Here's an atypical new year's resolution concept although I missed the depth of its < sic > significanter related relevance at millennium's turn.
What will I do, give-up, or change? Who will I be? What good and evil will I encounter?
If I started lessons tomorrow, with daily diligence I could be a primo bagpipes player in 10 years. Parachutist. Whitewater rafter. Chess player. Ship builder. Scholar. Published and known composer. What do you or I have the resolve to pursue, to achieve, or even avoid in the next decade.
The last six months I've endured tend me toward inclusion of my sister Vajayna (vagina with a long 'a') in my decade's resolve, but it's fleeting.
Okay, gone! :)
My grey mush could bubble over onto the burners of my life with this.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The Mississippi Fade
My eyes aren't believing the beauty of splintered brushstrokes of lavender intermittently striped across soft apricots and diluted magentas as the sun sinks toward the horizon.
The side of my 1920s wooden bungalow buffets breezes from the Gulf just a few blocks away and, from my sitting porch, I can inhale the sea and seaweedy air, on this, the milder of many evenings in awhile, I hear my wood-framed structure squeeze out an occasional creak, and think about trees felled and hauled to top this piece of ground.
I think of what must be a long-dead carpenter whose pride sank nails perfectly into aligned joints, fashioned from new-sawn boards dried and awaiting sealer and paint.
The creaks of those trees now framing and siding and flooring my house for ninety-some years seem to mock my aching, arthritic joints, as I gaze at God's mural, my glorious sky show as if in an encore bow before succumbing to dark.
Reaching down from the arm of my oversized rocker, I stroke my bloodhound's head, knowing Grits' thirteen years have eroded his bones, too, slowed-up his gait.
The ole pooch and I don't have a plan for tomorrow but, for tonight, a little supper, a ball game on the radio, and a small but worn bed may get us into tomorrow if my prayers to see another sunset like tonight's are answered
The side of my 1920s wooden bungalow buffets breezes from the Gulf just a few blocks away and, from my sitting porch, I can inhale the sea and seaweedy air, on this, the milder of many evenings in awhile, I hear my wood-framed structure squeeze out an occasional creak, and think about trees felled and hauled to top this piece of ground.
I think of what must be a long-dead carpenter whose pride sank nails perfectly into aligned joints, fashioned from new-sawn boards dried and awaiting sealer and paint.
The creaks of those trees now framing and siding and flooring my house for ninety-some years seem to mock my aching, arthritic joints, as I gaze at God's mural, my glorious sky show as if in an encore bow before succumbing to dark.
Reaching down from the arm of my oversized rocker, I stroke my bloodhound's head, knowing Grits' thirteen years have eroded his bones, too, slowed-up his gait.
The ole pooch and I don't have a plan for tomorrow but, for tonight, a little supper, a ball game on the radio, and a small but worn bed may get us into tomorrow if my prayers to see another sunset like tonight's are answered
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Treble-Edged
After an intentionally brutal workout, Jim bent to tie his wing-tips, already feeling stiffening soreness. He had to tell her tonight. Guilt was carving his insides like a blade separating cantaloupe from its rind.
Weeks before, lovemaking ended with the mutual disinterest of apathy. They lay on their sides, spooning in sleepwear in the master of their fashionable condo. Silence awaited his puncture, despite the gentleness of phrasing he‘d rehearsed in the shower at the gym.
He sighed and slowly inhaled.
"Don’t.” Celeste whispered, “I know about you two…everything.”
He groped for the nightstand lamp. Celeste’s confident whisper was infused with clairvoyance-informed surety possessed by women with a cheating spouse.
“The first time Stephanie invited me up,“ Celeste smiled, “she seduced me, too. We got crazy wild. We're still lovers.”
With every muscle’s pained report, Jim untwined to right himself out of the bed.
“We watched videotapes I shot of you two from the closet,” she said, and mocked, “’Oh puss-y-cat,’ you pa-thetically whined in one episode. We replayed that one over and over, howling with laughter, Jim!”
In shadows of a lamp-lit stare-down, Celeste rolled onto his pillow to deliver the quietus.
“Steffie leased the penthouse. She took a job in L.A. and I’m going with her…. You may want to start packing, because we leave, Sunday. And you can’t afford this place on your own.”
Jim gulped painfully, embarrassed she heard it.
“The couch is that way,” she pointed, retracting her arm to twist the lamp switch. “On second thought," she said, stopping him," why don’t you stay here. I’ll go up and crawl in with Stephanie. I've got a key.”
Friday, November 11, 2011
360+5 Remainders of the Thirty Dozen Days
Yes, onward Christian soldiers. Your faith informs you that your God has made you so free to choose that others may choose to deny, even defile Him, yet you march to that 'different drummer' down the much narrower path.
Donning your uniform as an American soldier, you pledge to defend your country “…against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” in the name of freedoms broad enough to protect those who would protest your duties, scorn you, stage demonstrations at your funerals, and spit upon the very colors waiting to drape your casket.
Thirty dozen days you are mindfully back-burnered, then comes your birthday, the day you died, the day your mutilated remains were lain to rest in a field much prettier and more peaceful than the infested jungle swamp in which your body was found nailed to a tree, disemboweled, your eyes gouged by a rusty blade, your clothing shorn, a sight your brothers-in-arms can never erase and are wont to find comfort of escapes both conscious and subconscious. You’re missed at Christmas, maybe an anniversary.
The remainders of those few days beyond the thirty dozen, Veterans and Memorial Days, baby flags are aflutter against your headstone and those of your brothers as “Taps” is mournfully blown while some of us pause in reverberations of respectful and tearful silences, silences to wonder why it was you and not us, sensing our remaining bond with you across life’s threshold, the true colors of our flags, internal, knowing we will serve with you again before the supreme commander.
360+5 Cycle of the Thirty Dozen Days Resets
Moisture has settled the earth, randomly embossing outlines of the gravedigger's trade across the ground in the waning light of Sunday night's dusk at Kentucky Veterans Central Cemetery.
Swarms of volunteers have collected the little flags from each gravesite, removed plastic flowers and other remembrances left by mourners and those who simply came to pay respect.
November's chill is fast descending, as fast as the falling sun, over the fallen sons and husbands, fathers and grandfathers buried in what's been called 'hallowed ground,' a term also used for battlefields where dead boys earn the more comfortable synonym, 'casualties.'
From atop the hill at gravesite D-231, left-to-right and right-to-left headlight beams occasion Kentucky's Highway 31 West, to and through Fort Knox.
My brother Jack's spirit rests his ethereal back against his marble headstone, thankful for remembrances and prayers on Veteran's Day, from near and far and home.
He is not a haunt or a ghost, but a cortege lookout, just another sentry of another era of another war of young men, awaiting arrivals of those who stand sentry this night, in peril around the globe, awaiting the next generation of those to arrive for rest here, content to know his little brother has requested to share this same serene field of mortal finality.
Swarms of volunteers have collected the little flags from each gravesite, removed plastic flowers and other remembrances left by mourners and those who simply came to pay respect.
November's chill is fast descending, as fast as the falling sun, over the fallen sons and husbands, fathers and grandfathers buried in what's been called 'hallowed ground,' a term also used for battlefields where dead boys earn the more comfortable synonym, 'casualties.'
From atop the hill at gravesite D-231, left-to-right and right-to-left headlight beams occasion Kentucky's Highway 31 West, to and through Fort Knox.
My brother Jack's spirit rests his ethereal back against his marble headstone, thankful for remembrances and prayers on Veteran's Day, from near and far and home.
He is not a haunt or a ghost, but a cortege lookout, just another sentry of another era of another war of young men, awaiting arrivals of those who stand sentry this night, in peril around the globe, awaiting the next generation of those to arrive for rest here, content to know his little brother has requested to share this same serene field of mortal finality.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Tomorrow's for You and the Others, Dennis
Dennis got to ‘Nam on August 17th of 1970, was in-country less than three months, an 11-’BoomBoom--nickname for an “11B,“ ‘Eleven Bravo,’ the army Military Occupation Specialty classification for an infantry rifleman--when, serving in the 196th Light Infantry Brigade at Quang Nam, Viet Nam, he was shot and killed by enemy small arms fire.
Dennis was born in Montana in 1950, was only 9 when his family moved to the Mt. Vernon/Burlington, Washington area, Edison High's honor student who worked on the yearbook and was drafted into the U.S. Army after attending Skagit Valley College from ‘68-70.
Quang Nam province was the U.S. Marines responsibility for several years before the Army was assigned to the area in February of ’70, six months before Dennis arrived, a region so deadly and dangerous that many Medals of Honor were conferred on Marines in actions where Dennis and his unit was to be assigned.
I don’t know if Dennis knew that the Marines had suffered 7,000 KIAs (Killed-In-Action) during their years in a place called Quang Nam, a place famous for its cinnamon and ginseng, an area with locales known as “Arizona Territory” because it was thick with “Indians,” a place called ‘Charlie Ridge‘, a Marine firebase called “Tomahawk,” and an embattled Marine stronghold at An Hoa.
When he awoke on November 11th of 1970, I don’t know if Dennis knew it was Veterans Day back home in Washington, if he awoke under fire, knew a firefight was imminent, or thought he might ‘get it’ that day.
For you, Dennis Richard Linnell, a Private First Class of Delta Company, 2nd Battlion of the 1st Infantry, I will pray, for you and for all who have fallen and may not be remembered by names etched in a wall such as yours, and especially for you, Dennis, I will fly my flag in your personal memory and honor, and for others because their lives mattered too, you the fallen who may not have anyone else by whom to be remembered.
[Two other soldiers died from hostile fire that day: Ronald J. DiBartolomeo, of Volant, PA, at Bien Hoa; Francis Xavier Bunk, of West Islip, NY, at Binh Dinh]
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Marian's Retirement Home
Although she shares space with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, I can’t imagine she feels cramped in a 55,000 square-foot mansion with three elevators, complemented with a staff to clean its 132 rooms (of which 35 are bathrooms) sitting on 18 acres of prime real estate.
Marian Lois (Shields) Robinson, enjoys 24-hour limousine service and an on-call kitchen for her dietary needs and whims. Not bad for a former Spiegel Catalog and banking secretary who didn‘t inherit, earn or marry into such opulent trappings, huh?!
Marian's retirement digs are actually public housing, paid for by you ‘n me.
There hasn’t been a ‘First Granny’ in the White House since Dwight & Mamie Eisenhower lived there in the 1950s.
Then and now, why are we footing the bill and who did you say approved that?
Friday, November 4, 2011
Jenna's Mortadella
Jenna leaned heavily into the glass display front of the grocery’s busy delicatessen, jostled by elbows of the people on each side of her. Despite the crowd, the three deli workers seemed like slow drones, working steadily without a sense of commitment to serve patrons quickly.
Jenna looked at the pink stub of paper in her hand, noticed “18” in bold letters determining her turn in the order of those to be served at the deli counter.
“For the love of Jesus,” Jenna muttered, then looked down the counter toward the workers and shouted, “Hey! . C’MON!! I gotta get going!” Two of the workers ignored her. The third, a sixty-ish black woman with grey-streaked hair, paused and gave Jenna a glare that raised the light blonde hair, and goosebumps, on Jenna’s arms.
“God-DAMN!,” thought Jenna. “Where do they find these people,” she wondered.
Serving another customer off to the right, the black woman's duties brought her side-stepping within six feet of Jenna and ducked half her body into the case fetch a half-round of cheese. As the woman emerged, Jenna shot her a look.
“All’s I need is a half pound of mortadella.”
The woman locked eyes with Jenna, “Wha’s your number, honey!”
“Eighteen!” Jenna replied with a sharp snap in her voice.
“You gonna be waitin’ awhile.”
“What’s awhile! I’ve been here forever! How many are in front of me!??”
“Right! And they’s 266 billion trillion people in front of you, and you jus’ gonna have to wait,” the clerk fired back with another momentary, as unsettling, glare.
