the odd neighbor

My Fourth Moleskine Entry

2012-01-23T15:36:00.005-07:00

I have stopped drawing pictures on my cafe tickets...I thought I would do it in a moleskine instead...one every day. It hasn't been working out that way. This is the 23rd of January, and I've only finished 4 pages.

I'm putting them up at Flickr. So when you click on the image, you will find the uncropped image there.

The "haiku" reads:

In January
spring waits, warmed by a small bird's
imagination.

Berries

2011-12-10T13:59:00.002-07:00

Turquoise Metal Chairs

2011-12-01T11:31:00.005-07:00

When dad went to Nam, we moved to Sacramento, and that summer for 3 months, I belonged.

Near our home was a gas station with a garage, where four dark, greasy men hung out every day but Sunday. When they weren't busy drinking canned beer or playing roundball in the parking lot, they souped up muscle cars – GTOs, Impalas, Galaxies...

I never really took notice of the place till summer vacation started. One afternoon on my way to the park, I heard laughing, and glanced over. I didn't see anyone, but there was a coke machine propped against a shaded stucco garage, and it was hot out. I fished a dime out of my pocket, and walked over. Some guy poked his head around the open garage door, and asked me a question about the principal at my high school, and my answer made him laugh.

He asked me if I knew anything about cars, and I said no. He asked if I could help him with something, and I said yes. He said he'd buy me a coke.

He needed a small hand to reach for a bolt he'd dropped inside the engine he was working on. He handed me a pair of coveralls, and I climbed up into the hood. It was a difficult reach, but I was flattered that he'd even asked, and wanted to be useful to someone grown up. I came up with a bolt, and he bought me that coke.

We sat in turquoise metal chairs and talked about basketball and egg fights.

When I went to leave, one of the other men said if I wanted a job cleaning gears, he'd pay me 50¢ an hour for 3 hours work. So I stayed.

For the rest of the summer, I showed up almost everyday, and stayed for hours, rubbing engine parts and tools with gasoline. Precious metals, the shine might as well have come from silver and gold. But for every minute spent cleaning, there was another spent peering into engines while one or the other was telling me what this part did, and why that part wasn't working.

Never once did any of them come on to me. (I was a skinny 16, and they were in their muscled 20s). But they often teased me about how pretty I was gonna be when I grew up, and how I'd hafta marry one of them, cuz coincidentally, it was gonna be that long before any of them was ready to settle for one girl.

They talked about pot and corn tortillas, about Vietnam and women they'd probably got pregnant. They talked about what a great country America was and how they were voting for Hubert Humphrey. They talked about jail and men they'd met there.

I never quite understood all of it at the time, but was honored to be included. I never told them how clueless I was, because I was too embarrassed to admit my ignorance...I didn't want them to figure out that I was a fraud – not one of them. I just kept my mouth shut, and smiled. Cuz maybe I didn't need to understand. Maybe it was enough that they let me wear matching coveralls and sit with them in their turquoise metal chairs.

Birdly's stuck on the glue pot.

2011-11-18T12:39:00.002-07:00

Birdly's sticking to the job., a photo by catnapping on Flickr.

I drew this with ink and coloured it with markers. I put it up on flickr, and they have a "share" button, so I thought I'd give that a try and see what it did.

Have Yourself a Birdly Christmas

2011-10-27T16:50:00.006-06:00

This is done on an index card with black ink, watercolour, and white-out (for the hat).

A Spoonful of Cute

2011-10-03T10:39:00.003-06:00

I am going to try watercolouring. I have made some sketches of birds. This is one.

Coffee with Sugar and Cream

2011-09-25T11:29:00.003-06:00

hello.

2011-09-08T11:41:00.003-06:00

I think this little guy was waiting to see if the peanut was going to move...

Coffee and Birds

2011-08-31T10:56:00.003-06:00

waiting

2011-08-27T14:17:00.004-06:00

Tweety Birds

2010-11-01T18:33:00.007-06:00

an ink drawing from memory.

The Pipecleaner Man

2010-06-22T13:38:00.016-06:00

This is a fictionalized piece of something I'm still in the early stages of working. I posted it on a forum a few months ago, and have only made a few small changes since. There is a bigger story here of which this is only a tiny part.

To offer you the same background I offered them (since so much of the story is missing) - - -

1. When we moved from Lincoln Air Base to Beale Air Force Base, the Capehart Housing for Beale's senior NCOs was only about 75% full. I think that much of the housing had been built in anticipation of the 9th SRW (strategic reconnaissance wing). Many of these houses lay vacant for over 6 months before we moved in. On top of that, the oak trees (blue oaks) already growing there were inadvertently killed off by the contractors...who put in topsoil much too deep for the trees' roots to do their jobs.

That first year we lived there, most of the lawns were brown from neglect, and half of the deciduous trees (most all of them oaks) were dead or dying.

2. My father hated the man who moved in across the street. I still don’t know why. It might have been something as basic as territory…Sgt “Krestus” wasn’t in my dad’s unit…

3. Sgt. Krestus' wife died from cancer. And the day after she died, Sgt. Krestus shot and killed several birds roosting in his yard. It’s always been mystery to me why those birds didn’t fly away with the first shot…but then it was mystery that they started gathering in his yard in the first place.

4. The day after the APs arrested him for discharging a firearm in a residential area, my brothers and I went into his back yard…we found more than a dozen dead birds…we collected them to bury them in our yard…the other thing we found…was a sucker growing near the base of one of the dead oaks…new life from a dead tree. We talked about this guy for years…we named that summer for him: The Summer the Pipecleaner Man Killed all those Birds.

“Sgt K is dead.” It was October – a school night. And we were sitting down to a supper of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Dad stood at the head of the table, smug, pleased with himself, as though he’d done the deed himself.

“Sgt K? The Pipecleaner Man?”

“Yep. Day before yesterday.”

“Poor Sgt K.”

“What’d he die from?”

“God killed him.”

”For chrissakes, Brennan, don’t tell them that. They’ll believe you!”

“Good. Because it’s true. Eye for an eye, Krestus killed those birds, and God killed him.”

“More likely, he died of a broken heart.”

“He probably killed those trees, too.”

“Jesus, Brennan. He was only there for three months. Those trees were already dead.”

“He probably cast a spell on all of them from wherever the hell he came from. He cast a spell on those birds. He was a witch. God casts out witches.”

I slipped from the table, and looked out the front window at the Krestus’ old house across the street. The dead trees were gone now, blue oaks, cut down the week after Sgt K was arrested. And for two weeks after that, a van and 5-Ton stayed parked in the driveway while men in green coveralls and heavy boots chopped up the felled trees, put down new grass, and added siding and new paint to the house.

There were saplings there now. Sweet Gums with trunks no bigger around than a man’s thumb, two in the back yard to replace the oaks, and one in the front, marking the halfway point between the street and the porch.

Someday its leaves would block the view from this window, but today I could still see Sgt K sitting there alone, soaking wet, back against the door, his knees drawn up against his chest. He was wearing a dark blue robe, but it was open. And in cotton white boxers on cotton-white skin, he looked naked, but for the two black socks drooping in a pile below his bony ankles. He was crying.

That was August. Three months after he and Mrs. K had moved in…

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

As children, it was not uncommon for us to park ourselves on the sidewalk just barely out the Movers’ path. We were waiting for children. New neighbors always meant new children.

It was the middle of June, 106° in the shade. School was out for the summer, and we were all in our bathing suits just in case we should run into a sprinkler.

Sgt. Krestus was the only man we’d ever seen who was taller than Dad. He was skeletal, bony. And he was bone-white. His body was covered in a fuzzy sort of skin that stretched so thin you could see the corners of his bones, hints of pearl shimmering in patches under his knuckles, his elbows, and sometimes his Adam’s apple. Mom called him ‘wiry,’ and more than once we looked above the places he stood to see if he was actually held up a wire. When he moved he hummed, and when he stood still it was always at attention, a single strand of white horsetail on a slender bow, still vibrating from its last draw.

We waited as he helped his wife out of their Lincoln. She was as thin and as pale as he, but more grey than white. She was wearing a blue muumuu with large white blossoms and blue terry bedslippers. And a green silk scarf molded so perfectly the shape of her scalp that I knew she couldn’t possibly have hair growing there.

I must have started at this thought, because Sgt K looked straight at me. His eyes were a deep teal, set so close they might have been one eye, except for his nose, razor sharp and almost blue, a beak jutting two proud inches from his white face. Somewhere in its shadow was a mouth, but there were no lips to help me find it. I wondered if he had no proper mouth at all, and if it was a beak that tore the food from his dinner plate.

He walked Mrs. K to the porch, and in an instant, lifted her right out of her slippers, floating her up the steps, over the small porch, and through the front door. Dwayne was right behind them retrieving the slippers. He followed them up the steps, and dropped them next to the door just as it slammed. In that same instant, on a sunny day with not a cloud on the horizon, a clap of thunder shook his house and the ground beneath us.

Dwayne leaped from porch, landing almost in front of us, running. And as he passed us, we all turned to follow, and didn’t stop until we’d put both yards, the street, and our own front and back doors between us and man with pipecleaner skin.

Binny

2010-05-31T16:22:00.037-06:00

The last time I saw Binny Green, he was running after a deer into the acres of night lying between US HWY 77 and the Missouri River.

I’m not sure when Binny came, or where he came from. There was himself, his older brother JR, and his mom. And their car that had an engine in its trunk – a VW, pale blue and zippy.

They lived in a house that was only a couple of blocks from Offutt Air Base. Their dad wasn’t around, because he was stationed in Nam. Our dad was stationed in Lincoln, which was almost as far away.

J.R., named for his father (Simon Sr.), was 9 years old, about the same age as Dwayne. And Binny (Benjamin) was 4, which put him between 5 year-old Patrick and 2 year-old Hugh. This made them both proper playmates for my brothers, and (Binny, anyway) a babysitting opportunity for me.

Even in memory, Binny is a typical, bratty 4 year-old - rarely bored, and never still.

He almost always had something in each hand and in the back pocket of his boxer corduroy pull-ups. He was always rotating and trading out with each new find. He had a fondness for dead flies and cigarette butts, and popped them in his mouth whenever the wrong people were looking.

Both of the boys were truly blonde. Mom called them toe-heads. Mrs. Green wasn’t a toe-head though, because she used peroxide. Mom told me not to say anything in front of Mrs. Green, because it wasn’t polite.

For 6 weeks in a row, the summer of 62, we spent our weekends camping with JR, Binny, and Mrs. Green at Tuttle Creek, Kansas.

We were always happy to go camping, to leave, even for the weekend. Born to the corn, to the alfalfa and chickens, we mostly hated the city. There were no meadowlarks in Omaha, or morning sun. Just the city walls becoming less dim, before dimming again.

We always packed the Rambler on Thursdays, and left on Fridays just as soon as Mom got home from work. We’d always go to the Green’s house, and then move out together. Tuttle Creek, Kansas was just a few hours away, and getting there Friday night meant we’d have all day Saturday to enjoy.

On Sundays we’d usually be packed up and on the road back to Omaha by 4pm.

Our last Sunday was different.

It started out muggier than usual. By sun up it was already 81 outside. And by 9am, it was 90. Mom said the humidity was the worst she’d ever seen.

At noon, a breeze started to pick up, and by 1pm, there were gusts moving the flag straight out…about 20mph. There were some fluffy clouds across the lake, but mostly it was still blue. We were situated in the shade of giant elms, cottonwoods, and several dense cedars, so we didn’t really see the skies to the west or even above us.

At 2pm, when a lawn chair was spotted bouncing in the waves, rocking on a beach ball, Mom and Mrs. Green decided we should leave as soon as we could got packed. A storm was coming.

10 minutes later, one of our chairs tumbled into the lake, followed by another from the campsite next door, carried by winds gusting to gale force. And by 2:30, hail the size of golf balls started dropping from the trees. And the light around us was yellowing to mustard. We switched from packing to stowing and stuffing. We’ll organize when we get home.

Mrs. Green had to pee. So we sat in our cars, waiting for her to come back from the restroom. Even as she stepped into the ladies room, the hail morphed into softballs, and started smashing at our windows. Mom told me and my brothers to get under the quilts. There were three. So we unfolded them, and huddled together in the steam.

Mom climbed out of the Rambler and into the VW with JR and Binny, and helped them get under their own blankets. She stayed with them because I was old enough to take care of my brothers.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Green was struggling against the wind. It blew her towards the lake, and she stumbled. We found out later that she was struck in the head and the shoulders by large hail. She sought shelter under our picnic area. It was an open pavilion with a concrete center post about 12 inches in diameter. She pulled off her belt, and cinched it around her left wrist. She hugged the post with both arms, and wound the belt around her other wrist. She sat on the concrete slab with both legs also hugging the post. She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, and flip-flops.

The sounds were horrific. The hail fell on our car like rocks from a dump truck, and with the wind, it didn't rock as much as it is shook our car. Lightening was so close it didn’t boom; it cracked. And then there was the sound of a bomb exploding.

After about an hour it all stopped. We climbed out from the blankets to find that all of our windows were smashed in, that the VW’s windows were also smashed in. Both cars had zillions of dents and scratches, and the VW had one very large dent in the roof, like an elephant sat on top of it. There were 5 softball-sized hailstones in the depression. Mrs. Green was standing between the two cars. She had a black eye, and her arms were all bloody and bruised. And there is a gash on her forehead and on her right leg. The legs of her jeans were torn.

We still hadn’t noticed the 40 feet of cedar felled on the stationwagon parked in the next picnic site. We turned at the creaking of a car door. The back door of the stationwagon dropped, and the mom climbed out. Her hair was goopy with blood, and her face was painted red.

Mom ran to her. Her daughter and husband were trapped inside. Mom and Mrs. Green went to the windows, which were smashed in like ours. Mom tried to open the doors. She leaned inside – she was pretty sure the people inside are dead. Some men from a neighboring site came up, and pried open one of the doors. They confirmed it. The man and the little girl inside were lost.

Other people came up, and tended to the stationwagon mom and Mrs. Green, washing the blood from their faces, putting ice on their bruises. And everyone waited for the ambulance. A sheriff came too. The ambulance drivers wanted to take Mrs. Green to the hospital, but she declined. She wanted to go home. So they just took stationwagon mom.

Mrs. Green could barely move her right arm. And walking hurt, because the bottom of her left foot was also bruised. But she decided to drive anyway. We drove slowly, maybe 15 miles per hour. Manhattan, Kansas was sitting in shallow water. And we could hear our tires washing through. It felt like the water was washing us. I imagined it rinsing the blood off the dead girl in the stationwagon.

