Saturday, November 27, 2010

Why I Hate Black Friday

My most comfortable pair of Reeboks bound my feet like some Geisha ritual, and my tongue was a piece of tattered felt; I could kill for a G & T but day's end would be but a leg of the journey. Was I at war, in the trenches, ready for another shelling to spray my comrades? No, I was just trying to find a working clock in the 3rd section of the market place in an IKEA store in Round Rock, Texas.

Very clever of the Swedes: there's no clock to be found--so if you've been cavalier and forgotten your wristwatch, you're dead meat. Still it's "the most wonderful time of the year," so one must do one's part. Truth be told, if we don't break at least five of the seven deadly sins, it just ain't Christmas.

"Sir, do you have the time?" I mumble raggedly to a man staring at kitchen gadgets.

"Ten of," he replied wearily.

"Uh-ten of what, if you don't mind."

"Ten of five, Ma'am. Long day?" He chuckles.

"Yeah, thanks. Long season." I'm turning away when he remarked,

"Well next time you're in this store, wear a watch-their most ingenious marketing plan is the lack of working clocks within sight of customers! You're gonna spend the day here."

"Oh Lord." I laughed too at this point. "No wonder we seem to camp out at IKEA. Well, Merry Christmas to you," I called cheerily, immediately catching my non-PC greeting.

"Thanks but I'm Jewish." He laughed. Wouldn't you know the one time I don't say "Happy Holidays," it's a nice Jewish man?

"God love ya." I said. We both laughed.

"Yeah," he added, "biggest mistake we Jews ever made--no Christmas--beats hell outta Hanukkah for retail."

We went our separate ways, both searching for the check-out lanes, miles from where we were.

IKEA is popular in many countries, but it's easy to see why Americans are wild for the place. It offers cheap, colorful and well organized STUFF, has something for everyone and even though you aren't always sure what you've bought, or how to assemble the neatly packaged gizmos, you're delighted with the prices

In America we're obsessed with cheap crap, and seconds-stores or overbuy outlets are more popular than ever. Entire malls are dedicated to outlets from the major design establishments, although it's hard to imagine why. . . do we need a rack of pink Polar Fleece vests in sizes 2 and 3? How do we justify taking home bags and bags of slightly dented picture frames or cute tins of tea with bruised cellophane wrappers? How? Because it's there. All over the place, it's just there.


Tuesday Morning is an establishment so crammed with department store overbuys they close early on Mondays in many locations, in order to make room for new shipments on Tuesdays. The store is incredible and chock-full of household items such as printed napkins in cow-hide designs. It's so crowded near the holidays it takes hours to get in and out, and by the time we check out we're so drained we contemplate the meaning of life. And not in a zen way.


We're dying of thirst, so we must, absolutely have to try that new holiday diet cranberry limeade freezy super drink at Sonic, but once we pull into the parking place, neatly supplied with reading materials announcing in neon colors the latest ice cream drink, we're also starved, so we order Tater Tots with Frito Pie Wraps, consisting of Fritos, chili and cheese neatly folded into a large flour tortilla.


Home again, deluged with tangles of plastic bags, we've ruined our appetites for a normal dinner, hopping instead into the shower, outfitted with automatic cleaning attachments and chrome dispensers of seven types of cleansing products. Hitting the sack, we think how great are these sheets: 375-thread count Egyptian cotton in peach and sage, luxurious to the max. But we got them at Ross for 1/5 the retail price. Drifting off, we murmur with our last breath, "God bless America."

Friday, November 5, 2010

Politics Again

It's always occurred to me that wherever two are gathered, there is politics. Often a sore subject for myriad reasons, politics is always with us. Like the poor, you say? Well it depends on how one reads that text, the phenomenon itself representing an aspect of politics. Politics of the word; how to interpret; how to restate; how to "bend it, shape it, any way you want it."

People may say, "Keep your politics to yourself. Write to your senator; don't talk to me." That works until the social security check does not arrive. Until the veteran's benefits run out. Until the Medicare check fails to arrive. Until that college loan is denied. Until the mortgage is foreclosed upon. Politics affects the way the world rolls. And THAT affects every person in every country at every hour of every day. And there's nothing to be done about that.

It would behoove us to look at the huge picture more often than not. To look at the facts as closely as they can be gleaned and reported to us. To vary our news sources. Whoa, that's a big one. For we're as devoted to our news sources as we are to our religious sects or our NBA teams. . . which can often become confused, as can our political-party affiliations with our fondness for labels. Pepsi or Coca-Cola; Ford or Chevrolet; Elvis or the Beatles. And on and on and on.

Politics has become nasty this year--calls for the president's demise. How sad is that? I couldn't abide even hearing Bush's voice. . . but I wish the fellow well. So the current vicious calls for vengeance (which is supposed to belong to God, isn't it?) baffle and disturb me.

We knew, all of us, that these Mid-term elections would be quite the tussle. We knew people would throw epithets and hurl insults, start rumors, sling mud and wrestle one another's ideas to the ground.

(What startled me was when three of the present senator's "crowd control" workers wrestled a protester to the ground.) One threw her to the concrete, another slammed her head on a curb and one of them stomped on her head, giving her a concussion--tiny little thing, brave as can be--and the bodyguards were like linebackers. That is just not right. In fact that is hard even to think about. The girl didn't even hurl insults or curse words, did she? Did she deserve even to be escorted out in a gentlemanly fashion? I don't think so.

I got this news from Reuters (which has displeased me greatly of late), NPR and CNN. . . later I read some additional reporting from Huffington, Keith Olbermann, MoveOn and other shared links via Facebook. I didn't watch or read FOX because I never have and never will--I know their agenda and don't agree with it; this is America and that is that. I must respect the source of my news, or why read it at all?

I know we're all different. That some adhere to their party as viciously as they adhere to their church's tenets. And it's clear that some people despise the opposite party on principle. Really, some haven't been out of the country or even listened to the stories of people of other ideologies very carefully at all. There are millions of traditions out there. Some function well; others struggle even to keep clean water. The political party in power can make great headway using its resources, or it can just bow to the money every time.

But we're talking about the very diverse United States. The place were Mickey Mouse was born. The place where Coca-Cola and Pepsi were invented (for better or worse). Where jazz came from. We're all over the place, and it's always meant to be that way. Try driving down the highway without running into some sign of diversity. Can't be done.

We have two parties for a reason. Tell you what: I'll help make mine the best advised and most scrutinized, cleanest and hardest working damned party on earth. . . and all I would ask of members of the other parties is to stop and think: is vilifying the opposition getting the job done? I mean really?

If we're snide and mean enough, does that signify the mark of great nations? If we attack the woman holding the sign, what does that mean? How close to criminals are we willing to get, in order to have our own way?

