"From the Mouth of Dinko"













A few days ago, my new blog pal August, smitten with my irrepressible boy, challenged him to answer the Vanity Fair questionnaire that's been making the rounds.

Wee Niblet, aka "Dinko," has subscribed to Vanity Fair for years now--two of them, to be exact (the subscription came about during potty training, as he put in long hours of work on the little plastic seat; The New Yorker, with its endless pages of theater productions and show times, tires the preschooler set, so Vanity Fair it was). Thus, he was flattered and happy to rise to August's proposition. Plus, Dinko has just added "C-A-T" to his literacy repertoire thanks to the PBS show Super Why! , so he was thrilled to have a public forum in which to display his new knowledge.

And now I must wipe a tear from my eye as I, Proud Mama, present Baby's First Meme:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Watching Donald Duck have a snow fight with Huey, Dewey, and Louie; I almost wet my Tyrannosaurus Rex pajamas, I was laughing so hard at those cheek-wheezers.



What is your greatest fear?
Our basement. I can only go down there with someone else, and I have to say loudly, "There is no monster down here, for sure...you hear me? NO MONSTER" as we head down the stairs.

Which living person do you most admire?
Porky Pig. S-s-s-s-s-eriously, folks, it was like I saw myself there on the screen when I first spotted him. I lead with pink pudge, too. He's coming to lunch next week, if I can get the peanut butter open for some sandwiches.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Poop. The fact that I can't open the jar of peanut butter by myself. But you should see me cut up Playdough with a pastry blender. Now that's plorable.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
When they refuse to try on my new paper-mache beanie; they are scaredy C-A-Ts.



What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Sleeping through the night.

On what occasion do you lie?
When I pretend I didn't hear my sister say "I'm sorry," just so I can tell on her. My mom would love for me to be bi-lingual, but that would mean I'd have to learn to say "butthead" in Spanish to describe myself.

That sounds like a lot of work. So I'll continue to be an occasional butthead in English only.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
That annoying fourth eye sometimes causes me to walk into lamp posts.

What is your greatest regret?
I didn't ride my tricycle more during the summer of '06.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My mom. And her soft tummy of Love and Comfort. No one can compete.

So stop trying, Dad. You can go make dinner. We'll be here on the couch.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Being a professional lasso thrower.

What is your current state of mind?
Humming. My mind and mouth hum all day long.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
I'd have wings and a retractable whip growing out of my hand and X-ray vision and a real live baby dragon.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Making it through seventeen minutes of the Bee Movie.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
Buneary, a cutie Pokemon.
Or maybe a snow plow driver.

What is your most treasured possession?
My beautiful and glamorous fake-real yellow crystal diamond from a booth at the Home Show. All people want this because it is very, very expensive, like $2, and it is a diamond, and everyone wants my rare and exotic crystal diamond.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Seeing the scarecrow's head rot.


Where would you like to live?
In the bed with my mom.

In the future, it could be on a therapist's couch.

What is your most marked characteristic?
When I'm hungry, you need to feed me. It gets really ugly, really fast otherwise.

Who are your favourite writers?
Mo Willems; Tedd Arnold; Ruth Stiles Gannett

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
I listen to Junie B. Jones in the car when we drive around, and she makes me laugh all the time, like Wowie Wow Wow. When she thought her new baby brother was a real, live monkey, I about dropped my juice box.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Did you know my sister can ride a two-wheeler and is really good at spelling?

What is it that you most dislike?
Dressing myself. I kind of refuse to do it. So far, it's been a pretty effective strategy.

What is your motto?
"I have a really great idea..."

Favourite journey?
The one that ends at Target. They have a whole section of Pokemon cards and Ben 10 toys there. I can push buttons for an hour before I need to go to the restaurant area for a bag of popcorn.

What do you value most in friends?
Proximity. If they are here, I will play. If they like to wear toe socks, too, like me, that's a bonus.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"You know what?" and "When will Mommy be home?"

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Louis XVI. I hide my shyness in pageantry, too.

What is your greatest extravagance?
The occasional second bowl of applesauce.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
We'd have a cutie baby. Mom says it ain't gonna happen.

What is your favourite occupation?
Hiding a screwdriver in a heap of Ooblek and then watching it emerge as the slime melts away.

What is the quality you like most in a woman?
Red hair and glasses and an accommodating lap.

What is the quality you like most in a man?
A unicycle.

How would you like to die?
I'm only four. I'm not ever going to die.

"If You Wheel It, He Will Roll"

Groom just turned thirty-seven.

We gave him a unicycle.

He should never have said, offhandedly, as he bit into a piece of watermelon this summer, "By the time I'm forty, I want to be able to ride a unicycle."

'Cause then we gave him one.

And now he has to master the sucker.






















Thus, Groom's birthday saw him down in our dungeon, learning how to mount the thing (and, yes, we keep the house cold enough that indoor hat-wearing is called for; stop being such a wussy guest and hat-up already). Balance will come later. Even one day in to his training, he already maintains it will give him a core workout to rival the pilates class taught by the Ab Nazi at our gym.

Since I can't have them myself, due to the chocolate-worshipping tenet of my religion, I do so appreciate rock-hard abs in others. When the census-taking ab-checkers come to our door next year, Groom's unicycle-hardened belly will earn their respect. Just to get them to put X's in all the right boxes, I'm willing to intensify the display and eat a smidgeon of lentil soup out of his belly button. Just 'cause I can. Those ab-census-takers will get an afternoon of entertainment beyond all dreams when they hit Unicycle House.

The unicycle is, indeed, a gift that will keep on giving.


supportive applause

The Wee Niblet can't wait until Pappy can juggle flaming torches on the unicycle. Girl can't wait to play tag with him and be chased by Unicycle It. I can't wait to see him make stir-fry on the roll.

Face it: we are circus folk.

----------------------
P.S. Stop coveting our orange shag carpet. Your desire is unattractive.

"When I Was Young and Full of Grace"

I believe, when my aunt labeled the Wee Niblet "irrepressible," that she saved me at least twenty-three minutes of racking my brain to find the most apropos adjective for the little nutter. Indeed, without her astute assessment of him, I might have thoughtlessly described the lad as merely "zestful" or "bubbling."

What a mistake that would have been, for he and his occasional mohawk efortlessly infuse twelve thousand bubbles, with small lungs and a twisty straw, into piles of unsuspecting zest, shake them to the tune of a mambo, stir the concoction with Mad Maxian vigor, and top it all off with an olive (or rather, ten of them, pitted, each waggling on the tip of a grubby finger).

Niblet is four. Niblet has remarkable mojo.

It is rising.

Placing a call on his hot dog phone

His days begin when he rolls into our bedroom, climbs into the parental bed, and starts kneading my belly, elbow skin, and neck folds (there are no greater expressions of affection from this tactile preschooler). After a bit of a cuddle, he's ready to "watch," a half-hour that has him singing and dancing in front of the tv...unless his watching gets derailed by a pick-up round of "Animal School" with his Girl sister. When they play Animal School, she teaches; naturally, he is a student and sits in his assigned place among the penguins, unicorns, bats, and gorillas. So effortless is his popularity that he may run for Animal School Council (they need a new treasurer).

