Annie's Way

Of Hamsters and Harleys

2010-12-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

Here it is, the end of the year, when all we've done, and all we haven't, comes swirling down at us in one big whoosh of emotion, wrapping paper, and re-gifted Snuggies. Finish with a flurry of frenzied shopping, and we wonder why assault with a fruitcake is so common in December.

I was Christmas shopping in a pet store the other day when I noticed a burly biker guy getting increasingly agitated. That’s never a good thing, but it’s especially bad when it happens in the hamster aisle, and even worse when it occurs near me. Suddenly the man of many tattoos swaggered toward me.

“Do you know where the leashes are?”

“For h-h-hamsters?” I stammered, trying not to giggle.

"Guinea pig, actually," he corrected me (on the plus side, though, he let me live). I nearly bit my tongue, at the thought of this tough, tattooed dude walking a guinea pig…

"It's for my twelve-year-old daughter. It's a gift for her pet," he growled. “But I can’t find one.”

He was in Christmas pain - that achy place you endure when you venture out of your own comfort zone and attempt to fulfill a loved one's wishes simply because you want them to be happy, even if it means you might get miserably lost in a world of tubular hamster toys, suffer the stares of strangers, and run the risk of coming home empty-handed.

I softened a little. Even Harley riders need help sometimes. Besides, he could have crushed me with his pinky. Lola, the inked portrait glaring at me from his left bicep, seemed to demand that something be done. With the eye of a seasoned shopper, I scanned the aisle for our holy grail.

“Over here," I scurried down the aisle, pushing aside a few crinkle-tunnels and chew-cubes to reveal a virtual smorgasbord of rodent leashes. "Ooh, hey, here’s one with metal studs on it!” Biker Guy brightened. Lola winked at me. Whew!

After some serious musing, Biker Guy narrowed his decision down to either a pink one with rhinestones or a studded black one. Meanwhile I did my best to stay serious, helpful, and alive. I nearly suggested that the black one matched his leather vest better, but I held my tongue. He put the pink one back. It was then I knew he was going to make some bad-ass guinea pig very happy.

“That’ll do. Hey, thanks a lot. Merry Christmas.” Then he was gone.

In our quests for cheer, we brave the traffic, the malls, the mayhem. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we Snuggie. The time we take and the effort we make are symbolized by the gifts we give. Behind each gift is a story of bringing home the joy. The story is unwrapped with the present, bringing it to life, adding sparkle, and reminding us that while shopping for a gift can be a major pain in the patootie, it's all good.

May you not suffer too long in the hamster aisle, and may your checkout line be swift. Happy holidays.

Wanted: Woman, or tractor in good condition

2010-12-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine has decided that all she wants for Christmas is a cowboy (eyeroll). Since I'm a dutiful friend, I'm helping her shop online at some cow-themed matchmaking sites. I come across a guy who seems to fit the bill.Then I read his profile, or, as some of us prefer to call it, the 'warning label':

Well here it is ladys. I am a cowboy, Im not a rich one, yet anway, yes im around horses and cattle all the time and thats all iv ever been and all ill ever be, im looking for a good woman who can keep house, cook, shoe the horses, do the chores, cut and split firewood, mow the yard, fix fence, buck hay, and most of all is sexy and knows how to make love.

Then I notice that at 40, he's a widower. Wonder what killed his first wife?

Sophie and the Silverado

2010-10-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

The garage was a mess. Normally this would not bother me so much, except that it was not just any garage, but my garage, and as such, an unpleasant reminder of my current messy situation. If I could get a tidy toehold on one snippet of my life, I reasoned, the rest might fall into place, like so many obsessive-compulsive dominoes. Maybe not, but I had to start somewhere. So I started with a sigh. Nothing happened. I wiggled my nose. Still nothing. I kicked at a Lego block, sending it skittering toward the trash can. Sigh, wiggle, kick. It was a start.

Toys were everywhere, to infinity and beyond – a cluttered kaleidescope of cars, puzzles, and balls – a goofy plastic rainbow of great times. I thought back to when they first sat under our Christmas tree, waiting to be unwrapped by my frenetic, giddy toddlers, then waiting a bit longer until I had enough coffee and a sharp pair of scissors to clip the endless number of wires and ties that restrained them in their packaging, like so much fun had to be physically tied down or it would break loose and run amok.

And years later here they were, staring back at me as if to say, “We did the run-amok thing - now what?” My boys had outgrown them, but they still weren’t ready to throw them out. Over the years I would quietly move them from their bedrooms to the garage, hoping to someday, somehow move them out completely. (The toys, not the boys. Although if you step on enough Lego blocks, the second option does cross your mind.) The goal was to make the toys disappear without inciting a rebellion by the small people who would eventually choose my retirement home.

Would I be remembered as the mean mom who, by the light of a pale, cold moon, cackled with glee as she tossed beloved toys into the trash bin? Or perhaps as the creepy neighborhood toy-hoarding biddy, who kept toys stacked head-high throughout the house, with only a greasy, narrow path from the back door to the microwave so she could heat up soup? Not much of a cheerful outcome either way.

One of the bulkiest toys was a battery-operated pickup truck, a Mattel PowerWheels built to carry two kids at a time. Years ago the boys would drive it down the block, lurching and whirring, to get the mail. Once in a while they’d take it off-road, one driving and the other riding “shotgun” while attempting to lasso the dog. Mud would build up in its itty bitty wheel wells. Under its menacing plastic tire treads, several sprinkler heads became roadkill.
The Silverado, as we called it, was still in great shape. Too good a shape to be sitting around inside on such a lovely summer day.

Later that day I stopped by a local horse ranch that a friend of mine, Kristin, managed. Sundancer Ranch was a delightfully quirky place, full of horses, chickens, dogs, quail, rabbits, squirrels, ducks, even turkeys, parrots, goats, mules, and one lone ornery cow. Most people drove in and quickly left, spooked by the precipitous cliff off one side of the driveway, or the gang of tumbleweeds poised like so many dusty, rotound rednecks chillin' on the other side. But to a farm girl like me, it was heaven on earth. I figured the cliff and weeds scared others away, kept them from seeing the magnificent heart of this place, like a country camouflage that hid it from the outside world.

A few of us were standing near the barn talking about horses when Kristin's granddaughter walked over. Sophie was almost four years old, a barefoot barn angel in a muddy sundress, with long brunette waves of hair, and round brown eyes. I had grown up the same way, a bit of a wildflower, a free-range child. I even had the same long tresses and brown saucer eyes. I remember preferring the company of horses and dogs to that of people. Not much had changed.

As we talked, Sophie wanderly shyly in front of me, holding up a wild flower she had picked. “Thank you,” I said, taking the bloom. She smiled a bit and walked away.

“What’s with the flower, Mom?” my son asked when I got home. But he quickly became distracted by something else, and plopped the flower down right where he picked up his next thought - on the Silverado.

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. “Why not Sophie?” My son stared at me, weighing whether it was worth asking me to explain what I was talking about, or if it doing so might inspire me to seek his assistance in whatever wacky plan I was concocting.

The boys and I loaded the Silverado in the back of our truck and brought it over to the ranch. I knocked politely on the door of the trailer, asking if “Miss Sophie” was available. Her mom, Kelsey, informed us that she would be out in a moment after she “fixed her hair.”
Soon Sophie glided daintily down the three steps of the trailer, glittery hairclips perched on her head, her brown eyes blinking in the bright sunlight.

“Sophie,” I said, “Thanks for giving me that beautiful flower. We heard you are a hard worker, helping your mom and grandma feed all the animals. We figured you could use a good truck to haul the hay. Would you mind giving this truck a good home?”

Sophie looked at the Silverado, then back at me, then rubbed her eyes. She looked at the Silverado again. She had been napping, and wasn’t quite sure she had woken up.

“Go on, honey, give it a try,” her mom coaxed. Sophie walked around the little truck twice, lightly touching its sleek, grey sides, then carefully tucked herself into the driver’s seat. After carefull securing her seatbelt, straightening her sundress, and adjusting her hair, she held her mother’s arm in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, and hit the gas. The Silverado lurched forward. Sophie stopped, broke into a big smile, and cackled with glee. She hit the gas again, with the same response – lurch, stop, and cackle. She got out to clear some rocks away from her Silverado. Then it was back to lurch, stop, and cackle.

As Sophie fussed over a parking spot for her new ride, Kelsey lowered her voice. “She sees her dad once, maybe twice a year, tops. Last Christmas, he came to visit and we all went to the toy store. Sophie was looking at the PowerWheels, and her dad told her to pick out one and he’d buy it for her. She was so excited! She picked one out and he said, ‘No, sorry.’”

Kelsey shook her head. “She cried for months. I never shared that story with anybody. Then you show up out of nowhere.” She looked up. I think her eyes were misty, but I couldn’t see real well at the moment myself. “Things happen for a reason.”

Update - 2010

2009-12-31T21:13:00.000-08:00

Shocking but true - job hunting, book pitching, and master's degree-ing can suck the life out of a year. Then there's kid-raising, the usual single mom stuff, cranky parole boards, etc. Regardless, I shall return. Many times in the past few months I've wanted nothing more than to post humorous, obtuse rantings about tweens, terriers, and transfattys,but writing papers about data analysis and decision modeling saps the funny from my body like a giggle-adicted vampire and all I can manage is a weak tweet or two.

In college, I've quickly discovered that it's not an advantage to have a sense of humor. For example, here's the cover of one of last semester's books -

This happy shot of a union rep and management shaking hands teaches us that we can all find a way to get along. Upon further study, it also teaches us that the union rep has been speaking into the microphone using his er, shop steward.

Most students might miss that subtle point, but that's why I'm here - to ride the ridge between sanity and serenity.

The job search is over, the book thingy is doing well, and grad school ends in a few months. My funny bone needs a workout...stay tuned!

Flukes & Blooms

2009-07-03T23:00:00.000-07:00

She was outside, looking at the flowers. “I don’t think I mentioned this earlier, but one of my hobbies is taking photos of flowers,” she said, contemplating the few blooms left in my yard. “Let me get my camera.”

“Knock yourself out,” I replied, wondering why anyone would bother. I had not planted much this year, cutting back on nearly everything since losing my job. But if she wanted to take pictures….

It had been a difficult year. And it had all been entirely undeserved. Just when I thought I was done with the bitterness, it would all come rushing back. The last thing on my mind was flowers.

She aimed her lens at a rose. I hadn’t seen her in nearly twenty years, since college in New York. So much had changed, yet we seemed the same. We could still party like old times, as long as we were home by eleven, wore comfortable shoes, and took a couple of aspirin and an antacid. And since we couldn’t see our crows’ feet without our reading glasses, essentially we were the same. Close enough, I reasoned.

I fiddled with the television remote. My laptop was on the coffee table, next to a magazine I was reading. That was me, doing a dozen things at once, packing everything I could into a moment. I was busy with graduate school, an arduous job search, and being the stereotypical valiant, strong, single mother of two boys. I’d have a chip on my shoulder, too, if I had any room for one.

She steadied herself near the azaleas, quiet and still, taking photo after photo. Eventually even the dog got bored with her endeavor and walked away.

Suddenly the sound of a song from Mary Poppins filled the air. I was pretty sure it was coming from outside my head. This day was getting progressively stranger.

“That’s my cell phone,” she remarked. “I set the alarm on it to remind me to take my medicine. "'Spoonful of Sugar’ – get it?”

“An alarm for meds?” I laughed. “Are we that old?” I still didn’t write grocery lists, insisting on carrying the list around in my head. I’d forgotten many things that way, but so what? It was the principle of the thing. I’ll get old when I’m good and ready.

Anger keeps me young, I thought. These days were bittersweet, my fury harsh but healthy. Time may not be on our side, but I wasn’t about to check into the geriatric ward, either.

“Strange looking pills,” I remarked as she pulled them from her purse.

“They’re for my liver,” she took a drink of water. “Actually, it’s not MY liver. I’m just borrowing it.” One corner of her mouth curled upward.

Every few hours, Anne took anti-rejection medication to keep her body from attacking her donated organ. Eight years earlier, she had been diagnosed with a rare liver disorder, one so rare that her doctor missed it completely. Somehow, though, she knew something was wrong. But she didn’t know exactly what.

“It was a fluke, really,” she said. “What are the chances of meeting a liver specialist at a party? And he was cute!”

She had a slew of flukes in her life. After her liver transplant, she came down with thyroid cancer, discovered by chance during a checkup by a doctor touching the base of her throat. “I told him he was examining the wrong end of me,” she giggled. She could giggle at the damndest things.

One day she felt dizzy. With her track record, her doctor sent her in for an MRI. “It’s no bigger than your fingernail, and it hasn’t grown at all, so that’s a good sign. After all, size is everything!” That was Anne – ever hopeful, giggling and fluky. Even a weenie brain tumor was something to joke about. I envied her attitude, but certainly not her situation.

She’d be leaving soon. I was just fine alone. It was great to have her here, share old times, but I was comfortable on my own. I didn’t need anybody.

With a hug, she was off. I grabbed a beer from the fridge.

Later that day, an email popped up from her, taking forever and a day to load, especially to an impatient, moody grump like me. Sheesh, I huffed, I have things to do.

It was filled with her flower photos- still, clear, and beautiful. She had taken a few blooms and made them glow, made them perfect, made them timeless. Just a few raggedy flowers….

Damn, I thought. She had gotten past the anger, past the pity. She was on the other side, capturing giggles and picking flowers, making an incredible, everlasting bouquet while I grumbled and whined. That, too, wasn’t fair.

I wanted to be able to do that. Here I was trying to cram all sorts of events into my life so it would count for something, as she blithely took one moment at a time, polished it until it shined, and shared it with everyone. She made it look easy. Compared to many things in her life, I guess it was.

Quietly she was able to stop the world from turning, keep it still for a moment, insisting that it take the time to look at a single, lowly daisy. Even more extraordinary, the world would do it.

“Wow,” I wrote back. “These are incredible.” Lame, I know, but for once I was beyond words.

“Annie,” she replied, knowing what I was thinking. “We don’t know what tomorrow will be. Some of us don’t know if we’ll even have a tomorrow. So I choose to focus on today. That’s why I take pictures. That’s why I came to visit you. That’s why I’m here.”

I shifted my gaze to outside. I got it now. I was stubborn and thick-headed, but finally I got it. And I thought I was strong.

She’ll be back to visit again, I’m sure of it. Until then I have her flowers. Actually, I reasoned, I had them forever, which is longer than I’ll ever need.

50

2009-05-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

Half a century. What a number.

Fifty years ago, my parents married. Mom says she picked Memorial Day for the big event so Dad would remember their anniversary. If he didn't, she was ready with a red-haired Irish glare to jog his memory. For fifty dang years.

A few times I remember Dad coming to me in a panic. "Quick, here's twenty bucks," he'd whisper. "Go get your mother something nice for our anniversary." It had slipped his mind, and it was too late for him to sneak out and get her something without being caught. So I was sent surreptitiously to fetch a gift.

At work, my dad dealt with less-than-honest subcontractors, some pretty dangerous heavy equipment, and dynamite. He was not afraid of any of these things, but the thought of facing my mom after forgetting their anniversary put a chill in his veins. He had utmost respect for that date, an exquisite symbol of respecting the relationship.

For a long time I didn't have much insight into how they did it. To a kid, it was pretty invisible. They were just Mom and Dad. I never saw them argue or raise their voice to one another. A disagreement was subtle - it might consist of a raised eyebrow, or a look held just a moment longer than usual. Whatever their conflict was, we kids didn't see it. Any disagreement was evidently handled outside of our view. It wasn't until later, trying to build a relationship myself, watching other relationships fall apart, that I realized how hard it really was. In a way I wished I had seen them argue so I could take notes.

Who does that nowadays? Women whine, guys run, and everyone takes a step to the left and starts over again. Putting a relationship first seems to be a lost art.

After seeing many couples together yet so very much apart, there is one thing my parents did that. to me, stands out. They respect each other. They don't always agree, but they don't play dirty, either. And they keep perspective. Because any disagreement pales in comparison to their love for one another.

So I stand here in the shadow of their unending love. In awe, in envy. They make it look so easy. i think they do that just to piss me off.

Here's to the next fifty years.

Flowers and a Song

2009-05-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Our yard is so ugly," he muttered. "Why don't we have a pool like the neighbors?" He peered longingly through the fence.

"That costs money, sweetie," I sighed. "Now is not a good time for that. But if you help me, we can make the yard look nicer."

"Look at their flowers, Mom!" he said. To a tween, not only is the grass greener on the other side, but the flowers are sweeter, too.

We had been cruising along in that blissful time between toddlers and teenagers, when kids are lower maintenance, doing many things for themselves and not yet suspecting that their parents are clueless. I sensed, with this backyard rebellion, that those days might soon end.

"Come on," I replied. "Let's go get some flowers."

Our shopping cart overflowed with purple - different types of flowers, but all purple. We worked hard all Saturday digging and planting, until we had everything in the ground. A corner of the yard was now transformed into a lush, lavender landscape. He was right - the yard, or at least a small part of it, brightened a bit.

Mothers' Day morning, we ate pancakes outside, admiring our new garden. Suddenly Bobby jumped up.

"I have something for you," he said. He ran to the garage.

After years of receiving handmade cards written in crayon, the tradition had, for me, never grown old. I kept every letter, every note, watching how each year they matured a bit more. They'd be grown up and gone soon enough, so in the meantime I savored every moment we had together.

Instead of a card, Bobby returned with flowers. Beautiful, purple blooms cascading out of their container. I was speechless. At some point he had convinced his dad to drive him to the store and get them.

"I used my own money, Mom," he beamed. "Oh, and here's a card I made."

The lilting sound of a tenor filled the air. His older brother, Tommy, was in the school choir. For his present, I was treated to an a capella solo, a country song he had learned for a recent concert. His voice was clear, steady, and sweet.

As we listened to his song, I held my flowers and glowed. I'm not known for being mushy, but we had been through so much together lately, to see them celebrating our little family was pure joy. As my dad would say, I had "done good."

Happy Mothers' Day.

Tales From the Patio

2009-05-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

It was a perfect night - still, cool, with a huge moon rising over the back ridge. After a crazy day, the serenity stung, stealing my breath away for a moment, making me stop my nonstop frenzy of minutiae and chatter to pause and admire.

We walked out to bask in the sweet stillness. Actually, I walked and the two dogs zigzagged after a rabbit, trumping my calm with calamity and ruining what was supposed to be a tepid, mushy bask of a blog post. Just once I'd like to skip the chaos and wallow in the mellow. Grrr.

Suddenly the dogs froze. At last, I thought, they get it. No need to run helter-skelter after bunnies. Relax, dammit.

Then something in the bushes moved. Something big. The bushes were just over my fenceline. Bushes were not allowed in my yard. Only their pricey cousins, the hedges, were permitted within my borders.

Josie the dog growled. Jake the dog hightailed it back into the house. (I will refrain from making the obvious analogy of male/female fight vs. flight tendencies.) Moving slowly, the fur standing up straight on her back, Josie approached the fenceline.

Suddenly an ungodly scream pierced the air. If you were to hit a Sasquatch with your car, perhaps in the process running over a sore bunion on his toe as your bumper caught him in the ribcage, that's what it would sound like. Horrific, high, and hideous. Even the fat, full moon scurried behind a cloud.

I had caught teenagers down there before, skipping school. This was no teenager. Not even a preening teenage prom queen could manage such a shriekfest.

Two glowing eyes peered out from the ragged wild of the bushes, the moonlight reflecting off them in a demonic glow. The thing shook the bushes, then screamed again. Louder, even, than the neighbor child who had rattled windows marketing his lemonade stand by screaming "LEMONADE!!!!" at seven o'clock on a sleepy Saturday morning. May he rest in peace. (No, he's not gone from this world, I just wish he'd sleep in a bit.)

From the doorway, Jake was whining. "Get in here," he seemed to say. "You're making me look bad!"

"Josie," I called, "Get inside. Now!" We ran for the safety of the house, sprinting from the patio that had suddenly turned into the devil's playground.

The screams continued behind us, bouncing off the far hills and stars. I spotted another set of eyes glinting in the sallow moonlight. So there were two of them. That I knew of. And, like many couples, they weren't happy.

I slammed and locked the patio door. Badly shaken, the three of us watched from behind the glass as the monsters screamed at each other. Safe in the house, Jake barked bravely. Josie and I rolled our eyes.

A third monster appeared, much bigger than the first two. It jumped from a tree, chasing the others, shrieking the entire time. All we could see were the eyes - fierce, angry, glowing.

After being married to a German, I do not scare easily. But these...things...were rattling my heartstrings. I couldn't stand it anymore. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to investigate.

Yes, you're thinking - this is exactly what not to do, exactly what the soon-to-be-dead do in horror flicks. But I couldn't stand it any longer - I had to get a good look at the beasts.

My flashlight frightened them. They scuttled further back into the undergrowth. Furry, they waddled, wearing masks. Raccoons! I had never heard such an outcry. Perhaps, like mine, Madoff had made off with their 401k.

Coons are fierce, bad-ass animals. As a kid, I remember them tearing up our cornfields, in blatant disregard of my dad and his shotgun. To them, beating up dogs was child's play. In the animal 'hood, they were the equivalent of the Rollin' 60 Crips.

However, once I knew what I was dealing with, I could plan my defensive maneuver. Grabbing my boombox and my ex-husband's Barry Manilow album, I stepped outside...and handled the situation.

And we lived happily, quietly, ever after.

The Next Horse Whisperer

2009-05-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

"They're like dogs, only bigger." As we pulled up to the ranch, I added, "Just don't get stepped on."

My two boys looked at each other. They knew I'd grown up with horses, cows, and itinerant siblings. They were skeptical about this outing. And, because they were brothers, when one was interested, the other was beyond bored.

Nevertheless, I had to check on a sick horse, and since they were with me, they went. The horse was one of about ten owned by a non-profit organization that helps special-needs kids learn to ride. My sons didn't quite understand why I did this, how helping others helped me, how horses helped my soul. And besides a few pony rides at the county fair and a couple of visits to my parents' farm, my boys had never been near horses before.

We headed for Rafi's stall. He had been colicking for a day or two, but was feeling better and wanted to eat. He sniffed the boys, looking for food.

"His nose is HUGE!" Tommy exclaimed, backpedalling into the corner to escape. Bobby tried to hold his ground, but Rafi was pushing him, searching his pockets for treats.

"Um, Mom, he's attacking me," it was all he could do to keep calm.

"Just pet him, like a dog," I said. Bobby stroked Rafi's nose, enthralled. Tommy did, too, grimacing. Always such opposites! Still, one out of two wasn't bad.

Rafi had been sick the day before - I had spent hours with him, walking him, massaging his back, trying to get him to drink some water. He was the kind of horse that, when he wasn't feeling good, wanted to crawl in your lap like a golden retriever. By Saturday night, after a shot of painkillers, he seemed a bit better. Although he still wanted to crawl in my lap.

The next morning, on my way to church, I decided to stop by the barn first. Sure enough, Rafi was down, thrashing, his body twisted in pain. We got the vet out right away, pumping his stomach, more pain medication, then filling his stomach with mineral oil in the hopes his intestines would unkink. Colic is often deadly in horses, especially older ones like Rafi. After that, all we could do was walk him, watch him, and wait. Later that day I took a break to get something to eat and pick up my boys.

To get Rafi’s system going again, he had to be walked. A lot. I caught Bobby staring at the lead rope I was holding. "Would you like to walk him?" I asked. I didn't have to ask twice. "Just don't get stepped on."

He took the lead rope. Rafi looked at him. Bobby walked forward and Rafi ambled off with him, slowly, putting his head down low so he was eye-level with my son.

There are certain moments in a parent's life that freeze-frame in your mind. Watching Bobby and Rafi walking side by side was one of them. Spending time with horses had, in my youth, given me confidence, and recently eased a difficult time. And now here I was, watching my son discover the healing qualities of a horse. The intensity of the emotion caught me by surprise. I fumbled for the camera on my cell phone, hoping to capture the feeling, but I was too spent, my eyes too glossy and worn to deal with it. I sighed. The sun was setting on a Sunday evening. We would have to get going soon.

Circular healing. Walking with my son, Rafi was feeling better. My son was grinning, stepping out confidently to guide the huge animal like he had done it all his life. In the cool breeze of a California sunset, this was a bit too much of a happy ending for a weary mom. I was pretty sure God didn’t mind me missing a hymn or two that morning. Besides, that night, I think we discovered a few new ones.

Like There's No Tomorrow

2009-04-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

It was bedtime, the witching hour for complicated questions about life, philosophy, outer space, and trigonometry. The child who had once waxed eloquent about "negative infinity meeting infinity on the other side of the universe" was at it again.

"I have some questions," he said. He always had questions, but especially at this hour, when my brain had already gone to bed. He was twelve, that magical time when kids start to gain energy, somehow sapping it right out of their parents. Just standing near him, I could feel my batteries draining.

"You really need to read your book," I yawned. My tween bookworm was behind in "reading points" for school, because he insisted on reading everything but the approved curriculum. Much like me, he didn't appreciate being told what to read or do.

"Okay, Mom," he said, feigning cooperation. I knew his next move would be to change the topic of conversation.

"Really, you need to read a lot," I gave him the mom-glare, complete with raised eyebrow. "You need to catch up so you have enough reading points. You need to read like there's no tomorrow."

Oops. That was enough of an opening for him to put me into the Nascar wall. I knew it, he knew it, and he took a big breath and did it.

"Mom," he sighed(with twelve you get eyeroll), "If there's no tomorrow, why would I read?"

"Oooh, here we go," I murmured and sat down, getting comfortable and yawning again.

"If there's no tomorrow, why not do something fun? The reading points won't matter anyway. They're not due for another month. And since there's no tomorrow-"

"It's an expression. I didn't make it up. It's just an...expression." Suddenly my bed was so very distant.

"But it doesn't make sense." He had a valid point. "If there's no tomorrow, I'd much rather play video games..."

"I know, I get it," I sighed. "I'm just not up to defending the concept right now." Never mind the minor detail that he was absolutely right.