We can't get anywhere, or conserve our safety without a good automobile and a balanced driver. But we're skidding into oncoming traffic this very minute.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

With Apologies to Will Rogers


I never met a mango I didn't like.

Mangoes.

They're impossible to describe. The color alone is blindingly sunny. Drippy, syrupy sweet/tart sexy fruit!

Think jungle fever overdosed with rum. Pulpy lemony angelica. Peaches on crack.

From the first time a Brazilian fruit platter swung near me, heavy on the mangoes nose-high, I've been hexed and have wanted only more. In Brazil they grow large, almost like footballs, and the varieties are yellow-skinned or coral blushed (as far as I remember).

Mexican mangoes are plentiful in the south year round, and in the central or north, they start showing up in the markets in late spring (I am in the central highlands, so their arrival may vary according to other regions.) The aroma intoxicates even before the golden-red orbs come into view.

My favorite mango recipes don't mess around with the fruit all that much. Slice it, squeeze the juice over the pulp, eat it up. Throw in some Kiwi, maybe a fresh tangerine, but not much else.

To get the most fruit from the skin, you cut them in half, one half delicately carved around the slippery large seed. Then after scoring the flesh into little squares, turn the curved half inside-out, and you're ready for a grapefruit spoon, or bare-mouthed bites. Prepare yourself. The earth will move.

One mango a day would cure the devil of all ills. The vitamin-mineral content is off the map. But the flavor itself makes it so popular. Many American markets offer fresh ones, but if you can't find them, they sell frozen mangoes these days--go for it! In a pinch, use them drained from a can, found in the Mexican/Central American sections of good markets.

A few diversions with mangoes:

The Mango Mimosa

4 freshly peeled & chopped mangoes, pureed in blender with 1 liter or quart mango nectar. Fill champagne flutes halfway, top them off with chilled champagne.

Mango Silk

Into the blender container, place: 3 mangoes, peeled & chopped. One can sweetened condensed milk. One cup heavy cream. Blend on high, pour into casserole dish, cover with plastic. At this point, you must decide: freeze it for a fabulous ice cream, or chill it for the smoothest pudding ever.

Fresh Mango Pie

Into deep-dish pie pan prepared with one layer of dough, place 4 or 5 (4 cups) sliced mangoes. Dust with 1 cup dark brown sugar, a bit of cinnamon and cloves, and a light sprinkling of all-purpose flour. Top with pie crust, make a few slits in the top. Brush with beaten egg yolks, sprinkle all over with sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees; lower temperature to 325 and bake for 20 more minutes, 'til top is browned.

Excuse me--I have to check something on the stove. I'll be back at a later, to-be-determined time. Probably not 'til after supper.






Sunday, October 31, 2010

Fear Itself

Today is Hallowe'en, one of the few days of the year designated for enjoyment. Candy and outdoor gatherings for the kids, trick-or-treats under the windy dark skies, in the guise of one's favorite character, letting go of self for a while. It's heaven for kids and oldies too.

Hallowe'en rocks. I love the part when the doorbell rings and raggedy clutches of costumed kids shout, "Trick or TREAT!!" Giggling with them, it's so much fun to act afraid and say "Oooooooh! Scary monsters!!!" Watching them skipping away, sneaking peeks inside their bags to see what they got this time, I remember going out with my brother and the neighbors, getting so excited to be outdoors at night, listening to the rustling of leaves circling the trunks of the darkened trees.

Spooky feelings were so delightful we would laugh suddenly and madly, as if we had best enjoy the moment before it combusted spontaneously. The myth that someone might put razor blades in the candy made it even better--real danger existed and we'd better watch out! Scream to your heart's content! Today it's encouraged!

Today as adults we can still enjoy Hallowe'en, but this year's has taken on a rather sinister quality. God forbid that we pass this scenario on to the kids and grandkids. . . they do not deserve it. . . let them trick and treat freely, as they'll grow up soon enough.

"Be afraid! Be very afraid!"

The message has become a mantra, a remonstration, a quasi-national command performance. Be afraid of the Muslim--of all Muslims. Be terrified of the immigrant, especially those coming from south of the border. Woe unto thee all who espouse gays, are gay, or who approve of gays: your day of reckoning is at hand. Tremble at the spectacle of social programs, most of all! They may overtake our "freedoms!"

The United States has become such a place of propaganda FOR being afraid, perhaps we should change our national symbol from the Bald Eagle to the plucked chicken. Wimps we are charged to become; but wimps don't get much done. More's the point. Wimps follow the leader to the nearest exit, to the ambulance entrance, to the right-wing rally, and finally to the soup line.

Yesterday's "Rally to Restore Sanity" mounted by Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert made a difference for me--their message was : turn off the set. The static is in your head. Don't listen to the media all the time. Think. Think for yourselves. WE are AMERICANS. We can make the changes we wish, without going off the deep end.

I appreciated that. For violence in real, every day life is scary. People who are armed and at the ready, for the invasion of nonexistent perpetrators are all over the place--they go off half-cocked all the time. Turn on the news if you don't believe me. But there are truly other ways to choose to live. Harmony is just around the corner.

Answer the door. Children are waiting. Make them happy today--and take today's message into the tomorrows of all time. "There is nothing to fear but fear itself."--FDR

"That the creatures of worry and care fly above your head, this you cannot change. But that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent." -- Chinese proverb

Friday, October 15, 2010

Pause for a Commercial Break

Watching a Cheerios commercial yesterday, its concept slapped me silly: the dad uses his heart condition as an excuse to keep his son from eating said cereal.

"Your mother cries herself to sleep worrying about my heart." The dad slumps over the bowl. Son walks away from this pathetic heap of a father, seeking his own breakfast.

In another ad, a mother and father watch as their son drives down the country road, toward their farm house from college. . . the boy is clearly ecstatic to be home and we presume it's the first time he's had a break from the dorm.

"Quick! Hide the snack crackers!" cries Mom. Dad shoves the box into the cupboard so that son can't share their stash of precious snacks.

A tuxedoed father of the bride escapes from the flower garlands of the church, hiding his cheezie doodles under his jacket, eager to leave his daughter's wedding so he can grab a few clandestine bites.

We've become accustomed to seeing the kids squabbling over the cookies, spewing in loud volumes, "GET YOUR OWN BOX!"

"Leggo my Eggo!"

Get your hands off my food! WHAT a concept for a family. But maybe it sells cereal. Who knows?

What does it say about who we are? Are we sharing, giving, caring people who nurture our children, taking a back seat 'til they've been fed and cared for? Well, it seems we're the opposite.

