Happy Mother's Day 2019 ... or not

I actually hate mother's day. I imagine Mom herself started it.
She felt that once her own children started having children,
she shouldn't have to celebrate Mother's Day.

I don't know what her objection to the celebration was. I'm pretty sure she liked it when we all gathered at her house. Maybe she could appreciate sloppy little cards from actual kids, but didn't quite enjoy the flowery or jokey commercial cards she got from her
adult offspring?

Maybe she didn't like to be reminded of her own mother, whom no one liked. Well, and who liked no one. When Grandma Huckabone died and we were all hanging out at her house after the funeral, I actually hugged and kissed my mother for the first time in my adult memory (I was twenty-five), and Mom whispered to me, fiercely, "When I die, I hope people will miss me!"

She got her wish. Everyone loved Mom. I miss her every day.

In any case, I hate it when the clerk at Publix says, "Happy Mother's Day!" to me. I'm not a mother, and my own mother is dead, so fuck you.

Furthermore, why should it be so public? Shouldn't we celebrate our own damned mothers in our own damned way? Yes. We should. Imagine how odd it would be if Wegmans clerks said, "Hey! I hear it's your mom's birthday! Tell her happy birthday from me!" 

Also, I'm fairly certain that Piggly Wiggly employees don't wish every man a Happy Father's Day near the third Sunday in June. I resent the assumption that if I'm a woman, I must be a mother, when apparently the same assumption is not made for men ... even though men can be fathers and not even know it.

In related news, my buddy Mike recently asked me what the feminine form of curmudgeon is. I told him it's not a gender-specific word. Still, I bet in Latin it's barbara.

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Photo by Vivian Maier. "Untitled." 1962. Used with great respect but without permission.

The First Time

A First Kiss is supposed to be pretty important, but I really don't know how to decide which was my first. Was it Mike Staffler in sixth grade in that capture-and-kiss game we played on the asphalt between the two churches? Like all the girls, I'd been longing for Danny Chastek to catch me, but he never would.

So the First Kiss must have been with Bill Handy, right? Or jeez, was it Terry Washburn?

The First Dance was on a Friday night after the basketball game. I was in seventh grade, it was the twist, and the song was I Want to Hold Your Hand. I don't remember who I danced with, but I know it wasn't a boy.

I'm happy to report, amongst all this not-remembering, that I do remember the first time I Went All The Way. Thanks, Steve!

The thing is, we don't ever know when we've had our last. The first might be a big deal, but surely the last is an even bigger deal. But when is it? And how will we know?

It's entirely possible that I had my Last Kiss twelve years ago, and that seems sad. And what about sex? Am I done? Have I had all the sex I'm ever going to have? Waaaah!

And no more dancing? I went to the club last night where you could find me every Saturday for about a decade. But that was another twelve or thirteen years ago. I had to peer through the years and the fat and the grey – but not the cigarette smoke, not these days – to recognize some of the other former regulars. There was a beat I like, but I couldn't find anyone to dance with and I couldn't go out on the floor alone. So I went home, undanced.

Undanced. Unkissed. Unfucked. So are these the Golden Years?

Voodoo

Here's Jack. I'm not even going to add "in a box" because you've already done that and are feeling pretty darned self-satisfied, aren't you?

There's a long sad tale about the leash law for cats in Pinellas County, Florida, and about the old woman a couple houses over who called Animal Control against my beloved critters. I've spent a week trying to protect them without forcing them indoors where there are no trees, no lizards, no breezes or gusts, no rays of sun, no blasts of rain, no unexplained noises, smells, or movements to explore.

That is, I've spent a week trying to figure out how to go against the ordinances without getting caught.

The most radical strategy was to relocate Jack. He was probably the culprit, if indeed any of my cats are. There's no proof that it's my cats who so upset the woman. I don't think she could pick them out from a lineup, not that anyone could get a clowder of cats to line up.

My buddy Mike met Jack when the kitten was less than a day old, along with his six siblings and their one exhausted, remorseful teenage mother. Mike's got a huge heart, as anyone knows who's met him, so he was the perfect recipient of the transfer – of the return actually. He'd had the whole litter for its first six weeks, and he's got other cats, including Jack's mother who has blossomed into a strong, healthy, spayed adult with many interests both inside and outside the home.

So on Thursday night, I wrestled Jack into a carrier. He objected, hissing at me for the first time in our three-year history. I didn't hiss. I sobbed.

Jack handled the integration into Mike's household by spitting, growling, and swatting at everyone until he was finally let out of the carrier, at which time he engaged Rico (or was it Bullet?) in fisticuffs, causing Mike to oust all but Jack and his mother (whom Jack refused to acknowledge, despite her early sacrifices). The cat had calmed down by the next morning, so he was allowed to go outside again.

And he never returned.

That's where the voodoo comes in. I'm as rational as the next one (ahem), but when my heart's involved I'm bobbled and thrashed along on a tsunami of emotions that has me begging to overpay for any bottle of snake oil.

So when a friend reminded me of the principle of feng shui that reduces negativity by aiming a mirror at the source of negativity, I hung a couple of mirrors facing both the complaining woman's house and that of her cohort, who has only used anonymous letters so far. For good measure, I'm going to buy another one and aim it at the cell-phone tower which is way too close to my house.

Another friend told me to smudge the property with sage. I'm all for that, except (1) I can never get up a good head of smoke and (2) it's embarrassing to walk around outside like that, where everyone can see me. Telling you about it – that's different. You might think I'm just being wise or funny – or insane. If you see me do it, however, you've got your answer.

I consulted my spiritual adviser, who told me to put the cats in pale green and yellow. I'm assuming she meant light, not sweaters. She told me to repeat I trust. I trust. That, actually, has helped a lot. I'm to push fear away, and to not even think about what might happen. I suspect that's a sneaky way of telling me to stay in the now.

A friend in Minnesota reminded me about the giant lump of rose quartz she'd given me. That helps ease an aching heart.

I chanted the St. Anthony prayer for lost things, even though referring to Jack as a thing seemed ... cold.

All this time, I was alternately crying like I hadn't cried since my parents died, big rib-cracking wailing ... and breathing deeply, thinking of pale green and yellow, stumbling along, trying to follow instructions, trying to be hopeful.

Men, too, have their voodoo. An emailing man checked in often to inquire how I was holding up. That felt good. That meant I had allies, which was hard to remember when I felt so persecuted. Mike came over with Ben & Jerry's and Girl Scout Cookies. That had a calming effect on me.

And then Sunday morning, behold: Jack was at the kitchen window.

So Jack is back and the old woman is still a threat, but I've got my fingers crossed. We had a big wind come through last night. I worried about my mirrors breaking, but not about seven years of bad luck. Please. I'm not superstitious.

The Power of Now

One of the reasons I finally gave up smoking pot (on July 7, 1984, but who's counting?) was because I felt so pressured when I used it. I felt as if everything had to be done right now. That did not feel high or mellow. It felt horrible.