We know very little about tomorrow. And in that sense, we need to make the most of today. We need to hug more, hate less. Less calls, more contact. Less fluff talk, more action. Corny, but true. Too many manipulative mind games, verbal diarrhea, saying one thing, doing another, by people who pretend to be friends when all they want is someone to listen to them rant. And they'd been sucking the life out of me, to the point that I was too exhausted to listen to my own son.

It was time to cull the herd.

No more long-winded, circular monologues from people who were always too "swamped" to listen to my thoughts, yet thought nothing of wasting literally hours of my time. No time for that, and frankly for me, finally I told them - I had no time for them.

My son had just read The Phantom Tollbooth, where "killing time" was considered murder. It was a valid point. Saying you'll show up and blowing it off, whether it's a lunch, a listen, or an entire relationship, should be criminal. I couldn't have them arrested, but I realized I could eliminate them, so I did. Life is too short. Tick, tick, tick....

My mind had wandered off to an ugly place, a wasteland of broken promises. Josie the dog wandered in, wondering what was taking me so long to get to bed. She saw the perturbed look on my face and made a u-turn out the door. Smart dog.

I looked up. My son had his arms out, waiting for a hug. He beckoned me back from the needy vanity I had thought was love but was only a selfish, cruel farce. Smart kid, patiently waiting for his mom to come around, to heal, to home.

Truly there is no time but now. I mustered up the last bit of energy I had. I hugged and listened to my son. He hugged and listened to me. And that, I realized, is all that matters. The busy busy phonies who had wasted so much of my time in the past would go on forever, however long that was, chasin' their tails and chattin' the world dry. But now they'd do it elsewhere. Now, here in my son's heart, I was untouchable. Suddenly I didn't care about tomorrow, because I had fully embraced today.

Finally, fabulously, I was lucky in love.

The Humorous Heroine

2009-04-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

The following will appear in "Tough Times, Tough People," available June 16th at your local bookstore.

“Annie,” he said, “It’s time to move on.” I had heard rumors about layoffs, but my head reeled. This was coming from a place I had given twelve years of my life, working weekends, working late, covering multiple positions, and generally nurturing the company like it was my own. Yet it had been bought out by a financial conglomerate and so, like many others, I was gone. Within a month, over 10% of the company would be dismissed. It was musical chairs played to the tune of a corporate funeral dirge.

Remember playing musical chairs? You’d walk tentatively in a circle around the seats, enough chairs for all but one unlucky soul, waiting for the music to stop, then diving for a seat. Remember how you felt when you were the one left standing with nowhere to sit? That’s what unemployment feels like. But you not only don’t have a chair. You feel like you don’t have a chance.

My upbringing had taught me that if you worked hard, you’d be rewarded. I always gave my best effort, putting my personal needs last. My ex-husband had taken advantage of this character trait, and now, I realized, so had my company. A corporate acquisition, coupled with numerous layers of executive incompetence and extravagance, and again my faith was shattered. A bitter lesson learned twice.

I’m a single mother of two boys, struggling to pay a mortgage. We were already running on a tight budget, no fancy vacations or meals out, still paying off an expensive divorce. At least, I had reasoned, I was working and feeding my kids. Now I felt dizzy and rudderless.

In a way I was relieved to be rid of the job, since it was far from my heart’s desire. My kids were happy I was out. “You never liked that job anyway, Mom,” my eldest said. I was surprised he had noticed. I guess it showed more than I realized. Yet, like any parent, my primary goal was to provide for my family. I figured my heart’s true calling could wait until my kids were well established and out on their own. This downsizing had certainly tweaked my career path.

Still, I had my boys, a bit of savings, and a resilient attitude. I thought of J. K. Rowling, author of the “Harry Potter” series. A single mom in desperate straits, she had written an incredible series of books, pulling herself up by her own bootstraps, out of the gutter and into the gold. It would be a long shot, but maybe, I reasoned, I could do the same.

I’d been writing stories about my childhood and posting them on my web blog. As the daughter of two city people who had moved to the country and started a farm, I had an unusual upbringing, full of wacky happenings and unusual situations. The stories were popular, and for years people had encouraged me to write, so I mused – why not put them all in a book? My parents would soon celebrate their 50th anniversary. This could be a nice gift for them AND for me, if I could get it published.

I always wanted to write for a living but never dared make the jump and leave my day job. What a time to follow my star, but the timing was beyond my control. So I rolled with it as best I could. Every day I spent hours writing the book, then scouring the want ads. No success in my job search, but finally the book was done. I started pitching it to agencies, gaining interest, getting turned down, re-pitching, re-writing, and never giving up. While Life was giving me lemons, I wasn’t exactly making lemonade. I was picking up the lemons and pitching them back at Life. Hard.

Around the same time, I met a man who was pursuing his heart’s ambition of becoming a country music singer/songwriter. What a pair of dreamers we were! Still, he had tremendous talent. I helped him craft his biography, a Web page, press releases, stories for the local newspapers and music magazines, and eventually his first CD. Finally he signed a recording contract. I was thrilled for him, and happy to have helped.

Yet the thrill rang a little hollow. Again I had put someone else first. Yes, I loved him dearly, but this was the classic female faux pas. We’re natural nurturers, helping others succeed and grow. I had to focus on giving my life’s dream a serious effort. And now my livelihood, and that of my children, depended on it.

I wrote for newspapers, magazines - any publication that would have me. I wrote humorous stories, amusing anecdotes, light-hearted tales that would ease a worried world. These were especially troubled times for the print media since, in a financial downturn, the first thing most companies cut is advertising. It seemed everyone was panicking, hunkering down until this fiscal tornado was over. Still, I reasoned, the world needed a hero. Or at least a heroine with a sense of humor.

“I saw your column in the paper,” my son’s teacher said. “I loved it! I read all your stories. They make me laugh. Please keep writing!”

“I saw your Thanksgiving story in the newspaper,” my accountant said. “Hilarious!”
Sure, I thought. I’ll keep writing. But my financial hourglass was quickly running out of sand.
Then something strange occurred. I had read about it happening before, during the Great Depression. I first noticed it with the film industry– annual revenue was, surprisingly…UP!

People were tired of hiding from bad times. They wanted to escape, at least for a couple of hours. While they weren’t taking big vacations, they still needed to get away from it all. They did this by going to the movies in record numbers. Tiny breaks from reality, but sorely needed. Could it be the beginning of a turn-around?

One afternoon I stopped by a bookstore. It was full of people. It seems the publishing industry was experiencing the same trend as the film business. Book sales were starting to rise. Inspired, literary agents responded, and inquiries for my manuscript increased. My new book was humorous, light, and odd – could it help people forget how difficult times were? I was convinced it was a matter of time before it sold. Still, I was afraid to hope.

In the meantime, my boyfriend’s record company sent him on a concert tour. Before he left, we had a heart-to-heart talk. Even though we’d be apart, we promised each other that we’d stay close - whatever we would face, we would face together. With renewed strength and confidence, my stories began selling. More newspapers picked up my columns.

“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.” I’m fine with that. I write to ease the tough times, help people see the lighter side. Now I can share it with the world. And I’ve never been happier.

Quite a quirky fairy tale ending! But thank you, tough times. You freed me from a soulless job and shook me out of my comfort zone, enabling me to find true love and follow my heart’s work. I wouldn’t have done it without you.

Life isn’t always what you expect it to be. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Today's Stock Tip - Invest in Comedy

2009-03-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

While channel-surfing the other night, I came across a surly mob of stand-up comedians swapping jokes with each other. It was obvious they had been doing shows together for ages - the personal rapport they shared was terrific. The audience howled their approval. They were hilarious, riffing back and forth, topping each other's lines with the kind of friendly, competitive swagger that only comes from many months of sharing a tour bus toilet.

Some poor audience members were busting a gut so hard they seemed to be in pain. You could hear them gasp as their lungs fought for air against the belly laughs. For a moment I wondered if anyone at a comedy club had ever gone into cardiac arrest, or choked so hard on a pun they herniated something. That would be unfortunate, but imagine the bragging rights for the comedian.

A friend of mine has a strange tradition. Before talking to me at any length, she first insists on using the bathroom. Apparently I’ve made her laugh so hard she’s had a few accidents. In an odd way, I’m proud. If I had a resume for comedy, that gem would be on it. The Excellence in Comedy Incontinence Award, sponsored by Depends.

Sometimes, when she’s around, I push myself, digging for better material in an effort to make her laugh harder. Her bladder challenges me to be better. I’m in a battle of wills with her kidneys.

Making people laugh is addicting. You get that first giggle out of them and you crave more. Laugh again, dammit! Your mind races to find the next bit. You want them to laugh so hard it hurts. Which is weird, since funny is supposed to be, well, fun. But by this time, you don’t care about someone’s pain. You’ve found a rhythm, you’re in a groove, and you don’t want it to end, even if someone gets hurt or puddles a chair.

When life stinks, it is not hard to be funny - it is darn near impossible. While I've never done actual stand-up in a club, I have a comedian's daily routine of writing down jokes, quips, and quirky observations. Every day I force myself to find the funny, dammit. Some days it's simple. Lately, not so much.

It was much easier during the Bush administration, when we all still had some money in the bank and a job. It was so easy, anyone could do it. We could all afford a chuckle and some candy.

But the sweet and easy days of mocking the monkey-eared Decider are gone. Now more than ever, we desperately need to laugh. Even if you're cheery, doing great, with a terrific job, a wonderful spouse, etc. Especially if you're cheery and here's why. Every day, you interact with people on the verge of extreme grumpiness. People who would have no problem thumping you on the freeway, or heaven forbid - throwing candy wrappers on your front lawn. And one thing that can really push a grumpy person over the edge is an excessively cheery person. These grumpy people need a way to blow off steam before they wipe that smile off your dang cheery face with the front bumper of their car.

So somehow we need to find a way to laugh this mess - at AIG, at Madoff, at Congress, before we all go psycho-grumpy on each other. Yes, it’s a challenge. Which is why only the best comedy will do. The fallout of a lousy economy is that only the strong survive. This is true in business as well as humor. There’s a comedic shake-out going on.

Nadir is a funny-sounding word. Nadir, nadir, nadir. It means rock bottom, hitting the lowest you're gonna go. Unlike a roller coaster ride, Life doesn't let you know exactly where and when you're bottoming out. You have to look back over your shoulder after the fact and say, "Yup - that there was my nadir." This is akin to saying, "Yup, I should not have been looking at my nose hair in the rear view mirror and I would have seen the tree." No bonus points for hindsight.

When you’re sitting in your nadir, you usually don’t know it yet. But I’m going to venture a guess and say, hopefully, that right now, we’re sitting in it. It looks like a nadir. It certainly smells like one.

If I’m correct, that means things are looking up. And the best way to get up and out of our nadir is to laugh our way out.

"Tell me a joke. Say something funny. Now."

I used to resent such pressure. What if I didn't feel like being funny? I'm not a foofoo dancing poodle. Hmmph. But it is time to get dancing.

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone. Unless you’re laughing so hard you’re crying. Then you’ve come full circle, where bliss meets pain, where hurt is healing, where mirth makes kidneys explode. Maybe not, but close. I'm fine with this. I don't want anyone seeing me cry anyway.

We need funny. We can't sit here licking our financial wounds forever. And I need to be funny as much as you need to laugh.

So laugh, dammit, or I'll throw candy wrappers on your lawn and make your kidneys explode.

There's a Fly in My Coffee

2009-03-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

It's another lovely day. Outside. Inside, not so much.

Daylight Savings is here. Time to 'spring forward.' Woo-hoo. Usually I don't care one way or the other about this sort of thing, but today I'm looking forward to losing an hour. Because so far it hasn't been the best of days.

First, the morning paper arrives without the comics section. Usually I read this with my sons, and it's never simply not shown up. The rest of the paper is there, intact, but no funny papers, which stinks because it's part of our traditional Sunday ritual. We usually discuss whether anyone could still find Beetle Bailey or Blondie funny, and how Prince Valiant hasn't aged a bit in forty years even though he takes all those zany voyages and never seems to use sunblock.

The boys turn up their noses at Family Circus, until I explain that parents are hard-wired to find the stupidest kiddie things amusing. They stare at me.

"Basically, it guarantees we don't kill you," I explain. They nod.

To make matters worse, a fly has landed in my coffee. Not sure how long he has been there. Wish we could choose which Daylight Savings hour to lose. I know which hour the fly would take back, and I'd probably agree with him.

Then there's the dismal economy. Then there's the media talking about the dismal economy. Then there's the media, realizing that people are tired of hearing about how dismal the economy is, meekly trying to find the bright side of the dismal economy. All this doom and gloom probably sucked the life out of the comics section, which would explain its disappearance. This would all be very amusing if it were a Coen Brothers movie. They'd even find a way to save the fly.

On a mixed blessing note, my old company was implicated in the Madoff scheme. Lucky for me, they were kind enough to not pay me decent wages, so I could never afford to invest in their IRAs. They then laid me off, along with a lot of other people, so I transferred my meager investments out of there. I would laugh, but there are still a couple of good people working there, and of course they're the ones being hurt. The evil brokers are long gone, probably now working as bailout lobbyists for the banking industry.

I saw that as somewhat good news, because this company was exposed for unsurly business practices. However, if they go under, locally they'll lay off another few hundred people, putting them in direct competition with me for a job. They've been hemorrhaging staff for a couple of years now, chasing that almighty stock rating by cutting expenses in the form of payroll. That can only work short-term, because the smart employees smell the coffee and fly the coop before the rest of the euphemisms hit the fan, so it's only a matter of time before they shut down. I'd just as soon have a job before all those people flood the job market.

After a brief memorial ceremony, I dump the fly from my coffee. We make our own comics which, in our opinion, are much funnier than the usual ones. I could have done without so many fart jokes, but at least today I don't have to see Kathy obsessing about her weight/dessert/mother.

The economy issue's a bit tougher. We try making our own currency, but apparently Madoff has already spoiled that game.

Recently the US government fined UBS, the Swiss banking giant, $780 million for providing illicit tax shelters to US citizens. The Treasury estimates the tax revenue lost through this money-laundering is over $100 billion a year. That's $100,000,000,000.00 per year, or a little over $11,415,525 per hour. And you thought losing an hour was no big deal. (thanks, Insom, for correcting my math- big numbers make me skittery and prone to error)

Why not take the UBS fine and fund some education for some future financial rain-makers? Why not train me and a few other intelligent, unemployed schmos to chase down the mini-Madoffs of the world, and all the others who think the rules don't apply to them? The fines we could levy would be enough to fund our payroll, and we could close down a few banking loopholes to help stabilize the industry and pacify Wall Street.

This is similar to what the police department does with the seized assets of drug-dealers - sell them off to finance better bad-guy finding equipment. Let's finance the bailout with Madoff's lavish New York apartment, hidden assets, and left kidney. As we know from watching Cops, kicking bad-guy butt feels good. It's time for us to do it white-collar style.

In the meantime, I'm going to scour the park for financial scofflaws. It's such a lovely day outside.

A Heart's True Color

2009-02-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

I was pretty disgusted with Love. In fact, we weren't even on speaking terms anymore. Nevertheless, every Friday night I went out anyway, just to socialize a bit and get away from the desk.

This was one of those typical, discouraging Friday nights. It was quite late, and a rather large man had just finished regaling me with talk of his "forty acre spread outside of Dallas." I wasn't sure if he was talking about a ranch or his waistline. Either way, I found an excuse to escape to another part of the nightclub, telling myself that this would at least make good material for a satirical expose' on the dark underbelly of today's dating scene. Like we needed more underbelly.

It wasn't long before another man approached me and out of the blue began to chatter on about the wonderful, loving personality of the common pit bull.

"I was recently attacked by pit bulls," I warned. "They nearly killed my dog."

"You just don't understand them," he countered, not missing a beat, but completely missing my warning signs. Here we go, I thought. He's just as misunderstood as his beloved pit bulls, yet the fault belongs to everyone but him. Maybe they'll eat him in his sleep.

"I think I understood these pits pretty well," I growled. "They had my dog by the jugular." He continued on, oblivious to the disconnect. This guy needed to be in a story. Whether it was in the How NOT to Meet Women handbook, or in a police report after I slugged him for being a complete moron, either way he was destined to be put down on paper.

"Excuse me, are you with him?" A cowboy hat interrupted the pit bull monologue. The hat belonged to the best looking guy in the place, and now he had suddenly turned humble in my presence, his hat tipping forward in a sort of cowboy curtsey. Thinking this might be some sort of set up, I glanced about for a hidden camera. The pit bull lecturer was still jabbering.

"Oh hell, no!" I replied. "I am NOT with him!" The Hat dipped down, his shoulders shaking at my joke. He caught that quip pretty quickly, a sign of wit and smarts. Perhaps all was not lost.

"Would you like to dance?" The Hat asked.

"Where were you an hour ago?" The Hat tipped forward again, laughing. I had known him for all of ten seconds and already I was nagging him. They say sometimes when you meet the right person, you know it right away. We headed for the dance floor.

As we danced, an odd feeling came over me. This was nice. This might work, I thought. That was unexpected and made me a bit dizzy.

Most men I meet spend the bulk of their time building themselves up, to the point where they can't maintain their own lofty image, only to slink off to some cave to escape my wrath. Not the Hat.

"I have a two-year-old," he warned, much like someone would mention owning a sawed-off shotgun. He waited, unblinking, for me to squirm.

"I have two tween boys," I countered, knowing I was outgunned by the two-year-old, but wanting to show force anyway.

"I smoke and drink," his eyes narrowed and one eyebrow went up. Now he was double-dog daring me.

"I......don't," I had him on this one. He smiled.

We were both at the point in our lives where we didn't want to expend one bit of effort on something that didn't have a chance. So we parried and circled each other, throwing out any frightening bits of our lives that might send the other scurrying down the road. Better to know sooner than later, after wasting time and heartbeats. It was tough love in the form of full-frontal truth. And it worked. We've been together ever since.

While I don't recommend blabbing your biggest issues to every possible date you meet, I do suggest losing the fluff, the fibs, the phony. It's such an effort, and it's not worth it. It's just not... you.

I have an idea. That doesn't occur too often, so perhaps you should listen. It's kind of a romantic idea, which is even rarer, so anyway, you've been warned...

Valentine's Day is here. If you've been successful in love, why not plant a heart where you met your sweetheart? Just a red piece of paper, perhaps taped to the very spot you met. You could put your names on it, or the date you met, or a little inspirational note, or something like "On this spot two hearts met." Or nothing at all.

On the flip side, if you met someone, fell in love, and they took your forty acre spread and fed it to their pit bulls, you could place a black heart on the site. In parts of Europe, they have 'Black Spot' areas, featuring little monuments warning drivers that someone died there in an accident. It's an effective, sobering reminder. Why not do the same for misguided love? You could write something like "On this spot, two hearts met, fell in love, and bugged the hell out of each other for 2 years and 238 days." Who knows, it might make the next person think twice.

When you meet your Hat, let me know. Let the world know, and put a red heart on the spot. Love may be blind sometimes, but it doesn't have to be invisible. Give hope to those who are still wading through the fakes and the phonies, and paint the town red. At least for the day.

Brazen Coons, Runaway Cows, & Substandard Ducks

2009-01-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

There are many classic country memories - the smell of beeswax at the old country store, bidding at the stock auction, and checking out the latest tractors at the local Agway. There are many other memories - lesser known and a bit more unique.

Some mornings I’d lie in bed a while, listening to the sound of cattle & pork futures blaring on my parents’ radio. It was our redneck Wall Street stock ticker, prices fluttering up and down ever so slightly. Some mornings, though, I awoke to the sound of my dad’s shotgun. He’d be at his bedroom window, firing at the raccoons in the cornfield.

“I’m just scaring them,” he’d say as I watched him pull up his pajama bottoms. Dad had a habit of wearing clothes well after the elastic had given up the ghost, to the point that the cloth was shiny and nearly sheer. He’d fire a shot, pull up his droopy drawers, then fire again, never missing a beat.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hit them,” he’d say as I stared at the spectacle. Since I never found a dead raccoon in the cornfield, I left it at that. But I sure wished he’d spring for new pajamas.

Sometimes we wouldn’t get to sleep all the way to the radio. Once in a while, in the middle of the night, the phone would ring. It would be a neighbor calling to tell us our cows were out again, munching their way through his garden. They had to be fetched back home, so at the sound of the telephone, everyone would automatically pile out of bed, into their clothes and wearily head down the road to be zombie cattle wranglers. Mercifully the cows only escaped in the summer, when the smell of the Thompson’s alfalfa down the road was too tempting to resist.

In the days just prior to a ‘jailbreak,’ I’d often catch the cows ‘working’ the fence line, literally climbing up the fence and pushing on it, trying to find the weakest spot. I lectured them about this, but they never listened. They kept on with their wicked ways, going for destructive, moonlit strolls until we came and got them. Some folks had uncles or brothers they’d retrieve from the local bar at 1 am. We had Midnight, Cindy, Sonny, and a few other rowdy, roaming cows.

“Get your furry butts home right this minute!” I’d hiss at them. I prayed this didn’t get back to my friends at school. While the town girls were probably out on dates, I was half-dressed and frumpy, standing in a field, arguing with a bovine gatecrasher.

“What’s it worth to you?” Midnight would inquire smugly. She was the leader, the shop steward of the cows. It was 1 am, and she was arguing with me.

“Get your butt home now,” I’d sigh, “Or I’ll tie you by the tulips.”

We often chained the cows to trees on the front lawn so they could eat the grass. We’d end up with large ‘mowed’ circles, complete with cowpies, and unmowed areas in between. It was an attention-grabbing look. Instead of crop circles, we had ‘crap circles.’ There was a flower bed in one area that contained mostly tulips, and I knew Midnight couldn’t stand them. She despised them, actually, not even daring to step on them, and eating all the grass neatly around them. We liked to put her there because she did such a good job, but I knew she hated it.

“Fine,” Midnight huffed, flicking her tail and sticking her tongue up her nose as she turned toward home. “I wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

Somehow word got out about my cattle wrangling skills (I blame my sister), and I was offered a job at the Dutchess County Fair. Not just any job, mind you, but a job in the baby animal tent. It was my first real employment, and being a cow-whisperer, I took it very seriously. Besides the usual feeding and pen-maintenance, I was saddled with the task of teaching baby ducks to walk up a ramp, grab a bite of food, then slide down the slide. This would be easy if baby ducks came equipped with at least the tiniest hint of a brain stem. I could push them up that ramp all day, but unless I crammed food right down their throats, they weren’t getting it. Suddenly the cows looked smart.

Early visitors to our tent did not get to witness cute, quacking ducklings waddling happily up a ramp and sliding down a slide. Instead, they were treated to a puppet show. I was the puppeteer, having my right hand shoved neatly up a baby duck’s butt, ‘walking’ it up the ramp, where my left hand would force feed some meal down its gullet as the right hand flicked it down the slick slide. The baby duck would choke a bit on its dinner as it tumbled down into the water, hopefully landing right side up. I’d wear a big smile and exclaim how cute the ducklings were as I shoved my right hand up the next duck’s butt. I’m sure quite a few of those ducks are still in therapy.

The Fair was a huge deal, almost the biggest fair in New York State. What made it so big was that it was within commuting distance of New York City. So every year, our little town was inundated with city folk intent on having a good old country time. Whether they stepped on us in the process didn’t matter – they were going to spend a day in the country admiring the local kitsch, littering, and stomping on our every word with the most bizarre accent. My parents still had a Brooklyn accent, but it was nowhere near as raucous and brazen as these urban interlopers. I was stunned. It seemed, also, that many of these urbanites were missing a key filter between their brain and their mouth. Every little thing that came out of their brain went directly out their mouth, with no processing whatsoever, much like the primitive digestive tract of a tapeworm. Suddenly the cows looked smart.

Eventually I had ‘puppeteered’ enough duck butts that the mere sight of me was enough to send the birds squawking up the ramp. One of my favorite activities was to watch the look on the city people when they noticed the effect I had on the animals. They’d stand there, jabbering away, their accents sawing at words like dull chainsaws. I’d stare at them. Once I had their attention, I’d motion to the ducklings. This was their cue to run up the ramp and do their thing. Then I’d watch the city slickers’ jaws drop. I’d give them the ‘you’re next’ look, and they’d skitter away, speechless.

Drivin' Me Crazy

2009-01-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

Finally I was old enough to drive a legitimate vehicle on a legitimate road. After years of riding tractors, dirt bikes, horses, cows, and dune buggies, this was guaranteed to be a cakewalk. Just the idea of having a seatbelt, a roof, and a real road made it seem so sissy-fied.

Our grandmother, Nana, had a simple automatic two-door sedan. It was a Gremlin, as ugly as a Scotsman’s backside, but an easy car to drive. There were a few other advantages to having Nana as a driving teacher - Nana’s eyesight was fading, so she was oblivious to near misses. If something happened, she’d have to rely on my version of the story. She liked to have a glass or two of wine, which always helps one relax prior to a crash. The best part was that this would get her away from all those bundt cakes she insisted on baking. We were all quite sick of eating her damn bundt cakes.

But I had forgotten something. Having Nana teach me would be the easiest way to learn. However, the easy way was not the Irish way. Oh, nooooo. Instead, we would take a cherished, high-strung sports car, put a nervous rookie behind the wheel, and add a trigger-happy father next to her barking instructions. And just for kicks, we did it all uphill.

Dad had splurged a bit on a mid-life crisis in the form of a horrifically fussy, stick-shift sports car, a Volkswagen Scirocco. I knew about shifting from driving the farm trucks, but Dad’s Scirocco was a whole ‘nuther story. It was literally like going from a plow horse to a race horse.

I’ve met prom queens less temperamental than this car. If you didn’t engage the clutch at exactly the right time, while the moon was in alignment with Mercury, it would not only stall, it would shudder hard enough to slam your face into the steering wheel eight times, then stall.

Dad drove until he got to a big hill. Then he turned off the ignition, set the emergency brake, and got out of his beloved dream car. We switched seats.

On one side was a hay field, on the other a cemetery. He figured I couldn’t kill anyone if I went off the road there.

“Drive,” he said.

I turned the key. “Ca-chunk,” replied the car, slapping me into the steering wheel. Dad always left the car in gear. Oops. I pushed in on the clutch and held it down as I tried the ignition again. The car was now purring. Or growling, depending on your point of view.

