Big Dick, the Fixit Man

Sunday, friends of mine attended a baptism where they were to be named godparents, and they had me watch their only child, Sarah.  This leads me to question their intelligence as I am not child-proofed, but I didn’t mind having one of the smaller minions from Hell spend the afternoon with me.

Sarah is a 5 yr. old cutie – all curly brown hair and dark, solemn eyes with dimples when she smiles.  She is bright, curious, engaging, and she scares the snot out of my dog, though – to be fair – BuKi lives in mortal terror of all children who like to pull on her silky ears and tail.  BuKi immediately went into hiding under my bed when she arrived.

Because of being diabetic, BuKi needs to be fed at precise intervals and given insulin.  To change her schedule results in her sugar being thrown off, and it can take days to reestablish good levels.

I was trying to coax the dog out from under the bed by tempting her with a vet-approved snack of broiled chicken while Sarah sat on the bed offering helpful suggestions of ways to get BuKi to come out.

“Swat her with the broom!”

“Sarah, that’s not nice.  We don’t hit animals with brooms.”

“Throw a shoe at her!” crowed the hellspawn.

I’m laying on the floor wagging a piece of chicken at a terrified dog.  “Broom…shoe…  Are your parents aware that they are raising one of the Children of the Corn?  Do you think I should set fire to the bed?”

“Yes!  Yes!  Burn up the bed!”  She was bouncing, and dust was filtering down on me, so I told her to stop it NOW, and be still.

“My mother says you’re cranky with her,”  said the moppet from the Inferno.

“She does?  Well, I suppose I am at times.  Everyone gets cranky.  It’s okay as long as you don’t say mean things to hurt someone’s feelings.”  (See?  I can be a role model!)  Sarahs’ mother can be very ditzy and she talks too much.  There have been times when I’ve snapped at her in self-defense.

“My daddy says you need Big Dick, the Fixit Man, ” the little snitch reveals further.

I put my head down and bit my hand to avoid laughing.  I thought, “If this was a  movie, this is the audiences’ cue to snicker at the precocious child” and I said, “Your daddy is a Neanderthal.”  Let little Miss Tattletale take that home and see how it translates.  “Your daddy is a knuckle-dragging no-neck.”

She laughs.  Adults are endlessly entertaining to children.  We’ve always been their favorite toys.

BuKi, finally, comes out, grabs the chicken, glares at Sarah, and dashes into the kitchen to scarf down her meal.  I have to prevent Sarah from following, so a tickle session is in order.

“Stop!  Stop it!  I have to pee!”  ALWAYS believe a child when they say this.  I don’t know much about parenting, but I’ve learned this much.

Fed, medicated, BuKi retreats under the bed, and – to pass the time – Sarah and I play a card game she invented.  I forget the name of it, but I think it was called ”SARAH ALWAYS WINS NO MATTER WHAT”.  After an extended winning streak, I advised her to run away to Vegas and introduce this fabulous game, become rich, and keep her parents in a kennel in back of her mansion.  That’ll serve ‘em right for asking me to babysit…

Soon, the ‘rents are back, and after they bundle up their bundle of joy, they leave, and I wait until they are in the driveway to do what I had been patiently waiting to do all afternoon.  I yell “Donnie!” and when he turns around, all smiles,  I say, “The next time you run into Big Dick, the Fixit Man, you tell him that I said hello, k?” and shut the door before he could answer.

I think I might like having kids around, you know?

You know I waited for two hours to do that, don’t you?  Of course you do.

Long Live the Queen

My sweet friend, Hannah, sent me this pic as she strolled around Seattle.  Her blog, Letters to Henry,  is one of the places I most like to be when I’m online here, and you’d do yourself a favor to look her up.