“The HELL you say. Where’s the manager?”
“Right! You lookin’ at her. Now, what!”
“NOW, you slice my eight ounces of mortadella or…or I’m leaving and calling your headquarters!”
“You ain’t leavin’ and you ain’t callin’ nobody. Know why?”
Jenna roiled in furious silence and contrived a facial expression of angered disinterest, almost of boredom.
Nose to nose save for eighteen or so inches of deli countertop between them, the black woman cocked her head slightly as she said in a mockingly sing-songy tone, “I don’t care if you a lilly-white little paralegal who don’t like black folks none too much.. Who doesn’t got a lick o’ patience. And who don’t like nobody who doesn’t speak like YOU THINK they should.”
Jenna gasped and above the deli’s din, barked, ”YOU DON”T KNOW ME! I don’t know or remember YOU…hell, I don’t even SHOP here very often. How do you know I’m a paralegal?!” Only a wide, tooth-gapped grin answered Jenna. After a pause intended to further annoy Jenna, the black woman continued.
“You always been an impatient, spoilt little cuss.”
“HOW DARE you speak to me like that!”
“I dare cuz you ain’t goin’ nowheres. You cain’t leave without yo’ mortadella. Know why?”
“I need for my recipe--but other stores carry it! I’ve been waiting an eternity, you bitch! And I’m leaving!”
“You will wait an eternity. They’s 266 billion trillion people ahead of you and when your number 18 come up? You ain’t gonna hear it and the wait gonna start all over again.”
Jenna was never madder, more frustrated, but couldn‘t move or speak.
The black woman grinned and continued. “This is hell. Yo custom made hell right here in my deli, outta all yo littlest pet peeves and weaknesses in life. You got no recipe. You don’t need mortadella, Mortadella is I-talian for “she’s dead,” and you is. Kilt this mornin', too impatient to use a crosswalk and that car run you down an' TOOK your legs. You bled to death through ‘em.“
Jenna looked down, screamed and screamed, now knowing why the lean against the deli case felt so heavy. It wasn’t a lean. She’d been clinging to it with her arms. Her plaid skirt was caked in dried blood, as was the lower part of her blazer. Until then, she hadn't noticed the crystal on her watch was broken, and the sweep-second had wasn't moving. Screams diminished into sobs.
The black woman’s eyes now shone, and Jenna’s whimpering form had no escape, nor did Jenna’s eyes, again locked with the old woman’s.
“You died on the street and when God didn’t grab you up?? I sho’s hell did! HA-HA! You like that pun?? No, I knows you hate puns! I snatched you up! Well...down! Hah! Another pun!
“You’s mine and as soon as I turn to walk off , you ain’t gonna remember a shred of this conversation! It never happened.”
The black woman shifted the heavy, half-round of cheese into her other hand and walked down the counter with her back to Jenna.
Jenna looked at the pink stub of paper in her hand, noticed “18” in bold letters determining her turn in the order of those to be served at the deli counter.
“For the love of Jesus,” Jenna muttered, then looked down the counter toward the workers and shouted,
“Hey! . C’MON!! I gotta get going!”
The three deli workers ignored her. Jenna could swear that one of them, a sixty-ish black woman with grey-streaked hair, paused and seemed to snort with the slightest perceptible puff of vapor or mist…smoke(?) coming from her nostrils, never looking up or away from the back and forth rhythm of the slicer she operated.
The black woman returned the roast beef to the case and butcher-wrapped a package of sliced beef, setting it atop the counter. She glanced right, along the countertop, right at Jenna.
“Wha’s your number, honey?”
“Eighteen!” Jenna replied with a sharp snap in her voice.
The black woman looked to her coworkers and quipped, “She got EIGHTEEN! Hell, tha’s 6 + 6 + 6, iddn’t it??,” and the three women emitted a loud laugh.
“God-DAMN!,” thought Jenna. “Where do they find these people,” she wondered.
Jenna looked at the pink stub of paper in her hand, noticed “18” in bold letters determining her turn in the order of those to be served at the deli counter.
“For the love of Jesus,” Jenna muttered, then looked down the counter toward the workers and shouted, “Hey! . C’MON!! I gotta get going!” Two of the workers ignored her. The third, a sixty-ish black woman with grey-streaked hair, paused and gave Jenna a glare that raised the light blonde hair, and goosebumps, on Jenna’s arms.
“God-DAMN!,” thought Jenna. “Where do they find these people,” she wondered.
Serving another customer off to the right, the black woman's duties brought her side-stepping within six feet of Jenna and ducked half her body into the case fetch a half-round of cheese. As the woman emerged, Jenna shot her a look.
“All’s I need is a half pound of mortadella.”
The woman locked eyes with Jenna, “Wha’s your number, honey!”
“Eighteen!” Jenna replied with a sharp snap in her voice.
“You gonna be waitin’ awhile.”
“What’s awhile! I’ve been here forever! How many are in front of me!??”
“Right! And they’s 266 billion trillion people in front of you, and you jus’ gonna have to wait,” the clerk fired back with another momentary, as unsettling, glare.
“The HELL you say. Where’s the manager?”
“Right! You lookin’ at her. Now, what!”
“NOW, you slice my eight ounces of mortadella or…or I’m leaving and calling your headquarters!”
“You ain’t leavin’ and you ain’t callin’ nobody. Know why?”
Jenna roiled in furious silence and contrived a facial expression of angered disinterest, almost of boredom.
Nose to nose save for eighteen or so inches of deli countertop between them, the black woman cocked her head slightly as she said in a mockingly sing-songy tone, “I don’t care if you a lilly-white little paralegal who don’t like black folks none too much.. Who doesn’t got a lick o’ patience. And who don’t like nobody who doesn’t speak like YOU THINK they should.”
Jenna gasped and above the deli’s din, barked, ”YOU DON”T KNOW ME! I don’t know or remember YOU…hell, I don’t even SHOP here very often. How do you know I’m a paralegal?!” Only a wide, tooth-gapped grin answered Jenna. After a pause intended to further annoy Jenna, the black woman continued.
“You always been an impatient, spoilt little cuss.”
“HOW DARE you speak to me like that!”
“I dare cuz you ain’t goin’ nowheres. You cain’t leave without yo’ mortadella. Know why?”
“I need for my recipe--but other stores carry it! I’ve been waiting an eternity, you bitch! And I’m leaving!”
“You will wait an eternity. They’s 266 billion trillion people ahead of you and when your number 18 come up? You ain’t gonna hear it and the wait gonna start all over again.”
Jenna was never madder, more frustrated, but couldn‘t move or speak.
The black woman grinned and continued. “This is hell. Yo custom made hell right here in my deli, outta all yo littlest pet peeves and weaknesses in life. You got no recipe. You don’t need mortadella, Mortadella is I-talian for “she’s dead,” and you is. Kilt this mornin', too impatient to use a crosswalk and that car run you down an' TOOK your legs. You bled to death through ‘em.“
Jenna looked down, screamed and screamed, now knowing why the lean against the deli case felt so heavy. It wasn’t a lean. She’d been clinging to it with her arms. Her plaid skirt was caked in dried blood, as was the lower part of her blazer. Until then, she hadn't noticed the crystal on her watch was broken, and the sweep-second had wasn't moving. Screams diminished into sobs.
The black woman’s eyes now shone, and Jenna’s whimpering form had no escape, nor did Jenna’s eyes, again locked with the old woman’s.
“You died on the street and when God didn’t grab you up?? I sho’s hell did! HA-HA! You like that pun?? No, I knows you hate puns! I snatched you up! Well...down! Hah! Another pun!
“You’s mine and as soon as I turn to walk off , you ain’t gonna remember a shred of this conversation! It never happened.”
The black woman shifted the heavy, half-round of cheese into her other hand and walked down the counter with her back to Jenna.
Jenna looked at the pink stub of paper in her hand, noticed “18” in bold letters determining her turn in the order of those to be served at the deli counter.
“For the love of Jesus,” Jenna muttered, then looked down the counter toward the workers and shouted,
“Hey! . C’MON!! I gotta get going!”
The three deli workers ignored her. Jenna could swear that one of them, a sixty-ish black woman with grey-streaked hair, paused and seemed to snort with the slightest perceptible puff of vapor or mist…smoke(?) coming from her nostrils, never looking up or away from the back and forth rhythm of the slicer she operated.
The black woman returned the roast beef to the case and butcher-wrapped a package of sliced beef, setting it atop the counter. She glanced right, along the countertop, right at Jenna.
“Wha’s your number, honey?”
“Eighteen!” Jenna replied with a sharp snap in her voice.
The black woman looked to her coworkers and quipped, “She got EIGHTEEN! Hell, tha’s 6 + 6 + 6, iddn’t it??,” and the three women emitted a loud laugh.
“God-DAMN!,” thought Jenna. “Where do they find these people,” she wondered.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
This Catholic: On Cussing and God
Cussing is bad manners. Writers do take artistic license, using those words in context of a character or a quote. But cussing, per se, isn't a sin. Only some.
Use His name in vain and you've gotta ticket to the hot place. Call your little brother a 'fucker' or a 'dick' for wetting the bed you have to share with him, you'll probably feel a parent's hand delivering an ass-whacking or the family's style of punishment, but I suspect you'll have steered way clear of eternal damnation.
When I sail the f-bomb through blogosphere seas, I sometimes think, 'Shit. If I ever get a reader-- a follower who actually reads this drivel--I may get a nasty-gram or comment about my F-filth and their f-f-faith.'
Some words are dirtier, and you probably agree; there are terms you feel uncomfortable using or hearing. The one that rhymes with 'runt.' The aurally similar phrase to 'cotton rock sucker.' Hearing someone use the synonym for 'mammy-jammer.' Not nice. But a ticket to Hell?
Jesus. My tradition asserts He was like us in all things but sin. All things. A-L-L. On faith, I buy that, and were I Protestant, I'd probably say, "because the Bible tells me so," (which it does).
I don't see it: Jesus rousting the money-changers from the temple, saying "C'mon fellas, darn-it. Dag nab you, quit annoying me because you're getting my goat! I'm telling you, leave, by-gum!!" My opine is that he was angrier and his words reflected it. Short of sinning by using his Father's name, I think he really did let 'em have it and may have included the Effer.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words...." Bullshit. You have feelings. I have feelings. Feelings can be hurt. And words can be an inflicting weapon. Words can hurt. Do.
If you disagree, okay. If you wonder, 'What's the point?,' here it is: Before you rock someone's boat, apply my 'CRADLE' rule (Context. Respect. Attitude. D iscretion. Locale. Environs.) that you may tiptoe lightly...for, you may not like whom, or what, you awaken.
Monday, October 24, 2011
At Mass. In Church. I Answered and Spoke on My Cell Phone.
There's probably a special flavor of Roman Catholic gehenna-hell (green fire?) for what I did on Friday, October 21st, so embarrassing that I'm just now confessing it to you, my 6S brothers and sisters because I'm too chicken to face the church music just yet.
I had gotten up at o-dark-thirty in time to iron a shirt and drive four miles to the cathedral, where some thirty folks were spread among the expanse of seating for 3,000 and you need to know the circumstances.
That Mass was one for which I'd made an offering to pray for my sister's healing, and it was her birthday, and it was on her birthday a year ago that my brother, Jack, died, and I'm sitting there when the cell phone rings to my surprise (that it's on, that it's in my pocket, that I'd even bring it INTO church) and we're only one prayer into the Mass with my cheery-chimey ringtone echoing to the pseud0-rafters, TWICE, because I couldn't answer the first ring in time.
"Hello??," I whisper and hear, "This is the Phoenix Police, are you okay?" to which I reply in a whisper, "YES! I'm at church, in Mass, I'm okay" to which the officer replies, "SIR! THIS IS THE POLICE AND I CANT HEAR YOU---ARE YOU OKAY," at which I attempt to cup my hand around the cell's mouthpiece and attempt a louder 'stage whisper,' saying, "I'M IN CHURCH AND YES I'M OKAY!" to which the officer says, "Your phone is breaking up, this is the POLICE, and ARE YOU OKAY?" to which I reply, in full, booming, mega-bass voice, "YES, I'M OKAY."