I eased carefully off the clutch. RrrrrrrRRRrrr. A rumble, a stutter, then nothing.

“Ca-chunk,” the car sent my head smacking into the steering wheel.

“Emergency brake,” Dad growled through locked teeth. We both needed a beer. The car needed a shot of Jack Daniels. I took the emergency brake off. We rolled backward. I started again, this time from negative 5 miles per hour.

After several clutch-grinding, head-slapping attempts, I eventually got the car into first gear. It leaped and lurched up the hill like a rabid mountain goat on Red Bull.

“Second gear,” Dad held the dash at arms length to keep from smacking into it again. Another gear? Damn!

“Wwwwwhiiiiiiiine!” the car sputtered but reluctantly accepted the shift. Trees zoomed past. A squirrel ran for its life.

Thump–bucka-bucka-bucka! Gravel hit the undercarriage as we caromed off the road and across a ditch. I aimed us back toward blacktop, but the car spun on the soft sod. We missed the cemetery fence and the Traver family headstone. Thank goodness Mr. Marquardt had opted for one of those low, flat, grave markers. The rough, textured top helped us regain our traction. We came back from the dead and headed toward pavement.

“Third gear,” Dad was now grinding his teeth. More gears AND keeping all four tires on blacktop - this multi-tasking was becoming a real pain in the ass. We were back on the road but quickly running out of hill.

“Wwwwwhiiiiiiiine!” the car fishtailed a bit as I shifted, then roared forward, gobbling up the rest of the hill.

At the crest was St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Established in 1760, to my knowledge it had never been hit by a car. Several huge maple trees held vigil, protecting it from vehicular attack. We threaded the maple tree needle and rapidly approached the church’s red front doors.

“Stop!” said Dad. I hit the brake with my right foot, the clutch with my left, and spun the steering wheel hard to the left. I figured if one of those moves would help, all three just might save us.

The car hooked left, popping a sideways wheelie, the left-side tires heading heavenward for a moment as the church steps loomed perilously close to the passenger-side door. I looked over, or down, at my dad as gravel skittered across the church patio. The car righted itself and rolled forward slowly. I peered into the rear view to see if any witnesses made it out alive.

“Look, Dad, I made a happy face!” There behind us, on the front lawn of St. Paul’s, was a big skiddy grin, complete with two eyes where the left-side tires had come back to earth.

We switched seats.

“Drive,” Nana said.

I put the unsightly Gremlin in gear and motored evenly down our sleepy, level road.

“You know, doing this for you, I won’t have time to bake your favorite bundt cake today,” Nana grumbled. “I hope you appreciate that.”

“Ca-chunk!” I thought to myself.

Can't We All Just Not Care Anymore?

2009-01-19T13:00:00.000-08:00

As I do on most Mondays, I drove the kids to school. It was closed for Martin Luther King Day. Yes, I should have realized this. While it's one of those marginal holidays, schools are big on celebrating this one. Even though they celebrate it for the wrong reasons.

The United States is about to inaugurate its first black president. He also happens to be half-Irish, but the black part is the big deal, simply because it's new. Record breakers are by definition newsworthy, so I get that. But I'm weary of it. I'm impatient for the next step. Which should be, as far as genetics go, a yawn.

The other day my son's classmate had to choose a teammate for a class project. He chose between two people. "I didn't pick her because she's Mexican," he said. As he grows, he will learn not to give voice to his thoughts. But unless we do something, his thoughts will still be there.

This all irks me. I'm tired of it being such a big deal. King's speech was nearly 45 years ago. When do we become colorblind?

Celebrating one group to make up for past transgressions does not necessarily lead to equality. Do it incorrectly, and it leads to jealousy, retaliation, and deluded entitlement. Schools and other entities celebrate 'Black History Month.' My son wants to know when 'White History Month' is. I want to know when we quit thinking in terms of race.

Years ago my cousin married a Puerto Rican Jew. She converted to Catholicism to be with him. At the wedding, there were a few tense moments. Being Jewish, the bride's side of the chapel was clueless on when to sit, kneel, stand, etc. My dad took full advantage of this by starting to kneel, then sitting, then standing. He had the entire left side of the church faked out, following him in a monkey-see, monkey-do sort of Catholic hyper-genuflecting. Both sides of the church were in hysterics. Except for the moms and the priest. They were required by law to show their disapproval.

Later on, during the reception, the bride's side of the family was having their picture taken. My dad started making fun of them. "Hey, look at all the Spics!" he laughed.

"Hey, look at all the Micks!" one of them called back. They laughed. We laughed. No Jets and Sharks that day. Just Micks and Spics. They started singing some songs in Spanish. My Nana burst into a heartfelt rendition of Danny Boy. We all had a drink and a very good time.

So we celebrate our differences. How we react to those differences is the key. When it comes down to it, I really don't care what color the president is. What's his economic plan? He could be purple with green stripes and curly antennae - just get me a job, please!

Let's toast the new president for what he symbolizes - a fresh start. Then let's get started. He's going to need all the help he can get, poor guy - his mother-in-law is moving in with him.

I, too, have a dream. I dream of a day when it doesn't matter what color or gender a president is, when a woman is paid the same as a man, when the word 'Muslim' does not automatically translate to 'terrorist,' when you can marry who you love and nobody fears you will infect their family with your 'differentness.' Yeah, I dream a lot.

We have a very long way to go.

"Prom" is a Four Letter Word

2009-01-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

Dad (shoved through my bedroom doorway by Mom): You know about the birds and the bees, right?

Me: Dad, we live on a farm.

Dad: Right…ok, guess we’re done!

As a teenager, it was sometimes necessary to step away from the barn and re-enter civilization. This was not something I looked forward to. In fact, I avoided it at all costs.

Flashback to my 16th birthday. A huge gift box. I open it and out spills a puff of red and white lace and chiffon. "What is it?" I ask. I was hoping for a new saddle blanket. This was not a saddle blanket.

"It's a dress," my mother replies excitedly and slowly, as if she were a missionary explaining Christianity to the great unwashed. I wear jeans and flannel shirts. Nothing against dresses, but they tend to get caught in the double clutch on the tractor.

"A what?" I ask, searching desperately for the receipt.

"A PROM dress," she clarifies right before I pass out. I had never even gone on a date. I had been asked out a few times, but since I never knew what to say, I usually just stared back or walked away. That did not go over well, and pretty soon guys quit asking. Now I had a big, stupid, fluffy dress from of all places, that ultra-vogue icon of fashion – Sears, and a mother fully expecting me to grow breasts and social skills in three months. Cupid, shoot me now.

On an even playing field, I might have had a chance. But it was far from a fair battle. I was completely unprepared to match girly wits with the town princesses. For years they had been painting their nails, tweezing their eyebrows, sharpening their flirtation skills, studying Tiger Beat, and generally obsessing about the opposite sex. Meanwhile I was shoveling chicken poo and teaching my horse how to not kill me.

A new boy had just moved to our town. At a small school like ours, where each grade averaged about a hundred people, a new classmate was big news. The even bigger news was that Bernie O’Callaghan was adorable, probably the best looking guy in our class. All the townie girls were abuzz and atwitter, eyelashes fluttering wildly, twirling their hair, snapping their gum, filing their nails, and generally making fools of themselves. I was my usual oblivious bookworm self.

Part of what made Bernie so adorable was his tendency to ignore the rules. He was not concerned about the supreme high school directive of never asking anyone out who got better grades than you. He could care less about grades, including his own. He could care less about what others thought. He was an impish Irish scalawag of the highest, or perhaps lowest, order.

Many of the top social butterflies were waiting for Bernie to ask one of them to the prom. They were, in fact, already fighting over him. Then the strange part happened. A friend of mine found out that Bernie was interested in, of all people, me. Once she recovered from the shock, she cornered me and insisted on becoming my “social coach.” She was tired of watching guys wilt in my gaze, and my insistence on spinsterhood as a career choice. So she staged an intervention.

Some of the townie girls were quite upset by the way things eventually turned out, and my friend still fears retribution, so I’ve agreed to conceal her identity. We’ll just refer to her as “Deep Prom.”

Deep Prom: You know that new boy, Bernie?

Me: Yeah.

Deep Prom: He likes you.

Me: Huh. That’s weird.

Deep Prom: He wants to ask you out to the Prom.

Me: W-what?

Deep Prom: First, though, you gotta tweeze your eyebrows.

Me: W-what?

I was clueless, more concerned with our upcoming standardized tests. Usually I’d continue to be clueless, but this time I had my mother to answer to. My mother and that big, stupid, fluffy Sears dress. So "Deep Prom" set up a meeting. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Bernie: What are you doing Friday night?

Me: Nothing. Why?

Bernie: Would you like to go to the prom with me?

Me: Ok. But why don’t we go on Saturday night like everyone else?

Bernie: Sounds like a plan.

Bernie didn’t even blink. He wasn’t aware of my tendency to reduce guys to limpid puddles by staring at them. As it turned out, he stared right back. In a bizarre quirk of nature, I had a feisty, hunky date and a dress. I was terrified.

In the name of style, we women do hurtful things to ourselves. Hair removal is right up there on the owie chart with high heels and chronic insecurity. But Deep Prom was right –my eyebrows needed a mowing. Wow, did that hurt. Now I understood why the townie girls were a bit skitter-headed. Beauty was downright painful.

I made a serious effort to get rid of my farmer’s tan and do something with my wild Irish hair. The real difference came when I put on makeup. Suddenly I had eyelashes, cheekbones, and the potential to make some townie girls cry. We were truly making a silk purse out of a sow’s caretaker.

Prom night was wonderful, even if the butterflies in my stomach did most of the dancing. A few of the town princesses, in their battle for the supreme dress, had ended up in the fashion nightmare of wearing the exact same dress. I believe the style was from Neiman Marcus in New York City. By the time they were done tearing each other apart, though, the dresses were quite different from each other, bearing various rips, slashes, and scratches, a bizarre yet compelling process of customization. My Sears dress, with its red velvet roses on white chiffon, held up just fine. So did Bernie.

I then returned to my studies.

Country Cookin'

2009-01-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

To many, the term country cookin’ conjures up visions of barbequed squirrel, home-baked pie, and deep-fried whatnot. This was certainly not in our case in our house. Dad had a full-time job, plus the farm, plus a side job land-surveying. Mom had us four kids, a herd of cows, several horses, four dogs, a cat or two, a few hundred chickens, the land-surveying business, a snoopy mother-in-law, a house the size of a small European country, and my dad. When in the world was there time to bake pie?

On The Andy Griffith Show, Aunt Bee was constantly scuttling about the kitchen baking, roasting, or frying something. She was always dressed just so, everything ironed and in its place, even her double chin. That needy voice of hers bothered me, and Andy’s awkward bachelor lifestyle seemed suspicious, but that’s another story. I love home-made pie just as much as the next person, but no pie, no matter how tasty, is worth that amount of dysfunctional whining. Hand them each a bottle of Jack Daniels and just let them rip at each other once and for all. I’d watch that episode twice.

I’m sure somewhere there’s a country matriarch bustling about the stove daily, fussing over seven-course meals, but she’s either got an Easybake Oven, plastic teacups, and a teddy bear, or she’s baking fluffy cloud cakes for her roommates in the local psychiatric hospital. On a realistic, working farm, they would’ve hauled her outside, slapped a baseball cap on her, and had her stack hay bales in the barn for three hours. If she felt like stirring and spicing after that, go for it. Bye-bye, double-chin. Bye-bye, whine.

While Aunt Bee didn’t live on a farm, television watchers (aka city dwellers) were given the impression that all country folk do is sit around and bake peach cobbler. On our farm, Aunt Bee would have serious biceps, wear coveralls, and tell Opie to “cowboy up.”

Because of shows like The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction, the lifestyle of the rural gourmet has been grossly misconstrued. Let’s take a look at some of the key differences:

There’s no one person dedicated to cooking. In fact, the person who made dinner was most likely just lifting bales next to you in the hayfield. In other words, do not expect homemade pie for dessert.
You will be expected to help. Yes, you just stacked two hundred and fifty bales of hay. Wash your hands and set the table.

No sparkling clean kitchen here, unless you’re eating outside and it just rained. Table scraps roll downhill, and the dogs keep the floor relatively clean. Good enough until winter comes and we have time for some deep cleaning. (The coziest work in the winter is near the wood stove in the kitchen.)

The pet you scratched behind the ear last week might now be on your plate. And he might taste pretty good. Horrible thought, right? I had trouble with that one, too. Until I tasted the chicken. It was really good.

This marked my introduction to what some call feminism. It was more like country common sense equality. If you could do it, then do it. If you couldn’t, you’d learn. The tractor didn’t care whether you were packing a trouser snake. Get it in gear and get the hay in, please.

On the flip side, the boys were expected to clean up and help with food and laundry. They didn’t care for it too much. So that was fun to watch.

In high school, girls took Home Economics and boys took Shop. I questioned that logic, mentioning it in passing to the principal one day. Sure enough, the next year everyone took Home Economics and Shop. While I made a few enemies that year, it was quite by accident - I never expected the principal to actually listen. I couldn’t wait to get to the real world and make some real changes. Just lasso a few flying pigs and make the world a better place. Piece of cake. Or pie.

The pizza run –
One of my favorite splurges was every Sunday night when we’d order pizza. Since we were far beyond the delivery area, we had to go fetch it. I enjoyed bringing it home, trying to get back quickly so the pizza was still nice and hot. Since there was no direct route between our house and the pizza joint, I was, for the sake of hot pizza, compelled to barrel down twisting country roads. This was as close to running moonshine as I would ever get, so I took full advantage of it. There were no police cars watching for speeding pizza runners, however, deer liked to jump out of nowhere. Swerving to avoid a deer does very bad things to pizza cheese. I’d race home in record time, only to open the pizza box to discover that the lateral g forces had had a severe, negative impact on the mozzarella. In the middle of the box, there’d be a tomatoed circle of dough. A large, frightened pile of cheese would be plastered to one side of the box. Still hot, of course.

Daddy tried -
Beyond the basic hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza we consumed, my dad did have some interesting culinary experiments. Most dads take pride in their barbeque skills. This was BBBQ – beyond barbeque. Every once in a while he’d find an irregular recipe for cooking up homemade oddities. They always started with tremendous potential and somehow took a wrong turn. For instance:

· One year we had an over abundance of tomatoes, so he decided to make tomato sauce. Or maybe it was ketchup. Not sure which one it was supposed to be. I only knew that it was inedible. Later we discovered that our ‘Big Boy’ tomatoes weren’t the right type for canning or pickling or torturing or whatever Dad was doing to them. All I remember is staring at row upon row of mason jars full of tomato seeds, skin, pulp, and vinegar, worrying about when I’d be forced to consume their contents. Or whether the tortured tomatoes would evolve, escape, and consume me.

· Apple sauce takes lots of cooking in a big pressure cooker. If the pressure isn’t monitored and goes too high, pressure cooker parts fly in all directions, and boiling hot apple sauce follows the parts. We learned that.

· Homemade root beer was his next attempt. Absolutely flat. Not much is sadder than getting a whiff of the sweet scent of real root beer, only to be repulsed by a lack of bubbles. I wanted to find out who was giving my dad such a nutty do-it-yourself idea and knock him flat.

· The home-brewed apple cider never went flat. It did, however, distill a bit too long, eventually turning into rather potent applejack. We had to carefully remove it from the crawlspace under the house, first venting the area to release the methanol that had built up down there. I was hoping we could at least feed it to the livestock and watch them stumble around. Not much is funnier than a drunken cow slurring her words. I would be reminded of this again much later when I attended my first sorority party.

DMV, Easy as ABC

2009-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

My driver's license was expiring, and those fine folks at the Department of Motor Vehicles wanted an updated photo of me. They politely declined the picture from my Christmas card. Instead, they insisted I visit them. Yes, a trip to the DMV, I feel your pity. But I also sensed a journalistic opportunity, perhaps another chapter in the ongoing adventure, "Shock and Awe at Government Inefficiencies."

With the EDD buried under ten tons of unemployment sludge, the thought of visiting any government facility had me shaking. But I'm a writer, and that's what we do. We brave horrific situations and risk great peril to bring you the story. Especially when we have to go there anyway.

First I tried going online to set up an appointment. As anyone who lives on this planet knows, you don't even think about the DMV without an appointment. You probably needed an appointment just to read this article. I entered my information, and the system assigned me to a day a few weeks into the future, well past my license expiration date. How could they! Strike one.

So I called them. You laugh, I know. Here comes strike two. A silly thing to do, unless you have several hours to spare. "Your wait time is less than five minutes," said the recording. Whoa. I heard that several times, and began to wonder if they should be a bit more honest and change it to say, ""Your wait time is less than five minutes until you hear this recording again."

Eventually someone came on the line. The wait was approximately 7 minutes and 23.27 seconds. He cheerfully explained that the DMV would not penalize me for being a few days late on my license renewal. I coughed. "However, the police might not see it the same way," he added. Ok, then.

"Let me check the wait time at your local office," he said. "Let's see - the Thousand Oaks office has a wait time of approximately...." he paused. And paused. And paused. "Three minutes."

"So I can either wait three weeks for an appointment, or go in there now and wait three minutes?"

"Approximately."

"Hmmm...I'll have to think about this. Thanks." I hung up and got in the car.

I walked in and was given a ticket with a number on it, something insanely high like 6,302. Luckily I brought with me two books, lunch, a snack, and several bottles of water. Before I could cross the room, an electronic voice called my number. Approximate wait time was less than zero. This was getting weird.

After an eye test (shouldn't it be an "EYES test?" We have two of them), I paid by check, putting "2008" on it instead of "2009." Now I was doomed - sure to be put in a line for numb-numbered knuckleheads, made to stare at a huge calendar for an hour or so until I got it right. Nope. Just a polite chuckle at my goof. Then on to get my picture taken.

Just a notch above mug shots, driver's license photos are notorious for being unflattering. Maybe after a long wait, people are awakened by the bright flash, hence the classic deer-in-the-headlights driver's license stare. Not at this DMV office. A lovely older woman sporting a charming smile and a yellow, stuffed lizard took my photo. Who can resist smiling back at a lady who reminds you of your Nana? Especially when she's waving a bright yellow lizard at you.

The only wait involved in the whole process was the DMV waiting for me. It probably took you longer to read this column than it did for me to renew my license. Approximately.

Big Red

2009-01-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

In rural areas, city rules are bent, tweaked and twisted until they resemble country roads. Things that make sense in urban areas simply don’t apply out here. We intend to keep it that way, for good reason.

For instance, regardless of age, every able body works. If you can drive, that adds a tool to your toolbox. Suddenly you can run equipment down to the hayfield or deliver lunch to Dad when he’s cutting down trees in the back woods. Farm work tends to mature kids a bit earlier, so waiting until sixteen to learn how to drive seems just plain silly. Especially when you’re the oldest kid – Mom and Dad have been running all the errands and are anxious to put you behind the wheel. A very dented and rickety wheel, but a wheel nonetheless.

For town kids, your 16th birthday is usually the momentous day upon which your parents hire a professional company to whisk you away and teach you how to drive. The perilous, stressful business of learning to drive is administered by trained, well-medicated instructors in a well-padded, sterile environment. Mom and Dad throw some money at the issue, then go duck and cover.

In the country, there are tons of vehicles and animals upon which to practice your driving skills. After trying to get an ornery two-year-old horse to stop, finding the brakes on a car is child’s play. Your horse has already taught you a basic rule - you mess up stopping on a horse, and you will soon be sporting stitches or worse. Ye olde simple country rule – mistake=pain.

When I was about twelve, I was given an all-terrain vehicle. It was pink, had six moon tires, a massive roll bar, an earsplitting engine, and was named Maxx. It could go through nearly anything, including deep mud, water, and snowdrifts, even taking on steep hills. The butterfly choke didn’t work very well - in order to start it, you had to lean way back across the engine, putting your hand over the intake so your hand was literally the choke. Unfortunately, you had to lean directly over the exposed battery terminals, so if your arm was a bit too low and made a connection, a nasty shock would run from your elbow to your hand, now covered in fuel. That would happen only once, then you’d be more careful.

At first glance, this sounded like great fun. The only thing is, we used it more for work than anything else. Although I will admit, once you got past the chance of getting your arm shocked, being able to drive a pink ATV around was a thrill. If you ever want to keep your brothers from borrowing something of yours, get it in pink.

My first truly scary driving experience was on an International Harvester tractor. Dad let me drive “Big Red” because he said I couldn’t kill it no matter how hard I tried. It had a double-clutch that ignored my puny weight, so in order to shift, I had to jam both feet on the clutch, grip the steering wheel, and push down on the clutch with all my abdominal might. Then shift.

One day I was driving Big Red in a hayfield, nearly a full load on the hay wagon behind me, with Mom on the back stacking the bales. We were headed downhill and suddenly the old tractor’s brakes took a break. Big Red wouldn’t stop, and we were quickly running out of field. I peered back at the hay wagon, flexing and bending behind me faster and faster as we picked up speed. The bales swooped and swayed, threatening to fall off, possibly taking my mom with them. I knew she’d survive to kill me later. I yelled to her but she couldn’t hear me, probably because she was yelling at me. I tried turning Red slightly to the right, hoping to miss the trees and swamp, all the while pumping the brakes.

Tractor accidents usually look pretty ridiculous, rarely getting the respect and awe due, say, a NASCAR crash. They often occur at very low speed, with sad, silly, predictable results. A silo gets wiped out, a tractor rolls over seemingly in slow-motion to take a nap, or simply plows through an old barn as the driver bails out to safety. They’re usually more embarrassing than anything else. Especially for a young driver not weighty enough to compel the brakes to work.

Big Red lurched to the right. A few bales flew off the left side. I stood up on the cranky clutch and stomped, downshifting to slow the tractor. It was not happy, stuttering and growling, but Red did slow a bit, enough for me to turn it away from the fast-approaching trees. Eventually we rolled to a stop. I crawled off and hyper-ventilated on the ground, watching bales tumble down the hill past me.

“Are you gonna sit there all day? Let’s get this hay picked up.” Mom was apparently just fine.

Later on, when blood returned to my head, I mentioned the faulty brakes.

“Don’t be silly,” Mom said. “Your father’s never had that problem. You just need to try harder.”

The following week, Dad was hauling a full load of hay back to the barn. He was negotiating a narrow, tricky, back road when Big Red’s brakes disappeared again. The whole rig ended up jackknifed, one rear tire on the hay wagon hanging over a cliff.

The nice thing about being a grown-up is that you can send the kids home, call a friend with a big tow truck, and quietly fix your messes without anyone the wiser. And you don’t even have to try harder.

There's Snow Place Like Home

2009-01-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

My two sons had been clamoring to 'go to the snow,' so the other day, to cork the clamoring, we finally went. After two hours of 'Are-we-there-yet' clamoring, we arrived, only to discover that the waiting lines for the ski slope were longer than the actual ski runs, the parking lots were overflowing, and I'm guessing the porta-potties were, too.

You know the feeling you get when you're poking around in the woods, and you flip over a rock just to see what's under it, and you uncover a huge swarm of ants milling about, climbing all over each other wondering what the hell is going on? That's what this town felt like. We had driven through the prettiest, most serene winter landscape to get there, only to arrive and discover a horde of swarming snow-tourists, choking the main road with their skiboots and clamoring.

"What are we gonna do?" my boys clamored, although by this time it was more of a whine than a clamor. It was then I remembered my snow training from my youth.

In upstate New York, snow was a way of life. It was handy to keep beer cold, and to put down your little sister's back. We did not drive two hours to see it. We were so spoiled, Mother Nature delivered it to our driveway. Many, many times. As a result, I was a snow ninja. I packed it, shovelled it, sledded in it, burrowed in it, and froze my butt off in it. And here I was, raising two boys who had barely even touched it.

Southern California is a wonderful place. Depending on your mood, you can choose your climate from a sort of weather menu - beach, mountains, movie set, ghetto, even snow. The problem is, you have ten million other people doing exactly the same thing. If they all feel like snow on the same day, there's gonna be some serious clamoring. But the difference between most SoCal clamorers and me is that they have little or no experience as a snow ninja.

When my boys finally paused their whining to catch their breath, I turned the car around and headed back into the quaint mountain town of Wrightwood. To be honest, I'm assuming the town was quaint once you peeled all the layers of tourists off of it. At that moment, though, it was under siege. It was like a beautiful winter scene, a picture postcard, only with metal fencing around everything. "No Snow Play" signs were everywhere, including the bathroom. Even the squirrels wore little "Don't touch!" vests.

Like everyone else, my kids were anxious to touch snow. So anxious, in fact, that when they got out of the car, they immediately got to touch ice, slipping and landing right on their keesters. They quickly recovered and followed me into the general store to buy toboggans.

There, on the shelf above the pinto beans and flashlights, was the toboggan of my youth - the red, plastic speed-demon, able to sustain a direct collision with a maple tree, bounce off and keep on skidding downhill sideways while you counted your teeth and fingers. I had assumed they were colored red to hide any blood. As a kid, we often wore slits right through them, snow would spraying up through the holes, hitting us in the face and further enhancing our winter experience.

They were low-budget enough to not worry about destroying them by hitting mailboxes and cars. For $4, we'd just get another one. Now, in this quaint, snowy SoCal town, they were charging $13, but they were still way cheaper than renting skis. We picked up a couple and headed out to find more snow and less people.

We escaped to a side road and eventually found serenity in the form of a quiet, steep, snowy hill. Our ears popped in the stillness. The kids quit clamoring. We each grabbed a toboggan. For a brief moment, my elder son stood up in his, before the icy snow smacked him down for that. He only did that once, but it was enough for me to realize that I would have to teach them the rules for sledding survival:

Trees are not your friends. They are especially hard when they are frozen solid.

Snow is cold. Don't let it get into your clothes.

Snow is often ice, which is really cold and sometimes sharp.

Don't pack bark in your snowballs. Mom will get you.

Don't forget to steer. Especially away from cliffs.

No, Mom won't carry you back up the hill. Deal with it.

To teach them how to steer, I took them down the slope in my toboggan a few times. Apparently I'm a speed demon.

Frightened Son: Mom, slow down!!!

Me: Come on, it's fun. The kind of fun we used to have, before video games and cable television ruined everything.