Obviously the message to our own children and grandchildren shouts, stingingly clear messages assailing us daily: get ready, kids. We're taking your cereal, your cookies, forfeiting your wedding plans and visits home for the holidays so we can have this quick bite. And forget about a healthy earth. Don't even think about it.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Harvest Moon

Once the farmers would gather to help one another harvest their corn, wheat or cotton, and once a year the moon provided enough light for the workers to continue through the night--hence the name, "harvest moon."

The women would gather to help one farm family, carrying their special covered dishes, working all morning in the kitchen, slicing cakes and pies, making last-minute gravy to feed one-hundred or more. Somebody brought the ice in big blocks from town in a wagon, keeping it covered with straw and blankets, 'til it finally melted in a strong glass of iced tea in the workers' freshly-scrubbed hands. The harvest meant plenty--enough to live on for the winter and spring, until planting time came and the life process began again.

Harvest moon. I remember the song of that name, sung a capela on long warm nights when the grown ups would croon together after picnics in summer or early fall. They would sit for hours, crowded atop wooden picnic tables under pine trees in little parks scattered throughout East Texas, laughing and singing old love songs. . . "For Me and My Gal," " September Song," or "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me." The singers lingered late, until we babes finally stopped ripping through the sandy playground to droop onto Mother's lap and Daddy would finally carry us to the large back seat of the Pontiac.

The park was not far from our house, but nothing was too far from anything in the small town. Little square homes glowed with lamplight in the windows framed with diaphanous Priscilla curtains. Golden spots issued forth from night-tinted violet clapboard--I would wonder who was inside, what they were doing. Always at night the homes seemed peaceful, calm, nurturing, the neighborhoods so quiet that one dog's barking would lead to another's uproar, down the block.

To be able to run free as a child at night, hiding among the trees and calling out to one another through the darkened lawns: what a delightful state of being. Now I look at the sky, the harvest moon stunning, its copper toned face astonishingly grand, and I remember how it once shone onto a different world, in which we exhausted ourselves with few worries or cares.

It is the same moon, bathing us in the same light through the same navy blue skies. Only we have changed during all this time.


Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Unexamined Lives

September arrived today--hello, old friend, birthday and anniversary month, harbinger of stronger breezes and colors. Time for bag-packing, car-tripping, trail riding, as well as campaign trailing, envelope stuffing, and phones-working. It's back to school for everyone, or hopefully it is.

We're like ants with cell phones, filing in and out of schedules in wavy uncertain lines, following the leaders even if we don't know where they're off to. Destination to be announced, we hardly notice; we're programmed to tag along.

As school children draw outlines of leaves and learn their lessons well, I question the way we teach them, and to what end. I hope we can allow them to decide some things--politics and religion--for themselves within their own family traditions, or according to their own observations of life.

Is it possible any more? Could we respect others' decisions and beliefs? Do we expect them to respect our own?

Back in '85 I overheard a worn out, hungry musician, entering a homeless shelter in time for a bowl of soup, preach the following idea to his neighbor.

"We got to put a little oil on our relationships!" His long fingers clawed the air like dry limbs knocking wildly on a darkened window.

No one else heard--or at least no one reacted to--this declaration, but I've never forgotten it. The man kept on talking, but I walked straight into the kitchen with that idea on my mind: of lubricating the joints where I leave off and other people begin.

Boundaries, deferences, and certain social hesitances, grow between us like ancient hedgerows. . . preventing our personalities, privacy and dignity from blending uncontrollably with those of others. We need those boundaries in order to preserve what is ours, and to make our own paths strong, according to our own decisions.

But tolerance--allowing others to be themselves, to live among us peaceably, to grow and to love--represents most assuredly a sign of advanced civilization.

Can we manage to face ourselves as September wafts into the windows? To assess where and who we really are? To alter ourselves while we can still think on our own, in the midst of whirling propaganda so powerful it threatens to sweep to the skies all that we know?

"The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates announced during his trial for heresy. He would have preferred to die rather than to give up his philosophy. Messages come to us from across centuries, across thousands of miles, across cultures and religions and traditions.

We're free to consider these notions, or to bat them away like flies. For such is our right. For the moment.






Monday, August 9, 2010

Remembering Ruth

In my bedroom trunk lies a photograph, sandwiched between my grandmother's memorabilia, a broken cardboard Shamrock and a Garden Club program. In this yellowing black-and-white picture my Aunt Ruth is walking--almost running--gaily down a red brick street in Nacogdoches, holding hands with her girlfriend, who pales by comparison.

She sports--not wears--a wool plaid jumper over a white cotton blouse and Cardigan sweater with Bobby socks neatly folded over Saddle Oxfords. Her carefully combed hair is parted just so, then it waves over her perfect forehead, pinned with a spunky barrette. She must be in her early 'twenties, for the picture seems to have been taken in the late 1930's. In this abandoned snapshot one aspect is stunning: Ruth is absolutely beautiful. Young, strong, bright, poised and absolutely beautiful. She was my grandmother's little sister.

The picture says it all: she was vibrant, intelligent, graceful. She was Lucille Ball's age, elegant, fun and a living doll. Ruth was young when everyone "wore a hat, " as John Cheever wrote of that golden age. She had a level of class one simply cannott attain--she was born with it. Gentility was bred in her bones; born into that era and category of elegance, style, grace, lightheartedness and above all beauty. Effortlessly, she carried beauty into every situation, into every single activity. Ruth had an innate sense of aesthetics which my generation missed, somehow. Oh, we were pretty, as young women, but it was never first and foremost for us, with all our fish to fry.

Ruth's generation of women, and she in particular, radiated beauty in all things and in all ways. She was born lovely, grew up even lovelier and as she grew older she did and said lovely things, and everything she touched turned into something pretty. When Ruth casually tied on a cotton apron, it became a ruffled ball gown. She never tried to be something she was not, and this core of authenticity made her even more beautiful, for when she spoke we believed her; being around her made us into better people. Ruth loved her family; adored her sisters and brothers; loved her neighbors and friends and life itself. Her laugh, that blue-eyed knowing grin, could light up a whole room.

So, we all grow old. It's the way of the world. Ruth grew old gracefully and kept on growing older gracefully and carried grace with her, a sense of the positive, lovely side of this world, right up to the end. She said she would live to 100, but even someone as strong as darling Ruth could not make that wish come true. But with all her illnesses and trials, to know that she was determined to make it to live out a century entirely, touches and spurs us on to do our best, to live up to higher and higher ideals, even through darkness, fear and the deepest tragedies of life.