It was hours before we reached Nebraska. We were probably up to about 40mph at this point. My brothers were asleep in the back, and I was sitting with my mother. I saw a deer crossing the road in front of Mrs. Green’s VW. The deer went east, and her VW went west disappearing into the nothing on our left.

Mom drove up to where the tracks left the road, got out, and ran into the nothing after her.

After a long while, she came back and turned off the headlights. She told Dwayne to stay with his brothers, and she told me to come with her. I was to stay with Mrs. Green while she got help.

In the dark, most things are a shade of black. Blood is sticky black, Mom’s shirt is fuzzy black, and the deer lying in the road is a sharp-quilled black.

“Mrs. Green hit a deer? I didn’t see this one.”

“This one? There was only the one deer.”

“But I saw the other one that ran across. The one Binny was chasing.”

“Binny.”

She takes my hand.

The trees whisper, a little boy, and this afternoon’s rain falls on us from leaves moving in a sudden breeze. I try not to follow Mom, but she won’t let go of my hand.

The corn comes to my hips, and wets my jeans all the way through. The VW looks like a small bent shed at first and then an animal sitting with its head bowed. Mom pulls me along, and we pass its belly. It’s on its side, on top of Binny’s clothes, Binny’s hat. I smell poo.

We step carefully around the tires and the bumper to find Mrs. Green on the other side with JR. She’s leaning into the hollow where the elephant sat, and JR has tucked his head in her armpit, his body shaped into her ribs and hip. He’s sucking his index finger the same way Patrick does.

Mrs. Green is humming and rocking, rocking JR with her. She’s cradling a baby, sticky black. I ask her, did you hit a baby? But it’s not a baby. It’s an arm.

Binny.
[edited 14Jun2010]
[edited again 22dec2011]

Gold

2010-04-24T12:01:00.004-06:00

It doesn't really glitter, does it? It radiates flawlessly - rich, warm, and clear.

One early morning not quite dawn, I was held in the palms of radiance. She pressed me against her cheek, and traced a finger along my jaw.

Autumn - the year before last. The thermometers would probably read 20 above, but the winds from the Hellgate were blowing something fierce. I was walking towards the Rattlesnake Creek, hoping to spot a family of Ravens who'd started hanging around one of the bridges there.

I was near the parking lot of the Missoula Children's Theatre when, suddenly, I was lifted in a glow, held in love and pure light - for one moment. I'm not describing an epiphany...there were no revelations - just a wave of pure joy.

So simply made. Yellow light from a street lamp spilling over the flaxen leaves of a Birch and its peeling white bark, reaching for me in the pale grasses.

I was a Nurse.

2010-03-15T15:16:00.023-06:00

I became a CNA in the late 70s. I attended a single-semester (15 weeks/8hours per day) program in northern California, my first four weeks in a classroom and lab, where our instructors (RNs) showed us how to check vitals, wash hands, and give proper backrubs. For good measure they threw in a wee bit of anatomy. They taught us how to make beds.

The final 10 weeks were spent in clinical. Depending on your standing in the class, your acute : long-term experience ratio could be portioned anywhere from 2:8 weeks to 8:2 weeks. I was scheduled to a long-term care facility for two weeks, and to one of the local hospitals for eight.

To say I loved my work at the hospital is an understatement - I felt as though I'd found a new and better religion. At the end of my third day on the medical ward at Fremont Hospital, I was offered a job. And the day after I received my certification I started getting paid for doing something I would have done for the rest of my life for free.

For a few years I worked as a nurse's aide, both in northern California and in northern Montana. But the economy went south, and Tom got laid off. A man who could not not work, Tom went back into the Corps.

We moved to Camp Pendleton/Oceanside, where btw, there were no immediate openings for CNAs. Even for one with a few years post-surgical experience and a bevy of references. So I took a job as a cook, and I stayed a cook for the entirety of Tom's re-enlistment. And while at Pendleton, I attended a local community college, and started working on my general education requirements. (expository writing, chemistry, biology...)

As soon as his new obligation was fulfilled, we came back to Montana. But with no shortage of LPN and RN students, the hospitals in my area were not interested in a CNA who hadn't worked acute-care for over four years. So I settled for long-term. I hated it, but I stuck with it till we could afford the tuition for the LPN program.

It was a vocational program lasting four quarters (48 of 52 weeks). The first two were didactic, and the balance was made up of clinical rotations through the different wards of both hospitals, and in OB, Psych, ER, OR, and even a week in a doctor's office.

I started the program with 22 classmates, but only 5 of us made it to clinical. The first two quarters were like finals week the entire stretch. I felt as though I'd crammed the first 6 months of school. My brain was full. And as I hit that wall, I wondered - Was this a stupid idea? Am I going to have wasted all this money and time, only to find out I hate nursing?

[But] my very first day, my very first hour, on 4-south (a post-surgical ward) at Saint Patrick's Hospital, it was as though the Holy Spirit, Himself, had washed through my body. I'd come home.
- - - -

I took the long way to my RN. After graduating from the Vo-Tech, I re-enlisted in the Army. And even afterwards, when I got back home, I still worked for another year or so as an LPN.

And then, even as I attended university, I didn't focus on a Nursing degree. The Course Catalogue was a candy store. There wasn't a subject I wasn't interesting in learning. Overall, in addition to my non-transferable Vo-Tech credits, (and my post-graduate credits), I racked up some 170 undergrad-credits, only 64 of which were part of my nursing component. If I had been independently wealthy, I would have stayed in school till I exhausted the entire catalogue.

Okay. So this entry is to respond to something an LVN (whom blogger.com had to bar from stalking this blog) wrote: that I never discuss my experiences as an RN. I'm not sure what she's looking for. Something exciting? Something extra? I can't help but notice from her posts that she names names of patients she's had that were celebrities. Hm. Did I assist in any surgeries on any well-know personalities/politicians or their families? Yes. Will I drop names? No, and hell no.

Did I participate in exciting, complicated procedures/surgery? Sure. Did my RN make a difference? Absolutely. Did all that extra schooling help? Yes. Did any of it become old hat? No. Every evening before any scheduled procedures, I would review the patients' charts, I would review their pathologies, and I would review the procedure itself (including imaging myself going through the motions). Every single time.

But it's redundant to post about it. I am a nurse. These things are what being a nurse is all about.

So, what does she want to hear? Something extraordinary? How about the time several of us brought party balloons into an empty OR on April Fools Day, and breathed in the gas before calling the front desk to report a Helium leak?

Or maybe time I sank to my knees sobbing, because an old man I recognized from choir died before we could stop his spleen from spilling the 8 units of whole blood the 2 circulating nurses were squeezing into him?

Or the time I climbed into bed with a 3-day, post-MVA alcoholic, screaming in terror at snakes in his water pitcher, so that I could prevent him from further gouging his lips and eyes?

I'm sorry to disappoint, but while nursing is an extraordinary profession, it is not a profession for those who seek the extraordinary. Our work is honest, simple, no matter the scope/extent of our education. We solve problems. We figure out best how to keep a patient oxygenated, nourished, eased from pain, rested, healing...safe.

Not 6 months before I was diagnosed with this stupid IQ-stealing tumor, a student RN rotating through the OR wanted to observe the open reduction and repair of a Le Fort II fracture. I let her scrub in and stand beside me. (As first assistant I stood opposite the surgeon, and our scrub tech stood beside him.) The student was so excited, I thought she was gonna wet herself. She was fascinated by the itty bitty-ness of the implants. A woman after my own heart, I appreciated what she was going through.

She had hundreds of questions about Advanced Practice nursing, but only one do I remember clearly. She asked me, "What do you like best about Nursing?"

I told her, "Making beds."

Heavy, Dude.

2009-10-04T23:01:00.000-06:00

In their shop way up high in the sky,
plans fixing Joe went awry.
Using mortar and bricks,
they made him too thick.
And now he's too heavy to fly.

Male Pattern Dust Piles

2009-09-28T20:00:00.005-06:00

Bald and appalled
with his dusters he crawled,
sweeping the floor
where is hair had all falled.

Harlequin

2009-09-18T13:54:00.010-06:00

[click on any of the images to get the full details]

September Harvest

2009-09-14T00:01:00.008-06:00

It was 105 degrees in the shade, and there was very little of that where the Sierra foothills lazied into grassy dells and sleepy hummocks near the flightline at Beale.

A mile from the old POW barracks, we found 6 young trees standing in the wild oats - two perfect rows of three, three perfect rows of two. Small, narrow leaves fluttered between silver and green on willowing branches lifting in the hot breeze. Dad warned us not to eat the fruit.

We piled out of the stationwagon, dragging 2 bed sheets apiece, and we spread them beneath the slender reaches, tucking them up against the trunks. Dwayne and I climbed up, and rocked them in the wind. And for ten minutes they dropped a hail of green pebbles, a soft drum of fingers on the cotton below.

Some of the birds agreed.

2009-09-07T11:48:00.008-06:00

Welford made a strong point. Several, in fact.

Wrapped

2009-08-14T19:09:00.003-06:00

Billy

2009-07-23T12:32:00.013-06:00

A scribble of a first draft (a notion) of something I might do something with...it's fictional...but draws from something that actually happened. I grew up in a day when many of my friends were going to Nam. We were all military kids...socialized in the culture. Most volunteered. Some were drafted. 3 never came back...

Billy was a prairie god of Kansas wheat and winter-sown cornflowers. He was the youngest of six children, the second of two sons, and the only one of her own to take after his mother, Miss Kiowa County and Queen of the Gunter Electric Supply Memorial Day Picnic - two years in a row.

His eyes were sleepy with lashes you were tempted every time to touch, to find gold dust on your fingertips. And they were not intense, but intent, so when you looked into the deep of them, you could see the skies above his grandmother’s farm.

With a smile he shared all his secrets, so that he had none. And we were never in doubt that he was happy to find us in his world.

He was adored. And no woman was immune, including his mother, the little girls in his class, and every teacher who found him standing in front of her desk. From Kindergarten to his last days in High School, Billy Westergaard was the name even the prim smiled at, and touched a thoughtful pen to, before placing that delighted tick, present.

In 1968, Billy was drafted into the Vietnam War. And nine days after he stepped off a CH-47 in the province of Quang Tri, he was killed with a single shot to his left cheekbone.

Two days after that, MSgt. Westergaard’s CO and the base chaplain followed MSgt. Westergaard’s station wagon into family driveway. Mrs. Westergaard refused to let them in the house. She stood barring the doorway, and when her husband went to put his hand on her cheek, she slapped him across the face, and called the chaplain a son of a bitch. And when she went back inside, she locked the door behind her.

For 5 minutes, the three uniformed men stood on the landing, looking down the street, at their shoes, and eventually at each other. And in a collective sigh, they separated. Watching his CO and chaplain walk back to their sedan, MSgt. Westergaard pulled out his keys. In a short bend, he slid one of them into the lock. And then he straightened, and for a moment stood with a small prayer before opening the door.

Saying Goodbye to Tom

2009-07-20T00:01:00.009-06:00

.
I held him.

Cold rubber swathed
in hospital cotton.

His lashes rested
on dry cheeks,
ears deaf to my prayers.

I counted his toes.
I looked for old scars.

And tucked my face
under his beard,
hiding the hole
they put in his neck,
too late to save his life.

© 2003 Catnapping

This is the first poem I wrote about my husband. This is something like its 40th rewrite. I apologize if these scheduled posts are still turning up. I guess it's June and I am probably writing on paper in bed.

love,
cat

worn

2009-06-27T14:46:00.006-06:00

In't he cute?

2009-05-25T17:29:00.008-06:00

(ante script: If babytalk offends thee, do not click on this video.)

We're not supposed to keep pets, but what the landlord doesn't know...

I wonder - should I name him, or keep calling him Sweetheart?

In relation to my comments to Mick, here's a photo of Marmalade running away with a (nearly empty) jar of peanut butter.
[click image for a larger, better view]

Crypt

2009-05-25T00:01:00.006-06:00

In the early spring of 1963, a B-47 pilot lost his life in an ATO-related fire. My memory is vague on this, but I think the wheels did actually lift from the tarmac...that the jet was in the air, and then crashed....

His name was James Meeks. He was a Major in the Air Force. His crewmen were all able to escape, but he was trapped by his own seatbelt, due to negligence by its manufacturer...

That same spring it seemed almost everyone's basement was flooding. The water table was rising, and the earth under our homes was saturated. I mention this, because the night Major Meeks died, I had a dream about him. I dreamed he did not burn to death, after all.

I dreamed
he survived the fire,
only to be drowned
in a small lake,
a flooded quarry
under the sidewalk.
The lid to his crypt
lay in front of our house.

Bits of his flightsuit
were still on fire
floating in the waves
of blood and grease,
his charred hands
still gripping the belt
that would pull him
into the waiting pool.

Another Ghost

2009-05-18T00:01:00.002-06:00

Night slips
into black silk,
and breathing stills.
Lilac floats
on swollen air.

I wait
in full blossom,
my feet warm
in the spreading moss.

A cricket calls, lonely,
from another valley,
in another hollow.
Another shadow,

another pause.

© 2003

If this old poem has posted without an illustration (and/or with this attached note), it is because I'm just not up to editing it before publishing. I have seven or so entries scheduled to post: two for May; one for June; and two more for September, and then some later.

I hope to be up and visiting everyone soon.

Night of the Frogs

2009-05-01T21:50:00.021-06:00

For four months every four years, our dad, like every other Airman in the 9th SRW, was rotated to Kadena in Okinawa. In 1966, Dad's rotation coincided with summer vacation. He'd been to Okinawa a couple a times already, fixing problems...whatever. But this was different. This was four whole months - in a row.

The Summer of 66 ended with a tally of 4 plaster casts; 102 stitches; 2 concussions; 4 visits from the Air Police (APs); 3 from the base ambulance. And at least 12 trips to the Base Hospital's emergency room.

What could I title these visits? Magic Stick v. Bees; Kid v. Barbed Wire; 2 Kids v. Skateboard and Innocent Bystander; Kid v. Tree; Other Kid v. Tree; Kid v. Neighbor's Fence; Kid v. Not-a-Rattlesnake-After all; Kid v. Bike...every week a new crisis, a new versus.

