quaintessential

tyrannus tyrannus

2009-08-07T15:19:00.000-05:00

The other day I spotted a new bird perched on my shepherd’s hook, next to the finch feeder. He was entirely unfinchlike, having a big domed black head, largish beak, and appearing to have donned a tuxedo to join me for coffee. I’d never seen such formal wear in my yard, so I grabbed my bird book, paged through it, all the while stealing glances out the window at my visitor.

Just as I got to the flycatcher section, my guest turned to show off his white tipped tail. Aha. Eastern Kingbird, also known by his menacing Latin name, Tyrannus tyrannus. Voice: a rapid sputter of high bickering notes. Not unlike some people I used to work with.

I watched as Mr. Tyrannus fluttered upwards, snared a bug from the underside of a pine branch, then flew off to the fields. Stop back again, sir.

Last week I walked with my mother through a grove of trees, seeking out a rock pile at the other side. We were looking for a cover for an old well. Though we didn’t find a suitable cover, we saw lots of wildness. Mangled old trees.

“What’s this one?” I’d ask, pointing up at a gnarled trunk, branches obscured by broad leaves.

My mother would look up, shield her eyes from an errant sunbeam, then promptly trip over a fallen tree hidden in the tall grasses.

“I’m not sure. And I can’t look up.”

I stopped asking because, quite unfortunately, neither of us is terribly well-schooled in botany.

I pointed to a large chunk of mushrooms growing on the base of a tree, wondered aloud if it were edible. I tore off a chunk of it, sniffed it.

“Smells like fish.”

I ran my fingers across the fleshy, moist gills and handed it to my mother, who concurred with my assessment. “It does. It looks like something that would grow underwater.”

Uncanny, that. A sea creature, thousands of miles from the sea, contentedly living in my trees.

anniversary

2009-08-06T15:15:00.001-05:00

Nine years ago today, I got married. Which would make today my wedding anniversary, but for the fact that I divorced my husband years ago.

On my second wedding anniversary, I opened the card from my then-husband. Cute, cartoonish characters making hallmark-y quips about love, sex, and marriage. I stepped into our home office, flipped through a sheaf of papers, and pulled out the same card. He had given it to me a year ago, for our first anniversary. I carried it out to him, handed him the two identical cards.

He shrugged his shoulders. “So?”

We didn’t have a third anniversary.

I didn’t divorce him over an anniversary card. But the card was indicative of the problems in our relationship—a lack of attentiveness, a sort of shoulder-shrugging indifference to each other. He referred to me—even in my presence—as an inanimate object. “The wife.”

Till death do us part would have probably killed me.

You may call me noncommittal, even crass, but I prefer a modern vow:

Till tears of boredom, stagnant ponds of complacency, lazy rivers of apathy, cause us to dissolve.

skateaway

2009-07-29T09:22:00.000-05:00

Erica twisted the plastic flag in her small hands. “Is a buried cable like a buried person?”

“Sort of,” I said. “Buried just means that something is put underground. When people die, they’re put underground. They do the same with wires.” I thought about why we do it: to keep them from getting in the way, to keep the landscape from being cluttered up by corpses and cables.

“Does everyone have to be buried?”

“No. Not everyone wants to be buried.” I explained that sometimes people have different wishes for what they want to have done with them when they die. “Some people want to be cremated. You can specify all kinds of things. Like, instead of a funeral, some people want a party.”

Her eyes lit up. It was a foregone conclusion that her memorial service would be a party.

“I know where I want my party to be.”

“Where’s that?”

“Skateaway!”

She is wise beyond her seven years. A roller rink is, I think, a perfect place for a memorial.

hardship

2009-07-28T21:20:00.001-05:00

“So you’re living here for the summer?” my neighbors inquire. I nod in assent.

“But where do you live for real?”

I gesture toward the house. “Here.”

“But what do you do?”

“Chicken farming,” I say, matter-of-factly.

It’s seldom possible to say this without a smirk. So I explain: I’m gardening, resting, cooking, enjoying, writing, living.

“But what are you going to do?”

What they really want to know, I think, is what I will do for money. Fortunately, corporate lawyering was lucrative, so I don’t have to worry about money, at least for now. My expenses, owing to a favorable exchange of housing for a modicum of labor, are next to nothing.

I recently called about my student loans, wondering if I could take part in the new Income Based Repayment plan. Among the questions asked of me: Are you actively looking for work?

“Well, no, not really. I work. But I don’t look for work. I’m chicken farming,” I explained to the man on the phone.

“So you’re not looking for work?”

“No. But chicken farming is work. I’m working,” I assured him. “Just not, you know, for money.”

“So you’re not looking for work.” This time he stated it as a fact, not a question.

“I guess not.”

He was tired of this exchange. So was I. He told me I was probably eligible for a deferment owing to financial hardship.

“But I’m not hard up,” I insisted. “I can pay, I was just wondering if I could…”

Ignoring my protestations, he interrupted me and said that I could download the application form online.

“Can you mail it to me instead?”

I should receive it within a week.

I went to the garden and picked green beans, stuffed my pockets with them. In the evening I sat and watched the sunset, emptied my pockets, sipped red wine, crunched on raw beans. This hardly feels like hardship.

gardening with peeps

2009-07-15T19:19:00.002-05:00

At ten o'clock this morning, I roused myself from bed to fetch a peach, brew some coffee. The coffee is some I brought back from Honduras. I can’t drink it without thinking of horseback riding on the coffee plantation, of Carlos, the delightful guide. I can’t drink the coffee without wanting, at least a tiny bit, to go back.

It’s still windy today, but the sky is clear, and it looks like it will be a beautiful day. I predict a full day of sunbathing, mowing, gardening, and/or peep-patio construction.

I feel awful even admitting this--but my peeps have, as of the last week or so, been stuck inside. The weather has been too tumultuous to mess with taking them out to their little portable cage, and the birds are getting too big--and too fast--for me to catch them. They have a good-size house in the barn, though, a room I built for them, so they have lots of space, and a nice alfalfa floor. But no fresh grass. Sure, I bring them fresh scraps every day, and clip them bouquets of fresh alfalfa. They like sweet corn, cut off the cob. And the peeps adore peach-scraps. I check in on them at least twice, morning and night. But I know they miss frolicking in the grass. And I miss having them outside, being able to sit with them in the sun.

I took them to the garden with me the other day, and it was more or less a disaster. Lola and Rosie would have been fine. In fact, I had the two of them in my mother’s garden the day before, and they were a delight. But I took all five girls to my garden with me, and they wreaked havoc. First, Rosie decided to eat peas, not bugs. Then all the girls felt they needed to congregate on the spinach and carrots. Trampling them, perhaps irreparably. When I tired of shooing them out of the peas, off of the carrots, I attempted to catch them. My efforts were three-stooges-esque. Lola and Rosie were easy to catch, as always. (If you sit down, they both come over and want to sit on you. This simplifies the task immensely.) Lolita, Stella, and Edna, though. Ugh. I chased, and I hopped over beds of vegetables, and I finally caught Stella by the tail, in the potatoes. Lolita was outwitted in a corner. Edna withstood probably ten minutes of being chased, through the potatoes, past the tomatoes, over the spinach (of course). Finally, she went over to the corner, to the box where the other girls were, and I was able to nab her. I suppose she just didn’t want to be left in the garden alone.

That was the last gardening adventure, at least for the three girls who don’t like to be caught. Lola is always welcome. And Rosie, so long as I can convince her she likes bugs more than peas, she, too, is welcome.

Though I fear this will convince Sarah and Donna that I've gone off the peep-end, that I'm soft in the head and all too squishy in the heart, I just have to share this video of the peeps.

journal

2009-07-11T16:03:00.004-05:00

I picked dinner, a two-quart salad, half lettuce, half spinach, a few beet greens. As I eat, a deer gallantly strides into my back yard. She grazes as she walks, nibbling on lawn-salad. It is dusk, and her coat glows, rusty against the tree-filled background. Craning my head to see around all the branches, it occurs to me that I need to trim back these trees. I need to be able to see out.

These were Albert’s trees. He planted hundreds of them, including a long row of evergreens by the road. When he planted those, he used the power lines overhead as his guide to keep them straight. As they grew up, someone asked him, “Why did you plant the trees under the power lines? They’re going to grow up and someone will have to either cut their tops off or move the line.”

Albert didn’t care. He said he wouldn’t be around when that happened.

He was right. Years after Albert died and his wife sold the house, my parents confronted the tree issue. Today, the trees stand tall, and the power line stretches underground.

My parents stopped over tonight, both of them, separately. My mother came over first—without calling—because my father was watching car races on television. My father came over because, I think, he missed us. So we sat in my living room, chatted about the scarcity of rope (I want to build a swing), about the peep house, about where I might find a wood cooking stove. (As it turns out, there’s one on my farm.)

I’m thinking about staying here, building a home, seeing if I can make a go of chicken farming with my five peeps. I still intend to travel, but I don’t think my ticket will be one-way. Perhaps Thailand for December, Central America again in February. Enough sunshine to keep me alive and warm, but not so much time away as to have to divest myself of the peeps, my kitty. (Whom no one seems to want, anyway.)

Kitty must have extrasensory powers, because she just looked up from an important task: cuddling with my new leather gloves. She holds them with her paws, smooshes her face into the cow hide, breathes in new-glove scent.

Living here has been far better than I could have imagined. I savor the peacefulness. Tonight it is cool; a slight breeze ruffles the leaves. Pheasants cluck in the distance, little finches flutter around the feeder in my tree. The doe has disappeared, but a pair of rabbits have taken her place. (They’re lucky I’m in a robe, and not feeling like turning them into soup.)

I positioned my bed under the window so that at night, I see stars before I dream. Beside the bed, on a plaster pedestal, sits my jasmine plant, and the blossoms open late at night, releasing their perfume. After years of neglect, my crystal vases are now filled--bouquets of peonies perch on the kitchen table, beside the bathtub, on the vanity in my bedroom. My orchids thrive here.

And so do I.

My days are filled with hard work. Some days I work from nine in the morning until ten at night, not at a desk, but in the yard, or in the garden, or in my home, building, fixing, sawing, nailing, painting. Last week I cut 2 by 6 boards for the frame of the peep patio. (Some people call it a “run,” but mine is a patio. On a related note, the peeps will also have a library.) All of the lumber I’m using is recycled, scrap wood that my father has saved over the years, piled into the barn on my little farm. The 2 by 6 boards I used to frame the house were from an old deck. The ones I’m using for the exterior, though, must be older. They actually measure 2 by 6. Nowadays, 2 by anything boards aren’t actually 2 by whatever. They’re 1 1/2 by something kind of close to what they’re supposed to be. I measured the boards I’m using. Most of them are a very generous two inches by six inches by sixteen feet.

I counted the boards in the barn, decided that I would have enough lumber to make the patio 14 feet long. From there, I used the Golden Section, which I recently read about. American Heritage defines it as “[a] ratio, observed esp. in the fine arts, between the two dimensions of a plane figure or the two divisions of a line such that the smaller is to the larger as the larger is to the sum of the two, a ratio of roughly three to five.” That doesn’t really make sense to me, so I’m glad Michael Pollan spelled it out in A Place of My Own. As noted there, the ratio, 1:1.618, isn’t observed just by the fine arts; it also shows up all over in nature, both “in the elevation of the Parthenon and the wings of a butterfly; in the façade of Notre-Dame and the spiral of a seashell.” Pollan isn’t sure, though, “whether to file the marvels of the Golden Section under Profound Truths of the Universe or Pot-Smokers’ Koans.” In the end, Pollan builds his cabin in the woods (for which the book is titled) using the ratio, which makes it both a profound truth and pot-smokers’ koan.