As he watches or plays, Der Niblet munches on his breakfast of beef jerky, pickles, and/or croutons. By 9 a.m., his visionary and entrepreneurial spirit has awakened, and we find ourselves making helmets that are half-alien, half-dinosaur. Generally, the purpose of the helmet is not specifically revealed, but we're amenable to pitching in because participating in the process means that we have license to make a whole lot of googly eyes and antennae--honest work that keeps us out of the meth lab. Plus, he needs an assist with the hot glue gun.

In between projects, there is some dabbling with chess, playing Camel Poop Care Bears with the neighbor girl, organizing his Pokemon binder, breaking eggs for the pizza dough, and cutting up National Geographic magazines. At some point during this agenda, The Boy Hurricane either makes a case for it being a pajama day or for wearing tights, a sportcoat, and a Frankenstein tie.

Best of all, while his given name is fairly unique in the U.S., setting him apart in any classroom or puke-ridden ball pit, he finds it unsatisfactory. Several months ago, as Niblet sat in his sweat lodge, toying with his ceremonial pipe, a new name delivered itself to our chap, a name that he, in turn, revealed to us. It is his true name, he maintains, and it should be the only one we use to address him.

It is Dinko.

Certainly, I slip up. Sometimes my mistakes slide by; sometimes I am quietly but firmly reminded of his Dinko-ishness. Sometimes he'd like to reprimand me for being so absent/neglectful/audacious as to not recall my own son's name.

But then he spots his little sewing machine or a bag of magnets across the room, and he's gone. I am temporarily off the Dinko hook.



Of course, when he trips up to me, three minutes later, holding a pop-up book about King Tutankhamun in hand, I'm back in the hot (glue gun) seat. You see, Dinko is adamant about the pronuciation of that dead pharaoh's name, and when I read it with its traditional inflection, the boy grounds me with a glare and an exasperated: "Maw-om, it's Too-kin-ham!"

Quickly forgiven once I apologize and practice, I am then invited over to his ever-evolving diarama of King Too-kin-ham's barge, where my finer motor controls are required--to tape in a few new loaves of bread and storage barrels. The whole thing is made out of grocery bags, chopsticks, and unfettered whimsy.

Dinko's days are full; he has many departments, from barges to monster-making, that require constant attention.


Frankly, we can't figure out from whence all this zany caprice stems.




Although the origins of his character are murky, it is clear that Dinko is a one-man goof troupe.

This, I believe.

"Paging Ms. Chandelier...Ms. Crystal Chandelier. Your Prescription Is Ready."


There is a host of traditional names slapped onto mewling, unsuspecting babies in the United States when they're born: William, Emily, Alex, Susan, Mary. And we've all seen and heard those more creative names--some of which have cultural or familial connotations--such as Shaniqua or Anders. But then there's a whole other class of names out there: the out-and-out "Did Mama's epidural seep into her brain?" monikers.

I heard a story several years ago about a woman who was cooking in her kitchen when she went into labor. She ended up naming her baby "LaMonjallo" because the last thing she saw before she hit the floor that day were the words printed on the Lemon Jell-O box on her counter.

And then there was the time a friend of a friend of a friend (the most reliable of sources, and always just where I need her!) was in line at McDonald's, and in front of her was a kid who was cutting up, dancing around, bumping into folks. After rolling her eyes a lot, his mother finally shrieked, "Spatula! I have two words for you: BE HAVE."

No matter how you Ginsu up a name and the word "behave," however, the fact remains that the tags we use to identify ourselves on our homework, job applications, and ultimately tombstones, matter. A rose by any other name smells like garlic toast.


Feeling as I do about names--convinced of their importance and ability to shape lives--I found myself involuntarily snurfling with laughter and disbelief last week at the end of my Short Story class, as I read over my students' responses to an activity that had asked them to analyze their feelings about their own given names (as much as I like to mess with the kiddies and pack their hours with meaningless busywork, this assignment actually related to a story we'd read about a Chinese man who had to change his name during the Cultural Revolution). Part of the activity required them to explore optional names for themselves; that is, if they had to abandon their given names and choose new ones, what would they choose and why?

Gentle Readers, here is a cross-section of their answers, carefully vetted to give you a clear picture of the analytical abilities of our nation's next generation of leaders. They would change their names thusly:

"Probably something like Sydney because I have always wanted to go to Australia and I just like the name."

"Semore Butts--saw it on THE SIMPSONS, thought it was funny."

"My new name would be Hiro Nakemura. It's the name of an awesome and funny character on the show HEROES."

"I would change my name to Buddy. I think it would be kind of cool and funny if everyone called me by a slang version of the word friend. It would be like not having a real first name."

"I'd change my last name to Shanks and my first name to Adam. Shanks because it's badass and Adam because it flows with Shanks."

"If I were to change my name, I would change it to Jagermeister. I would choose this name because the meaning of it is 'hunt master.' I love to hunt things of all kinds. I think this name would be suiting for me. It is also the name of a rather popular drink. I also like to drink it. I could drink my own name. Not many people can say that. I would also have a nice looking coat of arms. It would be the picture on the Jag bottle. It's a big old buck."

--------------------------
By my calculations, President Jagermeister, Vice-President Shanks, and their Cabinet of Intellect will take charge of the White House in roughly 2037, ushering in a tenure of leadership that will make Americans long for the relatively-sensible logic and thoughtfulness of thirty years earlier.

This is your heads-up. They're coming.

Duck.
Cover.

Move to China; change your name.

"Bear Feet"

In my last post, I jested, in closing, that I was going to go out and take down any bears that might be rummaging through our compost bin. I also reported that I wouldn't be able to eat any non-locally-grown bears, if it were to turn out that they had actually been transported, under the auspices of a wildlife witness protection program, into Minnesota from a different state.

As that post indicated, I have quite a repertoire of Dead Animal Humor, especially because one of my cousins waaaayyy up North here actually keeps his family's bellies full of meat throughout the year thanks to hunting and, more importantly, road kill.

Oh, yes, he does.

To aid him in his road-kill quest, he's got some contacts with state troopers; also, he lives in a remote part of the state where all 87 residents know each other's bank balances and underwear rotations, not to mention how they stock their freezers. With such connections, my cousin's meat needs are easily fulfilled. If a moose gets hit on Highway 1, the solution to such a public, bloody mess is, "Call Kurt." Or if a deer gets bonked, someone will inevitably stop by his family's cabin, knock, and holler out, "Deer kill down by Misty's place!"

After the call or the knock, Kurt collects his tools and any unsuspecting greenhorns he can wrassle into a crew, and he heads out, day or night, to begin the slaughter. And slaughtering a moose? A little bit bigger project than scrapbooking Junior's trip to the State Wrestling Championships. Indeed, butchering a moose is intense, heavy labor.