The one person who helped Ruth to believe in the positive was her beloved husband Dick. She was certainly lucky in love, for he could make anyone feel as if both sides of the street were the sunny side. He loved her in the way of fairy tales, and she loved this man with her whole heart, through thick and thin, right to the end. He was her Knight in Shining Armor, she was his fair maiden, as unrealistic as that seems. Dick made Ruth live up to what she was to become: a beautiful strong and loving woman who knew that one way or another, everything would be all right. We will miss you, Ruth, and will hold you as an example for all our days.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

In Praise of Richard Russo


Read any good books lately? It's been ages since a novel really grabbed me, with few exceptions. Nice when one does, although admittedly, few have come close in recent years.

Fashionable or self-conscious method ruins a good story for me, even if it does work out as a decent plot. For several years, in order to sell a story, some authors have taken to impairing the narrators to the point we can hardly understand said person. We must decipher these texts through the eyes of someone with brain damage, Asperger's syndrome, or full-on Autism, such as the charming THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME, although some go too far, and we must endure disentangling plots of children raised by wolves, only to find out their parents were academicians whose schedules were so booked, they forgot the kids in a Peruvian airport, and crap like that.

Then there are the latest title constructions. For a while now, authors have scrambled for zesty combinations of relatives to bind together on a book binding. First we had THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE, by Amy Tan, which seemed perfectly acceptable at the time. . . good story, well told, fair enough. But it was apparently far from enough. Streams of similar titles have subsequently lined the shelves. A mere sprinkling of them:

THE TIME-TRAVELER'S WIFE
THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER
THE HERETIC'S DAUGHTER
THE SENATOR'S SON
THE TIME KEEPER'S DAUGHTER
THE PIRATE'S DAUGHTER
THE WIDOW'S HUSBAND
THE PIG KEEPER'S DAUGHTER

Surely we've seen the other titles whose writers jumped onto this paddy wagon. Eventually they'll run out of kinfolk. Picture THE QUEEN MOTHER'S AUNTIE. . . or THE ARCHBISHOP'S SWEET GODSON . . . or THE FRUIT JUGGLER'S SECOND COUSIN, ONCE-REMOVED.Thank goodness the family tree scheme should inherently be short lived.

Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS rose above short lists of others--its dysfunctional family characters making reluctant exits at the story's end, however shady remains the plot. Certainly I recall some of the wacky tight spots they got into. I had few qualms about the style, at least.

Kathryn Stockett's THE HELP was a triumph--it knocked me flat, its theme one of such recent urgency, according to the headlines, it's appalling. A southern writer secretly, dangerously and daringly gathers black housemaids to tell their stories of working for upper-income whites in 1950s Mississippi. The effect of its overriding fear and loathing overwhelmed me, as did its dead-on honesty.

AMERICAN WIFE, Curtis Sittenfeld's fictionalized story of Laura Bush, also renders a complex--even baffling--story very well indeed, possibly approaching the standing of Great American Novel. At the end, we know as little as we did at the beginning about why people make their decisions, and this uncertainty fulfills the plot's needs as much as do her letter-perfect character renderings. Add to these ON BEAUTY by Zadie Smith, THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt and THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini, and my mind's skipped for sure--there must be dozens more truly great novels around.

Still one longs for something meaty in which to sink the bicuspids. Recently in a fit of literary boredom, I looked up Richard Russo's list, and discovered STRAIGHT MAN, which had bypassed me somehow.

Russo's biggest hit was NOBODY'S FOOL, a searingly poignant American story of a down-and-out drunk who attempts another bat at life; the novel was made into a movie starring the late Paul Newman. Another great one was the saga of a failing economic community, EMPIRE FALLS, one of my favorite novels in the last three decades.

I finished STRAIGHT MAN today, and found out at last what happened to comically pathetic Devereaux, the English professor who had dug so many permanent holes for himself no one could ever climb out. Did it make me want to be a better person? Well, sure. But it also opened a curtain into a whole structure of relationships--a small town university setting, its diffident royalty and its paranoid peons, their loyalties, hypocrisies and deadly grudges--making me cry at the sheer tragedy of life, while laughing at it too, most especially at my often deluded self. Would I say it's a Great American Novel? I'd have to re-read and analyze it. I'm not sure. It came close, though.

Richard Russo: wherever you are, though undoubtedly you will not read this, thank you for a good long read on the caliber of Updike.

www.librarything.com/author/russorichard

In Praise of Richard Russo

Read any good books lately? It's been ages since a novel really grabbed me, with few exceptions. Nice when one does, although admittedly, few have come close in recent years.

Fashionable or self-conscious method ruins a good story for me, even if it does work out as a decent plot. For several years, in order to sell a story, some authors have taken to impairing the narrators to the point we can hardly understand said person. We must decipher these texts through the eyes of someone with brain damage, Asperger's syndrome, or full-on Autism, such as the charming THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME, although some go too far, and we must endure disentangling plots of children raised by wolves, only to find out their parents were academicians whose schedules were so booked, they forgot the kids in a Peruvian airport, and crap like that.

Then there are the latest title constructions. For a while now, authors have scrambled for zesty combinations of relatives to bind together on a book binding. First we had THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE, by Amy Tan, which seemed perfectly acceptable at the time. . . good story, well told, fair enough. But it was apparently far from enough. Streams of similar titles have subsequently lined the shelves. A mere sprinkling of them:

THE TIME-TRAVELER'S WIFE
THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER
THE HERETIC'S DAUGHTER
THE SENATOR'S SON
THE TIME KEEPER'S DAUGHTER
THE PIRATE'S DAUGHTER
THE WIDOW'S HUSBAND
THE PIG KEEPER'S DAUGHTER

Surely we've seen the other titles whose writers jumped onto this paddy wagon. Eventually they'll run out of kinfolk. Picture THE QUEEN MOTHER'S AUNTIE. . . or THE ARCHBISHOP'S SWEET GODSON . . . or THE FRUIT JUGGLER'S SECOND COUSIN, ONCE-REMOVED.Thank goodness the family tree scheme should inherently be short lived.

Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS this epic tome rose above short lists of others--its dysfunctional family characters made reluctant exits at the story's end, however shady remains the plot. Certainly I recall some of the wacky tight spots they got into. I had few qualms about the style, at least.

Kathryn Stockett's THE HELP was a triumph--it knocked me flat, its theme one of such recent urgency, according to the headlines, it's appalling. A southern writer secretly, dangerously and daringly gathers black housemaids to tell their stories of working for upper-income whites in 1950s Mississippi. The effect of its overriding fear and loathing overwhelmed me, as did its dead-on honesty.

AMERICAN WIFE, Curtis Sittenfeld's fictionalized story of Laura Bush, also renders a complex--even baffling--story very well indeed, possibly approaching the standing of Great American Novel. At the end, we know as little as we did at the beginning about why people make their decisions, and this uncertainty fulfills the plot's needs as much as do her letter-perfect character renderings.