If it’s good enough for Pollan’s architect, it’s good enough for my peeps. And so, the patio will be 14 by about 8 and a half feet. The ladies will have about 120 square feet of outdoor space, which equals 24 square feet per peep. I intend to plant some shrubs for future shade, some morning glories for instant shade, some greens for summer salads. And alfalfa. There’s some in the ditch, so I’ll just transplant it, offer them instant green protein.

Besides building a peep house and managing my garden (it measures a generous 32 by 40 feet), I keep busy with various other projects. Today I cut a new shelf for my bookshelves. I rearranged wall art upstairs, taking down some of the wildlifey stuff and putting up some pieces that don’t feature dogs or birds or deer.

The other day I baked bread, three loaves, multi-grain. While the dough raised, I headed outside to sunbathe. It was 90 that day, so the dough was happy in the garage, and I was happy on the lawn, stretched out on a towel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover nestled in the grass in front of me. (Oh, how I wouldn’t mind having the cheeky gamekeeper nestled before me.) I’d selected a corner of the yard that isn’t visible from the road. Thus, off came my top. We shall see how frequently google’s satellite images are updated.

My parents seem pleased with me being here; my mother loves having help with projects. Together, we tackled the kitchen, stripping wallpaper, priming the bare plywood beneath (gah!), texturing, and painting. Next we’ll do the dining room. I chose the paint color: Merlot. It will be convenient for all those times I spill on the wall.

I read here. In the last week, a novel, a play, and two non-fiction books (both by Michael Pollan). I’ve also read most of a very outdated Reader’s Digest book, an oblong tome lent to me by a neighbor, a book that tells you how to do everything. How to make cheese, how to build a log cabin, how to raise goats, how to forge nails. (To the latter headline, I answered with, “Don’t. They sell them at the hardware store.”)

I’ve spent the last half-year of blissful unemployment learning a lot of these tasks. Leatherworking? Done it. Raising chickens? Perfected, minus the dog incident. Cheesemaking? Let me show you a fine mozzarella. Did I tell you about my soap- and candle-making? I make lovely tapered candles, fine soap.

I was speaking with an acquaintance the other day, and he marveled at the recent change in my life. From corporate litigator to chicken farmer, gardener extraordinare. How? Why?

I spent four years in college, studying English, writing about poems and stories and novels. I spent two years in graduate school, researching and writing about linguistics and rhetoric. I spent one year teaching college composition, reading students’ essays about popular culture. I spent three years in law school, studying arcane rules, writing substanceless footnotes. And then I spent a year practicing law at a large firm. There, I sat at a desk in a room that had windows, but not ones that looked outside. If I turned around from my desk, my view changed from that of a blank wall to that of the dining room of the firm’s cafeteria. I watched as partners sat with other partners, eating uninspired food, seldom smiling, never laughing. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. I ate at my desk.

Besides attending social events (more aptly described as firm-sponsored booze-fests), I did little but research issues of law and write about them. Sometimes I reviewed documents. Document review is best described with a well-worn cliché: it’s like watching paint dry. Except that, as a lawyer, you look at each fleck of paint and ask yourself, “Relevant? Not relevant? Flag for further review?” It is the kind of work that makes being a checkout lady at Wal-Mart seem like an appealing career choice.

One might say that I was just dissatisfied with my particular work, that being at a big firm was alienating, that I would feel differently about practicing law were I to do something different. To which I say: “I am doing something different. Would you like to meet my chickens?”

This is Lola. And that little one is Edna. The two hawk-looking ones are Stella and Lolita. And the one that just fluttered up to your shoulder, that’s Rosie. She’s friendly.

A former boss (and current friend) described the work I left behind, saying that we’ve "slaughtered forests of trees to create inane but letter-perfect piles of paper regarding the history of squeeze-top bottles or whether directors took the right notes at a meeting or whether a hairdryer should have said ‘Warning - don't immerse in water’ instead of ‘Caution - don't immerse in water’ on page 17 of the instructions.” As such, he was wondering what I was producing these days. His actual words were more like, “Where’s the fucking writing?”

I was drinking tea when I read his email, sitting in my mother’s sun room, patio doors open, birds chirping, the scent of lilacs wafting in. I laughed, and then I smiled. And I wrote some kind of heartfelt response, to which I never received a reply.

Perhaps my life here is too idyllic, too filled with reading and writing and peep-house constructing. Another friend wrote and said that he hopes life is as good as I describe in my writing.

Which makes me wonder: Do people not believe me? Do they think this is an elaborate ruse? Am I Blanche DuBois, telling grand tales about the plantation?

I re-read my posts, asked myself if I’ve left things out. I haven’t written about the wind, about the terrible gusts that tear across the prairies. I haven’t bitched about mowing. (Except to my mother, who earns my ire every time I discover a newly-mown acre or two, wide swaths of unused, unseen land which she insists on keeping neatly trimmed.)

I’ve left out the smells of the barn, wild, musty smells accompanying piles of poo that seem too large to have been created by four-legged creatures. I’ve left out my compost pile, which smells, quite unfortunately, of civic cat. Rotten ones, no less. I’ve left out the mosquitoes, their relentless and un-sexy attempts to get in my pants, my shirt, my hat.

But I’ve also left out the big sky, the way the horizon seems to have broadened here. I’ve haven’t mentioned the pristine silence that envelops me at night. The moon, how I get to watch her fatten, then slim down. Thunderstorms. Laundry on the line. Writing letters, by hand, in the morning. Sweet-smelling sawdust. The way leather gloves conform to your hand. Open-window baths in the evening, often by candlelight, nearly always with a glass of wine. Yogurt, creamy and delicious, which I make every couple weeks. Coffee with my mother, outside, as we watch the peeps peck at bugs.

I’ve left out how good it feels to be exhausted at night. Not just my mind, tired of inane lawyerly issues, questions about poison pills (which aren’t as interesting as they sound) or expert witness testimony. But my body, drained of energy. My wrist, aching from hammering. My back, knotted up by working with knotted wood. My legs, tired. Just tired.

I sleep well. And in the morning, I am well. My body is tanned, my muscles are taut, my mind is sound. I’m eager to do a bit of geometry, to design the rafters for the peep patio. I’m anxious to build a spot for the rest of my books. I look forward to the days ahead, to the work that awaits me.

Which is, I admit, something I seldom (perhaps never) felt as a lawyer.

Some critical theorists argue that nothing is real, that reality is merely a construct. Perhaps this is so. But still, real-ness must be a continuum. Some things are more real than others. Some work is more real than other work. And this: this work is far more real than what I did a year ago.

At the end of the day as a lawyer, I could point to my bank statement, and say, “There! I made X dollars.”

Here, at the end of the day, I can point to my chickens, to their home, still under construction. To shelves of books, to a neatly mown lawn, to beds of flowers, to a garden filled with salads and meals to come. This, this is meaningful work. (My bank account stays largely the same. Interest flows in; my meager expenses filter out.)

I have no cellular phone, no bills for cable or internet. I grow much of what I eat. Today I studied a book on weeds, trying to learn what edible greens grow here in the wild. My peep-house will be spacious, well-insulated, and will cost $35. That’s for the solar light, a handful of 4 inch wood screws, a star-shaped drill bit. Everything else was in the barn.

And, yes, it takes hard work. Perhaps half of my construction time is really deconstruction time, time spent hammering and prying six-inch nails out of hard wood. Ripping apart barn debris. “What was this?” I wonder. “A fence?”

In the end, the peep-house will be, like Michael Pollan’s woodland hut, a place of my own, a place for the peeps—and I—to enjoy. Unlike Pollan’s hut, though, the separate components of my place will each have a history, a story to tell. The framing, from a fence and from my sister’s deck. The siding, from a wall in my grandparents’ basement. The door, from my favorite room in the house my dad grew up in, the house in which I played as a child.

Without my intervention, the peeps would be elsewhere, on someone else’s farm. The construction materials would still be in the barn, in a pile, adorned with monstrous piles of poo. Framed, as it is, in 2 by 6 wood, my peep house is more than an idea: it is a thing, a new part of the world. Not permanent. But certainly hard to deconstruct.

Here I have found a place to think. To write. Or, if I choose, to not think, and to not write. Here I am free, free to live, free to work, free—blissfully free—to not work, if I so choose.

how prescient

2009-06-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

I searched through my various virtual identities and found what I'd posted last year on my birthday.

make a wish
June 22, 2008

When my mother went to the hospital 29 years ago, the fluffy seed from the cottonwood trees was flying - it was, in essence, snowing in dakota territory. A warm, cottony blizzard. And so my mother called me this morning to wish me a happy day, to tell me that it's snowing cotton.

Of course, she also sent me presents, one of which was a tea set. Very thoughtful. Minus the fact that it's "Tea for One." A tiny kettle, a tiny teacup. Just one.

"Mom, are you suggesting I'm never going to have anyone to drink tea with?"

She tried to deny it, explaining that she'd received one for her birthday and loves it. It still seemed like a not-so-subtle hint at spinsterhood.

Last night I attended a gala, and I took a girlfriend as my date. We drank, ate, socialized, celebrated my birthday. We woke early in the morning, and I made crepes and coffee. She lingered for a while, but headed out to sun herself on the beach. Sadly, I have to work for the rest of the day. For the first time in my adult life, I'm neither attending nor hosting a party to celebrate the anniversary of my birth. Just a quiet day spent staring at my computer, attending to the needs of some other, inanimate being.

Which reminds me: I think it's about time I quit this job. Next year, I really must have the day - a Monday - to myself, to my friends, to celebrate what will be three decades of living, three decades of laughing, of dancing, of loving, of sometimes crying.

And you are, of course, all invited.

There will be booze.
There will be cake.
There will be quaint.

birthday wish

2009-06-23T15:11:00.004-05:00

The well-known holiday of "Quaint's Birthday Eve" happened to fall on a lesser-known holiday: Father's Day. Being a good daughter, I invited my parents over for dinner (salad from my garden, steak, shrimp, and asparagus grilled over charcoal). My parents left early, but, eagerly anticipating my birthday, I stayed up to welcome the day.

For weeks, I've been trimming branches and piling them in my flagstone-and-mortar fire pit. The branches were stacked teepee-style, standing about as tall as me, five feet four, give or take an inch. I stuffed the lower branches with old copies of the Farmer & Rancher Exchange and the Menard's flyer, and, after two unsuccessful attempts, finally succeeded in creating a summer-solstice-worthy bonfire. I sipped wine (malbec, turpentine-esque), scooted my plastic chair back so as not to singe my face.

Minutes into the fire, I decided I needed more wood.

After several trips to the log pile in the barn, my fire was roaring splendidly. After several tips of the wine bottle, I, too, was roaring splendidly. Well, silently roaring. Happy, content. I stared up at the stars, reminisced about my childhood, about nightly bonfires during the summertime, about ghost stories and poor terrified friends (sorry, Sarah) and midnight fireworks.

After midnight, I went to bed, still smoke-flavored.

My birthday morn began with a phone call from my parents, rousing me from bed, wishing me a happy day. I took a bath, threw my smoky sheets in the washer, hung them out on the line to dry. My sister and nieces called to sing me happy birthday wishes. I could hear the littlest one in the background, protesting. "But I want to blow candles!")

Later in the morning, my mother joined me for coffee, bringing bouquets of peonies and irises from her garden. And a bowl of fresh fruit, including strawberries just picked that morning. We sat with the peeps. Then unboxed a chain saw, discussed whether my father would have a fit if we asked him for chainsaw oil.