I do the next ruder thing and exit the pew, turn my back to the priest who's probably pissed but serving the non-rude 29-or-so others, and once I'm in the vestibule, I tell the cop where I am and why, and he says, "The panic alarm has gone off inside your house and we have officers, on-scene!"
Forget me considering asking for my Mass offering back because I only caught the first 243 seconds of it, but the best parts of this happened later, as The City will bill me $75 for a false alarm, my neighbor sent me an email asking why four cop cars and a "paddy wagon looking thing" (they sent the SWAT team?) was in front of the house at 6AM, my dog can't reach the alarm panels and I suspect dead-brother-Jack was messing with me, and if you think I'll feel comfortable walking into Saints Simon & Jude Cathedral in Phoenix anytime soon you definitely don't have a grasp on...need a compass for Catholic guilt trips, and now I'm prayin' to Jesus that (because it was the Cathedral) it wasn't the Archbishop there on the altar, because, you see, I was busy talking on my cell phone to the po-po and turning my back to him to leave the church while leaving the other faithfully devout with something to harrumph about all week and into aeternum
Saturday, October 22, 2011
A Binary System Perspective
binary system: “A system in which information can be expressed by combinations of the digits 0 and 1.”- Dictionary.com
Binary, in perspective:
1 – “It’s the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” Three Dog Night lyric from smash single, “One,” ABC Dunhill, 1969.
11 – the second, as a replacement-synonym for “junior,” e.g. Pope Paul II. [Could we Catholics ever call a the Vicar of Rome, the successor of Peter, the Holy Roman Pontiff, “Junior“(?!)]
111 – Balls (you’ve almost walked); Strikes (yerrrrrrr OUT!)
1111 – Forty-one minutes past my bedtime; the year Henry V was crowned ‘Holy Roman Emperor’
11111 – Yahtzee!
111111 – Friday, November 11th, 2011–If you haven’t done it before, take the day off to wear a stars ‘n stripes pin and pack a cooler with sandwiches and drinks. Drag some cheap lawn chairs down to your local veterans parade because it’s Veterans Day. Sit and wave and smile and sip and munch and reflect and enjoy. If your town doesn’t have a veterans parade, conduct your own with your children or grandchildren. If you‘re alone and your town doesn’t have a parade, buy a big flag and march around your block until someone asks what the hell you’re doing. Please refrain from showing him your binary middle finger for his ignorance, choosing peace for the moment it takes to educate him.
#
MudSpots Theme: Missing Numbers
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Cabin's Closing
Griff started at sun-up, when the air temperure may have been forty, boarding-up the rough-hewn cabin his family used as a weekend retreat just 2 hours' drive from Phoenix.
The structure was notched-log construction, started by his grandfather, and finished by Griff's dad and him when Griff was still in early elementary school.
He closed the main and drained the water pipes, a by-design capability his ingenious dad had plumbed to keep pipes from bursting.
The board-up, an annual event in which he sought solace, used as meditation born of physical labor, was as necessary for protection from animals as much as it was from hunters and vandals.
Elbow on his knees, Griff sat on the porch's edge resting his feet upon each of the two weather-splintered steps, his plaid Pendleton soaked in the sweat of achievement's endeavors, enjoying his bologna sandwich, a little black coffee from his Thermos, and opened a small bag of Fritos.
With his thumb and index finger's first foray into the bag, he felt he was being watched, turned to see a squirrel not eighteen inches away staring him down, and Griff sat wondering on the winter the furry little guy would experience as he surrendered the whole bag, chip by chip, hand-feeding the squirrel with a silent request that he be a herald to the other wildlife to watch over the cabin securing Griff's best childhood memories within and without.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Phoenix' Nighttime Meals from Wheels
Strings of unfrosted bulbs, a few flimsy tables and chairs, and foods ranging from 'Sonoran-style' hot dogs to tacos, menudo and burritos are shibboleths of the impromptu restaurant boom that's emerged and been sustained in commercial parking lots and on corners, all over Phoenix.
The mobile fonditas seem to cater to Mexican palates, efficient little kitchens-on-wheels whose operators are themselves, Mexican-American (or Mexican?), and the number of these food-stands is staggering.
The Ramirez Brothers used to operate one helluva fine taco trailer along a side street in the 'Old Town' section east of thee Rio Cuale in Puerto Vallarta, and I enjoyed their fare countless times without hesitation or illness.
My friends--even licensed travel agent colleagues--know my love of Mexico, its beaches, sleepy coastal towns, warm and generous populace, a love I rationalize (in Spanish) as "In my heart, I'm really a Mexican" to the laughing agreement of my Mexican-national friends who tell me when I'm tan enough to resemble a native.
That said, it's a little unsettling to drive down the streets of Phoenix, Arizona, USA, and see that, at nighttime, it looks so much like the streets of 'old' Mexico, except that these patrons can enjoy their alfresco repast with relatively little fear of gunfire.
These eateries represent an emerging, local industry and have discovered a customer base that seems accustomed to eating regularly at these outlets, as I did in Vallarta, except that--unlike our Canadian and Michigan-Minnesota-Wiconsin snowbirds---the customer base won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Toilet Paper Budget Blues
The upper and lower shelves on 30 yards of the toilet paper aisle have me on T.P.-labelling overwhelm: 12 Rolls=24 or 36 or 48, Quilted, Triple-Soft, Softest, Double-Strength, Strongest, Scented, Textured, Quilted, and combinations, therein... and do you really think I care which roll my hand grabs in those indelicate moments of extreme need?
If Consumer's Reports has done an analysis of the wisest choices for the papered complement to the porcelain saddle, I haven't seen it or heard about it. My puchasing decision dilemma on the toilet paper aisle is moot once they price the stuff per pound because it doesn't take a math genius to know we're paying for all that air in every fluffy roll.
Those tire-sized rolls in some public facilities offer enough paper for shitloads of visits but you also know that it's so thin you could lay that paper across the classified ads and they'd still be legible.
Why not consider the diaper pail concept of old, using diluted mouthwash (follow low-bottom drunks to the cheapie mouthwash sale at Walgreen's) or vinegar to keep from blinding yourself from lid-lift fumes, and how great it would be for recycling old tee-shirts--maybe dollar-store sales of cheap-o washrags you can quarter--with the collateral benefit of how little overnight company and entertaining you'd suffer once word got out about your commitment to EcoFecoGreenOnomics.
The pail system seems a better option than having the plumber reconfigure my bathroom pipes for ass-recycling of the daily newspaper since Sears catalogs have gone by the wayside (and probably caused paper cuts).
If Consumer's Reports has done an analysis of the wisest choices for the papered complement to the porcelain saddle, I haven't seen it or heard about it. My puchasing decision dilemma on the toilet paper aisle is moot once they price the stuff per pound because it doesn't take a math genius to know we're paying for all that air in every fluffy roll.
Those tire-sized rolls in some public facilities offer enough paper for shitloads of visits but you also know that it's so thin you could lay that paper across the classified ads and they'd still be legible.
Why not consider the diaper pail concept of old, using diluted mouthwash (follow low-bottom drunks to the cheapie mouthwash sale at Walgreen's) or vinegar to keep from blinding yourself from lid-lift fumes, and how great it would be for recycling old tee-shirts--maybe dollar-store sales of cheap-o washrags you can quarter--with the collateral benefit of how little overnight company and entertaining you'd suffer once word got out about your commitment to EcoFecoGreenOnomics.
The pail system seems a better option than having the plumber reconfigure my bathroom pipes for ass-recycling of the daily newspaper since Sears catalogs have gone by the wayside (and probably caused paper cuts).
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tristan and Evelyn
Tristan was born two years, two months, two days, two hours, two minutes and two seconds before his little sister, Evelyn. but they might as well have been twins.
Tristan skateboards to Greenleaf Elementary every day with Evelyn walking beside him, and he carries her lunch in his backpack because that's what an older brother should do for his little sister.
Tristan caught one of his fellow seniors making fun of Evelyn because of her bookish personality, unremarkable looks, modest clothing and, for his trouble, Tristan caught a right hook bloodying his nose, earning a trip to the nurse and catching a 3-day suspension for fighting.
Evelyn's vice president of the senior class, has a 3.7 GPA, and lives to read Tristan's letters about him and his Marine buddies, overseas.
A Navy chaplain and Marine Corps captain just left the house.
Tristan and Evelyn are lost.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
You Just May Be the Perfect Girlfriend
You don't ask me for money or s-e-x. (And when you do have to assuage that erotic itch with some hard-chargin' scratchin', you don't bring him around or hurt my writer's-sensitive feelings by giving me the
We fulfill each other's hugs and dinner companion and movie-snugglin' quotients without any pretense.
You trust me with your emotional vulnerabilities and secrets which boundaries I respect, even knowing that sharing life's same jostling roller coaster car will naturally cause some bruising in the relatively few good spins I have left.
You don't mind that I don't like beer and do mind that you can't cook worth shit because it propels me to pick up the check, alot, when we dine out, whether it's Burger King or Benihana.
Hey, this is pretty okay until the eventual virus of "more" or the "L-word" infects one of us, the terminal outcome for which there is no vaccine, so... for now, thanks :x
Self-Diagnosis and Prognosis
He spilled his story, sat lost in thought before the psychiatrist recalling how he got there. ‘Other guys’ wives run off with cops but they don’t get sick with ’Mood Indigo,’ Melvin thought.
His friend, Gabe, pleaded, “You need help, Mel!" on seeing the apartment trashed, the coin collection strewn about, learning Melvin abandoned his bowling team, lost the vice presidency of the model train club. But the goldfish and hamster, dead of starvation and stinking forced an intervention.
Dr. Engvaldsson asked, “You say ‘Mood Indigo...‘ because it was a cop?!”
Melvin brightened, “Classic case! I read it on WebPsychHelpLine. Mood Indigo’s a condition of jilted spouses experiencing devastating consequences from extramaritals with cops!"
The psychiatrist retorted, "Jilted? Your wife’s sexual appetites changed, you didn't buy-in...don't like rough stuff, dress-up, or bondage. Might that drive her into the arms and handcuffs of that so-called ‘kinky’ cop?”
Melvin blanched, teeth clenched, freed his stare to glance at photographs behind the doctor’s desk.
"You’re selfish. You own your consequences. It’s pity-potted depression, not 'Mood Indigo.' Build a bridge. Get over it!” chuckled the blonde doctor.
Adrenaline launched Melvin over the desk, grabbing the letter opener in a clumsy lunge, but he missed. The blade angled into Melvin's own over-aged baby fat.
Melvin's blues were actualized in a navy blue prison uniform (for attempted murder). Prison foreplay inflicted purplish-blue bruises, his rape occurring in a checkered-blue tiled shower, ignored by blue-shirted guards. The infirmary was blue. Blue like the eyes of Engvaldsson's children.
[MudSpots Theme: Sinatra's "Mood Indigo"]
His friend, Gabe, pleaded, “You need help, Mel!" on seeing the apartment trashed, the coin collection strewn about, learning Melvin abandoned his bowling team, lost the vice presidency of the model train club. But the goldfish and hamster, dead of starvation and stinking forced an intervention.
Dr. Engvaldsson asked, “You say ‘Mood Indigo...‘ because it was a cop?!”
Melvin brightened, “Classic case! I read it on WebPsychHelpLine. Mood Indigo’s a condition of jilted spouses experiencing devastating consequences from extramaritals with cops!"
The psychiatrist retorted, "Jilted? Your wife’s sexual appetites changed, you didn't buy-in...don't like rough stuff, dress-up, or bondage. Might that drive her into the arms and handcuffs of that so-called ‘kinky’ cop?”
Melvin blanched, teeth clenched, freed his stare to glance at photographs behind the doctor’s desk.
