At least there are cats in the box.

There seems to be something horribly--even morally--wrong with being bored. Thankfully, most of the time I am too busy to notice.

The thing is, as much as I’ve studied and learned and compared notes, I cannot help thinking--when there’s a person who does, really, nothing all day and all night apart from reading the paper and 3 different books (again)--that I should be providing an activity. But the thing is--he, apparently, is not bored. Me, keeping him company? Bored.

But you can’t leave a person alone all day. So I do stuff. I be a writer even though the world has its fill of them, as far as I can tell. I think, actually, the world has its fill of almost everything a human could possibly contribute. Except for Concert Association database keeper. So I do that too. And study Japanese. Even though chapter 3 in the textbook is really getting on my nerves in being legible only to people younger than 35 and ants who might be literate. I fiddle. And I sponsor errands.

Tonight I decided to try something new, so I rooted through the chest of drawers in the computer room where games are stashed, and pulled out Railroad Rush Hour. It’s a puzzly thing where you set the little plastic engines, boxcars, and cabooses in a frame in such a way that the red engine can’t escape until you’ve slid the other cars out of its way, sequentially. I’m not so great at it. Even using the “beginner” cards to set things up. But I did get Jeff to sit down with me. It was clear that he was humoring me and had zero interest in trying to free the red engine. I fooled around with it a bit. Reminded me, unfortunately, of those dumb little sliding number frames you’d win as a consolation prize, and which I more or less detested. Rush Hour was better. But only a bit. Still...I guess if a puzzle doesn’t stimulate the slightest interest in a person, there’s not much I can do about that.

So I feel like I’m living in a box, sort of. It’s a relatively nice box, with some things to play with. I guess I’d like a slightly bigger box with a few more people in it.

No. I will not get a neckchain.

I hate glasses.

To be fair to the whole concept of optical devices, I really do appreciate them in theory. But it was easier to be impressed with the instantaneous improvement afforded by a pair of mild nearsightedness correctors, which had the magical property of instantly dispensing with the nuisance of myopia at the slight trade-off of a frame on your nose.

This was all that I needed, and only in certain situations at that, until a couple or so years ago. But now I believe that I’m in need of some sort of specs-on-a-hinge device, where two pairs of glasses, joined at the earpieces, would flip to the top of my head, or down to eye-level, depending on whether I intended to see the wipe-off board in Japanese class (that’s where they used to have chalk boards--up front,) attempt to differentiate “hi” from “pi” in hiragana in my textbook, or read the impossibly, ridiculously miniature lettering on the back of a shampoo bottle at the grocery store. There would be three options: distance glasses, no glasses, and 1.50+ magnifying.

I understand that it is the purpose of “progressive” lenses to address all of these conditions in the convenient package of a single (or rather 2 single) lenses the size of dried prunes.

I got a pair maybe 1.5 years ago? But see...I can’t read out of the bottom part like I’m supposed to. If I hold the book at a distance of about arm length, then yes...I can read with the glasses. But I’m better off without them entirely. And when it comes to that tiny tiny tiny stuff, it’s magnifiers or forget it. So I don’t know (and please help me if you know the answer to this question) whether the problem might be that my prescription of 1.5 years ago, which apparently wasn’t exactly up to date as of January this year, is maybe just not strong enough.

The question is whether it’s worth sinking a few more hundred dollars into an updated prescription, or whether I should just learn to love pushing glasses up and down my face in class, and fishing out the magnifiers in the grocery store.

Because the real nasty thing about presbyopia is it just doesn’t correct with the delightful alacrity of myopia. It’s kind of picky.

Anyway, I think that if I had any gift for synthetic parts manufacturing, then Lifetime Guarantee Flexilenses® which you get implanted could be a really big seller. In the meantime...(crap)...I will be that dork handing objects to my children and saying “what does this say please?” And they will tell me. But Gabe will pronounce it weird.

Maybe you clap the hand against your foot.

I would say our road trip to Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey was good. Good in the somewhat interesting, we found food, and Janet the GPS did yeoman duty sense of good. The college visit itself has derailed me into all sorts of side ruminations about Gabe, college fit, and what the heck we should do with the kid.

(As an aside, I will say that I’m never so happy to see my bed as when I’ve just spent the last night in a hotel. Not that the Holiday Inn Express was bad. It was fine. Good even. But the disorientation experienced by Jeff, who gets up at night, can’t find the bathroom, turns lights on, then can’t figure out how to get back in bed always means my sleep is pretty patchy. Threw into focus for me exactly why I don’t go out of my way to plan trips anymore. And the coffee was weak. But you’d expect that.)

But, back to Gabe. Answering the question What should Gabe do after high school? feels like a restatement of What is the sound of one hand clapping? Like trying to answer the koan, you must--in trying to answer the Gabe question--actually think of an answer where it appears none exists. Maybe you can throw away the koan as stupid, but you can’t throw away the kid. And here’s where the usual objections or words of counsel, from the well-meaning, hit the bricks and go splat.

Doesn’t the kid need to figure this out for himself? Well, yes, ideally. But this kid isn’t even motivated to do the usual things, like drive a car or, um, move, sometimes. As far as I can tell, he would, if left unattended, default to eating Honey Nut Joe’s O’s and finding intriguing new animes online. All day. All night. It might not ever occur to him that he was now out of high school and in need of a plan.

Maybe you’re just a control freak. Let’s get this straight, right now. I don’t want to control anyone. It is my greatest wish that each person control him/herself. But, like a medium-ranked canine which will assume alpha rank if there’s a vacuum, I am keenly aware that there are things in need of controlling and absolutely no one stepping up to the plate.

So maybe if he didn’t assume you’d take care of it, he’d step up himself. Voila. Exactly. It’s my only hope. Which is why the default thought that you can send an undermotivated kid to the community college for a couple years falls flat. Gabe must go somewhere else. Somewhere where it’s good and clear that I’m not there to back him up.

But I doubt if that place will be Fairleigh Dickinson. Of my many impressions, the one that has filtered out most strongly is that it is not a school of non-conforming odd-ducks. Gabe would be the marginalized figure he more or less was at Summit. Baltimore Lab, where almost everyone is uniquely weird, has been a refreshingly better fit. Hence, it is my latest line of thought that, like the ugly duckling and the swans, Gabe must be dropped amongst a freaky dorky weird collection of creative types in order to have a hope of finding the inspiration to be who he is.

Which leads me to Columbia College. The son of Gabe’s carpool driver/teacher, a Lab 12th grader, has discovered a most appealing atmosphere at this school of arts and media in...Chicago. Chicago? I said. That’s so far away! Indeed, it made no sense to me at all until I checked their web site, watched a couple of their videos, and was quickly awash in the remarkable realization that here was a school full of students who are--each in his/her way--as weird as Gabe. It was a crazy wake up call, which highlighted what a wrong environment FDU--with its girls in Ugg boots and baseball team boys--was for Gabe.

FDU has a great LD program. But here is, perhaps, the second most important take home point I took home from our FDU visit, and it was made by the counselor presenting the program to us. That is: Do not pick a school with the LD program--no matter how fine--as the primary focus. Pick the school first for whether it fits the kid. The program is icing. Nice icing, but icing.

Still--don’t worry mom--it is not my plan to send the kid to Chicago. (I may show him the video...but, seriously. Don’t worry.)
It is my plan though, to look for something that looks like that. Because, here’s the thing:
What do we know about Gabe? What has he put any effort into and what makes him proud? Here are a few things that come to mind: He likes...hypnotism, sleight of hand, moonwalking, weird right-brain cartooning, unicycling, the rare work of fiction or poetry he actually sits himself down to do, ideas and notions that drift in from somewhere left of left field. He needs focus, motivation, and inspiration. But he’s not going to get it by being the weird kid among preppies. But maybe, in a place where the arts of all sorts--drama, writing, game creation, storyboarding--are being performed by better-focused kids all around him...maybe in such an environment he will catch a glimpse of what he wants to be. And maybe I’m stupid. But maybe one hand can clap, I don’t know.

Telephone Company Flunk-out.

When I was 21, I flunked out of the telephone company.

That was quite a long time ago. I’ve never completely addressed the subject, because I didn’t then--and possibly still don’t--know exactly what to make of the experience, but at the moment I feel like trying, so here goes:

I was a recent college grad, with a motley B.S. in Animal Science (by way of anthropology, art, and French, + 3 undergrad colleges.) So I was certainly not facing any obvious career path, and this explains why my father--a loyal executive (retired) of C & P Telephone--felt that pursuing an inroad into telephone company management might be a thought. So he put me in touch with a former colleague who suggested--strongly--that I NOT enter from the ground up--that is, by means of an entry level operator-type job--but rather wait until an entry into the management track opened up. My dad, meanwhile, ever mindful of honest work, suggested the opposite. Why not do the phone rep training track while I was waiting? As it turns out, I think the first guy was on to something. But I listened to dad. Here’s what happened:

At this point I can’t even remember what the job title of the position I began training for was. Some kind of service rep thing. A phone answerer/do you want fries with that type of person. I commuted daily, with a red-haired guy whose name I’ve forgotten (but who drove a VW Bug he retrofitted himself,) 1 hour each way, to the training facility in Hunt Valley.

For what ultimately would have amounted to maybe 8 weeks, I (and my fellow job-seekers) engaged in a step-wise, semi-self-paced program in which we simulated the behavior of real service reps by taking phone calls from remote training personnel (playing the role of “customers.”) Gradually, we’d add a new trick to the list of topics to cover, or sales hints to plant in every telephone encounter with the other side. And at certain pre-determined junctures, they tested us by means of a similar simulation.

Said hello the right way. Check. Inquired as to whether customer’s equipment was working satisfactorily. Check. Proposed an upgrade to more expensive equipment, without being obvious that the equipment was more expensive. Check. (This was the old days...when phones were owned by the phone company. Within a matter of a year, equipment privatization happened, and people bought their own crappy phones.) But, see...this was where things started to get weird. Because the check-off list of things we were required to cover, in any and all customer encounter, became so specific and picky that I believe, essentially, my brain rebelled. Do you have kids? Do they play in the basement? Could you use a phone in the basement? How about in the doghouse? Does your baby need a phone? Do you have a baby? Are you planning to have one? It was actually kind of sick and pathetic.