But, holy buckets of Bullwinkle, you can eat the thing for ten months, so it's worth the effort.

Right? Right? Right?

At any rate, you can see why road kill and compost bin humor trip so lightly out of my brain. Thanks to My People, I make up little vignettes like in my last post.


However. The day after I posted about out-of-state bears getting transported, a different cousin of mine (her eccentricity, by the way, differs from Road Kill Cousin's; her thing is that she's given all of her passle of kids "D" names. I'm glad she stopped spawning just after the birth of Baby Darby and before she had to resort to the moniker Baby Damnation) emailed these photos of a bear that was struck by a truck near Lincoln, Montana.

Dead bear. Funny, right?

Not so much.

In truth, it makes me sad. Look at that photo of the four paws at rest, in particular. There's something strangely human there. If, you know, that human weighed 800 pounds and was horrifyingly hirsute.









Certainly, being a good Montanan myself, I know James Gandolfini here is pretty much just stew meat topped off by some fly-fishing resort's new bearskin rug; despite that, I find myself wanting to knit the poor bugger some booties.
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Note to self: learn to knit.

"Conversatin' Locally"

Two mornings ago, while Girl was at big-school and Niblet at little-school, Groomeo and I took an anniversarial, celabratory pole hike (basically, that means we were hiking but used ski poles, too; the arm workout gives the whole cardio aspect a boost. Personally, I enjoy it because I'm a much better skiier when there's no snow involved). Being on the Superior Hiking Trail was, of course, lovely, but it got even funner once night-owl Jocelyn woke up enough to allow for an interchange of words.

The first grunts I managed telegraphed to Groom this random question: "So when you coached cross-country [running], and you guys would do 'hill bounding' in training, what exactly did that consist of?"

His subsequent demonstration--perkily leaping up a hillside to the sound of my muted applause--had the effect of re-injuring his groin muscle, a muscle that both he and I take very seriously. For the last few months, he's been relying on yoga and biking in lieu of his usual daily running, just to give Groiny a break. But there, in the space of a hill bound, all his good takin'-it-easies were nullified.

As our hike got going, so did his groinal protestations. Being of Norwegian extraction, though, he did carry on for an hour and a half, stoically. It helped, too, that we had some conversatin' to distract from the pain.

His opener was:

"So when we go over to Kids' Godmamas' house (our kids have the benefit of two godmothers, a lovely couple at whose commitment ceremony a few years ago we were privileged enough to speak a few words. I generally do that anyways, but it's so nice to be invited to do what comes naturally) on Saturday night for their annual Friends' Thanksgiving dinner, their request is that everyone's food contribution be locally-grown, from not more than 50 miles away. With that in mind, and because neither of them hunts wild turkeys, we'll all be having wild-rice-stuffed squash."

Tripping over a rock but stopping the stumble with a well-placed pole, I mused on this. Of course, having a healty boho/crunchy strain in me, I could appreciate their choice. On the other hand, both Groom and I are a little tired of every concept, however noble, being packaged and marketed. Is it really different if it's the books of Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver that nudge our choices, instead of Wal-Mart and Costco? Is it always necessary to distill every life choice onto a bumper sticker?



Okay, okay. I suppose it is--sometimes. Buried somewhere in that last paragraph, though, there is a point to be taken. I'm just not going to disrupt the good vibrations of any conscientiously-composting, homemade-pesto-making, light-treading human peace symbols who might be reading this by pressing it home. If you disagree, calm yourselves by soaking some beans, lighting some incense, locking in your dreads, and getting the tie-dye pots a bubbling. Just make sure your incense and RIT dyes were made within 50 miles of your home, O righteous leftist consumers of the world.

Suffice it to say, these friends of ours are good, deliberate, thoughtful women. Their Friends' Thanksgiving will be delicious and fresh, the food not contaminated with chemicals or petroleum residue. I like all that. I do.

"Hey, wait," I finally replied to Groom, "don't you always make some bready thing? How are you going to do that under those constraints? It's not like the rocky clay of Northern Minnesota is waving back and forth with wheat stalks."

"Yea," ma man affirmed. "It's a bit of a sticky wicket. Luckily, after a delicate negotiation with Godmama One, she and I reached a compromise: if I promise to only purchase hemp shirts for the next three years and wipe solely with Seventh Generation toilet paper, we can use wheat from a couple states over. The rest of the ingredients, we're going to have to scrabble together."

The brainstorming began. Noodly with gratitude that we wouldn't find ourselves spending the next two days pounding dried yarrow into a wheat-substitute, we easily decided that local eggs and butter would be no sweat. Speaking of sweat, we started immediately collecting ours on that hike, mopping it into a handkerchief which we later wrang out, ultimately dehydrating the liquid until a small pile of crystals remained. We have salt. Locally-grown and emitted.

But yeast. Where to get it? A-ha!

A quick trip to the drugstore after the hike solved that one. We loitered near the Vagisil, and when women approached, we called them out, convincing them to donate some personal samples. After a bit of intimate scraping, the bread can now rise.

Indeed, eating locally is really an issue of ingenuity. The hike hocked up a list of ingredients, along with an unanticipated joke, created as I struggled with too-long poles, one that we can use to amuse the crowd at the Friends' Thanksgiving table:

How many hearty Finns does it take to collapse a telescoping hiking pole?

Answer: None. It takes a Norwegian with a groin injury!
--------------------------------

That's the kind of material that kills up here in the Northwoods.

Okay, I'm off now to check the porch for our weekly delivery of butter and bottled milk from a nearby dairy. And even though we didn't have a good year for basil, there's pesto in the freezer that needs thawing before dinner. After that, I'll carry out the compost--although if I see any bears out there, rooting through our old egg shells and carrot peelings, I fully intend to kill them and hoist them into the trunk of the car as an entree offering at the Friends' Thanksgiving.

They are, after all, locally grown.




Unless, of course, we discover they were tranquilized this last summer in Yellowstone Park for getting too near tourists at Old Faithful and then transported a thousand miles away to Northern Minnesota where they've been ekeing out an existence in our compost bin. If that's the case--frick!--the carcasses will just have to rot.

It's a matter of principle.

"We Was Cute Once"


Two weeks ago, my husband, nearly 37 years old, lost his first grandparent.

Seemingly the most hale of his four living grandparents, his grandmother went into decline rather abruptly, with a kidney infection turning into congestive heart failure turning into pain and exhaustion that sapped her will to fight.

Her husband, a former bank president and World War II pilot, had been the one we'd all been watching. He is the one with Alzheimer's and untreated prostate cancer. He has been the one everyone's efforts have been concentrated upon for the last three years. Tacit agreement had it that he would be the first to go.

Yet he didn't. He hasn't.

Rather, his wife of more than sixty years belied expectations and, after painstaking caretaking of her husband, has left him behind, alone. Forlorn. Wishing for death.