Frightened Son: Aaaaaaagh!!!

Me: Just steer with your hands and brake with your feet and you'll be fine.

Frightened Son: Aaaaaaagh!!!

Me: See, I knew you'd like it!

I'm apparently not as young as I used to be. After a few hours of being used as a steering and braking system, my knees clamored for a break. We were fresh out of dry clothes and knee cartilage, so we called it a day. A good day. Then I clamored for home.

Nashville Camp

2009-01-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

Tired of singing only in the shower? Want someone besides the dog to appreciate your vocal chops? Your wait is over - come to Camp Nashville and for five fun-filled days, be treated like the latest, greatest country music star. All for the mere pittance of $7,995 (hotel not included). Yes, this is in small type. Yes, I was stunned at the price, too.

Welcome to Nashville's fantasy camp for Country Music Elvii-wannabes. I've always wanted to use the term, Elvii- it sounds very scientific, scholarly, and well, cool. Do I care if it's grammatically correct? Noooo. Thank yew. Thank yew verra much.

Camp Nashville is sponsored by CMT, Country Music Television, proud purveyors of such shows as My Big Redneck Wedding and Country Fried Home Videos. Call me crazy, but I envision Camp Nashville being filmed and produced as a future television musical train wreck, a la American Idol's William Hung episode.

The first camp will be held February 12th-16th. Makes sense, since many of these crooners will be celebrating Valentine's Day with the person they love the most. Themselves. They'll get to sing onstage in a club, so it could be fun. Hey, it could happen.

Maynard: Golly, Lurleen, I sounded much better in the shower....must be this here microphone.

Judge: NEXT!

No judges listed though, so far just a 'mentor' and a vocal coach are attached. Guess I'm dreaming of "American Idol - Camp Redneck." Hey, it could happen.

Although fantasy camps have been around a while, up until now I'd only heard of the baseball type. These are usually attended by financially-endowed, middle-aged guys who always dreamed of making the major leagues. It's all in good fun as they get a whiff of what 'the show' is like, then go home.

Perhaps this will lead to other creative camps such as:

CPA Camp - balance spreadsheets like a real, live Certified Public Accountant. Hang at the coffeemaker with other radical CPA's and diss the geeks in R&D. Class includes free pair of black-rimmed glasses and CPA Camp Special Edition calculator. (Pen protector available at additional cost.)

Camp Mafia - pretty much self-explanatory. I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you, so fuggedaboudit.

You think I'm kidding? I'm as serious as a country ballad sung in the rain in an alley- http://www.campnashville.com/

UPDATE - just discovered this gem - Singstar Country for the Playstation 2 - homestyle karaoke with artists like Brad Paisley, Gretchen Wilson, and Alan Jackson. There's even a contest - best singer goes to the Country Music Awards. And it's a tad less expensive than Camp Nashville. (Just don't take your Playstation 2 into the shower to sing.)

http://www.us.playstation.com/singstar/

P.S. Whatever happened to just picking up a guitar and singing?

Country C-c-c-cold

2008-12-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

Eskimos have about 30 different words for snow. So do New Yorkers, but most of them can't be printed here. On January 20th, 1961 in Poughkeepsie, NY, it was 30 degrees below zero. That day, in Washington, D.C., in a blizzard, John F. Kennedy was sworn into the office of the Presidency. He did not wear a hat and got very sick. I know this because throughout my childhood my mother mentioned it repeatedly, like it was a storm strong enough to make a President ill, especially an Irish one not smart enough to wear a hat. Seemed a mixed metaphor to me. She had several points to make, all conflicting. Hurrah, we had an Irish President, but he was still a man with rocks for brains for not dressing warmly.

Mom: Put a hat on. It’s freezing out. Don’t catch a cold like Kennedy.

Me: That was stupid of him, huh.

Mom: Are you disrespecting the greatest President of the United States?

Me: Didn’t you just say he was dumb for not wearing a hat?

Mom: And now you’re putting words of disrespect in my mouth?

In upstate New York, three feet of snow was on the ground, with more coming down. Even the blanket of snow was shivering. I had been due to be born at Christmas. It’s common knowledge that children born at Christmas time get ripped off in the birthday department. Jesus owns it and nobody’s upstaging him. Plus, in honor of my untimely timing, my mother was going to name me "Holly." I figured I’d lay low and be born in time for the after Christmas sales. Only thing was, it was bitter cold outside, so I kept hitting the snooze alarm.

By late January, however, my mother had had enough. 10 months pregnant, she decided to induce labor by shoveling snow in the driveway. In hindsight, this would have worked better if she had shoveled the hospital driveway, and if Poughkeepsie had not been a solid chunk of ice. In hindsight, this would have worked better if it were August. But we were Irish, so we were determined to give birth a month late, in a snowstorm, uphill, and sideways.

Despite most roads being impassable, the car not starting, and John F. Kennedy’s nose running, we somehow made it to the hospital, up the elevator and almost to the delivery room. Almost. In fact, when the doctor told my dad he was now a father, he denied it. “That’s impossible,” he argued. “I just got here.” He was a bit peeved that he wasn't able to pace the waiting room like the dads in the movies.

I've been trying to warm up to him ever since.

In Brooklyn, much of the cold and wind is deflected by your neighbor’s home, built within inches either next to, under, or on top of, your home. Buildings are so close you can hear your neighbor’s sneeze, perhaps even feel his moist breeze. There are many drawbacks, but one bonus of living wall-to-wall with other people is that you are never really chilly. Plant a spacious, airy house on top of a ridge in the middle of nowhere, however, and you’ll freeze your agrarian tail off. A lovely view, yes, if you make it to spring.

Winter’s like the fierce beast at the zoo – it’s great, but only when you have some serious fortification between you and it. On our windowpanes, frost would create the most magical little ice sketches. Tiny, delicate white scrollwork wending its way around the edges of the glass, the engravings were daintier than those on the finest crystal. The only problem was that they were on the inside of our windows. I thought I might wake up one morning, tattooed all over in the loveliest ice etchings.

To conserve energy, lesser-used parts of the house, like the den, were closed off. But the rooms got so cold, pipes in the baseboard heating system burst because they had frozen, flooding part of the house. Sadly, this ruined some of the best window ice engravings.

For my birthday, I’d invite some friends over for a sledding party. We’d have some birthday cake then head outside. Only as parents in the northern realm are well aware, in winter little kids can’t simply head outside. They need boots and hats and snowpants and mittens and help putting all that stuff on. They need staff. By the time my mother had finished dressing the last of the party girls and sent her out, the first one was back in for dry mittens and cocoa. It was a revolving door – warm dry ones out, and cold wet ones in. For three straight hours, Mom was hunched over putting on and taking off mittens and boots and hats on little girls. A dog wandered by, and Mom inadvertently dressed it in a parka.

One of the toughest things was getting up in the morning. Heating oil was expensive, possibly even more expensive than the treatment for frostbite, so the heat was turned off at night, or down as low as possible without risking a burst pipe. First one up (that would be me) had to build a fire in the kitchen woodstove. And before we went to school, the cows and horses had to be fed. Some mornings were so cold I half expected some of the livestock to be waiting for me in the kitchen:

Midnight the Cow: About time you got up. Get the fire going!

Me: How did you get in here?

Midnight the Cow: Door was unlocked, once I busted all the ice off it. You take milk in your coffee?

Me: Gimme my robe back.

There is no better heat than that of a wood stove. It soaks into your skin like tropical sunlight, baking chilled bones and thawing attitudes. My usual stance was leaning against a wall reading a book, my back to the stove so the heat would melt the ice in my spine. I usually had to negotiate my way past several dogs and maneuver for the warmest spot. Lady, our Dalmatian/Beagle mix, was the biggest fan of the stove. If you happened to be in her favorite spot, she would often lean on you until you moved. We took extra care not to feed her potent leftovers, since the only thing worse than a dog fart is a dog fart on fire.

Brother Bob: What is that smell?

Me: I don’t sm-(gasp!) Oh, my! That’s horrible!

Bob: Did you put something weird in the stove again?

Me: No!

Bob: Smells like something died…or is dying…

Me: Lady!

Lady had been leaning against the woodstove. That was fine when the stove wasn’t fully loaded, but I had recently restocked it with wood, and I guess she slept through that key event, until the stove got going and the scent of her own pelt cooking woke her up. Now Lady was sporting a long, brown racing stripe the length of her body, looking like someone had made a feeble attempt to ‘connect the spots’ on her fur. It was the imprint of the stove – she had literally burned a line on her fur. Being half Dalmatian, the stereotypical firedog, she was quite embarrassed, and asked that we not make this event public, lest her mother find out. I assured her that dogs can’t read. At least not Dalmatians.

There were good sides to winter. We would ice skate on the pond in the back woods. It was a mile hike each way, and the pond usually had to be cleared of snow first, and fallen logs frozen in the ice made the skating interesting, but at least we got to skate. I likened it to climbing Everest - bust your butt to get there, take a picture, then go home.

Down the road, we’d gather a few friends and play pond hockey at a nearby farm. There was an added level of excitement because this particular pond had a spring at one end that never quite froze over completely. Sometimes we’d hear a monstrous craaaa-aack! and feel the ice drop beneath our feet. We’d leap for the nearest bank, feet flailing in the air like spastic, bubble-wrapped ballerinas, afraid to touch the ice again lest it give way completely beneath us.

One particularly spectacular experience was sledding down the driveway. Dad had his own snowplow, and instead of scraping all the snow off the driveway like a sane person, he packed it down like a bobsled run, even banking the turn nicely for the toboggans. We would all climb onto sleds and fly down the drive, dogs nipping at our mittens.

Dogs love mittens, especially when stolen off a sledding kid at 15 miles an hour. We’d zip down the hill, belly side down, hands on the sled handles to steer. The dogs would race next to us, growling, barking, teeth flashing, trying to swipe a glove or a hat. If you fought to keep your glove, you’d lose control of the sled and crash, often becoming a speed bump for the sledders behind you.

Brother Bob: Dog on your left!

Me: What? Car?

Bob: No – DOG!

Lady the Dog: Grrrrr…woof! (snap!)

Me: Mayday, mayday! I’m under attack!

Bob: Give her the glove! Give her the glove! Let it go!

Me: I’m going down! Aaaaagh!

I tuck my head as my body slams into a snowbank, missed by inches by oncoming sledders. My sled continues down the drive without me.

Sometimes it’s best to forsake the mitten to the beast, even if it means catching a cold like Kennedy.

Ow, Christmas Tree

2008-12-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

My grandmother was proud of her fake tree. Feathery white aluminum with blue ornaments, I secretly giggled that it was a Hanukkah bush. I never said so because she had a nasty left hook. Each year she'd retrieve this faux ode-to-joy from under the house. Since she never took the ornaments off, and since it was a whopping 30 inches tall, all Nana had to do was whip its trash bag cover off, plunk the thing down in her living room, plop down in her recliner and sigh, "Merry ding-dong Christmas. Now fetch me some Kichels and rub my feet." I looked on in horror, not just at the thought of touching her feet, but at the idea that Christmas could be so grossly disrespected.

Shiny silver trees were probably quite stylish back in the city, where everything was chrome and quick. However, out in the country, things were a bit different. Chopping down our own Christmas tree had been a tradition in our family since I was knee-high to a pine cone. We kids would have an early breakfast and head out at sunrise, hiking through the pastures, northward to a pine forest, carrying rope, a hacksaw, and lunch. The rope was for tying up my youngest brother and dragging him through the snow when he got whiny. The hacksaw came in handy at lunchtime, trying to digest whatever Mom had made for us. To be honest, we couldn't tell if it was stale since by then it was frozen solid.

I remember singing Christmas songs, mostly to make sure the hunters didn't mistake us for deer. If I sang just right, kinda nasally, it would vibrate my nose and heat it. Early on I had learned not to rub my nose to warm it up. In low temperatures, the tiny hairs inside the nasal passage often froze, so if you rubbed your nose, you'd send icy needles into the sensitive lining of your sinuses. The blood would then drip onto your jacket and Mom would be furious.

It would take all morning just to reach the pine forest, longer if we heard a wolf or bobcat. After lunch we would choose a tree to bring home. This took a while because there were four of us, and in our short, frozen lives we had never agreed on anything. Eventually the boys would pick a really tall tree, maybe thirty to forty feet high. Since I was the oldest, it was my job to climb up and lop off the top of the tree with the hacksaw. Taking just the top of the massive tree made my sister happy, since we weren't really killing the tree, just maiming it. The tree would later die of bug infestation brought on by the decapitation, but again, she would point out, we didn't kill it – the bugs did. (She's now an attorney.) My brothers loved making me climb the thirty or so feet in the air to trim the tree. Try as I might, I was never quite able to hit them with the tree as it fell.

It was then time to tow the vegetative carcass home. We'd take turns pulling it with the rope, back through the woods, even through a small stream. In a Norman Rockwell painting, this is all so very quaint and rustic. In reality, it was, like many family traditions, a royal pain in the ass.

On the long haul back, one of us kids would start whining how we didn’t need a live tree, why we couldn’t do something like Nana and have a measly fake one. This was high treason, or considering the situation, ‘tree-shun.’ I would argue tradition, but truly, at that point, freezing, exhausted, I was in the minority. At least the arguing kept us warm until we got home.

Surprised and a bit taken aback to see all four of us alive and intact, ourparents would welcome us home before retiring for the night. Tradition held that we couldn't eat until the tree was up in the living room. Unfortunately, upon arriving at our house, the tree would somehow grow a foot or two wider, too wide for the doorway. We would push, shove and cram the beast until we had shredded the entryway and cracked enough branches to make the poor tree look like the cows came home right over the top of it.
Some years there was no snow, and the tree would become caked with mud, leaves, and whatever else we ran over. This could be a real problem when we went through the cow pasture. We'd get home a little after sundown, and the lack of daylight made it especially hard to spot any unusual attachments before the tree was inside the house. After getting it upright and tied to the curtain rod, we would notice an unusual odor. Cowpie ornaments don't do well in the heat of a living room, but at this point, we were too exhausted to take the whole thing back outside. Instead, we’d knock off the big nasty chunks, spray some Lysol, and call it a day. Most people turn the least attractive part of the tree toward a wall. We did, too, and it was usually the side sporting bits of cowpie.

Some of the ornaments we weren’t allowed to handle until we were much older. They were antiques, carefully handed down from the time of the Depression. Dark, worn, and fragile, for years I thought we kids weren't allowed to touch them because you could catch 'depression' from them. Why we put them on our tree I had no idea. Perhaps, I reasoned, to appease the gods of depression. I wondered how the ornaments felt, making it through decades of strife, poverty, and difficult times, only to be placed in a ragged pine tree right next to cattle droppings.

As I sat there listening to my brothers argue whether the tree was standing up straight or not, I'd get to thinking how I couldn't wait to have my own kids so I could share this family tradition with them. Whether they liked it or not.

Santa Unwrapped

2008-12-21T12:30:00.000-08:00

One Christmas Eve, just as my teddy bear and I were toddling off to visions of sugarplums (whatever the hell those are), Dad took me aside.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Is this about the birds and the bees?” I asked.

“No!” he stammered. “No. It’s about Santa.”

“Is he ok?”

“Yes, he’s fine. Well, no, actually, he’s not.” Dad sighed. “He doesn’t exist. Your mother and I have been um, covering for him all these years.”

It figured. If the pizza man wouldn’t even deliver to us, why should Santa? But I was finally in on the secret. It was quite the letdown, finding out Santa’s true identity. On the bright side, it was a relief to know a jolly, corpulent stranger couldn’t actually waltz into our house any time he wanted.

I had always expected the dogs to nail Santa, cornering him before he could make it back to the chimney, or at least ripping a chunk out of his gaudy red suit. Their lack of diligence had worried me. At least now there was a logical explanation.

“Now that you know,” Dad sighed, “Get down to the basement and start wrapping.” I soon discovered why he had told me at such a young age, and why elves are so short with everyone - gift-giving can be a real pain in the ass. Even with four kids and a limited budget, my parents still went all out, buying us toy upon toy upon toy. As a result, I suddenly found myself toiling in a dank, dark bunker, wrapping eleventy little bundles of retail joy for my brothers and sister. I had just been introduced to the ugly, sweaty underbelly of Santa.

It was confusing, knowing how strict our parents were, yet how generous Santa seemed to be. Why be so ornery all year long and then pile on the toys? Looking back, I would have traded several candy canes in December for a few kind words in August. Eventually this keepsake family tradition would be better explained to me in my college psychology class, in the chapter on parental guilt.

As my back began to throb from wrapping, my parent’s crankiness became more understandable. Until recently they had been handling all this toy business by themselves. Now they had little me to help in their dirty work, and I quickly reached the point that if I saw one more Chatty Cathy doll, I would decapitate it.

It was especially weird wrapping anything for me. The next morning, I was expected to be surprised and joyous at such remarkable gifts, when all I really wanted for Christmas were some painkillers and a hot shower. Yes, I was growing up. And seriously considering converting to a religion that involved a bit less manual labor.

No wonder Santa used elves – they never grew big enough to overtake him. And at the North Pole, there was no way for them to escape without dying of exposure. The big guy sure knew what he was doing. But with all those high-pitched, whiny voices and a serious lack of quality entertainment before satellite television, I don’t know how he made it through the year without bountiful amounts of Scotch.

Beads of sweat soaked my bunny-suit pajamas as I lugged sleds, a doll house, several bikes, forty-seven damn dolls, even a cannon, from their hiding places in the basement. Sweat poured from my body because our traditional Christmas Bonfire to Roast Santa’s Ass was heating the house to nearly ninety degrees. My back ached from wrapping such a huge pile of ~~guilt~~ gifts. Suddenly this holiday wasn’t so jolly. More than a cheery wee elf, I resembled a clammy, muttering troll.

In a few hours, my littlest brother would be screaming at me to wake up, bringing the dogs in with him to jump on the bed and pound on my still-suffering muscles. I was tempted to use my newfound powers of x-ray vision to tell him what each of his presents were, but I figured since Santa no longer had my back, I was pushing my luck with my parents. They not only knew if I’d been bad or good, they wouldn’t wait until next Christmas to smack me for it.

It was a few years before I got any assistance in my elfin basement dungeon. My brother, Tom, was only a year younger, so I expected his help the following year. But apparently since I was doing such a terrific job on my own, my parents neglected to share the Santa-less truth with him. I soon realized that if I didn’t settle down, I’d be curling ribbon and gilding boxes solo until my siblings left for college.

For years after that, when my siblings would write their Christmas lists, I’d pray they’d ask for nothing heavy. Instead of bikes and large mechanical contraptions, I’d extol the virtues of stock options and cash. They never did catch on. Or it could be that they knew exactly what was happening, and enjoyed putting me through Noel hell.

Years later, I looked back at our weird traditions. Our tilting, teetering tree, cut and dragged from our back woods, with most of the ornaments hanging within three feet of the ground, since that’s how far up we little ones could reach. We’d bunch up wads of silver ‘icicles’ and launch them at the top of the tree, creating piles of wrinkled silver dangling in oddish garlands. And every time our mom regaled us with one of her Santa Isn’t Coming This Year scream-athons, I had Bing Crosby crooning It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas in my head. An odd song-association, yes, but part of my own personal holiday tradition carved from hours in our holiday basement sweatshop. I wasn’t real keen on hauling so many toys from the bowels of our house, but if that’s how our parents showed their love, so be it.

Besides, picture-perfect holidays are always suspect – it’s like that one flawless house on the street, with the housewife wearing a smile stretched so taut across her face you expect her teeth to implode. We're quietly aware that all her emotional baggage is crammed tightly into one closet. Open that closet door and bam! Emo-armageddon.

Having a bit of goofiness in the preparation comforts me, since I’m far from perfect myself. I figure if flaws are allowed to wander about like cattle, they will be less likely to build up in a closet somewhere and stampede through our lives unexpectedly.

Besides, the first Christmas was a mess, too – no vacancies, hay everywhere, guests arriving days late, and snoring farm animals. Never mind the gifting headaches - what could you possibly get someone whose father is God? Did you even bother wrapping it? I mean, he probably knew what you were going to get him before you did.

When viewed from a distance across decades, most old, family traditions seem quaint. But for a moment, put yourself in Mary’s place – nine months pregnant, riding a donkey, married to a guy who didn’t even have the presence of mind to call ahead to reserve a room. I’m pretty sure Mary uttered a few words too spicy for the Bible. But she got through and everyone’s happy for that. (For the second kid, though, I'm sure she did things way differently.)

Many of our own Christmas traditions were probably nerve-wracking or simply stupid, but we made it through, and now we can all sigh and think of them as quaint. So odd little traditions don’t bother me so much anymore. Mostly because they’re in the past, and I now have access to Santa’s best Scotch.

When we get obsessed with the stereotypical postcard Christmas, straining to make our holidays faultless, we’re basically guaranteed to be in a foul mood by Boxing Day. The real Christmas is not tidy packages under a perfect tree, a silent night, a shiny home. It’s getting an emotional handle on the holidays, a firm grip on love in whatever odd form it may take, and holding on for dear life. Because before we know it, we’ll have New Years and Valentine’s Day staring us in the face. And from what I had just discovered about Santa, I figured the Easter Bunny wasn’t gonna be much help.

Mom's Recipe for a Traditional Holiday Meltdown

2008-12-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

As kids, we never doubted there was a Santa. We did, however, worry that he might not make it past our parents. For some reason they were both out to get the chubby guy in the weird suit.

Dad created the lovely tradition of a Christmas Eve Bonfire for Santa. Right before bedtime he'd build the most glorious blaze in the fireplace, flames leaping and licking the top of the firepit. "Let's make it nice and warm for the fat man," he'd chuckle as he brought in more firewood, his eyes glowing red by the light of the inferno. Helpless to intervene in Santa's roasting, we kids would gloomily head off to bed, hoping against hope that Saint Nick's suit was fireproof.

But compared to our mom's traditions, Dad's meddling was child's play. In the month before Christmas, as the big day approached, Mom's temper would get shorter and shorter, and the vein on the side of her forehead would get bigger and bigger, like some sort of bizarre Advent calendar. Day by day, her desperate grip on sanity would tighten into a deadly stranglehold. She would bark orders quicker than ever, her sharp, practiced tongue clipping the ends of her words off almost before they left her mouth. I would stare, transfixed, at the vein as it popped and bobbled in time to her protestations. That may explain why I didn't hear much of what she said. The coronary traffic jam on her temple was much more interesting.

Sometimes she got so mad at us she couldn't even tell us what we did wrong. The anger would boil up in her face to the point she was speechless, and we’d stare, blinking and clueless. If we ran, we’d be cut down in our tracks. Stay and we risked mental annihilation. It was almost amusing, seeing her so mad that she nearly forgot why. But we dared not smirk, lest we found ourselves assigned to some hideous task like cleaning the chicken house, or scrubbing toilets, or the worst – scrubbing the chickens’ toilets.

Suddenly she’d remember what had piqued her anger, catch her breath, and launch into a tirade, sparks spitting from her mouth. Dogs would dive for cover, birds would make a beeline south, and we kids would scramble for an alibi or excuse or dark corner, all desperately seeking safe haven from the storm.

I figured the thought of a chubby, cheery guy dropping in uninvited, tramping soot and reindeer poo through her living room, and probably raiding the fridge must have really made Mom nuts. After all, she already had Dad for that.

About a week before the big day, as the four of us kids re-enacted our traditional holiday squabbling, she would finally come unglued. "That’s it! Santa’s NOT coming to this house this year!!!" At first we were terrified. Santa always brought the best toys. Without him, all we had were bunny-suit pajamas from Nana and educational tedium from Mom and Dad. We would do everything in our power to placate Mom, petrified that the big guy would pass us by.

Then one year we figured it out. My brother had recently given the cat a bb-gun enema. We thought for sure he'd get coal or worse. Instead, Santa brought him more ammunition. My sister had spent the entire fall semester staring oddly at classmates just to creep them out, and when Christmas rolled around, she got twenty-three dollies with stares just as creepy as hers.

I called a sibling meeting and shared my suspicions. We graphed our naughty vs. nice annuities, and compared it to our gift receivables. The truth was out – good or bad, you could set your watch by the fat man. Mom must have simply been jealous that Santa gave us cooler toys, and she was conniving enough to garner a couple weeks of household peace by pretending she could stop him from coming. The knowledge that she was bluffing was kid gold.

Still, it was scary to defy her. The first year after we knew, we at least pretended to be good. But we no longer quivered in our beds, sweating the daily errors of our ways. To be on the safe side, we carried on the family ritual of superficial fear and cordiality. When Mom raised the traditional holiday roof, we struggled to look scared, but we had found an inner peace knowing Santa didn’t listen to her. Her bombastic tirades were now merely a harmless holiday habit, much like fruitcake, only louder.

Santa made it every year without fail. Even Dad’s attempts to roast him didn’t shake us anymore. We knew the big guy would never let us down, except once, when my little brother asked for new parents. But that was probably because he forgot to say 'please.'

Holiday Gift Guide for the "Frugal" Man

2008-11-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. However, he's in line behind the banks and car manufacturers for a government bailout. If Santa had been allowed to drill for oil on his property, you might be seeing something decent under your tree. But noooo - we were too worried about saving the permafrost to let him drill.

So you're on your own this year. The elves are getting reindeer steaks, and since he finally got satellite tv, the big guy is staying home, emailing gift cards to everyone instead of venturing out in the freezing freeze. If you're lucky, by the time you get your gift card, the store will still be open for business.

If you haven't bought gifts yet, you are most likely male. Let's face it - most women buy gifts all year 'round, stuffing them into a 'gift closet' for use later. That closet quickly becomes an archeological time capsule, the lower layers filled with ungiven gifts. Dig deep enough and you'll find some interesting things, like maybe a Partridge Family lunchbox, or rainbow toe socks. Or Hoffa.

As a result, women are ready to gift spontaneously any day of the year. Christmas could be magically moved to August and we would be ready, armed with curling ribbon and raffia. Guys - well, not so much.

The great thing about being a guy is that as far as gift-giving goes, no one really expects anything of you, except perhaps shock-value entertainment in the form of how insipid your gift is. The most we women can expect to receive is fodder for future complaints.