You were not allowed to miss a trick on these test calls. I do not know, to this day, whether I was capable of passing. All I know is, I could not say all that crappy stuff. Whether I actually forgot parts, or whether it was simply so contrary to my nature to fit into somebody else’s box, I cannot say. But what the manager lady told me--and I remember this distinctly--is that I did not “meet the objective.”

I did not know how to respond then, and I still barely know. The objective? What was going on there? Clearly, there was no leeway for personality or even a glimmer of independent thought in that gig. Was I too dumb? Surely I was not less intelligent than all telephone service reps of the 80’s. Too stubborn maybe. Too ornery, also maybe.

I asked myself afterward: Could I have passed? Was it possible for me to have done so? And I still don’t know. I failed. I don’t know what it was a failure of, but I don’t think it was a failure of intelligence.

I suppose, what I honestly believe is that the program was, essentially, a screening process for automatons. You would be filtered out for a faulty memory, no doubt, but you would also be filtered out--of this I am certain--for free thought. The process was meant to squeeze out any who could not, amoeba-like, conform themselves to a service-rep sized box.

You know what? That’s not right. My sister (smarter than I by most measures) would not have flunked out. Maybe I was just dumb. Or maybe I was just exceptionally stubborn in the face of rigid expectations. I don’t know. I still don’t.

But I do know I would have stunk at the telephone company. Even as a manager.

Clarence meows like Bob Newhart.

Clarence the cross-eyed muse likes to thwap his tail at me. If he were more of a humanoid muse he might tap his foot impatiently, or drum his fingertips on the kitchen counter, but as it is--in his vague felinity--the message conveyed by the tail comes across unmistakably.

It’s time to edit, prods Clarence...and I do. Bit by tiny bit.

In the AARP Bulletin, an article profiles several folks who returned to the work force in their 50’s and up, finding jobs--in every case--in retail. I could do that. I could do the Barnes & Noble bookselling thing, if not the Trader Joe’s food-peddling thing. Sometimes I think I should do it now. Not spending current income flow could possibly do more to reduce potential impingement upon future security than tacking on supplemental income later.

But it’s not a serious option, and Clarence knows that perfectly well, even if my hesitancy to wrestle with creativity goads me into supposing that not-working is the irresponsible move. Ha. Like leaving Jeff home by himself while I hang out in the stacks at B&N would be responsible? Not. Not that I don’t need to pull myself back into the land of the living at least a little farther...I think I do...but I cannot abandon my charge to do so. Hence, I am home, lots...and also hence, Clarence is right. I have no good excuse not to scrape what creative energy I can muster into helping him keep his job. And earn Muse Stamps. Which he can spend at the Muse Stamp Redemption Center on a big refrigerator-sized scratching post to leave his claw sheddings in.

So, here we are, Clarence and I, trying to get this crazy kite of a story aloft, whether or not the wind is blowing.

This does not mean that I will never be semi-gainfully employed, but conditions for now leave me with absolutely no excuse to not keep at the fear-inspiring dream. I should probably befriend failure...same as I’ve befriended anxiety...then we just won’t have to worry about that anymore, and Clarence and I can get down to work.

snow comin'?

Is an overnight with the sibs a good thing, or a bad thing? Regardless of the fallout, I’m inclined to consider any event that gets Jeff interacting with humans other than me and Gabe to be a plus, but tiredness takes a notable toll.

It’s a little weird, when he walks in the door. How was Rehoboth? I ask. Good, he says. Where did you stay? His face goes blank. Did you guys go out for dinner last night? More blank.

Later he is able to tell me that they stayed in the home of a friend of Cousin Robin’s, but no information about dinner is within reach. He remembers that he stayed on a bed that was not so comfortable, and that he was cold. And he thinks he was in Cape May. Rehoboth, I remind him. Pointlessly, actually. A quick forensic examination of the duffel bag reveals that the clean t-shirt and briefs I sent went unused, but a hand-towel from the host house came home with him. Bedtime, I think, will be early tonight.

Will be for me too, if I finish this Pinot.

Clarence the cross-eyed muse, on the other hand, seems to be right on the ball today as I edit Weird Tale #4, or what exists of it, so far. Well, Clarence is a help. But there’s also Friday’s acupuncture, which seemed--at least for the first 48 hours--to cause all my inward negativity to blurble up in great glarbs and splots until, well--for today at least--I’m left with a little inner tranquility and a bit of creative energy.

I do not understand the latest Giant Food retrofit. I went there today. Not something I do often, but we needed o.j. and mango chutney (yes, we needed that,) and even though the same cute Asian produce man asked me if I needed help finding something 3 times, I still could not help but feel that Giant, in its newest incarnation, is designed to drive humans crazy, much in the way of a Walmart.

And yet, not everyone detests Walmart, nor was Giant--on the eve of what they say will be 5-8 inches of snow--suffering for want of customers. No. In spite of the fact that the aisle shelving now towers ominously over you like trash compactor walls in a nightmare sequence, Giant has customers. It is clear that my brain, like my foot, was not the model upon which the marketing wonks based their mainstream prototype. Which is fine, as long as there’s Trader Joe’s. And teriyaki tofu at good Japanese restaurants. With chopsticks.

shufu to you too

Chapter test #1, Japanese, is tomorrow night. Gabe has been a bit remiss in memorizing a short list of college majors and careers, so I made a study help--clip art of the various things, labeled with the Japanese word. The shufu illustration was especially chosen to reflect my feelings about the word. Yesterday we were reviewing: Shufu I say. Um...office worker? Gabe guesses. No, I say, housewife.

You’re sort of a shufu, says Gabe. No, I absolutely am not I assert. Shufus do not write fiction. Shufus do not install tile and hardwood floors. Shufus are not the only people in the house who can fix your computer. Shufus do not jump-start cars and fix bicycles. And shufus do not learn Japanese.

But you’re sort of a shufu, Gabe insists. Sort of NOT, I doubly insist. It is a detestable word, in any language.

As such, my clip art shufu is watching soaps and ironing--neither being an act I commit if I can help it. Further, I submit that even the word is an anachronistic concept in today’s society anyway. There are people of all ages and genders whose lives don’t necessarily revolve around standard salaried employment, and I’m quite certain you would not accuse them all of being shufus, and I utterly decline the designation along with them.
But still Gabe. Learn the English translation. It might be on the test.

The pc, meanwhile, is (as I’ve alluded to,) in need of serious help. It’s a phenomenon how much crap can drift through the net-ether when one browses anime and fan fic sites. Downloading spyware removers has added burrs to hair-knots, and I’ve resolved--at this point--to learn to live with protection-racket software. We will try Kaspersky. It’s on its way. In the meantime, once the pc--now reinstalled from scratch--is reloaded with the usual line-up (Firefox, Windows Media Player, Guild Wars of course...) I will try to make a ghost of it on an external drive, possibly (but not definitely,) reducing the size of the headache the next such episode gives me.

Cellar dwellers

Sometimes the isolation wrought by organic brain syndrome is the specter you host, like it or not, on a drop-in basis. Actually, it’s always there, but sometimes it contents itself with living in the basement where you can sometimes sort of ignore it like that whiff of eau de kitty litter box. Other times it wants to hover in the kitchen, radiating its mood-deadening vibe into the shared atmosphere.

Warning: Do not watch movies such as P.S. I Love You, Love Actually, or even Mamma Mia when the specter is living upstairs. Back to the Future or anything Harry Potter are acceptable.

Clarence the muse and I have been having a little trouble finding time to get much accomplished. It’s my fault this time--I can’t pin it on Clarence. I like this Japanese stuff, see, and am doubling up on the books. The basement job is there and wants doing. (If it’s more orderly maybe the specter will stay down there? Doubt it.) And getting up at 5:15 a.m. puts me in afternoon nap mode. Hence, Clarence rarely can get any of my freshest brain time. Perhaps reality can catch up to my good intentions. We don’t want Clarence moving into the basement.

sandwich

My daydreams are taking me to weird and unfair places. Well...unfair in that I could never go there by making the right choices.

Lunch was at Panera, with Helen and 5 year old Belle. (Who can spread her own cream cheese on her bagel, thanks.) We talked about “comfort food...,” specifically, is there anything from childhood that is a true keeper, in the comfort food arsenal? Apart from the fact that I think of tunaroll cassafish (the kind made with soup and egg noodles,) with fondness, it seems that my segue from a standard American to mostly veg diet a couple of decades ago has rewritten my comfort food roster.

I love: grape leaves (dolmas,) hummus, udon noodles in miso broth, excellently-seasoned tofu, and Indian flatbreads with lentil dal. Foods that make me smile. So much for American classics. (with the caveat that I am truly enjoying the pickle they serve with sandwiches at Panera.)

In messy little blurts of indentured servitude in which the kitchen timer is boss, I’m getting the basement sorted. Jeff may be going to see Fallingwater with Helen in April. I may yet have my best chance to call junkbusters before summer.

Oh no...

I just had this thought which is both horrible and exquisite. What if Clarence isn't named after the angel in It's a Wonderful Life? What if he's actually more of an incarnation of Clarence the cross-eyed lion from Daktari?

And yet, I'm comforted in the quirky way that is characteristic of that which tends to comfort me. Large visually-impaired feline or Henry Travers...whichever...it's so helpful to live in a nebulous world where one is no longer alone in one's creative pursuit. Clarence and I--we keep each other accountable.

Fuzzy Lenz's real name is Gary Lenz. I know, because I wrote him a check to kick off the (lovely, as it's shaping up) patio out the back door. I tell Jeff. "Fuzzy's real name is Gary," I say. Now, every day, we have a conversation very much like this:

"Okay...so it's Michael," says Jeff.