"You’re selfish. You own your consequences. It’s pity-potted depression, not 'Mood Indigo.' Build a bridge. Get over it!” chuckled the blonde doctor.
Adrenaline launched Melvin over the desk, grabbing the letter opener in a clumsy lunge, but he missed. The blade angled into Melvin's own over-aged baby fat.
Melvin's blues were actualized in a navy blue prison uniform (for attempted murder). Prison foreplay inflicted purplish-blue bruises, his rape occurring in a checkered-blue tiled shower, ignored by blue-shirted guards. The infirmary was blue. Blue like the eyes of Engvaldsson's children.
[MudSpots Theme: Sinatra's "Mood Indigo"]
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
I couldn't make this up.
Priests come by every few days to comfort her as calendar pages fall closer to a 93rd birthday she may not see.
Her eldest daughter's calendar is about to mark the thirty-day anniversary of a double mastectomy. The daughter's daughter, just 40, continued to nurse her son of ten months until exploratory surgery revealed a rare cancer thriving within her.
Three women...mothers...daughters, all in one bloodline, all waging different battles with different defenses and strategies and chances, with compromised defenses.
Worded comfort seems to offer little, leaving me to provide presence and prayers--yet I'm feeling as flat as those calendar pages which eventually, relentlessly render extinction to all known memories.
Parachutes don't guarantee soft landings, especially the times you know y0u can't even jump.
Her eldest daughter's calendar is about to mark the thirty-day anniversary of a double mastectomy. The daughter's daughter, just 40, continued to nurse her son of ten months until exploratory surgery revealed a rare cancer thriving within her.
Three women...mothers...daughters, all in one bloodline, all waging different battles with different defenses and strategies and chances, with compromised defenses.
Worded comfort seems to offer little, leaving me to provide presence and prayers--yet I'm feeling as flat as those calendar pages which eventually, relentlessly render extinction to all known memories.
Parachutes don't guarantee soft landings, especially the times you know y0u can't even jump.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The End of the Line?
The medicine cabinet's door clicked as its magnet paired with the frame's, and Adam stared at himself. Holding his image with his eyes, he rotated his head slowly to stare at the bright welt across the whole side of his face, bumpless and redder than razor burn.
The argument didn't require loud just as a silencer doesn't affect the deadliness of the fired bullet. Every disonant moment in their relationship came to mind, like grouped strands becoming braided and the braids becoming part of a rope, and all of the goodness they shared incorporated into other grouped strands completing the rope.
The silent conversation continued in, and with, Adam's eyes, 'Is she...are we...is life worth it.'
Was a noose tolling their end at the terminus of this rope, or was it a dangle of hope and promise, a rescue line onto which he could affix a grip, pulling himself, pulling both of them with all he had as promised in his vows to her, up from the daunting chasm into which their marriage had fallen.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Birthdays After 49
People reading cemetery headstones might read mine and calculate, “He didn’t make sixty.” No guarantees, right?
My birthday’s October 16th. That makes September 16th my official ‘final approach to land on Runway-birthday Oh-Sweet-Jesus.’ As the I rip each successive page from my Rolodex calendar at work, I don’t get a visceral response to the sum the integer, one, adds to my age.
You know how wedding anniversaries are associated to a substance each year, like silver or plastic or golden or diamond? Approaching birthdays are ‘pine,’ filled with ‘F’onlies.’
I know ‘pine’ is mental tar with splinters, and F’only is the faulty human perspective of eyes in one’s ass.
Thank God the sunburst of grace takes over. Positive results of other choices deliver gratitude. I’m able to live today and plan a tomorrow or six.
When you see my headstone, read the engraving: No regrets :) (smiley-face included)
[MudSpots Theme: Remorse, Regret]
My birthday’s October 16th. That makes September 16th my official ‘final approach to land on Runway-birthday Oh-Sweet-Jesus.’ As the I rip each successive page from my Rolodex calendar at work, I don’t get a visceral response to the sum the integer, one, adds to my age.
You know how wedding anniversaries are associated to a substance each year, like silver or plastic or golden or diamond? Approaching birthdays are ‘pine,’ filled with ‘F’onlies.’
F’only I had chosen college instead of being a navy corpsman. F’only I hadn’t fought so much in school. F’only I hadn’t married at twenty. F’only I’d married Cassie instead of Marla. F’only I didn’t remarry. F’only we’d given Vicki a sibling. F’only I accepted that offer in Minneapolis. F’only I was faithful and avoided the second divorce. F’only I could have a dog. F’only I could get out of this apartment, into another house. F’only I’d earned a 4-year, not a 2-year nursing degree.F’only. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum.
I know ‘pine’ is mental tar with splinters, and F’only is the faulty human perspective of eyes in one’s ass.
Thank God the sunburst of grace takes over. Positive results of other choices deliver gratitude. I’m able to live today and plan a tomorrow or six.
When you see my headstone, read the engraving: No regrets :) (smiley-face included)
[MudSpots Theme: Remorse, Regret]
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Revelations
My daughter’s generation doesn’t understand their children. She’s annoyed with my grandchildrens’ “Whatever” as a dismissal but it really irks her when they say, “It’s all good.” She yells at ‘em to speak ‘normally.’
I lost patience with my daughter, had to pull her off of ‘em, scolding ‘em for this very thing.
“Enough, Belva-Jean! The kids aren’t the problem. You are.”
“PAPA! How COULD you!!”
“You don’t speak their language so you can’t understand it.”
“How’s that, Papa?” she demanded, indignant.
"I raised you right, didn’t I?”
“What’s the point?!”
“Took you to church, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“My grandkids are havin’ a religious experience!”
She glared, hands on hips.
“Sure, honey. ‘It’s all good.’ That’s biblical! Romans, chapter 8 an’ 28– QUOTE:
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good,’ blah-blah. See? It’s ALL GOOD, Belva-Jean!”
She fought a smile. I winked at the kids, who laughed and bumped fists.
“That’s not FAIR, Papa!” she said with a stomp in mock anger, spreading a grin.
“What-EV-ER, Belva-Jean!”
The grandkids lost it. Belva-Jean threw a throw pillow.
“Careful! I can quote ‘Whatever’ from the Good Book, too!”
I wasn’t the grandkids’ hero very long once she told them I showed her the error of her ways. My daughter’s dragging them to church this Sunday and every Sunday, thereafter.
Seems I have a fishing engagement and can’t join ‘em. Poor little bastards.
Belva-Jean’s mama sure wasn’t a vindictive bitch.
Now where’d that gol-dern rod an’ reel get to….
[MudSpots Theme: Aphorisms]
I lost patience with my daughter, had to pull her off of ‘em, scolding ‘em for this very thing.
“Enough, Belva-Jean! The kids aren’t the problem. You are.”
“PAPA! How COULD you!!”
“You don’t speak their language so you can’t understand it.”
“How’s that, Papa?” she demanded, indignant.
"I raised you right, didn’t I?”
“What’s the point?!”
“Took you to church, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“My grandkids are havin’ a religious experience!”
She glared, hands on hips.
“Sure, honey. ‘It’s all good.’ That’s biblical! Romans, chapter 8 an’ 28– QUOTE:
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good,’ blah-blah. See? It’s ALL GOOD, Belva-Jean!”
She fought a smile. I winked at the kids, who laughed and bumped fists.
“That’s not FAIR, Papa!” she said with a stomp in mock anger, spreading a grin.
“What-EV-ER, Belva-Jean!”
The grandkids lost it. Belva-Jean threw a throw pillow.
“Careful! I can quote ‘Whatever’ from the Good Book, too!”
I wasn’t the grandkids’ hero very long once she told them I showed her the error of her ways. My daughter’s dragging them to church this Sunday and every Sunday, thereafter.
Seems I have a fishing engagement and can’t join ‘em. Poor little bastards.
Belva-Jean’s mama sure wasn’t a vindictive bitch.
Now where’d that gol-dern rod an’ reel get to….
[MudSpots Theme: Aphorisms]
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Phoenixes of Sport
You are in prime physical condition at the tops of your respective games, too-young multi-millionaires with sports acumen born from magical mixes of natural ability, rigorous training, coaching, practice, assuming the risks and suffering the consequences of occupational injuries.
Your work is seasonal, requires separation from stability’s anchors of home and family.
You are one of a team, and you are a team of one.
You’re trapped in the eyes and voices of scrutiny, before millions, with your triumphs analyzed and replayed over and over on cable and the airwaves. Images and descriptors of your failures splash through every hue in the spectrum of public media and social networking ten-fold more times than your triumphs.
Exposure of your bad choices and secreted actions force hasty retreats, elicit false denials, propel you into freefall, crashing you into realities that eviscerate more than fortunes few can ever know.
Your personal wreckage is licked and consumed by hungered flames hard-blown by bellows of ridicule, incinerating you on the pyre of public disdain.
Tiger Woods. Golf legend. Infidel. Liar.
Michael Vick. Football quarterback. Phenom. Animal torturer. Liar. Convict.
You emerge, your receipts stamped “Paid in Full,” but by separate and oppositional currencies.
From ashes, two Phoenixes are embodied. Each rises if unsteadily at first.
One wings away. In plain view, the other contrives an aura of normalcy but flops and flails, grounded by wings shorn and weighted by demons that neither show or have yet to be exorcised. Ever the good sport.
[MudSpots Theme: Heavy, Man, Heavy]
Your work is seasonal, requires separation from stability’s anchors of home and family.
You are one of a team, and you are a team of one.
You’re trapped in the eyes and voices of scrutiny, before millions, with your triumphs analyzed and replayed over and over on cable and the airwaves. Images and descriptors of your failures splash through every hue in the spectrum of public media and social networking ten-fold more times than your triumphs.
Exposure of your bad choices and secreted actions force hasty retreats, elicit false denials, propel you into freefall, crashing you into realities that eviscerate more than fortunes few can ever know.
Your personal wreckage is licked and consumed by hungered flames hard-blown by bellows of ridicule, incinerating you on the pyre of public disdain.
Tiger Woods. Golf legend. Infidel. Liar.
Michael Vick. Football quarterback. Phenom. Animal torturer. Liar. Convict.
You emerge, your receipts stamped “Paid in Full,” but by separate and oppositional currencies.
From ashes, two Phoenixes are embodied. Each rises if unsteadily at first.
One wings away. In plain view, the other contrives an aura of normalcy but flops and flails, grounded by wings shorn and weighted by demons that neither show or have yet to be exorcised. Ever the good sport.
[MudSpots Theme: Heavy, Man, Heavy]
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Cupcakes in Love and War
Railroad ties form 123 tall stairs that, without handrails, make slow going to China Beach’s long, thin strip of sand. Peace and quiet are the hike's rewards, a rarely visited beach conducive to study. Seeing the westward side of the Golden Gate Bridge is an aesthetic bonus.
The M-line streetcar squeals to a stop in front of San Francisco State. As I board, I request a transfer for the Geary bus and, around 25th Avenue, I pull the stop-cord and hop off. Winding down through the mansion-lined streets of Sea Cliff, afoot, is a nice stroll through one of the city’s most prestigious neighborhoods. Even in weather, it's enjoyable.
China Beach always feels special and I’m here three to four times a week to study. For solace. For meditation. Or, sometimes, to enjoy an impromptu picnic with my girlfriend. Because it’s San Francisco, I pack a sweatshirt and rain gear or jacket. The water temperature, cold air, and dangerous currents make this a bad choice for swimming, attributing to it’s lack of beach-goers.
This memorably nondescript afternoon was perfect for homework. I noticed a woman sitting on a blanket with her thermos and day pack. I wondered how she could negotiate the steps for, her spine bore the telltale curve of scoliosis.
She wasn’t reading, nor was she listening to music. She sat quietly, her lined rain shell quietly flapping as her thinned white hair was spritzed by bursts of breezes from scattered directions.
Another day, I saw her again. And again. And it was always the same: no book, no music, no sketch pad. Nothing but a day pack, a small blanket, a thermos, and her thoughts that might be as swirling as the currents of sea and air, or maybe as tranquil as a poet’s mindful compositions.
