. M. returned from her wholesale show with an armload of orders; her best show yet. Yesterday we received back from Philadelphia the three pallets that we shipped out a month ago, and as I was unpacking I contemplated just how many times these pieces of glass go up-the-stairs/down-the-stairs. I think that I don't really want to know. It comes in, it goes out, it comes back, it goes out again, etc. Lots of tinkering & fussing occurs in the interim. I often feel like a dentist with a drill and my tiny knife-tip: scrape scrape scrape. When M. gets the photos back of the new work, I'll post some here. The newest line is called "The Dream Line" and it's indeed dreamy. I'm all in a swoon over it.
---
Part of the recent silence reflects my desire to write, in this format, something that matters. There's so much crap out there in the way of navel-gazing and self-aggrandizing. (The letter "Z" twice in one sentence! I love Z.) It wears me out.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Tuesday Poem: The Cheese Report
On the coast today expect
gusty shredded mozzarella
with foggy cottage
in the morning hours.
Partial Edam in the afternoon,
with periods of bleu.
Highs in the 50's.
Inland expect increasing Manchego
with scattered wet Stilton.
Windy and mostly Jack on Saturday
with possible feta flurries.
Lows around 30.
In the mountains: Roquefort advisory
with accumulations of up to 3 feet.
Gouda becoming easterly 20-30 miles per hour.
Pecorino warning on the northern slopes.
Extended outlook calls for frozen Limburger
off and on through Friday,
with partial afternoon Brie.
Cheddar level, around 500 feet.
Chance of cheese: 100%.
---
© T. Clear 2011
A version of this originally appeared in Poultry.
---
Please visit the Tuesday Poem masthead site
for this week's installment!
gusty shredded mozzarella
with foggy cottage
in the morning hours.
Partial Edam in the afternoon,
with periods of bleu.
Highs in the 50's.
Inland expect increasing Manchego
with scattered wet Stilton.
Windy and mostly Jack on Saturday
with possible feta flurries.
Lows around 30.
In the mountains: Roquefort advisory
with accumulations of up to 3 feet.
Gouda becoming easterly 20-30 miles per hour.
Pecorino warning on the northern slopes.
Extended outlook calls for frozen Limburger
off and on through Friday,
with partial afternoon Brie.
Cheddar level, around 500 feet.
Chance of cheese: 100%.
---
© T. Clear 2011
A version of this originally appeared in Poultry.
---
Please visit the Tuesday Poem masthead site
for this week's installment!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Illusion/Disillusion
Sussah, of angels and people/life in New Orleans, left this comment on my previous post:
Sussah: you're in my head!
One of the (many) wonders of technology is that I've been able to reproduce, through photographic manipulation, the intense blue-green light of a dream from which I always awaken feeling exhilarated, stunned with the possibilities that life offers.
So if I haven't lost you yet, here it is:
In the dream, I arise about an hour before dawn, to a mostly-sleeping universe, except for myself and maybe one or two other people. And we are suspended -- in time & this luminous light -- for several hours. Nothing much happens other than the fact of our being present and allowing this light into our consciousness. It's a balm, a restorative, a limbo of peace with the intense awareness of everything being right coupled with a heightened sense of reality. If I could go there every night, I would.
When Jodie Foster, in the movie Contact, stands on a beach with her long-dead father, we don't know if she's in an altered state of consciousness or has successfully navigated to an alternate universe -- but -- the screen was lit up with that same light from my dream.
In Philip Pullman's book The Subtle Knife, Will Parry discovers an invisible opening into another dimension, and while there finds a knife which allows its bearer the capability of "cutting entries into countless other worlds." [Random House] Is the dream my metaphorical knife? If so, I want to hold it in my hand, honed to a keen edge.
- Do you have sleeping dreams so sweet? I hope so.
Sussah: you're in my head!
One of the (many) wonders of technology is that I've been able to reproduce, through photographic manipulation, the intense blue-green light of a dream from which I always awaken feeling exhilarated, stunned with the possibilities that life offers.
So if I haven't lost you yet, here it is:
In the dream, I arise about an hour before dawn, to a mostly-sleeping universe, except for myself and maybe one or two other people. And we are suspended -- in time & this luminous light -- for several hours. Nothing much happens other than the fact of our being present and allowing this light into our consciousness. It's a balm, a restorative, a limbo of peace with the intense awareness of everything being right coupled with a heightened sense of reality. If I could go there every night, I would.
When Jodie Foster, in the movie Contact, stands on a beach with her long-dead father, we don't know if she's in an altered state of consciousness or has successfully navigated to an alternate universe -- but -- the screen was lit up with that same light from my dream.
