The Barn Swallow's Return

The barn swallows are back! Every year they arrive here on or around my birthday (April 24th.) I was in the yard, thinking about all my birthday surprises. When I glanced skyward, a pair swooped through the open door of the barn.

I get an 'alls right with the world" feeling when I see them. What a blessing - animals that come home without me calling, that I don't have to feed, that take care of their babies without my help. They are the cherry on the sundae of my spring! A being that, like my daughter-in-law says, appear just for extra happiness! Aristotle insisted that one swallow (or one happy thing) does not make a spring (or a person happy). Oh, go suck a lemon. As long as there have been happy things, someone has been around to deflate the moment.

This group of barn swallows have, I imagine, been coming to my barn since around 1790. I actually researched this as best I could on the internet, so I wasn't building idle daydreams on wishes. Something I have been trying lately, as a point of evolution - not rejecting facts because they collide with any convenient theory that I might come up with. And yes, people who care about these things assert that barn swallows have, forever, been following humans around and nesting in their buildings, tolerated for their attractiveness and their voracious appetite for flying insects. Meaning, like camp followers, they migrated with the European settlers from the coasts of the North East going from cabin to barn as settlement spread inland. Maybe that first woman who lived here, the one that left her hair pins in the rafters over the fireplace in the basement, watched the barn swallows follow her man's plowing, like I watched them swoop and swirl after Charles as he mowed the field.

I found out this morning as I read up on them a little, that DNA studies show that barn swallows from here colonized the Baikal area of Siberia. This is not a direction that is expected in bird migration circles, but the idea pleases me. You only have to watch them (not count them, analyze them, or catch them and dissect them) to see how errant they are, how they have a wonderful independence that defies gravity and sense to realize that sense and science are only going to explain so much about them, and the rest is left to that plan greater than us.

A barn swallow's life is not all being a happy harbinger of spring. Like all things that eat, a barn swallow is prey to larger species, like the American kestrel, which nests here, too. I'm not the boss here, I don't make all the rules so acceptance of the checks and balances of life is part of my tenancy. I have watched kestrels pluck barn swallows out of the air, but I have also seen the same kestrel fly smack into the barn while chasing a twirling barn swallow aerialist as it flew effortlessly into a tiny crack in the barn siding. Mrs. Kestrel hovered over him in the air, screaming what sounded like the bird version of the Honey Brook Cursing Dance until he picked himself up off the ground and took flight again. Hey, they were just trying to feed their kids.

I wish the kestrels would eat the bluebirds. Oh, stop! I know those are like the Golden Child of bird people, but honestly if you compare that demanding, picky species with all their requirements for special housing and fickle parenting with the barn swallow, WHO is exactly more useful? The barn swallow prefers to rebuild old nests. The babies that are born first in the spring stick around all summer and feed their younger siblings. Your flock begins in the spring with three couples and at the end of the summer you have forty or fifty Cirque De Barn performers doing a show with no matinees. Hours and hours of entertainment, right on the lawn, a useful search for food (bugs) turned ballet. I read they eat TONS of bugs. Those bugs are somebody's baby, too. It's just what happens.

What DOESN'T happen here is messing with nests. One kid, never invited back, decided that the mud nests were hornet's nests and attacked them with a stick. His mother and I don't speak. A horse boarder hung fly strips (completely unnecessary) which snared swallows out of the air and meant I had to drown three in the trough, to put them out of their misery. I put myself out of misery by sending her and her horse packing.

Some experts insist that they mate for life, but apparently that is when the experts are watching. We have the same drama in the barn, eight feet above the ground where their nests are, that we have in the chicken house. Males defend their mate and territory unless they are busy trying to invade some other male's territory and mate with their female. The females have kind of a (press hand back to forehead and appear overcome) boys will be boys attitude about it. I wonder how much T.S. Eliot knew about this, when he wrote "Quando fiam uti chelidon [ut tacere desinam]?" ("When will I be like the swallow, so that I can stop being silent?") in the Waste Land? And why did he write it in Latin?

If I ever get another tattoo, it will be a barn swallow. Sailors used to get one after returning home safe after a journey of 5,000 miles and another, if they ever returned after another. Sailors with two swallows were rare. Things happen.

I feel like I am on that second trip.

The Good Enough Mothers

My grandson Jeremy (eleven) is the chicken guy and on vacation- and I have my instructions which go something like this: "Nana, Jim Bob is very bossy so don't turn your back on him- if he goes after you, just hold your hand down flat over his head. Or you can just let him get you, it doesn't really hurt - and he gets tired of it. Party Girl is laying eggs right on top of Lulu who is broody, she only has a couple of eggs under there but she's in a bad mood. Michele and Brenda are co-parenting again, they will take care of their babies, you don't have to do anything. Just make sure they have food and water inside and outside, only feed them once and try to keep track of how many babies there are." You would be thinking right about now that it's cute that he gave all of them names, and I won't know which ones he is talking about and that is the gist of my story. And then we can laugh all afternoon about one Nana's cute chicken antics. But no. That's not it.

I DO know their names, because our whole family watches the flock like it's the Real Housewives of Honey Brook. Much of our conversation as a family revolves around the drama and pathos of the chicken yard. The chicken's names were given them because of a characteristic behavior or their social status in the flock, mostly by me.

Our chickens are free range, which sounds like we made a conscious decision based on information regarding humane needs and best practices. In actuality, it means we don't have and can't afford a fence that will contain them. Our chickens have been 'free range' for twenty five years, never once has one been hit by a car. Occasionally, a rogue hen will refuse the coop they stay in at night. She might start perching in the trees and while we are deciding what and if to do something about that, she usually disappears - owls will pluck her right off the branch as she sleeps. We have had suspicious paw prints in the snow around the coop, and we have found some chicken bodies 'cached' in holes around the farm. Bob and Nola, the bulldogs, killed a chicken together when they were puppies, but a few days with the shock collar took care of that. Since we got goats, we don't see fox foot prints at all, so Ripper thinks that the goats are like watchdogs. It's a rate of attrition we can live with considering we aren't very efficient at collecting eggs, so we have piles of babies all the time. I know this manner of chicken keeping flies in the face of all those who want to complicate the simple life, but it works for us.

This morning I can hear them crowing and bumping and rustling as the flock moves around inside the small coop. It's a little like listening to someone's stomach growl - you can't see what's causing it, but you can definitely hear it. When I open the little door they tumble out, like clowns out of a clown car.

Party Girl (small black and white Banty) is the first one out. She is named Party Girl because... well, she only dates the dominant rooster, she lays fertile eggs all the time and insists that other hens raise her children. After the really hard work of rearing the babies is done, she will hang out with her own adolescent offspring, which can be identified by their distinctive coloring. Right now she has a pure white teenage rooster and a black and white teenage rooster following her every where, but otherwise, her only socializing is with Jim-Bob. Or with Jeremy. She loves to be picked up and carried around by him. They sit together on the porch and he strokes her feathers and talks to her. She stares at him with the intention of a geisha. She knows how to work it.

Jim-Bob is a pure white incredibly attractive nasty little s.o.b. He has cobalt blue cheeks and a black crusty comb. He is the father of almost all the babies. He and Party Girl have a very Clinton-esque relationship - she tolerates his indiscretions, she is unfailingly loyal to him. I think she thinks he has a job to do. And he does. Not only is he primarily in charge of making sure the flock increases, he watches the skies for predators during the day - like crows and red tails. He also is a caring wonderful father, often helping Michele and Brenda with their huge broods made up of their babies and Party Girl's. He teaches the babies how to find stuff in the ground, and he breaks up fights with the older kids.

Lulu, Brenda and Michele lay eggs, raise babies, and teach babies to find food. They often stumble around with a dozen or more babies pushed up under their wings, under their legs or chin. As the chicks get older, they take groups of them on trips down into the field, past the dog kennels, and to the manure piles behind the barn. Cluck cluck, they say, follow me, look at this, you can find food here. They issue warnings, confer with the other Mothers (But not Party Girl) and generally are a miniature theatre production of what goes on, on any playground anywhere. They keep track of all the babies, steal each other's babies and seem to know whose is whose. Well, that is how it appears.

As I said, the kids are on vacation and I am homesteading solo during a week of horrible thunderstorms. Almost daily, the clouds roll in from the southwest, darkness eating up the day, winds coming out of nowhere. One early evening, I get caught on the lawn, between the car and the house, as curtains of rain drench me. I am so glad to get inside, dripping water on the kitchen floor. It was hot, but now, soaking wet, I am freezing, teeth chattering. I am alone, so I strip down and grab a robe from the peg in the hallway. Then I hear it, over the banging of the shutters and the rain on the metal roof.

Hysterical, persistent chirping. Louder and Louder, more and more frantic. Where are they? They sound like they are right in the house! I can hear branches clashing, torrential sheets of rain crashing across the yard. The tree between the house and the barn is bending and twisting from powerful gusts, causing the motion detecting light to go on and off, almost at the same time as the lightening flashes. Still I hear the chirping. I go out on the porch with the flashlight and yes, I see them. A moving mass of yellow under the chicken house, on an island between coursing run off from the driveway and barn roof.