"Ralph gave me another set of soup bowls. Amazing!"

"You think that's bad? I got a cookbook. Written by his mother's parole officer."

Rejoice, men, in these low expectations. There's no need to raise the bar, especially this year. But what should you buy? Those stinkin' soup bowls really cut into your beer budget.

Thank goodness for me, right? As a woman, I know how to make a big deal out of nothing. As a woman, I'm adept at handing out unwanted advice. And as a woman, I have the right to tell you to sit down, shut up, and listen.

"Hey," you might say, "My buddies and I don't exchange gifts. That's a girlie thing." I hear ya. That's why when you give them these gifts, do it at a bar. They won't have anything for you, so they'll be forced to pick up your tab for the night. Now I have your attention, don't I? I thought so.

The following is a list of inexpensive gifts designed to look like you put some thought into it. Feel free to wait until the last minute to get them. Like you'd do it any other way:

1.Build a Nuclear Fallout Shelter Out of Government CheeseYou can make this book for free by going to any fallout shelter website, preferably a hysterical one, copying the 'how-to' information, and replacing the word 'prefabricated' with 'gouda.' Print on your home computer and voila - instant cheapo gift. Your friends will be so impressed that you cared enough to keep them alive, at least a little longer than everyone else. Armageddon one of these for everyone on my list!

2. Photo frame belt buckle($14.98 http://www.whatonearthcatalog.com/) Nothing says 'Ho, ho, ho!' quite like wearing a photo of a loved one, or somebody's loved one, close to your um, heart. Why not be a real friend and preload the buckle with a nice, tasteful photo off the Internet? Make sure you label your giftbox carefully - you don't want this going to your mother by mistake. Unless she's in prison and can trade it for something decent.

3. Regift candles, soap, and other unwanted oddities - What is it with women and candles? There must be an unwritten rule about giving someone a chunk of wax. Something like, "You already have everything, you skank, so I'm giving you this bizarre symbol of excess." Or maybe, "Figuring out what you would really like is too much of an effort. Here's a freakin' candle." I have 800 pounds of wax in my closet. When the last power outage rolled through, I was so excited that I could finally use some of these scented, multi-colored mahoozits, even though it was noon. Anyway, do your gal a favor - dig deep into that gift closet, grab some of those unwanted blobs, throw some paper around them, and get them the hell out of there. Trust me, she'll thank you eventually. Special note - this type of gift is best given to an aunt or your mother, someone likely to buy you a Home Depot gift card in return. Give this to one of your drinkin' buddies, and things could get weird.

4. Nosepicking for Pleasure ($7.95 - http://www.amazon.com/) You know you're gonna read book this before you give it to anyone - how could you resist? Just make sure not to leave any 'bookmarks,' if you know what I mean, because that's snot cool. When you hand this gem to your buddy, tell him he's more than welcome to regift it. Not that he wouldn't anyway, because it's just so darn awesome manly (in a third grade sort of way), all his buddies will want to check it out.

5. "I Love You" Toast Stamper ($4.50 -http://www.mcphee.com/ee.com/)

This is for your sweetie. After all, it's the thought that counts, right? She'll have a blast stamping your toast in the morning. That way she can say "I love you" without waking you up. Do not use it as a branding iron. It will melt. Do not ask me how I know that, or I will bury you in my gift closet.

With any luck, your friends will be buying you drinks, and your wife/girlfriend will ask you to never buy anything for her ever. Which is really the goal, right? If you don't like to do something, do it badly, and you won't be asked to do it again. Just like the makers of government cheese.

Thanksgiving Needs More Salt

2008-11-23T02:15:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, we celebrated the traditional family Thanksgiving - tons of food (lots of it home grown), an all day cooking marathon, a cool fall nip in the air, and football. Not all the best plays were in the football games:

My mom would try to intercept my grandmother, who was intent on salting the daylights out of every dish. Nana would fake right, get a key block from a child-distraction (usually my little sister), then loft the saltshaker over the potatoes, turkey or whatever receiver was open at the time.
My brother, Tom, made an end run around kitchen duties by discovering a sudden, latent interest in football. He would tiptoe into the living room, bury himself in the couch, and stare quietly at the television, hoping that his stillness would camouflage him. He would blend, forgotten, into the furniture, hoping to avoid being hauled into the culinary chaos. I would not be surprised to discover that he was still there.

My younger sister would play ‘assistant coach' in the kitchen, messing up anything she touched, to the point Mom would shoo her off to play before she spilled any more hot gravy on the dogs or poured more cat food in the string beans. At the time I thought my sister was clueless. But now I’ve worked with adults who have perfected similar levels of incompetency. If you act like a child, continually botching projects, no one will expect you to do anything. I call it planned adolescence.

My youngest brother guarded the temperamental oven with a fire extinguisher, in case it 'overheated,' a traditional Celtic term meaning house fire. I always wondered if its affinity to go up in flames was somehow related to excessive salt.

My dad spent much of the day in the back forest cutting firewood. He would come in for a break to watch football a bit, then head back out. After a few minutes listening to our kitchen shenanigans, he quickly opted for the soothing sound of the chainsaw.

Our kitchen was long, like a bowling alley. Just clearing the table involved lots of hiking back and forth. On Thanksgiving Day, when everyone was in there, including the pets, navigation was impossible. We were constantly tripping over a dog or a grandmother or both. My mom held her ground and her sanity with a bottomless glass of Gallo wine. I huddled in a corner and peeled potatoes, taking notes on a childhood that was sure to someday make me a famous writer. If I survived.

Even the livestock knew something special was going on. We often fed leftovers to the horses, so through the miracle of conditioned response, whenever they caught sight of my brother with the fire extinguisher, they knew Mom was cooking and that leftovers were inevitable. Ever hear a horse whinny all day for potatoes and gravy? It’s not a pretty sound. They’d get so excited that the cows figured out something was up, and would start in as well-

Midnight the cow: Moo! Moooooo!

Cindy the cow: What’s up? Why all the mooing?

Midnight the cow: Well, the horses are making a racket. Something about a saltshaker run amok up there in the house. Figured I’d join in.

Cindy the cow: Gotcha…Moo! Mooo! …what’s a saltshaker?

Sadly, there was so much noise inside the house, with my mother defending the cranberries from Nana the Crazed Saltress of Doom, and my sister shrieking that her Chatty Cathy dolly wanted to help salt things, too, that the din from our cheerleading cows was lost in the commotion.

Perhaps this was why holiday tunes were invented – to blast them loudly so the neighbors couldn’t hear the real chaos going on inside the house. Perhaps that is why we lived so far out in the country, so neighbors weren’t within earshot.

In any event, it was Thanksgiving, so eventually, after hours and hours of preparation, pandemonium, and excessive spicing, we all sat down in the dining room together, said Grace, and ate. For about fifteen minutes. By then we had run out of salt.

The Video!

2008-11-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

You know the credits that whiz by on your screen at the end of a television show? The endless parade of teeny names scurrying by so quickly no human eye can read them? When was the last time you said, "Wait! we simply must Tivo this so I can slow it down enough to find out who did makeup for the second unit during the food fight scene!"

I didn't think so. And music videos, it seems, are even lower on the digital food chain than I Love Lucy reruns. You might see the name of the song, the group, the director, and record company, and that's it. If you want to know who fed the cast and crew between downpours, or who towelled off the patio for the line dancers, or who was in charge of jiggling the handle on an itinerant toilet so things flowed smoothly, you are simply out of luck.

At the time, making the video seemed like such a huge deal. And it was a big undertaking. But my main concern was handling the instant stardom it would certainly bring, and the TMZ paparazzi fallout. Would I be forced to grocery shop late at night to avoid my adoring fans like Britney does? (At the Vons on PCH in Malibu. On Tuesday nights. In case you want to help her load her Evian and Stoli into her car. Evian goes in the back. Stoli goes between the baby carseats.)

It has already started. Yesterday, as I cruised the vegetable aisle, I was getting weird stares and heard the murmurings begin:

"Isn't that the assistant director/lo-flo jiggler for the Country Girlz video?"

"Wow, she does her own grocery shopping - how counter-culture is that!"

I had to autograph 3 cucumbers and a Cup-a-Soup before I could make it out of the store.

So what's the hype all about? This:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.showvids&friendID=61035545&n=61035545&MyToken=f71fae2d-14f5-4263-a0c4-e4c3d289bce2
At about the three-minute mark, I have a brief cameo. I would have been in more of the video, but that misbehaving toilet kept me pretty busy. Plus I didn't want to give my adoring fans too much the first time around. Or I'd be forced to become a recluse and have Britney do my shopping for me.

Just Your Typical Saturday BBQ

2008-11-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

The morning of the video shoot, I was awakened at 4 am by thunder. Hasn't rained substantially in the LA area in nearly a year. I haven't thrown a party in several years. But there we were, watching puddles procreate on the patio. Ever try to barbeque in your living room? It doesn't work too well. Ever try to film a country music video in your living room? That works about as well as a barbeque. For either one, pretty soon your house is full of smoke and noise, and your dogs have disowned you.

Taping started at dawn. Tapping the keg started shortly thereafter. Taping and tapping continued until sunset. Tapping my foot from hearing the song in my brain continues. I cannot get this song out of my head! R U Down with the Country Girlz?

The early morning shots were up in the hills. With the storm, lighting was phenomenal. Everything glowed, slick and alive. Too bad Los Angeles can't be like that all the time, but to see it then was special.

Next were the truck shots. The whole band piled into Howie's truck, the cameraman in front of them filming, hanging out of the trunk of the camera car. Major mud puddle action, bumpin', splatterin', country four-wheelin'. No whining from anyone. At least, nothing we could hear over the pounding of the rain.

At times it absolutely poured. After drought conditions for years, we never saw the sun that day. Rain chased many SoCal sissies inside, so attendance was a bit lower than expected. But the group that showed up - wow. To say they were diehards is an understatement. We'd run outside to lighten the margarita machine, then we'd head back in for a while until the rain stopped. Then we'd dance. Then it would rain. Then we'd dance in the rain. Then we'd do it all over again.

Due to the shortage of line dancers, I was forced to put on daisy duke shorts and power jam in the mud with the band. Yes, I know, twist my farmer's-tanned arm. We line danced between downpours, mud sucking at our boots, smiling, laughing, giggling. Not a single complaint all day from anyone. Lots of 'thank-you's' and tons of help from everyone. Even the dogs cooperated by clearing the floor of ribeye bits and margarita spills. Urp.

Were our glasses half full or half empty? All I know is, there was rain in them. And for the record, rainwater margaritas are awesome.

Can't wait for y'all to see this. Although I'm not sure the country music world is ready. Not sure anyone is. I sure wasn't!

Starting November 17th, we'll be posting 30-second spots on CMT advertising the video. It will then be available for download on Youtube. Some record exec will see it and throw gold coins, which will hurt when they hit us, but eventually will come in handy.

I will be writing in simple sentences until I recover from this whole ordeal. Someone get me another paper bag to breathe into.

What Was I Thinking?

2008-10-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, they're filming a music video at my house. I use the term 'they' to distance myself from the people doing this to me. Yes, I know them, or thought I did. Now, however, in a quiet, fleeting moment of sanity, I have my doubts.

Somehow, in a freak mental lapse, I okayed this. I'm allowing potentially hundreds of people I've never met before, except for seeing their pictures on the "Wanted" posters in the post office, into my humble home. I'm even feeding them. I might even clean up a bit. I'm definitely getting a tetanus shot.

I should point out that this video shoot is sandwiched neatly between Halloween, psycho sugar holiday of rioting teens and pumpkins rumbling down streets at midnight, and Daylight Savings Sunday, when everyone migrates south an hour earlier than normal, turning clocks back a bit so the Stock Market can catch its breath.

Okay, so it's not that bad. Just a video crew, a country band, a lot of food and fun. The song for the video is, in my perfect opinion, awesome, and of course that creates more problems. Once this video gets major airplay, people are going to start picking apart the setting, i.e. my house:

Did you see those curtains? With THAT couch? What was she thinking?
The rose bushes are eight feet high - when was she planning on trimming them - 2012?
Someone was drinking white wine with their steak. How could she let that happen?

Chance of rain on Friday and Sunday. So far Saturday looks ok, but then, SoCal is known for its subpar weathermen. Sometimes their botox absorbs a little too well, and their standard "Sunny and 80" monologue kicks in. They often pre-record their forecasts two weeks in advance, then sneak off to Maui. In other words, who knows what the weather will be like Saturday. Santa Anas, perhaps? Forest fire? Mudslide, anyone?

My son's birthday party was once forced inside by rain. Yes, I'm aware people elsewhere deal with this all the time. Here in SoCal, though, it's simply bizarre and completely unexpected. We pay good money to avoid weather. Anyway, we had to tie a rope off the upstairs railing for the pinata and hope nobody took out a support wall with their pinata bat.

No pinata bats this time. Everyone is expected to bring their own weapons. BYOBats.

If you're curious about the song, it's called "Country Girlz" and it's here - http://www.myspace.com/howievaughn.

Don't mind me - I'm just going to sit over in the corner here until Saturday, breathing into this paper bag so I don't faint.

Halloween's Gonna Be a Bear

2008-10-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how any costume could be scarier than today's economy. There's not enough fake blood in the world to frighten me more than watching my 401k shrivel to the size of a walnut. Although I have experienced some pretty spooky Halloweens...

Ten years ago, I was nine and a half months pregnant. The day before Halloween I bought a new spot steam cleaner for my carpet. It worked so well that I got carried away and cleaned the entire family room with it. Helpful hint - when you're excessively pregnant, scrubbing the floor all day is not a good idea, even if you possess power tools. I was up all night long with 'false labor,' a term that insinuates that the pain is phony. It was not. Imagine wrapping eighty-three industrial-strength rubber bands around your middle. Then let some invisible being snap them randomly for seven hours straight. From the inside.

By the time Halloween night rolled around, I had had no sleep for thirty-six hours. One kidney was still vibrating from the rubber band snapping, and my hormone-marinated temperament was ready to disembowel the next human it encountered. On the bright side, my carpet was spiffy.

Thank goodness my husband (at the time, may he rest in pieces) was assigned to trick-or-treat duty. Somehow, though, he caught wind of my mood. Perhaps he noticed the green smoke curling from my ears that morning, or the way my head swivelled all the way around when he asked for coffee. Suddenly he had to 'work late' again and couldn't make it home in time to help. Putting down my Book of Irish Curses, I tossed on some black clothes and headed for the front door, where some errant tricksters were wearing out my doorbell. I winged some juiceboxes at their heads and disposed of them.

Our neighborhood must be known the world over for its candy, because every pop-sucking rugrat in a twenty-mile radius hits our block up for sugar. They're bused in, swarming the streets with their creepy giggles and hideous "Thank yous!" This sweetness is intentional. They are disgustingly nice in order to avoid giving me any excuse to get mad. Drives me up a freakin' wall. One can only hear "Trick or Treat!" so many times before the nut switch gets flipped.

After several hours of this, a little blonde witch, about five years old, walked over and looked me up and down. "You don't look scary," she sniffed. "What are you supposed to be?"

I leaned over. Actually I was already bent over, my posture nearly done in from the labor contractions, carpet cleaning, and candy-giving. "Little girl," I squeaked, "I'm nine and a half months pregnant, and that is scarier than anything else you will see tonight."

She scurried back to her father and asked him if I was right. "Yes, dear," he concurred nervously."Let's get going. Quickly, now."

Years ago our neighborhood had incredible Halloween displays, and not just the decorations. People went to incredible lengths to entertain. Instead of just candy, every house had a different theme. One house had a popcorn cart tended by a headless witch. Another featured a cappucino machine catered by a very gracious Dracula. Wolfman offered pedicures, which was a little weird, but his heart was in the right place.

This year I'm considering going out trick-or-treating myself. My chocolate bank is running a bit low, and this could be an opportunity to cheaply bolster its bottom line. Much like the Federal government is doing with Wall Street.

My costume would consist of my stock reports - vertical lines are quite slimming. What these busy lines do for my blood pressure is a whole 'nuther story. All this Wall Street wailing is giving new meaning to the term 'Bull' market. Somebody needs a spanking.

Considering the economy (I don't want to, but they're making me do it), perhaps we could tweak Halloween to reflect our nation's current sorry state. One house could hand out resume' tips. Another could give away Canadian coins, a wise investment since they're now worth more than their US counterparts. A punching bag featuring the face of the current chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, would be popular. Others could offer barter services - lawnmowing, babysitting, husband-removal, etc.

Yes, candy still holds a vital place in this holiday. It makes us feel better. But this year we all need a little more. We need to hit something. Hard.

Trick or Treat, smell my feet.
Give me something good, Wall Street!

This Blows

2008-10-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Gah!

Everyone is in a horrendous mood lately. I did my research, in other words I asked them what the heck their problem was. Sorting through the various colorful responses, I discovered that the real culprit is not the current economic deathspin, global warming, or even worldwide famine, but rather, the Santa Ana winds.

For those not located in Southern California, Santa Ana winds are nasty, dry gusts that swirl and blast, sucking the moisture from your skin, leaving everything coated with dust and the remains of our 401ks. They hit every fall, usually the same day that people climb on their roofs to put up holiday decorations. Traditionally, Santa Anas appear on trash pick-up day, wrapping the garbage trucks in a swirl of SoCal flotsam, papers and plastic floating about them like so many deformed snowflakes.

On the freeway, the Santa Anas push cars around like toys. This has become more of a problem lately, because in an attempt to save ~~the environment~~ money, many commuters have purchased hybrid vehicles. These little 'green' cars typically weigh less than some of the patrons at the local Hometown Buffet. So when they hit about fifty miles per hour, the Santa Anas lift them from lane to lane, pushing them sideways, upwards and all over the place. Nothing like motoring along in a nice solid SUV only to have a Prius splatter across your windshield.

Gusts blow from all directions, with no pattern, rhyme or reason. With a normal wind, you can steady yourself against the anticipated blast. Not so with Santa Anas - you will set yourself for a gust from the Northeast, only to get shoved from the South. They are unpredictable, unstable, moody, and hot - the weather equivalent of Mother Nature's menopause.

The worst part, by far, is the fires. My Aunt Marge had hot flashes that cut through everything in her way, but even she couldn't roast ten thousand acres at a clip. Santa Ana winds knock tree limbs into power lines, which ignite, well, everything, and away we go in, as I mentioned earlier, every dang direction. First a fire blows southward. Whoops, now it's headed east. Hold it, it's heading up a canyon on the west side. Firefighters are truly dancing with the devil.

I've lived in many difficult climes. I've waded through four-foot snowdrifts, shivered in 30 below temperatures, simmered in sweltering summers of 100% humidity, endured electrical storms that hit the building I was in, and hunkered down in hurricanes. The Santa Anas are by far the worst of the weather. Nothing is as irritating as a dirtwind, gusting from all directions, coating your desiccated skin with scuzzy dust from who knows where.

How does this affect the rest of the world? We know that regarding things of importance, such as movies, plastic surgery, and the latest rehab techniques, SoCal drives the country. So when these horrible winds ruin our party, our temperamental tailspin creates a domino effect, crashing moods and creating crankiness all the way to Wall Street. When the proverbial butterfly gets blown sideways in the San Fernando Valley, someone in Palm Beach runs over a cockroach. You might think a dead cockroach is a good thing, but this one might be a pet owned by a mentally unstable entomologist who, finding his beloved bug smushed, vows revenge on the world. Make a few million people cranky and worried about losing their homes in a firestorm, and the whole world's gonna hurt.

Time for a solution. I don't have one, but I do know it's quite entertaining to wander about complaining about how irritated I am. At least it's entertaining to me. Whether others find it entertaining or irritating, I could care less. Which is a very liberating way to feel, and makes me smile. At which point the Santa Ana winds coat my teeth with soot and dust.

Gah!

Country Pumpkins

2008-10-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

For a kid in the country, life can at times be lonely, especially at Halloween, when your lack of human contact translates directly into dismal candy poundage. Trick or treat all you want with the cows - they don't hand out tootsie rolls. Most of them don't, anyway.

The kids in town had it easy - they'd walk from door to door, scoring a Hershey bar or pixie stick every 8 seconds. They’d haul in enough sugar to last until Easter. But in the country, Halloween was, sadly, a non-profit industry. With the houses so few and far between, there was simply no way to accumulate a decent amount of candy, even with a parent driving you around. We still went through the routine, out of a ridiculous sense of ritual, although many traditions were altered a bit, for survival's sake.

The first tradition to tweak was the costume. Creativity was worthless- there was little reason to make or buy a fancy costume if you were just going to bury it under a parka anyway. We looked like lurching balls of yarn. If someone asked me what I was for Halloween, I'd reply, "I am cold!" That usually shut them up, and sometimes they'd even throw in some 'pity' candy.

Neighbor Lady: Oh, my – what are you dressed up as?

Me: I'm the tooth fairy, ok? Got any chocolate?

Neighbor Lady: Your pretty costume is all covered up by your jacket.

Me: Could we move this along, please? I’d love to stand here in the sleet and chat, but I can’t feel my toes.

The focus was instead on survival. Your costume would consist of as many layers as possible, for several reasons:

1. warmth – in upstate New York, sub-freezing temperatures in October were routine. We often had snow on the ground. Try wearing a Tinkerbell outfit and battling frostbite at the same time. My Aunt Marge did it once, but she had a huge jug of Gallo wine.

2. anonymity – with a ski cap pulled low across my brow, a scarf across my face, and a Sears polyester bubble-wrap parka pouffing out my torso like the Michelin Man, I was basically encased in an arctic burkha. No one would know it was me taking my little sister trick-or-treating, so no hassle at school for that. That wasn't me - that must've been her handler from the zoo. Humiliation could hurt as much as frostbite.

Plus, bundled up like that, I could murmur naughty invectives at people because they couldn’t tell what I was saying, my words muffled much like the linguistically challenged who burble at us via speakers at fast-food drive-throughs. Behind a Montgomery Wards ski mask and several layers of scarves, a cheery "F**k you!" was often mistaken for a "Thank you!"

3. protection - many dogs liked to play "Pull the mitten off the kid and make her drop her candy." Usually they'd settle for a glove or a hat, giving us a chance to escape. We kept extra, expendable clothes in the car to share with the next mutt we ran into.

However, nothing, nothing could deter Farmer Hornbeck’s guard goose. It was fast, loud, and frightening - honking, flapping and charging at us full throttle, wings akimbo and utterly outraged. It was quite adept at pulling off mitten after mitten, then going after your ankles. We kept candy corn in our hands to distract it, throwing the candy for it to eat in order to buy some time to reach the safety of our car. You knew if it attacked your ankles, you were going down. Then you were doomed, because no one would dare venture out of the car to save you. You had to lie still in the cold mud, hands about your face for protection, and wait for it to stop pecking at you and waddle away.

Neighbor Lady: Oh, my, look at you, all covered in mud – what are you dressed up as?

Me: The Creature from the Black Lagoon, ok? Got any chocolate?

Neighbor Lady: You should be more careful, dear. You got your pretty costume all dirty.

Me: Could we move this along, please? I’d love to stand here in the sleet and chat, but I can’t feel my freakin’ toes.

All this for a tootsie roll, or, heaven forbid, if the people were anti-sugar, a tiny bag of carrots or a toothbrush. At least Charlie Brown got rocks. You could do some damage with those.

While Mom drove us door to door, Dad stayed home and scared the living daylights out of any visitors. Actually, he did that every day, but Halloween was special.

Dad would put sheets over the small trees that lined the driveway, turning them into ghosts, but not really fooling anyone. The yard looked more like a redneck clothesline than a herd of spooky ghosts. I wanted to put a few cows in the front yard, paint them red and put duct tape on them – now that would be frightening, or at least be abstract art that could potentially win us government funding. But I guess that was tweaking tradition a bit too far, so we settled for Dad’s lame tree ghosts to spook any trick-or-treaters wandering our way.

What our Halloween visitors didn't realize was that one of the tree ghosts was actually not a tree at all, but rather my dad, under a sheet, pretending to be a tree ghost. They would drive slowly up our driveway, looking at our fierce horde of tree ghosts, exclaiming how they were soooo unscary, ha-ha, when suddenly one of the tree ghosts, usually Dad, would leap at their car. Everyone in the car would scream, wet their pants, and try not to drive off the cliff.

Did I mention the cliff? We lived on a ridge, and the driveway was shaped like a fishhook, angling across a huge front yard, the downhill side of it dropping off steeply. In daylight, the drive alone was enough to scare people away. Add darkness and a freaky dad-tree-ghost to the mix, and visitors simply never came back.

While Dad was busy 'greeting' people at home, we would trudge from farmhouse to farmhouse, braving fierce dogs, spooky cats, and creepy people, just to get a sticky, clumped popcorn ball that would immediately begin to suck lint from our clothing. My little sister often sat on hers, gluing herself to the car seat. At the next stop she'd realize she was stuck and squeal "Help meeeee!" I'd have to yank on her, hard, to release her from the firm grip of the sticky ball. Often the two of us would fly out the car door into the dirt, whatever goodies we had gathered spilling out into the darkness, our arctic padding saving us from injury. Mixed blessing actually, since I got to pull really hard on her arms, on the pretext of 'helping' her out of the car, and not get in trouble for it.

My sister once literally disappeared. She had been walking behind me, half a popcorn ball still stuck to her bottom, screeching just to keep warm, "Wait uuuuup! Wait uuuuup! Wait uuuuup!" when bloop! Gone. Nothing but serene, peaceful quiet.

Three miles down the road Mom noticed how quiet it was, realized Chatty Kathy was missing, and made me go back and find her. Turns out little sister had missed a step on a narrow walkway and had been swallowed up by a snowy ditch. The only thing that saved her from falling further into an icy crevasse was the sticky popcorn ball on her butt. It had caught in a crack and stuck, much like an ice axe would dig into the snow, saving its hiker from plummeting down Mount Everest. After sorting through her candy and discussing my fee, I pulled her out and we trudged on.

Because there were no streetlights, quite often it was incredibly dark. Pitch black, blanket-across-your-face dark. Sometimes we were lucky enough that the full moon was out, shining on the snow, so we could see our fingers shaking and be reminded how freaking cold we were.

