On the Radio

Norris was at work, listening to some god-awful caterwauling on the radio. Katherine, working across the table asked "who is that?" Norris's opinion was that it might be Curt Kobain.
"Nope, too happy" was Kath's repy.
"Well, how about Nirvana?" opined Norris.
"Still too happy".
"I don't know," said Norris, "It sounds pretty anguished to me".
"Yeah, but it is still a happier anguish" was Katherine's last take on the subject.
"That could be our band's name" Norris said, knowing that there would not be any band, but saying so anyway. It was kind of like what she used to tell Tessa all the time; "I saw it, and frankly, it was poignant, but boring."

Phone Solicitor

Norris was tiring of immersing her hands in water. Talk about sub urbanity she thought. As if in answer, the phone rang, “Hi, I ‘m calling for the children’s hospital” said a young woman’s voice. Norris was let down; it was not a real call from someone good.
“Oboy” she was good at getting rid of telephone solicitors, but did not exactly enjoy it.
The telephone voice giggled at Norris’s dolorous reply and Norris asked “Do you want money?” Just before the girl could resume her memorized speech- “no”
“Well, do you want children?” Norris was thinking ahead here, “Because I don’t have either”.
“No,” the girl replied.
“Well, what is it then?”
“I want to know if you want the paper.” By now the pre written speech was totally out the window and Norris thought why do I want a paper from the children’s Hospital? They put out a paper? Talk about non-sequitur, sheesh, I didn’t mean for this to get out of hand.
“When you get the paper delivered, one dollar goes to the hospital…” the girl seemed to be veering back toward her previous spiel.
“Wait, I pay the hospital?”
“No, you pay the carrier but...”
“The hospital gets the money and I get the paper?” This is not too awful Norris thinks, and then thinks of having her Sunday mornings shattered by the rude blatting of the front doorbell, and having to face some obnoxious adolescent while still in her pajamas. “No, thanks, I’m not here a lot.” (Subject closed)
“Okay,” the phone voice registers, ( lost another one.)
Norris reluctantly returns to submergence.

Dinner Plans

and household woes

Hi , I’m really depressed.

Oh? What is it this time?

Well, I just discovered while cleaning the top of the stove, that the funny burning smell we were looking for last night was the brand new counter top and the brand new cutting board. This apartment isn’t even a month old, and already I have ruined something. Lou is going to hit the roof and I don’t know if I can take it.
Did you know that the amazing Ginsu steak knife makes a wonderful wood plane? In fact, it worked better than the actual wood plane I used first. In my usual Lucy tries to hide a cow in the kitchen style, I was hacking burnt wood off the cutting board when I realized that it smelled just like hotdogs.
Does this mean that all these years I have been eating thinly disguised kosher wood chips? NO, what it means is that all those old hot dogs are being made into cutting boards since people got so hinky about nitrates in the food. They chop up the dogs and press them into clever wooden shapes. In fact, I hear they do a mean parquet floor too, but that could be salami. I’ll look into it for you. Does the extra cash I blow on Kosher mean I get hickory instead of knotty pine? What do you think?

Well, I think this is great material for a story- it’s pretty funny stuff actually and you should write it all down like I told you yesterday.
I’m getting ready to go to my new job now. I just love wearing this neat little tuxedo shirt and my patent leather shoes. Do you want to have dinner at the monster inn before the Comet dance at the Planetarium tonight?

Well, here’s where my life is starting to resemble fiction, I already wrote our conversation before calling you. Do you think our lives are losing spontaneity?
And to answer your question, I don’t know if we can afford it; even if we only get the “victim”, we just shelled out 80 bucks for groceries last night and what with the counter and all he’s going to be in one hell of a mood and it will be a miracle if we get to the dance at all.

Maybe you could put a potted plant on the burnt spot.

No, it’s right next to the stove, which would not be good at all.

Okay, so how about a lamp? You have to see well to cook, right?

No, same spot, it’s just awkward. Anything put there would be knocked over by someone’s elbow.

Oh well, Dave and Denise are coming in at 6:30 and we’re going out for dinner and then to the dance.

Yeah, when they say 6:30 that means 9:30 if you’re lucky.

No, they promised to come early which means they could show up on time, and if they don’t show by 8:30, we’re going without them because we promised Timmy and Bagwan we’d be there by at least 10.