Chirping. Yelling for help. About to be swept away, out into the pasture.

WHERE ARE THEIR MOTHERS?

Throwing a raincoat over the robe, forcing my still wet feet into my barn shoes, I grab an umbrella and head out into the storm to save the babies. This is right up my alley.

I fight my way against the wind to the chicken house and think, I can just reach down and pick them up and put them in through the little door. Except, standing there, I can't reach them. They are too far under the coop. I realize I am going to have to kneel down in the rain and mud. Well, it would be ideal if it was only mud but it is the yard surrounding a chicken house, where chickens live. Who are not known for their excremental control.

It is impossible to kneel down, reach under the chicken house and hold the umbrella, so the umbrella has to go. It's not really functioning as any sort of protection anyway: the wind is blowing the rain nearly horizontal. However, I find I can use it to kind of scoop the baby chicks toward me, and I get four or five at a time out and up to where I can reach them. I open the hatch on the nesting box side of the coop and start throwing them in. I can hear the chickens inside protesting against the rain and wind that blows inside, and I can hear Michele and Brenda chirping 'come here, get under' to the rescued babies. I repeat the process several times until there are only two babies left, huddled together and chirping.

I call them, I beckon them, I plead with them and finally curse and scream at them. They heed me not. To save them from the cold water now swirling menacingly toward them, I get down on my belly, shimmy under, grab them, and shimmy back out. I can feel their tiny hearts beating through their bony, wet, feathery breasts. They seem more scared of me than the storm. I toss them into the nesting box and slam the lid closed.

I feel good, standing on the lawn in the storm, so wet and dirty that I realize I am as wet and dirty as I ever could be. There is a freedom to this, as it is no longer necessary to protect myself from anything. I do a little hero dance in the puddles, throw back my head and laugh. It's all very enervating until a bolt of lightening slamming to the ground in the field across the street sends me tearing for the house.

I am sure that as the storm rolled in, the hens moved toward the ramp up to the chicken house like they do every day at dusk. I am sure they called to the babies, and I am sure the chicks heard them. As the thunder and rain rolled in and crashed around them, the chicks chirped so loud I could hear them in the house - and I know the hens could hear them, too. At some point, the hens decided to stick it out in the comfort and warmth of the coop and stop worrying. Later, washed and warmed by a shower, I think about what kind of mothers would take such care of their babies in the sunshine, yet leave them to drown in a storm.

The Edge

Charles has been dead three years, soon, and all my knives are dull.

When Fred came to visit with his family, I bought a beautiful roast of beef - something I do not do very often. He trained as a butcher and he loved these big cuts of beef, slowly, barely cooked, with rosemary and garlic pushed in. I was sure he was not getting such things in Iraq, and that he would appreciate that I remembered his preference.

I even had a chat with the butcher at the grocery store when I was picking it out, something else I do not do often. I wanted the butcher to pick out a really pretty roast, something another butcher would like. These cinematic moments only ever roll out in my mind so I don't know why I keep trying - black and white film clips clattered through the projector in my brain, calendar leaves flying, me - finally morphed into an odd melange of Ma Kettle grasping a flag to her chest and Aunt Bea in an apron holding a pie, adoring family paying homage to my efforts, local butcher presenting a huge hunk of flesh into a light from above and saying "Your soldier will appreciate this, Ma'am!"

At least I was expecting this at Wegmans' - a cut above - but instead, the young man (who apparently does not share my rich mental catalog of iconic images) merely pointed to the second one in, a three bone in rib roast, and said "That one looks good." and reached for the waxed paper.

My oven is broken, the heating element at the bottom blown out during a period of dank depression when I might have left it on all night or maybe for a day or two. Maybe a week. The oven that broke was not the oven I ever wanted: it was cheap, from the scratch and dent store and was supposed to make do until we had the money for the kitchen renovation. That money was going to appear shortly after every other single thing in our lives was taken care of. All oven type activities now take place in a stand alone, plug in roaster, which is pitch hitting for the oven I never wanted, until I get the stove I deserve and that is where I put the roast when I get home. But lately I have been thinking, maybe not. Maybe I will have a kitchen but not a kitchen, because after the kids move into the addition, am I going to do any real baking? As opposed to fake baking? I hardly use the roaster. Maybe I don't want a fancy oven any more.

Which makes me wonder if it is sad or happy that I may be giving up the idea of a dream kitchen, which was the fuel for terrible arguments and intense middle of the night cravings, and the hook that I hung all my martyrdom and justifications on. If I never, ever get a six thousand dollar dual fuel, self cleaning convection oven and a stove with a built in griddle down the middle, and I make that decision on my own, based on practicality and present need, if I give up that dream, that tightly held desire, which I have picked all the scabs off and used as my red badge of courage, the lack of which was the visualization of just how truly my needs and wants have been denied, who the heck am I?

And who am I having this argument with now?

Soon the roast is done, and I rest it for half an hour. I have heard that this is the single biggest mistake that home cooks make, not resting their meat. You see, you get your roast chicken or leg of lamb or roast of beef out of the oven, cover it all over with foil, and let it sit for a half hour before you cut. This way the juices stay in and don't run out all over your cutting board. I am a great, knowledgeable cook. I have created wonderful, memorable meals for multitudes of people in a terrible kitchen for thirty years. Lasagna, meringues, steamed shrimp and stir fry, roasts and pot roasts, jars of tomato sauce and jam, pickled green beans and red beet eggs, thanksgiving turkeys and chicken and dumplings, lamb rolled in rosemary and pepper, chocolate cookies and lemon sponge cakes, home made pasta, countless loaves of bread. The SOUP! The nameless mishmashes of leftovers that turned out to be delicious. I have done all this, I realize, in a kitchen that has two cabinets whose lowest shelf is 18 inches over my head, a sixty year old stainless steel sink, exactly three feet of counter space, no dishwasher, 1/2 inch to spare if you open the fridge and the oven at the same time, missing floor tiles and exposed plumbing traces to the second floor the cat uses to chase mice. My kitchen counter had little flecks of gold sparkle in it when it was installed after WW2, which you can only see now if you move the canisters. Not to mention seven doorways and two windows. All of these conditions grist for resentment and seething, stewing discontent and the springboard for imaginative problem solving and VOILA moments. For instance, if you don't have enough counter space, you get a cutting board that fits over your sink - that adds two feet. And one that fits over the top of your stove - when the stove is off, that is another two feet or so. If you don't have a dishwasher and company is coming before the dishes get done, put them in the oven til the next morning. In the winter, you can keep your extra groceries on the back porch - it's cold enough. If you keep the stuff under your sink organized in plastic tubs, it is really easy to get them out fast when the pipes freeze and burst.

And now, possessing the where with all to make all those headaches and compromises go away, I suddenly am not sure I care any more. I can buy that stove, I can have all new cabinets, I can have anything I really want, the way I want it.

I pull the carving knife and fork out of the block to carve the rested meat. Instead of the elegant slice I am expecting, I end up sawing and mangling. The roast falls apart in delicious but ugly chunks. Very embarassing because by this time Fred is watching me and I feel exposed and pathetic. The knives are all dull. I don't know where the steel is and I don't know how to use it. Charles used to stand in the kitchen and expertly flick the knives back and forth and listen to me bitch about how terrible the kitchen was. He used to say, Stop cutting directly on the counter, you are going to ruin this knife. I would retort, I can't hurt this crappy counter and I am going to get better knives! And then we would sit down and eat a fine meal and later that night I would go to sleep, feeling sorry for myself and what I had to put up with. He honed the knives and I sharpened my resentment for decades. And now I know it takes just three years for both to lose their edge.

The Whoopie Bridge

A fine fall afternoon, a Saturday, I am sure. The top is down on the little blue Fiat Spider and I've loaded my son Mike and two golden retrievers into the jump seat. Everybody is excited to be going for a ride. We are getting ice cream.

The sky is blue, the trees are gold and the car is biting the wind like it is a crisp apple. We round a corner and I position the rearview mirror so I can see my happy son.

Downshifting, I pick up speed and the asphalt sings. Why isn't every car a convertible, I think. Two sets of ears flapping, my son's parka flying out behind him and my hair standing straight up with only about 400 feet to go, our speed is exactly 44 mph. The next moment, we are flying over the bridge, leaving the ground. I look in the rearview mirror and my son is holding on to the dogs' collars and they are in the air, off the seat and he yells WHOOPEE!

A thousand light years later, I get a phone call from that same son and he says, “Don't go straight down 82. The Whoopee bridge is closed. A big chunk of the bridge fell into the creek, probably from the thaw and freeze cycle working on the mortar.” He's a fireman, so he was among the first to know. Fortunately this all happened while no one was on the bridge but it does mean a detour.

I hate detours. This will be a daily thorn in my side for months, maybe years, I just know it. It's not like you can just take a right go down a block and there you are. There are five different ways to go around the bridge, all about six miles inconvenient. They are curving, narrow roads and I am not looking forward to all the hurried people careening around on them and cursing like me. Explaining the features and benefits of each route to visitors for a long period of time is going to be irritating. The whole thing just sets me off.