My mother and I worked in the peep-house, me wielding the Saws All while she nailed insulation to the walls. Mid-afternoon, I convinced her to fetch a bathing suit and lay out with me for a bit, as I'm trying to recapture my central america tan in middle america. She brought reading material, my baby book. I read it, and I laughed. On the page where she was supposed to detail my intellectual progress, she'd not written anything. Instead, she'd glued a photo of me sleeping on the floor, using a very large cat for a pillow.

We sipped sun tea, applied sunscreen. And she told me the story of my birth. ("It was a lovely day, just like this one.") She woke up in the morning and went to the clinic, where she was promptly told to go to the hospital. I was born that morning, a Friday, twenty minutes shy of noon. Appropriate, considering I only had to wait half a day for happy hour.

When I went into the house, there was a message on the machine. "Where's the party? Your house or your parents'?" I saved the message.

"Mom," I asked, "where is the party?"

My house, it seems. She'd invited a handful of friends, relatives, neighbors, and they arrived in the evening for homemade angel food cake, whipped cream, and strawberries. We sat outside, enjoyed the wonderful evening. Before the night was over, they insisted I put on a peep show. Clad in a black dress and flipflops, I slipped into the girls' spacious cage, sat on a chair. To everyone's delight, Lola and Rosie perched on my shoulders, scratched my just-pinkened skin.

Last year my birthday fell on a Sunday, and I spent the day drafting interrogatories and requests for production of documents. My birthday wish was that I not be forced to repeat the experience.

Sometimes, wishes come true.

wouldn't undress be a more appropriate verb?

2009-06-21T10:51:00.000-05:00

I need to have someone show me how to dress a bunny. I want to make soup from what’s eating my salads.

but it's david!

2009-06-20T10:42:00.007-05:00

I’ve been busy lately. Hunting asparagus and bunnies, installing a solar light in my barn, building a peep house. So I’m not sure how long David has been missing from my refrigerator. For at least the last decade, David, the statue but in two-dimensional magnet form, has occupied a prominent spot on my refrigerator. Yesterday, he was missing.

I found him resting on the top of the fridge, a bottle of pinot noir sitting erect on his normally flaccid manhood. The wine is not great, but David seemed to have found it to be very stimulating. I lifted the bottle of wine and retrieved him from his reverie, stuck him back on the front of the refrigerator, surrounded by magnetic poetry, a gaggle of verbs, a smattering of unused adjectives.

My sister comes to mind as the most likely suspect. Upon reading the story about how my mother disgraced David by putting a magnetic flower bouquet over his forget-me-not penis, my sister called to tell me that she concurred with my mother.

Squeamish, as if speaking of a disemboweled corpse, she said, “I just don’t want the girls seeing that.”

I’m not sure whether “that” refers to art in general, or just penises depicted in art. I protested. “But it’s David! Art! On display in Italy.”

“Well then maybe when they’re older they can go to Italy and see it.”

Sadly, I haven’t been to Italy, but images of Italian art, replete with phalluses, flooded my mind. Thinking of Caravaggio, I told her that David wouldn’t be the raciest thing they’d see in Italy.

“Well then they can’t go to Italy.”

the fête

2009-06-15T15:11:00.000-05:00

“It’s on the counter in the living room.”

“What?”

Clearly, I was lucid as I offered these directions my mother. Every living room has counters, no?

Suffice it to say, the party was fun.

Cars & trucks in my yard: Thirty, at any given moment.

Glasses of wine in my hand: One. I’m classy, yeah? No more than one. Never, never less than one. Rigid, rigid are the constraints of a very classy gal.

Number of stories told of the man with whom I’m supposed to go on a blind date: Two. If he survives the first date, I’m sure he’ll thank me for filling my neighbors in on the ridiculous things he says.

Babies I didn’t hold at the party: One.

Babies at the party: One.

Number of times it was suggested to me that I make babies before I’m 40: One.

The place at which my pre-40 conception will occur: On the counter in the living room.

Obviously.

I forgot to tell the men to pee around the garden to keep the deer away.

Otherwise, the party was a great success.

because some of you are very demanding

2009-06-13T20:27:00.003-05:00

This is Rosie. Or the deceased Miss Ella, I'm not really sure. Regardless, I took this photo when the peeps were two or three days old, and none of them had names yet.

Peep update: When I join the ladies on the grass for a glass of wine (I drink, they watch and chase bugs), Rosie and Lola enjoy perching on my shoulders. Lolita, true to her namesake, isn't shy about hopping on my lap.

i like everything

2009-06-12T14:20:00.001-05:00

I made a new salad last night. It’s a practice salad, one in anticipation of the party I’m hosting this weekend. Farfalle, grilled asparagus, red pepper roasted on the grill, carmelized onions, a magical sauce. If you can keep a secret, I’ll tell you what’s in it.

*whispers*

Magic.

I intend to have my mother taste-test the salad. But I already know what she will say. “It’s delicious, but it’s probably too spicy for most people. You know, people around here just don’t like…”

And she will explain how people here don’t like spicy things, how they have perhaps never tried some of the things that I like to eat, how they don’t like these foods because they just haven’t been exposed to them. She is sensitive to these matters.

And yes, she is probably right. Most people in middle America have toddler-esque taste buds. They like meat, potatoes, iceberg lettuce, canned black olives, carrots machine-lathed into bite-sized pieces.

But they do not like spicy things.

(And, I assure you, it’s not that spicy! It’s just that, perhaps a minute after you eat the salad, you think, “Hmm. My tongue feels happy. And my lips. That must be magic.”)

My mother will assure me, though, that the salad is too spicy, that I must prepare something more vanilla for the party. It should taste like Kraft Italian dressing. Something my guests’ delicate systems know, can handle.

When you ask midwesterners what kinds of foods they like, they have a strange propensity to say, “Oh, I’m not picky. I like everything.” When you probe, they explain what they mean by “everything.”

“Oh, you know. Chicken, pork, beef. I like everything.”

It is as if the food pyramid were distilled into three food groups: Chicken, Pork, and Beef.

“Do you like onions?”

“Hmm. No, not really.”

“Cucumbers?”

“Well… no. But I like pickles.”

the christening

2009-06-11T12:07:00.002-05:00

I come to you, dear reader(s?), with a question: What shall I call my last nameless peep?

There is Rosie, the production red hen who delights in flying out of the box. There is Edna, the darkest and smallest peep, an Americana, who barely has tail feathers but is somehow always the last one caught. There is Lolita, the brown-tinged Silver Laced Wyandotte, who squawks loudly when I try to pick her up. And there is Lola, a California white named for the Kinks song, because she “walks like a woman but talks like a man, oh my Lola.” That’s not entirely accurate. Lola walks like a rooster, roosts like a rooster (sometimes on my shoulder), but peeps just like the others. She has a prominent comb, though, and was the first to develop tail feathers, which is why my neighbor Janine suspects she may not be a hen after all. Oh my Lola.

Three of my very photogenic peeps, including Miss Ella, died in a freak accident (picnic, dog). They’re now buried in my garden, planted neatly under a lilac bush and some irises.

But this leaves one Silver Laced Wyandotte. She is a pretty bird, white-chested, dark-winged, too shy to pose for a photo this morning. She has no quirks of character that come to mind, and I cannot think of what to call her.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

letters to bunnies

2009-06-09T13:59:00.004-05:00

To the bunny that ate a bullet fired by my 22-Magnum-wielding mother:

I'm sorry. I should have warned that you she's a pretty good shot.

To the bunnies that escaped:

The lady with the gun is a pretty good shot.

Now stop eating my fucking roses.

asparagus hunting

2009-06-06T19:42:00.004-05:00

It’s raining, and the wind chill is 35 degrees. But asparagus doesn’t wait for warm weather. I headed to the garage and suited up. Leather gloves, stocking cap, silk long underwear shirt, t-shirt, plush turtleneck sweater, hooded waterproof camouflage coat, jeans, waterproof camouflage pants, two pairs of socks, and supposedly waterproof hunting boots. An hour later, I was back in the garage, the peeps eyeing me curiously as I wrung out my leather gloves and my left sock, rain water dribbling into a paint bucket.

I weighed the day’s catch. Five pounds. Significantly less than the heft of my soggy gear, but not bad.

again

2009-06-05T18:04:00.001-05:00

The leaves crunched under our shoes as we headed for the clearing in the woods. I watched as Steve picked through some rubbish, finding a suitable target. He chose a mini propane container, the kind used for camping, and balanced it on a rock. Stepping back, he handed me the gun. It was a Glock, 9mm, somehow much heavier than I had expected.

“What do you want me to do?”

He flashed me a somewhat exasperated look. “Just shoot.”

“But where do you want me to stand?”

“Right where you’re at.”

“Isn’t this too close? Shouldn’t I be farther away?”

He shook his head. “No. If you’re going to have to shoot someone, they’re going to be close, only about the length of a room from you.”

I paused. I had never thought about aiming a gun at a person. I had been target shooting before, years ago with my brother. We were setting the sights on his gun, and doing so involved me running up to the target after each shot, telling him exactly where it hit. He would make minute adjustments, then shoot again. When the sights were set, he let me shoot cans off fence posts. We were shooting at a distance about four times greater than the little can was from me.

“But isn’t it…”

Steve cut me off. “Just shoot.”

I clumsily put on the ear protection Steve had lent me, and I felt a tad mickey-mousish with the giant lumps over my ears. I grinned at Steve. He was getting impatient, so I tried to adopt a more somber expression. I positioned the pistol in my hands, trying to get a good grip, and aimed, using the little doodads on the top of the gun. I started to pull the trigger, but the gun swayed, my aim ruined. I paused, re-aimed, adjusting for the high action on the trigger. Slowly, I tightened my finger and, with a loud bang, the can popped off the rock.

Steve said nothing, just walked up and repositioned the can on the rock.

“What now?” I asked.

“Shoot.”

I aimed, shot, and the can fell off the rock.

He repositioned it. “Again,” he commanded.

I did as instructed, and the can toppled off the rock.

“Again.”

I was starting to feel as if I was doing something wrong. Am I not hitting the can squarely? Should I try to hit it perfectly in the center? On my few next shots, I aimed precisely, and, each time, the can dutifully dropped off the rock. Steve was silent. I couldn’t tell if I was doing better or worse.

“What now?” I asked.

“Just keep shooting.”

“But why? Shouldn’t I maybe get farther…”

“Because I want to see you miss.”

“Huh?!”

Steve grunted, laughed. “You’re not supposed to be able to hit it every time. I just want you to keep shooting until you miss.”

With that, he’d jinxed me. I made the next shot, but missed the one after it. And the next one. I was flustered, and all of the bullets went astray.

“Here, you shoot now.” I handed the gun back to him, massaged my finger, which was numb from the trigger.

Steve fired a few rounds, explaining to me between shots about something called muscle memory, how your hand involuntarily remembers the gun’s recoil, how this affects your shooting over time. It was a beautiful evening, and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention.

“Why don’t we go over there, into the woods?” I asked.

The land was Steve’s family’s, part of the homestead. When he was young, he spent the summers there, making hay, picking berries, playing in the woods with his cousins.

I forged ahead through the tall grasses, trying to clear a path. Steve followed. After a while, I didn’t hear him behind me, so I stopped, turned around. He was several yards back, winded, tired. His last chemo treatment had been a week ago, and he was still drained of energy. I walked toward him and suggested we go back to the car before it got dark.

“No, let’s go in a bit farther.”