The Skateboard Incident certainly might have been the most exciting for the neighborhood. It left two of my brothers in casts, and the lady next door in an arm sling. Dwayne, whose left foot was already in a heavy bandage protecting 54 stitches (still a family record), broke his right foot. And Patrick, who had already broken his right arm riding his bike into the Gorgone's fence, now had an additional 2 broken fingers on that hand, and had to be fitted with a brand new cast. From all accounts this was Mrs. Brittany's first time getting knocked on her ass that year.

But I think my first anecdote should start before then - with our first visit from the Air Police (APs). An introduction of sorts. The Beale Air Force Base’s Discovery of Our Family. It isn't really a full story on its own...which I guess would make it more of a chapter, more like something that could have been written with a spectacular sort of climax, but in real life ended more with a tired, oh hell, let's just go back to bed.

At this point, we'd only been to the ER twice, and neither visit had resulted in stitches. It was still early June. I'd wiped out on my bike, and Patrick had been stung by several bees defending their home from the Magic Stick that must have poked their hive. He was just in the area. They must have thought he did it.

So how to start...where exactly does it start?

Base Housing at Beale was parked in the foothills of the Sierras. I could write 'nestled,' but it's not as though the interface was anything but abrupt.

We lived at the edge of Wildness. Our street defined the boundary between Imagined Perils and Obsessive Order. Our front yard was a perfect 4-cornered patch of weed-free, greenish bermuda grass, bordered on 3 sides with flawless strips of gleaming concrete. And our backyard was an exotic cosm of cliffs, caves, and condors. Abandoned mines and mountain lions. Rattlesnakes, blue-bellied lizards, golden eagles, and golden grasses of wild oat. As far as the eye could see, one hill rolled into another...all the way to Nevada.

Apart and together, my brothers and I spend our days exploring. Supplied with jars of frozen water, peanut butter sandwiches, and readied coffee cans, we ventured farther and deeper into the foothills, often leaving at daybreak, not to be seen again till suppertime.

These daily treks usually resulted in the relocation of captured reptiles - sleeping lizards mostly, warmed in our palms, calmed by the nearly constant stroking of their smooth bellies. Snakes were common, too - my favorites, actually. I'd bring them home curled around my neck. Most of these critters were released at the back door. It was strictly verboten to bring anything from the field indoors that wasn't first trapped in a jar, a can, or a box. This included all manner of reptiles, amphibians and bugs. And in case I forget to tell you later - shoebox lids mean absolutely nothing to snakes.

Now this isn't to say that no free reptiles made it into the house. Some just found their way in. Mrs. Gorgone had to call the APs once when she found a rattler curled up in her dryer. And who's to say how many lizards made it past the border guard in pockets and sleeves, forgotten by accident or by design. Certainly, there were several loose in our rooms. We offered them sanctuary in our sock drawers. And many times we'd set them to sun and sleep on the windowsill for as long as they wanted.

It was always a mystery to us how they found their way into the central heating-and-air system or into Mom's bedroom. Her startled shrieks in the background were as normal to us as the TV or radio. At this point in time, there was already one snake and one (or more) lizards unaccounted for. The lizard count was always a point of contention. With each sighting the neck colours were described differently, but then temperature changes could account for that. So no one really knew. It could be just one fella or as many as half a dozen.

It was universally accepted, though, that there was only the one Loose Snake. The one who got out of his shoebox. He was 41 inches long. We'd measured him in the field before we'd even brought him home. And we figured he was probably bigger than that by now, what with all the loose food living in our house.
So.

Patrick and the Night of the 30 Frogs.

Not all of our pocket pets were lizards. Patrick had a thing for frogs. In the spring he and I would look for frog eggs, and bring them home to hatch…and more often than that, we’d bring home tadpoles in our water jars. We'd watch them morph into frogs, and then take them to the creek just down the hill from our house.

During the summer Patrick was never without a frog in his pocket, and while the rest of us were petting lizards, he was hand-feeding bugs to his frogs. While our coffee cans held lizards or small snakes, his almost always held something his frogs might like to eat.

I'm not sure what Patrick was thinking that evening in early June, but unbeknownst to us, he came to supper with a 3-pound coffee can filled to the brim with little frogs.

He set it next to his chair, and went to wash his hands. When supper was over, he set the can up on his chair. But then he forgot about it. And none of us gave it any notice. I mean, there were 3-pound cans were everywhere in our house. Even Mom used them. She had a forest of avocado saplings growing in coffee cans lined up against the patio door.

Fast forward past a routine summer evening of dishes, TV, bickering, baths, and pajamas to around 2am. The house would have been pretty quiet. The mammals, at any rate, would have been sleeping.

It must have been the frogs that woke me. Or maybe it was my cat, Mr. Magoo, poised on the edge of the bed, quivering. I rolled over, and there on the floor were two little frogs next to my bed and another in the doorway. needeep.

I slipped out of bed, and they quieted. That's when I heard the others...in the distance. I poked my head into the hallway to find 4 more. And as I stepped out, the frogs in my room started to ribbit again, while these frogs in the hallway stopped.

4 more were on the stairs...and just like the ones in the bedroom and in the hall proper, they stopped and started as I tread past them.

I got down the stairs and found frogs everywhere: on the couch; on the TV; on the dining room chairs...on Mom's dining room table!

Patrick’s coffee can lay on the floor next to his chair, the lid opened enough to make a sort of lean-to roof. The can was empty. I grabbed the two frogs on the table first, and then as I reached for the one on Pat's chair, it jumped away. I tried to grab him mid-air and missed, knocking over the chair and dropping the can.

That noise apparently woke our dog, because she started barking from the safety of Dwayne's room. But of course, that woke Mom. "Shut up, Cinders!"

But then once Cinders stopped barking, Mom could hear the frogs...and Pat, sotto voce, "oh shit."

It wasn't exactly a thundering stampede...more like a windy wooosh, as the entire household made its way to join me down in the living-dining area. Lights came on as hands passed switches on the walls. First the bedrooms, then the hall. And now the entire first floor. A Roman candle on the edge of Base Housing.

Mom told us all to grab an empty can. But there were no empty cans. So Hugh and Dwayne grabbed Pat’s bug cans, and emptied them on the front porch. (Ya know, looking back, that might have been a little noisy.) And in their hurry to get back in and catch frogs, they forgot to close the door.

Mostly it's hard to recall with total accuracy just what went down. Someone bumped into the floor lamp next to Mom's reading chair, and when it crashed to the floor, its glass bowl and light bulb all broke. (That might have been noisy too, since the doors were open.) Also, Hugh knocked against a picture frame and broke the glass out of it. And I remember dishes crashing in the kitchen, but I can’t think who might have been out there. Everyone had to run out to the porch and put on our boots so we wouldn't cut our feet, and Mom made us lock Cinders up in one of the bedrooms with Mr. Magoo.

There were shrieks, yelling, laughing, scolding from Mom. Mayhem and Chaos. And of course, Cinders spent half the time upstairs freaking out over the noise we were making.

There were still more than a couple a dozen frogs jumping around loose when the doorbell rang. We all looked over to see an AP standing in the open doorway, pistol on his hip, like a real cop. Mom went over to answer. She was in her baggy green calico pajamas. But I think it was her hair that the Airman spent most of his time trying not to look at. Mom always slept with her hair entirely in pincurls – dozens of tight little spirals of hair about an inch in diameter, anchored to her skull with two crossed bobby pins apiece. After an hour of reaching and ducking under and behind chairs, tables, and cupboards, some of her curls had loosened. Maybe 20 or so...a little bit, so that the bobby pins were swinging out and bumping back, every time she moved her head.

Parked in our driveway was a dark blue Dodge pickup, standard-issue vehicle for the Air Police. The driver was still behind the wheel, probably the ranking Airman - which would have made him what, an E-4? The Airman in our doorway was an E-2. At the time, I would have seen him as a grown up, but looking back, he can't have been more than 18 years old.

I'm trying to imagine what he must have thought looking past mom's swinging bobby pins. Every light in the house on; both the front and back doors wide open; the floor glittering with broken glass and broken dishes; dining chairs on the dining table; dining chairs on the couch; the coffee table up-ended; mom's leafy avocado trees - all on their sides, pushed up against the patio door; the TV pushed up against the stairs...every piece of furniture so obviously cattywhompus; and the bunch of us standing motionless in pajamas and rainboots, each holding a shiny, green MJB coffee can.

One of the frogs ribbited, and another jumped past the AP as he cleared his throat, and asked no one in particular, " Is, uh, everything okay here?"

Mom answered. "We're okay. My son brought home some frogs, and they got loose."

"How many frogs?"

Mom looked at Patrick, "How many frogs?"

Patrick looked at the Airman’s pistol, " I dunno. A lot."

The Airman looked at Mom, "How many have you recaptured?"

And we all pretty much answered at the same time, "2, 3, 2, 1, 3.” Almost an hour, and all we'd captured was 11 frogs.

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till morning to find the rest, or find some quieter way to get it done.” He tried to deepen his voice. Mom wasn't impressed.
“We’re not going to get any sleep with these frogs ribbiting.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but you’re disturbing the peace. I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down.”

“Fine.”

He made one sharp nod of his head, “Thank you, Ma’am. Good night.”

“Good night.” And she shut the door.

Dwayne and I swept up the glass, and the two youngest turned back out the lights. Mom let the dog out to tinkle, and once she was done, everyone went back to bed. This time with our doors shut.

Everyone stayed home the next day. And no. There was no frog hunt. We spent most of the day righting the furniture, and buffing the scratches out of Mom’s hardwood floors. For the next week, we’d see the occasional frog, hear the odd ribbit. We figure most of them either found their own way out, or ran into the Loose Snake.

Osprey

2009-04-27T11:28:00.009-06:00

A few days ago I looked up, and saw an Osprey.

He saw me back. He looked down, and he asked, "Are you food? Cuz you kinda look like food."

Seeds

2009-04-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

Spring Petals

2009-04-13T06:00:00.003-06:00

Fleeting

2009-04-11T18:04:00.009-06:00

A couple a birds...

2009-04-09T15:08:00.004-06:00

Beached

2009-04-07T06:00:00.004-06:00

I was 14 months pregnant, and weighing in at one hundred and eighty two pounds. I was standing in front of the swamp cooler, sweating, when the little man in the radio announced that it was 117° in the shade. Hell with this, I'm gonna stand under some cold water.

It was 1970, and with my first husband, I lived in a wee house. It was a small cottage, one of several in a row, built sometime in the late 4os. The bathroom was so tiny (3 by 5? feet) you couldn't open the door without hitting the toilet. And you had to sqeeeeeze past the sink to get into the shower. (I would shimmy in sideways, letting the bottom of my tummy drag across the rim of the sink.)

The fixtures were all new: the toilet, the sink, and the shower. The stall was 3 feet square, with shiny, stainless faucet knobs and a sprayer. And it was completely tiled in 3-inch squares of white ceramic, all the way to the ceiling. It was closed off with a turquoise, vinyl drape patterned with a checkerboard of yellow fishies and odd green plants that looked more like saguaro cactus than sea foliage. The floor was also new. A green linoleum that clashed enough with the shower curtain to make me sick to my stomach. I tried not to look at it as I side-stepped into the shower.

God, it felt sooo good - cold bliss running its fingers through my hair, cupping my breasts, and running its smooth palms over my round belly. I stood there for 15 minutes when it occurred to me, why stand when I can sit? So I let my back slide down the wall behind me, till my bottom felt the cool tile below. I pondered my feet for awhile, trying to remember what it was like to have toe knuckles and ankle bones....and the days when I still had an abdomen, and could reach under to wipe myself after tinkling, without dislocating my shoulder.

Ten more minutes of daydreaming, and I realized it was starting to feel a little chilly. Mission Accomplished. Time to get up, and get dressed.

Only I couldn't seem to get up. I tried to shimmy back up the wall. Not a chance. I tried to slide out of the shower sideways, but I couldn't lift my enormous ass up over the 3-inch lip at the bottom of the stall. I tried rolling over the lip, but couldn't maneuver my thighs over my tummy. Finally, I settled for turning off the damn water. Great. I can't reach the knob.

So I sat.

And I rehearsed what I'd say to my husband when he came home expecting dinner, only to find the cook beached in shower stall.

I reminded myself, it could be worse. My bladder could be full.

oh, hell.

talisman

2009-04-05T16:11:00.008-06:00

One-Shoe Magoo
slept under a wooden bridge
I crossed every morning
on the way to school.

Hair the colour of blood
whipped wildly about her head,
and tangled in the rosaries
strung around her neck.

She wore colossal pink roses
on a grey sack,
and she covered her shins
with brown-on-browner argyle socks.

There was stuck on her right foot
an oxblood penny loafer.
And written in bold letters
around its heel,

from instep to side step,
in black magic marker,
was the name:
Magoo.

Prairie Chicken

2009-03-30T00:01:00.001-06:00

The Lesser Prairie Chicken is listed as Vulnerable, but truly its status needs to be degraded to Endangered. It was listed as 'Vulnerable' years ago, and the conditions threatening its survival have not improved...in fact, they worsen with increasing loss of habitat.

http://www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/HighPlains/leaflet.htm

Poise

2009-03-28T13:57:00.011-06:00

Spinach Pie

2009-03-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

This is a quick and easy recipe, using packaged biscuit mix. I once read the side of a Bisquick box, and there was an easy pie (?) recipe that involved throwing cooked veggies and meat in a pie dish, and then pouring runny Bisquick mix over them. I wrote the one recipe down, and reproduced it using my own biscuit "mix" of flour, baking powder, butter, and buttermilk.

That base recipe came in handy for many quick casserole pie dishes, but my family's favorite was what we jokingly called, Torta Spinaci Toscana, (heavy on the accento Italiano). Spinach Pie, à la Tuscany...

I would serve it with garlic bread - buttered, and toasted in the oven with parmesan.

Ingredients

½ cup biscuit mix
¼ cup margarine
1-cup skim milk
3 eggs
1 tsp lemon juice
¼ tsp black pepper
½ cup green onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBS margarine
1 10-oz pkg chopped frozen spinach, thawed and drained
½ cup ricotta cheese

Directions

1. Sauté onion and garlic in margarine for about 3 minutes.
2. Stir in spinach.
3. Pour spinach-onion mixture into greased 9-inch pie plate ( I prefer glass).
4. Spoon ricotta on top.
5. Beat eggs in medium bowl, and add biscuit mix and melted butter.
6. Pour mixture over spinach and ricotta.
7. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes, or until inserted knife comes out clean.
8. Sprinkle with grated parmesan.
9. Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.

Sometimes a sprinkle of nutmeg over the top of the pie (before baking) works well...and optionally, you can add a TBS or two of chopped, cooked italian sausage, well patted or drained.