Everyday I sit in the driveway and ponder – This way? That way? I always end up making what turns out to be the wrong choice, stuck behind a tractor, or one morning, an actual gaggle of geese in no hurry to get anywhere, except down the middle of the road. Watching those geese I did sort of have a moment of OH COME ON, a acknowledgement that this is not the worst commute in the world. That was short lived. On the way home, more often than not I miss the turn that I would take for the first detour choice and end up driving more miles out of the way, just when I am cranky and tired. The itty bitty committee in my head just loves getting ten extra minutes alone with me to discuss my failings and inattention.

Each day when I am getting ready for work, I completely forget about the detour and how it adds precious minutes to my trip, and I end up making a lot of apologetic phone calls and exaggerating how much of an ordeal this is for me, mostly an effort to foist onto something other than myself an explanation for my lateness. Of course, after a while, my excuses and complaining are patiently endured but not really believed, and the conversations start to turn to “Just when do you think the bridge will be fixed?” Although I don't really have any idea, I say three months to three years, and the recipient of the call gives me much undeserved sympathy for how this is ruining my life, and I feel better.



The situation with the bridge does cut the traffic in front of our house by half, not a small thing when you consider that our old house is exactly 22 feet off a two lane state highway used by noisy gravel and trash trucks. They are now in front of someone else's house, slamming on the jake brake and jarring them out of bed in the morning. The guy who owns the ice cream store puts out his own custom detour signs, hoping that the baseball teams and camp councilors who swell his business during the summer will be able to find him. And his marque is how I learn, one afternoon, that the bridge is open again. GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE IS NOW OPEN! LARGE TUNA HOAGIE 5 DOLLARS! All good news.

See, I say to myself. It all worked out. I head out to work, driving in a straight line, which makes me happy, no thoughts of detours or excuses tormenting me. I approach the bridge at exactly 44 miles an hour. I wait for the whoopee.

And I get two.
Two mini whoopees.

Huh.

Where the old whoopee was a sharp, sudden jolt that sent you off the ground in a fine arch and placed you back down with a chirp of your tires, this new whoopee is like two little hiccups. Shaken, I pull over and drive back over, to try it again. Yes. Where there was one big one, there are now two.

I do it a third time, experience double mini whoopees, pull over to the side of the road, squint into a field of purple asters and ponder.

While I am fighting the disturbing idea that I might be the only person in the cosmos who would be moved to tears by an altered whoopee, it occurs to me that a bridge being out makes some things happen, other things not happen. Like the geese, like the trucks, like countless other things that were said or done or dreamed because the bridge was out, or not.

About two weeks after the bridge is fixed, I get an email from Fred.
Email : fred@yahoo.com
Comments : HI shirley I am not good at this computer thing. I am in IRAQ fighting this war .I am very proud of you!I am very sorry to hear about Chuck. I miss you both love Fred please email back

Well, that's good, because for years, I thought he might be dead.

Fred came to live with us when he was a teenager, as part of a program for building community and independent living for children who had been raised in institutional foster homes. There was nothing wrong with Fred – he was bright, he was handsome, he had no physical or mental impairments. He just got caught in the system when the courts were not happy about terminating parental rights, and he was unadoptable for many years. By the time he was in his mid teens, he had not really lived in a family home or a town. The group home he lived in was clean, the social workers were kind. He went everywhere in a bus. People whose job it was made his dental appointments and had his eyes examined. They brought him clothes. They made sure he celebrated holidays and had a gift. They made sure he went to school. But even the social workers felt this was not enough for kids – the state turned them out at 18 and they had no understanding of any other life, and no ties to any community. They didn't know how to get jobs, and they didn't know how to make friends.

When Charles and I heard about this from a friend, we thought it would be a great idea to add to our family this way. I never thought of myself as someone who would only have one child, but that was what had happened. Our son needed family, this kid needed family, we didn't feel we had to have a baby, so Fred was our perfect choice.

And life rolled on. We weren't perfect, Fred wasn't perfect. He will tell you so himself. I called him my boomerang child because he came and went so many times. He liberated himself from everyone (legally) at 17 ½ and came and went some more. There were fights, there were tears, there were ultimatums and pleadings – on both sides. And then one day I realized I hadn't heard from him in a year. And then Charles died and I didn't know how to get in touch with him to tell him.

But I guess someone had, somewhere – told him about Charles. But how was it possible he was in Iraq? Of course I emailed him back, and then there was a phone call, and we got caught up on things. And then he tells me he is coming home on leave and wants to come out to the farm, bring his wife and daughter.

Of course!

I ask him if he needs directions and he says NO, he will always remember how to get to the farm. I am secretly glad I don't have to explain the detour. He will come home over the bridge, just with two mini whoopees instead of one.

The first thing he says to me is “Are you still wearing that apron?” and I feel loved, that he should notice this. I show him the addition, tell him about Mike and his family moving on to the farm and while we stand on the porch and watch the chickens run around I ask, “Is it the same or different – how does it feel for you that Charles isn't here?” And he says, “Yes, it's the same and different.” I know what he means.

Fred puts on his hat and his uniform shirt and we take pictures: Fred and Mike, Fred and Mike and the Grandchildren, Fred and I. I put them up on Facebook, announcing Fred is Home From Iraq and that I am glad the family is all together again. Suddenly people are blessing me and our family for our sacrifice. They are asking who this other son is? These blessings shame me and overwhelm me, because to explain why I don't feel we should be blessed is such a long story, so many times back and forth over a bridge.

I don't deserve them. I have not sacrificed anything for him or the country, not for a long long time - decades. I did not even know he had joined the service til two weeks ago. I didn't even know he could, at 43. I also feel that long ago, we could have made a different choice and adopted him, instead of leaving him in limbo. He is my son, but not my son. Maybe that would have made a difference to him and what he did with his life. I don't know why I worry - He is calm, mature, determined--together. He's done fine.

Sometimes a bridge goes out and you take detours and because of that, different things happen. The availability of a bridge gives direction to your journey. You will always wonder if you went the right direction. If the bridge breaks down, it can be fixed, but there are no guarantees that when you go back over it will be the same.

Rodeo and Ripper Celebrate Dumb As Mud Day

It's early February and occasionally we have unseasonably warm weather which thaws the surface of the ground in the pasture just enough that it is a sea of mud. I know people say "sea of mud" and they think they know what it means, but until you have lived on a farm that is a construction site, and you have four dogs, teenage and tweenage boys, and various trades/craftsmen and others who are making multiple daily trips to and fro from the barn to the house and the parking area and then back to the barn and the house and the field for feeding, shopping, chores, and because you forgot what you went out there for and other errands, you really can't. Know what it means, I mean. The mud.

But it's not just the ground that is muddy. This time of year because of the holidays being over and the seasons teasing you with warm 60 degree weather one day and blasting you with 50 mph winds and subzero temperatures the next, and because it is a sort of wait and see time before good weather kicks in and outside chores become excuses to play, I find that my thinking gets muddy. Not one to point fingers but, so does yours.

Admit it.

So this morning I wake up and idly think, why don't they make snore strips for dogs? I actually design them in my head, imagine the fortune I would make, write the commercials and retire to Aruba. I spend a few minutes thinking about trying a human snore strip on the Big Spotted Dog. You can imagine the reason. Fortunately, my thyroid medication kicks in before this line of thinking becomes an incident that would require explanation and I remember HEY, today is a BIG DAY!

Ripper (Daughter In Law) and I are moving crapdedoodle. I don't think I need to share the WHY and the WHERE of this crapdedoodle: let's just say that the ebb and flow of my life requires endless piles of trinkets and chachka and doodads and geegaws to be packed up, lugged up and down stairs, in and out of trucks and barns and apartments and townhouses and basements and attics - mine and other people's. I can assure anyone who ever felt that they don't have enough THINGS in their life you just have not said YES often enough or looked hard enough. The more room you have, the more you amass. I do go on the occasional shopping spree, but really, I can tell you that if you just keep your ears perked, you will find yourself the happy (or at least willing) recipient of the byproduct of other people's lives - their flotsam and jetsam, their effluent, their excesses and and failings. And sometimes, they even have really good taste! I like other people's stuff just as much as new stuff and I'm not talking about stealing. Actually I wonder how stupid you have to be, to go to all the trouble of being a thief. There is so much stuff out there for free! I mean, why bother to climb through a window in the middle of the night and risk losing your freedom (or in West Cornmeal Township where I live) risk getting shot in the leg when you can just say Yes, drive up the driveway in your truck and most people will help you load it up.

Anyhow, today Ripper and I are off to bring a motherlode of stuff home and in order to earn it, we are also delivering seven large pieces of lovely craftsmen furniture to a woman who has bought it from the owner. When we said yes to this (Ripper will tell you that I said yes and she had a blackout) we weren't also moving My Son's family into my house, Eldest Grandson did not have a broken hand, and everything seemed possible because I was breathing the fumes of an estate sale. Nothing is ever as easy as I think it's going to be or as tragic and difficult as she feels it is.

Because I had a moment of clarity and realized that I was just not big enough to take an oak entertainment center down three flights of stairs, or even help Ripper do this, I have made arrangements for help. We are picking up two guys at a Mission in town and they are going to help us and we are renting a freaking big truck.