I headed toward where he’d said the apple trees were, climbed onto the lower branches, stretched to grab a few apples, and knocked them to the ground. I hopped down, collected the apples, and waded back in the waist-high grass to where Steve stood, watching me. We each rubbed an apple, bit into it. Mine was tart, crisp. Macintosh-ish, but not quite. I tucked the remaining apples into my pockets and led the way back to the car, pausing occasionally to let Steve catch up.

We didn’t say much as we walked, just enjoyed the evening sounds, the waning light. When we got to his car, he busied himself putting our things inside. I rested on the hood, staring into the woods. He joined me there, and I retrieved the last two apples from my pockets, handed one to him. We sat, quietly crunching the fruit, enjoying autumn’s last bit of sweetness. Eventually, insects swarmed around us. I swatted mosquitoes for a while, then clamored for the safety of the car. Steve slid into the driver’s seat, silently. He didn’t turn the key. I lay my head on his shoulder, wrapped my arm around his, felt his warmth. A minute later, when I looked up, his eyes were closed. I spoke, and his eyes fluttered open. He started the car and carefully backed onto the road, turned west, headed back to the city.

I squeezed his hand.

“Thank you.”

birthday wishes

2009-06-02T18:00:00.001-05:00

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows, we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there, so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering—waiting, waiting for the station.

“When we reach the station, that will be it!” we cry. “When I’m 18.” “When I buy a new 450L Mercedes Benz!” “When I put the last kid through college.” “When I have paid off the mortgage!” “When I get a promotion.” “When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after!”…

... Sooner or later, we must all realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

“Relish the moment” is a good motto [. . . .] It isn’t the burdens of today that drive [people] mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are the twin thieves who rob us of today.

So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

--Robert J. Hastings

I’m not particularly fond of sentimental quotes, but I found this while looking for a card for my niece’s birthday. McKayla, who turns ten today, isn’t the one who needs to read this. She has a healthy fondness for the journey—the barefoot, ice-cream-filled, skipping through the flowers, dancing with her sisters journey.

When Kayla was about two years old, my mother drove her home from daycare one day. Kayla, a vigilant backseat driver, noted that her grandmother was speeding. “Slow down, Mary!” she bellowed from her car seat.

Happy birthday, Kayla. May you always relish the journey.

And slow down, Mary. The station will come soon enough.

the fig leaf police

2009-05-29T13:32:00.000-05:00

My mother stopped in to nab cans of soup and stock from the pantry cupboard, to claim an ice cream bucket of fresh-picked asparagus as her own. I was having coffee, finishing my breakfast, and we chatted.

Mid-conversation, I noticed her staring at the fridge.

“Why do you have this naked boy here?”

She was referring to David, the statute, in magnet form.

“It’s David, mom.”

She took another magnet – one fashioned to look like a bouquet of flowers – and placed it over David’s not-so-private privates.

farm porn

2009-05-28T17:28:00.001-05:00

Because not all farmers are early to rise, I was still in bed when the mailman slowed to a crunchy stop on the gravel. I heard the electronic whir of his car window, listened as the box opened, scraped shut. And Jeff drove off.

“I’ve got mail!”

Clad in flip-flops and pajamas, I wandered out to the mailbox and rifled through the pile of mail. Jeff had delivered Ag Pride (“Nebraska Cowboy finds niche as custom hat maker”), the Menards flyer, and The Farmer & Rancher Exchange. The Exchange sounded promising. Does it cater to people wishing to purchase or exchange farmers and ranchers? Sadly, it does not; the publication is geared toward livestock auctions and sales of trucks and farm equipment.

And semen. $18-25, depending on volume. The fine print below the bull’s sagging testicles reads, “See the video on our website.”

Ok, so maybe it was a good mail day after all.

life, huh?

2009-05-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

Besides being the Mount Rushmore State, South Dakota is a state of contradictions. A “Choose Life!” sign borders a vast swath of mesh cages in which pheasants are raised – to be released and shot for sport. Thousands of acres of crops in the fields, but so little fresh food in the produce section.

don't throw that away!

2009-05-23T15:41:00.001-05:00

My father never gets rid of anything. As a result, his shop is overflowing. (Note that it is a "shop" only in name. In reality, there's no space in the building where you could fix things; rather, you go inside to hunt for tools, then take the tools outside.) When my father replaces spark plugs, he puts the old ones in the box the new ones came in and tucks them away in a corner.

When I was in the shop, I spied a piece of ornamental chain hanging on the wall, remnants of what looked to be an old lamp. “Can I use that chain to hang up plants?”

“Sure.”

I climbed a pile of rubble, gingerly balancing on scrap metal, greasy truck parts, pieces of pieces of farm equipment. I reached up and grabbed the chain, which was hanging from a rusty nail, attached to pieces of an old light fixture.

“Oh, that was a lamp,” my dad commented. “I bet you could use those parts to fix that light of yours that’s broken.”

I looked at it skeptically. There were two metal hoops, a spigot for a light bulb. And a cord, snipped off at one end, onto which the chain was fastened.

“Um, dad, the cord doesn’t seem to be attached.”

He examined the cord—-only about a foot long, cleanly sliced off—-and begrudgingly admitted that it might not work.

I separated the metal hoops from the chain and cord contraption, and without asking, knew enough to hang the metal hoops back on the wall.

family dictionary

2009-05-22T15:27:00.000-05:00

rumpity-rump – n. The sound made when you run over something with your car.

Word History: My grandmother was driving and came across a litter of piglets in the road. She couldn’t slow down in time to avoid them. “Well, what could I do?! Rumpity-rump!”

Do cat burglars burgle cats?

2009-05-21T15:44:00.001-05:00

I awoke at eight, donned my fluffy white robe, and flip-flopped into the garage to check on the peeps. They cheeped good morning and I set about giving them a sprinkling of food (suitable for “show chickens,” which is good, as I intend to show them off a lot), and taking their water dish outside to wash it. I turned off the faucet and headed back to the door. Turned the knob. Nothing. I looked up, saw rain clouds in the west, and panicked for a moment.

The nearest neighbors live about half a mile north. I don’t know them, though, and I didn’t really want to show up at their door in my robe. The next-nearest neighbors live three-quarters of a mile south. I know them, and I don’t think they would mind if I showed up on their porch in my robe and flip-flops. However, I was fairly certain that anyone who drove by as I was walking might think I was insane.

I eyed the house, thought of my peeping cheeps, wondered how long they could survive without water. “I have to get inside,” I thought.

I pulled a wrought-iron table over to my bedroom window, tried to ascertain if it would hold my weight. (The only way to ascertain this was to climb onto the table.) I stood up, peered into my bedroom. Kitty was sitting on my pillows, her nose pressed against the screen, watching me.

“Mew.”

It’s a shame I never taught her to open doors.

The screen was securely fastened, so all I could do was stare into my room and wish I was still curled up in bed. I climbed down from the table, went off in search of tools. My robe flapped in the wind as I looked for old nails on the ground, searched desperately for a scrap of wire. A car drove by, and I ducked behind a tree. Eventually I found a bit of wire. I climbed back onto the table and, as kitty watched, I unfastened the screen, hoisted myself inside, and tumbled onto the bed.

I watered the peeps, refastened the screen, and added a new item to the To Do list:

Spare Key.

peep!

2009-05-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

I’ve got baby chickens! Cheeps! Baby peeps! eep eeeeep!

Weeks ago, my eldest niece and I fawned over day-old chicks at Tractor Supply Company. Reverting to adolescence, I pleaded with my mother. “Mom, can we get chickens?” My niece joined in. “Grandma, please?! Just one?! I’ll let it sleep in my bed!” My niece, as you might infer, has never been around chickens.

I had chickens when I was young. Or, rather, my mother had chickens when I was young, and I was tasked with taking care of them. I have fond memories of petting a very sweet brown hen, thinking my attention would make her lay more eggs. I have less fond memories of being attacked by a loud, vicious rooster. (My mother tells me that the chickens gave me lice, but I seem to have mostly blocked this out of my memory. I vaguely recall a traumatic period when my teddy bear, Rusty, had to be washed and imprisoned in a plastic bag for a period of time. I guess this was the lice incident.)

Lice notwithstanding, two days ago, I convinced my mother to get me an early birthday present: eight pullets. Two California Whites, two Production Reds, two Americanas, and two Silver Laced Wyandotte. To the non-chicken-farmer, this translates to two yellow chicks with black spots, two peach-colored peeps, and four balls of brown and black fluff. They’re all girls, so I won’t have a repeat of the rooster attack, but it also means I can’t take one to a party and ask people if they want to see my cock.

Yesterday I was torn; I wanted to sit and admire the peeps, but I needed to dig up a flower bed in front of the house. So I took the peeps outside to work with me. After adjusting to the wind, which whips mercilessly across my yard, the peeps set to work. Ants! Peck peck peck! A baby worm! I sprinkled lilac flowers near the cheeps, and one baby hen grabbed a clump of purple blossoms, took off running. The others peeped loudly, chased after her like a pack of desperate Midwestern bridesmaids, trying to nab the tiny bouquet. Minutes after the excitement, they were all fast asleep, eight puffs of fluff tucked into pockets of grass.

By mid-afternoon, the peeps were following me around while I worked, eager to nab the bugs I exposed with my shovel. When I rested, they gathered around me, hopped on my lap, cheeped merrily.

I have visions of building a grand egg-mobile, a coop on wheels, so I can cart the hens around my yard and let them fertilize the grass. And I have dreams of twelve fluffy egg whites, whipped light with sugar and flour, baked to perfection. I don’t believe in heaven, but if I did, angel food cake would feature prominently.

exercise? ha!

2009-05-20T15:21:00.002-05:00

My mother called to tell me that the results of her blood were great – the person who sent it to her wrote on it, “Great work! Keep up the good diet and exercise!” My mother scoffed. “Exercise! I don’t exercise!”

I laughed. My mother works constantly. She hauls around rocks, planters, concrete. She laid hundreds of pavers in her garden to create a patio and walkway. Yesterday we bent her spade trying to dig out a shrub. The woman doesn’t stop. Last night, after I suggested we rest and have a beer, she was still frantically raking up rocks, tearing out landscaping fabric, sweeping soil off the sidewalk. When she needs to sit down and relax, she sits on her industrial mower and trims a couple acres of grass.

“Sure, mom. You don’t exercise at all.”

summer sadness

2009-05-19T15:13:00.000-05:00

“You’ll be finished with school in a week! How exciting!”

Erica’s face dropped.

“Why would you be sad about that?! Aren’t you excited for summer?”

In a low voice, Erica spelled out her concern. “L-O-G-A-N.”

Logan, one of the teacher’s helpers for Erica’s class—-the one she “like-likes”—-will be graduating from high school, heading off to college in the fall, clearly out of the sights of a soon-to-be second grader.

It may be some consolation that she’ll be taking swimming lessons from Nick, the other teacher’s helper. I’m sure there will be no shortage of feigned drownings.

garden party

2009-05-17T15:18:00.001-05:00

I dreamed the other night that animals were dining in my garden. The pheasants and rabbits had forks, and they were daintily plucking my plants out of the ground. The creatures chewed, nibbled, sighed contentedly, wiped their mouths with napkins.

My subconscious may be hinting that I need to put up a fence. Or borrow a 22.