Mo

2009-03-10T06:00:00.013-06:00

A year after Miss Thing passed away, we decided we might be ready to let another cat into our hearts. We'd planned to pick one up from the shelter, when we spotted the ad in the Missoulian, “Two Mousers for Free.”

So we drove out to a ranch in the Potomac, and brought home two cats. Females. Half-wild, they'd lived most of their lives in a barn. We named them Harriet and Maureen – Harry and Mo.

We hadn't had them a day, and Harry disappeared never to be seen again. We lived at the foot of Mount Jumbo, and I prefer to believe that she’d decided to live out the rest of her life free. She obviously didn't like the idea of living in a house, and there were probably some juicy, fat mice running around up there.

But Mo liked us. She loved us, in fact. She especially loved sleeping on us…on our laps, on Tom's shoulders, or tangled up in my hair.

It wasn’t long before we realized Mo was pregnant. We suspected that she came to us this way. And we might have taken her back, but we already loved her too much to let her go. So we took her to the Vet’s for a prenatal check-up. Turned out she was very pregnant, only a couple of weeks from delivering.

I cleared out one of the drawers in our highboy, and lined it with cedar shavings, newspaper, and wide strips of flannel, torn from an old sheet. I slid it more than halfway under my side of the bed, so that just a few inches would poke out. I figured it’d be dark and private in there, but easy for her to climb into. And it sure seemed like she approved, because I found her sleeping in there the evening before she delivered.

That night Tom and I were sleeping, cuddled up in our comfy new queen-sized Serta, and Mo was cuddled up, too, on my pillow, her body nestled in my hair…

In the wee hours of the morning, I woke to the sound of her crying. Meowing. But when I heard her purring in my ear, I let myself drift back to sleep. I figured I must've been dreaming. But then she cried out again.

Half asleep, I reached up to pet her. It's okay, sweetheart. Wassa matter? Mommy's here.

But my hand didn't pet Mo. It touched something not-Mo. And it was then that I realized that my hair was wet, and there was something besides Mo sitting it. Something soggy. Something lumpy. And what the hell's that smell?

I jumped outta bed, screaming bloody murder, with this wet thing in my hand, ready to throw it across the room. Tom woke with my scream, and turned on the light.

My hair, my face, and my pillow were dripping with goo, poo, and amniotic fluid. And the soggy thing in my hand? A newborn kitten.

While Tom stayed in bed laughing, I moved mom and first-born kitty to the dresser drawer, and she delivered kitten number two.

I stayed with Mo, crooning and cooing while she delivered two more. And still chuckling, Tom removed the soiled sheets, and tossed my pillow in the trash can, outside.

Once we were certain Mo was no longer in labor, Tom took over with the reassuring noises. And until we ran out of hot water, I stood in the shower, shampooing sticky poo out of my hair.

Intricate

2009-03-08T15:29:00.001-06:00

This started out larger, but I had to reduce the size to make it fit, and allow everyone's connection to view it without hanging their computers up.

[click image to enlarge to the reduced 600px size]

Phallus Vigoratus Sanatorus

2009-03-07T16:16:00.001-07:00

some quickie photos

2009-03-04T09:06:00.004-07:00

These are some shots of birdies in Missoula. I used my digital camera, but only had it set on the lowest resolution, so the pictures were small. But still - they're birds.

Here is a photo I took today (11mar09) of a crow...

My Blue Shoes

2009-03-03T15:09:00.004-07:00

I lifted my foot,
and what did I view?
Doo Doo
on my new blue shoes.

A scraping,(it's true),
was long overdue.
And a soaking straight through,
with scented shampoo.

So I dipped my blue shoes
in a soapy fondue.
In hopes to subdue
the doo doo's

p…U

Another old ditty (written in 2004) that needed illustration...

Breeeeezy

2009-02-28T17:37:00.003-07:00

Alley Mice

2009-02-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

Next to mom's old Frigidaire,
ran an alley to the wall,
where mice would park
their itty butts,
and wait for crumbs to fall.

Conspiracies

2009-02-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

When choosing between a conspiracy of lies or one of silence, it's better you should choose silence.

Two months before Dad went to Nam, Dwayne ran a table leg through my bedroom door.

He was chasing me down the hall, and I managed to get my door closed before he could make contact. The leg drove right through the wood like a spear.

The story was that Dwayne was simply walking down the hall carrying a table leg, and tripped over something on the floor right in front of my bedroom door, which caused him to twist around just I happen to be closing my door.

Well, we all got the belt for lying, and just two days before we moved to Sacramento, Dad repaired my bedroom door. The inspectors from Base Housing never knew.

We lived in Sacramento for a year waiting for Dad to come home from Nam.

And he wasn't back 2 weeks when my youngest brother, Hugh, kicked in the bottom panel of our bathroom door.

Patrick had done something to piss Hugh off, and when he ducked into the bathroom to escape harm, it pissed off Hugh even more.

After we got over how cosmically spooky it was that we should be dealing with another door, we went into action. We knew that no story whatsoever would convince Dad this was an accident. So, taking a page out of Dad's book, we decided to keep our mouths shut, and repair the door.

Mom and Dad were spending the day house-hunting back up near where we lived before, and they weren't due back for another 8 or 9 hours.

We didn't have any wood, and quite frankly, no one had exactly stood around to watch Dad repairing the first door, though he did tell us more than once the particulars of his brilliance in hiding Dwayne's crime from the inspectors. Something about making diamond-shaped biscuits, one for each side of the door...fitting them in, and sanding it all even...then re-painting. We had no idea how to duplicate his process, so we decided that tape might do the same trick...give us something to paint over.

There was plenty of matching paint. The entire interior, including all the doors, had been painted just before we moved in, and there were still 2 gallons in the garage. And there was never a shortage of masking tape in our house. Mom used it for everything. Mom was always refinishing or painting something.

So we carefully removed the splinters and sanded the panel and wiped it clean. Then, strip by strip, we taped from one end of the panel to the other, overlapping the tape by the just an eighth of an inch. It was a group effort. Hugh pulled the tape, and Patrick measured 24 inch sections, and then Hugh cut the tape, and handed it to me.

The panel was 20 inches tall, and the masking tape was a little more than an inch wide. It took me over an hour just to apply it. There were many fuck ups that could not just be undone...I couldn't remove just one strip of tape. Each time a mistake was made, I had to remove everything, and start over again. And every noise outside convinced me that Mom and Dad were about to burst in and catch us.

Dwayne had a delicate hand so he painted a fine coat over the taped panel, and we took turns holding the hose from Mom's hairdryer to blow heat on it. And still Dwayne waited an extra hour before he would risk painting another coat...and with that coat, he also painted the entire door.

While I'd been taping, Dwayne vacuumed the living room and the hallway. While Dwayne painted I cleaned and rewaxed the kitchen floor. Hugh and Patrick spent most of the time arguing while they cleaned their bedroom, putting away all toys, and re-making their beds.

The house reeked of paint. So we got the idea to repaint the other 3 doors in the hall, and what the hell, why not the one to the garage? We had the perfect cover. After all, we'd be moving soon...weren't we gonna hafta paint those doors, anyway? Such helpful children no two parents should be so lucky to have.

5 hours after we finished painting and cleaning, Mom and Dad came home.

As soon as they smelled paint Mom went looking in the kitchen cupboards for missing dishes, and Dad made a quick inspection of our rooms looking closely at all the windows. (oops. that reminds me of another story for another time.) They both checked for broken furniture and carpet stains.

Obviously they were suspicious. Obviously, we were obvious. I mean, everyone knows rule number one: if you know you're in trouble, clean your room, do the dishes, and paint the house.

We moved back to Beale 3 months later, and on that last day in the-house-we-lived-in-while-dad-was-in-nam, each of us kids must have looked at that panel a half a dozen times.

Dad never knew.

Spilling Oxytocin

2009-02-21T18:10:00.001-07:00

Years ago, even before LPN school, I spent a summer working the night shift in the Neonatal Nursery at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. It was one of those banner years, when everyone seemed to be in labor. We helped deliver dozens of unexpected babies. Moms on vacation from places like Texas, New York, California, British Columbia, (and even one from Germany) were delivering babies in Kalispell, Montana.

We were filled to capacity. Our nursery was designed for 13 well babies and 4 NICU babies. All of our beds were full. We were medevacing women to Libby, Missoula, and Spokane. And it wasn't just well babies that were coming in record numbers. Even with the 4 NICUs, we had to send sick babies to Salt Lake City and Seattle. (We had one born 21 weeks gestation, and another whose mom presented placentae abruptio.)

I mean we were busy, with a capital B. We even had contracted, Traveling Nurses from Quebec and New Zealand to help staff the NICUs.

Consider this a preface, a mural, a backdrop to what I'm dying to tell you. For like 14 weeks straight, there were babies everywhere; Nurses rushing from room to room; Women screaming; Docs, midwives, tribal elders all talking at once. Patients and family speaking Blackfeet, Crow, English, French, and German - medical jargon, pleas, profanity, yelps of joy...everyone in blue scrubs and blue paper shoes.

And in the nursery, wee babies. Bundles of love who had no clue what mayhem their arrivals wrought.

As with most hospitals, our policy regarding post-surgical, bottle-feeding moms (C-sections, tubal ligations) was to let them sleep that first night. When it gets down to it, back then, unless mom specifically asked that she be wakened to feed her baby, we pretty much let her sleep the night through, anyway.

It was the nursery staff who feed their babies. Me. I got to feed their babies.

I worked the 11 to 7 shift. And I spent a good half of it with a bottle in my hand, cuddling babies to my breast. I spilled so much oxytocin, I'm surprised I didn't start producing milk. The sensation of letting-down was certainly there. I called it phantom at the time, but actually, the reflex was real. There just wasn't any milk to secrete.

Every morning I came home to my husband, yearning for these babies. And when each of them went home with their mothers, I grieved.

And so it starts...

2009-02-18T16:45:00.003-07:00

Crocus are popping up. Soon it will be the Daffodils and the Hyacinth...Spring is coming.

A Fluffy Lap

2009-02-15T17:10:00.002-07:00

On fluffy lap
he falls asleep,
and dreams of tigers
in jungles deep.

Hunting food
and keeping guard,
he rules the world
his own backyard.

Celebrate Love. Adopt.

2009-02-13T19:29:00.003-07:00

Thousands of children lanquish in our foster system. They live in foster homes, orphanages, group homes, under bridges, and in cars. Some are held in detention centers. Even jail. Because there are no adults out there willing to love them.

No one looks out for these children. The protection services are overwhelmed, and many of the social workers responsible for these kids are burnt out. These children are lost, and many will never realize their full potential.

But what really kills me is that they are forced to grow up without any sense of belonging. Even if they're lucky enough to find a foster family, in all but the most loving homes, they are reminded every day that they are not actually family. They know they will not be adopted, and that the bed they sleep in tonight may not be theirs tomorrow.

I get really frustrated when I think of the resources wasted in America so that couples can make shiny, brand new babies, when there are thousands of children already living who need their love.

Wearing the Uniform

2009-02-11T18:03:00.010-07:00

I looked up from my lunch today, and watched four folks come in wearing blaze orange vests, reflection tape, and tan redwing boots. I had no idea who they worked for or what they did for a living. But clearly, they worked together. They were a unit.

I remember what that feels like, sitting with friends, sharing a goal, sharing a purpose, wearing the uniform.

Cammies, scrubs, corporate smocks with a name tag, it doesn't much matter as long as you match - cohesion under the guide-on, wearing the colours, prayer cloths offered to the gods of Purpose.

And shoptalk. I loved it. Lunch at the mess hall, margaritas at the O-club, slouching around the hospital cafeteria, eating hot pizza after a particularly long day in the OR. It didn't matter if we were debating dexon v. chromic, reciting stock numbers, or suggesting new DD acronyms. We shared jargon, spoke in our own secret language, comprehended by club members only.

It's funny to think back on it. I don't know that it occured to any of us that our language might be regarded as exclusive. But thinking on it now, I see it as part of the uniform - as important as the nametag, the strings dangling from a spent OR mask, or the subdued rank on one's collar.

I miss that.

Time

2009-02-08T13:34:00.004-07:00

What if black holes are really just the skinny part of an hourglass?

Am I making an impressive impression?

2009-02-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

I read ProBlogger's article the other day giving tips on producing a more successful blog. It was written more for those folks out there who actually make money from their blogs. (btw, I learned that there are bloggers who blog soley to make money from ads placed on their pages. So, apparently getting hundreds of hits a day is traye impoortaunte for them.

In his tips, he suggested that we consider the first impression our blogs make, because readers will decide whether or not to look around based on the emotions they experience in the first three seconds of viewing.

My first reaction was one of dismay. Oh no. What impression is my blog making? Should I change my header again? Is my sidebar too busy? Too boring? omg, I don't know, I don't know.

And then I remembered I'm not here to make money. I thought, hmm. My blog is personal...maybe even narcissistic, since in the end, it is written for my enjoyment.

But. Then I remembered something else: Impressions are Important. I like the folks I've met in the creative world. And I want to meet more just like you. I think that means I need to lurk less, and comment more. Those of you who know me, have probably noted my IP in your logs...and shook your heads...Cat's lurking again. why doesn't she say something? Well, I'm gonna. I'm going to make a point of commenting on the beautiful images I'm seeing out here.

I love getting comments, so I should assume other illustrators and writers do, too. In fact, anyone who hasn't disabled his/her* comments section, must hope to get some feedback on his/her* entries. So I'm making a promise: I will visit at least 7 blogs a day, and comment on at least 5 of them. If I can't think of something intelligent...I'll at least try to be coherent.

As to the matter of impressin' y'all...My Social Success depends it.

Ugh. That Sidebar - Does it make me look fat? It's a little late for me to worry about what folks think of my commie proclivities. So I won't be removing my political causes.

What I will do is clean up my links. It's not that I'll be omitting any (hell, I've got 20 or so that need adding.) But I'll try to group some of them the way I did Montana bloggers and Poets.

I'm also determined to put up at least 3 entries a week, and 15 per month. I can't promise this, because of health issues, but it is my priority.

*Will someone PLEASE invent a singular, third-person, possessive pronoun?

All My Relations

2009-02-02T13:21:00.007-07:00

Proof of Life

2009-02-01T15:13:00.005-07:00

There is a tiny little sparrow who visits me. She comes to my ledge for crumbs of crackers and crumbles of peanut. She has a perfect little face, and a perfect little chirp.