Oh. We.., maybe we’ll meet you. Or maybe there will be a national disaster before he gets home and the burnt counter won’t seem so bad. I’m working on dematerializing in case that disaster doesn’t come through. How about that?

Good idea! If you perfect it, let me know. Actually, you could dematerialize over here but I have to clean. I’ll see you tonight. Maureen is coming from the suburbs; I think we can get a ride with her.

Okay. She goes to the phone, calls Tess and reads the story to the phone, and hangs up. No answer. She leaves a message:
Hi, I really don’t have to call you now because I have already written the whole conversation down in case you’re not home…..still, no one answers; how typical. At least I got a few pages of dialogue out of it.
She tries calling someone else.

How to buy spices

An excerpt of the soon to be published Che Sera Cookbook:

When shopping for herbs and spices, get anything that looks good to you, or anybody with you, or the odd bystander in the spice store. Buy lots of colors, shapes and textures- you can find out what to do with them later, and if you don’t you still have the raw material for amusing home décor. Nothing looks better on your kitchen wall than a lot of glass jars full of great looking stuff.
Note: you may want to avoid buying some things which are too hot to serve as anything other than say, paint remover. This is precisely what sales help is for; don’t be afraid to ask for assistance in weeding out the more lethal items and hope this is not one of their “bad” days. If it is, buy stuff anyway, it will cheer you up some; probably nothing will help them.
Should you feel I have been too vague about suggestions, my guideline is:
1. green stuff
2. yellow stuff
3. red stuff
4. leafy substances
5. things that have shape
I don’t bother with labels. It astounds my friends and makes cooking look much more difficult than it really is. People are sure I am psychic. If you want to give this impression but are sure you will put curry into your tapioca, simply label the bottom of the jars. It is mistake proof and you sill still appear to be a culinary genius.

Sleeping Beauty

We were sleeping in the single bed in my room at my parents' house, and the sun shone on our faces waking us up. My eyes were still closed and you thought I was asleep when you raised up on your elbow and looking down at me , and said "God, you are so beautiful." I moved about acting asleep until you kissed me awake.

That was the first and last time any of my boyfriends said that to me. You thought I did not hear it, but I did. The sad part is that no one of you ever said it in my hearing. Why not?

Yeah, you might have a false memory. It's not you, it's the guy who will probably not read this.

The 4th of July

I woke up this morning hearing a band playing. This is not unusual as I often think I hear music in the house, mostly at night. Usually it is a radio left playing upstairs.
I realized it was the parade. I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to find Jeff watching the news in his sweatpants. "Parade" I told him. "I hear the bands". He of course did not believe me, so I wandered down the driveway to see the parade.
It's a small town kind of deal, part of the town marches, children ride bikes and everyone gets a small flag(made in China).
It is the neighborly thing to do unless caught out later, when you can plead the sleeping late defense. This year they gave out balloons, beads (to the faithful, I noticed, as they came from the church) and ice cream sandwiches. Breakfast of champions. When the black high school band passed I smelled pancakes and bacon. I mentioned this to Jane. She asked me what that meant. I said it means someone over there (motioning across the street) is making breakfast. She laughed, glad I was not making a racially biased remark. Small minds, small town USA.

Email Woes

Nory questions her contacts.

Nory, tired of forwarded messages and terse responses, asked Tom to write her a story. What she got in response was a series of the usual inane and whiny messages. A story, she thought, has characters and a narrative. These puny messages, while original to the writer, could be improved upon if he tried. She could not complain much, however, because hardly anyone but Linda wrote cogent letters.
Linda’s letters were so pleasurable to read that there was an impulse to save them for posterity. Nory did have a small cache of hand written letters from Linda and a few others that she could not discard. The only hand written note she possessed and had ever received from Tom, was a scrap of paper which read: Back in a wink of a quark’s life. When she found it, he had gone out to get provisions for breakfast that they would share, or perhaps it was something else, she could no longer remember; it was that long ago. She thought at the time, that a quark might be some kind of bird. In the years which passed between then and now, she had learned via several sources that the quark lived in space, and was not so much a bird as a particle; of what she had no idea, nor did she wish to find any more information about it. If she asked, she would receive a ream of research on the subject. Sometimes she asked for stuff just because she was too lazy, and he was so good at finding the information she wanted. The note itself remained in the shoe box with the other hand written letters and cards she had deemed worthy of saving.
At least I get multiple notes to amuse me, was Nory’s opinion. She thought Tom might agree, although he rarely concurred with anything she wrote to him, she felt that his disagreement was calculated so that she would write again to counter his remarks, or to defend herself
. She had learned over time, that to argue with anyone at all was probably not worth the time and energy expended, but Tom made her experience her feelings on a more dramatic level than others did, and she was not sure of why that should be. Still, she had started to realize when she was being baited, and replied to him with the same kind of banter he used on her. He did not like it much, and had begun to complain about her replies, calling her “glib”.
Not thinking that glibness was a problem, she stayed her course, and eagerly awaited further correspondence.