It is Sunday morning, and I presume my parents are at church. Otherwise, how to explain my mother not dropping over, sitting down for coffee, then starting on a new project? (Yesterday we enjoyed coffee from Honduras, then tore floral wallpaper off the kitchen walls.) Today I’m resting – finally – and watching birds out my window. I have my office desk set up so I can see into the back yard – a couple acres of grass, evergreens, and, in the distance, grain bins and apple trees. And more trees. The wind is blowing – just fifteen mph today, a gentle breeze compared to the forty mph gusts of two days ago.

I don’t know what the little yellow striped birds are in the backyard, but I have a reference guide, and I intend to look them up. I even know where the reference book is, as I’ve unpacked and arranged all my books. On the left of the main bookshelf are four shelves of nonfiction. Language on top, rhetoric, science, and literature beneath it, food and cooking below, and home improvement, religion, mythology, nature, gardening, and home improvement on the bottom. Fiction is in the middle and on the right, arranged alphabetically by author. Upstairs you’ll find separate rooms for law, education, and kid lit.

I am sipping coffee this morning, listening to the birds cheeping and peeping, admiring a double-blooming tulip I cut from my mother’s garden. The flower is splendid—deep red, peony-like, almost black where the light doesn’t reach. It has delicately textured, soft petals, the outer ones tapered to a tiny point, five sharp little nipples. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan has an entire chapter on the tulip, in which he notes that tulips look chaste compared to most blossoms—rather than unfurl their petals, exposing their sex, tulips keep their lips pursed. Only the most persistent bees could find their way inside.

I’ve consulted Birds of Eastern and Central North America, and it seems my mystery bird is a yellow warbler. From my window I can also see American goldfinches fighting, hear mourning doves cooing, watch ring-necked pheasants pick insects from the grass.

The house I’m living in is on my parents’ second farm. They bought the farm a decade ago, and I moved in and lived here for two summers while I was in college, gardening and farming with my parents. Since then, my parents have used the house as a hunting lodge, hosting groups of hunters in the fall.

Because the house is a hunting lodge, it is filled with hunted things. Taxidermist-arranged pheasant carcasses hang on the walls, roost on my bookshelf. A deer appears to emerge from a wall in a corner of my living room. Framed art prints depict hunting labs and pheasants. Occasionally a duck glides over a low spot. Cabins and pine trees adorn the curtains. Even the light switch covers feature pheasants in flight, cut out of what is supposed to resemble wrought iron. (When you reach for a light switch in the dark, it’s difficult not to cut your hand on an errant beak or clump of metal cattails.)

The place has a decidedly wildlifey feel. I am claiming corners of it, though, gradually domesticating the wilderness. The animals have moved out of my bedroom, and plants have moved in. A rubber plant meets you at the door, and jasmine blooms over the chair and bed. The puppy print came down, and a Yemen photograph went up. Baskets of fall-colored silk flowers found a new home in a closet upstairs.

The days are getting longer, but not long enough to accommodate my to do list, which is epic. I need to paint the kitchen, make yogurt, plant rose bushes and the rest of my garden.

And build a fence, before the dinner party begins.

ubblicious

2009-05-16T15:10:00.000-05:00

Before I put my youngest niece in the tub, I asked, “Do you want some bubbles?” A look of fear crossed her face. She backed up toward the door, pouty-lipped.

Near tears, she said, “I on’t ike ubbles.”

OK. No ubbles, then.

I lifted her up and put her in the bath, and, ubbles forgotten, lip un-pouted, she splashed and played with foam letters and rubber duckies. To her delight, we discovered that the pink one is capable of squirting you in the face. After her fingers wrinkled, I toweled her off, dressed her in her pajamas, fed her a snack, and rocked her till her eyes drooped. Then I remembered I had to put a heavier diaper on her before she went to bed. She was sleepy as I changed her diaper, so I spoke softly. As I adjusted the flappy things around her legs, I explained, “I have to put it on right, or your mom will make fun of me. She thinks I don’t know what to do with babies, which is mostly right. I don’t have a baby, so how would I know what to do with one?”

After a pause, I asked, “Will you be my baby?”

She looked up at me tenderly. “Yeah.”

me gusto

2009-04-08T16:40:00.003-05:00

March 2, 2009 - Pigeon Caye, Honduras

In the nameless little cafe, I overheard someone say "me gusta." I asked Jeff to translate, and he said it means "my pleasure" or "it pleases me."

"What would it mean if I said 'me gusto'?"

"I please me."

This is true, too.

baleadas

2009-04-08T16:36:00.000-05:00

March 2, 2009 - Pigeon Caye, Honduras

The cafe is unmarked, in an unpainted concrete building. I recognize it only by the yellow door-frame, the handwritten menu taped to the wall. The woman who runs the cafe, Maria, speaks only Spanish. So I stumble by, haltingly asking for dos baleadas and café con leche, throwing in ample por favors and graciases.

"Uno más café?" I sputter, trying to ask for another coffee.

"Un más," she corrects me, politely, smilingly. She is tolerant. And her coffee is good.

Her grandson is here, sitting in a little plastic chair in a corner of the tiny kitchen, patiently watching her cook. He looks to be about a year old, with dark hair, dark skin, and tiny, sweet features. Maria looks away, and he totters over to the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the dining area. He sees me, his eyes light up, and he babbles. Maria laughs and scoops him up, places him back in his chair. He wails.

When I peer around the corner and smile at him, he stops crying. He beams. Winks.

"Un más, por favor?"

cooking customs

2009-03-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Crossing the border from Guatemala into Belize, the guard asked Jeff and I if we had any fruits or vegetables. We said no. The guard pointed to a brightly-colored Honduran grocery bag that contained mangoes.

"No fruit?"

Jeff and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders.

"Nope."

"Did you buy anything in Guatemala?"

We had, actually. Minutes before leaving Guatemala, we spotted a clothing store and stopped in to ask if they carried aprons - lacy, plaid, tie-around-the-waist ones, the kind worn by all the Guatemalan women in the markets. Neither of us knew how to say "apron" in Spanish, so I gestured with my hands, showing where it would fall on my knees, mimed tying a bow at my waist. The sales girl was puzzled. She gestured toward skirts hanging on a rack in front.

"No, not those."

Hrm. How to explain? I gestured again, miming putting something in the pocket of the apron, brushing flour off of it. Her eyes lit up, and she led us farther into the store, toward the back where a bunch of aprons were strung up on the ceiling.

"Si!"

She used a hook to remove them from the ceiling, spread them out on a pile of clothes so we could examine them. We picked out a red plaid one with lots of lace and deep, ruffly pockets. I dropped my backpack to the floor to try it on. I twirled, delighted to have found such a wonderful souvenir. All three of the people working in the shop laughed.

"¿Cuanto cuesta?"

We negotiated a price, settling on fifteen quetzals (about $2). I happily folded the apron and stuffed it in my pack. Everyone in the store shook their heads in amusement.

At the border crossing, the guard questioned us further, inspecting our passports, eyeing our backpacks and rumpled clothes. J told him we bought some clothes.

"Clothes?"

I clarified. "Well, not clothes, per se. An apron."

"An apron?!"

The guard laughed, and his officious demeanor melted. As he handed us our passports, he smiled warmly. "You must be a very good cook. Enjoy your travels."

cheeto

2009-03-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

When we arrived in Antigua, Guatemala, we expected to be dropped off by the square. We weren't. So we wandered about, looking for street signs, trying to figure out where we were. Unfortunately, save for countless "Una Via" signs, none of the streets were labeled. It was mid-day, and hard to tell from our shadows what direction we were headed.

Eventually we reached a clearing. Ahead was a bus station, but that wasn't much help to us. Jeff noted that, at the very least, there should be cheap hotels near the station. We looked around. There weren't. We'd been on the road since 4 am, and I was tired, hot, and thirsty.

We spotted a woman and her son seated on a rail, waiting by the side of the road. Jeff approached them, asked the woman in Spanish if she knew the name of the street we were on. She said she wasn't sure. I tried to think of the names of streets in the guide book we'd looked at briefly in Honduras, struggling to recall the name of the main avenue that had a number of hotels on it. "Saint Luchia?" I ventured. The woman did not know.

The little boy, perhaps eight or ten years old, was preoccupied when we'd arrived, one chubby fist stuffed into a bag of Cheetos, the other hand at his mouth, as he licked off his Cheeto-like fingers. Upon hearing me, he looked up from his snack. His orange greasy mouth twisted into a sneer and he started laughing. We thanked the woman, I flashed the kid a dirty look, and we walked to the bus station, discovered the market. Though we were lost in the market, we at least knew what area of town we were in, and that several hotels were nearby. Besides, the market is a fascinating place in which to be lost. We eventually wandered out of the market, and half an hour later, we were settled into a comfortable hotel (on Santa Lucia - close, but not quite).

I keep coming back to the child's reaction. In general, when I've traveled, I try to communicate in the local language (often failing and looking ridiculous), and most people are incredibly helpful, generous, very kind. Despite my ineptitude at their language, I'm still able to get around, find what I need, do as I please. (Even Paris, a city oft-cited for rudeness to foreigners, welcomed me warmly.)

The child's sneer, though, took me back to the midwest. I recall an incident in a gas station somewhere on the plains. A man came in, said something to the clerk in broken English. The clerk made no effort to figure out what the man was saying, and yelled something along the lines of, "This is AMERICA. If you can't learn English, get the fuck out, retard." If I'm not mistaken, the man was trying to say something about the gas pump not working. Regardless, the clerk ignored him and went back to doing whatever it is clerks in small-town midwestern gas stations do.

I've witnessed other similar incidents in the US but, until the Cheeto-fingered boy, I'd never experienced it abroad.

Perhaps Yellow No. 6 is to blame.

travel notes, an excerpt

2009-03-07T09:22:00.000-06:00

Finca el Cisne, Copan Ruinas, Honduras.

This morning, more empanadas, topped with eggs scrambled with onions and green pepper, stewed red beans, fluffy cream, and homemade cheese. I ate two. Next we had pancakes topped with sliced bananas, thick honey. And we had coffee, of course, with cardamom.

Una mas, por favor.

A child is crying. A woman sweeps the walkway and foyer of the guesthouse. The rhythmic swishing of her broom mingles with a rooster crowing, a radio playing in the distance. The child is still mildly upset.

Finca el Cisne

2009-03-06T13:10:00.002-06:00

Copan Ruinas, Honduras.

The coffee plantation has exceeded all expectations. I am in the hammock now, birds cheeping, a rooster crowing, Jeff clucking at Issa, the black labrador retriever with weak hips. Carlos, our guide, is wonderful. The food is spectacular. The coffee is, as you might imagine, splendid.

When we arrived, Carlos showed us the coffee processing plant. Hydro-powered. He mingled with the workers, speaking with them in Spanish, running his hands through the drying coffee beans. One of the workers was shirtless, handsome. He watched me watch him.

Before we arrived at the main house, we dropped our backpacks off at the guesthouse, and Carlos showed us his vegetable garden.

"May I hang my wet laundry up here?" I asked.

"Of course! Just put it on the garden fence."

When we return, I expect my knickers to smell of radishes and cilantro.

Before setting out on our horseback ride, we had a little snack. Homemade cheese wrapped in still-hot corn tortillas. I burned my fingers. Melted.

I hadn't been on a horse in decades, so I didn't know how I'd handle it. But my horse, Maximo, was gentle and sweet. We walked, trotted. Maximo preferred to stay close to Carlos's horse, and Carlos explained that the horses were brothers. When we galloped back to the plantation, my hat flew off; only the cord kept it on my back. I couldn't stop smiling.