Fortunately--although it didn't feel that way at the time--Grandpa had already moved to the Memory Care wing of the Senior Home a couple of months ago, after he was found by a state trooper wandering down the side of the highway. So his transition out of the immediate life of Grandma (known to our kids as "GGma") had already taken place. He was somewhat accustomed to being apart from her, down the hall, over in his new digs.

However, with daily visits and enduring devotion, they weren't really apart. As GGma's health became more grave, my father-in-law had to break the news to his father: "Mom is dying, Dad."

And the Alzheimer's? You know, that cruelest of diseases? It, of course, provided no mercy.

In this case, it meant GGpa--although unable to recall names and places--remained bitingly aware that his helpmate of decades was passing out of his life.

They had a private religious service together in her last days, led by their pastor. After it, GGpa was inconsolable.

Two days later, when GGma died--peacefully, comfortably, all wishes expressed--it was GGpa, with his unreliable brain, who sat beside her, lucidly, holding her hand, rubbing her cheek, even after she was gone.

The very image of them, there in the hospice, slices me in two.

Today, November 12th, would have been their sixty-third anniversary; yet after all that time, they were not a habit to each other. They were not one of those couples who sit in the Embers, indifferently eating their omelets, not speaking to each other, staring off into space. Rather, after sixty-three years, they had an active love for each other, feeling complete only in the other's presence. Even GGpa's advancing dementia couldn't diminish their interdependence.

It is from this perspective of ongoing conscious appreciation that I greet my eighth anniversary with my groom a day after theirs, on November 13th.

He is, quite simply, my all, my everything, my favorite and my best. There are at least 4.569 reasons that add up to the way I dote on him. Here, I give you five of 'em:

1) He is unflappable and uncomplaining. This is a much-needed and -welcome counterpoint to all my complaints and flap.

2) He knows how to communicate with me in Jocespeak (woe to those who consider it a dead language!). I am, you see, a person who can get dramatically derailed during a slow bend down to tie her shoes. But with Groom giving me directions, I get it done every time. For example, when I go out to run an unknown route, he is smart enough not to tell me, "Turn right at Oneida Street," but instead to break it down thusly: "When you see the big rock on the righthand side that looks like Richard Nixon with his cheeks waggling, turn right. After that, you'll run for about the length of time it would take you to sing the extended dance remix of 'Tainted Love', and then you'll take a left." Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Similarly, when we were recently up the road at an important crossroads for migrating raptors (Ye Olde Birds of Prey), a place we go to often in the Fall, and he was off hiking with friends while Niblet and I hung around the main vantage point, resting our weary paws and awaiting their return, we got to witness the release of a big bird. It was tossed up into the wind above the overlook, and the whole thing was cool. When Groom and Friends returned from their hike a few minutes later, I tried to describe the bird to them. "Was it a hawk?" they asked. Weellllllll, er.....yea? I could tell them that it had parentheses-like curves around its eyes, and its beak looked rather like a bracket (<>). And, for big sure, it wasn't an owl. So what kind of hawk had it been? "Like, not small," I reported with authority. Groom knew then to ask, "Was it bigger than a package of Double Stuff Oreos?" "'Bout the same size!" I reponded, gleefully. That answer, coupled with a photo I'd taken, narrowed it down. Due to his patience and bilingualism, Groom discerned, "It was a red-tailed hawk. See in the photo those red markings?" Not at all sure how they looked like my beloved Oreos, I nodded agreeably nevertheless.




The bird is released


3) He sighs gently and happily when I rub his wrist.

4) He raises our children with consistency and patience, yet he loves it when I point out the benefits of storing them in the freezer.

5) He has always and ever made me feel like my foibles increase my charm. Were I more perfect, he would love me less.

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For all these reasons, plus twenty-thwifty kamajillion others, he leaves me agog.

In an ideal world, he and I will die together, when I'm 104, and he's 101. We'll be on a hammock together, eating truffles and staring at the branches up above us in the sky, when suddenly our hearts will simultaneously stop beating.

The world not being ideal, this will most likely not be the case, although I am having a truffle fridge installed at the base of our biggest tree, just as a nod to possibility.

Alternatively and more realistically, then, I wish for a death like GGma's.

Indeed, my acute and illimitable hope is that, in fifty-six years--better yet, in sixty-six--when I am at long last diminishing and facing the Great Beyond, it will be with my constant and enduring companion sitting next to me, knowing me as no other, stroking my cheek as I exhale one last time.

"Coyotes; Time As An Abstract"

NPR runs a weekly audio essay entitled "This I Believe" in which average folks hold forth on an issue or idea that they hold dear; NPR describes this segment as a forum where people "...from all walks of life share the personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives."

Since I walk and have a life, I must also have philosophies and values, ja? And dammit, but I've held back with my personal views long enough on this blog. It's time to cut loose.

Thus, I've decided I will occasionally feature my own "This I Believe" posts, from time to time, especially when blogging time is at a premium, and I need easy filler. My "This I Believe" posts are just me vamping a bit (again, not something we're familiar with on this blog).

But let's keep that vamping part just between you and me, okay?

Shake on it?

Cool. But your palms are a little sweaty. Are you hiding something?

After much consideration and vetting (I had to toss out gun control and the death penalty--too thinky for this hollow noggin), I have arrived at this week's issue of deep passion:


I believe pillows, like my belly, should be fluffy.

When punched and scrunched, a good pillow should change shape. A good pillow, after the fashion of my husband, should give and give and give and then, to top it all off, be a little more flexible.

I detest a hard pillow. Those unforgiving ironing-board-like pillows that never take on an indentation, even when brass knuckles are applied with great force? They're just mean.

And after my early thirties and a particularly-bad break-up, I made a solemn vow that never again would I allow Mean into my bed. Whether a wolf in sheep's clothing or an ironing board in a pillowcase, I will not abide the mean.

The thing about an adamantine pillow is that it hurts me, even when I've been nuthin' but good to it. I give it flannel and jersey; I speak to it gently; I lay the freshest of heads upon it. But then, during the night, it gives me, in return, a bloodied cauliflower ear. It makes the side of my head feel like a lugnut has been soldered on during dreamtime, and I do have ever so difficult a time hanging earrings off a lugnut.

Hard pillows, those compressed anti-downers, need to be fired. Take away their jobs; put them in the incinerator; glaze them and shove them into a kiln--but fire them.

This, I Believe.

"That Michelangelo: Some Sort of Mutant Turtle, Right?"






I have profound deficiencies in my knowledge of art. Sure, I recognize dogs playing poker when I see them, but beyond that, my high-priced liberal arts education is artistically pockmarked. Certainly, I can enjoy the shadows of Rembrandt. I groove on the dribs and drabs of Pollock. I've even heard of that DaVinci dude (it took a group of Navaho speakers to break his code, right?). But I lack a comprehensive, well-developed overview of art.

This, I blame on cheese curds. And Long Island Iced Teas.