"What is?"

"Fuzzy's real name."

"No," I say. "It's Gary."

"Ok, good," says Jeff, walking away. "Robert."

If Clarence just had Freddi's spunk...

I was chuffed to have stumbled upon Elizabeth Gilbert’s very recent TED.com talk on “a different way to think about creative genius.” What an excellent way to differentiate oneself from one’s failure (or success in her, or others’ cases,) as a writer. Or person of other creative bent.

Gilbert's notion is to revisit the old Greek way of thinking about creative genius as being that which visits you in a gift of inspiration, rather than the pre-existing condition, or nature of the artist/writer/creator. A separate persona, iow, which is either on the ball or isn't. I’d been claiming all along that it is not really my fault that a possibly psycho directive to write was coupled with Clarence the crappy muse being assigned to my case. (Clarence borrows his name from the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life. I cannot predict whether this name-sharing foreshadows eventual “success” or is merely a dumb name for a muse.)

Still, it’s sort of reassuring, in a sanity-soothing way, to imagine that it’s no aberration if “calling” and inspiration do not coalesce in this lifetime. At least I showed up for my part. Three silly books in ten years can’t be the worst record ever. Perhaps my frustration and hiatus of the last little while have corresponded with Clarence being busy with some CE credits. Maybe they’ve helped him. I just can’t worry about that.

Fuzzy and his helper are laying down gravel out the back door, in prep for concrete, which will provide the foundation for eventual slate and brick and something other than mud to walk onto when we exit kitchen rear. So, for now at least, there are no back steps, which means that we need to discourage Freddi’s wish to fall on her face out the back door. Instead, she’s issuing urgent staccato woofs, just so everyone is fully aware that she’s got the thing under surveillance. Thanks Fredfred.

end of a day blather.

When I got my distance-vision only glasses in January, the optometrist advised me to hang on to last year’s progressive lenses even though I don’t love them. He was right. It doesn’t work to wear distance-only glasses in Japanese class or the grocery store, but they are excellent for driving at night. Luckily, the honking-big case that came with the new ones holds both pairs.

I fret. Should I visit Beacon--the tiniest little college ever, in Leesburg Florida--with Gabe because it might, as an LD-specific school, have the highest chance of not flunking him out? Will a mainstream school-with-LD-program work? Will he still like Japanese when he has to start reading...in Japanese? Cola-nut? Uncola-nut? Can you choose wisely? (If you can, please let me know...I could use some input here.)

It was a day of too much to do. To Georgetown, through arduous D.C. traffic first thing in the morning for a hefty dose of poking, prodding, and brain-straining (Jeff,) and a lot of time sitting in a chair or looking out the 7th floor window of the hospital room at snow flurries, while trying to entertain my ADD mind with a combination of Japanese practice, scarf knitting, and playing with my Centro’s online functions to make sure Baltimore County Schools weren’t closing early. (me.) Luckily, they did not. Close early, that is, and we had time to chomp down a Chipotle burrito, get home, let the dog out, snag Gabe from carpool, run home to use the bathroom, and take him to drum. I recognize that there is nothing unusual about having little time to alight at home and achieve that settled feeling for most people, but I am grateful that our most pressing task for tomorrow is to return the Odyssey’s license plates to the DMV so we can stop insuring it.

I imagine that one day I may need a job, to extend the time until I need to rely on eggs and nests and stuff like that, and I imagine that I will work at Trader Joe’s, or similar. And I will not mind it. Probably. Because, the people seem nice enough, and besides--there is rarely a brilliant career opening for someone who: reads several languages somewhat, writes tolerable but unmarketable fiction, and is (or will be) fifty-something. So, it will be one of those jobs for people whose more interesting features are not highlighted by their vocation.

I am not watching the Superbowl

My brain is about to stretch to the point of flipping inside out. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy studying Japanese. Indeed, it is pleasing me in a way that I had not anticipated. But the process has evoked a couple of minor seismic shifts in my thinking.

See...I was a little concerned about how I sort of know some French, and I sort of know some Spanish, but neither one--when push comes to shove--is going to allow me to converse fluently at the drop of a hat. At all. At all at all. I can merely take comfort in the notion that if I’m unexpectedly airdropped into Lausanne, or maybe Bolivia, I will be able to combine my base of knowledge with the total immersion experience such that I may become conversant in a relatively short time. But my internal argument went something like this: Why add a language? Why not, instead, improve at the ones I already know? And now my answer is this: Because I can’t. At least not much, short of the aforementioned airdrop. Hence, why not expand my base of places where, if airdropped, I will have the framework on which to build?

So, ok. I’m apparently not that hard to convince, because I’ve completely bought that argument. But I’m still left with this concern: I enrolled for Gabe--so, unless I succeed in helping him succeed, I will have failed. So I wave my annoying little wipe-off board drills in his face, and leave Word docs on his PC with phrases to translate before he launches 
“Kitty-face Girl,” or whatever the heck animes he watches. He is immensely tolerant, thank goodness, but not--I observe--as quick a study as I am. It seems. So I have to remind myself: a) the kid has LDs. b)I bested Eric Winter in the NSA language-translation qualifying exam, where they give you an invented language and you have to figure out the rules. Eric Winter, otherwise, beat me in the “It’s Academic” qualifying trial.
c)I am obsessive like Hermione Granger. And then, just as I’m feeling ahead of the game, Gabe throws a few anime-derived expressions at me, about whose meanings I’m clueless, and I say “no fair! It’s not in the book!”

And, to be sane about it all, we have not had a chapter exam yet. It is perfectly plausible that class expectations are lower than my self-expectations. So let us wait and see.

And yay--I just looked it up, and it turns out that AACC does offer 4 semesters of Japanese, so I can go on and on and on...and then maybe reactivate my German synapses which went into hibernation after the one year of German they offered when I was in high school. From which I retain the following: Oje, der schwamm ist nicht nass. This is a very useful statement that you might employ any time you need to inform someone that the sponge is not wet. But I think it needs beefing up with a few additional expressions.

Last night, in the interest of further cultural enlightenment, Rachel, Gabe, Jeff and I went to Joss Japanese Bistro in Annapolis. Yum. In general. Once we got Jeff straightened out so that he was holding both his chopsticks right-side-up he did just fine. And even had this to add to tonight’s exchange of Japanese phrases: “Hoots man, be thrifty.”

Turning Japanese? Not yet anyway.

Gabe and I started Japanese 111 at the Community College yesterday. It snowed today. Gabe is playing PS3 with Matt. I am studying Japanese. Gabe, the anime buff, thinks he will be helping me with Japanese homework. Time will tell.

We’re not to chapter 1 yet. We’re still in the “pre” chapter...the little bit at the beginning of language texts where you get your intro to basic greetings and a smattering of other niceties. And this I can say definitively: Japanese is like brain yoga. And I’m not talking downward dog. Nope...one of those asanas where your hand’s on the floor, your foot’s in the air, and you promptly fall into the nightstand and knock a lamp over.

Kind of makes you want to crawl back to French, Spanish, or German with a penitent air, saying all is forgiven! I didn’t mean it when I said querer was an inextricable knot of conjugations! And here’s the thing: In the pre-chapter--the baby chapter--you don’t even conjugate anything. But you also don’t get the comfort of an alphabet you recognize. Merci, gracias, danke... Oh, sure, anybody can say that, and write it too. And maybe you can say arigatoo, even though there’s probably nothing in your basic western educational background that the word even remotely resembles. But don’t get too puffed up about that. Because you’re cheating. It’s not really written “arigatoo,” it’s written ありがとう, and therein lies the problem. It’s going to be quite a while before I can look at ありがとう, and register it as a word. And sadly, my entire Japanese textbook looks pretty much like that.

Frankly, I do not know if I will ever look at Japanese characters and see words, as opposed to seeing a code that must be cracked, using the handy chart found in the back of my textbook, or online. Can a brain be that plastic at 47? Interestingly, I find that the experiment of discovering the answer to this question is almost as interesting as the language-learning process itself. Can my brain get it? Let’s see.

It has been quite some time since I traced the lines of word-parts in a work book, taking care to draw the horizontal crossbar before adding the slash and the curlicue. I’m sort of feeling like someone should give me a fresh new extra-fat pencil, and a stick-on gold star at the top of my paper. And there’s the semi-appalling truth that the hatches and swirls I’m struggling to copy are second nature to any Japanese 7 year old.

Even so, I’m finding it more fun than chore...I was just a little unprepared for the reaction my brain is having. Huh? it says. You want me to do what? So I show it a flash card featuring what appears to be a fish hook dancing with dagger and say “soo desu.” Or, more precisely, そうです. (cheat sheet: "That's right.")

Some stones are better left unrolled.

I’m done teaching Gabe to drive. He can get a license when he’s old enough and mature enough to figure out how to go about it without me. By then he’ll have at least 2 sisters over 21, and maybe couple of Tylers, who can pick up the ball I dropped, which will--by then--be moldering in a dusty corner with some dog teeth marks in it. Although, truthfully, I don’t think I dropped the ball. It’s more like none of my serves were ever returned.

The only thing that niggles me still is that he’s going to need a certificate of completion from the driver’s ed school. He’s done the classroom hours, and 2 out of 3 of the drive-with-instructor sessions. After session #2, the guy told me not to schedule #3 until he’d gotten more experience, and there’s where the twain won’t meet. Because what the guy said was correct: He’s bad at driving. And I’m done. So I’m hoping that if I call the driving school on Monday and explain that we’re bagging it for now, but would like--if possible--to have the certificate in hand so that he doesn’t have to pay for and take driver’s ed again several years down the road, that they’ll agree to one more supervised lesson, even if it’s not the sort that normally comprises lesson #3. But if they say no...oh well...it’ll be Gabe’s $400 and 30+ hours next time.