But at some point in her little life something happened to her, something catastrophic. Part of her right foot is missing, and what's left is partially smished. And when I see her I think about what makes all of us who we are.
That it's those dings and scratches, wrinkles and freckles that make us interesting. They tell a story - this creature lived. This little bird was drawn with a pencil, and then coloured in with red ink and then wetted...I took a photo of it, and put it in my paintshop pro, and smoothed out the outlines, and darkened them. (and then made the background which is entirely digital).

Blue Trees

2009-01-28T12:16:00.004-07:00

Sometimes you can gaze for hours, and the only thing you'll see moving is the snow...

Nook and Cranny

2009-01-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

Nook and Cranny hid for hours,
tucked away between the folds
of denim jeans and wooley sweaters,
warmed by love and wonders told:
dusty boxes, balls of string,
and waiting laps that never scold.

Mime

2009-01-23T22:02:00.006-07:00

When the city prohibited rhyme,
they decreed: Poets to be jailed a long time!
Prose now used in earnest,
a new evil surfaced -
the mime rate started to climb.

The Swoon of Nimmy Nish

2009-01-21T16:21:00.011-07:00

This is a rough idea of something I'm working on...a story that will be told in about 8 verses...or less, dunno. The illustrations will probably not even look like this...but I liked the way the blue looked, and had to play with it.

This is crop of the larger picture. As with most of my illustrations, just go ahead and click on the image to catch the details.

Comments, questions, and critique are welcome. I've got pieces of other verses done, but am not quite sure yet how to put them together.

As I put up each verse, an illustration will accompany...but that won't be for a few weeks. I have two cats I'm working on right now for my friend, Gypsy.

If you saw the words, Gni Gnis, would you pronounce them NeNeece, or would you try to say the G? I'm going to need to decide how to "spell" NeNeece/Gni Gnis.

Pale

2009-01-16T15:34:00.003-07:00

A week or so ago, I was walking along the Rattlesnake, and a pale blue-grey heron flew past. Naturally, everything was frozen over...and where the ice wasn't so thick, and where there was no snow...the creek looked a pale seafoam green, but I chose to draw the heron flying over warm waters...

SnowDay - part two

2009-01-15T00:00:00.015-07:00

...it was while I was making Johnny’s bed, I found the matches.

He had them stuck under his mattress. “Johneeeee, I’m gonna tell. You got matches. Mommy said we can’t play with matches.”

“Don’t tell, Jake, I’ll let you play with ‘em, too.”

“But we don’t have anything to burn, ‘cause it’s snowed outside.”

“We could burn some of our blocks. We could take ‘em outside. In our pockets.” Johnny came back into the bedroom, wet and smelling of ivory soap. I could hear the tub draining.

“Yeah, that sounds good. We’ll make a fire with the blocks to keep warm in our fort. We can cook stuff.”

When I said that, Johnny went to the closet, and from his Kraut Helmet (a gift from Uncle Mike), he pulled out a bologna sandwich and 4 cookies.

“You have food? Can I have a cookie?”

“If you eat the cookies, then we won’t have any food for the war.”

“We’ll have the sandwich. We can cook the bologna.”

“No. They’re my cookies.” Johnny finished dressing. He walked over to the windowsill and picked up a block. “Maybe we should cook the bologna, now, so it’ll already be warm.”

“But we’re gonna eat breakfast.”

“Okay. But let’s burn one of the blocks, anyway.” Cool.

“But how can we put out the - I know, we can start them on fire, and then we can throw them out to into the snow to put it out!”

We stood there, at the windowsill holding match after lit match on a block that just wouldn’t start on fire. And now we were down to 5 matches.

Outside, we could see groups of men with shovels, not shoveling. All the dads, standing waist-deep in the snow, pointing at things, talking, pointing again.

“Time for breakfast!” Mom’s voice carried up from the stairwell.

“We’re coming.” I shouted back. I must have startled Johnny, ‘cause he dropped the match he’d just lit, on the floor. It landed on a ghost turd, and whoosh, it made a small flash of fire and then went out.

“Ooh” Our voices came out in a whispered rush. “Let’s find another one.” We looked under the bed for more dust and lit the little balls, one by one with the last 4 matches.

“We’re out. Let’s go eat.”

Johnny shook his head. “I have more. I stole them from Uncle Mike’s dresser when we visited for Christmas.”

“Where? Go get ‘em.” We had time before Mom called again.

Johnny went to the closet and came back with two more books of matches. “Jake, I wonder if we could keep the fire going if we started the dust balls right next to the blocks.”

“We gotta find more dust.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?”
We never heard Dad opening the door. “Is something burning in here? Are you two trying to burn down my house? Matches?”

“Johnny stole ‘em.” I rounded my eyes to show just how innocent I was.

“And you had no idea what you were doing with them.” Standing there next to the open window, I suddenly realized how cold the room was. I pushed my tongue against my chattering teeth. Johnny shivered, and it caught Dad's eye.

“Give me those goddamned matches!”

Ten feet from Dad, Johnny held them out with his arm.

“Bring them here. HERE!” Dad hollered when Johnny didn’t move fast enough. Johnny took little steps forward, still holding his left arm extended out in front of him, hoping the matches would reach Dad before he did.

Dad swiped the matches from Johnny with his left hand while he popped Johnny with his right. Johnny went down to the floor with a thud. Dad rounded to me and said, “You like fire? Let’s see how much. Why don’t we just put you in the goddamned oven for the day and see how you like being cooked.”

“No, Daddy, don’t cook me, please!”

“Don’t cook Jake, Daddy. I won’t have nobody to sleep in the other bed, then.” Johnny stood back up.

“Jesus Christ, Joe. Do you really think you’re gonna fit him in the oven?” Mom. In the doorway.

“Ellen, just stay out of this, o.kay?” There was a look, then. An identical expression on each of their faces, but I had no idea what it meant. Dad snorted and made some kinda smirk. Then, wham! He hit my chest before I even saw his hand. “You goddamned little shit. If I ever see you teaching your little brother to play with matches again, I’ll set you on fire myself.” The thought brought a smile to his face, and he shared that with Mom, too.

“Yes, sir.” It was careful not to rub my chest while I answered. He and Mom started to leave then, and when Dad got to the door, he turned around and smiled again.

“You two can forget breakfast. And lunch, too. I don’t wanna know you’re even in the house till suppertime.” He shut the door then, carefully, like it was breakable. I held my breath waiting for him to come back in, till I finally heard his boots striking the hardwood stairs.

“It’s your fault we got in trouble. You stole the matches.” I hissed at Johnny. “You were the one who wanted to start fires.” He whined back.
“Well, you did too”
“No I didn’t”
“Did too!” Our voices started to raise.
“I'm heating up the oven!" Dad's voice came up through the floor.
“See what you did?” Johnny accused me, now.
“Shhh! Do you want him to come back?”

So, for a while we played quietly with our little toy soldiers, when an idea came to me. “I know what we could do and it won’t make any noise.”

“What?” Johnny was standing at the window. Behind him, on the sill, a company of green plastic men poised ready to attack castle walls of red and black checker pieces.

“I bet if we let the blinds down, we could swing them from my bed and knock soldiers out into the snow hill downstairs.” I ran over to the window to let down the blinds. They were made of sheet metal that would slice you like a loaf of bread if you slid your hands across the blades. The straps that held them were of heavy canvas-duck cloth. They’d probably been white, once, but there were stains on these with brown and orange rings. And some the blades were greasy and thick with dust. They didn’t quite fit the window. Even when they were down, you could still see inside our room at night through the 3-inch gaps on each side.

“Here.” I handed the bottom bar of the blinds to Johnny. “When I get on the bed you hand it up to me.” I climbed up using the headboards. “Okay, hand it up.”

Johnny reached up and I reached down. Johnny opened the window the rest of the way, and ducked. I let the blinds go and, wow. They knocked two of the soldiers out the window. Johnny stood up and looked out, lifting the blinds over his head. “I don’t see them.”

“They’re probably in the snow. Let’s try some more.”

“Okay.” Johnny set up another soldier. He handed me the blinds and I let them swing down. This time they swung right through - right out the window with the soldier.

“OH!” Johnny’s eyes went round as he looked from the swinging blinds to me. The blinds twisted as they swung, and when he grabbed for the bar, he accidentally grabbed a slat, nicking his hand. He did say, “ow.” But thinking back, it was more a reflex because the grin on his face reached both ears. And his mouth was opened too wide to talk. “Jake, Jake. Ah. Ah! We. Jake!”

“What! What?!”

“We! We could swing on the blinds! We could stand on your bed and hold the blinds, and just swing through the window!”

What a great idea. “But you gotta go first. I’m too big. And we’ll hafta pull the blinds higher, too, so we don't hit our feet on the sill.” I climbed down quietly, suddenly remembering, “Johnny, Dad’s still home. We gotta be real quiet.”

“Oh yeah. Okay.” He whispered as he started climbing onto my bunk. I moved over to the window, and pulled the blinds three-quarters of the way up.

“Johnny, you’re gonna hafta keep your legs tucked up, okay?”
“Okay.” He nodded his head “Jake, how’m I gonna reach the blinds if they’re pulled up?”
“I’ll stand on the headboard, and hold your waist while you reach out for them.”
“But I’ll fall.”
“No you won’t”
“Yes I will. You’ll drop me.”
“Shhh. No I won’t. I’ll hold you.” My voice honked while I try to yell and whisper at the same time. “I promise.”

So, I climbed up, and holding on to the top headboard with my right hand, I stood with my left foot on the windowsill and my right foot on Johnny’s headboard (the lower headboard). I took hold of the blinds with my left hand. And then, as I reached to put my right arm around Johnny’s waist, I let go of his headboard.

Problem was, Johnny wasn’t holding on to any part of the bed, either. As he felt the weight of my body pulling us both away from the bed, he grabbed the blinds with both hands. Just as my right foot knocked into the windowsill to meet my left, the blinds broke free of their anchor at the top of the window. The weight of them came down just as Johnny made it to the window.

With his knees knocking into my chin and the blinds hitting the right side of my head, Johnny’s body dragged me out the window, head first. I must’ve let go of him, then. Because he went straight down to the drift below, crushing it with his weight. I could hear him scream out as I followed close behind.

But instead of hitting the top of the drift with Johnny, my body slid, head and arms first, down what was left of its slope, right onto the bare ground in front of the brand new living-room window. The blinds, still firmly in my grasp, struck the glass, hitting it with a crack. I pushed myself up, and there was my father’s contorted face, yelling at me from the other side.

Red Poppies

2009-01-14T11:49:00.003-07:00

SnowDay - part one

2009-01-13T00:00:00.004-07:00

It wasn’t the snow that woke me. That part was quiet.

And it wasn’t just his voice. Something was up. Something was different. I opened my eyes to find Johnny’s face in my face. Climbing up to my bunk, he had his body bent over my headboard, his face upside-down, hovering. I could almost taste the urine drenching his pajamas.
“Johnny. You wet the bed?”

“Look outside.” He slid back down the to the floor, and headed to the window. I looked at the back of his pajamas, totally soaked. Dad was gonna be pissed.

“Johnny. You wet the bed.”

“I can’t help it, Jake. By the time I know I’m goin’, it’s already too late.”

“Well, you’d better hide your pajamas before one of them sees you.” I jumped down to the floor and headed to the dresser to get him some clean stuff.

“Okay, Jake, but you gotta come see outside!” I dropped the pajamas back in the drawer and slid the floor along the length of the bed, over to the window. Our pajamas had no-skid feet in them, but Johnny and I had already rubbed off the white rubber bumps on Mom’s hand-polished hardwood floors.

Snow! A picture of our neighborhood on blue paper scratched with a white crayon. There were no streets, only wrinkled ribbons of white satin. Almost all the cars were missing. Probably eaten by the same goofy marshmallow beasts that had swallowed Mom’s new trees. All the roofs were cut sheets of vanilla icing, and our yards were squared platters of frosted whipped cream.

“Jake? Do ya think Mommy’ll let us go outside?” Johnny opened our bedroom window half way, and threw a wooden Disney block outside. We watched it sink down through the snowy peak that didn’t quite reach the top of the brand new picture window on the first floor. Our bedroom was right above the living-room.

“It’s a school day. We have to get ready. You know we can’t play till after.” I readied a few more blocks on the windowsill.

“We won’t play; we’ll just go out and look at it.” 8 years old, and Johnny was already looking for loopholes.

“Okay, but we gotta be real quiet.” If we got caught, I was already prepared to tell Mom it had been Johnny’s idea. “But first you gotta change your clothes.”

“You boys up?” Mom.

“Yes, Mom, we’re gettin’ dressed for school.” I piped up just as she opened the door.

“Mommy! It snowed!” Johnny just couldn’t be quiet. He stood there dripping in pee, but he had to make sure Mom looked at him.

“Goddammit, Johnny. Did you wet the bed, again?”

“I couldn’t help it, Mommy.”

“Strip your bed, right now. And take a bath.” Then she looked at me. “Jake, you fill the tub for him, and take his pajamas down stairs before your father gets out of the shower.” She looked back at Johnny, then to his bed, and then to the window. “I doubt if you boys’ll be going to school today.” She glared at us like it was our fault, and slipped back out the door.

No school! We both looked at each other. I ran into the bathroom and started the water. “No school. We can make snow forts!”

Johnny and I slept in what was supposed to be our parent's room. I guess they figured it was better we played here than in Mom's kitchen. Besides, this way, we had our own bathroom. Close enough to Johnny's bed, maybe they hoped he could make it there in time.

“Jake?” I could hear it Johnny’s voice - An idea.

“What?” I came back into the bedroom. I was already game.

“I bet if we jumped out the window, the snow would catch us.” Johnny was butt naked, the whole top half of his body hanging out the window.

“It is pretty close.” I took another look with him. Between the drift and our house lay 3 of the 7 blocks Johnny had dropped out there earlier. “But we’d need to jump way out, cause if we miss, we’ll bump into the house.” Our house was built of brick.

“Okay.”

“Go take your bath first. Mom’s gonna be mad if you still smell like pee.” I took his wet pajamas and his sheets and stuffed them in the hamper. Johnny got in the tub and started cleaning up. And I hurried to put new sheets on his bed.

There was about two feet of floor between our bunk and the window, and it was that window the headboards were centered on. When we needed an extra room for the Bed Fort, we’d close the window down on one side of a blanket, and drape the other side over Johnny’s headboard. The dresser was butted up against the footboards, and Johnny would use it to boost himself up onto my bunk.