While I love the pic, I was a bit disappointed to discover that the 3$ Greyhounds mentioned on the sign didn’t involve actual greyhound squeezin’s.  I’m sure that the greyhounds are much relieved by that, but…

It’s been too cold here to do much of anything but sit in front of the fire and pretend I’m at a fabulous Swiss ski resort.  A few nights ago it was 35 below zero with the wind chill, and so cold that a bottle of water I’d sat on the table beside my bed had a thin layer of ice on it when I went to take a drink during the night.  I have the heat up, sure, but this is such a drafty place that I might as well be sleeping outside.  Both the dog and I are wearing thermals these days – how sexy an image is that? – and I have on so many layers of clothing that I feel like one of those overdressed children trying to play in a snowsuit.

I’ve caught up on a lot of work, but…I don’t like working this much.  In fact, on my list of Things I’d Rather Do, working falls below braiding the hair between Rosie O’Donnels’ cheesy toes.  It’s made me think about becoming a bum in some warmer climate.

I’d be a good bum.  I have a dramatic flair, plus – being on the small, slight side – I could engender more sympathy as I stagger towards my targets with my little paw out.  I’d follow them, too, if they didn’t gimme a dollar.  I’d press my little nose up against the glass of the windows of the restaurants they dine at; I’d stand outside their house, leaving urine stains on their sidewalk, with tears running down my face; I’d follow them to work and tell their co-workers that they promised to buy me a pot pie if I had sex with them…but they LIED; they didn’t gimme no pot pie!  At some point, my reputation would precede me, and on seeing me approach, people would simply fling money at my feet, and run away…fast.

I’d become the Queen in my torn, gold, evening gown and bent rhinestone tiara, and I would wave my snot-encrusted hands, smiling, at the crowds who came to beg for an audience with me, their beloved Queen.  (And I wouldn’t allow them one unless they brought me a pot pie, dammit!)  So…you all had better be nice to me because, eventually, you will want to say that you knew me when I was just a commoner, bitching about the cold…

I AM A #@!*% LADY!

Years ago, I saw something that made me laugh for days.  A woman in a striped dress – a behemoth! something normally seen on a tether in a parade! – was using her purse to beat the crap out of a man while screaming, “I AM A FUCKING LADY, AND YOU CAN’T TREAT ME THIS WAY, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” and so on.

She continued to beat him, and to scream, until he – finally! – straightened-up, balled-up his fist and gave her a good poke in the snoot.  No one there would say she didn’t deserve it.

Immediately, she began to appeal to the people watching.  Did we see that?  Did we see him strike her?  A woman?  Would anyone, please, help her?

As a group, the crowd turned, and dispersed.  Scenes like this aren’t uncommon in the city, and it takes more to keep the interest of spectators.  I was on the bus stop bench near them, though, and close enough to hear the man when he said, “Oh, for shits’ sake, Angie, why do you have to get like this?  You know I can’t be all bruised-up on Saturday – it’ll show up on our wedding pictures!”

The woman brushed off her dress and said, “Yeah, you’re right.  We gotta lifetime to fight about it.”

It was funny at the time, but something tells me that – if Angies’ husband has survived her tender attentions – this couple is still together while many others have fallen in battle and parted.  Why?  Because they’d already seen their monsters before they tied the knot.  They knew each other.  There’d be no surprises after the “I do”.

I was married.  Briefly.  I was young, my mother was dying, and I was an emotionally needy scrap of humanity wanting someone, something to anchor me.  I didn’t have enough life experience to understand that the only valid strength you can depend on is your own, so I was trying to borrow his.

We clawed and tore at each others’ psyches for a little while before deciding that parting was the only rational option we had, but I’ve known so many couples who hate each other and grimly carry on and on and on, both disappointed in who they are.  This is something I’ve never been able to understand.

I like to imagine that the sparring couples’ monsters eventually died, or slipped into comas, or ran away to Bermuda and that Angie and her husband discovered that they’d married their best friend, so it’s okay to be good to each other.  I like to see them, in my imagination, sitting together in the evening, hand in hand, and chuckling at how they used to behave.

Yeah.