Ripper arrives this morning and I tell her we have help. That we are picking up two as yet Unknown Unfortunates at a men's mission who are going to be our legs and muscles. It's not just easier, it's GOOD KARMA.

Over her head forms a cartoon bubble where frame by frame it is revealed she is thinking that we will pick these guys up and later today will be found on the floor of the vacant house with steak knives sticking out of sucking chest wounds by her husband my son who has been calling our stolen cellphones frantically for hours.

She says, Other women don't do this.

I wave this concern away! I tell her I have decided it will be a great day! It will be FUN, we will get so much done! And, it's sort of like the exercise program we both said we would start around the new year, which is just six short weeks behind us - no time like the present! Then I tell her I will buy her breakfast. She gets in the car.

We go through the Burger King drive thru. I order a croissant sandwich, breakfast potatoes and a small diet coke instead of the coffee that comes with the meal. I believe this is a number three. It is 3.49. Ripper orders a bacon, egg and cheese, breakfast potatoes and a medium coke instead of a coffee. Hers is 4.59. I have to repeat this several times for the woman taking the order, shouting into the little box. She says thank you very much that will be 14.99 please pull around to the first window.

No. No it will not be 14.99. I'm not going to do the actual math, but just rounding the numbers up to the next dollar I can tell it won't be 14.99. It's like 7. Ripper says, That's not RIGHT. Even though Ripper is in the passenger side of my car, the woman in the box hears this and declares, I have to charge you extra for the coffee and cokes. I say, No no, they always just swap that out. And even so, two sodas are not seven dollars.

I careen around the side of the building to the first window where a woman with a Madonna style microphone is holding a bag. I refuse to take it. I say, that total is not right.

She says, yes it is.

I say no, it can not be. Are you gonna charge 15.00 for two sandwiches all day?

She gets unction. Fourteen ninety nine.

As if her unction effects me. I ask for a receipt.

She hands me a receipt that is completely undecipherable. Sure enough the total is 14.99. Ripper is shrieking, seven dollars seven dollars let me see that! and snatches the receipt from me. Since she is convinced she is going to die today, she is upset her last meal is being screwed up in this manner.

There is much arguing back and forth, much tallying up and other BK workers start to cluster in the little tiny window. Everyone has an explanation. They start to argue amongst themselves. No one is making any sense. RIpper and I are forgotten as they turn against each other.

I snatch the receipt back, hand it to the woman holding the bag and stomp on the gas. Just one more restaurant we can never go back to.

We stop for gas and spend fifteen minutes hunting for my wallet in the car. We do find it. Then...

We decide to go pick up the Freaking Big Truck - which is actually just a ten foot cargo van - and THEN get breakfast. I decide we are going to feed the Unknown Unfortunates, too. More good karma (especially since I have found my wallet). We pull into the rental place parking lot and now I can't find my phone. I am looking for my phone because a) Ripper's phone never has a complete charge, b) I do not go anywhere without my phone, c) I have the rental contract stored in my email on my phone. We tear the car apart. I take off my coat. I take off my sweatshirt. I look in the trunk. Ripper starts to call my phone and the vibration is rattling the car like bad dental work but we still can't find it. Finally, Ripper finds it between the seat and the console (in a place I looked over and over) and says, I hate you. Get out of my life. But with affection.

We go in to get the truck paperwork and keys. The people inside have never done this before. It's new to them. They have to call for assistance. The guy who shows up is their son. Dad disappears, Mom and Son get snippy with each other (You aren't logged in. Yes I am. No you are not. You have to be logged in.) Finally son gets the paperwork printed and hands it to me to sign. I hand it back. Mom passively, aggressively, slowly and methodically, folds it into an origami crane and slides it into the envelope. Ripper and I watch this little drama with some understanding - we have sons. But this is not getting us down the road.

I am going to drive the truck. Not many people know this, but I sold little trucks and big trucks for eight years. I can drive anything, any size. I could thread a needle with this truck. It will be a source of shallow pride to me all day. So, I am packing up my stuff from the car which Ripper is going to drive and I can't find my wallet. Or my phone.

I realize if I do this one more time today, I AM going to end up with a steak knife sticking out of a sucking chest wound, but it will be Ripper who did it and no jury will convict her.

We find my wallet and my phone after a few trips back into the truck place, a few more searches of the trunk and under the seats, and a fruitful emptying of the pockets of my coat.

This is when we realize, it is National Dumb as Mud Day.

I peel out of the parking lot with Ripper hot on my bumper and my phone rings. It's Ripper. She says, You are doing great! I think she was checking to see if I still had my phone, but it was sweet of her to notice my skill. Later I realize that she was probably also obsessing that I would drive slowly and over carefully and timidly and then she would be forced into taking the wheel of the truck and that would make HER nervous.

Now because it is NDAMD (see above) and because everything seems to be moving in slow motion, when I call my contact at the Mission to tell him that I am on my way, he tells me I have missed breakfast by half an hour. I don't get why this is important. Was I supposed to eat at the Mission? He says nooooo, but the guys show up, eat and take off about their business (?) and will not be back til 11 to line up for lunch. Okay then. Ripper and I are going to eat breakfast first and kill and hour or two, and then pick up the guys.

We eat at MacDonalds where something very similar to the Burger King Breakfast we order before totals just over 7 dollars. Hmmm. Ripper even has extra potatoes. After a nice, leisurely and reasonably priced breakfast, we moozy (I don't know how to spell that) over to a lighting store and poke around. Then it's time to drive to the mission.

We park and go up to the building, which is an old store front. The door is locked (it's not time to go in for lunch yet) but there is a dapper gentleman standing on the sidewalk, complete with snazzy hat, dress shoes and suit coat. He's very tall and he looks healthy. He asks if he can assist us. I tell him I am here to offer a few hours of work moving furniture. I am paying cash. He hods out his hand and says, Hello, my name is Robert. I will be happy to do it. I say, I really need two guys. We turn in unison and look at an older guy sitting on a bench, clearly not the man beef we are looking for. Now I am worried about offending him, though he doesn't really look all the interested. Robert says, let's go inside and maybe they have someone else for you. He raps on the door, they open up, a cheerful woman named Patty takes in the situation. Robert ducks outside again and reappears with a strong younger man in tow. This is Otis, and he can help! It's that easy. We get in the car, hunt for my wallet and phone again, and head back to Macdonald's where we left the truck. As we pull away from the curb, a young woman waves at the car and mouthes WHERE ARE YOU GOING? This is Otis' significant other. His cellphone rings and it's her. They have a discussion about what he is doing, what he is earning, and how long he will be gone. She's grilling him pretty good. When he hangs up, I ask him if he needs a note from me for the day? We laugh and hi-five each other and basically rejoice in the common themes of people's lives.

We pick up the truck and I pair up with Robert (we are close in age) and Otis climbs into the car with Jaime (the truck won't hold four people). I set the gps - a thing of wonder to Robert, who asks if it works if you are hitching - and off we go.

Robert and I settle into an easy conversation. We are both Hillary democrats who voted for Obama. Robert shares that he studied political science in college and finds this an exciting time to be living. He tells me he is a veteran. He played basketball for the Air force all over Europe and then tried out for the Denver Nuggets. He injured his knee and can't play any more. That his mother died six years ago and she was his best friend. He finds he does not have anyone to call with good news any more. He never had children. His favorite place in the world is Belgium. At New Years.

He asks about me and I give him the encapsulated Rodeo story.

Ripper calls and says she is hungry. So is Otis.

Robert says he has coupons for MacDonald's and pulls them out of his wallet. Ripper says she can't eat at the same fast food restaurant twice in one day. I decide I want Robert to hold on to his coupons, I'm buying so we go to Wendy's. We order everything they want.

Eating and driving, we get to the house and Robert and Otis load up the big, difficult furniture easily and energetically. They think of better ways to do things and Otis is particularily good at the spacial relationships that are required to load the truck.

We drive over to the delivery site and unload the furniture. The woman receiving the furniture gives Otis and Robert forty dollars each which they really appreciate. Then, we go back to the vacant house and in minutes load it up again with the items we are keeping. We all work together at this and it goes really fast. To our endless amusement, Otis' woman calls every fifteen minutes to see where he is. I keep wondering what she thinks is happening. And how does she pay for those calls?

On the way back to the Mission, Robert tells me that he had an apartment till two months ago, when he got laid off. They fired his whole shift. He's not worried. Something else will turn up. Maybe he will go to Florida to see an old girlfriend. He's thinking it might be time to settle down. Or get a camper and drive around the country. He says he's on Singlenet.com, too. He's Robert405. Okay.....he also says that he has a job interview the next day, but he can skip it and come out to the farm to help us unload. I tell him I don't think that will be necessary, we have family to help us unload. He looks out the window and says, I can skip that interview. He tells me that Otis is not really homeless. He doesn't know why he comes to the shelter.

Ripper and I decide telepathically to pay these men twice what we had originally said we would, because they made the day so easy. They are very happy, wave to us enthusiastically when we drop them back at the Mission. Call us ANY OLD TIME!