It still does, feeling rushed and pushed, and that's one thing I don't like about this culture of electronic speed. I have allowed myself to be sucked in to this stance of no waiting, of instant refunds and rebates, of self-checkout and ten-item lanes, of speed-passes for gas and tolls. If I have to wait five seconds – literally – for my computer to "warm up" or for Netflix to load, I feel ... indignant.

Yet I live in this world and am affected by it. Therefore, when my car's odometer started getting close to 200,000, I geared up for taking a picture of it – not for my own pleasure, but so I could put it on Facebook or, um, here in Nattering Chatter. At one point, I glanced down to see that I was a mere six miles from all those zeros.

And then I got to my destination and all was forgotten and, as you can see by the above photo, life went on. And on.

So last night, when I saw this Christmas light still up, I was delighted. Talk about not rushing! It feels like a secret, a hidden bauble in the knot of a tree. The Spanish moss is on both sides of the sparkling ornament, so it would be hard to see in the daytime. I love that the city workers didn't find it, and I hope it stays up there all year long. I'll be waiting – but not anxiously – to see if it does.

O Come, Let Us Abhor Her

I was at Publix yesterday when the woman ahead of me made her purchase, pushed her cart out of the way, and starting singing this Christmas carol as if a choir of angels were behind her.

The girl at the counter rolled her eyes, two other shoppers nudged each other, and I wondered what was wrong. Of course, January's three-quarters over, so I guess Christmas tunes are passé. Would it have been better if the woman had been singing a Negro spiritual in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Or maybe A Bicycle Built for Two for the upcoming Valentine's Day?

"What the–?" another customer started. He apparently didn't know how to finish, so he just wrapped it up with, "Whatever."

By then, of course, I realized that it wasn't the woman's choice of song that was so wrong. It was the fact that she was singing in a public place unabashedly.

I'm incapable of witnessing an anomaly and acting as if it's not there, so I said to her, "You're clearly a soprano. I'm an alto myself."

She stopped singing long enough to say, "Oh, I can sing alto, too," and began again, only in a deeper voice.

I left then because the winning lottery ticket was in my pocket, but I did wonder why we treat people singing in public as if they're loony. Would a whistler have been more welcome? I think so, yes, as long as he was whistling to himself, quietly, absentmindedly. That's the key, I guess. We can hum and mutter to ourselves, but we can't do it out loud for all to hear. In fact, that's what continues to be so annoying about cell phone usage. It's the out-loudness about it, the to-othersness instead of to-yourselfness.

On the other hand, aren't you moved when watching a flash mob? I sure am. Man, what a wonderful surprise! Such cooperation! Such community! At first, though, when the first singer or the first violinist or the first dancer starts up, people turn and frown. It's only after a couple others join the first that the joy begins to show in people's faces. So yes, as long as an entire group is doing something out loud, it's okay. It's when the loner does it that we think something's wrong. Eccentricity is only okay if a crowd is eccentric ... which sort of defies the definition of eccentricity, doesn't it?

Discomfort Zone

I don't know if it's Age creeping up on me with its arthritic knees and shaky memory, or if Depression is trying to drag a dark blanket onto all my activities, or if it's just Winter nudging me toward the fireplace, toward a nap, toward my interior. Whatever it is, I don't want it.

I didn't want to go with Gale to hear Ann Patchett speak at the Writers in Paradise conference, even though I did want to. I wanted to stick with my comfort zone: dinner with Mike and Ruth on a Saturday night, like always. Except that I didn't even want to do that, and so I didn't.

One of my New Year's joys is to note everyone's birthday and anniversary in my new datebook. When I get to May and don't note Mom's birthday, I stop and add up how many years she's been dead now and maybe I tear up and maybe I don't. I'll see that my niece will be thirty-seven in August, and I try (and fail) to imagine my having a thirty-seven-year-old child. It's a pleasant stroll down soon-to-be-Memory Lane.

I expect to be slightly busier this year, and decided to get a datebook with more appointment space. I got it early, too, when the selection was best. This new one doesn't waste any pages on pretty pictures, knowing, as it does, that so many of us mean business. But when January came, I found I just couldn't get used to this new format, so I went back and got a different desk calendar. This one, it turns out, is smaller but has lines drawn in. Ah, that'll help.

Yes, except that I can't get use to it, either. It's too, too ... I don't know. It's just too small or too large or too tall or skinny or plain or something. Today's mail brought me my familiar and beloved Engagement Calendar from the Sierra Club.

I feel better, thanks.

Delicate Balance

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, birthday. I'm aware of this because I made an appointment with a black friend who said we'd meet on his birthday, and because I at least skim each day's Writer's Almanac and it was mentioned today. It also noted his assassination. That's pretty much what I think of when I think of Martin Luther King – his death.
(http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/) 

I remember when Watergate was ... doing whatever it was doing. I thought, "Man! I hope my grandkids don't ask me about this because I don't even know what Watergate is!" And that's because I've never been interested in current events. Happily, I've never been interested in producing offspring, either, so those theoretical grandchildren have never queried me.

It was sixth grade that introduced me to the phrase current events. We were to bring in newspaper clippings about what was happening in the world. I don't remember ever cutting up a newspaper. I'm pretty sure I didn't listen to anyone give a report. I definitely don't recall enthusiasm on anyone's part.

I maintain that ennui to this day. I can get crazed about presidential elections, but only if someone around me starts it. Left to myself, I tootle around, never caring one way or another. Or I'll get an email from Amnesty International, become appropriately outraged at the injustice in a middle eastern country or a midwestern state, click on the TAKE ACTION button, and get back to my life.

I don't mind this sort of purposeful ignorance when it comes to pop culture. Who really cares about that? How is it ever actually important? Television comedians have to care, since they have to make jokes about current events in all the categories. I can't think of anyone else who should care.

My friend Ruth is eighty-five. She subscribes to People magazine, just so she can "keep up." With whom? Why?

Today, however, I feel really bad that I haven't kept up. It's all James Earl Ray's fault. Had you asked, I would have floundered, but at least his name would have been familiar. I would have come up with the fact that he's a black guy from the sixties or seventies who was either a politician or a musician – or maybe both.

In fact, however, he's the considered assassin of Dr. King. And he's white. Some time after a televised mock trial, according to Wikipedia, the King family concluded that James Earl Ray had had nothing to do with MLK's death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Earl_Ray

Fine. It's moot by now, isn't it? although it sure wasn't then. Still, I should have known. But I don't want to keep up. I don't want to be aware of current events, unless they're events in the lives of my friends – and they never are. I'm much more interested in Andrea's father's visit from the Amish man who performed chiropractic on one of his horses.

Still, when someone knocks me out and the EMT asks me who's president, I want to get it right.

◘  ◘  ◘

It's true that a photo of my cat Ruthie may be misleading since she doesn't think balancing on the fence requires any special skill. Still, she is gorgeous, isn't she?

Ain't Love Grand!