Still one longs for something meaty in which to sink the bicuspids. Recently in a fit of literary boredom, I looked up Richard Russo's list, and discovered STRAIGHT MAN, which had bypassed me somehow.

Russo's biggest hit was NOBODY'S FOOL, a searingly poignant American story of a down-and-out drunk who attempts another bat at life; the novel was made into a movie starring the late Paul Newman. Another great one was the saga of a failing economic community, EMPIRE FALLS, one of my favorite novels in the last three decades.

I finished STRAIGHT MAN today, and found out at last what happened to comically pathetic Devereaux, the English professor who had dug so many permanent holes for himself no one could ever climb out. Did it make me want to be a better person? Well, sure. But it also opened a curtain into a whole structure of relationships--a small town university setting, its diffident royalty and its paranoid peons, their loyalties, hypocrisies and deadly grudges--making me cry at the sheer tragedy of life, while laughing at it too, most especially at my often deluded self. Would I say it's a Great American Novel? I'd have to re-read and analyze it. I'm not sure. It came close, though.

Richard Russo: wherever you are, though undoubtedly you will not read this, thank you for a good long read on the caliber of Updike.

www.librarything.com/author/russorichard

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Who are We?


Sometimes in later stages of our lives, we feel particularly out of the loop. I often question every move that's made in a detective plot. I don't know who people are anymore.

Who is that young singer whose gymnastic studied sexiness seems to have been taught by cheer leading coaches? The kids know her name, but it escapes me. . . but then they all look alike now, don't they? You can't tell the young "Christian" singers from the ones whose mug shots end up splashed all over the media for days on ad-nauseum end. Seeking fame and fortune as they all do, why would one be different from the other in any case?

What are our targets these days--the American dream having become too expensive to maintain. It's "unsustainable" in today's economy, and questionable in its basic goal. Is it the job--jobs being beyond the reach of so many people? A picket fence--is that it? The happy, well-dressed couple waving from the porch? The cottage house, like those in 1940s movies, with the trellis-laced roses and clematis, the brick sidewalk, window boxes flowing over with geraniums and ferns, dormers, all standing there like harbingers of goodness and freedom?

What do we seek now? Some seek revenge against all those who voted against their candidates; some regularly throw stones, all the while complaining they still stone people to death "over there." Others seek world peace, a laudable goal, even if we have to run a few candidates into the ground to get there.

One recent sociological discovery: the Republican New Age seeker. Their government is always too big, pocketbook always too small, someone's always committing unsightly sins and their mantra is always"gimme." Going for the "manifestation" trend, they chant, "gimme a new car." "Gimme a lot of money. I'm good--I deserve that." One wonders what their meditations really do for them, and in truth I don't want to know the answer to that. We have enough ways to justify our own demands.

Who are we these days? I look at the news sometimes, between "news fasts," because I'm too sensitive to take it all the time, and I shudder to think how things have changed in recent years.

Once we would use the term "Our President," even if we didn't vote for him. It was American pride to say "Well I respect him, because he's the President of the United States." I remember some of the most hard-shell Birchers saying that in the late 1960s.

Now? People shun anyone who disagrees with their opinions, with few exceptions. How classless is that? How un-American can we be? How much of anathema is it, considering how "religious" so many of us purport to be, to shun those who simply disagree? Never mind hate-filled character assassinations which are so prevalent now.

I see crowds of people screaming--hate-filled people screaming racial slurs at the tops of their lungs. Can we be these people? Can we? If we can, then how? How have we become like that, as a people? Factions aside, we represent the United States. What would our ancestors, our great-grandmothers who risked their lives to just go down and VOTE--what would they think?

What do we think of ourselves? What do our children really think? They cannot be fooled. Don't think for a second they can. And it seems that part of the American dream still does merit striving for: leaving the country a better place for generations to come, than it was when we were born. I think we can do that, together. If for a little while we sit back and determine who we really are.

Friday, June 25, 2010

A Place for Indians


Once the tribes were free. . . they roamed everywhere, beating up the trails with hooves' tracks; they settled in new territories at will, fought hard and took few prisoners. Their ways were derived from nature--from the diurnal settings of sun and moon, from the marks of the tides and habits of the animals; they were contented in the knowledge their lives and families operated from natural patterns and the traditions of the Old Ones.


We all know the middle and end to this story. Trails, thousands of trails of tears withered away once they passed by; spirits were broken systematically, one by one. They were broken not by failures of the sun or the moon, but by immigrants who came to own the same land the natives knew was free and part of life's bounty--land could not be owned, they said. They were proven wrong time and time again--wrong by one set of standards, not their own.

Sometimes, as in the case of Quanah Parker, the half-blood son of Cynthia Parker, captured in childhood by the Comanches, and her husband, the chief Peta Nocoma, an Indian chief would understand both sides of the arrowhead, and would wish to integrate his people into the new ways of the white people, as they were called. Quanah broke ground with the whites, leasing the land of the Comanche and Kiowa to cattle ranch owners for grazing rights, and founding the Native American Church, which was based in both Christianity and the Indian tradition of philosophy.

"The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus," said Quanah. "The Indian goes into the tipi and talks with Jesus." Yet he helped his people to integrate, to read and write, to make their livings as the white tradition dictated. It was no longer Quanah's country, and he knew this. Acceptance came at a huge price, but it did come.

When I was very young, my grandmother (on Dad's side) took me to the Alabama-Coushatta reservation in Livingston, Texas, not far from her Lufkin home. I don't remember why we were there, but I remember her dropping off some bags of supplies, and assume now that she was carrying out some errand of church work. That place for Indians was desolate at that time--early 1950s. It was deathly quiet and I felt no one could possibly live there--a series of wooden structures leaned against the pines. This place of shambles could have been only the portion that I saw. But I'll never forget the experience. Looking at the website today, the reservation appears active, lively--full of promise--that reassures me a lot.


The Alabama-Coushatta came from the Creek people, and though they had little contact with British settlers, they eventually avoided war and troubles by settling on reservations in Louisiana, and finally Texas; they also became Christian. Interesting that in their present-day gaming casino, no alcohol is allowed because of their beliefs. Continuous operation of the casino was a legislative fight; the facility has provided relief from unemployment in the Louisiana tribe only, however, aside from any moral aspects of gambling. The tribal leaders advocate gaming as their way of earning a living for all members of the tribe, via its shared funds. The Texas tribe has been left to fend in other ways, without this resource.