No idea why I wrote about this, but I did, so…there…

Your Rent-A-Mommy is Here, Ruby!

Not a good day.  Today is a day for cuddling up with my dog, and reading in front of the fire.  I’m deep into Ian McEwans’ ATONEMENT anyway…(Good author, btw; always an excellent read).

It is not fair, not fair at all, on days like this, that I am not four-years-old with a warm, chubby mommy I can lay my head on as she pats my back, and tells me everything is all right…okay…all right.  They should have Rent-A-Mommy outlets for days like this, shouldn’t they?  Someone to bring us mugs of hot chicken soup, and to tuck the blankets in for us.  Will some enterprising soul please take this idea and run with it?

Have you ever seen those pictures of the pathetic, baby motherless monkeys in captivity who cling to that fur-covered, fake monkey-mother board?  Well, that’s who I am today, only it’s a LaZBoy and a ratty afghan, so – feel sorry for me, dammit!

I’d suck my thumb, but I don’t know where it’s been…

Kara and the Art of Brooding

I’m tired of writing about my (yeeech) relatives.  Let slumbering Neanderthals lie…

Spent the even ing with friends.  One of my favorite people here – Kara- was there.  The girl is almost too funny – I’m sitting here with sore ribs after spending a few hours with her and the rest.

She was talking about her prolific love life – she has the soul of a rabbit in estrus, and the face of a blonde angel, so Kara is a busy, busy girl – and said she wasn’t going to go out with anyone who isn’t fat or freakish-looking anymore.  We asked why, of course, and she said, “I’ve discovered something great!  If you’re with a fat or funny-looking guy, you can fart any time you want to because everyone automatically assume it was him!  Imagine the freedom!”  Because we encouraged her by laughing, she went on but became a little too graphic for me to write about here.  She had us falling off our chairs, though, and it felt so goood to laugh after spending the week with the People from Planet Polyester.

It felt good to go out, too.  That doesn’t mean I’ll become a social butterfly - I was the first to leave, and glad to get home again – but perhaps it means I’m finally getting tired of isolating myself.  I don’t know, though.  I’ve gotten quite good at brooding, and now that it’s cold enough I can sit in front of the fire and really get my brood on.  Do you know anyone who dresses to brood?  You do now.  It’s best done in the most comfy of pajamas, and a pair of red socks; and a shabby, but beloved, afghan is essential.  I take my brooding seriously.  All part of my training to become a hopelessly complicated and thoroughly neurotic recluse when I grow up.  Once I’ve complete the course in Brooding, I’ll take up Regrets, and it’s attendant, Self-Pity.  That’s when the fun really starts, I hear.

The reason it’s taking me so long to complete my training is because I’m not unhappy.  It’s very hard to brood when you’re not unhappy, let me tell you, so I’m sure you can appreciate the effort I need to put into it.  I did find out, though, that there’s so much global misery I can brood about that, so I don’t need to be unhappy myself.  That might not count, or seem like cheating, to those who have earned their brooding the old-fashioned way, but I’m young enough that I can still entertain hopes of being beaten-down and thoroughly crushed by life, although for that I suppose I’d have to become involved with a seriously abusive man (or go back east and live with my family), and I’m not keen on either option.

How is it possible to write all those words without saying anything?  (Hannah, I wish I had your depth, but I’m as shallow as a sun puddle…).  I’m going to end this, make a cup of tea, and get a pair of red socks out.  Practice, babies, practice!

Please Pass the Xanax, pt. II

To continue with my vacation with the People from Planet Polyester, here are more of the notes I took while being held hostage for Thanksgiving.

* * *

We went shopping all day!  What fun!

At six in the morning, one of the smallish inhabitants of the planet woke me up.  Do you want to wake up quickly?  Well, try waking – no clue where you are – with a midget wearing a snot-and-oatmeal facial two inches from your face.  The midget is poking you (again with the poking) in the chest, and snuffling.  I can almost guarantee that you will pop out of bed so fast you give yourself jet lag.