See, when I hied off to college and could have enrolled in and attended a host of mind-expanding art classes, I was otherwise occupied. As a Montanan transplanted to the Midwest, I was too busy taking my first delectable, delicious, delicate bites of deep-fried cheese castoffs to sit in a darkened room taking notes about delectable, delicious, delicate brushstrokes put to canvas three hundred years before. At the age of 18, I wanted the immediate, in-the-moment, contemporary gratification of the crisp-but-melty cheese curd. Once the curds were swallowed, I headed not to a class on masterworks; rather, with my digestive system well-protected by a coating of grease, I headed next door to the town bar for its Wednesday night tribute to the perspicacity that is rum, vodka, tequila, gin, triple sec, all capped by a splash of cola: the Long Island Iced Tea.

Frankly, I was too busy bringing on heart disease and killing brain cells to consider how Chinese sculpture might have toppled a dynasty.

So I'm a little dumm about art junk stuff.

Imagine, then, what a revelation Frank Gehry was to me last year, when I toddled in to the couch and turned on the tv, balancing on my arm the adult version of curds and Tea : a glass of wine and some pita chips and hummus. At that moment, PBS was broadcasting a documentary entitled SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY. With my hands too full to turn the channel, I had no choice but to sit down and swoon into the rapture of his work.

Who the frick knew? Who knew, I ask you?

Okay, as it turns out, a large part of the populace knew and is well acquainted with Gehry, as he's one of the most-ballyhooed modern American architects. His work is big-time stuff around the world. I can hear you "fa-fwa-fooing" now about how you've been versed in Gehry since your cloth-diapered Mother Goose years.

I, however, had spent my formative years with my head too deeply dropped into the works of Pearl S. Buck...and then into a bottomless cup of five-shots-of-booze...to have any idea that a guy was out there, coming up with such visions, and getting paid to produce them.

And really, that's the part that continues to inspire a certain faith: Gehry has created a very singular vision, one outside of traditional form, and people with money have gone for it. I'm not at all used to people with money putting their dollars behind ground-breaking, convention-flaunting ideas.

I, for example, once pitched a "rolling Halloween pumpkin, for when the candy outweighs the kid" to Proctor & Gamble, and they laughed me out of the conference room. I'd even bought a new black pencil skirt for the presentation, but they didn't so much as compliment me on it as they showed me the door, those corporate rat bastards.

My resulting cynicism lumped out-of-the-box thinkers like Jocelyn and Frank into the same Pile of Woeful Neglect (we're located, in the card catalogue, just after the Pile of Wondrous Nightshades).

And yet that PBS documentary reminded me that sometimes, in this world where big money generally fuels sure bets and more of the sames, the deep pockets can open up for genius and awe.





















And on days when I cannot breathe due to the frustration I feel about our president,

Or I am tempted to wrap my fingers around the throat of a bully who has called my 4-year-old Niblet "ugly" and "fat,"

Or I mourn that my students at the college have never left Minnesota, even though we live a 10-minute drive across a bridge from the next state,

Or I keen for parents standing at the open graves of their fallen children, having to close out the sounds of protesters chanting and holding signs about "Fags in the Military,"

Or I rage when the best people I know have their hearts ripped open by failed love,

Or I see The Backstreet Boys on Jay Leno,


I find solace in the knowledge that an artist like Frank Gehry not only exists but is rightfully heralded for designs that push us all out of the safe and easy.

Let's raise and clink our curds in his honor.

"Epically Myopic"

There's a reason why I'm legally blind and why, when I'm not wearing my glasses, I mistake the coat closet for my husband. Sure, there's the whole genetics thing. And, okay, maybe I like hugging fleeces and puddle boots. I won't even delve into the illicit dalliance I've been having with a pair of fingerless gloves. It'd make you blush.

However, the fact that my first lover was a book--and what a skanky pleasure-seeker I've become since that first!--is also responsible for my sketchy eyesight. Indeed, many of my best friends are books, to the point that I feel some of them owe me Hallmark cards imprinted with messages like, "Sorry We Sucked Away Your Eyesight and Good Posture, Sis." In particular, I think GONE WITH THE WIND, which I read 26 times in the fifth grade, and THE GOOD EARTH, which I alternated with GWTW that year, owe me at least a lunch at Applebee's (they can present their Hallmark envelopes to me over the Tequila Lime Chicken).

Interestingly, even with the fields of black dots that float around as a daily part of my vision (the optometrist says it's something about snapped, er, filaments), I keep reading. Often, I read crap chick lit. Other times, I read really good chick lit. Interspersed is a wide variety of other genres. I'm an equal-access book whore.

Naturally, some books have separated themselves from the pack of dust-covered johns.

For at least fifteen years, there has been a book I've called my "favorite." Doing this is specious, really, as I can't possibly have a favorite book, when so many are so excellent and do so much so well. However, when people have asked for book recommendations, I've often coughed up the title ANGLE OF REPOSE. I love that book because I love Western stories, and I love books that don't read like "litt-ra-choor" but rather like rousingly-good tales of human beings being human, and I love what Wallace Stegner does with words. In fact, ANGLE OF REPOSE stands out in my reading life because its pages marked the first time I ever wept while reading, wept from the sheer beauty of the prose. Stegner's use of language awed and astonished me; he broke my heart open with it.

But.

Now.

I'm feeling a bit disloyal to the memory of one of America's greatest-ever writers, this Stegner, because he's just been edged out. First, he gets killed tragically in a car crash; then, fourteen years later, this novel of his, so long my favorite, finds itself getting slid over on my shelf...to make room for a newcomer.

Thanks to a gift from one of my best galpals, this last week of reading has caused me to fashion (down in my basement smithy) a new Golden Bookmark to plug into the pages of The Interloper: FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel.

Damn, people, but it's a great book. It's great so jarringly that I found myself complaining to Groom the other day, as he waited for his turn to read it, "I just don't have the right words to tell you how richly and complexly this book is affecting me. I don't know how to articulate my respect for what this Bechdel broad has done." And seriously? I think we all know that even when I can't figure out quite what I want to say, that rarely stops me.

This book has stopped me. I, em, not have way when it comes to analyzing its successes.

Certainly, it's a memoir. And I do love me a life story.

But it's so much more than that. For one, it's a graphic novel.

And, honeychile?

I don't like graphic novels.

I'm pretty sure, somewhere deep in my closet, I have a buried t-shirt that reads "Graphic Novels: How The Robotics Club Amuses Themselves When the Batteries Burn Out in Their Light-Sabers."

Sweet Marmaduke, but I don't even like to read the comics in the newspaper. Just give me some good words, and save your stinkin' pictures.

Unless, of course, you're Alison Bechdel, and your pictures enrich and support and elucidate the writing in ways I hadn't thought possible. On each page, in this amazing book, I found myself reading the text and then diving into the accompanying picture panel for the next beat, urging the rhythm of the story to continue.

Plus, Bechdel manages to tell her story both in linear and circular fashion, coming back on the chronology several times, as she unfolds her realization that she is a lesbian and learns that her father, too, is homosexual.