This piece has become incredibly sad and somehow dry--I didn't intend that--but the green wood was long ago spent in these indigenous tribes. The dry wood is all they have left. Their places in the forests and fields, mountains, mesas on both sides of what we now see as the "border," between the U.S. and Mexico, were conquered by the immigrant "whites," their families either dead or kept in the new places. The Comanche, the Cherokee, the Alabama-Coushatta and hundreds of other groups--have come to accept and to cope with their appointed place.

What will happen now, with immigrants from Mexico being targeted as culprits for a system fed by business interests, we can only pray about. Talking about Jesus, or about whatever entity our Gods take these days, will certainly not be sufficient action to provide enough places to go around.


http://www.alabama-coushatta.com/ac/index.php

Image: "Indian Madonna," by Benjamin A. Gifford, 1901

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Eau de Sauvage

Well it's official: Calvin Klein's "Obsession for Men" is the most potent animal-magnetism magnet in the entire world. The cologne attracts any living creature within whiffing distance, including, and I'm not making this up: jungle cats in the wild, or so says the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Researching a group of "elusive" jaguars in Central America, the WCS announced its researchers have been using the high-end cologne to draw the big cats toward cameras set up in the wilderness. Triggered by an infra-red beam, the animals come close to investigate the mesmerizing scent, and quicker than you can say Abercrombie and Fitch, "candid" shots of the cats are flashed automatically, and subsequently used in research projects.

I'm not sure exactly what qualifies the term "candid" here, but I'm picturing the purring spotted beasts pawing and arching for the camera, as their interest in the faux mating scent is piqued.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but aside from the more bizarre aspect of this story, the scent itself and its drawing power on wild jungle cats, isn't there something a bit je ne sais quois about spying on wilderness cats without their permission? And could we call it a little unfair to lure them with Calvin's "Obsession," which goes for up to $100 a bottle? The cats don't know it's expensive, but there's something unnatural about it.

This whole game, albeit laudable in its conservation goals, probably burns those cats up--not only are they intrigued by this fabulously musky scent in the otherwise natural setting of the forest, but also they're cheated out of the expected finale to the evening! It's bait and switch!

Sure, some of the jaguars enjoy the hunt of a member of the opposite sex hiding in the shrubs, perhaps fawning for the camera as well, but they're just acting on instinct. They're cats, after all! This would be like giving Tabby her cat-nip, only without the zing, then repeat-snapping her pic in the bargain.

Naturally, the fashion world has been turned on its collective ear by the news of this shocking phenomenon. Discovered in research on cheetas and other felines at the Bronx Zoo, "Obsession for Men" was proven more attractive than any other scent on the market. But what about the other fragrance lines?

Poor Liz Taylor--she's donated good dollars to animal rescue organizations all her adult life, but "White Diamonds" can't get as much as a sniff from a snow leopard? A pinch from a puma? The poor woman doesn't deserve such treatment, although the cats can't help it if Calvin's formula smells better than all the rest.

"Jaguars are highly elusive creatures and for years WCS researchers struggled to develop more effective methods for estimating how many jaguars were in the forest, hidden amongst the ancient Maya temples,” said Roan McNab, WCS Guatemala Director. “Now, due to the fact that jaguars love Obsession for Men, WCS field conservationists are getting more precise estimates of jaguar populations.” Based on the photos released by the WCS, "Obsession" also attracts pumas, ocelots, tapirs, peccaries and coatis.

Now I wonder what effect this may have on the fur industry? And will the fragrance designers start testing on animals again, perhaps sending nice gift baskets down to the zoo? Picture J-Lo and entourage dashing into the lion cage wearing furls of leopard skin, announcing free-with-purchase cosmetic bags with every positive response to her new version of "Deseo."

And now that Calvin has conquered the wild beasts, beating out any reasonable expectations for success, what's next for him in the fragrance department? Scented kitty litter would be my guess. Next he'll be lecturing on proper kitten potty training and how to slim down your middle-aged Persian.





Thursday, June 10, 2010

Slowing Down

Summertime. . . I'm going to slow down for a couple months, writing more sporadically, regaining a bit of equilibrium. Grandson's visiting, so when there's something striking, I'll be around. . . and when I'm not, I'm out having fun in the sun. . . making cookies. . . stroking the light brown hair, playing ball with Ethan and the dogs. . . settling back for a movie.

Being Grandmother--to someone who needs a grandmother--it's like nothing else, yet it's indescribable. When my grandmother, Mamaw died, she was eighty-eight and I was forty-four. . . and when I was born in 1946, she had been forty-four. It was hard to believe that for all of my life, it had only been forty-four years we had been together. . . she was my best friend. That day, the day I'd dreaded all my life, when she died, I promised myself I would be all that she was to me, to any grandchildren we might be blessed with.

It would be ten years thence, when Ethan was born. It was love at first sight. I fell into the grandmother role with great vigor and awe. . . the power and simplicity of the relationship surprised me--it moves me still. I was lucky the first five years of his life--he lived nearby. Now we count the weeks and the days until we see one another, but we're still close. . . the Vonage phone helps so much.

When we have time together, time stands still and becomes of less importance--accomplishing every day things takes on a different agenda. The world slows down for us, gives us a little break, and when we can do something with just Michael, Ethan and me. . . that is the best thing since the invention of good stuff. Seeing the look of simple enjoyment in his eyes, knowing the complete security he feels in the company of "Gran" and "Da," being part of that equation--I think sometimes my grandmother is with us. For nothing else can compare to the feeling of having a close grandparent, than being one.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Old-Timey and Right-Smart

Once in a while I'll be talking to my friend Missie, who grew up in Atlanta, and she'll make a comment that rings an old bell.

"He doesn't have a lick o' sense," she'll say, and immediately I feel right at home. Chuckling, I will listen a bit more closely for another nugget, and usually I'm not disappointed.

"She's so picky, the devil himself couldn't please her," she'll say and I'll say:

"Oh Lord, don't I know it."

She reminds me of other sayings, some well known, (such as "He's two bricks short of a full load") and others not so much (such as "We'll need right smart o' line for that reel"). Papa used to say "right smart" any time he referred to "plenty" or "lots" of something.

"Did it rain good yesterday, Mr. Johnny?" one of the men in barber chairs would ask.

"Oh, right smart I guess," my grandfather would answer, clearing his throat first.

They dubbed things from long ago, or out of style, as "old-timey." That struck me as very funny, as I just couldn't make the connection from old-times to out of style.

"You know," they would say, "she wears those old-timey leggings, hotter'n sin and I can't fathom how she can stand them."

"She's just gettin' on up there. Hon, would you hand me my purse, it's over yonder on the chiffarobe."

"OH me! I ain't had so much fun since the hogs ate my little brother." That shockingly funny one came from the proper mouth of my paternal grandmother, Mema. More on her later, but she was a spitfire. She was funnier than a crutch.