Next time, as in a time when he can both round a bend and observe, in a meaningful way, that there are 5 cars backed up at a light a mere 15 yards ahead of him. The surprising thing--to me anyway--is that you would think that a guy who can ride a unicycle, perform sleight of hand with cards, and defeat Super Mario in a melee would have the necessary eye-hand chops to handle a car, but t’aint, apparently, so.

It can be a little disconcerting though, when people do not mature according to the only scheme of which you’re aware, to feel confident that the alternative unknown scheme will also have a reasonable outcome. That, thus, is the trick of this parenting episode--to be able, in the absence of confidence, to exist on the the plane of the now, and trust the then to be either a) something you can handle, or b) something you can wash your hands of. I am practicing “b” by leaving the driving ball to grow lichen in the corner.

Swabby

Gabe is out racking up miles with the driving instructor. It’s #2 out of 3 sessions. Must get the driver’s license even if he doesn’t particularly need to use it much. For practical and i.d. reasons. And now I have another. One must have a valid DL in order to obtain a Merchant Mariner Document from the Coast Guard. One must have the MMD to enter the entry level Merchant Mariner program at the Paul Hall School in Piney Point Maryland. And one must have a back up plan should college not work out. And that’s what Piney Point would be.

Deck Department, Engine Department, Steward Department? Yes Gabe...the possibilities abound, and you’re stuck on a boat where they must make some use of you. This is not to say that college is out. By no means. We will visit, we will pick, we will entreat...but ultimately the rest is up to the kid, and--while I hope he’ll grab the magic feather and fly--it helps my inner tranquility to have a Plan B. Or a Plan 9 from Outer Space if need be.

chips ahoy?

The problem is: I don't want to be in charge of everything all by myself. All the time. That is the little lumpy thingy I have to clamber over in order to plan a trip...or social event at my house...or stuff. Ick ick ick. Want to defer!

Or perhaps I merely need a fortitude microchip implant.

Smiling Coasts, Open Minds

The Honda Odyssey went to a new home. I hope, sincerely, that it will love it there, and start faithfully with nary a hitch for its new proprietor. As for Jeff, I could see that same little wistful cloud hovering about him as the transaction was enacted--the cloud that signaled another face-to-face with the fact that he really will not drive anymore. But...with the van’s absence from the driveway will come, I hope, limited cause to even think about it much.

Meanwhile, another piece fell into place in the possible-trip-to-The Gambia sequence. Gabe’s passport--the one which he could ostensibly get without parental permission and that will be good for 10 years because he’s 16--arrived today. Yes. Nothing on the application requesting parental signoff. No indication from the post office lady who took the application, photos, and checks, that anything was missing. But still the Passport Office held his app, with a letter noting that it would be processed pending a copy of an i.d. and signoff from me. Naturally I obliged, with the requisite grumble that I’d have been happy to provide such permission had they only included that in the instructions. Perhaps t’was the scruffiness of his photo. Must come from a shady family, that one. But it’s here, and now--if I can get reasonably comfortable that Becca and company will be in Serrekunda during Gabe’s Spring break from school--I can try to secure reasonable flights. And no...this does not mean the ones offered on Expedia for $2500 a pop round trip from Gatwick. This means a cheap charter, and that may be harder to come by.

But what an intriguing thought--Gabe and Jeff in West Africa! Goodness...we can lose Jeff in Chipotle...we’d have to put him on a leash abroad. But how else will I ever travel, I ax ya? So, ok.

I have pushed some furniture aside in my brain. I’m making room--trying, in fact to make a most welcoming space--for a character to inhabit. See, according the the fiction-writing study I’m doing via The Open University, UK, fiction should begin with the character, around whom the plot will develop. Try to do the plot first, and the characters may not bake properly. Maybe that’s been my problem all along...hence the redecorating in my brain. I await a worthy protagonist. I hope the feng shui is adequate in my cerebrum. Not sure. Maybe a tinkly fountain would help.

In cars

Sometimes when my kids were small, nap resistant, and I needed a bit of mental space, we took a car ride. They’d settle, usually sleep, and I’d cruise quiet neighborhoods, pacified by the balm of road rumble and the visual placidity of architectural structures.

Now I do it with Jeff, and it still works. Not for nap-induction, but as a means to generate a sort of white-noise zone, where the angst of the ill-fit caused by our diverging abilities to communicate in the old ways is dissipated, much as a good antenna bearing eliminated the aggravating static on your old analog tv.

Talking works better there. Though sometimes it’s me doing most of the talking, but his listening works better too.

Wade has observed that Jeff is best able to comprehend and communicate when his eyes are closed. It is true. You can put him on the phone and--especially if he relaxes and closes his eyes--his interaction with the person at the other end is as close to “normal” as you’ll ever see it.

The car effect is similar. Despite there being visual input, it is of a low-demand sort. Jeff seems to be able to understand--mostly--and respond--mostly. To be clear--he responds at home too, but not necessarily in a way that suggests he grasped my meaning. I serve a volleyball, he returns a shuttlecock.

Car responses show a better intake of the input. There is still the hiccup factor--that is, the same question may be raised multiple times. As an example, this morning we were discussing The Campanella Family. Input items provided by me: Jeff’s family bought the Holly Ridge Road house from them. The daughters--Mary Beth and Cathy--were abrasively assertive. The dad struck me as taciturn and surly. And...once, Mary Beth and Cathy most impertinently insinuated themselves into a trip to the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that my mother was sponsoring for me, my sister Ellen, and our cousin Bev. We covered the fact that I did not recall what Mr. Campanella did for a living, as that was not of particular interest to my 7 year old self, but Jeff still asked. 3 times, spaced throughout the conversation. “What did he do for a living?” I don’t want to keep saying “we already covered that,” so I just say “I don’t remember.” Again.

But the sense of calm, and the pleasant companionship afforded by road trip white noise is nice thing. Like a good cup of coffee or just one Godiva chocolate.

Chai? Hat? Chai in a hat?

Mr. Chilly thinks there's a draft. He's checked the front door. Not open. The back door. Nope. The trouble, which has not yet occurred to him, is that he's not wearing a hat. At the moment, that hat would be a royal blue thick stocking cap which used to belong to Becca, before she moved on to jaunty berets or woolen hippie hats with earflaps.

But here is what is wrong with Jeff and hats: He likes to pull them down over his ears in such as way that the hat is not actually over his ears at all--intead, the tops of his hears are squashed down and out by the hat, which sits just high enough on his cranium that a small crown at the top remains unfilled, like the tip of a pear. All in all, the effect is what you'd get if Larry, Darryl, and Darryl were possessed by the spirit of Dopey the 7th dwarf.

If I witness this, I will tuck his ears under the cap, and rearrange the hat's position to a more sporting sledder style. I cannot help caring about this. The hat is intolerable worn a la Darryl.

I am tired. The "Nano coffee-tablet" I popped last night (a free sample from the health food store,) did keep me alert through a trip to see Four Christmases with Ellen, Rachel, and Becca last night (reviews: mixed,) but it also gave me a certain level of middle-of-the-night consciousness that I don't ordinarily attain...hence, tonight I'm bushed.

I believe that the populace has achieved stability for the evening--2 out, 2 in, lockable door--so all that's diverting me is Les Mis on the Kindle, wanting me to jump back into the barricade with the combatants as they await the climactic scene. But tomorrow. I'm sure as grape shot that I cannot reach the end without Victor Hugo going off on another tangent--oh...probably several chapters on the composition of the soul of a Parisian chaiwalla or something. And that will be a trudge which requires a fresh brain, free of fog.

If I get Jeff a bomber hat, he won't be able to squash his ears, or--at least--I won't be able to tell. Thought.

I'm gettin' over it, I'm gettin' over it...

Fuzzy Lenz stopped by on Saturday, to measure the area out the back door for some sort of flagstone/brick masonry installation. We could keep stepping off the rickety plywood “temporary” steps (which Jeff assembled roughly 12 years ago) into the grassless mudflats which comprise that third of the backyard, but perhaps (I’m thinking) if we make the back door appealing I will be inspired to stop decorating the backyard with old ladders and dog doodoo, and plant a shrub or two instead.

Fuzzy, it seems, does good work. He installed the brick and concrete walkways which surround Gordon and Tracy’s chateau. My goal now, will be to discourage him broaching--any further--the topic of “retirement.”

Here’s what he said Saturday morning, if I may resort to a rough paraphrase: How’s retirement Jeff? Wow. Not sure I’d want to retire. My brother-in-law retired at 60 and went straight downhill from there. Sure, it’s good so long as you stay active. I guess you stay active, right Jeff?

This is not too unlike the ”Retired? You lucky dog!” comments which are not uncommon at cocktail parties (which are, fortunately, the sort of things we rarely go to.)

So, I smile blandly, wondering if it would be appropriate to accidentally spill a drink (or coffee in the case of Saturday morning) on the speaker, so as to nip the topic mercifully in the bud.

In truth, at this point, we would both rather be employed than not, but he cannot, and--as leaving someone who cannot turn on the oven alone all day is not good mojo--it is inadvisable that I seek outside employment.

Which brings me to the crux of why I am a cranky person who keeps promising to blog in an upbeat manner, but whines instead: At no point have I liked the idea that I would be spending an unspecified number of years acting as administrative companion to a disabled person whose formerly diverting personality has, to a large degree, evaporated. But, as recently as a couple years ago, I was able to believe that I held the ace, or consolation prize of “being a writer”; that this, in fact, was something of a purpose in life which I could pursue while attending to my administrative companionship duties. However, now that I can look semi-objectively at the fact that I’ve written 3½ crappy to tolerable, unpublishable books, the delusion is failing me. So I’m feeling like a rather horribly drab critter, incapable of the creativity necessary to sustain the saving grace of having a meaningful creative outlet. So ick. (Not the fish disease, the sentiment.)

Well wow, that’s whiny. Maybe I shouldn’t post it. But I will, because it explains, succinctly, my personal mid-life crisis.