The head and foot boards, weren't really boards at all. They were made of metal. Every year, Mom would spray paint them a new colour. This year, they were black. Rectangled metal frames, they had a quarter-inch metal tube zigzagging from one side to the other, making triangles inside the open space.

Except for my headboard. My headboard didn’t have zigzags anymore. And the rectangle part had been filed smooth by my dad. The zigzags had been removed so we could rescue Johnny.

He didn’t always bend over my headboard to talk to me. He used to stand on the dresser and stick his head through, between the zigzags. Till one day when he got stuck. I’d tried for a long time to get him out. I pushed on his head and I pulled on his body, but I couldn’t get him through. His ears kept getting in the way. I finally had to get Mom.

She tried putting vaseline on his ears and his face but we just couldn’t get Johnny’s head back outta that triangle. Mom finally called the fire department. They tried to use vaseline, too. After a couple of hours, the firemen told Johnny they were gonna have to cut off his ears. But they just cut the metal tubing instead.

Poor Johnny. His face was all red and scraped, and he had big globs of vaseline all through his hair and in his ears. He kept touching them to make sure they hadn’t been cut off. That was 2 days after New Year’s, when Johnny was still 7. I could hear him sucking his thumb that night when he went to bed.

So, anyway, it was when I was making Johnny’s bed, I found the matches.

This story concludes here...

Birdhouse

2009-01-11T20:21:00.005-07:00

Upon learning he could get this place for a song, Leviculus could barely contain himself.

Sure. It was in a seedy part of town, but even his friends thought the new place was tweeet.

I rule everything.

2009-01-06T19:54:00.011-07:00

I am king of all I purvey. That includes your cat and those peanuts you just brought home from the grocers.

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

2008-12-24T16:39:00.003-07:00

The Tenth Day of Christmas

2008-12-23T21:15:00.002-07:00

The Ninth Day of Christmas

2008-12-22T16:18:00.012-07:00

The Eighth Day of Christmas

2008-12-20T15:01:00.004-07:00

Similar is not the same as The Same.

2008-12-09T14:33:00.012-07:00

The coiled antlers adorning the regal heads of these cardboard cutouts (Cervidae papyrae profunda or Cervidae papyrae dura) are very similar, but no two are ever identical.

[Be sure to click on image to get the full picture]

Patrick's Diamond

2008-12-01T05:00:00.023-07:00

We found the diamond on a Saturday. We were walking with our heads down against the sleet, and there it was, right in front of us. Laying on the sidewalk next to a pile of snow the plows had pushed up over the curb.

It only took us a second to realize what it was, when Patrick snatched it up before another car could drive by, and throw black slush on it. “A diamond! It’s a diamond.” Mom had a diamond ring once, but this one was much bigger. Being the oldest, I was naturally the authority in found treasures. I told Patrick we should take the diamond to a jewelry store, and sell it.

“You mean for money?” The Possibilities: new coats; warm boots; Candy. A Car.

We both hated walking in Omaha. Patrick, especially. I’d grown out of last year’s boots, and he hadn’t yet grown into them.
~
We came to Omaha in September. Mom and Dad had just split up, and she’d found a place there to live, and a job, too. And on a Saturday, Dad drove Mom, all us kids, our clothes, and our furniture to the big city.

At first, I didn’t wanna move there, but when I saw South 14th street, I knew things might be okay. There was something almost holy about the way our new street looked that afternoon. Almost all the houses were made of warm, red brick. It’s not like I’d never seen brick houses before. Lots of our houses at Lincoln Air Base were made of brick. But I had never seen this many houses packed in a row. And there was brick everywhere. The streets, even the sidewalks were paved with bricks.

And then, every single house had a tree in front of it. All lined up straight, one after the other like they were at a dance. The trees were very old. Some of them reached right across the street, and touched the trees on the other side. The leaves were red, orange, and pink. And the sun touched down on us underneath, only after it had fallen through all those leaves. Red was my favorite colour so I decided this was a sign that life wasn’t gonna be so bad there, after all.

But now it was December, and everything around us was hard and grey. Winter had turned the brick houses mean and bloody, and the bumpy brick street and sidewalks were smothered with a grey slime that people in Omaha called ‘snow.’

Downtown, concrete sidewalks followed us everywhere. They bridged bleak stone buildings to ugly dark streets. And they slapped at the bottoms of our feet every time we took a step. We didn’t have a car, and the bus cost too much so we had to walk everywhere. Sometimes, Patrick’s feet would get so cold, he could barely feel them. Then when we’d finally get inside someplace, they’d start stinging, and he’d sniffing. But he wouldn’t cry ‘cause then Mom would cry.
~
But this was a Saturday, and Mom didn’t have to work. We didn’t have to go to school, so we’d headed towards YMCA to play. Standing there with that diamond, we were only two blocks from the jeweler’s. We knew this exactly because we passed it every weekday on the way to the sitter’s.

It took less than a minute to get to the store. It was all lit up on the outside with green and red Christmas lights. The door was wide and covered with a sheet of pink copper, polished shiny, with 4 small framed windows near the top. Beside the door, in a large bay window, there were diamonds and gold watches perched with shiny rings and necklaces of green and red sparkle.

I pushed open the heavy door for Patrick, and he went in first, holding our diamond in his mittened hands, cupping it the way he would a butterfly or a lightening-bug. The floor inside was carpeted in a deep moss green and the room was filled with china dishes. There were goblets and vases of cut glass with little rainbows shining in them. It seemed like there was light everywhere and we could hear the Nutcracker Suite. We started to feel toasty warm right away.

There were two round men bent over a glass cabinet whispering. Behind them was a grandfather clock like the one on Captain Kangaroo, but more elegant.

“What do we do?” Patrick whispered to me.

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t, now that we were here. I’d been with my mother the week before, when she’d sold her wedding rings but that place had been filled with guns, old push-mowers, and picture frames hanging from the ceilings tangled with gas lanterns and fishing poles. Nobody there whispered, except Mom.

The man who’d bought her rings wore a green plaid shirt, and he had dirty fingernails. And when he smiled, I saw dark stuff on his teeth. He gave Mom two 10-dollar bills for her rings. First she said no, but then, all of a sudden she made a smile at him, and even thanked him.

But these men here, looking in the glass cabinet, wore suits of soft grey flannel. And their hands were pink and plump. They smelled like tobacco and wool. And peppermint.

One of them turned and saw us. He smiled and his cheeks made little round apples. “May I help you?”

“We have a diamond to sell.” Patrick carefully opened his mittens to show the man.

“Well now, where did you get that?” He came closer, and bent over to see what Patrick had. He had to bend a ways too, ‘cause Patrick only came to the middle of his thigh.

“We found it on the sidewalk by the Safeway. Do you wanna buy it?” Patrick stretched out his arms to raise the diamond higher for the man to get a better look.

“Well, let’s see.” The man reached inside his suit and took out what looked to be a very short telescope made of silver. He lifted the diamond out of Patrick's cupped mitten, and peered at it using the baby telescope. He pressed one end up against his right eye and held the diamond almost right against the other end. “Hmmm.” He furrowed his brow in concentration. He put the little telescope on the glass table and picked up a short, skinny metal pick. He scratched at the diamond and sort of nodded his head. “Hmmm.”

“Have you tried cutting glass with it?” He looked at each of us. We shook our heads in unison but said nothing. Is that what rich people did?

“Well, diamonds are so strong that they can cut glass. I not sure if this is a diamond, but one sure test would be to try cutting glass with it.”

“You mean like a window?” I asked. Wasn’t that against the law?

“Yes, like a window. Try it on this cabinet, here.” He swept his hand to the glass counter beside him. He handed the diamond to me. I passed it to Patrick. He stepped up to the glass, and scraped the diamond across it. Nothing. He tried it again. Not a mark. He turned to look at me and then down at his diamond. “Maybe you just need to put sharper corners in it.”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t work, son.” The man in the suit answered.

“You might still need it, though, sir.” I offered. “It’s really pretty, and it would make a nice necklace for your window.” Patrick looked up hopefully.

“I’m afraid not. It would be too soft and might break.” He told us then that it must actually be a big rock of salt, giving us a fancy name. And he told it was used to melt snow. Why would anyone want to melt snow?

We tasted it then, and discovered that it did taste like salt. Patrick wiped off the shiny rock with his mitten, and put it in his coat pocket. I looked down and saw that the snow melting from our shoes was making a wet spot on the fuzzy carpet. I put my arm around Patrick and started pulling him to the door. The heat in the room was starting to make my eyes sting, and Patrick was starting to sniff.

“Thank you, sir. We’re real sorry we bothered you.” I said, inching closer towards the door.

“That’s quite alright. It really does look like diamond, doesn't it? Would you kids like to stay for a while, and look around? We have some hot chocolate and peppermint sticks.”

“No, thank you.” I replied. “We gotta get goin’.” I took my arm away from Patrick long enough to pull open the big copper door. Cold air curled around us, and swept away the smells of the jeweler’s shop. We could hear it swishing around the shutting door behind us as we pushed back out into stinging sleet shooting down from Omaha’s flat winter sky.

The Moon on a String

2008-11-28T16:35:00.006-07:00

[other balloons, here and here ]

Opie's Opinion On Onion Pie

2008-11-23T12:23:00.013-07:00

Opie Opines
(And he's not at all shy.)
when Opal sets out her
Onion Pie.

Onion Pie?
Onion Pie?
I don't like the taste of
Onion Pie!

Feed me some peanuts,
or dead men's eyes.
Just stay away with that
Onion Pie!

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2-3 cups onions, thinly sliced (sweet onions are best)
3 large eggs, beaten
1 cup heavy cream, cold
3 TBS all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper, ground
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
Ready-made pie crust, with insides brushed with egg yolk and cold water.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Over medium-low heat, melt butter.
3. Add onions and saute until translucent. (maybe 20 minutes)
4. Whisk together eggs, cream, and flour.
5. Add onion mixture and cream; combine.
6. Season with salt and pepper and pour into chilled pie crust.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.
8. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F, and sprinkle of some Parmesan over top.
9. Bake for the another 20 minutes or until inserted knife comes out clean.

The disulfides and mycotoxins in onions (leeks, chives, and garlic, too) make them poisonous to many animals, like cats, dogs, and birds.

[click on image to enlarge]

VFW

2008-11-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Sitting with friends
at a long table cluttered
with bowls of oatmeal
and cold stacks of pancakes,
he holds his coffee mug
with both hands.

And recites the memory
of a cold ditch in Korea,
of hot chinese metal
and smoldering wool,
and the certainty
that he would burst into flames.

irreparable

2008-10-26T14:36:00.003-06:00

When Dumbfiddle's doohickey
went on the fritz,
they took it apart
to fix up the bits.

They unwound the winder,
and loosened the lid
that unsprung the springles,
and scattered her wits.

Tom

2008-10-23T11:15:00.011-06:00

Secrets in his mouth,
crayons in his hand,
2 days from now,
6 years ago.

He fell from the earth
into the world,
the gold in the trees,
the dust below.

Cuban Pickle Crisis

2008-10-22T12:14:00.003-06:00

When I think back to the 50s and 60s, I remember that it was the era of Flying Saucers and Green Men from Mars...Xenophobia was pandemic, and paranoia ruled the day.

On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy made a speech from the oval office, and frightened Americans everywhere sat in front of their televisions watching as he informed them that "large...offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction" were aimed at our country. We were doomed.

October was a major month for canning, and that particular day, we (women and young girls) were all busy putting up pickles. 12 women from 4 families on Pease Circle did what women had been doing for generations. We preserved the harvest: corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, and green beans, mostly. We did this as a small community. We were military, so we didn't have generations of continuity - only a shared heritage of preserving foods.

The threat of annihilation didn't stop us. It didn't even slow us down. Every waking hour was spent slicing, blanching, sterilizing, and filling jars. In fact, the chance that we might spend the rest of our lives underground lent an urgency to our mission. Another jar sealed was another blow to Communism.

Once the jars were cooled a bit, they were divided among the 4 households.

About 4 or 5 hours after JFK's speech, pickles stored in kitchens and porches on Pease Circle exploded. For 20 minutes, there was pandemonium. A broken window, reports of a gunshot, yelping dogs, women in housecoats pouring from every home...some armed with bats, some with rolling pins. Mrs. Janek carried a .22, and Mrs. Gorgone a BB gun. The MPs were called in.

In the end, the Russians removed their offensive weapons, and we lived to can another day.

Naturally, some doggerel:

Housecoats made the uniform
for twelve domestic soldiers true,
and curlers were the headgear worn
by several of the kitchen crew.

October, Nineteen Sixty Two
forever we will celebrate
when weapons in our pantries blew,
and invading aliens met their fate.

Green men scattered 'cross the lawns,
these marinated men from mars
glowed eerily in morning's dawn,
done knockered by exploding jars.

The juice of pickles, kosher dill,
had foiled their commie pinko plans.
It slushed their brains, and broke their will,
and gave them really stinky hands.

Sail

2008-08-09T14:56:00.004-06:00

little poof

2008-08-03T13:13:00.018-06:00

Have you noticed how some fledglings look like little poofs of dryer lint?

[click image for detail]

continuity

2008-07-22T11:14:00.058-06:00

I wrote a hokey poem a few years ago. It wasn't long after my husband had died. I realized that the reason some of us cling to the idea of life after death is not because we're afraid of dying, but that we can't tolerate the notion that we'll never again see loved ones who've passed before us.

Even now, I hope like hell that my husband's spirit is intact. An entity made of his karma, his memories, his energy, his ki 気 . I want like hell to join him when I die. But the intellect in me is doubtful. The intellect in me realizes that we're not a collection of disparate entities, but that we're all parts of a whole. Something I've called 'pudding' when describing it to anyone who'll listen.

When we dip our spoons into a shared bowl of pudding, we don't see its ingredients, let alone the subatomic particles making them. We see one homogenous blend of creamy and sweet.

But if we were small enough…waaaaay smaller than sugar crystals, and moles of lactose, smaller than even the subatomic particles making their carbon and calcium atoms...there’d be miles and miles, millions of miles of space between even the quarks and neutrinos. They would seem like separate entities. Certainly from that size, we wouldn’t even be able to tell that they were connected in any way.

I often wonder what our universe looks like from the perspective of someone much larger. Are we part of a tree? A dog? A teakettle? Something we can’t even name or fathom? To someone much larger than we, there is no separation between galaxies, let alone continents. And species? Or Plants, Animals, and Minerals? No more so than the creamy goodness dished out in our spoons. These are designations important only to us in our wee, tiny universe. (Did you know that if the earth were as small as even an orange its surface would actually be smoother than that of an orange?)