Ya call that music?

It's official, there is no music on late night television that I want to hear.
In fact, it may be safe to say that there is little new music that I wish to listen to at all.
It may just be the unnatural ringing in my ears (tinnitus) that is worse the last month or so, but I think it is just bad musicianship.

Have you any recommendations for movies I might like that I could rent? I am enjoying netflix, you get movies in the mail, and send them back. no human interaction required. No smell of rancid popcorn or rugs which smell of feet.

Evidently, the old ucch sound that you make that I make has been replaced partially by the newer and equally expressive yeish. Not quite sure how to spell it, but Jeff seems unable to resist repeating it after I say it. Sort of like Renee Chenault Fatah, whenever she is on I cannot resist yelling FATAH!!! and a woman on public radio : Latch mi Singh, Andy and I hear her at work and are powerless not to echo her name in unison.

Otto & Minton

The news that Otto Steerage and Minton Mention was burbling some dritz was wasted on me. “Burble burble at the drive-in with a vengeance sez Otto”
“Yez man, and’ double the dritz on that burger adds Minton, not one to be left out of a conversation for long.
Mitzi Maison Mint Mention was home cryin the fer god sake’s blues over the toilert. “I bin peein’ ever’ 5 minutes fer 3 days strait, an’ them two never stopped to pass the time, let alone, never you mind, sleepin. My only consolation here is the more I cry, the less I gotta pee.
The fact is, that’s been life as I ‘d known it in these parts for more time than I care to remember, so leaving the status quo, I perambulated over the Marie’s to find her contemplating which of a vast collection of brilliant striped bikini panties to wear that day. I liked Marie because she did as she pleased. She is a commercial artist and works out of the house. Yesterday’s temperature zoomed clear past 96 and possessing that knowledge and secure in the belief that it would do so again today, I showed at my more or less regular hour to watch Marie, hanging herself over that drawing board in those multi shade undies, drawing a ad for ether white toe polish an’ flippin’ the sweat off the underside of her tits with the back of her hand without smudging the tempera; no mean feat.
I wasn’t due at my job at the Once Around the Track Dress Shoppe & Hardware for another 3 or 4 hours and knew Marie’s was as cool a place to hang out flickin the sweat off as any other. Besides, that panty trick in the beat the heat weather had been mine before it was hers, and Minton an’ Otto was wise to me an’ started their burbling activities out in my front yard pretending to have joined up with the friends of the animals and sneaking peeps from the ladders that went up to all the plastic bird feeders left out by Mrs. Bendheim-Fiduciary of the Third National Truss.
So I say “Look, Marie, I know I started this business but did you have to make it into such a goddam fetish?” And she says” Yes, well,” in that prissy way of hers, “well if a girl’s only going to wear one garment, it might as well be flattering” and I counter with “You got enough eye makeup on to constitute at least 3 garments already. What is this? We havin’ a session with Playhorse Magazine this afternoon or what?” And she says “yeah, well at your age I guess a little too much makeup could be a bad thing but….”
“This wouldn’t mean you have loosed the news to the ‘friends of the animals” that this is where the birds come and cool their feather now that they invested in all those ladders in my yard would it?”
So Marie, she goes: “a girl’s got to look her best at all times, you know” and I figure it’s time I invested in a swimsuit and a lawn chair anyway, bohemian life going downhill at the current rate that it was. I double back just in case Mitzi has quit cryin’ the by god etc. etc. which she has since I offered her something constructive to do instead, namely; spending the none too hard-earned cash of her just about fictitious husband since most of his time was pent on burbling activities anyway, which everybody pretty much knew. Not that burbling actually needed to take up so much time in the life of a full grown man, but there it was, ugly as a scabbed up knee and as unstable as the afternoon heat, Minton was booked up with this erstwhile & Otto burbling which actually no body knew what that amounted to.
Hearing the ladder crash out in the yard brought to mind that metallic sound of long icicles crashing off the treetops on to the roof in winter. We heard some muffled cursing & took off out of there at a run. Let the neighbors deal with the mess. Prob’ly not even need of an ambulance.