My new friend Paul is a furniture-maker, but he'll take other jobs, too. He came here to look at my fence, which is  s-l-o-w-l-y  toppling over to the east, threatening to crush the biker's grandchildren when they visit.

Alas, Paul he won't be mending and replacing the fence any time soon. The furniture always takes precedence.

I called him today, though, because my nine-drawer chest needed some professional help. The drawers weren't sliding in and out properly. That had been the trouble when I'd first brought the piece home, but by putting the drawers out of order, things worked well enough.

Then I brought the thing to Derrick Johnson (www.stankinstudio.com), and he put the drawers back in their proper order again and now they don't fit again.

It took Paul less than an hour to methodically figure the drawers out. Some required the removal of thumb tacks someone else had tapped down long ago. Some required the shaving of paper-thin curls of wood. Two of the drawers had to trade places. I myself would have applied some cursing hammer therapy, but that's why he's a furniture-maker and I'm, um, retired.

Then he leaned against the filing cabinet and we chatted. When it was time to go, I pulled out my cash and asked him how much I owed him. "Just give me a smile," he said.

Oh my. Do you know how long it's been since someone has flirted with me? Me neither: that's how long. I felt as if I were blushing and scraping the floor with my toe, but I hope I just acted like my own self.

Still, when I walked him out to his car (of course I did!), we stopped by my poor murky pond, another chore he's going to do as soon as the furniture-making lets up. He told me in clear, easy terms how to rig a filter that would sift out the algae in a couple of hours. And because I was still breathless about my smile, I listened to him.

Please understand, Gentle Reader, I don't "rig" things. I don't fix things. I don't figure them out. I either get someone else to do it, or it doesn't get done.

But as soon as Paul was gone, I was off to Home Depot. I bought things I didn't even know existed. I don't think the pond will be pristine in just a couple of hours, but I believe it will get clean.

And it's all because of ... not love, of course, but something akin: the first step of affection perhaps. Love lifts people up. It really does. It inspires. It makes us want to do better, be better. And humans must want that sort of encouragement or those sappy Christmas movies wouldn't last a single season.

I got that today, and now the fish – providing they still exist – will be all the better for it, and so will I, and so will you.

Bi_ch

Generally, I swear like an intoxicated seafarer all day long. I didn't grow up that way and sometimes I wish I wouldn't. My mother, who always had a cool head, muttered damn now and again, and my Dad, a lapsed Catholic / born-again Christian (oh dear), would let loose with an imposing, rhythmic Jesus Christ Almighty! a couple times a year, sounding like a wild-haired Moses calling fire down from the sky, but that was about it from Dad. I vaguely remember we five kids weren't allowed to call anyone stupid, and once my older brother was mildly chastised by Mom for calling someone a son-of-a-bitch. She pointed out that the insult was really to the mother, not to the person, and that was hardly fair.

My pal S.Y. recently deFriended me on Facebook because I shared a poster that had The F Word (fuck) in it. I didn't even use the word myself, but I guess just permitting it into our small mutual world was too much for her tender sensibilities. She, too, is a born-again Christian who has had lovers out of wedlock since her conversion. I don't know if the rules are hers or her god's (I suspect the former), but apparently it's okay to fuck, but not to say it – or even read it.

And that's fine. God knows I have my idiosyncrasies.

I used to drive Jimmy to meetings several times a week. I didn't much like the guy but I was being of service. I used The F Word a lot. Well, one night when he was sitting in my car in front of his apartment, completely ignoring all my body language and the running motor, he told me my self-esteem would be greater if I would quit using The F Word. I told Jimmy his self-esteem would be greater if he'd use a man's name.

That's when I started using The MF Word (motherfucker).

But "bitch"? I think it's a perfectly lovely word for "carp." There's more sting to someone bitching than someone carping, and that's useful. I don't mind it for a female dog, except for the adolescent sniggering that often accompanies it. I don't mind it if someone says I'm acting bitchy because, yes, I am complaining or, more likely, touchy.

What I do mind, and mind heartily, is the gender-specificity of the word as an insult. It's bad enough to engage in name-calling, but basing the word choice on gender is just as offensive as basing it on race, color, or creed.

That sophomoric tittering I mentioned up there? That's how I feel when I say someone's dicking around. I can't quite just say the phrase, but I'm working on it. I'd never call a man a dick, though.

Every time I pick up a needle, I prick myself, but I'd never call a man a prick.

With the advent of youngsters calling men and women dude, my complaints about gender would be moot ... if I weren't a middle-aged woman who simply but firmly refuses to succumb to pop culture. Of course, some men have been called bitch, too, but after the initial thrill ("Hah. How's that feel, you– you– ... uh ..."), I just can't endorse it.

This morning, I was driving down 49th Street South, headed for the French bulldogs I tend, and the driver in front of me slowed down because a woman on the side of the road was yelling at him. She wore a toxic-green vest and, done yelling, shook her head sadly. We recognized each other as having been in a painting class together, so she didn't yell at me, but she was visibly upset. Then I noticed orange caution cones on the lines in the center of the road. That was weird.

And then I saw people trotting on the right side of the street. Maybe they even had numbers on their backs. I'm not sure. I was too busy trying to stay within the cones and not run over the people.

They weren't even running single-file, and it got scary. I nearly ran into one woman and I yelled (through my closed window), "Get outta the way!"

She yelled back, "I'm in a race, bitch!"

I still don't know what the real story is, but I doubt the cops are to blame. There are plenty of fund-raising run-a-thons here in Gulfport, FL. The police know how to manage that. Someone dropped a ball somewhere, though, for automotive traffic to suddenly be in the middle of a foot race.

It took me a long time to cool down from being called bitch like it's my name. I told myself the woman probably reacted out of fear. Or she was raised by people who don't mind name-calling. I certainly knew it wasn't personal. It wasn't Barbara Nicolazzo she was screaming at. It was, um, The Woman In The Artcar Whom She'll Never Forget she was screaming at. Still, I know it takes about twenty minutes for the adrenaline to ease on out of my system, so I just fed the French bulldogs and came here to tell you all about it.

Let's Pretend!

First of all, let me make it clear that I don't have a television, so I don't watch the news. I don't read newspapers. I don't check the news online. My only source of information is Facebook. I try to ignore the politics and the lost children and every other sensational item, but every now and again, something sneaks in when I'm looking at elsewhere.

Therefore, I know this about Tebow: he publicly prays for victory in his sport, which I'm very certain is football. I don't know his team or position or first name or denomination. Some people on Facebook seem to revere him. Most seem to mock him. I wouldn't recognize him if he knocked on my door and offered me a free cat.

As they say in recipes, set aside.

Last night, I was with friends at Eckerd College, listening to Andre Dubus III read and speak. Among other things, he wrote House of Fog and Sand. Apparently there was a big football game going on. He and the master of ceremonies Dennis LeHane (Shutter Island) joked about rushing through the evening in order to catch the game. In fact, at one point, an audience member's electronic device made enough noise to catch the attention of the men on stage. They interrupted themselves to ask the guy what the score was.