“Auntie Boo sez you gotta get up NOW.”  The midget tried to pet BuKi, but she scrambled deeper under the covers.  I’ve raised one smart dog.

“Auntie Boo is mad as a March hare, and should…”  I stopped.  The smallish one might be wired.  “Tell her I’m coming right down, okay, sweetie?”

And, so, I was told that, like it or not, we were going shopping in NYC today.  You better believe I took two xanax today to prepare.

I’d forgotten a few things.

I’d forgotten that I like the station at Hoboken even though it is dirty and noisy.  I’d forgotten how scary the subways in NYC are.  I’d forgotten that you never, EVER light a cigarette on the street unless you want to be surrounded by two dozen people with their hand out chanting, “Hey, can you spare a smoke?”  I have a few – 3 t0 5 – cigarettes a day (hush it – I like to smoke, dammit!), but I threw my pack at one of them, and fled.

I’d forgotten how very bad NYC cabs smell, and that – by transference – will YOU if you spend any time in them at all.  I’d forgotten that most cabbies hate you, have always hated you, and will hate you even more if you say something stupid like, “Oh, Jesus!  Are we near Harlem?  You’ve got the doors locked, don’t you?” as my Aunt Boo did.  (Boo lives with the certainty that every black male alive exists for no other reason than to rip the girdle off her aging, flabby thighs and rape her.  Oh, I suppose everyone can dream, though, can’t they!).

I’d forgotten that making eye contact with the man yelling, “Hey!  Hey, mami!  Ya wanna ride my salami?” will only encourage him to grab his crotch, and make the O Face.  This happened – with creative variations – throughout the day.

And I’d forgotten that I can’t go anywhere with these people without wanting to find a nice, quiet bathroom where I can eat a handful of barbituates before opening a few of my major arteries…but NYC bathrooms are even more frightening than the subways.

* * *

Thank god something good happened!

The only person I love arrived.  My cousin, Abbie.  Like me, she fled the nest as soon as it was financially feasible (only she went north to Vermont where she lives with her wonderfully peculiar lover, Jack).  As soon as she came in the door, I wanted to squeal and launch myself at her like a child.  Even better, she has to share the guest room with me.

As soon as we could, we snuck out to behind the garage to share a blunt and commiserate.  She asked me how bad it’s been, and I said it’s a new circle in Dantes’ Hell.  I told her how, the night before, I’d bent over in front of Uncle Pink to help a little one who’d fallen on her diapered butt, and he’d grabbed me and pantomimes sodomizing me while yelling, “Tell Santa what you want for Christmas, baby!” (I defy any of you to keep even a shred of dignity when your uncle is dry-humping you in front of everyone.)  She shuddered.  “He did the same thing to me a few years ago.  Jack calls him ‘Uncle Kinky’.  You should have whacked him over the head like I did.”

I’m so glad she’s here.

* * *

Giving BuKi her insulin is a spectator event.  As soon as I get the vial of insulin out of the ‘fridge, someone will announce it so that everyone crowds around to watch.  BuKi might be blind, but her instinct for self-preservation is spot-on, and she began to tremble so badly I had to support her with one hand while injecting her with the other.  The only thing I said was to the midget.  “Watch carefully.  You’re going to need this skill by the time you’re in sixth grade, and the nice man beside the playground wants to be your bestest friend.”  This earned me a dirty look from her mother, Gwen, as I’d forgotten she recently left rehab for a meth addiction.  My bad…

* * *

Three more days.  It will be easier with Abbie here.  She knows how to handle the natives better than I do.  When they began their poking, pinching, patting and pawing, she snapped, “Quit fucking touching me, dammit.”   This seems to be a magical incantation they respond to.  I’ll have to remember it.

* * *

(I’m sure you think I’m making it sound worse than what it was, but I don’t even get close to describing these people.  This is a hint:  Two of them were on the Jerry Springer Show, and they show the video each year because they are PROUD of it.  I refuse to tell you what episode it was.)

