Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night

The sun/son returns.

Light in the world illumines for us the darkest parts of ourselves.

Going through the dark toward the light at the end of the tunnel is a fond fantasy.

Are we ever really healed? Completely? Or, are there only cycles of less bad and really bad?

Perhaps there is no final arrival at inner peace and world peace once and for all time. Perhaps all we can expect is the swing from agitation to relative calm.

Many Peoplia Upsi-downia.

Sigh...

Come January 20 we'll be in a new phase of wonder... as in, "I wonder if we'll get through the next four years without blowing up our beloved blue mud-ball-spinning."

However we proceed, I plan to cultivate as much inner peace as I possibly can - just in case things fall apart at the seams.

I'd rather go out dancing than screaming and pulling my hair.

May the new year bring you a BIG piece of peace.

Nifty Gadget Number 497

Shaped like an hour glass, or two cones whose points meet in the middle, this gizmo has a row of sharp metal teeth in each cone that shred zucchini or squash or whatever suitable vegetable you twist into its open ends to make “vegeghetti.”  The cutting points are more widely spaced in one cone than the other, so you can make a two varieties of gluten-free “veggie-pasta”, depending on which width you select. Simple. Easy. Fun to use.

Daughter Mosa gave it to me for my birthday. I’ve been enjoying inventing new dishes with this toy. Today, I caramelized some onions, browned some round slices of chicken sausage, sautéed lightly the Zucchini noodles, and tossed it all together with a bit of Basil and garnished it with a few bright red pomegranate seeds. Pretty! And delicious!

Some gadgets we’ve acquired over the course of forty-five years are not quite what we wish them to be, but the stories of how we acquired them are always memorable.

1988 found the four of us Maxwell-Smiths in Sydney, Australia at Paddy’s Market. Think swap meet on steroids. There among the rows and rows of booths, we stumbled upon a carny with the greatest sales pitch for “Roller-Rulers.” The idea behind this gizmo is that you can make straight and parallel lines down a sheet of paper with no sweat simply by inserting a pen or pencil point in a small hole, then rolling the ruler down the length of the page. We bought two! Such good and engaging salesmanship, we couldn’t pass up the deal. How many times have we used the amazing Roller Rulers in the intervening twenty-eight years? In round numbers? "0."

Zero is a round number. That’s about it. But we still remember the guy with great schtick and his juicy pronunciation of “Roe-lah Roo-lah.”

Then there's the serrated knife with a Pac Man like mouth at the tip with which you can spear the neat rounds of tomato you’ve just sliced so evenly with the serrated edge. It’s one of those gadgets that works so well for the demonstrator, but less effectively once out of its box and in our hands at home. Ah, but the joy of walking with the nieces and nephews, sisters and brothers-in-law through the circus maze of hockers and sellers in New York’s Roosevelt Field out on Long Island is a treasured memory of lots of laughter, great hot dogs, and sun with a hint of ocean salt in the air. The knife now resides in the box of camping utensils, ready at a moment’s notice to slice our tomatoes or hack off a hunk of frozen bread. (Not that we’d have frozen bread on a camping trip... except maybe in Antarctica.)

Holiday times bring up the memories of the wonderful people who have given us gizmos, gadgets, and thing-a-ma-bobs over the years- many of which work wonderfully well, and all of which were, at the time, much appreciated. 

Last year found Mark and me at a white elephant gift exchange party at the Painted Turtle Camp. At the end of a long day making sure the many families who came for the holiday party had a marvelous time, and after all the families had gone home, the camp hosted all of us counselors for an overnight. 

Oh, those young counselors can be wickedly mischievous about what they’re willing to swap with the person on the spot in the middle of the circle who’s just opened the solar hula dancer suitable for your dashboard. Now, there were some choice gizmos… half-gloves made to look like BVD underwear, Nerf Football with whizzing sound effect, cat toys with feathers, and a prize we wanted and won for the Grandie: a battery operated light show in the shape of a turtle. It projects stars and moons onto the ceiling in one of three colors: red, white or green. 

How did we ever learn to live without these fantastic items? 

I’m about to find out. 

I vote to hold onto the memories and chuck the gizmos that do not work.

Two years of living in Oakland have made it very clear that we moved way too much stuff.

Gizmos be gone. Books, files, and never listened to cassettes, watch out! You are next. 

Think I’ll keep the Hubby.

Crosswalks As Stages

When you're out driving, do you ever watch the crosswalk shows?

Where I live they are really quite entertaining, funny, poignant, and enlightening. I hope you may avail yourself of one soon.