All of it was astonishing to me – the famous writers' interest in the game, and the audience member's complete lack of respect for the famous writers, and the famous writers not even seeming to see it as disrespect. Well, maybe it wasn't. Maybe the men were just enjoying being the keynote speaker and his host. The worst that could happen was that they wouldn't be invited back next year (fat chance). And maybe they felt they had to prove they're manly men like Hemingway instead of unmanly men like Capote. They snorted and grabbed their groins (figuratively) and talked about football. Or heck. Maybe they really did care about the game.

In any case, part of the football talk involved jokes about Tebow. The first remark was okay with me, but there were too many jokes. Enough already. Talk about writing. That's what we were there for (weren't we?).

Afterwards, a woman in front of us chatted while we waited to exit the auditorium. "Didn't you think those Tebow remarks were offensive?" she asked.

"I just thought they were excessive, not offensive. I think Christians are offensive."

Well, she felt public speakers should be more "cautious." I guess she was talking about being politically correct. I'm not entirely certain what political correctness is. For instance, if it means not making racial slurs, then I'm all for it. I don't seem to mind religious slurs, though ... oh, unless they're against Jews or Muslims or Hindus. Go ahead and slur upon Christians, though.

Thank the gods for freedom of speech!

The woman also said that Dubus (rhymes with caboose) acted as if everyone thought the same way he does about Tebow. She felt that was inappropriate. I think if I'm saying it or writing it, you'd do well to assume it's my opinion – who else's would it be? – and why, really, should I change my opinion to reflect your tender sensibilities?

Don't get me wrong. If I get a chance to blast you for referring to grown human females as girls instead of women, I'll do it. But that sure doesn't mean you have to do anything about it but laugh in my face (even though I do wish you'd think about it. Please?).

And there's this: It was Dubus's show. He doesn't have to care one whit about our opinions. He's there to give us his. And we're there to hear it, by the way. Why should he tone it down in the interest of caution, of political correctness? Goodness.

But let's go back to Tebow. My understanding is that Tebow prays for victory, and ... I don't know ... I guess he's getting it?

Well, let's pretend that there even is a God. Okay. Now let's pretend God cares about American football. Well, how does He decide who wins? Is it by the number of prayers sent up to Heaven for each side? What else could it be? So let's save a boat load of money and time and anguish and life-changing injuries, and do this. Let's set up a website that's perfectly secure (God will see to that) and just have people "pray" by casting their vote for which team they want to win. God would tot up the votes and made a divine announcement.

I have a friend who belonged to a car club for Scion owners. There were prizes for the car that had the most and coolest modifications. When I asked my friend what prevented him from making a modification he so admired, he said, "Money." Again, let's simplify. Let's just display pay stubs.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Now that we've had a cold snap in Florida – that is, now that it's in the sixties at night and only the eighties in the day (and with little humidity at that) – our windows are open. That means fresh air wafts through the rooms, stirring up fairy-light clumps of cat hair, which drift, carefree, until they tangle with others under the legs of the toy piano or line up together against the couch. That means I can sit in the library (shown above) and hear the furious and incessant squawking of a bird of some sort. With the windows closed, I might hear that, but it wouldn't catch my attention. Now it does, and it sounds almost like rusty machinery, which makes me think of Sarah Thee Campagna's robots (CyberCraftRobots.com), and I wonder what they sound like when they talk (not that they'd do it in front of humans – not yet).

There are other birds who sound more birdlike, chirping and tweeting, and it sounds like Spring again.

I can hear the little pond that Shreeram and Rebecca brought over to me. So far, I've only heard its tiny fountain splashing when I've been outside, but now the outside is in and I think I live in a Disney forest. Wait. Woods. A Disney woods. I believe "forests" are evil, and there's no evil here. It's all sweet breeze and cute squirrels, last-minute bees sipping at last-minute blooms.

And here's another thing. Sunday night, I was awakened at midnight by the sounds of lovemaking. It was my neighbors to the west. There's a tall fence and a lot of foliage between us and I almost never think of them. But now that the windows are open, I realize that we're only twelve, maybe fourteen feet apart.

First it was him, all rhythmic and grateful and urgent. Then it was her, high-pitched and yearning. I lay there expecting a denouement, but then it was him again, the same as before, only more so. It eventually ended, of course, and I could hear gasps and then quiet conversation and chuckles, and I felt happy for everyone – even myself. What a wonderful thing love is! And sex! Separately or together – how nice!

These people are my age, and I just turned sixty-one. She's fat and floozy-looking. I've only seen her in shorts caught up into a V between her legs, huge breasts fighting against a tight tank top, flip-flopping down the street calling for her white fluffy but matted dog. She herself has hair that's far too black. The guy across the street always yells at her for not safekeeping her dog, and she responds with a barroom growl. The husband is handsome in a broken, unhealthy sort of way, with the chronic cough of a smoker who quit too late.

But in the night, when it's cool and the windows are open, and the birds have settled and the fountain burbles, they sound young and in love and perfectly beautiful.

Bowled Over

I've been on a tear this rainy Saturday. I've emptied two bank boxes full of papers, and put most of the contents into the recycle bin. The rest has gone into the filing cabinet.

I ran into letters from my late mother, which made me sob my little heart out. I found a missive from my favorite ex-True Love. He said – paraphrasing to protect the appalled – I was the person who'd cut the largest swath in his life, and he'd always be grateful to me. Right back atcha, babe!

Having cleared those boxes, I turned, in unprecedented zeal, to the giant, nine-drawer oak chest where I basically cram things when guests are arriving and I'm not ready – junk mail, magazines, books, odds and ends that belong in the studio but are always in the office. I emptied three of those drawers and then moved to the other side, in search of receipts for my taxes which will be done in time to prevent imprisonment, or so my accountant and best friend assures me. But first I had to move things out of the way, and one of those things was a huge plastic bowl.

If you worked the night shift with me at the Widget Factory, you'll remember those wonderful Rice Krispie® Treats I made. Well, it was in this very bowl that said sweets were born. It was the perfect size for swirling the cereal into the melted marshmallows and butter. Most recently, the bowl was holding two big plastic bags of beads, large and small, all colors, many shapes, shown above. It's also in this historic bowl that one of my cats peed.

Well, one of the reasons I was so set on cleaning this room was to find the source of the bad odor, so in that sense, it's been a very successful day.

But here's what gets me. If cats have such a fine sense of smell, why does their urine have to be so pungent? Can't they make their statements in a more subtle fashion? My god! the least twitch of a tail is a full paragraph in Feline Lingo! Cats are so graceful, so quiet, so mysterious, you'd think their communications would would follow suit. The teeniest poof of pee should be enough to get their point across.

On the other hand, who really knows what cats think? I assume they're marking their territory when they pee in the house, but maybe they're actually saying something like, "Aw, I'm too tired to walk all the way through the living room to the litter box, so I guess I'll just use this bowl. Hey! I wonder if I can make my pee get right into those heavy plastic, zippered bags? I'll bet I can!"