 

 

 

 

Home forThanksgiving. Please Pass the Xanax.

I went back east for two weeks.  Being away from my relatives for a few years made me not quite forget I was raised by jackals, but time made them seem much less awful than they really, truly are, so…I spent Thanksgiving with them.

I took notes.

Copious notes.

Over the course of this week, I’ll share these notes with you, and ask you to, please, consider adopting me.  I’m not too old, and I’m pretty small – in the right light, I can pass for, oh, 14 or 15 years old, okay?  I promise I won’t make too much noise or any mess; I’ll keep my room tidy, and my gratitude will make me your loyal, devoted servant for life.  I can take care of you in your declining years!  Just something for you to think about…

* * *

If I live to be 200 years old, and I still have relatives to go home to, the moment I come through the front door, someone will start to sing, “If I had a dime in a bucket…” and everyone will laugh.  Why?  Because that is how I interpreted Jim Croce’s TIME IN A BOTTLE when I was 4 years old.  My mother had me sing it that year for everyone at Christmas…and everyone laughed.  They had to find me and coax me out from underneath my grandmothers’ bed to come to dinner because I’d been FUCKING TRAUMATIZED.  Not only will those present for the incident never forget, they, apparently, have handed-down my humiliation as an heirloom much the way other families pass down good silver, china and jewelry as members of the family who weren’t born at that time know about it…and everyone still laughs.

* * *

Everyone seems to feel this overwhelming need to poke, pat, pinch and fondle me.  It’s as if they don’t think I’m quite real.  I’m going home with so many bruises it’s going to look like I had a 3-way with de Sade and the Countess Bathory.  This is more intimate than I want to be with a group of people who consider higher education to be watching JEOPARDY! while washing pork rinds down with whatever domestic beer is one sale.

* * *

My weight, or lack of it, concerns my family.  This conversation took place between my Aunt Adele and I:

“Why don’t you have children?  You need some kids around so you won’t be so high-strung all the time, and to put some weight on you.  Why don’t you find someone and have a few babies?”

I wanted to say, “Well, I know it’s traditional for the females in this family to have their first illegitimate child by the age of fifteen, but I’ve always been a slow starter.”  What I actually said was, “I just haven’t given it much thought yet.”

“Don’t get with a professional man.  Get with a trucker like my Stan.  MY kids are all healthy as horses!”

What I wanted to say was, “Horses?  Mules, perhaps.  Tell me – do you buy Danny shoes, or simply take him to a blacksmith?”  What I actually said was, “Yeah…um…they’re pretty sturdy, all right.”

“And you need to eat real food.  What’s the deal with that hummus shit and funny bread you brought with you?  You thinking of being one of those vegetarian people who always look so pale and skinny?  People need to eat meat and gravy and potatoes, too.  If you did, you might get yourself a figure that’ll catch a mans’ eye.”

I’m not a vegetarian.  I’m a carnivore.  I just don’t snack on hunks of greasy sausage and cheese impaled on plastic toothpicks, that’s all.  The closest thing they had to a healthy snack in the fridge was half a quart of milk that was two days past the expiration date.  “I suppose…” is all I said.

“You take my advice.  Put on a few pounds.  Wear some more makeup.  Find some clothes that show a little of you off – you look like you’re trying to cover everything up and people might think you got that eczema shit or something.  You don’t have eczema, do you?  If that’s the reason, I understand.  If your skin isn’t messed up, though, wear yourself something more revealing.  Look at Heather – all the boys chase her around.”

Heather looks like a misplaced street whore.  She had on see-through, plastic platform stripper heels, and every time she sat down, her dress crawled up to her navel.  She had on so much foundation that it was cracked around her eyes and mouth, and she had bright orange – orange??? – lipstick on.  Heather is Adeles’ youngest child, and I tried to see her through a mothers’ eyes.