I was in summer school, bolstering my credits to graduate a semester early. A Monday exam found me heading to China Beach on Sunday, July 16th, laden with filled spiral notebooks and two books. Just as I began my descent, I saw her now familiar profile on a date she'd have me long remember.
The weather’s never nice in midsummer on that beach. With mist from the ceaseless chop, the fog will often roll in and make it shivering cold and inhospitable. Yet, she and I were there, and without another soul, prompting my recall that it seemed odd to see just one car in the lot. It was faded blue and road-worn, a battered and rusting old Plymouth.
There’s a respectful distance I figured to give her, but not too far in case she might sense another’s presence as welcoming. Probably a hundred feet from her, I spread my blanket, emptied my pack and hunkered down.
Ninety or so minutes later, movement pinged my concentration as she caught my peripheral vision. She struggled to her feet, hunched over and reached into her pack. Okay, a cupcake. 'But why struggle, why stand up to eat it,' I thought.
She walked into ankle-deep water, cupcake in hand, and turned her back to the sea as she squatted. Her free hand emerged from the jacket pocket. She poked a candle into the cupcake. A lighter appeared from the same hand that held the candle. I watched the wind thwart attempts to light the candle. I couldn’t warn her in time to keep a feisty little wave from knocking her onto her side, claiming the cupcake and drenching her.
I bolted upright with the edge of my blanket in-hand, spilling my stuff onto the sand, and trotted over to dry and comfort her.
“Are you okay?,“ I asked.
She was weeping, shivering, and looking at me with eyes as blue as helplessly lost.
“Just shaken, I think, soaking wet but okay.”
I righted and raised her, wrapping my blanket to warm and shield her from the buffets. With an arm around her shoulders, she slipped her arm around my waist and we headed for her blanket.
“I’ve never seen a wave do that here!” I observed.
“I haven’t either,” she said, “and I see you here often, too.”
“I’m a student at S.F. State…Tim.”
“I’m Helena,” she volunteered.
We reached her blanket and I eased her down, taking the liberty to sit beside her, eyeing my stuff getting wind-whipped but still there.
“I’m shaking too much to pour some tea. Do you mind?” she asked, nodding toward the thermos. I obliged and she clutched the cup with two palms, its warming effect immediately lessening her shivers.
“I think you love this place as much as I do, Helena,” I ventured.
“Love-hate. That cupcake was love and, again today, that ocean’s hate. You’re young, and, oh, can I tell you about love and hatred,“ and she relaxed to unfold her story.
She was nineteen, a student at San Francisco State Teacher’s College when she was swept off her feet by a handsome young sailor.
“Once I told him my name was Helena, that was it! He said it was fate because he was recently assigned to a light destroyer, the USS Helena, under repair at Mare Island for damage at Pearl Harbor. He wasn’t at Pearl. He was just out of boot camp and we only knew each other for a few months. But, in war time, it’s plenty-enough time for a girl to fall in love. Especially with Dino's wavy black hair, dark eyes, and all that in a uniform?
Her eyes brightened as she added, "No young girl has a defense for that!”
“So, the cupcake that the ocean just grabbed--that’s about Dino?”
“And more,” she said, aiming her blue gaze into my pupils.
“He was killed. I’m sorry…what did you say your name is?”
“Tim.”
“The Helena, was sunk by torpedoes in 1943, on July 6th.”
As she spoke, I could see an attractive nineteen-year old living behind her expressive eyes.
“This is the 16th, Helena. Your anniversary?”
“We never had the chance to marry. He shipped out and a Jap submarine sank the Helena at Kula Gulf, in the Solomons.
"Japanese ships outnumbered ours. Before fleeing to safety, one our ships dropped four launches near the Helena’s swimmers and wreckage. The superior Jap navy force busied itself chasing our ships.
Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes.
“Come daylight, before the launches had gotten them all, the Japs strafed them, Tim.
"Cary, Dino’s buddy, and he were hit by bullets. Cary got an arm wound, but Dino.... Cary kept Dino afloat until a launch made it to them. Cary doesn’t remember what day it was, but Dino died in that launch and they lowered him into the sea.
"Over the next ten days, those lifeboats evaded Jap patrols and reached an enemy-held island where they hid-out. "The survivors were liberated by a beach rescue from two ships on the night of July 16th but Dino wasn’t among them.”
The aged woman reached into her pack for a scarf, using it as a handkerchief.
“Helena, how’d you find all of this out with the war going on?”
“Cary wrote to me when he got out of the Navy. Despite torpedoes, strafing being adrift only to land on an enemy held island, it's a miracle only 168 of the Helena’s 888 men were lost, don't you think?
But my love, my Dino, was one of them....
"They all had a chance, Tim. Cary said their guns fired through the night of the 5th, and the Helena ran out of flashless powder. The Japs sighted-in on their guns' flashes on the night of the 6th and sank her."
"So it was the Helena's captain's fault!"
"No, no, Tim! The blame falls on wars and men who wage them from afar in the smugness of their own personal safety.
"That cupcake was for my Dino, honors Cary, too, because he died in an accident in ‘46. So the sixteenth is an anniversary of sorts, just like the sixth.
I wrapped my arms around the her frail shoulders and pulled her to me, thinking of nothing appropriate but offering, “I’m so sorry. So you find peace, here, Helena, even though it’s love-hate?”
“I loved him, still do. Hate war, and still do. I come here, Tim, because I hear him. I hear Dino,” she paused. She looked up, managing a chuckle, and said, “Oh, not like a voice, like a crazy person hears. But I hear him in an extra-sensory way. I know the enemy…the war…and not the ocean took him.”
I saw Helena at China Beach as often as a couple times a week. She’d always wave or shout a hello. Sometimes we’d close the distance to chat. But we respected each other’s purpose, her regard for my studies, and my respect for her longing and quiet time. Occasionally, she’d bring me cookies or a sandwich. And she’d always offer me hot tea on colder days.
Helena seemed to be more frail over the following weeks and months. Once in awhile, she’d slip and call me “Dino” on our waved exchanges. There were hugs she instigated.
Then, I saw her no more.
I wondered if the stairs had finally trumped her mobility. Worse, I wondered if she died. It was one of those things that didn't occur to me, to get contact information from her. If she ever mentioned her last name, my memory wants to say it was too common or difficult common that I forgot it from lack of use. An oversight, an occasion of honest innocence when the ignorance of my youth found the hard boot of regret striking a square blow to the backside of my conscience.
Now a senior, I was in my usual study sprawl on China Beach on another unremarkable day that would be fire-branded into memory.
A fifty-ish looking woman was among the other souls braving the unwelcome charms of China Beach’s elements. I would never have given notice to her or anyone else approaching the water’s edge. But this woman had a cupcake, and placed it on the sand so the lapping swells could catch it and take it away. Then, she lit a candle that instantly extinguished in the breeze, and cast it into the water.
Despite it was March not July, but the act, her countenance was so curious that I was up and moving as soon as I spotted the cupcake, powerless to leave it alone.
"’Scuse me?“ and she turned, the black and grey pony tail, with huge curls, swinging from the pivot where it was pulled through the back of her ball cap.
“I don’t mean to be weird or forward or anything, but I knew a woman who used to come here with cupcakes and…,“ and the woman’s eyes widened and she blushed, giveaways that there was a connection.
“Helena,“ I stammered. “She was a frail, elderly lady..."
"Helena, my mother. She came here, often,“ the woman said, more comfortable with my approach.
“My name’s Kula,” she said, extending a hand.
Hearing that name struck me, blinking a pause before shaking her hand. Seeing hair beyond the rubber-banded pony tail, black and curly… but blue eyes. I wasn’t just looking at Helena’s daughter. She was Dino’s, too.
“Is your mom okay? I haven’t seen her around?” Kula's expression answered before the words came.
“She passed away three weeks ago after a stroke. Her deathbed wish was that I come here and send a cupcake and candle into the surf. She wasn't very forthcoming or demanding. But I honor it as one of her last wishes, maybe out of guilt or something.”
Kula, a daughter Helena had never mentioned, invited me to share her blanket. I told Kula the story Helena related, to the best of my memory, because Helena had told her story only once. Kula listened attentively as I related the twenty or thirty encounters I had with Helena following that day I lifted Helena out of the drink and listened to the life of the mother to the woman now in front of me.
Kula and I were both fighting tears that crowded our eyes once I had was spent of every detail in Helena’s conversation about Dino and the war. Kula cleared her throat and began.
“Mom said my father was killed in the war, that he was a good man, and that I was to honor him. For her.
“She said that the last time she saw him was at the bus stop next to the gate at the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo. Because they weren’t married, she couldn’t get onto the base to see him to his ship. They kissed goodbye, and he made it about 20 yards beyond the gate before calling to her through the chain-linked fence, “I love you, Cupcake!”
“She stared at him walking into the early morning sun with a Navy strut, she called it, a seabag atop one shoulder, until he was no longer in sight. She returned to the bus stop, sullen, and waited. She came back to The City and walked out onto the Golden Gate. I think she was out there almost 9 hours, weak from hunger and sorrow, until my father’s ship, the Helena, passed underneath, headed to war.
“My mother waved and dropped little love notes into the breeze, knowing neither gesture would arrive as intended. She was distraught and came here, to China Beach, where she cried all night and was nearly swept out by the tide, awakening on the steps. “
I finally knew the why of Helena’s connection to China Beach. Kula continued, sniffling.
“She agonized at Dino’s telling of the Helena’s checkered past before he was assigned to her."
“Checkered?”
"Cursed and blessed, a continuing cycle flip-flopping from triumph to tragedy."
"She was cursed at Pearl Harbor, tied up in the berth the Japanese charts identified, by name, as that for the USS Pennsylvania. But it was the USS Helena's curse to be there, and she managed to limp away, heavily damaged."
"And that blessing," I observe, "or miracle, gets the ship back to California, just as Dino's getting orders and meeting your Mom. He had to have heard about that ship, right?"
“My mother… even Dino had misgivings about him going into combat aboard the Helena. It broke her heart to watch him walk away from the gate toward his ship. And she swears that his look back to her, his last words to her…. Mother said she was troubled by something in his eyes, that he may have known his fate.
"With my father aboard, the curse hits the Helena again at Guadalcanal, where--in the Navy's eyes--her captain made a bad judgment call. There were fierce naval battles and Japanese submarines were involved. The USS Juneau was hit and was sinking. Sixty of the Juneau’s sailors were in the water.
"Instead of ordering a rescue operation, the Helena’s captain led other ships away for reasons he felt were justified. The curse: All but ten of those sixty Juneau sailors died. They held Captain Hoover responsible, relieved him of his command. In one of his last letters, Dino wrote the Helena's crew was sullen and angry at leaving sailors behind, fearing fate would deal them the same hand."
"And didn't it?," Kula said, breaking into a soft sob.
I filled the awkward silence.
"Yeah, almost as if the ship was between two, supernatural pendulums, striking that ship again and again, with good fortune on one side and war's evil on the other."
Kula curled her legs under her on the blanket and spoke more softly.
"Running out of the no-flash gunpowdered shells gets the Helena spotted. She's attacked and sinking. The big ships leave after rescue boats were dispatched and my father makes it aboard. Japanese fighters strafe and kill him instead of his friend, and miss most of the others. Then, a daring nighttime mission rescues the survivors.
"Oh, Tim, all of the almosts, here...."
Tears cascaded, and I poured us some tea which Kula sipped with shaking hands. Her streaked eyes met mine, and it was almost too much when she pleaded, "I almost had a...a.... What little girl doesn't want to know her daddy, Tim,” and this woman older than my mother, leaned into me and wrapped me in a hug as if I was her own son returning from battle.
"I'm sorry I did that," she murmured, feeling a little bit after-the-fact uncomfortable.
"It's alright...all so terrible and sad. But how...why did the Helena's story never get out?"