I’m still planning to stumble upon something to do which is more worthwhile than devoting years to 25-chapter novels destined to collect dust. And while I am waiting, if you decide to expound upon the pluses and minuses of retirement, in Jeff’s earshot, I will spill orange juice on you.

Oh, it's just another cranky post.

I’ve had the sort of day where you wonder--complete with chronic visceral special effects--whether there’s any possible way you’re up to the job of discharging your obvious obligation for the length of years it appears it will take.

I hate that thing where someone has a need so evident that it practically palpates the atmosphere, seeking it-does-not-even-know-what, and you know that it is your cosmic role to be the need-meeter, but you can’t because you’re hopelessly ill-suited to the position, and--on top of that--you’re a really bad faker. And, additionally on top of--or shall we say below--that: forget your own needs because there’s absolutely no way in heck they’re going to get met, so you might as well recognize them right now as wants, not needs. And stop being such a wuss. Gads. Do you need a smack, or what?

What else? I’m digging deeper into the concept of Gabe: The Post-High School Years. Oh, and there’s another need where what I have to offer may be ridiculously inadequate, because--frankly--there may not be a place in society for just everyone, of just every disposition. But it’s still my job to find the place, even if it doesn’t exist. Because a person cannot a)live in the computer room forever watching animes and online episodes of The Office, or b)be booted into the street prematurely. Hence, there must be something else that will work, even if there isn’t. And I pretty much have to find it.

Most likely, some people--present company included--ought to just relax. Even if they’re constitutionally unable, and weenies to boot.

Oh yes, I’m reading the Title 9 Sports catalog again, wherein the “real people” models appear with little bio snippets under their action shots such as: Jean-Anne--Occupation: College Professor, Hobby: Round-the-world sailing, special accomplishment: Following my heart. But then you have to wonder how her heart got so smart.

fresh from the Keebler zombies...

Becca and Tyler A. are making Christmas cookies. Hazel is casting a dubious glance at Fredfred who might--you never know--decide to usurp her position at the watering bowl. Jeff has, as is typical, retired early. I, as usual, just ran upstairs to dole out his pills before he crashed.

Gabe insists that zombies exist. “What would YOU do,” he asks Tyler, “in a zombie attack?”

“Probably go into the woods and make a sweet fort,” Tyler replies.

The general murmur, in the kitchen, is that zombies cannot possibly climb trees, but Gabe’s authoritative book, The Zombie Survival Guide, asserts that 1 in 10 zombies can climb a ladder.

I expect that many of the cookies will adhere to a holiday or random theme, and few if any will resemble zombies, but an outlier won’t surprise me. That one could be interesting to decorate with holiday goop.

Rachel is youtubing genuine and spoof high-fructose corn syrup commercials.

Becca asks Gabe if he has a special request for a cookie shape. “Do one in the shape of a zombie,” he replies. I confess though: that was not a risky prediction for me to make.

Olivia comes in from a long day out. She is dressed like a nerd, having ransacked, from her boyfriend’s belongings, a stocking cap, a pair of geeky glasses with no lenses, and a playboy bunny necktie. She is getting ready to go out again.

Chessie is howling because Rachel scooped her up. She is too pudgy a cat to get up onto the kitchen island. Hence, the holiday goop--butter based--is inaccessible to her.

For now, I will pause as I’m inclined to decorate a zombie cookie. But Gabe got to it first, and I’ll have to settle for a star.

No Oscar, maybe.

Blanchett, Pitt, and company were perfectly good in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but the central character which I find myself the most interested in, in retrospect, is the retirement home which serves as a sanctuary and nursery for the young Benjamin, and as a haven at the end. Everyone needs such a place.

What else was right? Benjamin was right, that even the best and fullest of relationships cannot sustain the friction and ill-fit caused by insurmountable chronic physical conditions. A partnership may have occupied an utterly cherishable and eternally valued position in a person’s life story, but this esteemed place will not protect it from erosion when the tectonic plates of two lives shift unharmoniously. The white clapboard house with the piano in the parlor and a welcoming front porch might then be the refuge which fiction can supply, and real people might just have to dream about.

Wisdom from an older movie (based on the Anne Tyler novel): The Accidental Tourist. Sometimes who you should be with is not so much a function of who the other person is, but rather of who you are when you’re with that person. As wonderful and deserving as the other person may be, if you’re icky and mean around him/her then you’re probably not doing anybody any favors.

Still, you may not be able to rewrite the story line to fit the attractive parameters afforded by fiction, because you just may be one of those people who live outside the gestalt of storytelling (this may explain why--if in fact this is true of you--you can’t write fiction either.) If so, then you need to find another book to reference. Such as the only marginally fictionalized A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. From this book you can glean the following: Sometimes it’s just a trudge through the neverending trees, step after step, where the best pleasures available are your morning coffee and the occasional glimpse of wildlife. If this seems more descriptive of your story (using the word story loosely,) then it may be at least slightly comforting that even a trudge may, at the end, show enough signs of narrative that it’s worth telling about.

badness

Hazel lives to perform.

Just now, I can only see the black side of her nose, because she is peering around the corner at me, with just one eye, contemplating which of the tricks in her repertoire she should resort to next. At the moment, the kitchen table is ripe with possibilities. Even if there were not a wad of embroidery floss, a pen cap, and a roll of wrapping paper to knock on the floor with a dramatic flourish, she would tear more shreds in Olivia’s plastic bag full of dvds or dive headlong into a pile of newspapers with the velocity needed to scatter them across the kitchen.

She is 8. She should have outgrown this nonsense, but--at 7 pounds--she really hasn’t outgrown anything.

Plus, especially for the Christmas season, there is a tree to tackle. I know better--well, let’s say I’ve learned better--than to hang anything breakable near the bottom, but you can still make a lovely racket with what is there. If you tire of the basement door game.

The basement door game. That’s the one in which you (and by you, I mean Hazel,) sit at the top of the basement steps, behind the door which is left open just enough so that you can access your food and litter box. You push the door open all the way. I close it, because I don’t like the basement door wide open. You push it open again. I close it. Repeat until you decide you’d now prefer to jump from chair to chair staring at Chessie. Or stare at Rachel. She’s reading Jane Austen, but you can make her notice you’re staring at her. You know you can.

AM 111--where we broadcast mixed metaphors all day, every day

Sometimes going to Quizno’s with a person is the only way to help him feel like you are there for him and you are still “together.” So, though lunch out at Quizno’s (or Noodles, or Lebanese Taverna, or Chipotle,) may not seem like the worthiest of ways to spend one’s time or money, if it accomplishes the above-mentioned aim, it is valuable.

There’s not a lot I can do about Alzheimer’s, but I have, gradually, fine-tuned my personal description of what it does to a brain. And I am full of analogies. There is the one where I think of the brain as being a big bank of lights which, grouped into systems, operates the complexities of cognition like a theatrical kleig set. This image seems especially appropriate once you see a PET scan because that’s exactly what you see--lit and unlit spots.

But I’m failing to conjure just the right analogy to describe how the AD brain inexorably isolates itself as the channels which allow for communication with the outside world break down. A fish out of water, starved for oxygen in an atmosphere that’s full of it? Not quite, because a fish never had lungs to begin with. Maybe (as an especially seasonal metaphor) it’s a cut evergreen in a deep-bucket Christmas tree stand, browning prematurely despite your valiant efforts to keep the bucket full of water...because...its pores have all clogged with sap, and the water cannot be absorbed.

The problem is--if we extend the metaphor to the next ridiculous step in the story--the tree thinks you’re not watering it. So it’s kind of ticked off at you sometimes. And there you are, standing there with a hose.

I know that the problem is a communication one. The interface which allows for new information to enter the equation, outside that which already exists in the head, is broken. Because often the AD person will describe a thought or share a thinking process which has the marks of some fairly complex processing. But, should you try to add a relevant tidbit, or provide some tangential insight, you will find--when he responds as if your contribution has entered the mix--that it has not. He is simply restating the point of view that exists in his head, unreachable by external variables.

That which is new--that which deviates from the pre-existing template--does not compute. To interact with another person in a meaningful way, requires an exchange of information. When the AD person does not receive your signals, it is because his receiver is disconnected, but he thinks it’s because you aren’t broadcasting. Consequently, in addition to feeling unable to follow the ambient conversation in the room, he also feels that you are not attempting to include him, and that is a very difficult situation to correct without resorting to a tone and manner that will be perceived as patronizing (which adds a whole other layer of negative emotional content to the smorgasbord.)

To further complicate the issue, all but the emotionally super-human will find it difficult to sustain the incentive level needed to give and give and give into a relationship where communication and common understanding have failed. Because good relationships are positive feedback loops wherein the energy available to feed the relationship is directly proportional to the nutritional content you derive from it.

Another truth, therefore, is this: Sometimes it’s that your broadcasts are not being received, and sometimes it’s that your station’s power grid has run out of juice and there’s nothing to broadcast.

So, you go to Quizno’s instead, because at least everyone gets to eat.

Why Y?

I don’t know. You might wonder why I have participated in the National Geographic Genographic project, not once, but 3 times at last count. Once for my Y lineage (via my dad’s cheek cells,) once for my maternal line mitochondrial DNA (my own buccal mucosa,) and once more--to provide a more complete picture for my kids-- for Jeff’s Y line.

I figured Jeff’s would be similar to mine--your basic Gravettian or Aurignacian type drifters who landed mid-Europe and dispersed from there...but maybe without the ultra-norse Viking twist specific to the Gillespie line. And that’s why I delayed. But one day a month or so ago I simply decided what-the-hey, and Jeff got his mouth swabbed.

Turns out that his haplogroup, the E3b-folk, have almost no common history with mine, the I-folk. Yep...looks like our people split up roughly 50,000 years ago, in East Africa, about the time of what’s known as the “Great Leap Forward.” What happened round about then, see, is that humans got smarter. A lot smarter, evidently and they began to do new things like speak in sentences. So, what I imagine caused the I haplogroup/E3b haplogroup rift is something like this: The E3bs kept pronouncing ketchup and chocolate like cat-sup and chalk-let, and that really got on our I-group’s collective nerves, causing us to veer east across the Red Sea at Ethiopia while the proto-Clements continued up the east coast of Africa.