They seem to be particularly chock-full of meaning during the holiday rush, as people cling to their packages and scurry across the street tempting fate and the patience of drivers who are equally eager to move on. 

There is the harried mom with twins in a stroller, the shade of which is piled high with bags. Two close-in-age school kids are right behind her punching one another and caterwalling for mom's attention. She slows down enough to grab the older boy by his upper arm, lifting him off his feet, which increases his volume, but makes the little brother smile... and run to catch up.

Then, there is the too cool for school young adolescent boppin' across with the crotch of his pants down around his knees. He can't carry much because one hand has to hold on at all cost to his waistband which is down below his buttocks in back. He can't afford to run either, for fear of being de-pantsed all together. When he starts across with his wide stance walk, which I believe is another method of keeping the pants from falling to his ankles, there are only four-seconds left on the don't walk sign, you can hear the collective sigh of all the front row drivers/spectators, knowing they'll be a captive audience as he makes his way across.

A young woman who may as well have a neon arrow above her blinking, "Shy/Self-Conscious, Shy/Self-Conscious," with every step. She futzes with her hair. She looks over her shoulder. It looks as though that uneven pavement is sure to catch her stiletto heel. The tension is gripping. Aaah, she makes it to the curb with seconds to spare. Yay! Something about her crossing stirs my twenty-something self to the point that I feel all rubbery and gangly in my knees as I sit at the light watching. I am she. She is me forty years ago.

Saturday it was pouring rain through dense fog. Everyone who had a car was lucky, and mostly we drove with empathy for our fellow walk-about humans who had to manage not only their own person, children, and packages, but also the downpour and waves splashing out from cars rushing through intersections. 

I was lucky that I trusted my gut and exited a suddenly slowed to a stop freeway. I later learned that a tree had toppled and landed on a car and that both directions of traffic on 13 Warren Freeway were stopped for more than two hours.  Whewh! Mercifully, no one was hurt.

One of the most heart wrenching of the crosswalk shows involves an elderly gent who seems hard of hearing in addition to carrying a red-tipped cane. It's painful to watch him navigate the busy intersection of 35th and MacArthur Boulevard. Even though the electronic light chirps and talks and guides folks when to begin to cross, he seems not to hear the cues, or he disregards them. This causes the audience to root for him silently, if they stop at all, rude members to honk, or to say a prayer we never get to this point.

The news is that nearly all of us will get to some version of the "old show." Timing is the only mystery, but decrepitude is inevitable.  Whatever stage we're in or on, may we have the grace and resource to stay out of harm's way on a rainy day.

Safe travels.

'Dance to the Music' Pays a Call

There came a knock

We opened the door

A dog ran in 

Skidding on the floor

We can’t keep him

The neighbors said

We’ve six of our own, 

But he’s been fed!

Well, OK fine

We’ll take it from here

Post his picture 

On line, poor dear!

Oh, what a sight 

This shaved beige mutt

Red Christmas sweater 

Down to his butt

Green tinsel tree 

On back with bells

Four fluffy feet 

And how he smells

Curly pig tail

Like a hairless rat’s

Ears trimmed, sculpted 

Like reindeer hats

With sweet fur face

And chocolate eyes

He makes no sound

That’s a surprise

We try all night

To find his peeps

No luck yet

In the kitchen he sleeps

Early next morning 

Find the kitchen’s all wet

Calls to the shelters

Calls to the vet

We find he has

A microchip

Where’d he come from?

Doc bites his lip

“The ID number

Refers to his kennel

Left a message

When they call then we’ll

Know who bought him

I think he’s Chow

‘bout nine or ten

I wonder how

He got to you”

“I wish I knew”

The kennel’s in

Santa Rosa

He must’ve come

From somewhere closer

Two days go by

It’s Saturday

Kennel calls back

It’s a sadder day

The owner weeps

Both joy and sorrow

“Danny’s my love

He’ll be home tomorrow!”

Eight years ago

‘Danny’ at the top of his game

A blue ribbon winner

‘Dance to the Music’ his name

Mother’s name ‘Dancer’

He’s on magazines

A hit with the kids

Adored by the teens

Bout six years ago

Was given to a priest

Third time he lost him

Treated like a beast

This time’s the last time

He’s comin’ home for good

Says she can’t come

But her helper would

Cheray shows up

With Danny’s cousin

Lulu and Danny

Kiss at reunion

She’s full and fluffy

We see how he’d be

Had he not been shaved

Or wearin’ a Christmas tree

'Dance to the Music'

Has a fairy tale end

Our seven year old

Grandie got to spend

Time with a Keeshond

(That’s what he is)

Owner called to say

Thank you for his

Home away from home

She’s glad he’s back

We miss four leggeds

But not the lack

Of walking feeding

Cleaning up poop

Dan reminded us

Of that loop

Round and round and

Round it goes

We won't get a dog

Till Hell has snows!