Someone would hear a piece of shocking news, and all they could say was "Well, I'll Swan," which came from "I'll Sewanee," according to some sources, but "I'll swoon," some others say. Wherever the saying comes from, at times I would just love to hear somebody say, "Well, I'll Swan," just to be reminded of some of the old-timey talk.

When I get a "right smart" of the sayings together, I'll scribble them all down into one article. For now, I got about forty-leven things to do. I can't sit here all day like a bump on a log. But I do wish it would come a good frog-strangler. If it would rain, I'd be hoppin' round faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Summers of Childhood

"Green is my favorite color," said Mamaw, my grandmother on Mother's side. Mamaw was a Riley and grew up, living her whole life, in the tiny town of Frankston, between Athens and Jacksonville, near Tyler, Texas. Her given name was Mossie. Mossie Riley. How Irish can one name sound?

She married a Thrasher, my grandfather John William "Mr. Johnny" Thrasher, of Poyner, who set up his barbershop in Frankston, across the street from the cleaners and next to a cafe where the jukebox played "bop" music and sometimes the teenagers hopped up from their booths and burgers to dance. The First Baptist Church was just down the street, so sometimes a good Christian woman would enter the cafe, tsk-tsking the kids, 'til they sat down just long enough for her to priss on down the street.

Mamaw and Papa Thrasher were good Baptists; they never missed church unless a high fever was involved, and on Sunday afternoons they did nothing more exciting than a little fishing at the lake. My brother and I spent summers with Mamaw and Papa; idyllic is an understatement for the life we led under their care.

Mamaw had a little apparel store called "Mary's Shoppe," named for my mother, Mary, Mamaw and Papa's only child. When she wasn't working in the shop, Mamaw was always busy sewing Pricilla curtains or baking pound cakes, or taking a Mason Jar of soup to a sick friend, often a Sunday School class member or a neighbor who was really a cousin from some connection.

Getting dressed for church was quite an ordeal--there were white gloves and small purses with handkerchiefs containing the proper number of coins for the Sunday School offering. Mamaw tied me into organza dresses, or little ruffled cotton pinafores with white blouses, their small round collars ironed just so.

The gloves came from small boxes with many rules: never remove them by pulling on the fingers; ladies pull the whole line of fingers gently, until they're loosened to the point they can be surreptitiously removed; never wear just one glove unless that hand is holding the other glove. Why that was, I never understood, but I followed each dictum to the letter.

Then there was the whole extravaganza of the socks; I was not allowed to wear colored socks, ever, so white socks softened the hard edges of either black or white Baby Jane flats, depending on the season. I didn't like it one bit that in Mamaw's dress shop, baskets and baskets of darling ice-cream colored socks would become sold out in no time, yet it was only white ones for me--the others were considered a bit tacky I guess. The law was not explained. But it meant something to Mother and Mamaw, so I never cheated on that rule.

Green was the color of many of Mamaw's things--minty soft green platters, green crystal cake plates that were really pressed glass; the yard shone green with a lawn and shrubbery she loved to clip and prune, and the flowers bloomed in every bed, in every season. Soft teal napkins were washed and ironed regularly, until Wash 'n Dry fabrics came onto the scene. Cloth napkins meant something to Mamaw--there was always a little wooden napkin holder full of them at her house.

Iced tea was the daily ritual once coffee time had passed, and we sometimes got to run outside and pick fresh sprigs of mint to garnish the Cape Cod tumblers packed tightly with ice. Mamaw measured out many spoons of loose Lipton leaves into a large jar at the back of the counter top, pouring the boiling water carefully and leaving it for just five minutes. At times of great numbers of family at Thanksgiving or for summer reunions, she had four or five jars of leaves steeping at once. The pungent smell of tea brewing instantly imports me back into her kitchen.

Green days of summer--they lasted for weeks it seemed--and we spent them doing as we liked, as we were good children (the word "kids" was also not allowed in Mamaw's home) and could be trusted to a normal point. We put on theater productions underneath the pecan trees in Mamaw and Papa's back yard, pestered the gas station attendants across the street toward town, as they repaired old Fords and Chevys.

We played in the Gazebo, or band shell, in the park, which went for one block in the center of town, bordered on the south by the railroad tracks, and on the other three sides by the stores. . . Clyde's Dry Goods sold everything under the sun at one end of the block facing the park, the Weesner's Grocery on the other end. . . in between were some favorite haunts besides Mamaw's shop: The Five and Dime, where we could run in for penny candy and those waxy tubes fill with heaven knows what, and cool off a while; the Frankston Citizen's news office, where something was always happening, and our favorite, the huge cavernous Drug Store, soda fountain, marble floor, patterned tin ceiling and all.

The smell of the Drug Store tantalized us, between the "fountain's" vanilla ice cream and root beer, the perfumery which also sold pinky-orange face powder by the waxed-paper bag, measured out in small silver scoops, and the druggist's counter, which was always mysterious but good-smelling, as if he cleaned the place with pure Witch Hazel. It was always cool in there, and sitting in the booths drinking our lime freezes or Coke floats, I liked to slip out of my sandals and massage the marble with my feet.

No wonder Mamaw insisted we scrub our faces and hands before we ever set foot into the Drug Store. We were probably "filthy-dirty" by the time mid-afternoon came, and we'd either been swinging in the trees like Marmosets or climbing the rungs of the Gazebo to get a better look at the thousands of boxes of peaches that came into town on the train.

The widespread whole-town smell of those peaches--I smell their syrupy perfume, can see them now, glowing pink and gold in the sunlight. Soon the tomatoes would appear and we would feel hungry even if lunch had just filled our tummies--who could resist one of those farm-grown, vine-ripened tomatoes, big as a baseball in our small hands?

Mamaw had cornbread for supper, with the left-overs from a fried-steak lunch with rice and gravy maybe, and myriad vegetables. Sliced tomatoes and cornbread, with a big glass of tea, and I didn't care what else was on the plate. But it all came out delicious: fresh Crowder peas with their bits of ham; yellow squash stirred together with onions in the buttery skillet; salads with oranges and apples and pecans, bits of coconut, or sometimes the traditional "Ambrosia," that old signature dish of Southern parties.

And Frankston is a very Southern town, even if Dallas and Ft. Worth, two hours away, border the West. Then, people called one another "Mr. Johnny," "Miss Mossie," and I was "Miss Cheri Dena," and my brother "Mr. Randy." It seemed to be part of life, like breathing in the Sweetgum-flossed air, or shelling pecans while an aunt told stories of the old farms, the fields, the cousins and weddings and babies and betrayals and resolutions. "Mother and Daddy" this, and "Mother and Daddy" that. . . some of it I could understand but often the cup towel would hide her lips from the young ones.