"Thousands of our ships were lost in that war, Tim. And I'm sure they all had stories. We learned this one's, painfully," she said, attempting a smile.
We feigned composure in a few moments' silence, just listening to the surf and shore birds. Kula was the first to speak.
"One of high points of her history was that the USS Helena was the first ship to win the Navy Unit Commendation. But because of that Helena, my mother, my Helena, Dino's Helena endured so much heartache and suffering that she despised her own first name. That's why I was shocked when you said it; I would have figured her to lie, but then I never got a chance to know her, Tim.
"Just before she passed away, she said it again, that she hated her name. I told her something that made her smile and cry at the same time, Tim. I said, "Mom? Don't you see it? Your name gave a handsome, young sailor the unshakable conviction that your name and his ship's name were fated as convergent destinies of love!"
Gulping away the lump in my throat seemed audible.
"My coming along continued the curse."
"How so?? You kept Dino alive in her heart, his presence ongoing, Kula."
"No. I made her life hell. Her pregnancy brought all the scorn and negative social consequences scandalous women suffered back then.
“So, she only kept me a few months. Had I been born in the '60s, I would have been considered a 'love child.' Bastard children and their mothers weren’t warmly welcomed commodities in the '40s, so she gave me up. I had great adoptive parents and have had a good life. But I wanted to know, tracked her down but didn’t find her until four months ago. She had suffered mini-strokes, and sometimes had trouble communicating, until the big stroke took her....”
We sat quietly, awhile. This time, I broke the reverent serenity of the moment.
"I think I see it, now."
"What's that?" she said, looking over.
"The whole cupcake thing. How all the right things, natural things, can come together and produce something positive. Something good. But something as delicate as it is savory. And then, like the ocean, the basest elements of men and war and their machines cause it to disintegrate, and it's swept away as if it were never there."
Kula was wide-eyed at first, then looked away, down to the sand, making circles with her index finger as I went on.
"Like that cupcake you had today, taken apart and only the memory, its story remains, but it only remains if someone's around to tell it.
"Your mom was here and I happened to be the one to whom she told it, but only parts of it. Because you're here, like...alive kind of here, you put what you knew together with what I had."
Kula suddenly looked up.
"That's the cupcake, Kula, whole and complete because all the ingredients of your parents' lives have come together, and just as fragile. You, the missing ingredient, validated your parents' lives without the benefit of having gotten to know them," and she hugged me again, this time, keeping a palm on each of my shoulders.
"You're just a kid, and I think you've just given me the greatest gift I've ever gotten, Tim."
"What's that?"
"Clarity, Tim. Clarity and vision."
We sat awhile. We chitty-chatted awhile to relieve the burden of the conversation’s weight.
I exchanged information with Kula and we maintained a Christmas card-only relationship for a few years.
I can’t visit San Francisco without visiting China Beach. Long ago, I dismissed the notion to take a cupcake and toss it into the surf as some sort of tribute or offering, reasoning that it would be an emotional trespass on a love ritual that spanned more years than my lifetime, then and now. I think of Kula now and then.
I get teary at China Beach, choked-up for missing my sweet, happenstance friendship with a little old lady, for her Dino, for lost sailors. Maybe I weep for all the love destroyed by wars, and all the loves who are taken by wars.
Someday on China Beach, I hope I’ll hear Helena just as Helena heard Dino. I have faith it'll happen because--and I know this sounds crazy--I have faith because I can feel her there, just off in the surf, with her back to me. Waiting. Watching. Wanting. Grieving. And still loving.
#
[The foregoing is fiction, with factual bases in the historic events of the USS Helena during WWII]]Dedicated to my sister, Christine, whose candle is still lit for her sailor, Bob, to whom she's been married for nearly fifty years and counting-- J.G.
Benediction for an Irish Lass
The travel magazine a Yank left behind lay open on a table she’d wiped ten thousand times if once, in the small Balbriggan pub where, for 12 years, Chloe slung ale, delivered plates and hand-scrubbed floors.
O’er three years, the colorful canyon’s photo consumed her idle thoughts. It dominated the tiny flat’s kitchen wall to which it was taped, the object of daily meditations compacted with Irish resolve.
To fund her journey, she bought fewer groceries and tea, halved her cigarettes, and braved walking to work.
Two hours before sun-up, behind the El Tovar Lodge, the sky spread more stars before her than Chloe’s eyes had ever gathered. Adrenaline and American coffee dissolved jet lag and fatigue. Her countenance postured to fully alert with an occasional shiver of chilly air tinged with anticipation and ‘pinch-me’ surrealism.
She arose and stood on the park bench with outstretched arms. Slowly increasing, intensifying light gave birth, bled life into color onto the walls of the Grand Canyon’s shifting mural. Tears let go as her lungs cycled crisp mountain air.
She was transfused, brimmed to completion. Where once an empty void echoed, Chloe felt spirit’s reunion with soul.
On the return flight to Dublin, Chloe drifted off clutching a silver cross adorned with turquoise.
A flight attendant gently adjusted the blanket over the soundly sleeping woman. His gaze was affixed to the passenger’s transcendent smile, as warming as a mother’s loving hug.
Chloe awoke knowing her purpose, seeing her course, a path enlightened.
[MudSpots Theme: Beauty from Within]
O’er three years, the colorful canyon’s photo consumed her idle thoughts. It dominated the tiny flat’s kitchen wall to which it was taped, the object of daily meditations compacted with Irish resolve.
To fund her journey, she bought fewer groceries and tea, halved her cigarettes, and braved walking to work.
Two hours before sun-up, behind the El Tovar Lodge, the sky spread more stars before her than Chloe’s eyes had ever gathered. Adrenaline and American coffee dissolved jet lag and fatigue. Her countenance postured to fully alert with an occasional shiver of chilly air tinged with anticipation and ‘pinch-me’ surrealism.
She arose and stood on the park bench with outstretched arms. Slowly increasing, intensifying light gave birth, bled life into color onto the walls of the Grand Canyon’s shifting mural. Tears let go as her lungs cycled crisp mountain air.
She was transfused, brimmed to completion. Where once an empty void echoed, Chloe felt spirit’s reunion with soul.
On the return flight to Dublin, Chloe drifted off clutching a silver cross adorned with turquoise.
A flight attendant gently adjusted the blanket over the soundly sleeping woman. His gaze was affixed to the passenger’s transcendent smile, as warming as a mother’s loving hug.
Chloe awoke knowing her purpose, seeing her course, a path enlightened.
[MudSpots Theme: Beauty from Within]
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The 'HoWse' at Writer's Cove
The mansion's just over 12,000 square feet of livable space, has an expansive front lawn leading to the water's edge, and contain's an out-building that's a combination of boathouse/tool shed and caretaker's quarters.
The South end of the home has four bedrooms upstairs and four down. The the center of the home is dedicated to common living areas, upstairs containing the 16-seat theater with projection television and bar/lounge with mini-kitchen. The central downstairs is home to the library, formal dining room, a massive living room with stone fireplace, a commercially-equipped kitchen with four tables and 16 chairs for informal meals, snacks, and 24-hour caffeinated relaxation.
Her personal living areas, upstairs and down, command the North end of the house (over 3,000 square feet and fully self-contained, with the owner's private entrance and garage just off her kitchen at the rear). Along with a spacious master suite and sitting room, there are 3 guest bedrooms opening onto the wraparound veranda. There's also a very small bedroom North of the kitchen, should a housekeeper need to stay overnight.
Mrs. C, the owner, has set the housekeepers and me abuzz at the news that Brittany, her kids and husband will be coming in for a week's stay (about which we're all excited), to occupy the family suite downstairs on the South wing of what's become known as "Writer's Cove" by locals.
I'm tired from the day's mowing and edging and blade sharpening, sitting on my small porch off my living quarters that puts me about 100 yards off from the South end where, late nights, I often sit to smoke, sip a little bourbon or tequila, and softly strum 'Homer,' my guitar-of-choice most times.
Michael's living quarters (the only other 'permanent' resident besides Mrs C and me), are comprised of a 2-room suite on the upstairs corner, with commanding coastal and southern views, and a doorway to the veranda off of his sitting room/library.
Tonight, I see his lights on into the wee hours, watch him pace across the lighted window, sometimes heading out to the veranda to smoke and peer at the sea from the handrail, and I know he can't see me because of the distance and darkness, but I know his wheels are turning, his mind working, before he flips the butt down onto the yard and rushes in to resume writing and writing and writing what has to be the sequel to his bestseller.
Mrs. C's place could easily adorn the cover of Coastal Living and the only reason I think this place hasn't done so is that she's designed the interior for creature-comfort furniture and motif rather than opulence it could easily sustain and warrant with any other owner. I like most of the statuary and paintings that reflect her own tastes as well as subjects she feels might bring muses screaming at guests.
The writers come and go, some at her invitation, others by written requests that either trigger an 'application,' requiring the writer's bio and publishing history (with samples) or generate a kindly worded, personal 'form letter' offering the prospective visitor to consider other options. Many rejections are from wanna-be writers whose best sentences could only come from a felonious assaults on persons or property. Then again, we've hosted some authors and magazine writers of respectable renown.
Mrs. C's business plan's pretty astute, having a sliding-scale of fees for 'guests' ranging from simply the cost of their meals and daily housekeeping needs, to market-based weekly rates with a maximum of 2 weeks per 'visit' and only longer by special arrangement. She's toying with the idea of workshops, which I dread. I have to concede she hasn't been wrong yet, I mean, just to look around at all of this. My God....
Expenses are offset by marketing, with realtors and ads in bridal magazines for garden weddings--even lavish corporate and private parties at "Writer's Cove." Weddings find the bride, groom, and their respective parents staying in the North wing's accommodations.
She arranges the airport transportation, photography/videography, caterers, awnings and chair and table rentals, all the reception details for the central part of the house, and gets commissions from the vendors she employs for the picturesque nuptials and if the wedding party opts-out of using her vendors, they, too, can happily search for another venue that I would humbly say is lesser than what Mrs. C always provides for a fair dollar. The fairy-tale weddings she orchestrates are as captivating as her writing.
I don't spend as much time as you'd think in the main house. My digs and life out here with the guard dogs and crickets and squirrels are as much as any man could need or want in his waning years. Mrs. C's happy to let me continue supervising the kennel and cadre of gardeners (because I'm bilingual) it takes to keep Writer's Cove postcard-perfect...when I'm not down on our her little dock, fishing, that is....
Blistering heat of midsummer finds the house less visited than other months, and I get more fishing time in, as Michael takes week-long jaunts to wherever. Mrs. C. entertains her kids and grandchildren, while the other ten months find the the house humming along smoothly like the efficient manor it is, bed 'n breakfast style, save for the 'commercial' bookings that put us all on hyperdrive to provide manna which sustains us in U.S. currency form.
Holidays are celebrated in style, here, and the house is always packed. Meals force the 22-seat formal dining table to be extended beyond the massive, double doors into the main library which contains hundreds of books, a couple internet research stations, and a locked display case with autographed 1st editions from the more accomplished who have stayed here.
Her demands are always reasonable, on Michael because of his writing ethic, odd hours and attraction of paying guests' desire to rub elbows with 'El Plumo Hogar' ('the house pen' nickname I've asssigned him that he likes no better than my references to his living space as 'Casita del Camiso Amarillo,' little house of the yellow shirt). Demands on me are simple because of my meager contributions to minimizing her management headaches, a role she says buys her time to write and enjoy what she's provided to us ('my resident Odd Couple,' she calls us!) and the select few fortunate enough to encounter this remarkably talented and gracious woman.
The closest thing I ever had to a run-in with her was over her casually sharing that she thought she'd build a pool and pool house with showers and changing area. I pleaded that, with an ocean-front estate, she might consider clearing some rock and dumping sand to let people romp in the surf. I told her I'd rather scoop polo pony poop on my hands 'n knees than fuss with all the headaches of a pool. She shut me right up, one day, with her praiseworthy sense of humor, "You jealous I'll get a pool-boy, big guy!?" She decided against the pool, improved what we now call a beach, but did built a 'spa room' so people could enjoy everything that goes along with it, e.g. wet bar, music system and mood lighting.