We drive the truck home, glad we have it for another day and don't have to unload it tonight. We are bushed. We sit and talk and Ripper tells me that Otis is thinking about going back to college, that his mother is a stock broker. Ripper says she talked to his mother when she called - Otis wanted her to say hello. She said that Mom was very articulate. She says Otis told her he voted for McCain because he thought McCain would do what was important, and wouldn't care about being popular. She says he told her he isn't homeless, that he and his significant other and her two kids live with another family in an apartment. He comes down to the mission because all his friends are there. His Sig Other likes the social life. Neither of them have jobs right now.

Ripper and I are sitting in my lovely home, bought with so much hard work. She says, I felt sort of guilty. We have so much.

I said, I know.

Ripper says, How do they get to be homeless, with no jobs, Rodeo?

I know she means she has met incompetent idiots just today who were not as efficient or thoughtful or as hard working. It is a puzzle, but I think about the job interview that can be missed, the injury, the death of a beloved parent. I think about relationships with insecure, needy people. About bad luck and bad decisions and bad habits. I think about National Dumb as Mud day. I tell Ripper that what keeps us from being in their situation is luck and things that can turn in a second and that we are but the width of a human hair away from going down that road most days of our lives. We just don't know it. it's the difference between saying Yes and No to the right and wrong things at the right and wrong times. It's the intervention of Angels and Shadows. I guess the answer might lay in our prayers. Robert told me that every night he thanks the Lord for another day. I told him that every night I thank the Lord that I am not cold or hungry.

I believe in Magic, Again

It is 1958. I am standing on the lawn of my home in Springfield, PA. It's late winter - one of those mornings where the grass feels brittle under your feet, but the air has a different, fresher feel and smell. The signs of spring are there, but you have to look really closely, listen really well, close to the ground. It's a morning that is not just about what it is, but what it will become. Poised. About. Ready.

A noise from a tree distracts me from inspecting ice crystals on the grass. I lay down on the earth, face up, feeling the miles of soil and stone and rock and lava and whatever else I can imagine is the center holding me up. Above me is an equal amount of sky and clouds and planets and stars. And for a moment, the last one I remember, I am the center of the universe.

Life happens after that. A series of events and admonishments and personalities and work that are designed to chip away at that feeling. Love and passion and need and all the elements of responsibilities and leading a productive life of service and maturity conspire to make sure I understand what my place is in the scheme of things. I am a knife on a whetstone, run by the ceaseless pounding of things going forward, goals being reached, agendas fleshing out. But always, always there is the memory of that morning, of that knowing what it is like at the center.

Good news. Good things happen. Happy times. Comfort, surprises, Wonderful tastes and warm blankets on cold nights. Hot showers. Babies. Kisses. Smiles and gifts. Just in the nick of time sometimes, sometimes greeted with gratitude, sometimes overlooked in the crush of bad things.

Bad news. Bad things happen. Hopes that are dashed, regardless of the amount of effort put in. Unfair things. Cruel things. Accidents. Loss. Long faces talk in whispers. Closed doors. Stones in shoes. Broken plumbing. Debts. Sometimes the phone rings, sometimes the certified letter arrives, sometimes Young Policemen show up at the door with news that is so unfathomable it is like they are speaking a language I don't understand. Bad things always leave their mark.

I am not unaware of the balance. Every year at New Years, I take stock. This involves cleaning out of my head, heart and house of things I do not want to take into the New Year and going to Beliefnet.com and taking the spirituality quiz. It's like taking my spiritual temperature. A series of questions designed to gauge your fit with hundreds of world religions, spiritual beliefs or theories, when you finish answering them it tallies up your answers and matches you up with some body of faith that most closely resembles your mindset.

I never even get close to Catholicism, Judaism or Muslim. Never. I remember the shock of not even registering within fifty points of Protestant although I attended Presbyterian Church much of my childhood. I was sort of relieved at not having to say "I am a Presbyterian" any more when asked, because it never seemed quite right, given my belief that there were ghosts and spirits in trees and that dreams had meaning, and tarot cards could help you figure out tough situations,that animals talk and showed up to help you, and that you did what you could but at some point there was just a force or entity beyond the understanding of a human brain or experience that sort of controlled things but chaotically, and that had no explanation. A mishmosh of goobledygook that can only be described as magic.

I took the test in the quiet moments of midnight, the New Years after Charles died. Something changed in my score.
Something imperceptible to me, but showing up in my answers.
I scored an organized religion.
I no longer believed in magic.

I entered the darkest period of my life. I no longer cared about the balance of good things to bad things. Everything was a bad thing. My sunny personality was just something I put on, not something I believed. I said the same things, I offered the same encouragement, I don't think I am fooling myself when I tell you that I think I pretty much fooled everyone else - I think they believed I was just a little depressed, a little overwhelmed, a little beaten down. I would get over it.

Only I knew that I had stopped the struggle to stay in the center, to see the balance and was just accepting that it was all bad. That it had always been bad. That I was a fool who had never seen the whole picture. The memory of being the beloved center of the universe was just a childhood fantasy like the other ones of being Annie Oakley or Cinderella.

A friend at work noticed a chink in my happy armour one day and sent me a link to a fluffy, whimsical email newsletter that she said helped her through some bad times. I thought, what the hell. So I signed up. They started coming and I would read them first thing in the morning. Honestly, the happy, affectionate notes from the Universe initally got on my nerves. The depth of my sadness and loss of faith was so deep, they were like throwing snowballs at a bonfire.

Seriously. You can't stop crying when you are alone in the car, but you get "Baby steps spark miracles, Shirley.

Miracles do not spark baby steps.
Ungawa,
The Universe"

Or:

"When in doubt, Shirley, show up early. Think less. Feel more. Ask once. Give thanks often. Expect the best. Appreciate everything. Never give up. Make it fun. Lead. Invent. Regroup. Wink. Chill. Smile. And live as if your success was inevitable, and so it shall be.
Happy global domination,
The Universe"

Yeah, I needed that crap.

But I kept reading them, every morning.

I also kept doing things. Mechanically, but doing things. I like to respond to Haro Queries - if you haven't signed up, go do it now, it's over there in the sidebar under Help A Reporter - everyone is an expert at something, and it is fun to actually get some acknowledgement. I had extraordinary success at this, having every pitch I wrote accepted, getting quoted in The New York Times, USA today, Grands, Grandparents.com, Inflight Magazine, the list goes on and on. Just google me. Reporters were showing up at my house, photographers in tow, for articles in Ladies Home Journal and First For Women magazine. My son kept saying "What the hell, Mom?" I know - it's freaky! Especially considering that I didn't believe I was the darling daughter of the All Knowing any longer. God didn't have a plan for me, he was busy elsewhere. I was on my own.

Apparently, though I did not know it at the time, the battle over my soul was heating up.

A couple of weeks ago, a query shows up on Haro that goes like this:



33) Summary: Need Celebs/Ordinary People For TV Pilot

Category: Travel

Name: YYYYYY YYYYYYYY

Email: XXXXXXXXX@XXXXXXX

Title: Publisher

Media Outlet/Publication: XTRORD.com

Anonymous? No

Have you ever wanted to fly a jet or ride in a Float on Mardi Gras? Write us a paragraph and tell us why we should pick you.

This is how I responded:


Name: Shirley Landis Van Scoyk
Age: 55
Hometown: Honey Brook, PA
How To Reach You:XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
Your Story: (a paragraph about yourself and why you've always
wanted to have this experience)

First of all, let me just say that if you are looking for ordinary, I am your girl. I am a short round outgoing cheerful grandmother/widow who lives on a farm in PA and works as a Realtor. But I have this one... little.... weakness..... Mardi Gras!

I have been to Mardi Gras four times. I have a dog named NOLA. I have a coconut from Zulu, but not a spear. I have thirty five pounds of beads in my bedroom closet, and three boas. I have a shoe from Endymion. I have dressed in my pajamas and screamed when the Rex King went by. I have begged, Throw me something, Mister! I have taken tons of pictures from the ground but I have always secretly wanted to throw beads to the crowd.
I have always wanted to know what it is like to see the crowd from UP THERE - to decide who to throw beads to, what method works the best - there is a science to the begging, and I want to know it, see it, live it, from behind the masks. I wanted to send you some pictures, but I don't know if you would accept attachments.

I have friends who live in NOLA who can put me up and I will fly there myself. I can be ready to go at the end of Feb.

PICK ME< PICK ME< PICK ME, Life - throw me something Mister!!!!!!!!!!"

And they answered. Yes.

And then, I renigged.

Yes. Read this:

"Alan: I am so sorry, but I have to withdraw my pitch for Mardi Gras. After I sent you the email saying I have a place to stay, yady yady yady, I realized I do have a work conflict with the dates. I thought I better write you as soon as possible, and I hope that whomever gets this opportunity really appreciates it and that it works out for you. Shucks, I am bummed but it can't be helped.

Shirley VanScoyk"

Liar, liar pants on fire.

I told everyone - Lisa and her Dad who would put me up and put up with me graciously and actually like they were excited, my Daughter In Law and my friends, that yes, I wanted to go, but really I had to be an adult, I had things to do, dogs to feed, money to save, it was time I just started saying no to myself and these crazy, impractical notions of fun and different and cherry on the top experiences. The dark side won.