I brought the bowl and its piercing contents to the kitchen sink. Half a dozen loose beads had to slip down to the garbage disposal before I caught on. I plugged the trap and continued rinsing all those shiny orbs. Happily, most of them were still in necklace form, so it wasn't too bad. Those plastic bags may never be the same, though.

I got out the flashlight and peered into the garbage disposal. Now, when David installed the thing, he assured me that I couldn't lose my hand in there. He showed me the thick disks that spin and slice, and I could see the circle of holes through which the chopped gunk gets into Tampa Bay. He was trying to ease my discomfort about garbage disposals in general, but it didn't work. I saw Fargo. You can't fool me. Sure, that was a wood-chipper and this is for egg shells, but the principle's the same.

Still, I dug out the little pellets and then ran the disposal. It put forth a cacophony that made its normal clank and grind sound like chamber music. It took several tries, but I finally got all the bead bits out of there. They're drying, as seen above, but now I'm wondering if I should have given them to an artist friend before I wrote this blog. Maybe I'll distract her with Rice Krispie Treats.

Romances

I engaged in a little four-year marriage when I was very young, and the only way I got through that last year was by devouring an entire paperback romance novel each day, accompanied by an excessive amount of Cheetos®. The books are so formulaic that the guidelines are actually written down, body part by body part, and available from, for instance, www.eharlequin.com.

I was avoiding my life in pre-Internet days, but I still knew the rules. A blond man and a brunette man would vie for the heart – et cetera – of our heroine. We orange-fingered readers would know within a couple chapters that the fair-haired man was up to no good. But wait. Maybe it was the dark fellow who was going to do her wrong. It got pretty tense, waiting to see if she'd choose correctly, and knowing, from the sweet experience of just yesterday, that she would make the right decision did not detract from the suspense, or from the subsequent relief.

But reading romance novels was a pleasure tainted with guilt. My mother was a librarian, for god's sake. There was a world map on our dining room wall, and a dictionary on the shelf. There was also a washer and dryer in this "dining room," lest you get the wrong idea, and seven chairs cluttered up against a table for four. Okay. Maybe it was meant to seat six, but it was always felt too small and, to this day, I'd really rather have a whole side to myself, thanks.

My point is that I was no more raised to read romance novels than to listen to country music, so if I ever actually enjoy either one, I feel bad about it. I feel as if I'm letting someone down – Mom, Dad, god, someone.

When I got divorced, I gave up romance novels, having lost the need to blot out the pain.

Nearly twenty years later, however, I had a co-worker who unabashedly enjoyed romances, and I realized that in my dirty little fling with that ilk, I'd never read one from the Queen Herself, Danielle Steel. So I bought one and started reading it.

I don't remember the details, but I do remember the page number. On page sixty, the blond guy said something that made me snort in derision. "There's no way he'd do that!" I tossed the book down in disgust and have never read another romance. However, that book – whatever it was – set a standard for me. I now give the author a sixty-page chance to prove herself. If I'm still heaving melodramatic sighs, rolling my eyes like a teenager, and talking out loud to the book at page sixty, I'm allowed to snap it shut and bring it to the thrift store.

So thank you, Danielle Steel, and happy sixty-fourth birthday. In a burst of meaningless coincidence, that four-year husband will also turn sixty-four – in exactly a week, as a matter of fact. Danielle has just published her ninety-seventh book. You heard me. Hell, most people don't even read that many in a lifetime. So good for her ... but I still don't like the genre.

However, there's a wonderful book with a major theme of writing romance novels, and the novel itself has romance in it, but it's not a romance novel. It's The Boyfriend School by Sarah Bird. It was out of print for a while, but it's back. Go read it. It's one of my favorites. I understand that's like the waitress saying, "Good choice! That's my favorite, too!" but I don't care. Go read it anyhow.

I don't know if you were with me when I praised Hannah's Dream, a novel by Diane Hammond, but the actual Diane Hammond commented on my blog. That was embarrassing and thrilling, and it made me a bit afraid of naming names. Even so, at the risk of conjuring her, I'm going to name a fourth writer, Joyce Carol Oates. She, like Danielle Steel, is prodigiously prolific. She also has three names which, for reasons known not even to myself, I always connect with romance writers. So I avoided her like, like ... like a romance writer.

But one day I picked up one of her books and behold! She's great. Dark. Bleak. Depressing, perhaps, but hey! she writes about my home area, non-city New York. I also love how she looks, which is irrelevant and enchanting. Her sentences are perfect. No blond guy ever says something in a book he wouldn't say in Real Life. And her stories don't require assistance from Cheetos.

Please Pass the Word

I think it's hilarious, in a non-funny sort of way, that we're told to use a different password for each account we have. Clearly, it was some twenty-five-year-old who thought that one up. Who can remember even three passwords? Not I, although I could have, years ago.

I had a file named PASSWORDS in my email for a while ... until I couldn't get into my email because I didn't have the password. Mister Google so seldom asks for it that I had simply forgotten it. Now it's all written down in the back pages of my desk calendar, except for the ones that are written down ... elsewhere. Probably.

A couple years ago, I got a letter from my bank. It said someone had been caught phishing in my account, and so I should change my password and, in fact, change the password of any other accounts that might have the same password. "Might," indeed. At that time, I used the same password for everything.

Now I have a different password for every account, and there are fifteen, at a quick glance. I voted for Gulfport for the Best of the Road competition from Rand McNally. There's a password I'll never use again. I'm voting for SHAMc – the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center – so they'll get a ton of money from Pepsi-Cola which, by the way, when its letters are rearranged, spells Episcopal. I pay my bills online, so there are all those passwords. So some I'll use again, and some I won't, but when I need them, I need them, so I have to keep track of them.

Today is my Uncle Eddie's birthday, except that he died on January 1 of this year, so it's no more his eighty-sixth birthday than yesterday was Lucille Ball's hundredth.

I know it's his birthday because Facebook said so. I went over to his Wall and behold! there are birthday greetings for him. One is from his great-nephew, who says Uncle Eddie has joined his late siblings, but another is from a Nicolazzo in Italy who may or may not be related, but who clearly doesn't know Uncle Eddie, um, transitioned.

A friend from my hometown in rural New York moved to an even more rural place in Montana, and he started dying of lung cancer. His wife got on his Facebook page and kept us abreast of his condition, and when he died, she posted it, and we all responded. It actually was touching. It was like being at the wake without having to take time off work and pay for a plane ticket to Montana, and a rental car, and a hotel room. Ah, yes, it was virtually like being there. Hm.

And so now I'm thinking that when we die, we not only live on in people's hearts and minds, but on Facebook, too. Unless your Last Will and Testament includes the pertinent passwords, your Wall will stand forever.