Satin Chickens

Written 25 years ago…..

I got a note from my lover, vacationing in Austria. It was not the purple prose of a man in love; it was not the letter I thought I’d like to get.
I had a man who lives in Connecticut who used to write me these be-bop kind of letters that stretched my heart all out of shape and strained something in my throat. Those were the kind of letters a girl might expect from a man in love.
The day I got the postcard from Jonas he was to return from Austria, and laying around the apartment, waiting for his phone call, I got more and more upset and nervous. Where was he?
I had been thinking about this earlier letter writing person for several days because of a song on the radio. Steven used to use phrases of songs in his conversations, or in his letters, and not let on that they were not his own words. Often they were very cryptic, like the one about “satin chickens” and then, weeks or months later, I heard it, Lou Reed singing some thing about satin chickens, maybe an allusion, but there it was.
So, here I am, five, maybe eight years into my life and no real problems to speak of and here comes this Brooke Benton piece over the airwaves….”Ain’t it funny how time just keeps on slippin’ right away, and it stands out so clearly in my mind from one of those lost letters in a shoebox I keep stashed around here someplace.
For two or three days I try to remember the maiden name of Steven’s grandmother so that I can reach his cousins who live in the summer house down by the lake which is about a block away from the winter house up on the hill.
Eventually I come up with Mc Coy, how unlikely is that? I wonder, but it works and I reach Pierre, as I called the trombone playing cousin, and he says “This is so weird, Steve and Ruth just got married two days ago.” This is just too much for me, and having no decorum I ring up this two day bride who I probably got out of bed and say, voice from the past, not to worry. Steve was never one of your real big talkers and always kept up a strong guard. I don’t know what was going on there or how things were going , but as it was one of your four person weddings, I’d say she was pregnant (I was wrong) and that after living together the last few years, they had decided to get married.
I have to say that his voice on the phone did not give the impression that they were having any kind of a party.
It turns out he had been denied his unemployment benefits from the golf course and that eight years of college had not produced the famous fine artist I had envisioned him to become. “You pick the strangest times to call than anyone I’ve ever known” he told me. I apologized and explained that I really only wanted to talk about stuff, not get back together. He seemed so far removed and pretty cool, but I guess what else could he be?
Meanwhile I am annoyed at Jonas for not getting off the plane and rushing to phone me with his coat still on. I wonder where he is. When he left, his plan was to come back and live with me. Could be there’s a new plan in mind. Meanwhile, I’m lying here writing, thinking; ain’t it funny how time just keeps slippin’ right on away……

Bonnie's Farm

So, the last time I saw Bonnie, her phone rang and rang, making it almost impossible to finish a sentence. We tried, but kept losing track of our thoughts and had to start over a dozen times.

Then, one of her neighbors, a Nordic or German woman with sort of half a dog came by. The dog was some variety of Bassett hound, and his back end was held up by a harness.
He had to be heavy, and the womanwas struggling with him a bit. She said he was incontinent, mostly in the house. She could not make herself have the dog put down, and Bonnie, a pacifist and animal lover, said that even she would have had the animal put to sleep long ago.

We were in the yard where there were boxes of broken glass, frosted by the wash of water over long periods. She had gleaned them from beaches and water ways to use in her art projects. We were going to sort it except that we kept being interrupted.

I accidentally pushed bon's little white dog who was wet, a wiry compact little circus kind of dog, off the mini trampoline I was sitting on, and into a box of her glass that was all over the yard. The fact that there were copious amouts of seaglass and a trampoline in the yard was confounding enough but seemed normal, knowing Bonnie.

Eventually she said “all I really need is permission to throw it all away." I said "I think you can throw this away", but needed to choose a few choice pieces to take with me.

After that, the guy who rents a parking space dropped by for a chat and Bon insisted that “It is never like that here.” The parking guy agreed that the yard is usually quiet.

I felt like I was at a very sub-urban circus with all rings going at once.