I'm rambling. I know. I guess I'm considering the fact that even if my husband's spirit isn't sitting here with me right now, it doesn't matter. He is still a part of this world, just as we all are, tree or dog, roach or fermented grapes, dead or alive. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Everything changes, and change is everything.

p.s. When I find the hokey poem, I'm going to add it to this entry. There's parts of the poem I still like, even if the others make me groan.

edited 23jul08 - I have found my hokey poem...at least what must be its latest rewrite, dated april of 2004. And of course, as you can read, it's not a poem at all. It's prose...there's poetry in it...in that it might be regarded as poetic, but it's prose nonetheless:

All My Relations

One early morning I was watching clouds floating across the Missoula valley, drifting apart and reforming, and I thought to myself...that's how it all moves.

Are we ghosts
boxed in eyes and ears
waiting for gods
to cut the tape? Maybe

we're the odd stones
collected and stacked,
till we tumble
back into the path;

the rain
rushing crimson
through our legs when we spring,
falling back to the earth
when we weep;

the the air
passing our lips to whisper
into the mouths
of waiting trees.

the grasses and the deer
who lend us their grace, till we pass it on
to hungry beasts
and shiny beetles.

Like clouds in a small valley,
we touch one way
and then another,
never separated.

~~Never lost.~~

...2004

~~~~

Still editing...I have decided to try this in first-person. I have given it a new entry, and its own illustration: here

Housing Shortage

2008-07-12T18:05:00.003-06:00

In springtime, I've watched birds check out every surface, every hole in the wall, looking for suitable places to build a nest...

Mayday, Mayday!

2008-05-01T12:01:00.039-06:00

Wonderful was this day for the mission,
spring in the city - sunny and clear.
Fully inflated squadrons of roundbirds,
tethered together, drawing us near.

All of a sudden, one of the birdies
broke from formation leaving his peers.
Hellbent for leather, turning in spirals,
bravely the maverick shot into gear.

Corkscrewing contrails, powered by flatus
thundering forcefully straight from his rear,
thrust daring Chrysippus into the wildest,
into the bluest, yon stratosphere.

Escaping Earth's gravity, bouncing off satellites,
blowing past asteroids, showing no fear,
Destiny calling, heaven-bound Chrysippus
hurtled towards his final frontier.

- - - -

an alternative wimpy ending (this would need a final verse to follow the rubbery-fluttered one I've written here):

Fuel nearly spent, now totally breathless,
reaching the zenith of his career,
rubbery fluttered, Chrysippus wondered,
"What in the hell am I doing here?"

A shout out and thank you for TenaciousK. Your teasing remarks early on are what inspired me to find new adventures for roundbirds, Chrysippus Crow and Circular Joe.

Changing Uniforms

2008-04-05T10:03:00.005-06:00

I stood in the Army recruiter's office. Daddy was due any minute. The Air Force recruiter was standing at my side. His office had been my home away from home for the last 3 months.

Until this very morning, everything had already been set. I was joining the Air Force.

The paperwork done, all that was left was some proper opening that suited my talent and skills. What I really wanted was to be a jet mechanic, but this was the early 70s, and the Air Force didn't think girls made good jet mechanics. So, I was settling for any job in electronics. The first opening in that field was in October, and this was June.

I was staying at Debbie's house, my best friend for a few years. It was her father, Sergeant Hensley, who had only the day before suggested that I join the Army. He'd returned home from work and was sitting in his brown upholstered lazyboy reading the afternoon paper. He was still partially in uniform. Like my father, he was an Airman. He was wearing olive drab fatigues, the ironed creases softened from a day's work in the June California heat. He had already removed his combat boots and placed them beside the chair. Debbie and I were cutting out a dress pattern on the hard, level floor and when the task brought my head near Sgt. Hensley's feet, he wiggled his right foot, pushing his fuzzy green socks against my ear.

"Listen to this, boys!" He'd always called us boys. "If you join the Army, not only will they take you right away, they'll guarantee you the job, in contract, AND this says they'll give you a bonus if you qualify for Army Security and become a code-breaker!"

With a start that scattered the dress pins, I looked up from our task. Debbie stared at him, dumbfounded. He didn't say Army, did he?

"Army?" I asked aloud.

"Yes. The Air Force won't make any deals like this." Sgt. Hensley answered.

"I could never join the Army! Daddy would disown me. He once told me that any pea brain could get into the Army."

Sgt. Hensley denied that and then, traitorously, listed for me all the virtues of the Army, daring to compare it to the Air Force. Debbie and I sat there on the cold floor, stunned. We began busying ourselves with the scattered pins while Debbie's Dad finished his list. Neither of us responded, and the subject was dropped.

Ever since I was 6 years old, I'd known I was going to be in the Air Force. We'd just moved to Lincoln Air Base in Nebraska. My daddy was a jet mechanic and in charge of maintaining the engines of the B-47 bombers. We all lived in base housing and our home was only 5 minutes from the hangars that housed the planes.

I would climb onto top of the brick wall of our patio and watch the bombers take off from the flightline. They seemed magic because we were so very big to be leaving the ground, and I thought that they were made of silver. When the sun was out, its light would glint off the fuselages, and though my eyes would burn and tear, I was determined not to shut them. Sometimes, the wind would carry the sound of the great turbine engines to me, and I was certain that it was the jets themselves that made the wind blow.

I knew that my father was very powerful because these were "his" jets, and I understood that he gave them their magic to fly. He used his magic on people, too. Whenever he entered a room, people would often stop talking to look at him. Some would whisper and others would come up to him and make humble noises and call him "Chief." He was a very tall 77 inches and his arms were rock hard. His skin was the red-brown colour of manzanita, and his short black hair shone blue in the sunlight.

When he wasn't TDY (away on Temporary Duty), I would see him dressed every morning in either his green fatigues or tan khakis. I liked the khakis best. He would stand in front of the mirror, adjusting his tie, his upper sleeves sporting deep blue stripes and his chest displaying ribbons that proved his prowess in war. His uniform would be creased just so, and I would wait while he carefully inspected his highly polished leather shoes. Sometimes, when he looked up from the shoes he would smile at me. This was good. It meant I had done a perfect job and there would be no need for him to touch up the shine before donning his starched khaki cap to leave for the day.

As I got older, my duties came to include ironing my father's uniforms and preparing his breakfast. But I was always a disappointment to him in school and in sports. My father was constantly pressed to lecture me on the importance of precision and the stupidity of attempting anything unless I intended to do it perfectly. In everything from Math to Geography, I could never seem to excel. My father could only describe my performance as, mediocre. In sports, I was almost comic. My glasses always fell off when I played basketball, and once, when Daddy drove 150 miles to cheer my team on at a track meet, I tripped coming out of the starting blocks in the 100-yard sprint.

But in preparing his uniforms, I was nearly flawless. I'd learned that a sharp uniform represented everything military, because giving attention to detail and self-discipline were traits necessary to achieve perfection. I was eager to learn, and I was honored that my father would trust me with such an important task.

After the uniforms were ironed, I would hang them carefully in his closet. Then I would stay there, and snoop quietly through his boxes of old photographs and colourful insignia leftover from prior assignments. Sitting there on the hardwood closet floor, I dreamed of the day I would wear my own Air Force uniform and win my father's respect.

But here I was, standing in the enemy camp.

A couple of hours after Sgt. Hensley read that Ad, I'd called the Army Recruiter, and I'd learned that it was true that the Army, while excluding women from combat and other "dangerous specialties," did allow us into a few combat support units. The recruiter said that there were several openings available immediately.

I'd spent most of the night talking with Debbie, and by dawn came to a decision. I called and informed the recruiter as soon as his office opened, but put off calling Daddy till almost lunch. He was at work. To say that he was upset is a gross misstatement; the man was apoplectic.

His aide connected me right away. "Daddy, can you meet me at the recruiters? I'm leaving for Oakland, tonight." Oakland was the send-off point for all military recruits from northern California.

"Cat? I thought you couldn't get in till October?" I could hear phones ringing in the background. Male voices were chattering and somebody was typing close by.

You see, my father's days on the flightline were over. He was now the ranking NCO on the base. Working from an air-conditioned office, he led a Wing of "pencil-pushers." His OD green fatigues folded neatly away in a box, he wore the Air Force's new regulation permanent-press, dark blue slacks with a coordinated powder blue shirt. And, with the exception of "Class A" uniforms, stripes were no longer worn on the sleeve. They were now discreetly displayed on the shoulder in the form of an enameled blue, chrome pin.

"Well, Daddy, there's something I have to tell you." I tried to take a deep breath, and failed. "I'm joining the Army."

"WHAT?" All background noise coming through his phone ceased. I pictured all those uniformed men in his outer office freezing at their stations. "JESUS CHRIST! Who the hell have you been talking to? Don't you dare...My God, you haven't signed anything, have you?"

"..no, Daddy..."

"GOOD!" Then don't. I'm not taking you anywhere!"

"Daddy, I'm not asking you to. Sgt. Hensley's dropping me at the recruiter's on the way to ..."

He cut me off. "Sgt. Hensley knows you're doing this? Does Sgt. McLaughlin know you're doing this?" The Air Force recruiter's name hurt my ears as my father's voice raised another 20 decibels.

"..yes..." I was whispering, now.

"And he LET you do THIS?" His voice was still the only sound coming through the phone. His men probably thought I was joining a brothel. "I'll meet you in 30 minutes!"

And he hung up.

When I got to the Army recruiter's office, I was actually meeting him for the first time. When we'd spoken that morning, I'd asked him to retrieve my records from the Air Force recruiter. And now, I was trying to prepare him for my father.

I told him that my father had been in the Air Force for more than two decades, and was very upset with my choice. Sgt. McLaughlin, now in the room dropping off my records, grinned broadly and nodded. "This guy's an old war-horse. He's gonna chew you a new ass." He returned to his office, laughing all the way.

While the Air Force recruiter shared office space with the Navy, the Army shared this office with the Marine Corps. The grinning Marine was sitting at his desk. "Forget lunch; I can't miss this action for a couple of hot dogs!"

As if on cue, my father appeared. He paused in the doorway, letting it frame his photogenic looks. He'd actually changed into his "Class A"s. The uniform vibrated a brilliant blue, and with so much rank and time in service, stripes of one sort or another fairly covered his sleeves. Silver wings and foreign citations were pinned on his right chest above his name tag, while a rainbow of
ribbons, framed and dotted with gold, silver and bronze totally covered his left.
He removed his cap, which was made of the same blue wool. Its leather bill was as highly polished as his low quarter shoes, and it reflected a curved distortion of the fluorescent light overhead. "I left a parade to come here and take care of this," he lied.

The Soldier and the Marine both stood to greet him. Home from Vietnam, they too, were decorated with ribbons and badges. Staff-sergeants, each carried 3 chevrons and a rocker on their crisp, sharply creased khaki sleeves and on their feet were the same polished leather shoes as my father’s.

He shook their hands and shaped his lips into a smile. His brown eyes flashed. "So, you think my daughter should join the Army?"

"She tells me that she'd like to take that direction, yes." The Soldier blinked at the older man's hostile tone.

The Air Force recruiter stepped back in the room, and my father thought he recognized an ally. "Can you believe Cat giving up the 'cream of the cream' to work with 'dog faces'?"

The Marine chuckled at the nickname, and went back to his desk. Daddy sat down on a couch near the Soldier's desk, and for a moment the room settled. The Soldier explained that I still had a couple of forms to sign. He'd been typing since my phone call that morning. One document needed to be read aloud and vocally addressed by me in front of witnesses before I could sign it.

He began to read, "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party, or any other subversive organization, such as the John Birch Society, Students for a Democratic Society..." Just as he finished, my father snorted, and chimed in,"Not until now!" Someone in the other office laughed.

The Soldier made a small chuckle, but he was watching my father intently. The Marine had swiveled his chair around. My father caught the Marine’s eye, and, inclining his head toward the Soldier, quipped, "Every time the Marines take a hill, the goddamned Army loses it!"

Traffic noise that had been floating into the office stopped and it seemed like everyone was holding his breath. The Marine stood and joined the Soldier, walking at a measured pace, over to file cabinets behind the Soldier's desk. He turned then, and rested his left arm on the cabinet, watching my father.

The Soldier began to stand but decided otherwise, and made a show of relaxing, letting his shoulder blades touch the back of his chair. "With all due respect, Chief, that remark was uncalled for."

My father returned, "I wanna let my daughter know what kind of outfit she's joining."

He'd entered the room so magnificently, but now my father sat, shoulders hunched, a palm rounding each knee and spittle forming in the left corner of his curling lip. His blue slacks had hiked up so that his ribbed black socks were showing, and the toe of his right shoe had scuffed the shine of his left. I remember thinking to myself that it was a pity the Air Force no longer issued the khaki uniforms that the Soldier and Marine were wearing.

Suddenly, Daddy remembered himself. He took a deep breath, and wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth with the flesh of his thumb. He stood up then and the Soldier did, also. Clearing his throat, the old man began to apologize, "I'm sure you've served honorably, Sergeant."

The Soldier let him save face. "Chief, I was as surprised as you to learn that the child of an Airman with your distinguished service wanted to join the Army, but I don't think either of us is going to change her mind."

Daddy walked over to me, and put his arm around me. His eyes were warm cocoa, "Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do? You'll never be as good in the Army as you could have been in the Air Force."

I found a way to get the words out. "Yes, Daddy."

He kissed my forehead, and when he tugged at my shoulder for a hug, I felt the quiver in his arm.

And he was walking back to the couch to retrieve his leather-billed cap. He made a smile, and excused himself. "She's in the your hands, now. I'd better get back to the base. I've got a parade to attend."

He looked down to make sure his pants' creases were straight, and spotted the scuff on his left shoe. He looked back up, donned his cap, and without even a glance at me, disappeared out the door.

What's in YOUR navel?

2008-03-25T06:59:00.005-06:00

In the middle of the center
of the circle of his wiggle,
was the button of his belly
and the reason for his giggle.

When the tippit of his tickle
of his finger with a squiggle,
touched his tummy full of jelly,
just enough to make it wiggle.

But the jiggle woke a lintle
from the fuzzy of its nestle.
Peeking out, it shook its woolies,
at the keeper of its vessel.

"Have you no consideration
for the nappers in your nichle?
Cut it out, or do it lestle.
Else I'll make your middle itchle!"
...

© catnapping

Beast of Burden

2008-03-16T20:07:00.014-06:00

For years, my middle brother Patrick slept with a donkey - a fuzzy, grey animal with mohair bangs and beady plastic eyes.