 Thursday evening, Dance to the Music arrives at our house with neighbor Mike.

Embarrassed by his haircut AND his tacky Christmas sweater, perhaps given him by the Berkeley Arch Dioces, below is what he is supposed to look like.

Sugar Stupor

Aww, shucks, folks, I'm speechless. That's what the Cowardly Lion says in the 1939 MGM movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Thanksgiving here was so luscious and sweet, that I'm still in a sugar shock stupor and tryptophan torpor.

Even though older daughter Mosa has perfected the high art of the paleo dessert spectrum and she brought coconut cream flavored with chocolate, vanilla, AND essence of pumpkin pie, and the coconut sugar doesn't spike as  huge a sugar rush as refined white sugar, if you eat enough of the stuff, sugar is sugar and it is addictive and it now has me in its clutches. I'm a full-on addict with the sweets.

PLUS, all the persimmons our neighbor gave us last week came ripe at the same moment. I had to make persimmon bread yesterday. Wheat-free, Sugar-free, Taste-free... except for the store-bought chocolate chips. I've eaten half a loaf. Gave the neighbor the other loaf. Whewh!

Then, there was the Trader Joe's Babka, and the flourless chocolate cake from Crixa Café. Wowwie wow wow! Did I mention Ginger Beer? Oy. Pass the Ajax, please, I need to scour my teeth.

May all be well this POST Thanksgiving week with you and your dear ones. May you have a naturally sweet December, unfettered by dastardly doses of dulces

Giving Thanks

A present progressive form of the verb "to give"
and a now-n. (Noun)

Right here, right now, I give thanks for you who read weird words of a weird writer who is feeling her heart beating with great gratitude.. luv duv, luv duv, luv duv. (My heart has a lisp.)

May everyday be a day of giving thanks... a day of action that supports how your heart feels when it is full to overflowing with love and grace and gratitude.

May all be well. May all be well. May ALL be well.

Feliz Día de Acción de Grácias... Happy Day of the Action of Giving Thanks.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was "Thank You", it would be enough.

May all beings be happy, May all beings be well, May all beings be comforted. May all beings express gratitude for whatever remains to them.

Happy Thanksgiving Day! May it spill over into the day after... and the day after that... and the day after that...

Wait Until Wednesday...

From a prompt in a writer's gathering: "It’s Finally OVER!" 

(Written Monday, November 7, 2016 and adapted after Tuesday's election result)

Wait until Wednesday, both sides said smugly.

This tension of what-ifs, and tummy clench of divisive, demeaning, yet demanding of my attention rhetoric wears me out.

Protests and plans to dismantle the Electoral College aside, it’s OVER now that we’ve heard the fat man sing. His supporters, bless their mostly white and perhaps educationally challenged hearts, are more or less soothed, calmed, and reassured that there was no rigging, against him, anyway. Soothing of the left and assuaging the fears of those who are being bullied might not happen in my lifetime. How did we arrive here? How much shadow did we ignore? How big is the rend in the fabric of our nation?

How DO we go forward from here? Whatever the outcome, nothing is assured.

Whoever sits at the helm of our top-heavy government will have one hell-of-a-journey trying to keep us afloat. Mutiny is in the air, its fetid stench souring the taste for gestures of unification.

When I was five years old, Mary Eleanore Angelika Fox and I had a huge fight. We were best friends and about to enter kindergarten. The cause of the conflict is lost to memory, but I can imagine that anxiety and the cuspiness of entering school for the first time in our lives added to whatever kerfuffle got stirred between us.

At the height of the fight, I wanted OUT of her house and bolted toward the front door. I got it open and was part way out when she slammed it, catching my pointer finger between two-inches of oak and the door frame. Blood spurted everywhere. We were both crying. Angelika’s mother Edith came running, grabbed a towel and swooped me up in her arms, running up the stairs to the dirt path and across the gravel parking area at the top of our dead-end hill. Edith hollered, “BOBBY!” My mom came to the door. I, still howling, was transferred from one set of arms to the other. 

After the sniffling subsided, and a trip to Dr. Irving J. King where the nail was removed, and the finger stitched and bandaged, Angelika came over. Her mom made her apologize, but her heart wasn’t in it. She stood there, arms crossed and a scowl on her face as the muffled “sorry” fell to the floor. 