By this time, if we could gather enough strength, we would start fighting in the car, and, if we were lucky, Mom would 'punish' us by turning the car around and going home. Then we'd eat all the candy left over from the people who didn’t visit our house anymore because my Dad had frightened them away. Why we ever left the farm is beyond me. Tree ghosts had much more fun.

Plague of the Tourists

2008-09-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

Every fall they came, just to stare at leaves. And shoot deer. When you live alongside nature, it’s hard to understand: one - why people travel so far to see it, and two - why they want to kill it. I’m speaking, specifically, of the he-tourist hunters and she-tourist leafers from New York City.

Maybe we only saw one side of the situation. Perhaps there was someone in New York City who needed a break from these obnoxious people and said, “Here’s a gun. Why don’t you go upstate and wander in the woods awhile? Maybe we’ll both get lucky. Oh, and take the missus. She can stare at trees and annoy the locals.”

We lived near enough to the city that we were inundated with city-idiots - it was hard to fathom why we should let certain urban dwellers live. What made it especially difficult to keep our fingers off the trigger is that tourist season corresponded closely with hunting season. So very, very tempting. And no limit on tourists!

“Officer, I was aiming for a six-point buck, but at the last moment, that old lady with the walker leaped in my way. It was just an unfortunate accident. Coulda happened to anybody.”

“Understood. Just don’t let it happen again.”

First, let me backtrack and explain my distaste. It would seem that if you were going to take up a sport as deadly as hunting, and seeing how death is somewhat final and appears to hurt a lot, it would behoove you to learn a few things about the sport first. There were basic rules concerning firearms and common sense that city folk consistently broke. For example:

Never hunt near a road. You could spook a deer into traffic, and if a car hit it, the driver could get badly hurt. This happened to my mom – her car was totaled, and so was the soul of whatever stupid hunter sent that deer into the road, because my mother put an Irish banshee curse on him. If he’s still alive, he’s in pain, and lots of it.

Keep your safety on, especially crossing fences. I can’t tell you how many ‘he-tourists’ shot themselves in the foot going over fences. What really surprised me is that they didn’t demand we put in ‘handicap access’ for our fences. “I shot my foot off going over your fence –put in a concrete ramp for my wheelchair, or I’ll sue.” Go ahead and laugh. Just you wait.

Identify what it is you’re shooting before you shoot at it. Nothing like hearing a gunshot and seeing a chunk of bark fly off the tree next to you. Yes, that happened to me. Yes, he, too, received a banshee curse. Then there was the city hunter who was found ‘gutting’ a brown cow. Really. No, sir, that’s not a two-point buck – that’s a Jersey cow. Yes, you’re quite the warrior, sir. I'm sure it put up quite the fight. How now, big dummy?

The rules were there for survival’s sake. If you ignored those rules, perhaps you shouldn’t be permitted to survive. Most of the year Darwin seemed to go easy on the city-dwellers, letting them grow fat and lazy until the first frost sent them into the woods. Come hunting season, we’d avoid the forest as much as possible, bringing the horses and cows up in the pasture closest to the house. Then we’d sit back and let the city-idiots shoot at each other. We had ourselves a whole new kind of turkey shoot.

New York City couples carpooled. The he-tourist, aka hunter, would put on his shiny, bright, orange hunting gear, kiss his wife good-bye, and trespass through the nearest field, where he would promptly climb over a fence and, on a good day, shoot himself in the foot. Then he’d limp back to the road to wait for his wife, who was in town drinking lattes and staring at trees. While he was waiting, he contemplated who he could sue for his misfortune, and where he wanted his wheelchair ramp to go.

In the meantime, his wife, the typical she-tourist aka leafer/antiquer, would peruse all the over-priced detritus for sale at the antique boutiques. She’d then drive out to the countryside, park in front of our house, and brazenly steal a pair of cast iron wagon wheels off our front lawn, stuffing them into the trunk of her Cadillac. At least that’s what the she-tourist I bagged did. Poor thing – she was much too old to be hefting something that weighty into her trunk. I could see her suing us if she were injured during her theft, and I was torn between helping the spinster lift her heavy load, or twisting her arms behind her, cop style, and putting my knee into her kidneys, slamming her against the car while I handcuffed her for stealing our property.

I settled for yelling, “HEY!” She dropped her five-finger discount and scuttled back into her Cadillac, spitting gravel down our country road. I hoped she hit a he-tourist hunter on the way back into town. Or that a he-tourist shot at her car. Come on, Darwin – rise and shine, dammit!

Our hay field bordered Route 9G, a major thoroughfare. In other words, it was paved and had two real lanes. Many wayward city dwellers cruised it, pretending to gawk at the leaves changing color, but we knew they were really trolling for ~~old crappy stuff~~ antiques to steal.

At this time of year we’d be in a hurry to get the last hay cutting into the barn, dodging raindrops, stray bullets, and spinsters dragging stolen wagon wheels.

The leafers would park on the side road, blocking our access to the field, jabbering about lattes, and generally making pests of themselves. They were probably waiting for us to turn our backs so they could swipe our hay rake and resell it on Crazy Larry’s Staten Island Farm Equipment Black Market. Or turn it into some sort of country art artifact. Maybe it would resurface as a decorative wrought iron hanging pot holder for some bored, overpriced kitchen on Long Island. These people were downright soul-less.

Sometimes tourists would pull over to the side of the road to take pictures of us. This used to irritate the hell out of me. What were we, a freakin’ Amish zoo exhibit? I wanted to give them something special for their photo album, maybe drop my jeans and show them a real harvest moon.

My youngest brother, Bob, was in that field raking hay. He, too, had had it with the looky-loos, and decided, while still driving the tractor, to drop drawers and give them a Kodak moment. (How he came upon that idea, I'm sure I don't know, or at least I will never admit to suggesting.) Anyway, as he aimed his motoring moonpie at the startled tourists, he failed to notice a fast-approaching gopher hole. As the front left tire fell into the hole, the tractor lurched sideways, and Bob was launched into the air. Luckily, his wayward pants caught on the shift lever of the tractor or he would have rolled, half naked, under the big rear tires. As it was, he accidentally shifted gears with his belt loop, and had to pull himself back up by the steering wheel of the now speeding tractor. Grabbing the wheel like that made the tractor veer sharply, running over and crushing our brand-new handicap access wheelchair ramp for hunters.

Please don’t tell our Dad.

The Fall of Man

2008-09-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

"Tell us, oh wise one, what it's like to miss your man." They huddled about the dim light of the sanctuary, shadows wavering weakly, flickering in rhythm with the dancing of the candlelight.

"Yes, I missed him. I admit it," I wiped a tear from my cheek. Shelley was blubbering already, raining salty tears on a bunch of us. "But I adjusted the scope on my Glock, so that wouldn't happen again."

A chilling breeze wafted by, frightening the candle, causing it to sputter and hiss hot wax upon the concrete. We pulled our blankets closer around us to shut out the cold.

Some of the new ones were writing furiously. "Glock?" asked one. "Is a Smith & Wesson acceptable?"

"That was a joke," I continued, "Comic relief. Please don't try that at home. Especially if your carpeting isn't Scotchguarded." They scribbled out their notes.

"They're all going away and there's nothing we can do about that. Of course you miss your men, but you'll have them back soon enough. I miss mine, too," I sighed.

"It was as if Fate had brought us together," I replied solemnly, respectful and in proper awe of our surroundings. "A Fate, perhaps, with a bit too much time on her hands."

"Fate, my friends, has an evil sense of humor," I continued. "She had brought us together, yet every Sunday, she kept us apart. Why, I had no idea. But what I did have," I took a sip from the bottle and passed it on, "was a plan. And I'm here, again, to share it with you."

"We must look on the bright side," I exhorted, "We have been given this block of time for a reason. It is a gift, not a curse. And, as is our way, we will make the most of it. Because we are women, and women persevere."

Shelley perked up for a moment. She remembered last year's speech and knew what was coming. "You mean," she whispered, "the Mall?"

A murmur arose from some of the newer members. The reason for their blind exodus of faith, for leaving their safe havens and venturing out onto uncharted suburban cul-de-sacs, was revealing itself to them.

"Yes, ladies, Sundays are once again ours and ours alone. We will not whine about being football widows. Instead, we will act. We will seize the day. We will seize the credit cards. We. Will. SHOP!"

A cheer went up, then quickly died. Too much noise would invite unwanted attention and perhaps wake a child. Kids were notorious for listening in and then blabbing to daddies. We were meeting out on the chilly patio, disguising our meeting as an "Oprah Book Club," hoping to avoid suspicion, and to keep any non-slumbering rugrats from spilling the beans.

"It is important that we approach this smoothly. No sudden moves, no quirky comments. Just casual business-as-usual. You're not going to the mall, you're going to the store. To them, the word 'mall' is a red-flag." I glared at Shelley, who whimpered. Last year she had blown her entire fall shopping campaign by declaring to her husband, at halftime no less, that she was going to the mall. "Under no circumstances are you to ever use that term. Am I clear?"

"Secondly, it is imperative that you recognize the status of the game. Men equate winning with good fortune and prosperity. If your man's team is losing miserably, it is not a good time to announce that you're heading off to spend money."

"Third, take the time to buy something with his team's logo on it. A bean dip plate, a cooler, a bikini, whatever. Put it away. If you're ever confronted about your shopping time or your credit card balance, pull the thing out and weep that THIS is what you were buying for him, is he happy now for spoiling the surprise?...how could he be so mean, yadda yadda.... the main thing is to have a defense in place ahead of time."

"Remember, you must show enough interest in his team to reflect compassion, yet not too much to arouse suspicion. But be careful - show too much interest, and you'll be sucked into watching the games with him."

A few shuddered and pulled their blankets closer. We had seen that happen to some friends last year. They had wanted to spend more time with their guys so they learned about football. Big mistake. Now they were expected to sit on the couch and listen to why the quarterback should have known the blitz was coming, or why the coach was an idiot for not 'going for it' on fourth down. Our friends had been devoured by a huge gaping hole in the couch, never to shop again. It was still difficult to think about.

The box of wine was nearly empty. The candle sputtered.

"If we do this carefully, they won't bat an eye. Keep the chips and beer flowing, and nothing will be apparent until after the Super Bowl."

"And by mid-February, ladies, they will be disarmed," I held for impact, "by Valentine's Day."

"And I ask you, what is waiting for us that day? A dinner? A big chocolate kiss? A rose? After months of un-Sundays, that's what we get? I tell you here and now, if we want a future, if we want anything, we must buy it ourselves. And we must buy it now."

The Juicebox Conspiracy

2008-09-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

With the distinct exception of this column, the price of darn near everything has been rising lately. This includes, sadly, that staple of the school lunch - the juicebox. Those little rectangles of liquid joy now cost more per ounce than gas and even (gasp!) beer:

A four-pack of Hansen's Junior Juice (4.23 ounces each) costs $1.59, or 9.4 cents an ounce.

A 24 ounce can of Coors Light costs $1.99. That calculates out to 8.3 cents an ounce, over a penny less per ounce. (Plus you can recycle the can and make something back for all your drinking efforts.)

Blame it on rising fuel prices? Hmmm...seems they can factor in the same transportation costs that beer does. If you must know, a gallon of gas is about $4.29, or about 3.35 cents an ounce (128 ounces in a gallon of gas). But please, enough about gas already.

There was something amiss here. A teensy box holding barely a gulp of apple-vapor should not outprice the nectar of the hop-gods. I sensed a conspiracy. A juicebox cover-up, if you will. Stuck between record prices and thirsty kids, I for one was not going to take it anymore. I would fight back. I would start my own juicebox embargo. First I had to sell my kids on an alternative. And I got started on that by questioning the coolness factor of the juicebox.

"I've been thinking," I told my kids. They've learned that this comment is a red flag, that some ugly new edict is about to hit the fan. "Those juice boxes you take in your lunches....do other kids still drink them, too?"

"Well, yeah, of course," my boys replied, their eyes narrowing as they anticipated my next brain sprain. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking how, well..."

"Well, what?" They knew something was up.

"For you guys, they just seem a bit....young."

One of the worst things you can tell a child is that an esteemed tradition he counts on daily, that bolsters his new-found confidence as he swaggers across the playground, should go the way of his crib. Never had they considered that those little boxes with the pain-in-the-butt, thread-the-needle-and-squirt-everywhere straws would be 'unhip.'

They looked at each other. "Well, what else are we supposed to drink?"

Soda was out of the question. That stuff rotted teeth, packed on the pounds, and was just as pricey. Wheatgrass, green tea - sorry - I'm not about to flaunt my faux Green World views through my minions. Think about their therapy costs!

A water bottle with a Jolly Rancher candy in it would probably suffice. But with my luck, I'd get busted on the 'choking hazard' issue. Everyone is sooo litigious lately.

Maybe it was time to think about swapping out a Juicy Juice for a Coors Light.

Although hops are considered a vegetable, I knew that if I gave my children real beer, some PTA NARC would come banging down my door, so I researched the non-alcoholic brews. O'Douls came in nicely at 8.3 cents an ounce, a full penny under the evil juiceboxes. I opted for cans, since glass is not allowed on school grounds. I could save even more by serving my kids Old Milwaukee NA (non-alcoholic), at 4.9 cents an ounce, but I love my children and want only the best for them.

To be considerate, I got my youngest a beer-cozy, so he wouldn't flaunt his brew in front of his DARE teacher. Nothing is crankier than a cop who can't drink on duty. It's kinda cute, with an LAPD logo on one side and an ad for "Uncle Louie's Bail Bonds" on the other.

It warms my heart to know I'm helping to keep so many of those horrid, waxed-paper boxes and cellophane-is-forever straw wrappers from littering our beautiful landfills. Even better, I'm now in the process of arranging a 'can-drive' for the school, recycling the beer cans for money. We will quickly raise enough to pay for a 'cease-and-desist' court-ordered injunction against the school magazine and cookie dough fundraisers. Those campaigns are enough to drive you to drink.

Can God Multi-task?

2008-09-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

The obvious answer would be "yes," because by definition God can do virtually anything. However, is there a limit to this? Are there times when God's so gol-dang busy that she throws up her holy hands and says, "Screw this - I'm getting a beer and a bubble bath." Purists would say "no," but they enjoy saying "no" so for now let's ignore them. They hate that.

There have been times when I've needed God and didn't seem to get an answer. The need wasn't life or death, really, but pretty important to me. And it's not like I bought the warranty and I'm owed an answer. I just expected some sort of response. No burning bush or water into wine, but at least a 'Yeah, I hear ya. I'm workin' on it.'

Of course there are many more pressing issues around the globe, enough that God has probably set up a few minions to handle them 24/7. In fact, I'll bet all the standard problems are parsed out to specialists. Famine and war crimes are most likely not dealt with by the same entities that handle the aching crush you have on a co-worker or schoolmate.

Maybe it's God by committee. That would be frightening. Do they sit around debating what to do?

Entity #2038: Really, if we must have a hurricane, send it toward Galveston. They are way overdue.

Entity #2455: How can you say that?

Entity #2038: Do you see where they build? Helloooo!

Entity #2455: Let it just fizzle out in the Gulf of Mexico so no one gets hurt.

Entity #2038: See, this is why we don't get respect up here anymore. Every once in a while, you gotta pull out some whup-ass.... 'Wrath of God' and all that jazz. They got plenty of warning. The smart ones will get out of the way. The rest can deal with Darwin.

Entity #2455 (leaving in tears): You're so cruel! Why I have to work with you, I have no idea.

Entity #2038: Have you seen what they've been naming the hurricanes? Ike, for goodness sake. They need to show some respect. What about Igor? Now that's a storm! You're not gonna hang out if an Igor is headed your way.

Entity #3223: Can we break for lunch?

"Go ahead, pull my finger."

It can't all be just chaos, can it? Then again, I'm not sure I can go on, thinking that God may well have left my fate in the hands of a few overtasked, cranky entities.

Maybe I just need a beer and a bubble bath.

"Arrrr" is for "Redneck"

2008-09-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Appalachian appellation redneck has a kick-ass history. Beyond the standard ‘sunburned neck from day labor’ theory, there are several possible roots of the word, including, believe or not, a Celtic one. No, leprechauns did not sneak in and paint some poor sod burner’s neck red. Yes, our skin reflects our moods rather accurately. Light the ire of any Son of Erin and you’ll soon discover what redneck means. We all flare quickly and righteously.

There are many similarities in temperament between the Irish and rednecks. Both appreciate a decent home-brew, are fiercely loyal to their clans, disdain nosy government, and are ever ready to defend their turf with a verbal barb or bullet.

Obviously not all rednecks are Irish, and many of these same traits apply to Scots and others. There's a reason I'm treating 'redneck' more like an attitude and not a nationality - when you're as friendly as rednecks are, your gene pool gets a bit muddy.

Just like rednecks, Irish clans are based not on blood but on friendship. Stop in any Irish pub and you’ll quickly find that out. Everyone’s a friend-in-the-making. And they don’t care if your family is blueblood or redneck. Cross them, however, and you’re done.

On the rare occasion anyone crossed him, I remember my Celtic father’s neck turning a deep scarlet, the color soon flowing up to his face. One corner of his mouth would curl, much like pulling the hammer back on a shotgun. It seemed his words alone drew blood.

“I was supposed to go to that meeting,” he once purred to an arrogant coworker, “but they found out my parents were married.”

You may be surprised to discover rednecks living as far north as New York, but the idea that they're limited to the South is untrue. Once they figured out how to put chains on snow tires and chill beer in a snowdrift, they were everywhere. And while the borough of Brooklyn runs deep in our bloodstream, the Appalachian mountain chain runs deep into New York State, so we're closer than two fleas on a coonhound. The accents on these particular fleas, however, are a bit tough to decipher.

An Irish New Yorker moving out to the country is not a huge leap, nor is it a new idea. Early in American history, cities often encouraged their rowdier, warlike inhabitants to ‘Go West,’ where they acted as barricades or buffers between civilization and the Indians. Rednecks neighbored Redskins, bonded, traded baseball cards, and did just fine.

Yo, Vinnie, hold my beer and watch this.

England shipped its rowdies to Australia. New York City used the Taconic State Parkway. Not sure what rowdy, warlike things my parents did to be encouraged to ‘Go West’, but by the time they got there the Indians had been replaced by a much more frightening group – the Yuppies.

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy defines redneck as "a glorious lack of sophistication.” Seems to me that after a while, living in the ‘civilized’ city can get tiresome. Everyone needs to let their hair down, scratch, and dig in the mud once in a while. Whether you ever put your city shoes back on again, well, that’s your call.

For me, through the years, the term has moved from being a derogatory accusation to a badge of pride. It has taken me a long time to represent my roots, but I’m finally there.

Hell, yeaaaaaah! ….You got a problem wit dat?

Anthropromorphism - The Comedy

2008-09-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make - talking animals make me laugh. In everyday life they usually don't say much, and I toss in dialogue for them if the moment seems to warrant it. Some speak for themselves, but that's another story. But in movies, television shows, or commercials, my funny bone wigs out when an animal chatters away. It truly is my comic kryptonite.

It's so bad that others turn and stare. I can't help it. I know it's wrong. I have a film degree, for pete's sake. This should be serious stuff. I shouldn't guffaw uncontrollably at a talking pig.I shouldn't wax eloquent on the best episodes of Mr. Ed. At the very least I should be selective about what gets me going, but I can't. I laugh at each and every one, from the formidable Budweiser lizards right down to the insipid golden retriever on the Bush's baked beans commercial. Really, though, that poor dog was given the worst lines ever, with no support from the other actors, and truly feeble special effects. Never mind that the lighting was all wrong. Poor pup will probably never work again. He knows it, too. Look in his eyes and you can tell he's thinking, when this is over, I am SO gonna pee in my agent's shoe.

The worst are the advertisements, since they catch me by surprise. Suddenly a border collie is schlepping pizza and I'm rolling on the couch. At least with a movie or TV show I can steady myself, grit my teeth, and think sobering thoughts. But put Yogi Berra and a duck together and I need insurance against giggling to death.

I've sat unblinking through some supposedly funny shows. I can keep a straight face when delivering a punch line. I can even stretch the truth with the best of them, look someone straight in the eye and tell them a whopper. Unless a talking animal is in the vicinity. Then I lose it.

I consulted an expert on this phenomenon. He said this trait is far more prevalent that one would think. He also mentioned that worms were tasty-

Me: So, what's up, Duck?

Doc: Quack!

Me: Yes, that was a cheap shot, but do you really think it's helpful to make fun of my condition like that? You're supposed to be helping me.

Doc: Quack!

Me: I know you are but what am I?

Later I realized he was trying to help me confront my funny demons - fighting funny with funny, so to speak. Still, it hurt. If I could associate this pain with talking animals, perhaps I'd gain some control over my giggles.

What would Dr. Doolittle do? Think about it. He was the only one animals could talk to. That meant if they had a problem, they went to him and only him. And talked. And talked. Poor sap.

Imagine if you spoke a language that no one else did. One day you found someone who also spoke your language. You'd talk their ear off, right? Poor Doolittle was chattered at 24/7, especially since most animals don't share our social graces of knowing when to shut the heck up. Which reminds me - just forget I mentioned anything about giggling at talking animals.

When First Lines Become Your Last

2008-09-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the dating game minefield, few tasks can be as odor-inducing as the opening line. Imagine yourself as a stand-up comedian. Looking out over a sea of stone-cold sober tourists, you know there's an excellent chance a deafening silence may follow your first joke, echoing like a lonely pebble tumbling down a deep chasm. You're in public, and your proverbial pants may at any moment drop to the floor. It's make or break time and we all know it.

How you handle the rocky bumps this moment holds may determine whether your family line lives on or you're doomed to channel-surfing cable re-runs every Saturday night. And while you may think the key is in the delivery, the real deal-breaker is in your response.

The following are actual lines I've witnessed my actual self in the first person. Surprisingly, many of the men actually survived their encounters:

Him(nervous): So.....what are you doing Friday night?
Me: Nothing. Why?

Him: Would you like to go to the prom with me?

Me: Ok. But why don't we go Saturday night like everyone else?

Him(in a club): Pardon me, do you have any contact lens solution?
Me: That is the stupidest opening line I've ever heard.
Him: Thanks! Come here often?

Him (tipsy):Wanna dance?

Me: Sorry, I can't dance. I have two left feet.
Him: I don't know about yer feet but yer legs look darn good.

Me:(at a bar, on a bet, in a sultry voice to a guy standing in a narrow hallway): You know, standing there like that, you're quite the fire hazard.

Him: Hu-uhhh....heh, heh....wh-what?

Him: (upon seeing a rather sparse wall): Wow, I could totally fill up these walls!

Me: With what?

Him: Dead animals.

Him: (to my friend wearing duct tape on her bottom because her jeans tore):What's that on yer butt?

Her: Duct tape.

Him: ....wanna dance?

Because of the terror involving opening lines, men especially feel compelled to bolster their bile with alcohol. As a result, many of their opening lines fail-

Him: Wouagasagboooooty?

Her: What?

Him:Wwwooougaaaasaag(hic!)boooooooty?!

Her(slap!)

Some guys realize that alcohol is not enough. They need something stronger, something to make them absolutely, irrefutably irresistable. So they reach for....lies. Big, fat lies:

Him: I own forty acres of prime Texas land.

Her: Really?

Him: Yes, ma'am. I raise prime Texas Longhorn Angus dairy cows.
Her(slap!)

Him:Wwwooougaaaasaag(hic!)boooooooty?!
Her(slap!)

In an effort to understand what the guy is saying, women feel compelled to reach for a translating device, often referred to as a margarita -

Him: Wouagasagboooooty?
Her: Whaaaaaat?
Him:Wwwooougaaaasaag(hic!)boooooooty?!
Her:(clunk!)

For the safety of innocent people and in an attempt to limit such behavior to a controlled environment (as well as make ungodly piles of money), bars were invented. Age limits were established to prevent children from seeing such embarrassing behavior. Lights are dimmed to keep from frightening the patrons. Patrons are dimmed by alcohol.

Fortunately alcohol prevents both parties from remembering anything, so they have no issues attempting the same approach the next weekend, or as soon as they sober up, whichever comes first.

For comedy's sake, let's suppose you've gotten past the opening night jitters and have a date set up, or even gotten past that and have three kids and a joint checking account. This is probably a good time to inform you that there is more than one form of opening line. There are many, many, many first lines. In fact, there are tons of levels of them, more than Warcraft has gnomes, and you will probably not survive all of them. Don't worry, though, it's a merciful killing. Let's look at a few examples. Notice that the male's response, or second attempt at survival, is usually the fatal blow:

Her: Honey, what do you think of my new dress?

Him: You went shopping again?

Her: What?!
Him:Wwwooougaaaasaag(hic!)boooooooty?!
Her (slap!)

Her: Honey, did you mow the lawn?
Him: What?
Her: Did you mow the lawn?!

Him:Wwwooougaaaasaag(hic!)boooooooty?!
Her (slap!)

Yes, guys learn to buy time by saying 'what?' or swigging a drink. But think about - is that quality time they're buying?

After a while they realize that life is just a series of potential verbal pitfalls, and they devolve into communicating in vocal and intestinal grunts. Women are free to translate as they wish, using the aforementioned margarita-based translation device and an air freshener for survival.

As the stakes rise, quite often women resort to a high-octane squeal known as nagging. While nagging is powerful enough to make neighborhood dogs keel over in their tracks, men eventually build up a resistance to it using a device known as football season.

And so it goes, until the men are deaf and drunk, the women are shopped-out, and we all end up on the couch together, channel-surfing cable re-runs every Saturday night.

The Summer of My Sons

2008-08-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Summer's great, isn't it? It's like suddenly, for a few months anyway, it's okay to be lazy. Sloth rules. You can almost feel the foggy, sleepy haze oozing out of our own craniums, soaking into everyday life, compelling us to watch mindless cable television and overlook basic rules of personal hygiene and low-salt diets, scratching our where-evers and snuggling on the couch with a beloved bag of chips.

We've been setting the snooze alarm on Life, letting the sun rise and set without us, knowing our bank account's stocked chock full of lazy days. We've been telling Time to move on without us, murmuring that we'll catch up later. But now we're fast approaching the end of the summer, and, like that last sprinkled donut that your brother took when you weren't looking, it's gone and never coming back. Much like, hopefully, the analogies in this paragraph.