Mornings, the day housekeeper prepares self-served continental breakfast in the kitchen's dinette area before beginning her housekeeping chores. The P.M.-shift housekeeper doubles as a cook for supper and fixes a pre-planned menu accommodating her and Michael's tastes but, on Sundays, a formal dinner with Michael and me is mandatory attendance (paying guest are welcome) and we all chip-in do the cooking or barbecue, weather, of course, permitting.
Sunday mornings, Mrs. C likes to bounce down the lane with me in the utility pickup to attend early Mass in town with breakfast afterward. I hold those occasions with special regard but nothing tops our after-supper habit when the three of us retire to the upstairs 'grand veranda' and muse over writing, the past week or commingle with guests to discuss just about anything--all, while sipping cognac and sharing laughs, oblivious to everything beyond this enviable and idyllic existence.
Of late, Mrs C has had a suitor (Todd, retired golf pro) whose company we enjoy and banter we find stimulating. but I think he's more a creature-comfort and bed companion for Mrs. C, rather than something long-term ending in a commitment. Her private life remains private, out of scruitiny, and beyond the bounds of comment or criticism from anyone--and this observation is already at the limit--for the sakes good manners, respect, and true care for my employer/mentor/muse whom I find a daily blessing.
Unsolicited offers sail in to buy everything Mrs. C. has realized here, and her charm isn't lost in polite declines, verbalizing words to the effect that there isn't anyone who possesses any combination of resources, asset that it would take to own her dream-come-true. Her dream, now, her reality.
Her vision-become-reality was to have a writer's retreat, offering solace and comfort to those creating literature in a world that finds great writing relegated to websites that pay nothing, have no shelf life, or system of global recognition for hearts and lives being dedicated to the written word. That retreat would be called the "HoW," House of Writers. But because of it's breathtaking setting, everyone in the area nicknamed the place "Writer's Cove." Two magazine articles about Mrs C's beloved HoW cost her over $150,000 in beefed-up security: fencing, cameras, and I don't think that figure includes both of the electric gates, main and utitilty.
She discovered Michael online. Oddly enough he's my age but a New York teacher who expatriated to Mexico and took a position at an elite academy for Mexican children to learn English. They learned English as he taught them creative writing. On the side, Michael was hosting websites of internet 'flash' writers (short fiction). In the scraps of leftover time, he was posting stories to websites devoted to anthologies or guest writers or writer-hobbyist sites. He began a book, came to HoW for its finish, and found the national praise his work's always deserved.
Mrs. C invited him to become the first and--to date--only artist in residence at Writer's Cove. I don't count because I say so. Either of them write rings around me on my best day at the keys.
Income from Michael's first book, critically acclaimed and complex, brought untold money to him, yet he seems content to live here and has convinced me he'll stay should his second book brings millions; he's found himself, and his voice, here, again, something sacrosanct beyond any price to change.
I negotiated an hourly 'wage' with Mrs. C. at $2.50, listing my income for tax purposes as received from duties whose wages generate 'tips.' I have a little bankroll invested that draws income, supplemented by my social security. Mrs. C feels good about paying me something. I have pride that I'm not mooching or a charity case, and even enjoy putting a squeegee to the windows although my acre-wide ass on scaffolds never fails to scare the be-Jesus out of Mrs. C.
My next big deal is to see if Mrs. C. will let me buy a 20-foot sailboat to keep at our dock so that I can flutter me and some of the guests in the gusts of calmer waters on the many glorious days we enjoy, here (a tip-generating revenue scheme/stream she'll soon figure out!).
I soon must confess to her that I let one of the guard dogs ("Misty," Doberman) sleep with "Scooter" (my Weimaraner) and Writer's Cove is going to have babies in a few months. I'll attempt to justify as regenerating and invigorating the security staff and continuing to provide for her best interests, to which she'll probably laugh and yell "Bullshit!," followed by a demand to name the pups. At hearing the news, there will be no discussion or decision necessary as to the disposition of the pups. They'll stay, and I'll oversee expansion of the kennel for the three Dobermans ("Tex," "Misty" and "Judo") and my Weimaraner, "Krebbs" (after a TV sitcom character of the '50s, "Maynard G. Krebbs," a beatnick portrayed by Bob Denver on the sitcom "Dobie Gillis").
That (phone) was main house, asking why I'm not already off to town to pick up the grocery order. "I was writing" is always an acceptable explanation for delays, here, because that's what we do: we write.
[Updates: I get the boat as long as long as I promise not to drown some folks from her old 6S days and with another proviso: I'm the burgers 'n dogs grill cook for what will become an annual event--she's decided we'll host a picnic for our town's Special Olympics volunteers, athletes and parents.; and, I was right about her naming claim on the puppies, of which we had five. bearing dog tags with variants of Mrs. C's favorite authors' names: "Augusten" ('Gus'!), "Kahlil" (hate it), "Sedaris" (wtf?!...Dairy? Sed?), "Emma" (better!), and "Leonard" (I can live with 'Leo' or 'Len'). We've just received Brittany's autographed 1st edition of her sizzling and steamy Southern-voiced romance novel. It will take its place of honor in the library (next to Amy's). She included a nice card that states she got inspiration for her book while here, and announced that she'll soon be a grandmother]
The South end of the home has four bedrooms upstairs and four down. The the center of the home is dedicated to common living areas, upstairs containing the 16-seat theater with projection television and bar/lounge with mini-kitchen. The central downstairs is home to the library, formal dining room, a massive living room with stone fireplace, a commercially-equipped kitchen with four tables and 16 chairs for informal meals, snacks, and 24-hour caffeinated relaxation.
Her personal living areas, upstairs and down, command the North end of the house (over 3,000 square feet and fully self-contained, with the owner's private entrance and garage just off her kitchen at the rear). Along with a spacious master suite and sitting room, there are 3 guest bedrooms opening onto the wraparound veranda. There's also a very small bedroom North of the kitchen, should a housekeeper need to stay overnight.
Mrs. C, the owner, has set the housekeepers and me abuzz at the news that Brittany, her kids and husband will be coming in for a week's stay (about which we're all excited), to occupy the family suite downstairs on the South wing of what's become known as "Writer's Cove" by locals.
I'm tired from the day's mowing and edging and blade sharpening, sitting on my small porch off my living quarters that puts me about 100 yards off from the South end where, late nights, I often sit to smoke, sip a little bourbon or tequila, and softly strum 'Homer,' my guitar-of-choice most times.
Michael's living quarters (the only other 'permanent' resident besides Mrs C and me), are comprised of a 2-room suite on the upstairs corner, with commanding coastal and southern views, and a doorway to the veranda off of his sitting room/library.
Tonight, I see his lights on into the wee hours, watch him pace across the lighted window, sometimes heading out to the veranda to smoke and peer at the sea from the handrail, and I know he can't see me because of the distance and darkness, but I know his wheels are turning, his mind working, before he flips the butt down onto the yard and rushes in to resume writing and writing and writing what has to be the sequel to his bestseller.
Mrs. C's place could easily adorn the cover of Coastal Living and the only reason I think this place hasn't done so is that she's designed the interior for creature-comfort furniture and motif rather than opulence it could easily sustain and warrant with any other owner. I like most of the statuary and paintings that reflect her own tastes as well as subjects she feels might bring muses screaming at guests.
The writers come and go, some at her invitation, others by written requests that either trigger an 'application,' requiring the writer's bio and publishing history (with samples) or generate a kindly worded, personal 'form letter' offering the prospective visitor to consider other options. Many rejections are from wanna-be writers whose best sentences could only come from a felonious assaults on persons or property. Then again, we've hosted some authors and magazine writers of respectable renown.
Mrs. C's business plan's pretty astute, having a sliding-scale of fees for 'guests' ranging from simply the cost of their meals and daily housekeeping needs, to market-based weekly rates with a maximum of 2 weeks per 'visit' and only longer by special arrangement. She's toying with the idea of workshops, which I dread. I have to concede she hasn't been wrong yet, I mean, just to look around at all of this. My God....
Expenses are offset by marketing, with realtors and ads in bridal magazines for garden weddings--even lavish corporate and private parties at "Writer's Cove." Weddings find the bride, groom, and their respective parents staying in the North wing's accommodations.
She arranges the airport transportation, photography/videography, caterers, awnings and chair and table rentals, all the reception details for the central part of the house, and gets commissions from the vendors she employs for the picturesque nuptials and if the wedding party opts-out of using her vendors, they, too, can happily search for another venue that I would humbly say is lesser than what Mrs. C always provides for a fair dollar. The fairy-tale weddings she orchestrates are as captivating as her writing.
I don't spend as much time as you'd think in the main house. My digs and life out here with the guard dogs and crickets and squirrels are as much as any man could need or want in his waning years. Mrs. C's happy to let me continue supervising the kennel and cadre of gardeners (because I'm bilingual) it takes to keep Writer's Cove postcard-perfect...when I'm not down on our her little dock, fishing, that is....
Blistering heat of midsummer finds the house less visited than other months, and I get more fishing time in, as Michael takes week-long jaunts to wherever. Mrs. C. entertains her kids and grandchildren, while the other ten months find the the house humming along smoothly like the efficient manor it is, bed 'n breakfast style, save for the 'commercial' bookings that put us all on hyperdrive to provide manna which sustains us in U.S. currency form.
Holidays are celebrated in style, here, and the house is always packed. Meals force the 22-seat formal dining table to be extended beyond the massive, double doors into the main library which contains hundreds of books, a couple internet research stations, and a locked display case with autographed 1st editions from the more accomplished who have stayed here.
Her demands are always reasonable, on Michael because of his writing ethic, odd hours and attraction of paying guests' desire to rub elbows with 'El Plumo Hogar' ('the house pen' nickname I've asssigned him that he likes no better than my references to his living space as 'Casita del Camiso Amarillo,' little house of the yellow shirt). Demands on me are simple because of my meager contributions to minimizing her management headaches, a role she says buys her time to write and enjoy what she's provided to us ('my resident Odd Couple,' she calls us!) and the select few fortunate enough to encounter this remarkably talented and gracious woman.
The closest thing I ever had to a run-in with her was over her casually sharing that she thought she'd build a pool and pool house with showers and changing area. I pleaded that, with an ocean-front estate, she might consider clearing some rock and dumping sand to let people romp in the surf. I told her I'd rather scoop polo pony poop on my hands 'n knees than fuss with all the headaches of a pool. She shut me right up, one day, with her praiseworthy sense of humor, "You jealous I'll get a pool-boy, big guy!?" She decided against the pool, improved what we now call a beach, but did built a 'spa room' so people could enjoy everything that goes along with it, e.g. wet bar, music system and mood lighting.
Mornings, the day housekeeper prepares self-served continental breakfast in the kitchen's dinette area before beginning her housekeeping chores. The P.M.-shift housekeeper doubles as a cook for supper and fixes a pre-planned menu accommodating her and Michael's tastes but, on Sundays, a formal dinner with Michael and me is mandatory attendance (paying guest are welcome) and we all chip-in do the cooking or barbecue, weather, of course, permitting.
Sunday mornings, Mrs. C likes to bounce down the lane with me in the utility pickup to attend early Mass in town with breakfast afterward. I hold those occasions with special regard but nothing tops our after-supper habit when the three of us retire to the upstairs 'grand veranda' and muse over writing, the past week or commingle with guests to discuss just about anything--all, while sipping cognac and sharing laughs, oblivious to everything beyond this enviable and idyllic existence.
Of late, Mrs C has had a suitor (Todd, retired golf pro) whose company we enjoy and banter we find stimulating. but I think he's more a creature-comfort and bed companion for Mrs. C, rather than something long-term ending in a commitment. Her private life remains private, out of scruitiny, and beyond the bounds of comment or criticism from anyone--and this observation is already at the limit--for the sakes good manners, respect, and true care for my employer/mentor/muse whom I find a daily blessing.