In the midst of these fairly heavy life events, Bechdel dazzles with her vocabulary (I had to holler loudly one day as I read, "Thank you for using 'prestidigitation,' Smart Dyke Lady!"); her wryness (count how many times the can of Pledge appears in panels, as she hammers home her father's neatnik issues); her unflinching approach (a few libraries in the South, finding their patrons unable to appreciate cartooning of masturbation and girl-on-girl, promptly yanked this book from their collections); her appreciation for how literature can inform understanding of life (for her continued lack of patience with college classes fueled by the pretension that is literary analysis, I kiss her Carhartts).

I'm not necessarily recommending that you gallivant out to the book store or library and grab this book. It might not be your style. Maybe you don't read much. Maybe you have other priorities, like seeing which couples are "safe" on DANCING WITH THE STARS or, um, playing solo fooseball, racing back and forth from side to side to make the little men spin. Or maybe you do read, but you just like your Louis L'Amour.

So read it or not.

All I know is that I, a prodigious book-devourer, have had the enormous pleasure of apprehending, this past week, that my best reading isn't behind me; that there are whole new ways to read that I've never before relished; that, at age 40, I am still plenty limber enough to kowtow before an author of greatness.

As I lay here on the floor before her, clutching her book to my bosom like a talisman--and wondering why I don't bother myself to chase after the dust bunnies with a broom more often--I tell you this:

Alison Bechdel has left me humbled and breathless.

"Harvest Recipe"

Take one locally-grown 4-year-old bubbie:


Mix in a little Mo Willems' KNUFFLE BUNNY:




Shake vigorously.

Months later, after ripening and fermentation, when the wee bubbie subsequently suggests making a "gravetomb" (preschooler speak for "tombstone") to decorate the yard for Halloween, gently fold in the question, "What shall we paint on it? R.I.P?"

He will figure out, with scant 1/4 cupful dollops of explanation, what the R., the I., and the P. stand for, ultimately decreeing, "No, I don't care if the people under the ground are left in their peaces. I know what we need to paint on it."

With that, his half-baked idea will hit the jar:


---------------------------------

So for all of y'all who leave your porn propped open on the Fisher Price Rescue Hero Command Station, knock it off. Kids pick up what's in the reading materials. They internalize it. They paint it on their gravetombs.

And wouldn't it be a shame, this fine All Hallow's Eve, to have the neighborhood reading on your yard's gravetomb that "Hot sluts do it sideways"? Even telling passers-by, "Heck, my kid suggested it" won't keep you from being regarded as the local Larry Flynt.

Keep it clean this Halloween, my dear ghoulfriends. Keep it clean.

"Jocelyn Buttstrong"




By mistake, I went on a 14-mile bike ride the other day.

It's not like I was transferring the sheets from washer to dryer, only to suddenly look down and note with a surprised "How the hell did this happen?" that I'd been spinning along on a bike for more than an hour.

That's improbable on several fronts, the least of which is that I suddenly found myself aboard a two-wheeler. In truth, the greater improbability is that I'd actually be washing sheets. That would imply I'd stripped a bed. And if it ain't March, and the buds aren't burgeoning on the trees, and the children haven't just been cut out of the long underwear I sewed them into last November, then the beds ain't been stripped.

However, I did, knowingly and willingly, lead my unsuspecting bicycle out of the garage last week, set it on an uphill course, and throw my leg over the seat. Yes, I was in complete possession of my faculties.

Or so it seemed for the first 45 minutes. My route took me along the outer edge of town, up a road named Unrelentingly Upwards Avenue. As I churned along, I played around with the gears, cursed my jumping derailleur every now and then, coughed loudly and frequently to let the black bears know I was around (the next day was garbage pick-up day in the ruralish neighborhood, which meant it was Bear Buffet Night at the trash cans), made up NPR stories that I might have heard, had I worn my headphones (for awhile, I pretended Terry Gross was interviewing Marilyn Manson, but then he shifted from seeming surprisingly informed and intelligent and just got creepy and annoying when he started to make the case for his 38-year-old married self having an affair with a 19-year-old). As the wheels spun 'round and 'round, I was definitely getting a healthy dose of Fresh Air.

But then darkness fell with a heavy thud. Out there, feeling quite alone--except for the ginormous 4 x 4 trucks that would speed by every few minutes, blasting me to the shoulder--I started to feel a little quivery. In addition to pedaling and coughing, I burst out occasionally with quick, audible pep talks: "Just 4 million more cranks of the legs, girl, and you'll be at the stop sign, turn left, pedal another mile, hit the next stop sign, turn downhill, and head towards the park. You can do it! And then you'll be home for eggs and bread and chocolate and a lovely White Russian."

It was really dark, though. All efforts at pep talks fell flat. I almost stopped caring about Russians of any color. Except the Red ones. Them, I still felt for.

Then not only my hands fell asleep, as is their wont when I bike, but my vajayjay got that bad tingle. And yes, there are bad vajajay tingles. The journey to crotch numbness begins with a single spoke, turning endlessly in the night.

Now I know people who are real bike riders find 14 miles to be nothing. Doing a hundred miles in a day is realistically very doable for even a slightly-above average Joe.

However, I'm not gifted, physically, and I grew up in a family where we didn't leave the house much. Sure, there was the mail checking and all, but because retrieving OPERA MONTHLY from the mailbox is the closest I ever got to summer camp, I still have a pretty steep learning curve with this outdoorsy physical stuff.

Let's put it this way: I went kayaking this summer (for the 5th time in my life), and I had to cry a little bit. The paddle just didn't do what it was supposed to. And the kayak didn't move right. So I got frustrated and boo-hooey.

The good news about me and out-of-doors tears is that I pretty much just need to let them blow through, and after the catharsis, I can gird my loins, or spray skirt, and get back down to business. Then, when it's all over, I want to go again. And, yea, when I go again, I'll most likely cry some more. It's what I do. It's who I am.

So there I was, in the pitch black, pedaling and pedaling, getting really tired and realizing I still had a long ways to go. Or at least I thought I did; I hadn't ever actually biked this route before and was working from some half-digested directions given to me by my Groomeo back at the house as I snapped on my helmet and double-knotted my shoes. A little uncertain of where I was, and craving a large order of French fries, I started to feel like it might be time for a few tears, simply as a kind of on-the-road therapy. Interestingly, though, I couldn't tap into any tears. How strange. It was almost as if nothing felt quite right, and I really wanted it to be over, but, hell, what could I do about all that? Just keep pedaling, really.

Even when I came to a junction and, in the inky blackness, felt my way off the paved road, onto the gravel road that was supposed to signify the downhill turn towards home...and I realized I couldn't see the trees around me on the even-more-remote unpaved road and that I was constantly weebling into the ditch without knowing it until I would experience a thump and the ground falling away, again and again...and that I would have to turn around and retrace my route, back on the paved roads, thus lengthening my "fun exercise time" by an extra 40 minutes--even after all that, I still didn't cry.