My sons were already 9 and 11 and I'd never taken big, lazy, chunks of time with them. To sit, to stay, to just be. Usually I'd miss all this summer stuff, this non-doing. Instead I'd whisk out the door early, off to work in a carpeted box to push numbers around. As a working mom, yes, time was precious, but my boys' time should have trumped work time. With a little luck and a gentle push, boys are not boys forever. Hopefully they mature and, like it or not, eventually move on.

As fate would have it, I was now home. Not much money, but mercifully plenty of time to finally get to know my sons. If they would just, for the love of Morpheus, wake the heck up.

Vacation isn't so much a where but a who. I've gone to extravagant places with people I'd prefer to never see again. And I've crashed on the couch with the most incredible characters. This summer, with my sons, we didn't go anywhere but to each other. And it was great. We hung out. We slept. We wallowed. We slept some more.

I highly recommend wallowing. Nothing defines summer better than a languid wallow, wrapped in slothful ennui, and smothered in idle sauce. And if you can do it whilst being aware of your own lethargy, realizing how amazingly decadent you are while still in the moment, even better. Bonus points are awarded for gloating. But keep it humble, please. Too much wallow-joy approaches the realm of making an effort, something frowned upon during the summer doldrums. A simple, righteous "Yessss!" while you dribble Dorito crumbs down your shirt is enough of an understated celebration to acknowledge this subtle yet sacred event.

We did do a few things, ventured out to the beach, the park, the pizza place. Just to put perspective on our wallowing, of course. You can't fully recognize the real power of sloth unless you give it contrast by running around like maniacs for a bit. Then the stillness is outstanding even more.

This world of 'do-do' we live in very nearly became my undoing. The daily freeway dance of the commuter lemmings is no place to spend all your heartbeats. Luckily, thanks to my newfound wallowing ways, my life savings is finally full of summer memories. We're rich in a most splendid, if corny, way. Now if only I could get paid for wallowing...

The Fresh Air Girl

2008-08-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

The first thing I remember about Stephanie was her odd yet joyful habit of jumping in and out of our front door onto the grass. To a little kid from a New York City ghetto, that was apparently the greatest thing in the world. Landing on grass at her high-rise/low-income home involved a major hike and probably some risk. So as soon as she got to our house, she hopped in and hopped out, over and over and over. We’d hear the screen door banging closed again and again, and we knew Stephanie was having fun.

One of the easiest ways to figure out what you have is to be with someone who doesn’t have it. The Fresh Air Fund is a non-profit company that helps inner-city kids get out to the country for a while. They either attend a camp or stay at a private home. It’s a great program and still going strong. I guess the stories about livestock roaming our living room or giant moths attacking our dinner never made it back to the Fresh Air people, because they kept sending us kids every summer.

One thing Stephanie had that I didn’t was confidence. She would go anywhere, anytime, even at times defying my mother. Up until then I thought anyone going up against Herself would vaporize instantaneously. Not Stephanie. She had a Teflon soul. I wanted to be Steph-tough, too.

Stephanie was black. Her mom had sent instructions on how to do her hair properly, and my Mom did her best. But I still remember her frustration as she gamely attempted to put conditioner on Stephanie’s hair and turn a tidy corn row and pigtail or two on a very busy eight-year-old. Low-brow hijinks on a quiet country night. Kids don’t care about whether something is politically correct – it’s either funny or it’s not. Now that’s fresh air.

One thing Stephanie absolutely refused to do was pick crops. She had toiled as a child laborer, doing that for a living for a few summers to help pay bills. I found it fun to pick corn and dig for potatoes. I’m sure if I had to do it all day until my fingers were numb and my back ached I’d think otherwise. But at least I got to sling the slimy 'taters at my brother and flick potato bugs at my sister, so all was not lost.

Stephanie had her own priorities, soaking up the summer every minute she was with us. She was outside nearly all the time, picking flowers, climbing trees, playing with dogs, swimming in the pool. I got tired just watching her. Yet she made it pretty obvious, like only a kid could, just how much I had. Yes, it was different. Yes, I had to shovel chicken poo and heft itchy, heavy bales of hay. But I got the feeling from Stephanie's manic cavorting, that this poo-hefting and bale-pitching was something special. Smelly, perhaps, sweaty, yes, but special.

Later, during my college years, I would swing back and forth between campus life and working construction. Very early on Saturday mornings, I would literally step over my roommates' tipsy bodies to go work the first shift at a blacktop plant. Once a coworker at the plant was gloating over hitting a great garage sale the weekend before. He beamed because he was able to buy decent back-to-school clothes for his kids. At a garage sale. Meanwhile, my snoozy roomies at the university had spent three times that amount on booze the night before. Did this give me perspective? Of course. It also gave me mental whiplash.

There's something to be said for not fitting in, for riding the rail between farm and city, rich and poor. For one thing, when you perch yourself on a fence there's usually a pretty good breeze. And more than one view.

Camping - Do Not Try This at Home

2008-08-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

I was recently invited to go camping. I declined. Actually, first I cringed, then I declined.

Camping means different things to different people. In this case some friends were going to cram themselves into a car with malodorous camping equipment of dubious heritage and drive for hours to set up camp next to hundreds of other 'campers' unfamiliar with the term 'noise pollution.' In my eyes, this is not camping. This is a tent ghetto. When the big earthquake hits our town, I will contemplate survival in such a sheeted metropolis. I will then write a book about my experiences and make millions. I will then never have to camp like that again.

My idea of “roughing it” is cotton/polyester bed linens and/or anything below a 300 thread count. I do not "rough it." Keeping my standards above this eliminates the threat of creepy crawlies, since I’m certain bugs are drawn to cheap materials and sub-par feng shui. Think about it -you’ve never seen an insect at a Dolce & Gabbana show. Unless you count Joan Rivers.

A friend of mine defines camping by the dearth of room service. No room service = camping. To her, this is to be avoided at all costs. I can appreciate this honesty. Certainly beats being enticed out on a long weekend, only to find out that the only ‘call of the wild’ to be heard is coming from the KOA kiddie pool.

On the other hand, I love true camping - hiking into the middle of nowhere, with no one around except perhaps a chipmunk or bear, or even a bear eating a chipmunk. I'd take a bear over a gaggle of tent city rugrats any day. Bears don’t usually blast their boomboxes.

The main proviso is that I am warm and dry. No rain, please, and high-end camping equipment only. Air mattress and down comforter, and I'm there. No cooking, of course. I’ll split a pizza with the bear.

As a kid, I camped quite a bit. We were lucky enough to live on forty acres of land, much of it wooded. Camping meant throwing a few sleeping bags in the back of the pick-up and heading north through the pasture gate. However, since this was in upstate New York, whatever part of me wasn’t eaten by mosquitoes ended up frostbitten. I blame the Montgomery Ward polyester sleeping bags for everything.

It was worth it, though, to wake up in the middle of the night to watch a huge buck snort in fear all over my brother. Nothing says ‘country camping’ quite as nicely as watching a deer blast your little brother with snot.

That said, camping is either a little kid thing, a survival thing, or a comfortable get-away-from-it-all thing. It should never ever be considered as a ‘date.’

Ladies, if a guy ever asks you out on a date to go camping, run.
· Unless your sense of adventure is discovering that rainbow trout gizzards are handy for grinding laundry stains out on a washboard, run.
· Unless you welcome mosquitoes the size of soda cans stuck to your arm, run.
· Unless you enjoy watching leeches slug it out with ticks over mining rights to your legs, run.

Camping is God’s way of letting you know that there’s a lot to be said for indoor plumbing and central air. However there are now wonderful camping resorts that feature luxurious cabins, stellar facilities, and astronomical prices. This further clouds the issue of what ‘camping’ truly is. Luckily, I’m here to clarify:
· Camping Threat Level Red – anything involving parkas, portaging canoes and carrying more DEET than food.
· Camping Threat Level Orange – mosquitoes buzz the theme to “Deliverance”
· Camping Threat Level Yellow – polyester anywhere within a 100 yard radius
· Camping Threat Level Pink – no turn-down service and the pillow mint isn’t European
· Camping Threat Level Chartreuse– you call the spa to make an appointment with the manicurist and they say, “Manny who?”

Once you master these levels, we can move on to the next lesson – how to say ‘yes’ to a camping weekend and manipulate it into a stay at a four-star hotel.

Hand Over the Money and Nobody Gets Hurt

2008-08-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

I went to the bank the other day. More specifically, the bank's ATM. I put my debit card in the slot and away we went on a mystical adventure of uber-pleasant verbosity-

"Welcome to the Bank of Overly Friendly Technology. Would you like English or Spanish?"

"Great! Please enter your code."

"Hey, thanks so much for entering your code. Would you like to check your balance?"

"Hey, I have an idea. Would you like a receipt?"

"Are you sure?"

"Hey, am I being friendly enough for you?"

"It's a lovely day, isn't it? A great day to open a new line of credit. Would you like to hear about our fabulous rates?"

"You pressed '*$#%^!&%.' Is that correct?"

"Is there anything else I can waste your time with?"

"Ok, then. This was fun! Don't forget to take your card. Don't forget to walk away when you're done. The door is to your right. Just push on it and it should open. Have a terrific day!!!"

The ATM was developed to ease the load on bank manpower. If I were to opt for a human teller, I can guarantee I wouldn't be bombarded with so many questions. Because if the teller dared to ask that many questions, one look at my face would warn him that the account on my patience was overdrawn and he'd stop.

Me: Hello.

Teller: Good morning! Would you like English or Spanish?

Me: I've spoken English my entire life. I filled out my application for this bank in English. I receive my statements in English. When I approached you, I said, "Hello," not "Hola." Whatever in the world of sober reasoning would give you the idea I would prefer to chatter with you in Spanish?

Followed by my signature New York stink-eye, that would be the end of that. The teller would immediately become intuitive, a skill that's considered, for many species, a key to survival. If your surroundings become hostile, you must adapt or suffer the consequences.

However an ATM doesn't do that at all, and still we let it live. Because today's ATM programs were created by passive-aggressive marmosets, programmers who are confident they will never have to confront you face to face, who are prodded by marketing and sales schmos to fill the ATM queries with greasy, friendly chatter in order to create a 'warm atmosphere.' "You want nice? We'll give you nice until you choke on it! Bwahahaha!!"

For our own efficiency and sanity, we should pick the best tool for the job. Common sense dictates that I opt for the teller, either man or machine, that's the least hassle. Sadly, right now, that's the human.

There is nothing, NOTHING, keeping the banks from adding functionality that would make a trip to the ATM a truly pleasant and efficient experience. They know what language you speak, whether you usually want a receipt, and what your most common transactions are. Here's how it should go-

I insert my card and enter my code.

"Hi, Annie. Would you like your usual $60 withdrawal from checking?"

I hit 'Yes.'

Done.

In addition to basic respect for your time, there's a safety factor involved as well. Every second you spend at an ATM you're exposed, vulnerable to the criminal element. Trimming the time your financial tail hangs out in the wind flailing twenty dollar bills that tempt sub-stellar scalawags would be a very, very good thing. And you don't need a marketing survey to know that the people waiting in line behind you while you slog through the happy-happy options the ATM spews at you might prefer a shorter wait time as well.

Knowing that banks cater to Spanish-speaking dollars but ignore my need for speed and safety sticks a bit in my craw. Regardless of the language, numbers are numbers. If someone really needs to read the words 'checking' and 'savings' in Spanish, that's their problem. I shouldn't have to plunk through extra buttons because they are language-challenged. I don't deny the bank's right to chase multi-cultural dollars - just keep it out of my face. If any bank woke up and streamlined this process, there would be a stampede to their door.

How intuitive do you have to be to recognize I don't speak Polski or Afrikaans or Spanish? How intuitive do you have to be to recognize that when I visit an ATM, I usually withdraw $60? My bank already has this information. That they have the nerve to ask me these questions anyway is ignorant, irritating, and void of decent marketing skills. In an effort to be more efficient with their time, they are wasting ours. And they need to stop it. Now.

Just think - if this hyper-friendly interaction trend continues, it could get out of control, leading to things such as 'themed' ATMs:

The Comedy ATM

"Heeey, how you doin'? Hey, if one of our bankers pushes you, don't worry. They're just trying to check your balance!!! Hey, I'm here all week. Like I have a choice - I'm nailed to the ground here! Try the veal...and our new Certificate of Deposit!"

The Nagging ATM

"You never visit anymore. You must be using that ATM in the grocery store. What a tramp. I can't begin to tell you how often her buttons get pushed, if you know what I mean."

On the other hand, maybe they should just keep their day jobs.

Shakin'!

2008-07-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here in Southern California, we just had another earthquake. It was a respectable size, a 5.4, but far enough away (Chino Hills) that there was no physical damage around here, just northwest of Los Angeles. Still, it lasted about 20 seconds with lots of swaying, long enough for me to consider installing seat belts in my couch.

It's hard to explain earthquakes to people who've never witnessed them. We tend to take for granted that the ground below us is solid, unmoving. You should never ever feel that your living room floor has a tide rolling underneath it, or see telephone poles sway like masts on a boat, or ponder that the concrete foundation under your house is essentially dirt pudding.

There are different kinds of quakes, each with its own personality. The Northridge quake, in my opinion, was the nastiest, most vile beast ever belched from the bowels of the earth. It was a shallow, sharp shaker, much like ice cracking quickly across the surface of a pond.

For the uninitiated, imagine Cerberus, three-headed dog from Hell, grabbing you by the ankles and smacking you around like a chew toy. Imagine, as you're flipped about, that you hear your building creaking and quivering loudly, calling out to you, each nail in the timbers groaning as it's torn from its resting place.

Then it stops. Then it starts again. Then every few hours, or days, it sends you a shivery reminder of what happened, until you're absolutely sick of picking up shards of broken potted plants, and you naturally avoid standing near the armoire for any length of time, lest it fall over again. This is also the kind of event that makes you sleep fully clothed, zip quickly beneath freeway underpasses, and seriously consider donning a hard hat in your work cubicle.

The one we just had was a far cry from Northridge. It was a bit deeper in the ground, one tectonic plate greasily wiggling past the other. Kate Hutton, spokesperson eternal for CalTech, our local earthquake guru-center, called it an "oblique flip on a thrust fault." While it sounds like an Olympic-level move on the pommel horse, it's actually a good thing. Keep those plates sliding - it's like a bran muffin for dear ol' San Andreas. If something gets stuck, there could be trouble.

We're now in the post-strike mode, when bands of roving 'live' reporters wander the hills in search of chaos and ruin, pausing beside any misplaced cinder block to inquire whether it is 'quake-related' damage. We're also vulnerable to any burp of noise being considered an aftershock. The anticipation of the next jiggle is nearly as bad as the main event.

Why, do you ask, do we live here? First of all, it's rather rude to ask such a question at a time like this. Our nerves have just rattled right along with the china cabinet. Secondly, I'm in no mental condition to be thinking logically about such things. Third, check in with us in January, when you're shovelling snow while we're wearing t-shirts and shorts (and seat belts) at the Rose Parade.

Varmints!

2008-07-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting things about living in the country is the abundant variety of fauna. Just when you think you’ve met every possible critter on the block, another one shows up in the darndest place. When all is said and done, you may end up with a stitch or two, but usually there’s a fun story to go with it. With a little luck and several years of therapy, eventually you get to chuckle at it.

Just last year I went back to visit my parents, still living in the house they had built years ago. It was late August, hot and humid. I had my two sons with me and as usual, my parents insisted we all stay in the house instead of getting a hotel. My dad took me aside and said, “Have the boys sleep in the living room. You can take your old room.” There was a weird look on his face.

“Why?” I asked.

“We’ve had some issues,” Dad squirmed.

“What kind of issues?”

“Snakes,” Dad whispered, in case they were listening and trained to come when they called.

“How does this have anything to do with where we sleep?” As I said it, I realized the issues were coming from inside the house.

“Last Tuesday I got up in the middle of the night to watch TV. As I sat there, a snake slithered across the floor toward me.”

“In the living room?!” I asked.

“They must be getting in through some hole from under the house.”

“They?!?” The hair on the back of my neck was starting to rise. Like tiny little snakes.

“Have the kids sleep down there. They’ll sleep through anything.”

This is what is known as a quandary. Do I let my children sleep where there are known sssserpents ssssurfing sssatellite TV, or do I send them to safety and assign myself to a week of sleeplesssssnessss? And as I got to know more about how my dad functioned, I wondered how I ever survived childhood.

Send a kid out first to see if it’s safe. We’ve got four of them. We can get by with three. Suddenly certain childhood memories became much clearer.

The first night was rough. I made the mistake of going online to learn more about black snakes, the kind that had visited with my dad. While they’re not poisonous, they are aggressive, nasty biters, and can climb. As in onto a couch. Not a wink of sleep for me. I cowered on the couch, lights on, with a big stick. Every once in a while I’d pass out for a moment, only to startle myself awake, flailing my stick at the empty air.

Needless to say by daylight I was a zombie. I didn’t tell my boys why they were sleeping in my room. However, once they figured out that I insisted on sleeping downstairs, they suspected they were missing something and pushed to find out what it was.

Tommy: I need to sleep downstairs. Bobby snores.

Me: At least that way you know he’s still alive.

Bobby: Mom? Is there some reason we can’t sleep downstairs?

Me: I’ll tell you later. Would you like a candy bar for breakfast?

The boys were sleeping in my old room. Every once in a while we’d hear buzzing coming from inside the wall, near the window. Nothing on the outside of the house indicated anything unusual. I couldn’t find any holes. I suspected a raccoon had settled in, entering through the attic, but in August? Unless he had figured out how to pick up the satellite television feed and was watching daytime television, there was no reason for a coon to be inside. Between my snake stakeout and lack of sleep, I was already maxed out on worrying. Whatever was in the wall was staying in there, hopefully until we left.

I slept during the day by the pool, instructing the boys to wake me only if it was absolutely necessary.

Bobby: Mom, can I sleep downstairs tonight?

Me: You woke me for that? No.

Bobby: How come you get to have all the fun?

Me: How about a nice candy bar for lunch?

Bobby: Mom, it’s almost four pm.

Me: Would you like Snickers or Milky Way for dinner?

Once we left, I told my dad about the weird noises in the wall of my old bedroom. He investigated and found it to be a huge nest of wasps. The buzzing we heard was the wasps stabilizing the temperature in the nest. Or fighting over the television remote.

Through the years, other varmints that made it inside the house included:

Mice - One of my earliest memories was seeing a grey blur skitter under the couch with my mom in hot pursuit. This is probably why we got Princess, Tomcat Extraordinaire. And once Princess was gone, the rodents were kept out by the Leno-loving black snakes.

Bats – Pamplona has the Running of the Bulls. We had the Barrage of the Bats. Usually confined to the attic, every once in a while they’d swarm, skitter, and bump through the kitchen and living room. It got so bad that we kept a few tennis racquets handy, ready to take a swing as they made the turn into the hallway. Someone would casually call out ‘Bat!’ and everyone would grab a racquet. My hand-eye coordination greatly improved. Plus I was able to ‘accidentally’ hit my brother a few times. Oops.

The bats eventually left our home. My mother observed that they left for good at the same time I went off to college. Could I be the Pied Piper of winged rats? I often felt like that when I went out to nightclubs.

Squirrels – When my parents went away on vacation, leaving the house empty, a squirrel crawled down the chimney and house-sat for them. He eventually ran out of Chex Mix, got bored, and couldn’t get out. No matter how many window panes he gnawed on, how many curtains he ripped, it was hopeless. He eventually got stuck inside a vent in the fireplace, creating a stink worthy of a Republican at a no-host bar. Never, ever let a squirrel house-sit for you.

Moths – These were the B-52s of moths - huge, hulking, grizzle-suede, cargo bugs. They were slower and clumsier than the bats, and there seemed to be millions of them, swarming whatever light was lit. Nothing like sitting down to read a good book on a quaint, quiet, country summer evening, only to have your light source knocked over by flying lint buckets the size of your fist. I wanted to buy a bug-zapper and put it inside the house.

On rare occasions we could glimpse the food chain in action – a moth, followed by a bat, followed by my brother with a tennis racquet. How did the moths get in? Builders beware – nook your crannies properly, lest you be destined to live in the House of Mothra and his bungling buddies.

Birds – They attempted to get in, but it wasn’t really their fault. In our massive bowling alley of a living room, we had a picture window running nearly the entire width of the room. It was beautiful, but since we lived on a ridge, sometimes low flying birds would attempt a shortcut through the glass. Ouch.

Besides the varmints we intentionally brought into the house, these are all the critters I’m aware of that made it inside without a hall pass. There’s the viable chance that others infiltrated our abode and our parents never told us for fear of frightening us. Or for fear one of us would write a book about it. Oops.

Raising a Barn...and a Family

2008-07-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Scenario - you've lived your entire life in New York City. Recently married, you decide to move to the country and start a family. You know very little about country life. Regardless, you decide to raise the stakes by:

planting stakes and watering them

having no money

having a baby right away

building your own home from scratch and some bricks

building your own home with relatives and beer

getting drafted

all of the above

Tsk, tsk. Kids back then did such crazy things. To be fair, getting drafted was beyond my dad's control. As far as the other activities, you'll get no complaint from me. They all serve to heighten the tension in my story.

How hard could it be? To begin with, everyone you knew was yowling about wild, obstreperous Indians and the dearth of a decent deli. Perhaps all that Brooklyn barking was part of the reason my folks moved to the country. Peace, quiet, and a pristine lack of ‘How YOU doin’?’

As you know by now, my parents didn’t listen to the naysayin’ city slickers. They did eventually discover, however, that the country had its own minor drawbacks, such as:
· poison ivy
· poisonous snakes in the poison ivy
· ornery Dutch settlers
· ornery Dutch bugs
· 130% humidity
· -130 below zero winters (that’s in kilograms)
· severe thunder storms
· blizzards beyond belief
· no cable television
· no cable television even after it’s invented

I’m going to assume they were unaware of these. To know about them and still move would indicate cranial incapacities that boggle the mind. If indeed, your mind is still boggle-able.

My folks purchased a thirty acre plot of land outside of town. Very outside of town. Beyond-pizza-delivery outside of town. When they bought it, there was nothing on it except trees, bushes, grass, and the things that like to live in trees, bushes, and grass. Now there’s a lovely house on the property, and the things that liked to live in trees, bushes, and grass have discovered that they prefer living in a lovely house. Especially when it got cold. Or hot. Or rainy.

Fall is the season when all the critters that spent the summer outside begin their migration. Not south, but rather, inside. As in the basement, or attic, or, for the high-falootin’ critters, the living room. Why flap your wings all the way to Palm Beach when you can just peck a hole into the attic? While the ornery Dutch settlers didn’t welcome my parents, the local wildlife was thrilled to see them, especially when the snow hit the hill.

This all happened in Rhinebeck, a little town in Dutchess County, about ninety miles north of New York City. Well over 300 years old, Rhinebeck was founded by three Dutchmen from Kingston, not to be confused with the band by the same name. They opened a bar and the rest is history. Actually, so is this.

Anyone who moved to Rhinebeck in the past 200 years was considered a newcomer. To run for office or open a pizza parlor, you had to show proof of residency on a teeny, wilted, yellow map of the original Dutch colony of Neuuw Amsteurdauum. For many years, the town remained quite small, restricted by the obvious constraints of trying to live on a teeny, wilted, yellow map. Eventually the rules were relaxed to allow for settlement if you possessed a name with several odd, guttural consonants in a row, such as Pietr Fargenschvathing the Elder. Or a suspiciously trimmed name such as Kip.

Since my parents didn’t boast such a meritorious lineage or even extraneous vowels in their name, they settled outside of town, beyond the pale, as it were. In the pre-cable TV days, villages protected themselves from Indians, wolves, and Jehovah’s Witnesses by building timber-pole walls, or pales. Over time this pale distinction has changed from being a protective barrier to the line of demarcation for pizza delivery. Either way, a status symbol of survival.

My parents opted for a breezy parcel of land, choosing a high ridge upon which to build their home. I knew this was the highest point around because electrical storms zapped our house endlessly. Either the elevation was to blame, or God was aiming for my sister.

While there were several homes already built in the area, they were infested with the ghosts of lost pizza delivery guys, so my dad decided to build his own. House, that is. Although we could have used a pizza guy, too. Having no money, he enlisted the help of his dad, brother, uncle and any other relatives he could lure up from Brooklyn. Beer worked. So did all these guys. Hard, if not always smart.

My dad’s brother, Bob, was a high-steel union worker from New York. So of course he managed to fall through the roof of our two-story house-to-be. Luckily the wooden balcony broke his fall. Luckily he hit his head and doesn’t remember this happening or we’d still be running from his union boss.

My dad’s dad, Bob, was the consummate Irish stereotype – drinking, smoking, happy-go-lucky leprechaun with the evil grin and twinkling eyes. He also worked his tail off. Somehow he made everything look so easy, whether it was driving a coal truck in Brooklyn for puny wages, or motoring up to Indian country to pound nails with his son. He took it all in stride with a wink and a smile. Which, of course, drove his wife, Bob (kidding), completely nuts.

A sidenote regarding family names – you may notice a motif repeating throughout my family’s story – a few names, such as Bob, Tom, and Ann, are used over and over, sometimes slightly changed to prevent confusion, sometimes slurred to add to the confusion. No reason except tradition, and besides, if they were good names, why throw them out? It also saves on stationery. At times it’s bewildering, so middle names were thrown in the mix, as well as the ever-popular ‘Hey, you!’ which meant everyone came running.

My dad’s uncle, Tom (yup), was a plumber, so at least some construction was done properly. Recognizing the situation for what it was, he managed to build the pipes strong enough to support the house and the snow which piled on it in the winter.

When the Cuban missile crisis hit, Dad was drafted (again) and reported to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where my brother, Tom (yup), was born. The birth cost a whopping $12. My dad still wants his money back. Meanwhile the foundation of the house lay open to the elements all winter. Needless to say the raccoons, squirrels, snakes, birds, bats and other sundry varmints weren’t too pleased to have their living quarters unfinished. A few of them wrote threatening letters to Castro, who eventually calmed down and backed off so we could all get back to work.