I’m just not that maternal.

I don’t know if I’ll last until Thanksgiving.  I might have to invent some creative excuse, and get my dog and I out of here. 

* * *

 

 

Seven Pounds of Vet Bills

I was up late working on my finances (insert sarcastic laugh at the word ‘finances’).  One of the piles were the bills for BuKi, my Chinese Crested, who is diabetic, blind, arthritic, suffering from Canine Cognitive Disorder (doggie Alzheimer’s), and prone to infections of the anal glands (don’t ask), and ears.  The breed has notoriously soft teeth, too.  So much so that they are the only breed I know of who can be missing teeth and still qualify in dog shows.  She’s had extensive dental work that includes four root canals.

I added up what I’ve spent to support the cur this year, and it came to over four thousand dollars.

Four thousand dollars.

I looked down at her.  She was, as usual, staring up at me, creeping me out.  “I want to tell you something I’ve kept from you, Princess PooHeinie SquatsALot.  Do you know how you came to be my dog?  Lemme tell you the story…”

When I was a teen, my mother decided that it was time to teach me the responsibility of caring for another living creature, and that a dog would be the perfect gift for me at Christmas that year.  She went looking for a dog she thought I’d like, and found out about Chinese Cresteds.  They were quite rare then, and very expensive, but she thought they were adorable, and knew I’d love their quirky, Dr. Seuss-like appearance.

She found a breeder.  Looking at all of the dogs available, she was trying to decide when she noticed one that the breeder hadn’t presented as being for sale.  This dog was BuKi.  She was the runt of the litter – underweight, even more slight of frame than the breed is naturally – and they had already tattooed a fancy ‘UFB’ on her tiny belly.  Unfit For Breeding.  They weren’t going to sell her because they hadn’t deemed her worthy.

Of course,  my mother not only fell in love, but the idea of getting a bargain appealed to her.  She managed to talk the breeder into selling BuKi for the lower sum of six hundred dollars (the others were going for twice as much),  and walked away with the breeder still apologizing to her for accepting her money for such a puny beast.

“That’s right, sport – you are a bargain basement dog.  A downtown dog from an uptown breed.  I didn’t want you to ever find that out, but…I want you to suffer a little after looking over all the money that you, a bargain!, have cost me.”  She continued looking at me, and burped.  She burps at me a lot.  I suspect it’s her way of telling me I’m full of hot air.  “And what do you do for me?  I’ve spent half of my life with you, and I do not recall you ever – not once – rubbing my belly or preparing my dinner.  You have never stood beside me in the freezing rain waiting while I pooped so you could pick it up in a ridiculous, little bag.  You haven’t even applied antibiotic ointment to my anal glands, and let me tell you how disgusting THAT is, chickadee.”

“What you HAVE done is cost me a ton of green.  You’ve dragged me on walks in the middle of the night.  You’ve turned your nose up at the dinners I give you.  You’ve puked on everything I own, I think.  You’ve barked in my ear while I was in the middle of a dead sleep just to wake me up and rub your tummy.  On top of all that, you get under the covers in my bed at night and fart like a maniac (it’s awful, it really is – I keep a can of Febreze Extra Strength on my bedside stand).  You are a thoroughly useless and problematic creature, and I am going to make slippers out of you, I am.”  She yawned, turned in a circle, sat down in exactly the same place, and stared on.

I went back to working out a budget for the coming year.  A little later, I feel a very delicate, nearly not there, touch on my leg.  I look down and she is holding out one paw, barely brushing against me.  This is her asking me to, please, pick me up – do you mind? – it’s time for me to be held now.

I do so.  She likes being held in my arms like a baby while I swivel in my chair.  She snuggles into me, and sighs.  In a few minutes, she goes utterly limp as she falls asleep.  She trusts me.  She knows I’ll never hurt her, never drop her, will take care of her…and this goes directly to my withered, blackened heart. 