From there they pretty much peopled the coasts of the Mediterranean, both north and south while the proto-Gillespies blazed a more northerly trail through the Middle-East, then west into Europe where they busied themselves with painting beefalos or whatever those things were, on cave walls.

It is only by dint of the fact that some later member of each group independently fell for all that hyperbole about the “New World” that our children even came into being.

But why am I curious? I think it’s because I have a general concept of myself as the most mundane of human creatures, from an ethnic standpoint, and I was curious to see if any decorative accents could be appended to my Heinz 57 Euro self-image.

And I have, in fact, found these colorful details to be fun. Unimportant to be sure, in the scheme of things, but fun.

Ultimately there is no take-home point. Except perhaps this. As we strive to imagine Gabe’s future, we can offer him these two default options, should he not eventually come up with something on his own. “Gabe,” I will say, “take your pick. You may either be a muralist, or you may sell handwoven baskets in the Casbah. You have a long history of being suited to either of these occupations.”

waffling

The waffle iron died--after a long life of devotion to golden-brownness--at roughly age 70. ish.

You could hardly ask more of a household appliance. To gamely cook deliciousness for 3 generations of children is a feat not to be equaled by any Sunbeam or Proctor-Silex you might find at Target today.

The thing is though, now that I think about it, that it probably only cooked for two generations, one of which was not mine. It was there during my mom’s childhood, and I conscripted it back into service for my children, but I suspect that during my grandmother’s hermit years--roughly from the 60s to her death, in the early 80s, it barely saw the light of morning.

The waffles have been sticking to the top plate for some time. It was only last week that it became clear that the upper element was a goner. I loosened the 4 screws holding the top burner to the waffly-imprint surface, and had a look inside. The wires which used to carry the current from the bottom to the top had corroded into nothingness--there was an inch or so swinging loosely just to show me how it used to work...but there was no hope of repair, and it was sufficiently amazing that the rusty old, baked-on-greasy old bake temp indicator had outlasted the wiring.

Its like will not be seen again. A waffle iron sitting in permanent attachment to a stainless steel ornamental tray with almost rococo handle brackets. ‘Tis true--the paint has chipped off the handles, but the dangly ivorine knob you grasp to reveal the toastiness of your cooked-to-perfection waffle is as jaunty as ever.

I acquired it at my grandmother’s passing--missing a cord. This was in 1982. Fortunately, a nice young man at the local hardware store, by the name of Jeff Clement, was able to fix me up with a lovely, fabric-wrapped match. Actually, he fixed my mother up with it, because I was a little too awkward to talk to him.

I wonder if Williams-Sonoma sells anything nearly worthy of serving as a replacement waffle iron. I wonder if I will want to spend that much money. I will have to ponder. Pancakes aren’t bad.

blabbedy bla

I’ve forgotten how to talk.

Well, not entirely. If you ask me a specific question, or steer me into a particular topic, there is an excellent chance that I will be able to say something relevant and reasonably coherent.

Where I seem to be flagging is in the area of pulling something out of the air, for the mere joy of it, or commenting meaningfully on something I observe, or a spontaneous thought.

When girls call me, I like to listen to what they have to say, but--as Olivia pointed out this afternoon--I don’t have much to say beyond commentary on the subject broached by the other party.

I hope it’s not a use it or lose it thing. The trouble is that in the course of the past 5 years I’ve had the habit of spontaneous conversation conditioned out of me.

I say things like: “Look--I made coffee! Do you want some?” and “We need to leave in 10 minutes. Do you know where your coat is?” And generally, this generates a meaningful response.

On the other hand, a comment such as “Victor Hugo was really smart,” or “Getting sciatica on the first day of my period stinks on ice” is likely to be met with a blank and uncomprehending stare, or at best a bewildered smile...and one can pursue it, but if the receiver is broken it’s broken, and you will get nowhere except Frustration Land. So, you do (or at least I) tend to default to keeping it internal.

Which means, after 5 years, that I am quite boring. And I apologize for this, in advance, if you happen to get stuck in a phone conversation with me, or worse, maybe a car ride.

Maybe if I practice on the dog, I will retain conversational skills at at least the rate that an astronaut retains bone mass by exercising.

So, if I suddenly say with a burst of alertness “spontaneous conversation topic!” and launch into a monologue on Sigg bottles and the overly-enthusiastic nature of EMS employees, please indulge me, and share your take.

Allegretto

Jeff wants to know, again, where his wallet and keys are.

The trick is, I know where they were, this morning--on the table in the kitchen between the monkey chairs--but that was this morning. If I’d seen them since I would have made another indelible mental note, knowing the question would come up. But he managed to reposition them, and I have not yet happened upon their new, random, situation.

He likes the feel of the keys in his pocket--heavy, poky, inclined to make worn spots in jeans pockets--though they serve no purpose there. Except for the mini versa-tool which pops out every so often to assist in the opening of a box, but must stay home when he visits Colorado, lest the BWI security guy be gifted with another sharp and disallowed implement.

There are people, evidently, who come into the world grasping immediately that it is a place where beauty and tragedy entwine in an ironic pas de deux. They are the brilliant writers of farce and satire who can hit the ground running with efficiency enough to carve a career. Then, there are those--present company included--who assumed they must be inhabiting a nice, linear narrative in a book with neat binding...until--many, many years later--they notice there is no binding. There is no book. There may not, in fact, be an alphabet involved at all. Maybe this isn’t even a graphic novel, by gum. Once I thought I understood the words to a particular phrase of Jellicle Cats, and I’d sing along...Can you ride on a broomstick to places far distant?...Familiar with candle, with book, and with bell?...Were you Whittington's friend? The Pied Piper's assistant?...Have you been in the love-nest of heaven and hell?

And guess what? That’s not how the last part goes. It’s: Have you been an alumnus of heaven or hell? And this probably makes good sense in the context of what T.S. Eliot meant for the poem to convey. But still, my mangled, misheard version holds special significance for me. Because there is one of those love-nests, and I have been in it, and so have a lot of other people. There are no linear narratives spawned in this love-nest. But there is plenty of irony, beauty and tragedy...and not just a pas de deux, but a continual, nonsensical, sensical, discordant, syncopated, messed-up, harmonious, sometimes-boring, sometimes nifty, unfinished opus.

But I doubt if anyone would publish it.

conflatable inflatables

I’m not sure which was my dominant emotion--despair or mischievous irony--when I glimpsed the deflated heap of nylon in the yard across the street. White, with red and blue accents? It is, unquestionably, an inflatable snowman waiting for air stuffing.

I’m pretty sure that in the 22 years we’ve lived on this street, this will be our street’s first incursion into the area of holiday inflatables. And this is not because we’re one of those pristine neighborhoods where everyone’s very-similar house is surrounded by neatly trimmed topiaries and a flawless lawn. Nope. Some yards are scratchy, patchy and otherwise in perfect syncopated kilter with the eclectic dwellings they surround. We ourselves decorated with a sizable dumpster for 6 or so months last decade, and I know our neighbors were deeply appreciative, at least insofar as they never got out the torches and pitchforks.

As for me, well...you can see that I am making a stab at festive, and got both lights and a wreath installed today. The tree is soaking in a bucket out back, and the lights--as far as I can discern--work.

And now...for the next 2 or so hours...I will endeavor to stay alert enough to pick Gabe up from his after-school, service-hours-earning stint at the Baltimore Ronald McDonald House, where he ostensibly assisted in preparing the evening meal for families of sick children. I am not aware that he brought a deck of cards with him today, though sleight of hand is a good gig for Gabe on these missions. Perhaps he will like seeing the lights on the house when he gets home. And perhaps the neighbors will have their snowman inflated. And I will thank them. Because if our neighborhood becomes too tasteful, we may just have to bring back the dumpster.

doing things

A day is the vacuum that piddly tasks, by nature, abhor. The real myth, I guess, is the one that suggests we should actually accomplish something of note each day. A silly idea I want to and should dump.

It’s worth noticing that life can be just about, for example, eating. There’s a goodly bit of preparing, pureeing, and equipment washing involved in my dad’s 3 squares + snacks, and who can argue with that? Clearly it’s a right and valuable use of time, when a person’s physical condition requires specially prepared food, to spend as much time as is needed to specially prepare it.

As for me, I can piddle away the waking part of a day with remarkable adroitness, and still get to the end worn out but with nothing to show for it.

I have tried this as a mom of babies, as a fully-employed (with academics) person, and as the occupant of my current weird and nondescript role. Regardless of the hat I wear at the time, the essentials get done, I goof off some, and I become useless as the sun sets. There ought to be a take-home point, but I don’t quite seem to be getting it. And why should I? If I learned anything at all from life experience I would not have this nasty headache, because I would not have eaten a whole square of chocolate peppermint bark.

Smart people astound me. How can your brain perform those feats? I wonder. Talented people also astound me. How can your brain and fingers possibly communicate with the coordination required to play any instrument--and a fiddle in particular--that fast and flawlessly?

I remain astounded. And perplexed. And headachy.

150 years to perfect my baking skills...

The Riverview Inn Bed and Breakfast, in Sunbury, PA, was built by Ira Thorne Clement--one of at least 3 Ira Thorne Clements in the Sunbury Clement lineage--and until I get better straightened out, I’m going to say that the I.T.C who built the home on Chestnut St. was something like my kids’ Great(x3)-Grandfather who had no clue how busy Highway 147, aka Front Street, would be in 2008. Still, it is interestingly situated with just 147 and a long, narrow park between the house and the Susquehanna River.

Like many such towns, Sunbury has found itself having very little to do with the 21st Century--most evident in the general under-maintained disposition that characterizes it nowadays.

A Christmas light display of skaters glowed cheerfully across the street from the window of the “Overlook Room” where Jeff and I were bunked. That the park’s holiday light displays turned off at 9 p.m. probably reflects the state of the economy.