I'm not sure I want that, but on the other hand, it would be a sort of legacy, wouldn't it? I don't have children to carry on whatever dysfunction I'd have given them, so I'll have to settle for everything I've splatted onto the Internet. I have a blog with all my painted cars on it. That will just sit there, unchanging, while I'm off trying to learn to play the harp and walk with wings at the same time.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily want all the LOLs my Friends have posted on Facebook to remain with us forever, but my photo albums? Sure. Why not? I'd love for a great-great-great-niece to stumble upon the photos of mailboxes I've painted, and pine for the great-great-great-aunt she never had a chance to meet and love. One of my cousins posted a bunch of photos from the early fifties, of our parents (see above), and it's wonderful. We all get to leave comments and argue over who's who. It's almost like we're in the same room. Almost.

Facebook, Picasa, Flickr – these are all good ways to preserve photos, and everyone can see them (if they remember their passwords, of course), not just the one kid in the family who's the unofficial archivist, the one who has all the black album pages with fading snapshots and ballpoint captions, the one who has forgotten which was Aunt Erla and which was Grandma.

But surely all these cyber storage spaces will morph into something else, and then something else. Maybe Facebook will go bankrupt and all our shared daily profundity will disappear in the blink of an eye – along with the need for its password.

_________________________
Dad is the man on the far left, top, and Mom's on the far left in the next row in pink. With a hat. And a shawl. Have mercy!

To die, to sleep

No. I don't want to talk about Shakespeare, and I don't want you to think that sweet Benji, shown slumbering above, has died. I want to talk about death – not his – and not that I know much about it. There were two deaths important to me during my girlhood. One was a schoolmate's dad who had a heart attack at a wrestling match. His face was black when they carried him out. I went to the funeral home to see the body so I wouldn't have to remember that unnatural black face all my life.

It didn't work.

A couple years earlier, my cousin Susan's baby sister died a crib death. My sister, who was fourteen if I was thirteen, said she didn't think it was such a big deal that a baby had died. It's not like we knew her, right? I thought that was cold, even as I agreed. Now that I've fallen in love with kittens at the speed of a super hero, I do believe that the death of a baby is a big deal (and I know my sister does, too). But I didn't really believe it then.

But I don't want to talk about death in general. I want to talk about a specific kind of death.

I was at a stop light next to my friend Liz and she called over, "Did you hear about Mary Smith? She died in her sleep last Saturday!"

Whoa – she died in her sleep? The conversation seems to have to stop right there. There's nothing more to say. If she had died of cancer, we could have murmured things like Oh! I hadn't known! or I thought she looked ... bald ... last time I saw her or Man, I'm glad I quit smoking when I did! If she had died of a heart attack, we might have said Wow. She was so young! or Huh. She always seemed so healthy.

But when you die in your sleep, it's like you died of ... nothing.

"She died in her sleep."

"Yeah? What'd she die of?"

"Uh ... sleep?"

It's just too weird. You can't even talk about it.

And wouldn't you think a body would wake up in order to die? When I meditate (Transcendental Meditation™), I sometimes nod off, but then my body wakes me with a jerk. (I've awakened with a jerk more than once, but that's off topic.) The TM™ people tell me my body's releasing stress, but I think my body is trying to wake me up so I don't fall over and clunk my head on the cave floor and die before I've gone forth and populated the earth. So wouldn't my body wake me up so I could die? Why would I be allowed to just slip away like Little Nell who, after all, is merely literary? I mean, that's a pretty serious transition, isn't it? Whether there's an afterlife or not, I just can't imagine snoozing through such an event.

Do you think anyone's ever been born asleep? Really now. You're floating around in those life juices, just relaxing and dreaming, maybe humming to yourself like a cat purrs, smiling a bit every time you hear your mom's voice. Then that warm liquid suddenly whooshes away, to be replaced with pressure and squeezing as you're forced out of the lovely existence you've so enjoyed for your whole life and you finally plop out into a cold, drafty, noisy, bright world – and you're still dozing? You're napping?

Really?

And so I think there should be no dying while asleep, either. It's just not fair. It's not balanced. If birth is so traumatic, death should be traumatic, too. Maybe when we cross into death, instead of getting smacked on the butt to start our breathing, someone Over There slaps us in the face to stop our breathing, and then we start adjusting to whatever's going on in that place.

Even if it's no place.

Daddy's Little Boy ... er, Girl

I confess. This blog has nothing to do with Geri's 1993 Volkswagen EuroVan with Westfalia roof as pictured above. I wanted a photo, and she did just drive it home, so it's still new and exciting. I was able to put a dent in my fear of heights by sitting up on the roof to paint it.

But no. This blog is about giving boy names to girls because Dad Always Wanted A Boy. And gosh! Maybe Geri is one of those.

I was at Senior Stretches at The Gulfport Multipurpose Senior Center Foundation, Inc. (whew!) with Jimi (89) last Tuesday. One woman asked Jimi what her real name is. It's Evelyn, but, yes, her father always wanted a boy. Jimi has a sister, Larry. Her real name is Lorraine, but who cares? Dad always wanted a boy, so everyone knows her as Larry.

Marion (in her 70s) gasped and said, "My name's Marion but it's spelled with an O, the way it's spelled for boys. My dad always wanted a boy, so he made my mother spell it that way."

Then Rae (mid-60s) joined in. She, too, was named after her dad because blah blah boy.

Sheesh. These women, from their very births, were told they were wrong. Their very gender was unacceptable. Maybe with sonogram's early gender detection, the men have more time to get used to the idea, so maybe fewer girls end up with boy names?

Nah. I don't think so. All we've done is open up some names to both genders. Jamie springs to mind. And there are those names like Madison that seem to have started out as gender-neutral. Why not Hamilton or Washington, if you're getting so presidential? I don't like those names. Those are like Synovus. Or Wachovia. Or Third Fifth (or is it Fifth Third?). They're fake, like vinyl wraps on cars, when you could have actual paint from an actual artist (ahem).

I looked up Wachovia, just so I could despise it more authentically, but it turns out that Moravian settlers named it after a place on the Danube River (and what's more romantic than that?), and it's near Bethabara, North Carolina, and my only sister's name is Beth and mine is Barbara, and so it's all coming together now!

Beth, in fact, is Beth Ann. I would love to have been Barbara Ann, if only because of those dreamy Beach Boys, but Mom didn't think it was right to have girls with the same middle name, and Beth Ann got here first, so I am Barbara Jean. Oh, Barbara Je-ee-een, ta-ake my splee-ee-en! Ya' got me rockin' and a-rollin' ...

One of my Desert Island Books is Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. We move between an abused woman stuck in an insane asylum in the present to a gender-equal far-away future. In the future section, Piercy absolutely does away with gender-specific names. The people in the future – who go off into the wilderness as young teens and come out with names they've chosen themselves – are named Jackrabbit and Luciente and Bee. At first it bothered me, not knowing instantly if a new character was a man or a woman, but it ended up not really mattering. None of that society was divvied up according to gender. Babies were sort of test-tube babies (gasp!), and it took a trio of adults to get a baby going.