Back at the farmhouse, a bougainvillea bush explodes with bright purple flowers. Cannas stick out their fiery tongues. A parrot in the back yard squawks at Jeff. Jeff says "hola." The bird tilts his head, sticks his beak through the cage. Orchids squirm out of the cracks of trees. My orchids at home are dainty. These are rubenesque. One can imagine the trees' arms tiring under the strain of these buxom beauties. Even the fences here are alive - the posts planted in the dry season so as to sprout and become a permanent part of the landscape.

As we drive into the mountains to check on the coffee production, Carlos expertly navigates the little Toyota truck across flooded, deeply rutted roads. We rattle and bounce along. The new car scent pine tree swings wildly in the window. My ass aches.

The cattle are Brahman, floppy-eared. An impromptu rodeo appears before us, as the ranch-hands lasso cattle for branding. We sit on the fence and watch. Jeff takes photos. I scribble in my journal, a small, wine-colored book with gold embossed on its faux-leather binding. Carlos asks me if it is a bible. From far away, I can hear the hiss of burnt flesh, see the steam rising.

When we arrive at the coffee plant in the mountains, Carlos confers with the workers about a problem. A part needs to be fixed, a truck's flat tire needs to be changed. A trio of boys gather to watch the men work, but steal glances at me. Later, we start the descent down the mountain. We stop along the way, and women and girls pile into the back of the truck. They are farm workers, catching a ride back to their homes. The truck, loaded with human cargo, bounces down the mountain. An ominous clang arises from below, and a large rock appears in the rear view mirror. Objects in mirror are closer (and obviously larger) than they appear. A bag of electric fencing materials is at my feet. Yellow insulators, boxes of clips. Another variety of live fence.

Dense, impenetrable foliage is on both sides of the muddy Toyota. I can see why they call this virgin growth.

A stream gurgles, and we drive through it. Above the low hum of the truck, birds chirp, girls in the back laugh. The whole seat next to me is empty.

We came here, ostensibly, to see the coffee growing in the shade of native trees. Plump red berries, transformed into brown gold, perfect with a swirl of cream. But really, I don't care about the coffee. I wanted to see how people live here, away from the city, in the shade of native trees.

you want me to put them where?

2009-02-21T08:10:00.002-06:00

I leave on Monday to go back to Central America with J, my friend/lover/photographer/cook/travel partner extraordinaire. After a few days in Belize, we'll take a ferry to Honduras, where we'll stay on an island for the bulk of the trip. Then we'll travel across Guatemala, back to Belize, and (sadly) fly back to this wretched cold spot in mid-March.

J is obsessed with whale sharks, hence the Honduras destination. I'm just obsessed with warm weather, sunshine, and nude snorkeling. But I admit I'm a bit intrigued by the possibility of swimming with these whale shark creatures. I called my grandmother the other day to wish her a happy 91st birthday and tell her about my upcoming trip.

"Quaint, I don't think you should swim with whale sharks. They'll eat you."

"No, grandma. They only eat plankton."

"Sure, but if one accidentally swallows you, you probably won't get out."

She might have a point. What did Jonah do to get out of the whale? Start a fire in its belly? Or did I just read that in a children's book?

I'd carry some waterproof matches with me, but I won't have pockets.

It's EXTREME!

2009-02-17T20:13:00.000-06:00

Strolling down the street in Caye Caulker, Belize, J and I saw a sign for "EXTREME snorkeling!" How, pray tell, does one make snorkeling extreme?

J suggested, "Well, they could pour cupfuls of blood onto the snorkelers."

For the last several weeks, J has been sewing. It is what we call "extreme" sewing, as he is stitching leather by hand. He just finished his two pre-trip projects: a camera bag for his Nikon D-90 and a small messenger bag. Both are sewn from a wonderful, soft, thick black leather. Neither project resulted in much spilled blood.

Today we went to the leather store (in the leather district) to purchase accoutrements for one of the bags. While there, I was checking out the sale-priced leather. I found an earthy green hide that I couldn't resist. Granted, I have no idea how to sew leather, but J has promised to teach me. I'm now the proud owner of an entire cow hide. Over 49 square feet of soft buttery fleshiness. I could clothe a small family in green leather. If I knew how to sew leather, that is.

My last major sewing project involved a yard or two of blue fabric and a sewing machine, which was a gift from my parents. I think I had hoped to end up with a simple camisole. I recall ending up with torn, mangled fabric, cuts on my fingers, a bit of blood, and tears. Many tears.

I hope this project involves less blood. And fewer tears. And a nice handbag or two.

----

POSTSCRIPT: I read this aloud to J, who remarked, "You know, you might have warned me about your previous sewing experience."

You cannot eet them!

2009-02-16T10:16:00.000-06:00

J told me about a couple he'd met during his travels. They were French, and the woman had been a schoolteacher. Her comment on children:

"They are so naughty, but you cannot eet them!"

"You can't eat them?!"

"They will not let you eet them."

J paused for a moment before he realized what she was saying. "Ohh. You can't hit them."

"Yes! You cannot eet them!"

kazakh-whaa?

2009-02-11T08:18:00.002-06:00

When I was 19, I submitted an application and applied for a scholarship to live in Morocco and study Arabic. I hand-printed the application in Arabic script, sent it off, and then wondered, "Where exactly IS Morocco?"

I had some general notion that Morocco was in Africa, but I wasn't clear on the specifics. I'm also not sure how I figured out where it was, as I don't think you could do a google back then. I might've looked at an actual map? I forget. I remember, though, that I figured out where it was before I announced to my parents that I was going there.

"You're going WHERE?"

"To Morocco!"

"Where IS Morocco?"

*exasperated sigh*

With just a hint of condescension, I explained, "It's in northern Africa, just south of Spain."

Isn't it nifty how we can make ourselves feel smug over having attained a wee bit of knowledge that someone else doesn't have? And isn't it sad that I didn't know where Morocco was until after I'd applied to go there?

Before actually living in Morocco, I still probably couldn't have labeled any other countries on a map of Africa. Even now, I would only get about half of them right. And I didn't know jack about the Middle East until the US was threatening to wage an unfounded war on Iraq.

If I haven't been there, or if the place hasn't been in the news much, I probably can't identify it on a map.

Which is sad.

It's also unfortunate, because I'm taking a three-hour exam tonight that will - at least in part - test my knowledge of geography.

Moral of the story: I need to travel more. Or the US needs to wage more unfounded wars. I would prefer the former over the latter, and the rest of the world probably would, too.

So, in order to further my geography studies and save the world from yet another pointless war, I purchased a plane ticket. In less than two weeks, I'm headed back to explore a bit more of Central America. If you gave me a few years and unlimited travel funds, I could totally ace this mofo.

Cofi

2009-02-03T11:54:00.002-06:00

I just read someone's blog post in which the author complains about how selfish and toxic some people are, and how they ought to get over whatever bad things happened to them that caused them to be such self-centered assholes.

It would be lovely if that would happen.

But it probably won't.

Have you seen Amores Perros? If not, and you want to see it (which I highly recommend), please be forewarned: plot spoilers ahead.

From the Wikipedia entry for the film:

Just as Amores Perros itself is a film triptych, so also does its name present three interrelated interpretations.

Among the few Spanish language lines found on the official Amores Perros website are these:

Si tu historia acabó bien, explícalo en el canal de "amores". Si acabó mal, explícalo en "perros" (If your story turned out well, put it down to "amores." If bad, put it to "perros.")

To the author of these lines, amores is life's "goodness" or "sweetness" as in the Spanish aphorism, Hechos son amores, que no buenas razones. (Accomplishments are fine and beautiful, good excuses are neither.) And "perros" is wretchedness, as in, ¡Esta perra vida! (This wretched life!). Accordingly, with amores translating as that which is beautiful, pleasant and desirable in life, and perros that which is miserable and of bad luck, one true English language aphorism for "amores perros" is "Sometimes you hunt the bear, sometimes the bear hunts you!"

SPOILER ALERT - SERIOUSLY, THIS TIME

All the same, posters for the movie often pose the question, ¿Qué es el amor? (What is love?), followed by the film title, "amores perros," as a play on an answer, "amor es perros," meaning "love is wretched" (love's a bitch). And surely "wretched" describes the human-to-human love-lives of the film's three protagonists: Octavio fears and loathes his own brother and is abandoned by Susana; Valeria participates in the betrayal of her lover's wife, and Chivo is permanently shunned by his own daughter.

But all three characters have strong and dependable emotional bonds with their various beloved dogs. In this sense the third interpretation of amores perros, "amor es perros," can be understood as "love is dogs."

As you might have gathered, there are three plot lines in Amores Perros that intersect. Violently. None of them are what captured my attention in the film. Rather, it was a dog that passes through two of the plot lines. Cofi (coffee) is a large, brown, beautiful dog. If I knew dog breeds, I'd tell you what he is, but I only know two breeds, and he's not a poodle or a lab. The story, with Cofi at the center, as he should be, goes something like this:

Cofi runs away, slipping out the door when his owner's wife returns home from school. She can't get him to come back home, and later she is screamed at by her husband and nearly beaten over the incident, until her brother-in-law, Octavio, takes the blame for letting Cofi out.

Octavio's best friend is out and about and witnesses the aftermath of a dog fight. One of the successful dogs was still a bit crazed, so its asshole owner decided to sic him on another dog. He was going to let the dog loose on a ramshackle pack of dogs by a little cart - until the apparent owner of the cart and dogs brandished a machete. Cofi, however, was nearby, unattended. The thug and his friends unleashed the crazed dog on Cofi, and Cofi promptly snapped its neck and killed it.

The dog-fighting thugs were furious, and they were especially pissed at Octavio's friend, who had witnessed all of this and knew whose dog it was. The thugs first demanded to keep the dog. When Octavio's friend said no, they gave him a grim warning: the dog's owner would have to pay.

Later, we see Cofi's ownership change a bit. The abusive husband doesn't feed the dog, and Octavio, his brother, sort of adopts him, taking care of him. (Incidentally, Octavio does the same thing with his brother's wife.) Octavio wants to run off with his brother's wife, but has no money. Then he realizes: he has Cofi. Octavio and his friend take Cofi to the dog-fighting complex and strike a deal with the manager.

Cofi turns out to be a phenomenal fighting dog. He goes from being a sweet, charming pooch to a vicious killer in moments. He kills all the dogs he fights, and Octavio and his friend become quite well-off. Right as Octavio and his sister-in-law are scheduled to run away together, there is one last dog fight, a high-stakes ordeal in a private setting, with no outside bets. The fight matches Cofi against a dog that belongs to the original thug dog-fighter.

The fight begins, and, right as Cofi is starting to win, the thug pulls out a gun and shoots Cofi. The manager doesn't know what to do, so he gives everyone their money back and tries to get the fuck out of there. Everyone is leaving, Octavio and his friend carrying out the wounded and bleeding Cofi. Then Octavio goes back inside and stabs the thug, runs back to his car, and they take off.

A chase ensues.

And an accident.

Octavio's friend is dead on the scene, and everyone else appears to be in various states of mangled bloodiness.

The paramedics pull Cofi out of the back seat of the car and place him by the side of the road, presumably to die. He doesn't appear to be alive, but the homeless-seeming man with the cart and the dogs and the machete picks up Cofi and gently places him on his cart, wheels him home.

Meet Chivo. Chivo, while appearing to be a crazy homeless dude, is actually an assassin, a crazy dude who sort of has a home. He'd left his family when his daughter was young, headed out to be a revolutionary. He was later jailed, and when he got out, he had nothing. His wife had told his daughter that he was dead, and, at the time, he thought it was probably for the best. He was alone, and he had few options. The cop who initially arrested him set him up with a new gig - he would bring people by who wanted to hire a hit man. At the time we meet Chivo, he has told the cop that he is done. No more.