Rachel supposes that the chocolatey odor which wafted from the first floor in the wee hours of the night (fondue, said Gabe; brownies, said Tracy,) signaled that the resident spirits recognized that kin were filling the house that night, and they were doing what they could to be hospitable.

I was pleased with the trip to inter the ashes of Jeff’s mom--short though it was--and found that I appreciate the richness of human settlements even in the grayness of late fall, and the dreariness of the economy. There is always something to take in.

I wondered if my children felt any sort of connection to the place. The cemetery was quite replete with Clement markers of impressive size, and there they were, Clements every one. I feel such a connection in the hills of SW Virginia, but they did not make frequent forays up the Susquehanna in their childhood, and that may be the key.

ouch and no way.

Olivia showed up Friday with a new place to clip keys, thread her iPod earbuds wire, or snag herself on nails, in the form of a left eyebrow ring. Rachel says these grow out in time as the brow seems to inexorably push outward regardless of your attempt to convince it it’s an earlobe. I don’t mind it, but as I’ve never known a piercing to not have a red, swelly, ouchie phase, I hope hers will pass with minimal trauma.

As for me, I have no further use for holes which aren’t standard equipment, and I am very grateful that I’ve spent the last...count, count, count...34 years wearing lightweight enough earrings that I still have holes, not slits, and small, relatively non-pendulous earlobes.

It’s funny how, as a kid, you notice certain features of certain adults which you vehemently decide--right then and there--that you do not aspire to. Stretchy, slitty earlobes were a very strong one of those for me. I also wanted never to have “set” hair. That’s the thing where you go to the beauty parlor and get it all curled up into a neat little helmet which you, apparently, may not wash and must sheath in a cloth shower-cap type thingy when you sleep. On your back only. I very, very, most strenuously knew that I would never wear lipstick that would come off, leaving a deep red smudge on the teacup or on a hapless child’s face. And although I think I did it once upon a time when I was young and unformed, I will never again (ever) wear a Lanz of Salzburg flannel nightgown.

Harvey might like to play Uncle Wiggly, anyway.

There are a couple of inexplicable things that I do. Or at least difficult to articulate insofar as I am handy with the tools of articulation. Which is to say less handy than I’d like to be.

One of these things is that I am not--despite my complete failure to toe the line with regards to my religion of cultural origin--an atheist. It is possible that I am an a-theist, in the sense that a theist purports to have an encapsulated image of god--that is, God as a discrete being, whereas one without this sort of discrete version of god may be an a-theist. But that does not necessarily leave one without a notion of the ineffable.

The other thing is that I “am” a writer. In the sense that I require this self-image. For my own psychological purposes. And despite the total lack of external validation.

So, in order to explain these otherwise inexplicable characteristics, I have nothing to offer but the Harvey defense. And here I reference Harvey, as in the big white bunny. The pooka. Jimmy Stewart’s friend:

Let’s summarize. Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart) might be nuts. His best friend is a 6’+ white rabbit, visible only to himself. His sister Veta has decided to cure him by means of an injection of Dr. Chumley’s Formula 977. The taxi driver, there to ferry him to the site of the “cure” says, yes, it will work...it will make Elwood a “perfectly normal human being; and you know what bastards they are!” It is at this last critical moment that Veta realizes she doesn’t want Elwood to be a “normal human being.” She wants him to be the same carefree and kind person he’s always been, even if it means she’ll be living, forevermore, with Harvey the pooka.

So, being a writer and being an a-theist, but not an atheist--that is my Pooka. I like it.

I would rather talk to no one than have no one to talk to, and I’d rather be what might be nothing, than be nothing.

In a completely--and I emphasize completely--different vein: I discovered something remarkable on page 18 of the Vermont Country Store catalog. It is a Penny Brite doll ensemble, complete with change of outfits, and poofy weird 60’s hair, in the exact black and pink vinyl case she came in when I had my very own Penny Brite in roughly 1965? And here’s the really great thing. You can own your very own for the bargain price of...(drum roll)...$69.95. Some boomers must really value nostalgia.

Yes, the Vermont Country Store is well stocked with delights of yore. How about some clackers--those two balls on strings that you could clack rhythmically and if you were good you could bang’em repetitively at both 6 and 12 o’clock at great risk to the faces of any kids lingering nearby. Um...ten bucks. Or how about a “Mrs. Beasley” doll, from Family Affair? You can, for $99, astound your children and cause them to ask “Yo...what's with the ugly doll? At which point you pull Mrs. Beasley’s string. She says “Do you want to play?” and your children run screaming from the room. A 12 oz bottle of “Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific” shampoo can be had for the relatively bargain price of $14.95 (plus shipping--$5.95.) But don’t you want to smell the way you did in Madame Hamerstrom’s French 3? Of course you do. Well worth $20, more or less. Who knows when Chris Entwistle and his red hair will wander back into your life. You want to be ready.

not an owl

Night may forever be a mystery to me. Other people love it. They want to dress up, go dancing, socialize, have meetings, expend energy. But, when it gets past 7 p.m., the thing is, I have none to expend.

I don’t suppose there’s any evidence that it will ever be otherwise for me. A person or so told me I was nuts for having my wedding--24 years ago--at 10 a.m., so that brunch could be served. Nuts, maybe, but me...yes.

It’s not that I dislike p.m. hours. They can be just fine, and I can be perfectly happy within them...provided I don’t have to go anywhere, do anything, or think much.

Well, this will be interesting, come January, when Gabe and I take Japanese from 7 to 8:15 p.m. I hope I will manage. I remember many years ago, before I had children, taking a ceramics class at the Community College and dropping out because it went until 10, and my brain had shut down for the night about half-way through the allotted time.

I do not think I could change this by a deliberate alteration of my sleep/wake pattern. Must be the Franklin, as in Ben, genes at work.

Y chromosomes and jugs.

Genographic Project kit #3 is waiting at the end of the counter for a second swab of Jeff’s inner cheeks before it gets packed back to National Geo. for analysis. So far I can provide my children with the interesting notion that their grandpaternal lineage (my side) takes them back to Nordic roots, and that--based on me--the maternal side is, um, European. (yeah...that silly mitochondrial DNA doesn’t tell you much.) But maybe a swab of their Dad’s Y chromosome will reveal something exciting and unexpected. Like, I don’t know...an Inuit sneaked in there somewhere along the line. But I doubt it. Most likely it’s going to be Heinz 57 Euro and any hopes anyone was holding out for exoticness (from our pov, anyway,) will be dashed on a rock lying in an inconspicuous glade somewhere on a smudge between Germany and the UK.

To completely change the subject, I’d like to say something about having an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. At first you think (well, I thought,) maybe we shouldn’t say anything...no one wants to be marginalized. And of course no one does. But then you think (me again,) it’s good to have people understand what’s different and why...and there’s no shame, so why not? But now I’ve gotten somewhere different altogether...especially because we’re more or less fine. Different than 7 years ago, and limited in some ways, but fine. Fine and holding as far as I can see. Not only holding, but maybe even better than a couple years ago in a certain way. It’s as if (and here I’m more or less bull-fewmeting) there was an acute tumble down a rocky slope which happened a few years ago, followed by the perplexing state of trying to figure out what the heck happened, and maybe even a stage of inflammation associated with the downhill tumble. Inflammation which has eased, leaving us with a different set of cognitive skills, but feeling better for the easing. So, we know where we are, and why, and whatever happened has, perhaps, healed, albeit with limitations. I may be very silly, but I expect the status to remain quo for quite a long time to come, so it’s a little troublesome to suppose that the community may be watching with thoughts in their heads of the tottering or immobile old folk in the Heartlands Memory Wing, and I truly don’t believe we’re headed that way for the foreseeable future...so I’m thinking we almost need to redefine Alzheimer’s. Without a doubt it can be a continuous and markable process through the 7 stages, but it can also mean damage--in an Alzheimer’s pattern--that happens, then stops happening, just leaving you different. My present assumption is that that’s what happened to us.

Anyway, I think the silly online tarot reading I got a few years ago was right. That I had 10 jugs of some good stuff. 5 spilled. Obviously, I’m very sorry about that, but the advice is to appreciate the remaining 5 jugs. Or maybe I should call them amphorae. (I’m not sure I can appreciate Jim Kramer bellowing about stocks on MSNBC from the next room. But I can live with it. Boooyah.)

knit 5, purl 5, but the opposite when you go the other direction.

Just a couple minutes ago I ripped a couple years' worth of knitting off the bamboo circular needles. Not a big deal, seriously. I'm using rumply purplish yarn with bluish/greenish/grayish flecks, and the basketweave I'd created was only 5 inches deep and far too many stitches across to make a reasonable neck scarf. (You always knit a neck scarf if you're just doing it as a nervous habit, have a pile of leftover yarn, AND don't like counting stitches. At all.) I will start it again. Scarf-width this time.

Wow--it's 10 p.m. I gotta go to bed.

Do not read this. It is Sappy and Too Personal. You'll be sorry. TMI! TMI!

I am attacking the dirty dishes. There are many. Jeff wanders in. Do you ever have any...emotions? he says, in the usual somewhat flat and tentative tone.

I have all the normal human emotions, I reply. Anger, sadness, happiness...

What makes you angry? he asks.

Humans acting like dumb, mean troglodytes, I say.

What makes you happy? he says.

My children, I say. They make me very happy.

He does not know what to make of my stoicism, because--while a guarded nature is and always has been my default mode--he knows that he used to experience a more open and communicative version of me. He does not realize that when the receiver broke, the transmission could not be completed. Or, to try another inadequate analogy, it takes a warm hand on the surface of the plasma globe to focus the current.

If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be? he asks.

I deliberate momentarily. I decide not to answer that I would change him to who he was 10 years ago, because I seek to not pin any of my angst on him, at least not in such a way as he would notice. Instead I answer, truthfully, that I would be a contributor to life in a way that helped other people.