But after years of love, Donkey's head hung upside down, flopping on his shoulders. His seams had been sewn and re-sewn dozens of times, and the fabric was so fragile that it would tear from the needle. Mom had finally taken to mending him with duct tape. So the Christmas before Patrick turned 5 years old, Mom asked Santa to replace the donkey with one who was identical in all ways, except for the worn patches, the broken neck, and the Nebraska grime.

Donkey was placed under the tree, and some time during the night Santa came and made him brand new.

-*-*-*-

Neither of my parents was what Christians would call "religious." It's not that they were lazy or lapsed...more like agnostic. Both claimed little patience for "the superstitious nature" of religion, but mom (socialized in the Lutheran version) was especially contemptuous, and the religion she saw as the most superstitious was Catholicism. The thing is, Dad was raised in a Catholic Orphanage -- by Nuns. He was still bitter from the years of physical and emotional abuse, so Mom's bigotry didn't really bother him - so much

Given all this, and the potential for conflict, they made a pact. They decided months before I was born that their children would not be baptized in either church. They would let their children decide for themselves. And they stuck to this bargain - till the year Patrick's dying donkey was reborn.

That was the same year Mom caught Dad cheating (an understatement that deserves a chapter of its own.) And in a brilliant stroke of that'll-teach-ya, she decided we would be baptized at a Lutheran church in Lincoln.

The First Baptism

The Minister wore a light grey suit, and an unbelievably white shirt. And he told us to call him, 'Reverend.' He asked us questions about Jesus. We knew very little. We knew Christmas was his birthday, and we'd been told that the little china doll in the school crèche was the baby Jesus. That was pretty much it. He asked us if we knew about Original Sin. Did we know about Adam and Eve? Not a clue.

With anger whitening his eyes, and flaming from his ears, he told us right then about the Evil that was Eve...and how if not for Jesus, we'd all be burning in a place called hell, forever and ever. The only way to save ourselves was to accept Jesus right there and then, in his office, before mom came back and it was too late. We'd be given a clean slate. We'd be brand new. Reborn.

Patrick, who'd brought Donkey along, asked if he could get baptized, too.

No. And hell no. "Beasts don't have souls. They were put here to serve man's needs - as food and beasts of burden."

Patrick said, "If Donkey can't get baptized then I don't wanna get baptized, either." Dwayne and I agreed. What do you mean animals aren't people?

"But if you refuse, you'll burn in hell. And now it will be worse, because now you have heard the word of God. You are no longer ignorant. You have been offered salvation, and are refusing Jesus! You'll burn in hell."

"But what about Donkey? I don't want him to burn in hell."

"He won't burn in hell. He doesn't have a soul! He'll just die. But you will burn in hell. Forever and ever."

An hour in the reverend's office is forever and ever.

We certainly didn't wanna burn, and if Donkey wasn't gonna burn, we told the reverend we would accept this Jesus guy. So right there and then, we received an emergency baptism just in case we should die before Sunday.

The Second Baptism

That Sunday we sat on wooden benches waiting for the big moment. We were starving. Mom said we couldn't eat till after the baptism. We couldn't play. We couldn't talk. We couldn't stand up. It was hell. Everyone was in greys and numbing pastels. Even the building was grey.

Our school clothes weren't good enough, so Mom had bought Dwayne and Patrick brand new slacks. And made Hugh a white baptism gown trimmed with blue piping so people would know for certain that he was a boy. Lucky Hugh, he got to miss the reverend's lecture. For me, she whipped up a frothy lemon dress with a matching hair ribbon. She bought us all new shoes, black for the boys, and white for me - and got me white gloves, to match. Those gloves saved my life. I spent an hour on that bench taking them off, and putting them back on again.

And the moment wasn't so momentous. Except that Hugh screamed bloody murder when he felt the water on his head.

Finally it was over, and we were leaving the church. As we came down its massive steps, the numbing colours of the day sharpened, focusing onto my father - waiting in the parking lot. Sitting on the hood of our station wagon, he didn't take his eyes off Mom. And he didn't blink. Not once.

Apparently Mom forgot to tell Dad about the baptism. She'd scheduled our interview while Dad was TDY, and I'm guessing she didn't expect him to return till long after the accomplished feat.

The Third Baptism

At this point, a well-written narrative would be building to some kind of climax, looking for resolution...for certainly dad's anger and his decision to use the family car as a murder weapon makes for high drama.

But to be perfectly honest, all I can remember clearly of the drive home is the speedometer - 105mph.

And Patrick crying into his donkey.

So. Should I even include this example of narcissistic abuse? Or should I tighten this narrative to the odd mix of ironies and juxtapositions of Jesus, Patrick's Donkey, resurrection, eternity, and hell?

Donkey was resurrected. We saw it. We saw his love-worn body under the tree Christmas Eve, and the new fluffy one, come Christmas morning.

Donkey was Patrick's beast of burden; his savior; his confidant. He met all Patrick's needs. And through the power of faith, (and the intercession of Santa Claus), he was reborn.

~~A better writer could~~ Should I explore the the bible's teachings and how they've shaped a people to see the world as a resource? - a treasure chest, a toolbox? And how as a result Christians have come to view their culture-hero in much the same way? During the week, they dump on him all of their emotional burdens, and then come Sunday they eat his body and drink his blood.

Because for this day, I can find no climax, no resolution. For what could only have been a 20-minute drive, that seemed to last forever and ever, my father terrorized our entire family. He taunted mom with the idea of killing us all by driving our car into a tree. He snidely assured her that, having been freshly baptized, we were all in a state of grace, and would absolutely go to heaven. Would another writer allude to this journey home as a baptism? Yet a third, in one week? Isn't each new trial we survive a rebirth? What washes over us, exactly? Relief?

I know Patrick's tears washed over Donkey.

And suddenly we were pulling into the driveway. We exited the car, and Dad let us into the house. Mom prepared lunch, and we all sat down to eat.

Donkey sat on Patrick's lap.

Green Thumb

2008-03-08T16:01:00.006-07:00

I drew this with my mouse, so it's all digital...I did a quick sketch, but didn't scan it...so this is entirely digital. The clouds are white squiggles that I dilated, and then blurred, and then warped. The kettle was filled with green, and I used the light/dark tool to shade it...

I drew stems and leaves, and then put noise in them, and then used the edge-smoothing tool.

To see it at 800px, click on the image.

Touched by Love.

2008-02-19T14:18:00.007-07:00

Studio Lolo has tagged me with Peace and Love. There are no personal questions, no odd bits of information I'm required to share. Only to meditate on love and peace...I can do that!

I'd like to continue to spread the love, so I'm giving a big hug, and sloppy kiss on the nose to Anonymous, Val Gal, Saint Nick, Thomas Paine, and Hipparchia.

Thises and Thats

2008-02-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

This is just something I've never uploaded before but is part of the things I mess with.

I've been trying to find a sketch I made of a ether-friend holding her cat. It was one of those special, spontaneous things that sort of falls from your fingers into the ink, and I can't find it anywhere. My guess is that I removed it from the tablet...and put it in a safe place. aaaaaaaargh.

So I've decided to stop looking, and make another. I will be looking at images of her beautiful cat, and rereading her emails...to put myself back in touch with that moment that lent itself to the first sketch.

Painting with watered ink...

2008-02-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

Ya know, I took drafting and Architectural Drawing in high school. This was the olden days. There was no CAD - computers took up the space of a small apartment. We used fountain pens, and sat at drafting tables.

I always liked the feel of a good nip on a paper or vellum. In all that time, it never occured to me to dilute the ink or use it as a colour wash...

How the Raven Gave us Stars

2008-01-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

It was the raven who gave us stars. He stole them from a village next to a large river that ran from the mountains to the sea.

He made himself into a small pine needle, and dropped from a tree into a drinking cup. The village chief had a daughter who was drinking tea from that cup. And she swallowed the pine needle with her tea.

Once inside the chief's daughter, the raven changed from a pine needle to a baby. He was born soon after, and he was the chief's favorite grandson. The chief could deny him nothing.

The stars were highly prized by the villagers, and it was the chief's duty to guard them. They were held in a soft bag made from the belly of a white tail deer. The chief's daughter coloured the bag with blackberries so that the light from the stars would not shine through. But the raven was not fooled.

He cried for the bag. And at first his grandfather said, no. But the raven child made large tears to run down his beautiful face, and in the end the chief could not deny him. He gave him the soft bag to play with.

Just as soon as the grandfather gave him the bag, the raven pulled on the sash and let loose the stars. They poured upwards into the sky and spread all across, millions and millions till the bag was empty, and light was now sprinkling down from above.

[click image to enlarge]

Approaching

2008-01-16T17:58:00.002-07:00

Missoula buses talk to us now. They're not reciting poetry or anything like that. (If we're so inclined, we need only look up, and there's plenty on the ceiling.)

Nope. Missoula's busses offer cheer:
Welcome, and Happy Holidays from the staff at Mountain Line.

They caution us:
Remain seated until bus comes to a complete stop.
Do not talk to the operator while bus is in motion.

And they tell us where we are:
Now approaching Russell and Wyoming.
Now approaching Missoula Library - Front and Adams.

Listening to this for 20 some minutes is incredibly annoying, I can't imagine what it's like for the drivers who hear it all day long.

This morning, I was on Route 1, and the bus I boarded was in an especially chatty mood. For every stop along the route, we were reminded twice of its approach. And then we started approaching Brooks and Sussex. A good 4 blocks out, my helpful bus made sure to tell us. Then, about 2 blocks out, it reminded us again. And then a block out, and then yet again, when we were caught at the traffic light at the corner of Brooks and Sussex, it told us twice more, "now approaching - Brooks and Sussex. (Maybe Zeno had a point.)

I asked the driver, "does it ever approach orgasm?"

He didn't skip a beat. "Only if you rub the seats."

Stitch

2008-01-14T13:21:00.001-07:00

Ye gads! There's been a tear in the space-time continuum!
If we don't act fast, we're gonna lose the 9!

These Blogs Make my Day!

2008-01-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm tickled to learn that I've made Ces' day, and I'd like to pass that feeling along.

Here are some blogs that make my day!

Boiled Egg's blog (Caution: This egg takes drugs, and he farts, too!)

Jack's Bird-brained blog (I wish I could find a man as cute and colourful as this bird!)

Sexy (but married) Scientist's blog (I have a crush on 5 men I've met on the internet, and 3 of them are married. But I stalk them anyway...)

Sexy (but married) Artist's blog (I like Mick's use of collage and his sense of light and movement. I find something to think about every time I look at his work.)

Val's blog (I get hungry for candy every time I see Val's work. Her colours are positively edible.)

Serendipity

2008-01-06T16:49:00.003-07:00

This last Fall, I kinda followed the progress in the construction of a new wall and stairs of an apartment complex in my neighborhood, documenting some of it with photos.

Repair of the wall was a long time coming. It had gotten so bad that I was almost afraid to walk past it for fear that it would burst, and all the earth, junipers, iron fencing, and building sitting atop would avalanche, burying me right along with passing cars.

Noting that the largest crack in the wall was actually moving outward about half an inch a day, I started to record the wall’s deterioration with my little cheapy, digital camera. Every day for 4 days, I took a picture.

On the 5th day, I came down the walk to find that the wall was gone, and the property had been cordoned off with orange plastic fencing. There was a great hole, and I couldn’t imagine living in that corner of the building without worrying that the floor was going to fall through. I took a picture.

I found the process of repair fascinating. In order to construct a wall stable enough to hold back tons and tons of earth, they had to secure a foundation, which meant tearing out the existing sidewalk, along with the flight of stairs leading up into the building. The whole yard looked like a bomb had taken it out. No lawn, no sidewalk, no stairs…the demolished wall was in piles 8-feet high, in the yard and out in the street. I took more pictures.

Forms for the wall’s foundation were built, concrete was poured, and left to set for a week. Then, they went through the process all over again for the wall itself. A great 7-foot vertical, wooden face, gridded, and sprouting with rebar stood for weeks in the wind and snow, while the concrete inside hardened and cured. I wanted to document the small changes…snow on this day, ice on the next…the movement of dirt and broken concrete, hauled away bit by bit. The photos could have been in black and white, except for the plastic – orange fencing and traffic cones to warn off the curious. But still, I took pictures.

Then finally the forms came down. And the welders came, moving in their auras of arcing blue and white sparkle…they strung the yard with black shiny iron…a new fence along the top of the wall, a guardrail for the new wheelchair-accessible sidewalk, and handrails for the stairs. Naturally, I took pictures.

All these pictures, weeks of pictures - 2MB files, dozens and dozens, and I never really looked closely at any of them. It was enough to know that I’d made the captures...until they started filling up my hard-drive and hogging my laptop’s RAM. I noticed that my Public Pictures folder was taking a long time to load. So I organized…I decided to choose, to search for favorites, and delete the rest. A tedious job to be sure, opening each and every photograph…

Bits of glass; bits of pink; bits of crack.

Even such ultra-large pixel shots don’t look like much when you see them in the camera’s window. They don’t look like much when transferring to the files on your computer, either. But honey, when you actually open them up, they fill your entire screen, and you see things you didn’t even know were there in the shot when you made the original capture – Like where the sun has slipped under pebbles of glass, the tiny streaks of pink in what you thought were plain bits of orange plastic…and in the shadows of a stairwell, a young man’s pants held not by his hips, but by his thighs.

eventful morning

2008-01-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

I saw a mink today. And I got him on film for just a second...two frames...and even these are poor.

I thought he was an otter*, but someone there explained that he was indeed, a mink. It's the first time I've ever seen a mink in real life.

I also saw a newborn...made a quick sketch.

*a little trivia:
'Otter' shares its etymology with 'water' and 'winter'.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/otter
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/winter

walmart cardigan

2008-01-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Head over Heels

2008-01-01T18:58:00.001-07:00

Circular Joe took a spin in the round
ice skating rink on the cold side of town.
He zipped, and he whipped,
then he slipped, and he flipped.
And he soared through the air with his up-sides, down!

The Seventh Day of Christmas

2007-12-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Seven swans took turns swimming laps in the club's skinny new indoor pool.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

2007-12-19T14:58:00.001-07:00

Six geese were laying waste to his new hideout with their new weapon.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

2007-12-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

On Christmas Eve, a pepsi and five gold rings were set out for Santa.