It was starting to look like I might just knuckle down and do this thing, sans the requisite two-minutes of weeping. How odd, indeed. As a gal who's generally well in touch with her own drama, I'm not at all accustomed to pragmatic matter-of-factness.

So there were no tears, even though I was a reewy, reewy wong way fwom home, aww awone, twying not to hit the hungry bearsies.

Instead, I sang. Much like Avril Lavigne, though lacking a pair of Converse high-tops and heavy eye liner, I used singing to vent my angst. As long as I was belting out the tunes, I didn't have to wipe my eyes with my sleeve.

So I sang. What surprised me was my source material. Certainly, I didn't sing any Avril Lavigne. In case you didn't know, she's a talentless idiot who sucks. Nor was it the work of Beverly Sills that gave me heart that night, despite my upbringing; rather, it was the work of Alison Moyet during her Yaz (Yazoo to you in the UK) years.

Indeed, '80s pop saved the night. As an ode to the darkness, I sang "Midnight." As a tribute to my beloved Groom, whom I might never, ever see again--what with it being 8 p.m. on a Sunday and me 4 miles from home on a fully-functioning bicycle--I sang "Only You." Goodness, but I wasn't out in the country, all alone, cold, tired, bonky and a little sore. Nae! I was transported back to my dorm room in college, watching the old LP spin around the turntable, having just cooked up 9 cents' worth of Ramen noodles in the illegal hot pot on my desk. It was just me, my back-combed bangs, my shoulder pads, and my Yaz.

Sadly, due to all the diet pop I drink, my brain is riddled with Nutrasweet holes, so pretty quickly I ran out of lyrics.

Thus, by the time I reached the homestretch back in town--the last two miles home--I was a little hoarse, repeating the same eight lines over and over, alternating huffed croaking with wild hand shaking, as I tried to restore blood flow to my paws. Over the sound of my stomach growling and my crotch protesting (she's a screamer, that one!), I realized that my attempts at fitness had rendered me just the teensiest bit pathetic.

Not even Marilyn Manson would have dated me at that moment.

But I like to think Terry Gross, admiring my fortitude, empathizing with my crotchiness, might have.

"Bread and Pez"

As is the case with most households, we pretty much live in the kitchen. Food happens there, of course, but so do soul-baring, cross-word puzzling, game-playing, homework-doing, robot-building, friend-entertaining, and mind-numbing-boozing. We spend a good part of every day in that room; it is, quite clichedly, the heart of the house.

Yet our kitchen sucks big donkey dicks. Dark, dated, baneful, and nonsensical (what is that nutty little hallway that cuts a swathe through any sense of "flow"?), our kitchen is Suck packed into four walls, dusted with oil-drenched and groaning appliances, topped off with a cherry of dropped ceiling and atrocious light fixtures.

The kitchen is, essentially, made out of All Things Poo.

Literally, before people enter our house for the first time, I stop them in the foyer to apologize for the kitchen. I know they will want to shower after walking through it, and some may find they want to up their doses of anti-depressants.

Kitchen must die.

While we've been planning its ultimate demise for a few years now (awaiting an estate payout that would finance the remodel), we haven't quite gotten around to an orchestrated euthanasia yet. In the absence of our taking action, Kitchen seems to be taking matters into her own, um, faux-granite counters. Kitchen is getting suicidal.

First, she started purposefully hemorrhaghing linoleum tiles, causing them to stick to the bottoms of our feet as we carried tea from stove-top to table. Trying to save her from herself, we peeled up the remaining linoleum, inasmuch as possible (a few tiles remain under the fridge and radiator, where they artfully catch marbles, barrettes, and fridge magnets, and generally look like masses of Poo holding marbles, barrettes, and magnets), and in the process, we discovered a lovely old hardwood floor that will one day be refinished.

Next, Kitchen hacked up a microwave door handle, snapping it off one day and leaving us with a wall-mounted (above the stove) microwave that could only be opened by inserting one's fingernails into the slot between the body of the microwave and its door. With a tough, sometimes nail-damaging, yank, we could ease fraying tempers by warming up a comforting bowl of Campbell's Dora the Explorer chicken noodle soup.

Sure, some people would cave and get a new microwave.

However, we are made of firmer stuff. We know full well that if we bought a new microwave, when we do finally remodel the joint some months down the line, we'd end up planning the entire remodel around "the microwave we bought last Fall" which, invariably, would fit nowhere and would clash with all desired color schemes. Our fingernails would just have to bear the brunt of our parsimoniousness.

But then, suddenly last week, Kitchen urged Microwave to take a stand. Microwave was no longer satisfied with the Handle Challenge. Nope. He wanted our complete attention. Taking a cue from his cousin, Fridge, he set his fan to moaning and grigging and whooping, until finally Groom was compelled to tape the thing shut with a long line of masking tape reading "Do Not Use." Of course, since I'm the only other person in the house with the might to open the thing, I was pretty sure that obvious face-smacker of a message was personal.

With tit needing tat, I then taped a message across Groom's nostrils reading, "Do Not Snore." The masking tape approximates a Breathe Rite strip amazingly well.

Just a little FYI in the midst of all this DIY.

Anyhoodle, Kitchen's health has clearly been spiraling downwards for some time. Kitchen is a wanker.

And yet.

Out of a downward spiral can come a flash of unexpected creativity and warmth. Just as Kitchen's shenanigans edged us towards a broil, Groom realized we needed to embrace the demise. We hated the monstrosity that was the microwave, just as we'd hated the linoleum on the floor. So, hell, why not toss the beast out? Why not remove that strangely-placed kitchen accessory (it hung very low over the stovetop) and make it possible to actually stir a pot of stew this winter?

And as long as a few feet of wall were getting opened up there, why not toss a whimsical painting onto that space? In a few months, the room will get a full-body makeover, and anything we do know will be nullified, anyhow. So why not do it up?

After a family brainstorm of possible mini-murals...during which we gently rejected the kids' rainbow- and Pokemon-inspired scenarios...this is what Groomeo pulled off with a few hours' work:





Such a modified wall space lifts my heart everytime I enter the kitchen to dig another handful of chocolate chips out of the bag, and that's frequently. It makes my spirits sing as I pour granola into my yogurt. It makes my eyes twinkle as I pull the cork out of the wine. More honestly, it makes my eyes twinkle as I unscrew the cap on the wine.

As I love up the new wallspace, I'm considering starting to hate other parts of the house, just so Groomeo can paint over them and create unexpected and capricious little scenes.

Come to think of it, I strongly dislike the bare plain that is our toilet seat. Wouldn't it benefit from a picture of Pikachu lounging under a rainbow?

When fun idea meets with competent execution, any house project can become glamorous, ja?

Just look at what The Master and his Wee Niblet Apprentice cranked out a few weeks ago, with little more inspiration than the words, "Daddy, we should make a haunted house out of shoe boxes."