He thinks about this, and more or less understands, since he did not choose nor does he appreciate his own lack of employment.

But that is the end of the discussion, because now he has done what he intellectually knows he should do--that is, see how I’m doing. And he does care about the answer, I don’t mean to make it sound otherwise, but his ability to respond or connect empathically is a seriously compromised function, along with spacial orientation and following a multi-person conversation. And counting backwards by 7’s. (Yeah, there was another mini-mental at Georgetown Tuesday.)

The problem with the conversation for me, is that--even as I hold firm to the stoic façade--unwelcome emotions are burbling to the surface and I forcibly suppress them via diligent attention to the task of unloading and reloading the dishwasher. I can let them out when Jeff goes to ride the elliptical, because he will never notice--his tuner no longer detects that frequency.

Naturally, I question my lack of openness and unwillingness to be vulnerable. Is it fair? Is there any way I could try to be a warmer person? My demeanor is, for the most part, kind, but it’s a therapeutic kind of kind--not the sort that flows naturally from the joy of a fulfilling two-way relationship.

I might liken a mutually satisfying relationship to a pair of bunsen burners, each burning a unique gas. One emits a turquoise flame, the other orange. But put them together and you get something remarkable and unexpected, like a smokeless magenta flame with a purple aura. The orange burner’s pipeline breaks--its gas is inaccessible, and it feebly burns only oxygen--turquoise in partnership with the turquoise burner. And it wonders what happened to the magenta flame. But the turquoise burner cannot burn magenta by itself. It tries to fake the magenta flame, but can’t. (Yes, weird, I know. Who else would anthropomorphize bunsen burners?)

It’s like if someone took your soul mate and turned him into Teddy Ruxpin. You can (and should) hug him--it’s good for both your healths--but he will not understand you when you tell him about your day, or explain how it feels to be the “dumb one” in your family, or share any other of your stupid neuroses because he does not have that microchip. So, you will be disappointed if you try. He will merely grin back and say “Let’s read a story!”

What you should do then is hug him and read a story.

Lumps and Dirt

Today, while Jeff endured the usual poking and prodding as a guinea pig in the Merck vaccine trial at Georgetown U., I read AARP Magazine.

This is not anywhere near the dreary pastime it sounds like. Apart from a long-running subscription to Reader’s Digest (which I’m finally inclined to let lapse,) I don’t seek out magazines. But, the monthly AARP one comes with a membership and is almost invariably worth a look.

I have never read Rabbit, Run, or The Widows (or Witches) of Eastwick, or anything else by John Updike for that matter, but I surely appreciated his essay in the Nov-Dec AARP, “The Writer in Winter.” Now, in addition to the fact that I have not read the above-mentioned Updike works, I have also not written anything of consequence, so I must allow that it’s a leap of vanity, or at least presumptuousness, to claim that I can relate in any way to his words, but I can.

Particularly these ones (in which he laments that his greatest rival may be his younger, nimbler self):

...the same brain gropes through its diminishing neurons for images and narratives that will lift lumps out of the earth and put them under the glass case of published print...

...[a writer] should have in hand a provocative beginning and an ending that will feel inevitable. Instead, he may arrive at his ending nonplused...The threads have failed to knit. The leap of faith with which every narrative begins has landed him not on a far safe shore but in the middle of the drink...

Anyway, I loved the imagery. Whether or not I still have a full complement of neurons, undiminished, I can viscerally feel that sense of groping for anything that might turn lumps of earth to publishable display pieces. Threads do fail to knit. Nowadays they fail even to turn from fuzz to threads. Ok...so we’re still waiting for those fibers, and there may be no brain left to knit them, should they form.

So anyway, perhaps I should stick to journaling for now, as recommended by another article in the same AARP issue, this one entitled “Find Purpose, Live Longer.” The author is Gregory Plotnikoff, M.D., medical director for Abbott Northwestern’s Institute for Health and Healing in Minneapolis. Especially effective, says he, after “a major life change that leaves you feeling lost [such as] when a spouse dies, you retire, or your kids leave home, [i.e.] you interrupt your personal story.” Hmmm. The task, so he says, is to “figure out how this episode fits into the plot of your life.”

Well, geesh. I thought I had given up on plot. But let’s suppose I can take a giant step sideways and revisit that discarded assumption. It might be a better choice than eating too much chocolate and revisiting chocolate headaches. (I am bound and determined to have one tomorrow.)

Actually, there are several things I need to revisit tomorrow which are a good deal more solid than assumptions, including A.A. Medical to see how the dad’s doing, AACC to get the Gabe registered for Japanese, and Whole Foods to restock the supplement drawer. If I encounter any promising lumps of dirt in the meantime, t’will be a bonus.

What would Flower say?

I’ve got a pretty powerful chocolate notion today. Unsated, sadly, but at least I won’t be giving myself a headache. Now there’s a rotten deal--headaches from too much chocolate.

Remarkably, Ellen and Fred are moved in (unpacked boxes notwithstanding) and we did nothing more strenuous than transport a tupperware of baked apples. Ellen does not, she has suggested, appreciate her 70’s era kitchen cabinetry. Or is it 80’s? At any rate, whether the cabinet-chooser’s mind was numbed by The Brady Bunch or Three’s Company, I say just be grateful that Greg Brady’s coat (with cigarettes in the pocket) was not left hanging in your closet, and at least all four of you don’t have to sit on the same side of the dining room table. Imagine how your children might turn out if that were the case. Like Johnny Bravo or something. Not pretty. Indiana Jones, as Austin demonstrated for me, seems a much less dorky option. (Not that I’d be your go-to consultant if avoiding dorkiness were the goal.)

I’m having a funny, wistful sensation every time a bright and clever therapist (PT, Speech, Occupational, Nurse,) works on my dad during his current hospitalization. I admire people who do intelligent and useful things. I really do.

Here is cool discovery of the week: With Ultralingua Spanish-English and French-English dictionaries installed on your Palm Centro, you can not only read Les Mis more easily (well, the Spanish doesn't help here,) you can also conjugate verbs on demand. I'm so geeking out on this.

So, kitties are more likely to be allergic to fish than venison and rabbit, the vet tells me. Now she tells me, that is. Chessie, the tubby old diva, will be the beneficiary of the herring and mackerel food surplus when we go back to Crunchies pet food store tomorrow and seek out Thumper kibbles and Bambi-in-a-can for Little Itch, aka Hazel.

eerrrrrk

What I meant to say was that it’s plain that I cannot squeeze a good story out by dint (merely) of determination and persistence. Tried that.(several times actually.) Hence, I am willing to carry my current working notebook around for the length of time required (1 year, 7 years, 11 years) for the thoughts which I jot at unpredictable and infrequent moments to begin to relate to each other and--eventually--form the bones of a dang good idea. I cannot assume such a matrix will ever materialize, but it will be a creditable effort.

These are cute kids at the Maryland Renaissance Faire. Someday--maybe next year--I’ll get the lady who throws and interprets stones outside the little gypsy hut to do a reading for me. I think pecan pie might not be an entirely bad idea either that day.

Could there be a more boring manner of improving one’s Spanish than Rosetta Stone? Well, yes...you could read a grammar book. I suppose it beats that.

My working notebook, by the way, has 3 phrases in it so far. I hope at least 5 by Christmas. I’m thinking it’ll take at least 30 or 40 before the first filament of an idea coalesces. In the meantime, I can be irked. Irk is a strange word. The built-in Mac dashboard dictionary is telling me that it may come from the Old Norse yrkja meaning “to work,” which is an interesting irony in that the source of my irkedness is the sense of not being a contributor, workwise. This is why I used to want to be a pioneer. Because there would be no time for existential angst. You’d be way too busy making soap out of lye,

C'est la vie

Gabe took PSATs today. This will be a curiosity. I could not imagine how it would go. His report: He finished an hour before most of the class then took a nap. As to how he thinks he did: He thinks he did fine. No scholarship, he predicts...he thinks he performed averagely. We’ll see. I’ve been wondering for years how these standardized test experiences would turn out.

I’m back to trudging through a bit of Rosetta Stone Latin American Español. It’s a boring program, really, but I need to keep my Spanish synapses in balance in that I’m also presently reading Les Misérables en français. ‘Tis true that the version is abridged. I mean to check Cliff notes online and see just how much I’m missing. Aggravating it is to leave any out at all, but...en français...the struggle is enough and the pace slow as it is.

I like bags. I like reusable grocery bags, IKEA shopping bags, Gecko Traders rice and fish feed bags. I just like bags.

Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing. (Errol Flynn as General Custer to Olivia DeHavilland as Mrs. Custer in They Died With Their Boots On.)

How could you not do right by anyone upon whose heart that sentiment is etched for you?

maybe

I’m going to reenter, slow as a snake, slow as a seep, and with tedious, but flecked sparsely with sparkles, amounts of careful consideration.

As for politics...there’s only so much you can take before you begin to feel that your adrenals have been sucked dry and your previously piqued interest turned inside-out and hung from a clothes line.

As for grocery shopping...trying to hand someone the zip-top cooler bag, weighted down with a ½ gallon each of soymilk, orange juice, and apple cider plus an assortment of dog treats and frozen berries, can be a trick indeed. Just because it needs to be held by two handles. It takes two fully available hands to position those two handles in such a way that someone will grasp them both, and if you do not position them properly, he almost certainly will grab only one, or try to stick his hand through sideways--missing them both altogether. But you want him to help, so you have to down that last ounce of Trader Joe’s coffee sample and stuff the cup in your pocket so you can attend to the grocery bag handles. It is strange what things are hard and what things are not so.

I spent all day yesterday trying to think of the word “escapement,” as in the inner workings of a mechanical clock. And I didn’t. Think of the word. I had to flip back a few chapters in the book The Discoverers, and just find it, because it was completely eluding me, the silly word.

Green porch rockers, a glass of wine, and a Bill Bryson book on a cool October afternoon make a fine combination of things.