The dog suddenly had blood flecks all over it, and we thought it was from the glass but no, just a snake for crap's sake, he had caught a snake in the yard, and the snake was bleeding.

We were just getting over that when her husband (the chef) came home with takeout, looking pissed and complaining that she had not answered the phone. They had not been married long, and he did not know me but appeared to suspect that it was my fault that everything had gone awry. I made away not liking the vibe at all.

There was some mention that he was closing the restaurant and making a full time job of music. Perhaps that would be a good reason to be cranky, but I had nothing to do with that.
I wonder how they are doing.

The New Scentsation

Perfume makes me gag. I used to wear a lot of it and made other people sick and did not understand their problem. Now it is my compaint too. I get a lot of magazines because they are a cheap diversion. Mostly I look at the pictures. The cats like the subscription inserts which can be wadded up into toys.
Most of these journals include a number of perfume samples which even when removed from the magazine, leave their essence lingering, giving my perusal a vaguely nauseating effect above and beyond the effects of the drivel offered up as prose.
Strangely, all of the scents smell the same to me. I keep meaning to write a short story where a young woman commits suicide with one of these perfume inserts. She slashes her throat with a fatal paper cut. Live fast, die young, and leave a good smelling corpse, that kind of thing.

Golf and Pagentry

AA new look at America's favorite pasttimes.

Talking about Golf with the neighbors the other night when my mind went wandering. “I know what’s wrong with the Miss America Pageant” I blurted in nonsequitur, “No water hazards!” At that point, every one in the room got the jist and made remarks along the lines of: Miss Alabama approaches the 9th green, Oh, She’s in the rough!
Or, she is up to her knees in the water hazard after a grueling trek though the sand trap on the left. Well Jim, that stain’s not going to come out any time soon…..
It was pretty amusing. It was one of those “you had to be there” moments. I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

Birthdays of the Dead

A bit of a complaint.
An old friend wrote me two e mails, the first being something about Moliere, the French playwright of the what, 17th, 15th, century? And the second read: Happy birthday Sartre. Not Jean-Paul, or Jean Paul Sartre or any other version of a complete name. The latter philosopher lived in the 20th century, but was not a close acquaintance of either of us by any means. ]
Immediately, as I have no edit button in my brain, I shot back a smart remark for him to reserve that type of erudition for women he hoped to meet at the beach and that perhaps said women would be more impressed by his mere mention of great writers and thinkers of the past.
This, as usual met with less than enthusiastic reception, but I had no care.
I can’t deal with people celebrating birthdays of the dead. I just barely condone celebrations of the birth of living people, but still find it unseemly to have to give gifts to people just because they give themselves parties. I have no real complaint about parties for children unless they are first (and possibly second) birthdays in which case the celebratee is probably not aware of what the hubbub is about.
I found it disappointing when the Birthdays of Washington and Lincoln became little more than an excuse for white sales, something that does not actually apply any more.
While I am mentioning the linen sales, I must also remark that no stores are fooling me to rush to a sale, when I noticed that there is some kind of weekly discount deal in progress.
Nonetheless, I take umbrage for the celebration in honor of people who cannot appreciate the effort.
I also wonder what is to become of toys and gifts left at roadside shrines. I first saw these near bridges in Rome, Italy, and found them to be funky art installations.
As it turns out, these impromptu gatherings of items now accompany the deaths, mostly of children, and mostly in poor neighborhoods where the children of the participants may not have toys of their own. I wonder, if after people leave the site, small unfortunates can avail themselves of these toys left for departed souls, or if they must pass by daily and covet playthings which day by day become more soiled and ruined, losing color and substance until the pile of items goes the way of the intended recipient.

Yard Sale

To Shop, or not to shop?
We were driving in upstate NY, having just gone antiquing in Cold Springs and were driving back to Croton when we passed a sign that said: Greystone Monastery, and under that a smaller sign that said Yard Sale. All four of us are keen bargainers and avid flea-market fiends so one of us said “Monastery Yard Sale”.
“OH, no,” I said, “what do they have, old cassocks?”
“And grails,” Deb was quick to add.
“Yeah, how often do you need those?”