We see Chivo take Cofi back to his place, pour booze on his gunshot wound, bandage him up, and later, gently feed him. Then the cop shows up, bringing another customer. Chivo protests but ultimately agrees. This is the last one, he swears. He gets the info and, after a few days, heads out to check up on his next victim. Cofi, at this point, appears to be mostly healed. Though Chivo normally takes all the dogs with him when he goes out, this is a sensitive task, so he leaves them all at home.

Chivo watches his victim for a while, planning the hit, then returns home. Cofi greets him at the door, tongue a-dangle, tail wagging. He's covered with blood. Chivo feels his wound, which still seems fine, and then realizes that the blood is all over Cofi's face, his neck. He walks through his place and discovers a blood-bath. All of his dogs are dead. One by one, he calls their names, picks up their limp bodies, cradles them, wails. He realizes that one is still faintly breathing, and he runs with it to his old truck, hops in, is ready to leave when the dog spasms. And dies.

Chivo is, as you might imagine, distraught. His dogs were all he had. He goes back inside and puts a gun to Cofi's head. Cofi flinches slightly, but otherwise shows no fear.

Chivo does not kill him.

Cofi, after all, just did what he'd always done. That was what he was good at. That was his life.

It is this scene, so blood-covered, so graphic and sad and soundless, save for Cofi's breath and slobber, where Chivo has a moment of recognition. He is Cofi.

You might think - sure, but Cofi is a dog, and Chivo is a human. Humans have the capacity to change.

But they don't. Not really, anyway. Probably the most significant changes that take place in a person's life are as they mature into an adult. Selfish children can turn into selfless adults. And sometimes nice kids, being treated poorly, can turn into complete assholes.

Regardless, Chivo had left his family as an adult, abandoned his wife and young daughter to go fight. Then, even though this decision had left him hopeless and unhappy, he made the same decision again, when he became an assassin. Even when he tried to say no, tried to tell the cop not to bring anyone else over, he still ultimately accepted. He was just doing what he did. Doing what he was good at. That was his life.

The end of the movie (which I won't spoil for you, just in case you still want to see it) doesn't give us any clear sense that Chivo has moved on, that he will be any different. There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, but the future looks bleak.

Cofi is at his side, which is both a curse and a blessing. Cofi will keep him company, and will (probably) be loyal and loving to him. But he will also drive others out of his life, hurt others. It isn't that he means to. He just can't help it.

Most people believe that people can change. That we are not helpless creatures, that we have free will and can choose to act or not act in various ways. As I grow older, I am less and less convinced of this. Certainly, nothing is predetermined. But that doesn't mean people can or do change in fundamental ways. Once an addict? Usually always an addict. Once a liar? Usually always a liar.

If you are around someone, and you being with them is dependent on them changing, it is probably not going to work. Cofi will never snuggle with kittens, frolic with other dogs. He may love you, want to protect you and be with you, but he is, at his core, a killer. It is what he is good at. It is his life.

We cannot control what Cofi - or others - do. We cannot know why they do what they do. We may speculate, but we can never know for sure. We can only consider our own weaknesses, determine if we have dangerous or hurtful tendencies, and then try to temper them. If you are Cofi, for instance, don't volunteer at the humane society. It may not be within your power to stop doing whatever you are doing, but you can at least minimize its impact on others.

Hechos son amores, que no buenas razones.

Amores perros.

no loitering

2009-01-16T14:40:00.004-06:00

After two weeks in Belize, Jeff and I flew to Atlanta, where we had an overnight stay on the way home. I'd booked a room at the Hyatt, and, after a debacle at the airport concerning Belizian hot sauce, Xanax, and a wildly tattooed man, we took the train downtown and checked in to our hotel. The lobby dwarfed us. The 70 degree room gave us goose flesh.

Jeff used the toilet and then joined me on the bed.

"I accidentally put the toilet paper in the toilet. Do you think it'll be ok?"

"Probably not."

We went out for dinner. Bass Ale and uninspired Italian food, which filled my belly, but left me missing Belikin beer, beans and rice, spicy shrimps, smoky lobster. Surrounded by businessmen in suits, we finished off our pizza and calamari, depositing sand from our sneakers under the table.

When we got back to the room, we tapped the thermostat up to 80 and headed to the bathroom to brush our teeth, wash up before bed. As I was brushing, Jeff made some humorous remark, and I laughed, spraying toothpaste jism all over our hotel mirror.

In the morning, we woke, not to the sound of rain on the cabin roof, nor to the sound of waves rolling into the beach, but to carefully manufactured silence. We rose, brushed our teeth again, and went out. Again surrounded by suits, we breakfasted and tried to read the newspaper. We mostly failed, so I took the crossword puzzle, folded it into my bag for the flight home.

All around us, blackberries buzzed and people rushed. Within 45 minutes, we'd ordered and eaten. Having allotted 2 hours to this task, and having been used to it actually taking 2 hours, we didn't know what to do. We sipped our coffee, sat and watched as orders arrived, as people chatted or ate alone, then rushed off into the city, briefcases dutifully rolling along at their heels.

(c)2009

I like like him.

2008-12-19T14:44:00.000-06:00

My niece, who is six, showed my mother an ornament she made at school, fashioned from popsickle sticks, foamies, and tempera paint. Gazing tenderly at the ornament, my niece said, "Logan helped me make it."

"Logan, huh?" Logan is a high school senior who helps the teacher in my niece's classroom.

"Yeah. I like him. I like like him." Looking up at my mom, she asked, "Do you know what that means?"

"No."

She cupped her hands to her mouth to amplify her whisper. "Love!"

Cheese Bread

2008-11-27T12:50:00.003-06:00

In The Joy of Cooking, Irma and Marion offer a recipe for stuffed sweet potatoes, which are topped with bread crumbs and butter. The authors note that "[m]arshmallows may be substituted for the bread crumbs and butter. These are a matter of taste, or--in our strongly biased view--lack of it."

I always giggled over how the editors of what is probably the most encyclopedic cookbook--and, really, a fairly dry read--could inject little snippets of snark like melted butter into turkey breasts.

Most people probably don't notice it. But yum.

If snark or turkey were edible, that is.

Anyway, I couldn't let the holiday pass without passing along one of my favorite recipes. I know it's probably too late to make this today, but the bread is the perfect complement to leftovers, too.

The recipe sounds gross, and I suspect that Irma and Marion wouldn't approve. But it tastes like heaven. If heaven were lightly roasted and drizzled with caramel, that is.

CHEESE BREAD

8 oz. cream cheese
1 cup grated parmigiano reggiano cheese (You can use regular parmesan if you're a marshmallow kind of cook.)
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1 bunch of green onions, trimmed and chopped
about a dozen black olives, pitted and chopped (I use nicoise, if I have them.)

Mix the above ingredients together. Stick your finger in and taste it. Swoon. Repeat.

Next, cut a loaf of crusty bread (french, italian, asiago, whatever you like) the long way, and then into individual sized chunks. Spread the cheese mixture (liberally!) on the soft side of the bread, and bake at 350 degrees till the cheese is slightly browned. (About 40 minutes)

Bite into it. Burn the roof of your mouth. Swear liberally. Swoon. Repeat.

If you want to have sex with the bread (and, trust me, you will want to have sex with the bread), you should wait until the bread is cool so you don't burn yourself.

The Kitty is Hot on Fire With Curiosity

2008-11-06T08:38:00.003-06:00

I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom.

Of course, I don't have any children. But I do have a kitty.

My family, while claiming to espouse traditional family values, isn't that impressed by the fact that I gave up a lucrative job to take care of a kitty. Especially since the kitty's father abandoned her at conception, and he's never paid any kitty support.

My last day at work was Friday. Halloween. So, instead of a suit, I wore a black Michael Kors dress. Classy. And Donna Karan fishnet stockings. Super classy. And a witch hat from Target, which more or less cackles class.

That afternoon, one of my bosses took me out for a farewell cocktail. As we headed down in the elevator, he commented, "You know, Quaint, there are more subtle ways to celebrate Halloween in the office."

"You know, Bob, subtlety has never been one of my strong points."

"You make a good point, Quaint."

Since I stopped working, I read a lot, and I obsessed over election coverage, and occasionally I even did things that amounted to campaigning. Usually I just read, though. So I want to share this with you--a quote from a novel I read over the weekend, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I have tutored Little Igor to be a man of this world. For an example, I exhibited him a smutty magazine three days yore, so that he should be apprised of the many positions in which I am carnal. "This is the sixty-nine," I told him, presenting the magazine in front of him. I put my fingers--two of them--on the action, so that he would not overlook it. "Why is it dubbed sixty-nine?" he asked, because he is a person hot on fire with curiosity. "It was invented in 1969. My friend Gregory knows a friend of the nephew of the inventor." "What did people do before 1969?" "Merely blowjobs and masticating box, but never in chorus."

We've come a long way since 1969, and not just in terms of additional positions in which to be carnal.

In any event, the same chorus line applies:

Yes we can.

The Invisible Hand touched me in my no-no spot.

2008-09-25T21:08:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time, I had a brief encounter with a libertarian. He was smart, sexy, fun, and feisty, and I was fascinated by what were - to seventeen-year-old me - novel political ideas. Then I, you know, read a bit about it and realized he was full of shit and that libertarianism, while kind of a cool idea, is fraught with very serious problems.

So you know what's more annoying than Republicans?

Libertarians.

You know why? Because they think that other people just haven't heard about libertarian ideas, and that's why they don't support them. It's akin to a 12-year-old boy discovering masturbation and thinking he's the first person ever to experience an orgasm.

Also, libertarians naïvely think the ominously-named "Invisible Hand" (i.e., the will of consumers; also, who is touching my ass? STOP THAT) will somehow solve all our problems.

Like fatness!

You know how consumers fix fatness?!? They buy candy with tapeworms in it! MAGIC! Then they die from lack of nutrition, but whatever! SKINNY! Consumers are just so smart they would never choose things that aren't good for them! So starvation and dying is in, taxes are out, and we all live happily ever after without parks or roads.

The end.

Lions and tigers and pictures! O my!

2008-09-19T13:55:00.009-05:00

Gawker blogger Alex Pareene brought to my attention what some of "America's top scienticians say about fucking idiot flyover losers and their stupid voting." Pareene surmises from the latest research that "Conservatives Refuse to Believe 'Facts'" and "Conservatives Have An Entirely Different Moral Code."

*yawn*

Perhaps more interesting is a study suggesting (at least to Pareene and others) that "Conservatives Are Scared A Lot."

Rice University Political Scientist John Alford published some research in the creatively named journal Science about a possible biological basis to liberalism and conservatism. Basically, "46 mostly white Midwesterners who self-identified as having strong political beliefs" were shown "threatening images" ("a large spider on someone's face, a bloodied person and maggot-filled wound"). The conservatives were more scared, of all of the images. Or, as Newsweek puts it, "illegal immigrants may = spiders = gay marriages = maggot-filled wounds = abortion rights = bloodied faces." Liberals were not sensitive to the scary images. Which means they're biologically inferior, because they'd die if a gay spider tried to abort their faces to death. Notable problems with this study: small sample, also wtf this doesn't explain anything.

I take issue with Pareene's assertion that this study doesn't explain anything. Wanting to know more, I clicked through to the Newsweek article. It turns out that "scared" actually equals something closer to "aroused" - because what the study measured was how wet a person's skin got when showed the various images. So, conceivably, conservatives aren't scared of maggot-filled wounds; they're just deeply turned on by death and gore. Which seems right, considering the Iraq war.