But the bright side was not ready to give up.

The guy called, we talked, I said NO NO, he said please please. He emailed. He upped the ante.

His email:

"Hi Shirley --

So I've been sick as a dog for the last week and consequently haven't gotten around to replacing you in our TV show's Mardi Gras segment. We've switched to the star-studded Orpheus (Harry Connick Jr.s krewe) parade on Monday night and we'll be attending the ball afterwards, which should make it just that much more fun!

Before I move to the next name on my list, I thought I'd check in with you one more time. For our purposes, you'd only need to be there by Saturday night, we'll shoot Sunday and Monday, and you could fly home Fat Tuesday to minimize the time you'd be away from work...

So, whatd'ya say? Lemme know ASAP!

Thanks!"

Okay, I'm shallow. The name Harry Connick Jr. turned it all around for me.

Also I am also a complete sucker for a man who is begging - just ask my two husbands, my son, my grandsons and my old boyfriends.


On Friday I made a few phone calls about my animal care concerns, worked it out in minutes and guess what, called the guy and said yes. Happy Happy Happy. Mostly. And I also got a positive response from another query I wrote - I sent this wonderful woman Pam The Cremains Tour when she requested funeral/celebrant stories and she was so receptive and kind and appreciative that I was overwhelmed, but in a good way this time. A remarkable turn of events - later to be seen as a metaphor of historic proportions, sort of like.....The Battle of Midway or Gettysburg. I start looking at Ball Gowns on the internet, checking out the Orpheus site. You know - Orpheus, one of the handful of Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return; even in Hades his song and lyre did not lose their power.

But the Universe does not like it when you minimize its work to a human scale. Once it gets started, you have got to stand there and wait for it to swallow you up and show you once again that you are the chocolate-y, chewy center of the Universal Tootsie Roll.

Monday morning. This am. First thing I do is roll over, grab my blackberry and read what emails have come in over night. There it is - the Universe Calling.

And this morning it says:

"I don't like to make predictions, but the way things are going, Shirley, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this year you have a ball, go to a ball... and put the pics up on Facebook.
You are so poised for the time of your life -
The Universe"

Okay, Universe, you win.

The Blue Sky Farm Christmas Letter

It's that time of year when people I haven't seen for a long time (and with good reason) feel the need to connect and send me Christmas Letters. Always folded in quarters in lavish Christmas cards, opening them sends shivers down my spine. They seem to come in categories: TMI and Full Out Bragging.

TMI (Too Much Information) is usually a list of funerals, surgeries and divorces. Full Out Bragging is a recitation of graduations, awards, births, and trips. There is a hybrid (TMI/FOB) which is bordering on emotional abuse.

I've never sent a Christmas letter not just because I don't like getting them, but also because Rodeo's Christmas Letter would go something like this:


Hey, everybody, sorry this is late.

It's been a busy year here at Blue Sky Farm. No, the addition is not done. No, we don't know when it will be done. No, the kid's house has not sold. No, we don't know when it will be sold. Yes, that is our bucket truck, no it's not rented, we bought it.

The boys have each grown five inches and keep their school work secret from their parents and me, so we don't know what grades they are in or if they have won any awards. They get on a school bus everyday, but they could be part of a secret gov't program.

I have only been to the emergency room three times this year: vertigo, teeth through my lip and a truly near death prescription mix up. We do have two weeks to go til the New Year.



Trips: Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Lost and Found in New York City, TWO trips back to New York with Anita for "the View", Road Trip with Gail to Arizona (pictured, with our candy necklaces), each wonderful and fabulous in it's own way!

However, who could forget the Summer Stay-Cations - one for me, one for the dogs. And for Nola, Petey and Daisy, winter stay-cation looks pretty similar to summer stay-cation.


Sadly missed: Earl and Josh W.

Things Acquired: Lucille (pictured), Nellie, Rita, Nathan, Two Yet to be Named Chicks, Fencing, Manure Spreader, Gas Fire Place.


Things Lost: FIVE HUGE DUMPSTERS FULL OF CRAPDEDOODLE, thousands of dollars in commissions due to the market, three chickens to either the bobcat or the red tail hawk.

Hey, wait. This has been sort of cathartic. Maybe that's why they send those letters.

Out my window, the snow is falling, the wind is howling but I am toasty and warm, as are all my friends and family and animals. Merry Christmas to all and may this coming year bring you the blessings of creature comfort.

Spirit of Christmas

This year, I am trying to reclaim Christmas.

The last three Christmases I took a pass - 2006 it was just three weeks after Charles died and I was pretty much in a fog. One of the last things he did on this earth was put up Christmas lights. I remember watching him teetering on a ladder, tweaking the weather beaten strings in the crabapple tree and wondering if he was ever going to come in for dinner. I'm looking out the same window now and I can see those strings of lights blowing in the wind, nobody in the family having the heart to cut them down. Obsessed with Christmas lights, we are still finding boxes of vintage bulbs he hid in the attic and bags of brand new strings he forgot in the barn.

2007 we were still adjusting and making it good for the kids, but feeling our way, and making a lot of jokes about getting to pick out trees WE liked. An oft quoted Charles anecdote was of Christmas tree hunting in the snow, on a bitterly cold day in a local tree farm. Daughter-In-Law and I found ourselves standing in a cold, bleak field with darkness sifting down around us, not knowing where Charles and the kids were. The lights went out in the vendor's shack, only a few cars left in the parking lot. After about two hours, an ancient school bus lurched into the lot and Charles and the two boys fall out the door, laughing hysterically. They had taken a BUS to a distant field in search of the perfect tree and ....didn't find one. This was funny to them at the time, but not funny to DIL and I for another five years.

The up shot of this is that I have a PINK fake tree covered with girly ornaments. The lights are already on it, and you just plug it in.

However, to keep the Ghosts of Christmas past from casting a pallor on all future Christmases, I am trying to do new things, start new traditions, and feel Christmasy. So I have to act Christmasy. I decided to make Christmas gifts for friends.

(My family does not want home made gifts. We do enough of the touchy feely Walton's Mountain kind of crap every day, they want the hard goods like appliances and bling)

I didn't want to bake cookies. It seemed toooo hard. I've been making soup like a fiend but I don't want to give anyone food poisoning by mistake. It's just what would happen.

So, I decide on something that LOOKS Christmasy, suits the majority of my friends, and would be fun. This is how I arrive at Homemade Cranberry Liqour.

It's a beautiful red - so it's Christmasy. It's alcohol so it suits my friends - sort of a liquid one size fits all. And It looks more like 'compiling' than cooking, so it would be fun.

I've had my eye on these huge Ball jars with bales and rubber gaskets at the local Hardware store, so when the Liqour is done, I use them for something else so it also fits the 'gift for me' category that I was ashamed to list above.

First step: research. I read about fifty recipes on line, all of which seem to be cut and pasted from an original one.

Second step: buy the ingredients and amass the tools. (I even buy a new vegetable peeler because I realize that the one I have is not very sharp, and I bought it in 1978). I have to go to the Liquor Store to buy the vodka. In Pennsylvania, you have to buy wine and liquor (except rubbing) at a special state owned store, with state employees, during restricted hours. If you want beer or malt beverages, that's another store. But not on Sundays, at all. I think that this is a holdover from our Quaker heritage, not that I know many Quakers who don't bend an elbow. I googled the subject but got more complaints about the system than information on its history. However, Pennsylvania was also the location of the Whiskey Rebellion - moonshiners fighting government regulation of home stills. However, here I am at the liquor store, buying three huge bottles of vodka. I can read minds, so I know that everyone in the store has noticed what is in my cart and has decided I am an alcoholic. I fight the urge to explain the purchase to the clerk, because A.) I know he thinks I am an alcoholic B.) I know he doesn't care. I trip going out the door and feel that everyone has confirmed their suspicions. I have been to the Liquor Store about four times in my life and felt this way each time. More pointless self loathing.

Third Step: Mulching the cranberries and pouring the vodka in the big jars. You also have to make a sugar syrup which IS cooking, but I didn't notice at first, but really easily accomplished, until I have to pour the hot syrup in the jars and find that they are too tall for me to reach easily when on the table, too heavy for me to move to the floor or the chair. So I climb on a chair with a pot of boiling sugar syrup and risk my life. Well, it is christmas time and I haven't been to the emergency room yet.

It's gorgeous! In a couple of days I will decant this into smaller jars and wow my friends with my thoughtfulness and creativity. If you are one of my friends and reading this, feel free to thank me now. I will also be 'cricutting' a label - that should be another episode.

I hope this is good enough to repeat next year. It's sort of a decoration for the kitchen in addition to a gift so it's really a win/win. I hope it gives my friends a warm glow on a cold night, sometime in the next month or so. Because really, that's the best we can expect in this life.