Eventually the house was finished, more or less. I say more or less because in the rush to beat the winter snows, some nooks and crannies were never properly nooked and crannied, leading eventually to lots of visitors from Mother Nature’s extended family. A red-brick, split-level monster, our home had a huge fieldstone entryway with a rounded, opera-style staircase. Most of it featured hardwood floors. The living room alone had space for a massive fireplace, television, pool table, piano, several couches, and, as we found out later, various varmints.

All You Can Eeeeeeew!

2008-07-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Our local baseball team offers All-you-can-eat tickets. I've never eaten a ticket so I can't vouch for the taste. Although I have snacked on the paper my 401k was written on, and that wasn't too bad. Had to get some sort of return on it, even if it's only indigestion.

Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers of Chavez Ravine have converted one section of right field into Chowhound City. Now, for the advance price of $35, you can eat all the hot dogs, nachos, peanuts and popcorn you want. Soda and water are also included. Beer, ice cream and Tums cost extra. Hopefully the bathrooms are free of charge.

To be fair, with the sky-high prices of food at Dodger Stadium, this is probably a deal. I just couldn't handle watching the gluttonous piggies around me getting their money's worth and then some, filling the Kiss-cam as they smooch their Dodger Dogs.

How does someone eating a hot dog in Los Angeles affect you? Much like the proverbial butterfly on the other side of the world affects the motion of the earth, only this butterfly weighs in at a hefty 325 pounds. They don't have to run over your toe with their motorized wheelchair to have an impact. We’re all forking over health dollars to pay for these people’s diabetes medications and heart operations.

According to a recent article on msn.com, What If No One Were Fat?*, the savings of a leaner, meaner country would add up to a whopping $487 billion. That's almost 3.5% of gross domestic product- key word ‘gross.’ The savings on health insurance, food, etc., would give each of us $4,270- enough to buy a home gym, or a few gallons of gas.

Of course this is all wishful thinking. But if we considered overeating much like we consider littering, perhaps we'd all be a bit better off, health-wise and financially. There's a reason chubby butterflies don't make it. The other butterflies get tired of pushing their wheelchairs around.

Next up - the Marlboro ‘All-you-can-puff’ NASCAR veranda, coming soon to a pit row near you.

*From MSN Central – Money - http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/Advice/WhatIfNoOneWereFat.aspx?GT1=33004

The Logistics of Converting Livestock to Pets

2008-07-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

There's an old adage in farming that it's harder to eat an animal after you've named it. Lots of farm kids attempt to salvage a steer, goat, or pig by giving it a cute name. Sometimes it works. For instance, we named my sister and we ended up keeping her.

But most times it doesn't work. The first couple of steers we owned, Larry and Suzy, were downright evil. Yes, I'm aware 'Suzy' is a bizarre name for a steer, but they wouldn't let me name him 'Rose' after our Nana. This gender-bending of a name may have played a part in his poor attitude, but that certainly didn't give his buddy, Larry, any excuse to be rude.

Names alone were not enough to save those meanies from becoming veal parmagiana. They once chased our mother up into a tree and kept her there all day. After that, I never saw Mom tenderize beef so thoroughly. We kids soon realized that if any of our animals were going to live long enough to collect Social Security, we were going to have to take the name game a bit further.

So we not only named our farm animals, we tried to turn them into pets. For instance, we taught several of the cattle to hang out in the yard like big dogs. They learned not to cross the road or chase cars, and how to take the lid off the container of grain in the garage. My pet rooster, Chump, liked to be scratched behind the ears and would come when you called him. He wasn't quite housebroken, but his table manners were impeccable (sorry).

This pet project didn't always succeed. We often fed table scraps to the horses and cows. It's one thing to have your dog drooling patiently by the table. Quite another to have a herd staring in your kitchen window at your dinner plate-

Horse: Whinny! (You done with that?)

Cow: Moo! (Dibs on the potatoes au gratin!)

Chicken: Cluck!(Herb, is that you? Oh, my God!)

Nevertheless, we continued our furperson conversion, hoping to make them all members of our family. My dad knew exactly what we were up to. One day as I worked in the front yard, Ralph, our Black Angus steer/dog, walked by sporting chalk lines all over his body. As I looked closer, I realized the dotted lines followed the cuts of meat under his black fur. Today, Ralph was our oversized Labrador, but tomorrow....

One of my favorite moves was to sneak a steer into our house. And once we had done that a few times, we decided to up the ante and attempt the second floor. There were several key degrees of difficulty, all of which made this stunt even more exciting to pull off:

Mom - usually in the kitchen, but wary of any strange noises. Also wary of no noise at all, since that's when we were usually doing the most damage. Sometimes a sibling was bribed to launch a distraction. Sib-bribing was dangerous in its own right, though, since now the sib had a chance to snitch on you if the need ever arose. A creative counter-story and the threat of a noogie were needed just in case someone blabbed.

Front entryway- chosen because it was the widest and furthest from eagle-ear Mom. It was difficult to keep both the screen door open and the main wooden door open whilst rustling cattle through them without something going wrong. If the steer got hit by the door, it would usually reverse gear and attempt to fly out the nearest exit, usually located over your body. Any cowboy who's operated a loading gate at a cattle ranch has similar issues, except when they get run over, they don't also get grounded by their mom.
Front hallway - slate floor - loud and slippery, especially if you wear hooves. To muffle the sound, we made extensive use of throw rugs, carefully leading the animal so it wouldn't step on the loud floor. If we missed the rug, the hoof 'clank' on the stone floor would give us away. Imagine the game, Operation, but on a much larger and more physically punishing scale. To this day, when I see a throw rug, it reminds me of sneaking cattle down the hallway to the stairs. And I can still hear my mom calmly calling from the kitchen, "Get that animal out of the house." Yes, good times.

Staircase - wide, which was good, but cows are genetically stair-challenged, which is why you rarely see them in public libraries or performing in musicals. They're not keen on elevators either, but that's a story that I can't tell until the statute of limitations runs out. I can only afford so much litigation at a time.
180 degree rotation- in the rare event we got a steer all the way upstairs and into a room without being detected, turning the animal around without destroying anything (and making noise) was dang near impossible. If you don't believe me, try it sometime. One errant tail flick and a lamp or table bites the dust. We once got Ralph turned successfully but he then flicked his tail against the bedroom door, making a loud, cow-startling noise, which in turn made him leap forward, until he got to the staircase, which he tried to skip altogether. Cattle can't fly, at least not indoors.

Return trip - what's harder than getting a cow upstairs? Getting it downstairs. Something about looking downward and the fear of falling. Or maybe it noticed how our beds were so much more comfy than the pasture and didn't want to go back. Cows are hinged differently from us - their rear knees are backwards - so a staircase is a mechanical challenge. Some of them tried to 'hop' down, gaining so much speed that they'd miss the turn to the front door and end up skidding into the living room. If we were lucky, the pool table stopped their forward motion. But the eventual 'thud' usually tipped my mom off that cattle were in the vicinity. At this point it was everyone for himself. Sometimes the cow was left alone to talk things over with my mom. I never had a cow rat me out, though, unlike my sister. Cows ratted her out all the time.

Fortunately we never had a steer have an accident on the carpeting. I don't know how I would've explained that one, except to blame it on my brother. Perhaps the whole holy-cow-I'm-in-the-freaking-house situation was enough for them to keep their tails tucked tightly to their bottoms.

Once a few of the steers had been successfully smuggled into and out of the house, it was time for a bigger challenge -Tara, my horse. She was young, but still the size of a young horse. Farm animals look deceptively smaller when they're outside. Get them inside next to the couch, or even better, on the couch, and you get a better perspective on size. And if caught, a better perspective on corporal punishment.

Tara was a quarter horse, called that because they typically consumed many Quarter-pounders -thereby making their rear ends the size of buses. I never realized how big she was back there until I tried to fit her butt through the front door.

Quarter horses are known for their explosive speed. This is because their back ends are composed almost exclusively of huge, explosive muscles. And a 426 HEMI. At short distances, a quarter mile or less, they are faster than thoroughbred race horses. In a doorway, they can shift from forward to backward in .008 seconds, with enough strength to tear the wood trim off a door and crush an instep. Fortunately, the blunt force was usually sufficient to throw you far enough clear of the alleged incident to make blame difficult to prove. "I couldn't have done it, Mom. I was way over in this pear tree, pickin' apples."

Like most quarter horses, Tara also possessed incredible maneuverability. Many times we'd be trotting along and she'd spy something horrifying, such as a maple leaf or blade of grass. She'd drop her head, spin her shoulder out from under me, and I'd be left hanging in mid-air like Wile E. Coyote. This happened enough that my parents finally brought in a professional horse trainer to work with her. The trainer couldn't stay on anywhere near as long as I could, and eventually gave up on taming any of us. I think my parents wanted to give up, too.

Quarter horses are also known for their brains and easy disposition. Tara was easygoing as long as she got what she wanted. Once her brain hit tilt, however, all bets were off. So the main challenge with getting her into the house was to keep her mellow. For Tara, that involved beer.

When Tara was born, we all joined her and her mom in the pasture, basking in the glow of Mother Nature and the miracle of a new life on the farm. And the very first thing Tara did was line up my dad's Miller High Life, which was sitting innocently in the grass, and kick it over. Since then she's had a thing for beer. This would come in handy when executing the old livestock-in-the-parlor trick.

I gave her a sip or two outside, then placed the beer bottle in the hallway. Tara was not happy. I opened both doors for her and waited. She swiveled her ears, pawing at the ground. She could hear my mom in the kitchen making dinner, and she perked up at that. But she was still wary about going in the house. She shoved me, knowing I was up to something. Finally, with Tara watching closely, I went in and took a sip of the beer. Her beer. She started to whinny in protest, and I had to quickly shush her by grabbing her muzzle. She pushed me out of the way and lunged for the beer in my other hand.

I backpedalled into the hallway, aiming carefully for the throw rugs. Before I knew it, Tara was inside. I gave her a sip of beer. She dribbled shamelessly. While we had momentum, I headed up the staircase with my thirsty pony.

It's amazing what some asses will do for alcohol. By now all Tara saw was the beer. I was hoping that by the time she realized where she was, she wouldn't care. We made the turn at the top of the stairs and headed for my bedroom where I gave her a nice, long drink.

Success! At least halfway, anyway. We still had the return trip to navigate. Tara slobbered Miller all over my floor and looked about happily. The door to my balcony was open and inviting. She decided to investigate. Not a good idea, and she quickly realized that the grass in the front yard was ten feet down. The beer was gone, and Tara wanted out. Now.

I had to get her away from the balcony and turned around. I clanked the empty beer bottle, hoping to get her to follow. She glared at me, then turned her attention back to the view outside. I could see her gathering her legs for a jump. She didn't seem to consider that after clearing the railing of the balcony, she had at least a fourteen foot drop to the grass. I didn't understand her logic at all until years later, after attending a few fraternity parties.

Mom: Ann! Get down here and set the table. Dinner's almost ready.

At the sound of those magic words, Tara spun around. Thank goodness my horse ran on leftovers. The problem was that she was now headed for the kitchen. If she figured out where we kept the beer we were all doomed.

She lumbered down the hallway to the staircase. She stopped for a moment, then caught the scent of pasta wafting its way up from the dinner table. Angling her butt around, she sidestepped handily down the stairs.

To the left was the front door, to the right - the kitchen. Tonight, Tara was determined to sit at the table with us. I slipped in front of her and quickly closed the door to the kitchen. We stood, nose-to-nose. She outweighed me 6-1, but she had no opposable thumb to operate the doorhandle.

Mom: Ann? Come on, I need help setting the table.

Me: I'll be right there!

Tara responded to my mom, too, but I yelled loud enough to cover her whinny. I figured I had less than a minute to de-horse the house before my mom got suspicious.

I looked up to see my youngest brother, Bob, standing in the open front door, mouth ajar, staring at Tara's butt. To be fair, that's probably all he could see from that angle. I waved the empty beer bottle at him and whispered-

Me: Is this yours?

Bob: Wha- what? No!

Me: It is if Mom catches Tara in the house. Help me!

Bob stood there, face to face with a horse's ass, wondering how old you had to be to qualify for the witness protection program.

Me: Get some grass. Hurry!

Still stunned, Bob walked outside and picked some grass. Tara turned to see. She preferred rigatoni, but the grass was in sight. I shoved her toward the door. Bob waved the grass at her and she hit a trot on the slate hallway.

Mom: Do I hear a cow in the house again?

Me: No. I was just showing Bob my tap moves.

I tapped a quick version of a shim sham riff as Tara's butt cleared the front door. Bob closed the gate, er, front door, as Mom stormed in from the kitchen.

Mom: Quit horsing around and get in here!

I flipped my brother the international symbol for noogie-warning and headed in to eat.

The Waiting Room

2008-06-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

"The doctor is reviewing your images. We'll let you know as soon as he's done."

Word for word, that was the fourth time I'd heard the phrase in the last two hours, each repetition less comforting than the last. A safe, plastic sound bite meant to be consoling that in reality was, in all its emptiness, downright frightening.

I was angry at the nurse for thinking a pre-packaged comment would console me. Of course she couldn't tell me anything. But she knew I wasn’t stupid enough to believe everything was fine. And must she smile when she told me that? I certainly didn't return the grin. I probably looked stunned at her canned callousness, that she wouldn't tell me more. Although I'm sure she didn't mean it that way, I took it personally. I took the stupid lump personally, too. Nice timing, God.

I was being scanned and rescanned, a small lump in my left breast repeatedly scrutinized. Waiting for the results gave me so very much time to dwell on things I'd prefer to avoid. I had just separated from my husband. I was alone with two small boys. Now, in this chilly examination room, I was alone with my thoughts, and they were not behaving.

This worry-wait was too grey, too unboxed, to wrap my brain around. Shockingly, the People magazine they gave me wasn't enough to keep me distracted. Instead, my mind was racing ahead, jumping to conclusions, and flattening any synapses that got in its way.

Although somewhat housebroken, my thoughts behave best when shackled to ideas. Off a leash, they tend to scamper off to scary places, running roughshod over weaker ideas. So after several hours of unfettered playtime, imaginary graffiti covered the walls of the examination room and saccharine-sweet, politically correct captions lay bleeding and broken on the floor, mementos of my thoughts run amok.

Anger blanketed my fear. Fear of leaving. Fear of losing control, losing life, losing all. I had recently bought the cutest shoes and not even worn them yet. Lump or no lump - no way would I go with shoes unworn.

What were the odds? Fifty percent? Ninety-five? How much time was left? I was clueless and truly in the dark. At least in a sport, you had an idea of whether you were winning or losing, and you knew how much time you had left. Each breath was now measured, each click on the game clock so loud. Nice timing, God.

Yesterday my main concern had been whether the Yankees’ pitching would carry them through to the playoffs. Today, I wanted to make the playoffs.

As I lay there, I had time to prioritize, to separate the wait from the weight, hold close to the vital and let the rest go. When you are suddenly reminded out your time here is measured in finite moments, what do you do? You cut to the chase, speak to the heart, say what you mean, and skip the fluff.

I did not have time for lumps, for cancer, for tolerating politically correct terminology. I wasn't about to make time for any of it either, but no one seemed to be consulting me about whether I could fit it all into my schedule.

"Thanks for being so patient. You may go now."

I could go? Not just go, but dance, and blink, and breathe, and live, and shop. From zero to gone, just like that.

The lump ended up being nothing more than a dense spot, of which I have many, mostly in my head. Soon I was back to my daily grind, quickly forgetting my long moment dwelling in a bottomless unknown.

But that wasn’t right, either. Once in a while I think back to that cold room that my thoughts trashed, and am reminded that the game clock is running. Quietly and slowly, but still running. So I run, too. In simply fabulous shoes.

I've gained perspective and lost my ability to sweat the stupid stuff. Since the worry-wait, I’ve worn my new shoes right through and joyfully bought more. Now I try to remember that ‘lump time’ could come anytime. I waste less, live more.

Nice timing, God.

Paperless

2008-06-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I received the following letter in the mail from my credit card company (names have been changed to protect the idiots):

Your Sillybank statement is now available at http://www.sillybank.com/. This notification is part of the All-Electronic Program you enrolled in to receive your statements online only instead of in the mail.

I read it again. Something was wrong here and this time it wasn't my ex-husband. Once the dust in my cranium had settled, I realized what was twisting my linguistic knickers. They had capitalized the word Electronic in All-Electronic.

Ok, so it wasn’t just that. Or even the obscene awkwardness of the phrase only instead of in the mail, which I’m sure, asstute reader that you are, did not go unnoticed by you. Far, far worse, even more despicable- they mailed a letter, a paper letter via the United States Postal Service, to inform me that my online statement was now available. I.e. the online statement I had signed up for so I wouldn't get so much mail, so I could do my part in saving trees and keep the global-warming wonks from hunting me down and making mulch out of my hide. In other words, my darling credit card company had killed a tree in order to notify me that I was saving one. And somewhere deep in the bowels of my monthly fees you can be sure they had charged me for this lesson in irony.

How many people touch a decision like this? First of all, it takes a special someone to proclaim, “Hey, let’s mail a paper letter to people who opt for our All-Electronic Program.” It takes cojones. It takes chutzpah. Yes, it takes.... management.

Then you have the everyday cubicle-dwellers who see the decision and think, wow, that supreme pirouette of idiocy will surely irritate our customers. Do they then do anything about it? Of course not. It’s one thing to understand how stupid a ploy like this is. It’s quite another to explain it to management. Just like when a whale decides to swim away from the ocean and up a river. You can see how stupid that move is, but unfortunately you can’t explain it to the whale.

Obviously some marketing minions are involved, too. Probably the same ad jockeys who tout the ‘green-ness’ of their companies by placing ads in newspapers extolling how many trees they’ve saved. Pssst – don’t take up the ad space, and you can save quite a few more. So what’s the point here - to save trees or sell product? Aha!

We are onto you, you sneaky faux do-gooders. We know you could truly care less about the endangered perma-frost of the Sahara. We realize you’ve sold your botoxed souls to the devil’s cable channel. You want to separate us from our last shiny nickel, mortgage our left kidney to buy your product because it’s ‘bio-friendly.’ Just how stupid do you think we think we are?

Apparently some of us are quite stupid, because these marketeers continue to schlep their schlocky stuff ad infinitum. Somehow this stuff is marketably sound, a business term that means we are, indeed, idiots who don’t deserve to possess currency.

When I get a phone call from someone incredibly nice and chemically perky, that’s an immediate tip that they want to suck the life out of my wallet. Nobody I know would ever dare be friendly to the point of making me nauseous.

-ring, ring-

Me: Hello?

Caller: Hi, how are you today?

Me: Who wants to know?

Caller: Why, thanks for asking. I’m Mindy and I’m thrilled to be calling you today. I just wanted to let you know that you've been pre-approved for a low-interest lo-

Me: -do you know you're contributing to global warming?

Caller: Wh-what?

Me: By calling me and expending your breath, you're heating up the planet. For shame. I won't do any business with you until you replace the entire Brazilian rainforest and air freight 800 tons of ice to save the Saharan perma-frost.

-click-

Until we shut up the nicey-nice callers and smack down the sham green-grubbers, we will continue to be barraged with gooey gibberish threatening to recycle the last penny from our financial souls.

Or we can just ignore them. That works, too.

Maybe I'll frame the letter from my credit card company and put it up on my wall to show my tree-hugging buddies that I'm saving forests. What kind of frame would look better - walnut or pine?

Nana, the Passive-aggressive Baker

2008-06-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

My dear, departed, diabetic Nana used to bake for us grandkids. A lot. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? The first dozen times or so it was. After that - no. No. No. Every day. Every damn day. It was like the movie Groundhog Day only with Bundt cakes.

We'd come home from school, the witching hour for kiddie appetites, and she'd appear with a big ring of dry cake. She'd parade right past my mother, who would be preparing dinner, often within reach of sharp kitchen utensils. "Have some cake," Nana would say to us, which is Gaelic for If you love me you will eat this now or I will die and it will be your fault.

She would then sit down and stare at us, waiting for us to eat. Our mom, knife at the ready, would stare daggers at us, then at Nana. Our stomachs would growl at us. There was no way out without some sort of home-baked Irish angst.

Nana: I made you a cake.

Mom (staring icily at us): What a surprise.

Nana: Well, I had nothing better to do.

Mom (eyeing the paring knife):……thanks.

Nana (heavy sigh): Guess I’ll go home and watch The Price is Right. Alone.

I took up sports just so I wouldn’t have to come home right after school and witness this scene.

The flip side to this logic was if you truly valued food, you took only what you needed. A daily dose of Bundt cake was a loony extravagance. Eventually I began to associate cakes and sweets with an uneasy maternal glare. While it later made dieting easy, I absolutely freaked out in bakeries.

Nana lived next door to us on the farm, close enough to tinker with our lives but far enough away to duck the house rules. She had lived through the Great Depression and treasured every bit of food she now had. As a result, she was quite fat and suffered from diabetes. Not to judge her, but no matter how hard she stared at me, she was not going to make me eat Bundt cake until I weighed 200 pounds.

She was born in Brooklyn of Irish immigrants, living there all her life until her husband, my Pop-pop, passed away, at which point she moved in beside us in the country, with the cows, crickets, and velvet-dark, quiet nights. Many things I loved about the country probably terrified her.

City folk don't ever get to know true darkness. Or silence, for that matter. There's always something lit or noisy. Like a street light or a trash truck beeping away, I guess that's comforting if that's what you know.

But in the night of the countryside your eyes don't always help you and your ears pop for lack of better things to do. To me this was magnificent - I felt like my other senses kicked in and I could think without any distractions.

To my Nana this was disturbing. It probably didn't help that I pointed out all the creatures that came out at night - the giant moths, the various snakes, the skittery mice, bats, etc. that owned the darkness. Maybe the Bundt cakes were payback for scaring the daylights out of her.

Once she moved to the country, Nana had to learn how to drive. This was mind-boggling to me - how could anyone make it through life without driving? I had been driving tractors since I was twelve years old. Those odd city people got by without driving at all. No ‘D’ train in the boondocks, though, so Nana had to buckle down and learn.

We owned a bunch of Volkswagen Beetles, most likely because they were expendable and didn’t injure pedestrians too much when they hit them. I don’t recall many details of my grandmother’s driver education, just my dad requiring a few extra beers and colorful curses. I do remember Nana yelling at him in that special voice reserved for special offspring. Her timing was poor because at that particular moment they were heading down our precarious driveway. The one with the sharp turn and the cliff.

Somehow my dad made it through teaching his mother how to drive, but when I turned sixteen and could officially take the wheel, Nana was assigned to be my teacher. Not sure who was being punished for what, but somehow we both managed to survive. Nana was quite patient, at least on the surface, however when I didn't slow down fast enough for her liking, she would stomp on an imaginary and therefore non-functioning brake pedal, very nearly putting her foot through the floor of the passenger side of her car.

Me: Everything ok, Nana?

Nana: Just fine. (stomp!)

Me: Want me to slow down?

Nana: No, I’m fine. (stomp!)

Driving with Nana was an experience. She always made the sign of the cross before putting it in gear. After riding with her a few times, so did the rest of us.

Eventually she bought an AMC Gremlin, a car even uglier than its name insinuates. Nana’s Gremlin was baby blue with white racing stripes, a rolling exhibition of lipstick on a pig. It was unique enough that when townspeople saw it coming, they quickly learned to hide behind sturdy trees and posts.

As she aged and her eyesight faded, I questioned the sanity of her continuing to drive. "I've thought about that," she replied, "From now on, I'm just going to drive the roads I already know." Unfortunately this wasn’t comforting to anyone in her path. As you may have guessed, Driving by Braille was about as successful as Closed Captioning for the Blind. But hey, she knew the road, she drove the road, and everyone else had to get the hell off the road.

Like any grandmother, Nana needed help with some things, for instance, crossing icy pavement. Unlike other grandmothers, she had the vice-like grip of a Teamster. "Help me across the street, Ann Frances," she'd say and daintily take my arm. I'd grit my teeth for the pain that was sure to shoot through my bicep as she grabbed hold, her fingerprints later tattooed on my arm in the form of a florid, multi-colored bruise. More payback, perhaps, for not eating all those Bundt cakes.

We would bring our soda and beer cans to her to flatten for recycling. We had to carry the bags of cans for our poor, frail granny, yet I witnessed her crushing the old-style, thick, steel cans with her bare hands. This show of strength made it even tougher to turn down her Bundt offerings. If we didn't eat her cakes, she might flatten us like so many beer cans.

Nana helped out at our church, assisting the teachers with religious education. In other words, she was the bouncer. If a kid didn't behave, he was handed over to Nana, whereupon he very quickly saw God and understood the pain of penance. As the disruptive student was led away to face Nana the Corrector, other kids stared at me like it was my fault my grandmother was a drill sergeant.

I'm sure she loved us, but she had a unique way of showing it. She babysat for us kids a few times, not that we needed the watching but it made her feel needed. A classic Nana babysitting visit went something like this-

Me (watching television): Hey, Nana, what’s up?

Nana(heavy sigh): Nothing good on tv, so I thought I’d come over and look at you.

She would then plop herself in a chair right next to the television and literally stare at us. I don’t care who you are – you cannot enjoy television with someone sitting next to it staring back at you.

One night when our parents were out, Nana felt the need to use our oven. Our mother had complained that the oven wasn’t working right. Perhaps Nana felt compelled to fix it or prove Mom wrong. Whatever the reason, I was watching television in the living room when Nana called for me casually from the kitchen. Casually, as in whenever you have a moment meander over here because I’d like you to see something a smidge amusing.

Nana: Ann Frances, could you come in here?

Me: Can it wait until a commercial break?

Nana: ……I don’t think so.

Me: Is something wrong?

Nana: ……

I raced to the kitchen to see flames from the oven licking the ceiling. Nana was frozen in shock, staring at the growing fire. I grabbed the extinguisher and put it out. Thank goodness Nana was there to take care of us, and to tinker with the ornery oven while our parents weren’t around. At least now we knew something was definitely wrong with the oven, also known as the large black hole in the kitchen wall. It was burnt to a freaking crisp.

And if there was a Bundt cake in there, it was well-done.