I read a mystery translated from Italian (if not from the Italian), and I found it very difficult to follow just because the names were so unfamiliar. And long. With so many vowels! Much as I want to shake my fist about genders and all, I probably really want something I can understand without having to think too long about it, or too far out of the bag, either.

I can't natter about names without mentioning my Aunt Ethel. She married my Uncle Pearl. Huckabone. You heard me.

Bored of the Flies

On November 22, 2010, I had a plague of flies for a day. The kittens, at seven months, spent most of the day chasing the fat buzzing buggers from room to room. There were dozens of flying demons outside, too. I don't know what caused this event. I didn't see or smell any rotting creatures or compost. The flies mostly swarmed around the front of the house, which made coming and going a creepy event. At one point, several of them got between the screen and the window in my front door. I used a housewarming gift from our practical Flahoos – a fly swatter – to mash them while they were trapped.

Well, as you can see in this Glamour Shot, they're still trapped. It's true that the ensuing months have caused a certain shrinking of the mini-monsters, but their spirtless presence is starting to bore me. I'm no longer interested, in a vaguely scientific way, in their slow transition to dust. If I could figure out how the window works, I'd push them out.

I recently noticed that if I can't figure something out quickly – as in instantaneously – I simply won't do it. I give up. I have zero tenacity. Some unloving pseudo-friend sent an email to her "intelligent" friends, according to the Subject Line. What do these words have in common? asked the chirky email. Listed were banana, dresser, grammar, potato, and others. And no, the email cautioned, it's not that they have letter-doubles.

Normally, I would just click my tongue and frown, cursing the person who sent such nonsense. However, that email also suggested that I Give it another try and Look at each word carefully. I can't imagine what possessed me, but I actually followed the directions. I tried. And I figured it out, and now the friend who sent it is one of my very best friends.

So I suppose it's possible that I'll be able to decipher that window someday and scoop out those dusty cadavers.

Speaking of things that expire, did you know that Dawn dishwashing liquid expires? It does, at least if you're using it with the other secret ingredients that make up the bubble solution used by Sonny Fenwick for his Bubble Truck (www.bubbletruck.com). The Dawn has to be a particular kind of Dawn, which I used for a while. Last night, I brought home my favorite kind, the stuff that smells like lavender, so I can think I'm at a tony spa while I wash the dishes (uh huh). Because my dad's spirit lives on, I tipped the remains of the blue Dawn into the fresh purple Dawn and behold: blue is heavier than purple.

Speaking of colors, here's a yellow flower. I don't know what kind it is, but there's another plant like it nearby, and one about three feet tall twenty feet away. They'll produce a single yellow bloom, one at a time, at the very top. Thanks!

Speaking of flowers, here's a rather scraggly pot of hyacinths I bought at Publix the other day. I prefer purple, but those were really sad. This white one apparently is spending all its energy on fragrance, which creates throat-quivering nostalgia in me. Give it a day or two and that aroma will fill my whole house ... except that the weather is so fine that all the windows and half the doors are open, so the scent will whoosh outside with gentle spring gusts.

I don't know if spring has sprung here on the West Coast of Florida. I realized for the first time this year that I don't know what the defining symptom is, for spring. At home, in Western New York, it was when the snow stopped, not that we'd know exactly when that was. I don't know what it is here. When we turn on the air conditioning? (Please say no!) When there's no threat of another thirty-degree night?

What if the appearance of disembodied squirrel tails is a sign of spring? Nancy said she'd heard that hawks will snatch up a squirrel with their claws and then use their mighty beaks to snip off the tail, since there's no real nutrition in it. That would explain what happened here. There were no other squirrel bits about and none of the seven felines were wearing rodent-eating grins.

And really, I don't know if hawks have mighty beaks, but I do know if that if I'm referring to wingéd predators, mighty's got to be in there somewhere.

I'll show more pictures of Jean's car on my Car'toos blog (which you can reach from this page, I think, but don't rush over there; I probably won't have time today) , but for now, let's just all enjoy this one.

First I used black and blue paint on her silver car, which she asked for. I delivered it to her. She was unhappy with it. We weren't able to get together to talk about making her happy for more than a month, a month during which I steamed and stewed and thrashed – and lost confidence. Not everyone has fainted with pleasure when they take delivery of a car I've painted, but most of them really really like 'em. I engaged in all varieties of self-doubt and -castigation, but when Jean and I finally got together, she told me her solution: paint over the black and blue, lightly, with pink.

Wha–? That didn't sound right. But I did it and it actually looks very cool and Jean is now ecstatic. I learn something with every car, but this lesson was more abstract than just a technique or product. Jean offered me more money, since she agreed that I had given her what she asked for initially. But when I saw how happy she was with the car, I refused the extra money. I realized that while I won't work for free, I really value the person's satisfaction. I want you to like your car, not just put up with it, like I'm putting up with screened-in flies.

Thank you, Mr. Whitman

A nineteen-year-old Quaker, Stephen F. Whitman, opened a confectionery shop (if not shoppe) in Philadelphia in 1842. Because of that, here I am, eating the first bon bon from my small Whitman's Sampler. I thought it was a chocolate-covered cherry. I don't like them, so I wanted to get it over with. It turned out to be filled with coconut, though. Yay!

It's Valentine's Day. Have you noticed? Sixty and single, it seems I've sort of forgotten about this day. I know there was a time, when I was young and juicy, when I really craved a Hallmark Valentine's Day. I wanted a boyfriend who was sophisticated enough – and rich enough – to give me the works: flowers, candy, a card so extravagant it would embarrass us all with its velvet and ribbons and embossed hearts and that one thin translucent sheet that protected those reckless, swirling words of eternal devotion.

Turns out those things don't require sophistication, although they do require more cash than perhaps ought to be spent. When I was thirty-five, I had such a boyfriend. A gold necklace may even have been involved. Whatever, it didn't thrill me like I thought it would, and I blame that on my father.

Dad, despite his solid Italian blood, didn't show any emotion besides rage until he was a grandpa, so giving his wife and kids a decent Valentine's Day involved collusive subterfuge. Dinner was usually eaten as fast as possible so we kids could get on with our lives – Scouts or Capture the Flag or skating (ice and otherwise) or reading or homework or whatever the season and various ages suggested. But on February 14, we didn't leave the table. We sat and waited for Dad to finish his meal. Finally, with a sheepish grin and a poorly executed stretch and yawn, he'd stand up. "I'm tired," he'd say. "I guess I'll go up for a nap."

And up he'd go, up our creaking stairs to his bedroom where we'd hear paper rattling. He'd clump back down the stairs and put the big flat brown paper bag next to his dinner plate. "Oh," he'd say, as innocent as bad acting would allow, "I forgot these!" And then he'd disappear up the stairs again.