Mental Sorbet

In which our heroine redefines her parameters

Walking through the courtyard, Nory heard Tyler cursing quietly beneath the old station wagon. It was one of the largest wagons Nory could remember, but probably her father had owned one very much like it in the early ‘60’s. This was lower and way longer than an SUV, and truth be told, though kind of ugly, also had an odd eye appeal. She knelt down to say hello, and find out what he was fixing today. Tyler’s family owned a lot of cars, and at least one needed work at any given time, so it was not unusual to find him beneath one.
“Hi,” she said to the aggravated boy.
“WHAT?” was his anguished retort.
“Well, I just thought I would say hi and see what you are fixing. “
“I am replacing the exhaust system, and I got it stuck.”
Nory, on the ground, looked through the car. She noticed that on her end, there were places for bolts or screws so she asked” Where does this attach?” Tyler pointed to the rusty spot where the exhaust would bolt to the chassis of the car. “Well, if that is where it goes then you have got the whole mess on the wrong side of whatever this is called” indicating some piled flat pieces of metal hanging from the underside of the car.
Tyler came out from beneath to see what Nory was talking about, and told her that those were springs and that she had once again hit the nail on the head. He had the entire contraption on the wrong side of the springs. At this point, Kevin, noticing Nory speaking to the bottom of the car had sidled over to grasp the situation more firmly. The two boys then scraped knuckles while Nory directed calmly. Once the assemblage was put into place, Tyler asked “did you, in all of your stories neglect to tell me that you had been a mechanic?”
“Nope,” said Nory, slipping off to finish her task.
It was not until her drive home that she realized what had occurred. Earlier, during a misunderstanding because she could not remember the name of the pound sign, her employer laughed and told her that her true calling was to be a comedian. I am not really that funny she thought to herself. I think I am more like mental sorbet; I cleanse the mental palate so that people can think clearly.
I do that a lot, come to think of it. She finished the ride home listening to the radio, feeling quite pleased.

Middle Canadian

A start of a story..

I guess you could say I’m middle Canadian. I have medium brown hair and eyes of indefinite color that they call hazel at the motor bureau. I stand about 5’10” in my socks and I weigh about 175 pounds, no tattoos, no big or irregular facial features, no tics or physical deformities. I live in the middle of Canada and I don’t speak French. I probably would have set up housekeeping in the middle of lake Louise if that were the neutral midpoint, but then I’d be an amphibian, and I don’t know if that’s possible. My name is Tom, the rest is just as normal, it really doesn’t matter. We live in a suburb, not too big or small and I work for a company pushing paper all day, not much to it, I believe they have forgotten I am even here, working in my little cubicle so far back in the office that no one bothers to make the trip. I eat my lunch here, no fraternizing though I guess I could if I wanted to, and home at the end of the day by public transportation, just another cog in the wheel of industry.
I thought I wanted this life. I moved away from all I knew and remade myself, lost my accent, forgot my relatives, closed up shop so to speak, and took up life anew in this new land. Lately though, I have begun to wonder.

The thing is, I grew up in Kentucky, Land of juleps and thoroughbreds , and I spoke with a drawl. I was an only child, a towhead, and at the top of my class. I was tall and strapping for my age, made all the sports teams in school and stood out in general until high school, when I started my slide to anonymity. I hated the loud bragging style of my dad, who would always call attention to everything in ways I found obnoxious. Dad would be the center of anything and everything, starting a spitting contest down at the general mercantile, for example, in those days the townhouses had not yet been built and we were gentlemen farmers. We lived in a huge antebellum style house, left in the family since the Civil War days and I grew from proud to embarrassed to be living in such a monstrosity as I gained friends and saw the modest farmhouses and new clean suburban tract homes where they lived. I died a thousand small deaths daily at the shenanigans of my father who kept country ways even as his wealth grew to put him at the top of local society, where he was considered a “character”. In the South, we do not hide our social miscreants, we show them off, and are proud to be southerners. My Daddy had horses and I grew up with horses. I learned as a small child how to feed and water and later, at about 8 or 9 I was let to hotwalk or exercise the horses to warm them up before a ride or race and then to cool them down again after. Later, as I aged, I had to groom and muck out stalls. It was tough, but I liked the animals and the solitude, as long as my father was out of the barn. Did you know that race horses can only have names that are 18 letters long or less? That’s the rule and because of that, the owners all try to push the envelope with long-winded names. That’s one of the things my father used to do that irritated me so much. We had a horse named Bucket, but to race him my dad insisted we call him Buckets of Bullitts! Just to get the full count on the name. I thought it was a pretty stupid name for a horse, but it did not hurt his running and dad kept joking we should a named him Buckets O’ Simoleons (something they called money someplace in the old days). You might well wonder where my mom was, a good enough question. I love my mother; she’s still, last I heard, alive. She was pretty and kind had a nice smile and actually sang while hanging the wash and doing chores in general, kept the radio on for company and disputed with the various announcers as to the veracity of their various claims. She was sweet to me and a great cook too, but she paled beside the larger than life figure of my father, and if she sounds just too good to be real then so be it, allow me my illusions of memory, for this is how I like to keep her in my head. Cheery but shy, a beautiful, red headed counterpoint to my fiery, loud and obtuse male parent.