I dig my "anything-is-possible" boys.

"FREAK IT, But She's Hot"

Even heathens and pagans know this one:

A guy named Paul, a whole long time ago, found a scroll and a quill and, over a leisurely cup of red wine, asserted that "a woman's hair is her crowning glory."

For completely non-biblical reasons--who is this Paul to me, after all?--I've often believed that this assertion is true. I love the hair on The Ladies. Even in the midst of several years of sobbing that no one would ever love me, an enduring belief in the power of my hair often pulled me through. Loneliness was counterbalanced by my excitement over follicular sheen and gloss.

I'm all superficial that way.

So riddle me this:

If I love the locks, how can I be completely convinced that should fado singer Mariza ever grow out her hair, it would be an affront to humanity and the heavens?






Because seriously? She got it all goin' on. Hair? Would interfere with her beauty, charisma, and dynamism.

Suck hair.

Who needs it?

"All Shook Up"

My mom graduated from high school in 1953. She graduated from college in 1957. In many ways, she remained distinctly behind the times; for example, when Elvis Presley first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956 and essentially transformed youth culture in the space of 3 minutes, my mom was blissfully unaware that some lip-curler with a pompadour and loose hips had just awakened a generation from a slumber it hadn't known it was having.

She was at choir practice, you see--that night, and most nights. And when she wasn't at choir practice, she was at a Bach concert. Although she was deeply acquainted with falsetto and vibrato, she knew not who Elvis was.

Nor did she care a whit for the Beach Boys or the Beatles or any other group that subsequently rocked through the door Elvis had opened.

You see, even when there wasn't a Bach concert on the agenda, she could always count on Hayden being played somewhere. Indeed, the classical composers kept my mom out of the mainstream, kept her dreamily drifting through a world of scores and maestros instead of twists and shouts.

In other ways, however, she was completely a reflection of the times, of the 1950's. She was chaste. She was modest. She was provincial. She had a poodle skirt.

True to her roots and poodles, she's continued to make a life's work out of sweetly-sheltered naivete.

Exhibit A: She had been married for some years to my father and had given birth at least once before she got her first inkling of what male homosexual sex entailed. She--hand to throat, accompanied by a gentle gasp and a little handkerchief waving about the face--had no idea. Who knew how versatile an orifice could be? Certainly not me ma.

Exhibit B: About fifteen years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties, she and I were taking a cross-country road-trip. To pass the time, we were reading aloud a Margaret Atwood novel. Right around the Oregon border, as I relaxed with my feet propped up on the dashboard, holding forth from the book, we encountered the term "69."

"Stop there," Mom said. "Now I've always wondered: what does 69 mean?"

"Well, um, you know, I could tell you and all, but since I'm squirming at the idea of using some of the words around you, Mom, could we pull over, and I'll just draw you a picture?"

The brakes were hit. There in a rest stop, I created on paper two very lucky stick people who happily met each other head to toe.

After a few "Oh, well" and "Oh, my" exclamations, we clambered back into the car and zoomed on to the family reunion and some ambrosia salad.

Exhibit C: Just this week, we leapt the Grand Canyon of Uninformedness. Mom is visiting for a week, and it's been all mellow cross-stitching and caramel-apple dipping, save for one quick conversation held at the top of the stairs.

As Mom returned a few borrowed books to me, she said, "I'm still reading that Julie & Julia one, though. But I can't read any further until I get a dictionary."

Why? Well, in this book about a woman trying to cook every dish in Julia Child's most famous cookbook, there are some, as my mom says it, "sex-sual" terms with which she is unfamiliar. And so she needs a dictionary.

Or a daughter.

"Try me, Mom. I bet I can help."

"Well, off the top of my head, I can't remember them all, and I can't seem to find them here in the book right now, but I do recall one was a word, something like 'connie-lean-goo-ass.'"

Sucking in a deep breath, I clarified, "It's cunnilingus, Mom. And it means oral sex, when it's performed on a woman."

Thinking further, I added, "Do you know what oral sex is? If not, I can draw you a picture. I mean, I do have some stick people in my portfolio who have been experiencing a pretty serious dry spell. They'd probably be pleased to get a little action."

But, see, Mom divorced Dad a bit ago. Since then, she's had a couple boyfriends.

So the stick people will have to remain celibate, perhaps until she asks about fellatio when she turns 80 in a few years.

Mom's answer? Tittering a little, she informed me, "Oh, I do know what oral sex is for a woman. In the last five years, I've learned more than I ever thought I could know about that. I had no idea, but now I sure do."

It would seem, then, that at age 72, my mom is finally ready to walk through the door Elvis opened all those years ago. She might even be ready to consider the implications of Gene Simmons' tongue.

"Sucking It Up"

In last month or two, during a phase when my lap is always full, my neck skin is constantly fondled, and "I yuv you a bushel and a peck" is whispered repeatedly into my ear throughout the day, I am exceedingly aware that

I have never before--and will never again--be loved as

sweetly

deeply

profoundly

devotedly

innocently

and

all-encompassingly


as I am by my four-year-old Wee Niblet.

It rather takes my breath away.

"Mounting Evidence That I May Not Hate Poetry"

"Mom, how come you have that poem taped to the end of our bunk beds?" Girl asked a few weeks ago.

She was referring to this:


"A Supple Cord"

My brother, in his small white bed,
held one end.
I tugged the other
to signal I was still awake.
We could have spoken,
could have sung
to one another,
we were in the same room
for five years,
but the soft cord
with its little frayed ends
connected us
in the dark,
gave comfort
even if we had been bickering
all day.
When he fell asleep first
and his end of the cord
dropped to the floor,
I missed him terribly,
though I could hear his even breath
and we had such long and separate lives
ahead.

--by Naomi Shihab Nye

My response, as is my wont, had many layers and went on at great length.

First, I told her, "Well, I like this poem because it reminds me of you and Niblet and how lucky you are to have each other and to be each other's special person for all of your lives. You know, Dad and I will die someday--not for a long time, we hope, not until cars can fly and fold up into briefcases that we then tote into our offices as we're carried along by a moving sidewalk--and most likely you and your brother will have a lot of years of life without us. So it's a comfort to know you'll always have each other, even after you grow up and go off and do your own things."

Girl nodded warily, distracted by the idea of briefcase cars.

Then I told her, "Plus, I like this poem because it shows how sharing a room can bring brothers and sisters together. I mean, do your pals K and J share a room?"

"No."

"Do they get along?"

"NO! They fight all the time!"

"That's what I mean. How about your other buddies Q and M? Do they share a room?"

"Oh, yea," she said, sucking on the ends of her hair and contemplating.

"And do they get along?"

"Totally! They never fight."

"So, Girl, do you think there's a connection? How about you and Niblet?"

"We share a room, and he's my best friend!" she screamed joyously, as the pieces fell into place. Our bodies flushed with the pleasure of a communal comprehension.

Point made. Case rested. Next question?

"Mom, when can I have my own room?"