Threads of Memory

I have forgotten birthdays, anniversaries, and tax bills. I have forgotten my phone, shoes, and hair appointments. I've forgotten to unplug the iron and I've forgotten where I've parked. I've completely forgotten people's names, where I met them and why I've disliked them. Don't even get me started on hours spent hunting car keys, lost earrings or important papers. I've picked up an exquisite Limoges milk pitcher from the sideboard in my own dining room and wondered where it came from. Thank goodness my old horse Bonnie had a real barn lust or there would have been many afternoons out trail riding that might have ended in hysterical phone calls because I forgot how the trail went. I accumulated almost fifteen pounds of brown sugar over time, because I could never remember - while at the grocery store - whether I had it in the pantry. I've walked into rooms, forgetting why I went in. I've forgotten to close gates in the pasture and doors on the barn, leading to many many domestic episodes. I've forgotten how to spell "predicament" and how much 35 minus 17 is.

In fact, while I was writing this, several times I have forgotten what I was doing and wandered off to do something else.

My point is....Dear Daughter-In-Law brought an ancient Singer Sewing Machine in from the barn (don't remember where we got it, how long it's been there or why I brought it home in the first place) and said, plaintively and with much rolling of her doe like eyes, "I wish I knew how to use this."

I have not touched a sewing machine in many many years. My mother was and is a Seamstress Supreme and sewing was an activity, much like reading or playing an instrument, that was a huge part of my childhood. She made all of our clothes, and going to the Fabric District in Philadelphia to pick out fabric for dancing school costumes or prom dresses was a very special occasion to be shared just between us. We would stand together in front of the pattern books, turning the large pages, and she would say - I can take that sleeve, and put it on that top, and we can match it with that skirt and make it out of this fabric- and outfits and evenings and girlish dreams would form, and out of the scraps, my Barbie and Chatty Cathy would have the best, most fashionable doll clothes In our neighborhood - sorry Gail, but I still think so!

She had a Necchi Sewing Machine that did zig zag stitches and scalloped and serged and ruffled. The arrival of this machine when I was little meant that my sisters and I got her old machine just for us to use. It went into the basement on its own table, next to the "toy' iron which heated up enough to really iron clothes and the 'toy' oven which got hot enough to bake cookies. We had real scissors, boxes of straight pins and needles, and all these appliances used electricity. All the little girls in the neighborhood had similar little kitchens and laundries in their basements, which we played in when we weren't sledding down hills without helmets and riding our bikes in traffic. Or walking over a mile to the candy store with our quarter allowance. It was a different world. It's not that we didn't burn ourselves or cut ourselves or sew our fingers into the hems of little doll pants - it's just that unless you were REALLY hurt - requiring treatment by a doctor - it was just child's play.

But, where was I? Oh, yes. DIL, with a dusty, chicken poo encrusted ancient Singer Sewing Machine.

I'm staring at the machine which she is wiping down with a cloth. It's so pretty - shiny black, with gold scroll work. She's holding an equally old spool of thread. Apparently, in the same pile of junk in the barn that held the machine, there was a sewing box full of balls of lace, little papers of needles and pins, LA MODE buttons, and that is also now on my kitchen table.

"I could make stuff with this." DIL is now unrolling lace across the table. "Why would someone have so much lace?" (I'm assuming she means the original owners of the box and the machine, not us - because I still can't actually remember bringing this stuff home)

I say, "Well, women used to sew the lace on the hems of their skirts, to make it pretty, or longer, if there wasn't enough fabric."

"I could make something on this machine, if I knew how to put this thread on it." She's trying the spool out on various places.

I know how to thread it.

Of all the things I have forgotten in my life - important things, unimportant things, objects and thoughts and occasions and feelings - I remember how to thread this machine.

I remember my sister sitting next to me and saying,"I'll show you - just ONCE, though." I remember where to put the thread spool, I remember the way you hook it through the arm (I remember it's called 'the arm') I remember looping it around the tension knob. I remember that you have to be careful not to screw with THIS too much. I hand her the thread and tell her to thread the needle - because my eyes just can not do that.

Once the needle is threaded, there is the matter of the bobbin. I show DIL how to use the wheel to move the needle down down into the sole to loop around the bobbin thread and pull it up. I remember all of this. I remember that the bobbin is a pain in the ass.

We start sewing all the junk mail. About every three inches, the bobbin thread breaks. Apparently the long deceased owner of this bobbin kept adding different colored thread to the already filled bobbin and it is a hot mess. DIL gets tired of sewing the junk mail and rushes off to the fabric store to buy fabric to 'make something.' I insist she take a picture of the machine with her camera, so she can show the people at the fabric store what she is using. I don't really know why I think this is a good idea, but there is just something about US buying fabric that seems to require some kind of validation.

In about an hour, she's back with batting and fabric and a BIG IDEA. She's going to make pillows. Now, in addition to making all my clothes and my doll clothes, my mother made slip covers and curtains and I remember that it was a major activity that involved piping and fabric on rolls and moving furniture to get areas big enough to cut the fabric and rows and rows of straight pins and zippers longer and more problematic than the Mexican American border. The whole family talked of nothing else for weeks, and even my father the engineer used to get in on the cutting and pattern making. DIL is unfettered by any need other than to get that Singer chewing up yards of fabric, so she cuts two squares, sews them together and stuffs them. Every once in a while the bobbin thread breaks, or the machine comes unthreaded, or I offer technical advice like - "reverse at the end of each row, to secure your stitches." Voila, pillows! Less than three hours after she dug that little machine out of a pile of hay in the barn she has a stack of pillows and a whole bunch of creative pride.

Then she says it: "You are like a real mom. You taught me to sew."

With affection.

Along with threading a machine, I will never ever forget how I felt when she said that.

I make her promise that at my funeral she will tell my sisters and my mother (assuming I go first) and anyone else that will listen, that I taught her to sew. On a machine. That I remembered how to thread.

BABY CHICKS!

A Papaya Like Memory

The last time I saw a papaya, I was in my grandmother's garden, on my first day in Australia. I was looking over the Brisbane River, watching pelicans land. I was five and a half years old, had just spent three days on planes (this was prior to jet engines), I had crossed the international date line and I was missing my father and my cat - who were home in the states. So many strange, fragrant colorful things I was seeing for the first time: frangipani, poinsettas in a hedge as tall as the house, kookaburras, funny cars, palm trees, houses without heaters or frig's.

So when I was in Wegman's fruit section last Sunday (fighting off the usual anxiety attack that grocery stores evoke since Charles died) and in front of me was a huge green blob labeled PAPAYA, I had to buy it. I seemed to remember that they were a color other than green in that garden, and I don't remember them being so big, and it seemed unusually firm for a melony fruit. The grocery store anxiety attack usually takes on mindless flinging of crapedoodle into a cart, rushed careening down the aisles trying to remember what I need (toothpaste? dishwashing liquid?) and decisions involving food that won't look lonely when cooked in pans too big for dinner for one. So, I was pretty sure I didn't need a papaya, but it was big enough to not look silly, and of course, I could corner my grandchildren in the kitchen and tell them why the papaya was important to me while DIL and Son rolled their eyes. A family moment, in a fruit! What more could you ask for?

At home, I decided it needed a few days to ripen, and then got distracted by...well, going to New York, etc. So this morning, I gave it a feel-up, it was noticeably softer and had turned a spottled orange. I was going to slice that thing open and eat a MEMORY!

And take photos.

And blog it. Cause that is who I am now - a blogging, exotic fruit eating Sunday lounger!

Well, either I let this sucker ripen much too much OR when I was a kid my tastebuds were so bored by red delicious apples and the occasional strawberry, but it was a little disappointing.

Sort of like sweet, soft pumpkin. Not inspiring. Which left me with the feeling that memories, of fruit or otherwise, are probably best savored fresh and in your mind, rather than physically recreated on a cold kitchen counter thousands of miles and decades from the original moment. I think I will go scramble some eggs. I wonder if goats will eat papaya?

Dog Heaven

Like I was saying, about the daily weirdness...

This is Old Jack Russell, the one with the brain damage. He stuck his head in a popcorn bag that was left on the sofa and just walked around with it on his head for ten minutes. He wasn't hysterical, he wasn't afraid, he was just....wearing a popcorn bag.

Deer In The Headlights

Every morning I wake up, do some mental sorting out - usually along the lines of remembering that I am alone now in the house, thinking of things I have to do like grocery shop and work related duties.  Before I could not do this because the minute my eyes would fly open, my dogs would be awake and to prevent having to clean up accidents, I would have jump into some clothes of any description, find shoes, tear down the stairs, snap leashes on their necks and then open the door barely in time to keep Ms Manchester from piddling on the floor in the hallway.  About a year ago I started putting all three dogs into crates at night, not sharing my bed with them, and we have ALL been sleeping better.  I have time to get properly (if you count striped pj bottoms and a sweatshirt) dressed, control the stampede down the stairs and there have been LOTS fewer accidents.  

This morning was no different - a little sniffling about the alone situation, happy dogs excited about another day here in heaven, and out the door to greet the day.   It's been raining for days but this morning the grass was lush and green, the sky was bright and all and all, it was a good way to wake up.