In Philip Pullman's book The Subtle Knife, Will Parry discovers an invisible opening into another dimension, and while there finds a knife which allows its bearer the capability of "cutting entries into countless other worlds." [Random House] Is the dream my metaphorical knife? If so, I want to hold it in my hand, honed to a keen edge.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Desire
Let me exist, for a time, on the beach just below these cliffs, in this ocean-green light. On canvas. With gauzy edges. No schedule, no cold, no worry. And no shoes.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Criminal, Redux
A year ago I blogged about my limited contact, thirty+ years ago, with the Green River Murderer. (Here's a link to that piece.) I opened the Seattle Times this morning to, once again, his reviled face: he's confessed to yet another murder, a woman whose bones were discovered just last month. And yet it's his mother whose face I see, she who made my life -- at age 18, 19, 20 -- a particular kind of hell. (He's about the age his mother was when I worked with her.)
A while back while dining out, Paul and I struck up a conversation with a woman who was dining, alone, beside us. She was a psychiatrist with the Washington State Department of Corrections, and this man (whose name I'll not utter) is one of her patients. Needless to say, the conversation heated up at that moment. Apparently, he sees himself as a celebrity, and struts around before her when they are in session asking, repeatedly, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
What really gets me though is that this beast receives counseling, compliments of the State of Washington. Counseling? WHAT??!! Gee. I wonder how that's working for him. Sure hope he can work out all those mommy issues.
Anyway, I'd prefer to never see his face, anywhere, again.
A while back while dining out, Paul and I struck up a conversation with a woman who was dining, alone, beside us. She was a psychiatrist with the Washington State Department of Corrections, and this man (whose name I'll not utter) is one of her patients. Needless to say, the conversation heated up at that moment. Apparently, he sees himself as a celebrity, and struts around before her when they are in session asking, repeatedly, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
What really gets me though is that this beast receives counseling, compliments of the State of Washington. Counseling? WHAT??!! Gee. I wonder how that's working for him. Sure hope he can work out all those mommy issues.
Anyway, I'd prefer to never see his face, anywhere, again.
Friday, February 18, 2011
There's an argument for not going to Hawaii in the middle of winter because re-entry is quite possibly worse than not going at all, but I'm not going to pursue that argument, because, in spite of mid-February malaise and airplane air it IS worth it. (I'm not sure if that all makes sense but who cares.)
Quiet at work, by myself. Melinda is off to Philadelphia to accumulate a year's worth of orders. Check out her current blog post here.
Having grown up in a large family, I want and need a lot of people around, most of the time. I know there are others who, having experienced the same early familial hubbub as me who crave alone time, but not me, or not so often. So it's just been me and the cat in the Wee Glass Factory aka Melinda's house. Come visit! Today was the first day of the Philly show, and early reports look good. I'll post pics when I can; no new ones available yet. The new work is literally hot out of the "kitchen kiln". But there are some real beauties!
Quiet at work, by myself. Melinda is off to Philadelphia to accumulate a year's worth of orders. Check out her current blog post here.
Having grown up in a large family, I want and need a lot of people around, most of the time. I know there are others who, having experienced the same early familial hubbub as me who crave alone time, but not me, or not so often. So it's just been me and the cat in the Wee Glass Factory aka Melinda's house. Come visit! Today was the first day of the Philly show, and early reports look good. I'll post pics when I can; no new ones available yet. The new work is literally hot out of the "kitchen kiln". But there are some real beauties!
Monday, February 14, 2011
nine things more-or-less related to today
1. The average adult human heart weighs about 10 ounces.
2. I once gave a poetry reading on Valentine's Day, and only read poems that contained the word "love". Fourteen poems. Paul was there -- we'd only just begun to date -- and the reading was hosted by one of my bakery customers with whom I'd gone out a few times.
3. When I was newly widowed, I received, at the bakery, a bouquet of tulips with a card signed "from one of your admirers".
4. I've always coveted those lapel pins with an outline of a heart in red rhinestones.
5. Heart-shaped, iced sugar-cookies are sublime.
6. My son Nelson, at age four, for shoes wore only a pair of red cowboy boots.
7. Those old valentines, where you had to cut out and glue the envelopes? Bad idea.
8. Valrhona 85% Bittersweet Dark Chocolate + a glass of Ruby Port = Heaven.
9. When I say "Happy VD" I want to hear you clap.
2. I once gave a poetry reading on Valentine's Day, and only read poems that contained the word "love". Fourteen poems. Paul was there -- we'd only just begun to date -- and the reading was hosted by one of my bakery customers with whom I'd gone out a few times.
3. When I was newly widowed, I received, at the bakery, a bouquet of tulips with a card signed "from one of your admirers".
4. I've always coveted those lapel pins with an outline of a heart in red rhinestones.
5. Heart-shaped, iced sugar-cookies are sublime.
6. My son Nelson, at age four, for shoes wore only a pair of red cowboy boots.
7. Those old valentines, where you had to cut out and glue the envelopes? Bad idea.
8. Valrhona 85% Bittersweet Dark Chocolate + a glass of Ruby Port = Heaven.
9. When I say "Happy VD" I want to hear you clap.
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