BUT! Don't feel too uppity about it, you fearless libs!

Before liberals start cheering, however, they don't come off much more noble or nuanced. They were less sensitive to the threatening images, and more likely to support open immigration policies, pacifism and gun control. But according to the research, that's hardly desirable, since it suggests that liberals may display mammal-on-a-hot-rock languor in the face of legitimate threats. "They actually don't show any difference in physical response between a picture of a spider on someone's face and a picture of a bunny," Alford tells Newsweek.

ZOMG! Liberals aren't afraid of... PHOTOS!!!!!

This study doesn't really say anything about who is actually more fearful of, say, spiders or bloodied, maggoty corpses. (In fact, I would guess that reactions to actual spiders and actual bloody corpses is pretty consistent, regardless of one's political party affiliation.) What this study does seem to indicate is a difference in individuals' ability to abstract, to see a photo as simply a photo, and not as the thing pictured in the photo.

Certainly, photos can evoke strong emotions, but should they cause us to react physically?

Take, for example, various reactions to flag burning. To some, it is symbolic dissent - destroying something that represents a country. To others, it is a grave offense, somehow thought to destroy the nation itself. The latter response is, I think, a failure to abstract, a failure to recognize that a flag is not a country, and vice versa. A flag is a piece of cloth. Likewise, a photo is a piece of paper with an image on it.

A closer example might be when a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Muslim protesters set fire to multiple embassies, desecrated other buildings, and, all told, over 100 people died.

Because of cartoons.

To some, the cartoons were a grave insult to their religion. To others - those of us with some ability to abstract - the cartoons were ink on paper.

It is somewhat disturbing to me that researchers would equate a lack of arousal over gory photos to an inability to react to danger. This is, I suppose, part of the popular perception of liberals - that they are effete, ineffectual, unwilling to react strongly to threats.

Far from establishing that conservatives are more fearful than liberals, all this study shows us is that conservatives are fearful of pictures.

And, of course, gay spiders trying to abort their faces to death.

Which, of course, I'm not afraid of at all, because some of my very best friends are gay spiders.

"Hi, I'd like to fill my prescription for Marital Bliss."

2008-09-17T10:29:00.002-05:00

In Olivia Judson's latest article in The New York Times, "A Commitment Pill?", Judson discusses recent research suggesting that infidelity is attributed, at least in part, to genetics. Judson then ponders whether the "problem" of infidelity could be solved by "concoct[ing] love potions or pills that would alter brain chemistry and enhance the odds of a man forming a strong attachment to his lover."

This, of course, is after she points out that monogamy is incredibly rare - witnessed in less than five percent of mammal species, including "Kirk’s dik-dik, a small African antelope; the fat-tailed dwarf lemur, a small primate from Madagascar; the prairie vole, a North American rodent; [and] some human beings." Judson, an evolutionary biologist, notes that monogamy evolves when it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective - that is, when "stable couples are more successful at rearing offspring than, say, a female on her own, or a family group." Judson again notes that this is rarely the case - but STILL! - she views anything other than monogamy as a "problem" to be cured by science.

If monogamy is so rare, might we question whether it's something we should strive for?

Curious about the other monogamous species Judson mentions, I checked the Wiki entry for Kirk's unfortunately-named dik-dik.

Year-round, Kirk's dik-dik maintains close within pairs, follows each-others activity patterns and spends more than half of their time with their partners, although males show no parental care. The males guard their mates closely during oestrus and over-mark all female scent. This behaviour reduces the likelihood of other males attempting to mate, however, males did attempt mate with other females on occasion. Genetic monogamy in dik-diks is probably best explained by the behaviour of females: in contrast to many monogamous female birds, female dik-diks do not appear to seek to mate outside the pair-bond.

Sounds awesome. Is this the behavior we're trying to approximate? (And, as a side-note, might the female dik-dik's failure to mate outside the pair-bond be attributed to the boy-dik-dik penchant for pissing on the females to hide their scent? Kind of a dik move, no?)

As for the fat-tailed dwarf lemur, one researcher suggests that "parental care is the driving force behind monogamous living in this species."

After the little lemurs head off to college, though, what then?

Research on prairie voles is fairly fascinating.

The prairie vole is a notable animal model for studying monogamous behavior and social bonding because male and female partners form life-long pair bonds, huddle and groom each other, share nesting and pup-raising responsibilities, and generally show a high level of affiliative behavior.

Sounds lovely!

However, they are not sexually faithful, and though pair-bonded females usually show aggression toward unfamiliar males, both sexes will occasionally mate with other voles if the opportunity arises.

Sounds familiar!

As you can see, the five percent of mammals Judson points to as "monogamous" exhibit varying degrees of monogamy, and various reasons therefor.

Thus, before women start slipping their mates Merck Love Potion No. APVR1A, might we question whether all monogamy is good, whether it is always to be desired? And, as a commenter asks, "Are love and attachment, trust and commitment, honesty in relationship, going to become merely byproducts of an ingested medication? Women, would you marry a man whose monogamy was predicated on daily doses of a prescription pill?"

I would hope the answer to that is "No."

But really, I'm not sure.

Half-breed Muslin

2008-09-14T09:14:00.001-05:00

Andy Lacasse, a Korean War veteran and militant supporter of Hillary, placed this sign in his front yard. His neighbors are not happy.

One neighbor, Steve Rice, said "If you're going to attract attention, at least make sure your spelling is right."

Since Lacasse properly hyphenated the word "half-breed," Rice may be referring to Lacasse's use of the word "muslin."

To clarify, I turned to the Online Etymology Dictionary for some history of the word "muslin":

1609, "delicately woven cotton fabric," from Fr. mousseline, from It. mussolina, from Mussolo "Mosul," city in northern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) where muslin was made, from Arabic Mawsil. Like many fabric names, it has changed meaning over the years, in this case from luxurious to commonplace. In 13c. O.Fr., mosulin meant "cloth of silk and gold." The meaning "everyday cotton fabric for shirts, bedding, etc." is U.S., 1872.

It's unclear which meaning Lacasse intended. Is he saying that Obama is (half) woven from silk and gold? Or is he implying that Obama is (half) "everyday" and "commonplace"? In either event, the real question is: "What about the other half?!?"

For the sake of analysis, let's assume that Lacasse referred to Obama's Kenyan father as being the muslin half of his pedigree. That would make Obama's white, Kansas-born mother...

...polyester?

Obama is a cotton-poly blend? Machine-washable? Wrinkle-resistant?

Further, what kind of fabric best represents McCain? Considering his many wrinkles and his inability to raise his arms, I'd suggest wool.

Somewhat irritating to the skin, but it's more expensive and thus, obviously, better for the American people.

Not Blinking: The Power of Not Thinking At All

2008-09-13T17:21:00.002-05:00

If you make fun of Sarah Palin's Fargo accent, be wary. The woman will stick you in the wood-chipper.

Or, at least, fire you and hire one of her high school classmates to replace you. Today's New York Times article details Palin's strategy for rooting out corruption and shaking things up in Alaska. If she didn't like you, she simply labeled you a "hater" and fired you. (Palin seems like a familiar blog character, actually - the writer who deletes negative comments and has a banned list longer than anything she's written.)

In hiring new people to replace the "haters," Palin chose people close to her. "[W]hen there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency."

Childhood love of cows = Experience.

This makes Bush's appointment of Michael Brown as head of FEMA seem somewhat rational. After all, before Brown completely bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina, he ran something called the International Arabian Horse Association. Bush and Palin were apparently both in the same leadership class--the one where they forgot to tell you to appoint people with some relevant experience.

Palin's knee-jerk firings and hirings seem all the more suspicious when you consider her administration's stance on privacy. Rather than use the state email system for correspondence, she and her staff use private email addresses, believing that doing so will keep them from having to produce communications if faced with a subpoena.

Can someone please explain to me how croneyism and secrecy help to rid government of corruption? TYIA.

As for the "change" that Palin wishes to bring to America's libraries, she would like to see them devoid of books. Besides the bible, of course.

"[I]n 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book 'Daddy’s Roommate' on the shelves and that it did not belong there.... [Palin's campaign manager, Laura] Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

'Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,' Ms. Chase said.' It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.'"

Sarah, I'm sure, didn't even blink.

lipsticked trollop

2008-09-11T11:55:00.003-05:00

You know how Obama was giving a speech and said something about how you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig? And you know how McPalin's lipstick-slathered pit-bulls immediately demanded an apology because they believed Obama was calling Palin a pig?

"Mooooooooommmmmmm! Barry told me I look like a piiiiiiiigg!"

"Sarah. STOP IT. Or I'm going to stop the car RIGHT NOW."

Lest you've missed out on, say, idioms, for your entire life, the phrase "put lipstick on a pig" has been around for a while. And hey, even kids know it. Urban dictionary defines the phrase as "slang for when someone tries to dress something up, but is still that something. usually used on ugly broads, when they put on a skirt and some lipstick and well, they still look like the same digusting [sic] pig."

It's somewhat odd that the McPalin crew would sieze upon this as criticism of Palin. Of all the things Palin's been criticized for, no one seems to be calling her an ugly broad.

Pareene, a Gawker blogger, put it best, I think, when she said "frankly even though Obama clearly did not mean it that way he should now just continue on as if damn straight he was making a snide remark about Sarah Palin. Because you might as well paint Sarah Palin as a total bitch, which is, we seem to recall, what she painted herself as when she said she was a transvestite pitbull or whatever the fuck" (superfluous italics not mine).

Sarah Palin, if you're reading this - and, I think with your super-multi-tasking abilities, you probably are - please note that you need to quit being so goddamned sensitive. You know how you said that Hillary should stop whining about being picked on because she's a woman? You might want to follow your own advice.

And Obama? You know how you beat up on Hillary and it was fun? You should try that with this chick.

"Sorry about the pig comment, Sarah. I was going to say you look like a cunty trollop, but I thought it might seem offensive."

White babies don't take money, they MAKE money!

2008-09-09T22:08:00.002-05:00

Or, at least, that's what Sarah Palin will say when she puts her grandchild on eBay.

(Then, like the jet, it won't sell, and one of her colleagues will arrange for its sale to a business partner for a $600,000 loss.)

White babies, they is SPENDY!

Anyway, white babies aren't the point of this post. Rather, I'm concerned with the fact that retarded people seem to love Sarah Palin, and it concerns me, because there are a lot of retarded people in this country.

I saw a number of Palin's supporters interviewed, and one of them, when asked why she liked Palin, responded, "I like her because she doesn't use big words. I can really relate to her."

I don't mean to seem like an arugula-eating, wine-sipping, elitist snob, but will someone please stop that woman from voting?

Please?

kthxbai.

holy matrimony

2007-08-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

Last night, as I was feeding my youngest niece, her two older sisters were having a pretend wedding. The eight-year-old was the groom, the five-year-old was the bride. A teddy bear--Snowball--was the priest, though his voice sounded suspiciously like the eight-year-old groom. The two sisters marched arm-in-arm up to the altar--a pair of bar stools holding Snowball the priest and a cross propped up on my mother's bible. The girls giggled as they said their vows. Then a full-fledged mass began, and in between perfectly memorized lines of Catholic pomp, the two dissolved into giggles. I was still holding the baby, rocking her to sleep, so I asked the newlyweds if they would try to be quiet. The older sister--the groom--turned to the bride and said, "You need to be serious, you know. No more laughing. This is a SACRAMENT."

Then the happy couple kissed, giggled, and walked back down the aisle, showering themselves with M&Ms.