I’m being held hostage by a farting bit of fluff.

Still Looking For the Parrot in Me

I don’t have a thing to say today except that I’m cold, I foresee myself getting colder, and I’m already praying for spring, so I went into my stash of handwritten journals to find an entry that is suitable for this snowy day. 

I wrote this shortly after moving here a few years ago.

*********************

The area I’ve moved to is known for harboring eccentrics.  In the summer, the roads are often congested by recreational vehicles full of tourists from Iowa (I think all tourists are from Iowa even when they are not) travelling no more, and no less, than 32.5 mph so that they can stare at the most colorful of the natives.  (My personal favorite is the old man who dresses like Pinocchio and juggles as he walks back and forth in front of his puppet shop.)

The natives depend on the tourists as most of them either own, or are employed by, the small shops featuring things like handcrafted guitars and dulcimers, handblown glass, medieval clothing, occult and New Age texts, herbs and spices – you know the type of town I’m speaking of.  You might even be wearing the handcrafted silver cuff bracelet or tie-dyed pajamas you bought there now.  (You are, aren’t you?  Are you from Iowa by any chance?)

I thought, at first, that the eccentricity was an affectation employed solely to ply their trades, but I’ve since learned that most of them have established permanent residences in Oz.  Whether they began this way, or became what they are after wearing the suit for so long isn’t clear, but its true to say most of my neighbors are as colorful as the parrots in the Amazon.  Beside them, I’m the small, pale ghost slipping around, and beside, them.

I was walking in the new snow this morning.  I heard a snowmobile coming up behind me, and I turned to see an elderly couple wearing boots, gloves, hats, scarves, and nothing else go past me.  They were laughing like children, and thoroughly delighted with themselves.  I filed it in my “Thought I’d Seen Everything” bin, and watched them disappear over a small hill.

Will I ever have the courage (or thick enough skin) to snowmobile naked?  Will I ever want to?  I look around inside myself trying to find something I want to do that is exceptional, even a little odd, and I come up empty-handed.  It’s not that I want to be different because I crave attention – I’m willing to adopt a solitary sandbox of weirdness to play in – it’s a matter of wondering if I have an underfed parrot somewhere inside me at all.

I don’t think I’ll ever want to snowmobile naked, but I’d like to be the kind of person who would do it, laughing like a child, if I ever did want to.

I am passive eyes and ears.  I observe.  I listen.  Perhaps that’s my role – what I do – but I’d like to take part one day as well.

Wonder if I look hot in a scarf?  Hmmm…..

Well – It Certainly is White, Isn’t It?

The first year here when I was still excited by the snow

It turned cold and gray today, a light snow falling and much more to come in the forecast.  I’ll spend the next week hoping that the roof doesn’t cave in, no bears decide to crawl into bed with me, I don’t lose my dog in a drift, and putting off going into town until all that’s left in the cupboard is half a box of stale crackers and an inch of peanut butter…and the dog has begun to hide her succulent, moist, fleshy self under the bed when I fire up the oven.

I love the way the fallen snow looks.  I love the hush that accompanies it.  I love sitting in front of my fireplace underneath my afghan reading and dozing with Buki curled-up at my feet.  What I do not love is shovelling the stuff for hours until my fingers are frozen, blue claws, and driving in it.  My best method for driving narrow, treacherous mountain roads in the snow is to shut my eyes and scream loudly until I’ve arrived at my destination, so – if you see me – it would behoove you to pull over to the side of the road and say a prayer until I’ve passed you (I’m the screaming woman in the eggplant-colored PT Cruiser with the clichéd Hawaiian hula dancer on the dashboard, k?).

If no one hears from me ever again, assume that I’ve either been eaten by bears, mountain lions or cannibals (I live near the famous scene of the Packard Party who ate each other to survive their first, brutal winter).  If I have to choose, I’ll go with the cannibals.  At least the pot of boiling water they’ll throw me in will be warm…