The form of address was formal but the people, in the middle of 1950s small-town East Texas, were a thing apart. Always polite, perennially friendly, hospitality was serious business: they actually cared for one another, looked in on "Old Miss Althea," who's 85 after all; took care of the sick "Old Maid" down the lane, delivered pound cake or blackberry pie to the bereaved.

Traditions live on in one way or another, and the First Baptist Church is still in its old spot, enlarged to take in the growing population, but still with its old red brick entrance. Funerals are still served up with pound cake and pies, visits during the night by concerned neighbors, vigils in the Irish tradition without the whiskey, or at least without showing the whiskey.

The summers of my childhood are more about the simple honest sweetness of the household of Mamaw and Papa, than about the culture. But it all blends like cream, vanilla and sugar, twirling around like an old crank-handle ice cream maker, solidifying, if not factually perfectly, at least simply and resting cool and secure, like a child's head sleeping in somebody's lap.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Medicine Women

Carole King is singing "Far Away" on FM radio. The melody makes me homesick. I go back in time, dreaming of a story.

In my father's family history is a true legend, one that speaks more clearly at some times than at others, but always with a ghostly calling, as hoarse whispers through a moss-hung forest.

The records say that Edmund Mason arrived in Southeast Texas from Ireland, a "red-headed Methodist preacher, teacher, song writer." He worked as a preacher and settled in Crockett, Texas before the Civil War.

When Edmund married, the woman was a Cherokee medicine woman, whom they called "Elizabeth." She rode on horseback through Houston County, delivering babies and healing the usual illnesses of the 19th Century, using the methods her parents had taught her, boiling herbs and making tea from fresh leaves.

Edmund and Elizabeth somehow managed to combine the teachings of the Methodist Episcopal Church with her old ways. They were ahead of their time. Their new church flourished, which they founded in Crockett, and even today the church there honors Edmund, and his history and his work. The Texas Methodist state-wide newsletter declared him a fine man, stating "as a preacher, he stood tall."

They had children, among them a son Isaac. When the Civil War began, Edmund and his 17-year-old son rode away to serve side by side in the Texas Cavalry; by some miracle they both returned home at the end of the War. Elizabeth had carried on with the duties of the church, as well as her duties as a Cherokee midwife, so that the home fires were still burning strong when the men finally came home.

Elizabeth taught Susan, their daughter, the ways of the Medicine Woman, and they rode together for many years, the circuit around the county, until Elizabeth died, long after the daughter had married a Read and moved to Lufkin to run the Read Hotel. The Methodist Church became a force in the lives of Edmund and Elizabeth's children, one photograph depicting clearly the strong, big-boned Susan holding a Bible in one hand, the other hand on her hip in a determined stance.

Young Mrs. Read continued to treat the ill with no doubt a mixture of modern medicine and her mother's old ways. She was my father's grandmother, and the stories about her are few, although one uncle remembers her home made cookies and boarding-house meals.

Edmund and Elizabeth, long dead, both still fire my imagination, visit my dreams and inspire my goals. I see them now in their simple cotton Sunday clothes: the fiery Irish preacher who wrote songs and taught school, the quiet Cherokee woman, trailing through the trees on horseback. . . I believe that their ways continue in us still, however assimilated we are in our modern world.

The customs of the Masons, both his and hers, were passed down in the family, treasured more than any chest of silver. Inspiring us to express ourselves in each our own way, we see ties that bind and also powerful differences which make us individuals.

I see Elizabeth, smudging the yard, her medicine bag and her horse with sage smoke, in preparation for riding on an emergency, while Edmund crouches over his books, preparing this Sunday's sermon. The children are playing sticks and hoops in the church yard, a yellow dog leaps up joyfully, the chickens squawk in their coops as the Medicine Woman mounts her horse and gallops away, down the proper brick streets of Crockett, toward a dusty pine-tree path.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Lights Out

Funny, going about my morning routine without noticing the power outage. . . a ponytail/t-shirt day, I didn't fire up the hair dryer.

I fed Woody and Maddie, the two starved, dancing Dachshunds, poured a glass of milk and grabbed a carrot muffin, remembering we'd had three household canines just a few wan days back.

Whispering a prayer of thanks for Stella's new-found relief in dog heaven, I measured out the vitamins and capsules, took a quick gulp and headed as usual, for my desk.

Oh no. Oh man! That little slice of lime-green light marking the lower-right corner of the monitor: all black. The three red dots on the "Micro volt 1200:" dead. Tried the room lights: zilch. Dining room fixtures: zip. Fuse box switches: nada.

I see. I get the picture. Comprendo!

THERE IS NO ELECTRICITY IN THIS HOUSE.

Well. It usually comes back on once the electric company finishes with some power line somewhere. Only real worry was the salmon in the freezer. I guessed if it thawed we could build a fire in the Hibachi and grill 20 steaks for a block party.

Heavy on my mind was my Friday blog article. I'd planned to post it before meeting my friend Jennifer for lunch at the new Thai place. Glancing doubtfully at our HP Notebook, I remember that the keyboard is half the size of a sheet of typing paper, and if there's no power, the wireless connection would also be deceased. All I can do is type and save a piece for later.

Feeling much like a Pioneer mother who can't find enough cow patties to burn under the big cauldron on laundry day, I reluctantly open this miniscule laptop and now I've hunted and pecked to this point in the story.

What can I tell you? I'll look out the window.

The sun is out in full regalia, splashing every leaf, bloom, rock and brick with dazzling blind-white light.

One of the chortling birds, a baffling tropical creature whose voice mimics the ring of an old telephone, sings out in full force. Down the street, his pal seems to hawk some type of ballpark snack: "Cheeeeee-ipppeeeee-chee-chee-cheeeee!"

A tiny bird calls, "Good to see you!" and in Brazil it's an exact translation. "Bem te vi, bem te vieeeeeee," he cries, seeming genuinely pleased to see us.

The ever present coo of the mourning dove adds its tenor note to the quintet, while somebody's peacocks meow all at once, like cats in heat. . . typical of sopranos, the peacocks come off more dignified than the others.

My jade plant has grown high as my waist and the big potted ferns, simple as they are, look stately enough to grace a wedding altar. I pick a few beige, curling leaves from the geraniums. The Docs flop limply in the shade, taking time out only to bark at the occasional passing car or pedestrian.

I'm sounding out notes, a song from the distant past. What is that? It's a joyful, glad-to-be-alive little ditty.

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood." Recalling Mr. Rogers, I come in to save this scrap of thoughts. With any luck at all, the lights will be out all day.