I don’t know what attracted me to Canada, It may have been the war. It may have been seeing droves of them on US television that made me see them as regular, well adjusted humans with no discernable accents but a small proclivity to mispronounce the letter L, something, I am told they are taught at broadcasting school where you sort of swallow the letter and make instead a glottal noise instead, making the words sound clearer to the listener, but it’s a tricky maneuver and often as in the case of one prominent announcer, comes off as a speech defect. The man just can’t grasp the nuances of the technique. Anyway, thinking that Kentucky was far too colorful or obvious , I moved towards the middle of the United States, but as it turned out, all the areas I encountered, had some other weird cant of language or behavior. In Minnesota there is a great population descended from Swedes or some such and the twang of their voices is just unimaginable and then populated with all manner of archaic exclamations as: ........ And this is the place where my memory went still, and I have not returned to this place since.

No comment

A complaint
Okay, I hope some one is reading this, but I need comments too. Everything should be accessible and easy to do, just leave me a note.
I don't need an epic, just a bit of enthusiasm, perhaps.

Sing Sister

Who would have thought, I was thinking, that I could be here doing this? Chances are few that anyone would be likely to walk in and catch me, but that’s the way my mind works. Anyway, I’m bent over, ass out (fully clothed) with my head in the clothes dryer crooning “It had to be you” to no one in particular, and appreciating the acoustics, if not my voice. I used to think I was a good singer. I was still convinced of this until I listened to the playback on my answering machine; not your choice of preference of major recording stars. Whether or not this notion is true is immaterial, and so I sing wherever no one will catch me. I once recommended to a psychiatrist that I sing in the car to get rid of stress. The windows are shut, and although I can be seen, I don’t think I can be heard. Wow, she said, I am going to have to suggest this to my patients.
I have forgotten at least half the lyrics to every song I ever knew, the number of which was considerable and spanned decades before I was born. This is unfortunate as I like to sing a song all the way through without the additions of made up words or scat which I am not suited for.
In the car with Jeff, I often pick up the lyrics I remember to a song written in the 20’s or some obscure folk item that I have stuck in my memory thanks to ex boyfriends with a penchant for country, bluegrass, blues and the ever popular library of congress folkways collection. He looks at me unbelieving almost every time. Sometimes, when I hear a song I know that he has heard before, I say ‘sing it, Jeff!”, but if the arrangement is not familiar, he will not recognize it.
I try not to burden others with this small passion I have and I appreciate it if you keep your singing to yourself if you are tone deaf. Whistling around me is strictly forbidden as it acts like fingernails on blackboards. I had to quit a job because for some reason, all the employees and customers started to whistle. I almost lost my mind.
On the other hand, I have heard people, usually who work with vegetables; I know this is inexplicable, but in Megworld anything is possible, singing out in public and not caring a whit. Generally they see me and stop, but twice I have told them to continue, and congratulated them on their cheeriness.
So go on, sing yourself to bliss or blues, just don’t do it in my presence.

Speaking of Sleep

I was talking to Bruce in a two bit dive. I cannot remember what brought us there. I think it was a chance encounter on the road that made us pull over at that spot. No matter.
He was telling me that he could not sleep and was fearful that as he became older, he would not be able to sleep because he would be afraid of dying in slumber.
“What?” I asked, “You’re afraid of missing something?”
“No” he replied,” It’s just that if I were awake I could fight it.”
“Why are you even thinking about this? I mean, we all think about death sometimes and we’re all going to die, but what good does it do to worry about it? Do you want to die?” I wondered aloud.
“No, that’s the last thing I’d want to do” says Bruce.”
A moment passes as we take a sip and look into each other’s eyes.
“Are you doing this on purpose?” I ask, smiling wryly.