Because of the construction, we (me and the dog-tourage) go out the front door - Big American Bull Dog on a pink leash, Little Manchester on a Blue Leash, Old Jack Russell NOT on a leash.  The control of the dogs on the leashes is a fanciful ballet of high kicks and slipped discs.  OJR can not be on a leash because of his terrible accident as a puppy when he was kicked by one of the horses and survived a head injury which left him with short term memory loss and small seizures.  Don't feel bad for him - he wakes up every day in this Dog Heaven and says to himself HEY WE HAVE A BARN!  and it's all gravy from there.  But he can not wear a leash because even if we put the thinnest gossamer thread of a leash on him, the minute we attach it to his collar he falls over.  We don't know why, but it's not funny any more so we just try to keep track of him.  The other two - well, they have bad habits which involve chasing livestock or attacking animals larger than themselves and need the control til  they get to the fenced dog play yard.

As I have said, this morning we leave the front door without incident (by the time you get to the bottom of this post you will be wondering WHY at that very minute I did not KNOW something was WRONG - having Three Very Active Noses working)  and head to the dog play yard.  The goats are in their adjacent play yard, and there is some fence jousting and threats and intimidation on both sides but it never goes anywhere.  Big Yellow Horse and Big Brown Horse give a glance and head for the pasture.  Eldest Grandson catches the bus before I usually get out and he lets the chickens out (again, you are going to wonder why HE didn't alert us).  The Ugly White Rooster is on top of the chicken house crowing.  An idyllic morning.  Picture Perfect.  Quiet.  

Daughter-In-Law comes out on the lawn with Youngest Grandson ready for the bus.  He does his chicken count, DIL and I exchange bleary good mornings and lean over the fence watching the dogs and the goats and the horses and the chickens, and in general, accessing the very good life that God has given us.  Once Jeremy is on the bus, we go back in THE FRONT (again, completely clueless as to what is around us) DOOR and sit on the sofa and start to wonder why the traffic is going past the house sooooo sllllooowwwly.

In fact, I remark on it. "Look, that car is going past the house realllllly sloooowly."

DIL says, "Of course it is.  Our house looks like crazy people live here - with all the construction, with the bucket truck stuck in the porch like a permanent fixture,  I am sure there are people for whom a highlight of any given weekday morning is checking out the latest crazy crap that is going on here blah blah blah.... " My attention is momentarily diverted to the TV where they have just announced that the average woman eats 450 extra calories between Friday evening and Sunday night.  450?  That's like ten calories an hour.  Big deal.  

I am pulled back into conversation with DIL when she says something about having to pick up a trumpet for Youngest Grandson.  I say I thought he played the violin.  She says NOW he wants to play the trumpet so she has to go to Reading to pick this trumpet up and she wants to know if I can go with her because she doesn't know where she is going.  

I say, use your GPS.  She says, well, somehow a penny got down the cigarette lighter thingie and shorted it out and she can't plug the GPS I gave her for her birthday in.

I said, I thought MY SON YOUR HUSBAND fixed that.  She says, He did.  But it happened again.  Sigh.  

I have a business appointment at 11am so I can't go to Reading to pick up a trumpet, but I suggest that she go to my car (parked next to the front door because it was raining so hard when I got home the day before I just pulled it up on the lawn), plug my GPS in, and then it will be charged and she can take it with her when she leaves.

Another car crawls by the front of the house.  

DIL says that is a great idea and goes out the front door.  I go to get a cuppa tea.  Seconds later, she is back in and says....

"I don't know how to say this.  Get your shoes on and come outside."

Through the window I can see another car slowing down and then speeding up,  and the driver shaking his head.

I say, "No."

She says, "Get your camera, get your shoes on and come outside."  She sees me hesitating and knows I am going to need to know something, anything, that will help me walk the twenty four feet from my kitchen to the front door and out, to see the thing that requires shoes and a camera.

She says, "There is a dead deer stuck under your car."

Well, now.  It's not a horse, it's not a dog.  Thank God it's not a child.  Not pleasant.  But not a tragedy.  (For those of you NOT from this area, deer are like rats with antlers, wandering around roadways, killing innocent drivers, causing untold millions of dollars worth of property damage, spreading lymes disease, ruining crops.  Our native deer are three times the size of the ones our forefathers found when they came to this country, because most of them are cornfed scavengers.) 

We walk out together and sure enough, there is a deer stuck under my car.  Not just any deer.  The BIGGEST, HUGEST, MALE DEER I have ever seen.  In perfect condition.  With one two three OH MY GOD seven points! (how you measure antlers) A spread of about eighteen inches.  She says, "This wasn't here when you parked last night, was it?"  Just the first of many questions I will be asked about this situation which will give me insight into what people think I am capable of.

No.  It was not there when I parked my car last night.  And, NO, even though the bedroom where I sleep is under thirty feet from this scene, I didn't hear anything.  And furthermore, doesn't she think I would have MENTIONED it?  

Best guess, someone ELSE hit the poor thing and it was thrown or projected off the roadway into my car.  And even though like most things in life there are no answers, and since neither of us are really sure what we are supposed to do at this moment, we wander around it, look at it from a lot of different angles, talk a lot of speculation and take a lot of pictures.  We make our best guesses regarding the bloating of the corpse and turgidity and the time of death (DIL practically grew up in a funeral parlor and I watch a lot of court tv so we both can make pretty educated hunches).  We look for drag or hoof prints in my soggy lawn.  We count those antler points.  We wonder WHY the dogs didn't react to several hundred pounds of fresh roadkill virtually beneath their noses.  And then we start making the phone calls and sending the pictures. 

DIL calls My Son, sends him a picture to prove she's not hallucinating, and he says he is on his way.  (As wife, she trumps mother when it comes to giving news) She calls her brother-in-law, Hunter/Gatherer and sends him a picture.  She calls her father, also Hunter/Gatherer.  He doesn't have a phone that will accept pictures, but he runs around his workplace finding someone who can get an email - because you just can't have this happen without sending pictures.  So we send him a picture.  All these Hunter/Gathers have been sitting in tree blinds freezing their asses off for years to bag a specimen like this, and I have one thrown on to my lawn.  The irony escapes no one.

I call my appointment and leave a long, confusing and absurdly neurotic message about deer and my car and I can't move it and not being able to put time constraints on this situation so I will have to call them later to reschedule.  Patient And Amused Male Business Partner calls coincidentally to discuss something entirely different and when I explain I can't move the car because of the dead deer stuck under it,  he says, "Well, it's already dead.  Just back up.  You can't really hurt it now." This makes me gag for about three minutes and he hangs up, saying he will call back later - I told him I would send him the pictures so he can understand the situation better.

And then my phone rings and it's Wonderful Neighborwoman.  She says, "Rodeo, Did you shoot that thing?"

I say, "Noooooo."  We have a very intense conversation about when she went by,  that  she thought I shot it or that I hit it, or that something'd it.   That maybe the Crazy Cat Lady next door put it there.  That makes us both laugh.    

Meanwhile DIL is arranging to have the deer taken away, which is something I haven't even thought of.  I tell her I want the antlers.  I want them mounted.  I explain that God gave me the deer and I want those antlers over my fireplace, right above my rifle (which I have never used to shoot anything) and I want to be able to point at them and tell the story over and over for years...

She says "You are not keeping that deer.  You know what will happen.  That head will just go in the freezer and never come out."

Meanwhile, My Son Her Husband arrives at the very second that a flatbed truck with an earthmover pulls off the road just feet from the deer.  A skinny young man in a John Deere (!) hat asks, Hey, can I have that deer?

My Son says Yes.  I say No.  

My Son says, you don't want that deer.  No one will take it away if they can't have the head.  And you know what will happen, that head will go in the freezer and never come out.

You leave a couple of animal bodies in the freezer for a couple of months and your family never lets you forget it.

I feel genuinely sad as my son and this stranger drag the deer out from under the car and put it on the flat bed.  The stranger is beyond excited.  That cheers me a little.  I hope he makes up a huge hunter's lie about how he got this magnificent beast's head.  

All the excitement is over and DIL and I adjourn to the kitchen table and are astounded at how two hours have past.  Not only past, but we know this is not how most people have spent their morning.  As My Son was leaving he shook his head and said, "You have to stop doing this.  Things like this keep happening.  Really."  He wasn't blaming us, but the thought was not lost on us.  We start trying to figure out why we have one domestic episode after another.  We worry about what will happen tomorrow.  DIL distances herself a little by reminding me that until she and My Son took what is now approaching custodial care of me, they lived a very tame life.  She swears months would go by without anything happening.  I need to come clean with you all and tell you that I don't put one TENTH of the daily, unusual, crazy, unpredictable, bizarre things that happen here down in writing because frankly a lot of the times I am embarrassed because if I did, it would speak to the out of control, random direction my life takes ninety percent of the time and no one would let me hug their children or pet their dogs for fear of some cosmic intervention that would wreck havoc on the innocents in proximity to me.   I say to DIL, "While everyone is laughing, I am thinking I need some kind of Chi-cleaning or something.  Like an exorcism."

She says, "We need a Priest."

I say, "I was thinking of something more like an asian spiritual monk, someone who would smudge smoke over me and waft away the evil spirits."

DIL says, "Oh, no Rodeo.  You need a Priest.  They scare the shit out of Demons.  You don't want some asian spiritual monk that just makes friends with it."

Well, something to think about it.  I think I have to think about what this all means.  I used to think in terms of animals as totems or messengers.  What does it mean when a deer crashes itself into your car when you aren't even in it?