Unsolicited offers sail in to buy everything Mrs. C. has realized here, and her charm isn't lost in polite declines, verbalizing words to the effect that there isn't anyone who possesses any combination of resources, asset that it would take to own her dream-come-true. Her dream, now, her reality.
Her vision-become-reality was to have a writer's retreat, offering solace and comfort to those creating literature in a world that finds great writing relegated to websites that pay nothing, have no shelf life, or system of global recognition for hearts and lives being dedicated to the written word. That retreat would be called the "HoW," House of Writers. But because of it's breathtaking setting, everyone in the area nicknamed the place "Writer's Cove." Two magazine articles about Mrs C's beloved HoW cost her over $150,000 in beefed-up security: fencing, cameras, and I don't think that figure includes both of the electric gates, main and utitilty.
She discovered Michael online. Oddly enough he's my age but a New York teacher who expatriated to Mexico and took a position at an elite academy for Mexican children to learn English. They learned English as he taught them creative writing. On the side, Michael was hosting websites of internet 'flash' writers (short fiction). In the scraps of leftover time, he was posting stories to websites devoted to anthologies or guest writers or writer-hobbyist sites. He began a book, came to HoW for its finish, and found the national praise his work's always deserved.
Mrs. C invited him to become the first and--to date--only artist in residence at Writer's Cove. I don't count because I say so. Either of them write rings around me on my best day at the keys.
Income from Michael's first book, critically acclaimed and complex, brought untold money to him, yet he seems content to live here and has convinced me he'll stay should his second book brings millions; he's found himself, and his voice, here, again, something sacrosanct beyond any price to change.
I negotiated an hourly 'wage' with Mrs. C. at $2.50, listing my income for tax purposes as received from duties whose wages generate 'tips.' I have a little bankroll invested that draws income, supplemented by my social security. Mrs. C feels good about paying me something. I have pride that I'm not mooching or a charity case, and even enjoy putting a squeegee to the windows although my acre-wide ass on scaffolds never fails to scare the be-Jesus out of Mrs. C.
My next big deal is to see if Mrs. C. will let me buy a 20-foot sailboat to keep at our dock so that I can flutter me and some of the guests in the gusts of calmer waters on the many glorious days we enjoy, here (a tip-generating revenue scheme/stream she'll soon figure out!).
I soon must confess to her that I let one of the guard dogs ("Misty," Doberman) sleep with "Scooter" (my Weimaraner) and Writer's Cove is going to have babies in a few months. I'll attempt to justify as regenerating and invigorating the security staff and continuing to provide for her best interests, to which she'll probably laugh and yell "Bullshit!," followed by a demand to name the pups. At hearing the news, there will be no discussion or decision necessary as to the disposition of the pups. They'll stay, and I'll oversee expansion of the kennel for the three Dobermans ("Tex," "Misty" and "Judo") and my Weimaraner, "Krebbs" (after a TV sitcom character of the '50s, "Maynard G. Krebbs," a beatnick portrayed by Bob Denver on the sitcom "Dobie Gillis").
That (phone) was main house, asking why I'm not already off to town to pick up the grocery order. "I was writing" is always an acceptable explanation for delays, here, because that's what we do: we write.
[Updates: I get the boat as long as long as I promise not to drown some folks from her old 6S days and with another proviso: I'm the burgers 'n dogs grill cook for what will become an annual event--she's decided we'll host a picnic for our town's Special Olympics volunteers, athletes and parents.; and, I was right about her naming claim on the puppies, of which we had five. bearing dog tags with variants of Mrs. C's favorite authors' names: "Augusten" ('Gus'!), "Kahlil" (hate it), "Sedaris" (wtf?!...Dairy? Sed?), "Emma" (better!), and "Leonard" (I can live with 'Leo' or 'Len'). We've just received Brittany's autographed 1st edition of her sizzling and steamy Southern-voiced romance novel. It will take its place of honor in the library (next to Amy's). She included a nice card that states she got inspiration for her book while here, and announced that she'll soon be a grandmother]
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Under a New Orleans Storm Called 'Lee'
Curtains of rain gave closure to each side of the port cochere as I stood awash in breezes carrying the aroma of freshly laundered air.
It knows how to rain in New Orleans, and the proof was audible in thunder-boomers articulating different movements of The Downpour Symphony better than the cannon of the "The 1812 Overture."
The squall intensified and lessened, delivering staccatoed percussions to the sidewalk and street with different timbres, as if Mother Nature were free-form dancing to the music of an unpredictable beat of a song whose performance delivered continuous tranquil enchantment.
Day into night, into next and the next, it rained on, diminishing traffic by foot, car and rail.
Flood and fear mixed a biting cocktail for residents turning their backs on TV sports to see tornado watches and warnings flashed on every local channel's screen, with pictures of neighborhoods evacuating while ships pawed at the gulf's rough waters unable to make port, unable to clear their superstructures under the bridges due to the Mississippi's water level.
Wind and rain and thunderstorms were quieting and disquieting, not dampening spirits as much as reconstituting, rehydrating, exhuming ininvited memories from six years before.
It knows how to rain in New Orleans, and the proof was audible in thunder-boomers articulating different movements of The Downpour Symphony better than the cannon of the "The 1812 Overture."
The squall intensified and lessened, delivering staccatoed percussions to the sidewalk and street with different timbres, as if Mother Nature were free-form dancing to the music of an unpredictable beat of a song whose performance delivered continuous tranquil enchantment.
Day into night, into next and the next, it rained on, diminishing traffic by foot, car and rail.
Flood and fear mixed a biting cocktail for residents turning their backs on TV sports to see tornado watches and warnings flashed on every local channel's screen, with pictures of neighborhoods evacuating while ships pawed at the gulf's rough waters unable to make port, unable to clear their superstructures under the bridges due to the Mississippi's water level.
Wind and rain and thunderstorms were quieting and disquieting, not dampening spirits as much as reconstituting, rehydrating, exhuming ininvited memories from six years before.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
BART
She was a stickler.
Every morning at 6:21AM, she took the 2nd aisle seat on the right side of the second car, and hunkered down for her 42-minute BART rail commute into San Francisco.
She’d started each ride with a love letter drafted to Larry for later e-mailing. She’d share thoughts and dreams, how things might be when he got out of the service, sometimes share office gossip and even write anecdotally of her commute.
This day, she settled into her seat and opened her laptop. As the train filled and eased away from its 3rd stop, she heard a long belch, off…over left shoulder. ‘Disgusting and rude,’ she thought,’ and added ‘imbecilic’ when riders giggled aloud. Another burp, and more laughter.
Someone’s bad manners shred her concentration like cheap cheese, grating her last nerve. When she heard the loud report of flatulence–unmistakably a fart, and loud– and then another, nearby riders couldn’t contain themselves! She slammed the laptop shut, jumped up and turned, barking “LISTEN, MISTER!” convinced it was a man.
It was her man. There stood her Larry in uniform, home early from Iraq, hitting “Play” on his smart-phone‘s .mp3 sound effects to the comedic roars of complicitous riders. She vaulted over the seatback into his arms. He knelt and proposed to her, to cheers and tears of the crowd.
He proposed on car 5319, and they were married May 3, 2019 (5/3/19). They named their first-born, “Bart,” who trained to be a practical joker.
[MudSpots Theme: To Whose Benefit]
Every morning at 6:21AM, she took the 2nd aisle seat on the right side of the second car, and hunkered down for her 42-minute BART rail commute into San Francisco.
She’d started each ride with a love letter drafted to Larry for later e-mailing. She’d share thoughts and dreams, how things might be when he got out of the service, sometimes share office gossip and even write anecdotally of her commute.
This day, she settled into her seat and opened her laptop. As the train filled and eased away from its 3rd stop, she heard a long belch, off…over left shoulder. ‘Disgusting and rude,’ she thought,’ and added ‘imbecilic’ when riders giggled aloud. Another burp, and more laughter.
Someone’s bad manners shred her concentration like cheap cheese, grating her last nerve. When she heard the loud report of flatulence–unmistakably a fart, and loud– and then another, nearby riders couldn’t contain themselves! She slammed the laptop shut, jumped up and turned, barking “LISTEN, MISTER!” convinced it was a man.
It was her man. There stood her Larry in uniform, home early from Iraq, hitting “Play” on his smart-phone‘s .mp3 sound effects to the comedic roars of complicitous riders. She vaulted over the seatback into his arms. He knelt and proposed to her, to cheers and tears of the crowd.
He proposed on car 5319, and they were married May 3, 2019 (5/3/19). They named their first-born, “Bart,” who trained to be a practical joker.
[MudSpots Theme: To Whose Benefit]
Thursday, August 25, 2011
No Prob.
“PJ, pick up your court card!,” boomed Phil’s rasp over those chattering after the meeting.
“I’m PJ.“
“You got a ‘nudge from the judge’ for A.A.,“ Phil chuckled, his eyes sparkling, riveted on PJ.
“Just ten meetings.“
PJ took the card Phil had initialled.
“But you don’t have an alcohol ‘problem,’” Phil declared.
“Everybody gets DWIs.”
“What did you blow?” the tanned, construction superintendent asked.
“Two-point-one.”
Phil grinned, “That’s how I got here!”
PJ was silent.
“I notice you walked–didn’t arrive in a car. Wanna ride?”
“I’m good.”
“Judge yanked my license, too,” Phil offered.
“Which judge?”
“He’s dead!! It was 19 years ago,” laughed Phil, “Been sober ever since!”
PJ muttered, shrugged and shuffled away.
“PJ!!,” Phil hollered.
The disheveled man looked back.
“My hands shook, too! Meetings made ‘em stop.” and Phil winked.
PJ hit the alley and bee-lined to a nearby beer dive. He proffered a five and quickly downed a $4.50 small pitcher of draft. He stepped out into the night and froze.
Phil leaned against his truck’s chromed grille.
“I watched you take the money when we passed the meeting’s basket,” Phil said, quietly, “and I repaid it. Alkies steal for a drink but you don’t have a problem,” grinned Phil as he got in the truck.
“Here’s my number. Keep comin’ back…just for the shaky hands, o‘ course,“ and Phil roared off.
PJ wiped away a frustration tear, his fingers trembling. He’d see that laughing bastard tomorrow night. He hated…but wanted to like Phil.
“I’m PJ.“
“You got a ‘nudge from the judge’ for A.A.,“ Phil chuckled, his eyes sparkling, riveted on PJ.
“Just ten meetings.“
PJ took the card Phil had initialled.
“But you don’t have an alcohol ‘problem,’” Phil declared.
“Everybody gets DWIs.”
“What did you blow?” the tanned, construction superintendent asked.
“Two-point-one.”
Phil grinned, “That’s how I got here!”
PJ was silent.
“I notice you walked–didn’t arrive in a car. Wanna ride?”
“I’m good.”
“Judge yanked my license, too,” Phil offered.
“Which judge?”
“He’s dead!! It was 19 years ago,” laughed Phil, “Been sober ever since!”
PJ muttered, shrugged and shuffled away.
“PJ!!,” Phil hollered.
The disheveled man looked back.
“My hands shook, too! Meetings made ‘em stop.” and Phil winked.
PJ hit the alley and bee-lined to a nearby beer dive. He proffered a five and quickly downed a $4.50 small pitcher of draft. He stepped out into the night and froze.
Phil leaned against his truck’s chromed grille.
“I watched you take the money when we passed the meeting’s basket,” Phil said, quietly, “and I repaid it. Alkies steal for a drink but you don’t have a problem,” grinned Phil as he got in the truck.
“Here’s my number. Keep comin’ back…just for the shaky hands, o‘ course,“ and Phil roared off.
PJ wiped away a frustration tear, his fingers trembling. He’d see that laughing bastard tomorrow night. He hated…but wanted to like Phil.
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