Mom would open the bag and behold: five small Whitman's Samplers very much like the one next to my keyboard right now, complete with its bit-mapped rose. Oh wait. That's not bit-mapped. That's supposed to look like needlepoint, like a, um, sampler. Yes. There would be five small Whitman's Samplers and one big one for Mom. It's only this year that I paused to wonder if she shared hers with Dad, even though I've thought about Dad's Valentine's Day tradition for years.

I've wondered, for instance, how long he stayed upstairs after he dropped off the hearts. And I wonder what he felt when the year came when he only needed four small hearts because his firstborn – a son! – was off at college. I also wonder if he carried that tradition all the way through to his fifth child – a son! – who was (and remains) four years younger than the fourth child – a son!

Well, however that tradition started or ended, I know that it lives on with me. Even though I much prefer chocolate-covered orange peels from Schakolad (or lemon peels or ginger, if anyone's taking notes), I still want a Whitman's Sampler at Valentine's Day. And in the years when I want to share the love, that's what I give, too. But I always make sure Dad's third child – a girl! – gets one of her very own.

Happy Anniversary!

There's the best man, Dad's cousin Frank Butera,
then Dad (Mickele Edward Nicolazzo),
then Mom (Bertha Erma Huckabone – you heard me!),
and her maid of honor, her sister Gladys Huckabone.
The bridal party is standing left to right.

My parents would have celebrated sixty-three years of marriage today, had death not parted them fourteen years ago, when Dad died and Mom's Alzheimer's became screamingly apparent.

But let's pretend that Mom had remained her normal lively self for those last two years. Would she have celebrated the anniversary without her husband? I guess not. She surely would have noted the day. I still think it's awkward to talk about dead people. To say I loved my mother seems wrong, and yet to love someone who doesn't exist – at least not on this side of the Veil – seems if not wrong, at least ... ineffective.

Well, to say my parents would have celebrated is strange, too, but on their birthdays, I always count it up. Wow, I'll think, Dad would have been eighty-nine today. Yeah, well, he died at age seventy-four. Surely when I'm seventy-four, I won't think, Wow. Dad would have been a hundred and two today. Or will I?

But back to 1948.

Mom was a Baptist and Dad was a Roman Catholic, so they had to get married in a Catholic church, but she couldn't approach the altar. They were married somewhere else. The priest's office? A side chapel? A broom closet? I don't know. I'm pretty sure they had to sign a paper – or maybe it was only she – swearing to raise any kids Catholic. I wonder if she worried over that or just signed the damned thing. Seeing that my brother Jim was a premature baby, as many were in those pre-Pill days, I'm guessing she signed as quickly as possible.

And now, apparently, she's rotting in Hell, because while the first three of five children were baptized Catholic, none of them was raised that way. By the time my parents left this vale of tears, my Dad was a Bible-beating fundamentalist of some sort, a Brand X, or even Y, of Protestantism, and Mom was simply a smiling, compassionate agnostic.

But what an odd phrase is "rotting in Hell." The whole point of the afterlife is that we won't, after all, rot. What good is damning someone to Hell – or to Heaven, for that matter – if they're going to rot anyhow? Their punishment – or sparkly reward – will be too short, and I'm pretty sure we're promised ETERNITY here, whether it's a teeth-gnashing sort of eternity, or a harp-playing, sweetly swaying one.

Well, that settles that, then: Mom's not rotting in Hell. Whew.

A Bean-Counter

Since it's been so cold, soup sounded like a fabulous supper, so I bought a 15-bean soup kit. It came with beans, a list of ingredients I'd have to add myself, and a tiny packet of Ham Flavor. That was absolutely the only type on the little label, and of course I accidentally dropped the thing into the boiling water.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First off, I needed a ham hock. I sincerely don't know what that is. I asked a woman near me at Publix and she said she thought they'd be with the smoked meats. Oh. I was standing in pork (as it were). Right. So I moved over to the smoked meats department and there was a worker. I asked him about ham hocks and, busy and frazzled though he was, he pointed to the right place. Alas, I couldn't imagine cooking such things and then ... eating them. Whatever they are – pig ankles? – they looked like rolled-down socks of fat. With skin.

Well, the soup kit said I could used smoked sausage, too, so I opted for that, for turkey sausage, in fact, because I still feel separate from birds, although I can already imagine the end of that.

A childhood fantasy was to marry a farmer and collect eggs each morning, because being a farmer was no more an option than not marrying at all. I'd be wearing a bonnet with ruffled edges and the eggs would be gathered in a wicker basket with a big curved handle. Despite this, and despite the fact that I think chickens, especially dark ones like Rhode Island Reds,* are the most gorgeous birds on earth, I'm terrified of chickens and, in fact, of all birds. I don't know if I saw Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds at precisely the wrong moment in my developing adolescent psyche or if I had a horrid experience with birds so traumatic that I've blocked it out, but I think birds are scary.

About fifteen years ago, though, I went to the Arbor Arts Festival at Boyd Hill Nature Park, and there was a petting zoo. There were a couple show chickens and some show ducks. You heard me: show chickens, show ducks. I wanted to hold a chicken, but I was afraid to. A sensitive teenage boy, the curator of this zoo, soothed and cooed me into accepting a huge hen into my arms – and possibly my heart. I discovered an amazing thing: chickens are warm like us, like us mammals. I always thought they'd be cold, like snakes. Even though I've owned snakes and have felt great affection for them, it must be said: snakes are cold, cold like aliens.

Still, as far as food is concerned, I can feel bad about eating pigs (even as I love their meat), so I think and fear the time is coming when I'll quit eating them altogether (much to the joy of Nonie's moms). But so far, even with that Arbor Arts experience, fowl remain guilt-free eating for me. Hence, the turkey sausage.

I went home with the soup kit, the sausage, the onion, and the canned tomatoes. I measured out the water and put it on the stove. I almost dumped the beans in when I realized that I didn't quite trust the label. Fifteen-bean soup. Really? Fifteen different varieties of bean? That sounds suspect, doesn't it? That's probably not fair, since I myself can only name a toddler's handful of beans: kidney, white kidney, navy, lentil, split pea, garbanzo. Well, maybe I wasn't so much suspicious as curious. In any case, I poked around in the pile of beans, separating the unique ones and, indeed, I found fifteen. When I read the label, I saw that the manufacturer listed seventeen varieties and said that "at least" fifteen of them were used. Huh.

The soup was and remains delicious, although next time I'll skip the packet of Ham Flavor. It doesn't make sense to mix all these healthy, authentic foods, and then to sprinkle them with ... "flavor."

This weather calls for baking, too, and so I baked some pumpkin-curry scones recently, with crystallized ginger. And then some banana-pecan muffins with a nice, crunchy cinnamon topping. Today I baked chocolate chip cookies but, though I eat them by a lumberjack's handful, I don't really like them. I never have. I'll give them to Mike if any are left by the time he shows up two hours from now.

I think baking is a way to feel productive without actually doing anything. It's also a way to recall my mother, who died in 1998, and whom I miss so much. And it's a fabulous way to sabotage my New Year's Weight-Loss Plan.

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*This is absolutely the only breed of chicken I know.