I was looking at the floor and saw that we were both wearing our new-for-school ruffled socks. Perhaps, we each needed a reason to be happy and came to the same solution: The new white lace fancy socks we'd both chosen at Woolworths.  I began to giggle. I looked up. She tried not to smile, but her corners curled up and we both ended up laughing so hard that the good kind of tears came. And hiccups, which made us laugh even harder.

Would that the Red and Blue parties, the black, white, brown, yellow, green and purple rainbow people could be as true to higher goals like friendship, and forgiveness, inclusiveness and inquisitiveness as five-year-olds, and let all the animosity flow, like water under the bridge. 

Got any good jokes?

Know anyone in Canada with an extra room to let for four years?

Wait until some Wednesday in 2020... hopefully, the progressive Left won't be left in the dust again.

Pickle Weed, Karma, and Bonding

On a hike last Wednesday with a gaggle of extraordinary women, we were on a mission to find pickle weed. It's said to grow along salt marshes and estuaries. There we were, at Eden Landing, a newly opened loop on the Bay near San Mateo. It's a meandering dirt path through nesting areas of kestrels, egrets, herons, pipers, and teeny tiny feathered friends whose names I can only make up... Herbert, Jasmine, Claudia and Irving. It was a likely terrain in which to find the elusive pickle weed. We saw some imposter plants, but naw... that ain't it was the surmise. I had NO idea what it looked like. Lucky me to be walking with Cheri, when the other four gals were way ahead. We both saw an eagle on a mission over the rabbit-infested bush area, and then, she spotted pickle weed along the path!

Slender green miniature pickle shaped stalks about as big around as a bamboo skewers clumped together like candelabras or mini menorahs. Edible! Salty! No wonder they grow in the salt marsh!

I was better fed by the conversations that are possible as people walk side by side engrossed by and nourished by the beauty of nature. Words come easier, it seems, when there's parallel play and movement involved.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 

Once upon a time there lived a cunning and clever woman who made a fortune practicing serial monogamy. She squeezed and pinched her every beloved penny and, more to the point, squeezed many pennies OUT of other people in very mean ways. She deviously manipulated papers and robbed others of their rightful inheritance, ultimately amassing piles and piles of gold and silver and all manner of precious gems, deeds to land, and fancy clothes. She enjoyed flaunting her wealth and the sense of power it gave her. She was surrounded by people who were eager to do her bidding with the hope she might let go a coin or two. Alas, she never shared. She ate, drank, and slept with her wealth.

In later years, she became dependent upon others to help her take care of all her wealth. The woman became too frail to recognize that her fortune, like naked flesh in a cool pond, attracted leeches. Now the ones who were eager to be around her smelled the money and they lingered for the opportunities. Little by little the hungry ones began to circle. Like vultures. Little testing bites. A suck here, a scratch there. Is she aware? They mused. Will she miss this bauble? They wondered. This mink coat? This Monet painting? Oooh! Look at this check book! What I could do with that! 

The children and grandchildren of the wealthy tyrant lived far away. They did not know what was happening until there was a huge tunnel constructed under the house through which all the wealth was draining - carried away by the hungry ones who, like the woman many years before, had also thought, "Oh, they won't miss that. I'm entitled to this. I know how to care for and build this fortune. It's mine now." 

Although the family was sad that the money was draining away, and eventually sought help to staunch the bleed, they couldn't help but feel that Karmic Justice was being doled out by a universe trying to balance itself.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 

How lucky I feel to be old enough and "I don't care enough" to be able to meet people as I am. 

How fun to be invited to this "come as you are" party called Life and not worry about my graying hair, with way too many cowlicks, sagging skin,  unfashionable shoes, and super comfortable clothes!

I remember bonding with other little kids whose parents were totally terrifying, but worrying that I was odd one out.

I remember bonding with other teens over the insanity of High School classes and fluctuating hormones, and worrying that I was freakishly different.

I remember college days of color bonding. Black, white, brown, yellow, and red people bonding over Panama Red, Owsley's Purple Haze, Reds, Whites, and Blues. Oh, those Truinol Blues. I was too fucked up to worry about what anyone thought for those six or seven years... except when the pot-induced paranoia freaked me out. 

I remember bonding with other new moms easily because we had a common enemy: sleep deprivation! But the competition of being "super mom" reared its ugly green head. Having kids also brings out all the stuff we need to heal from our own childhoods... so steeping in the muck was not so comfortable and made me want to "put on a happy face." Attempting perfection was my downfall.

I remember trauma bonding with workshop participants where we let our hair and sad stories down, our salt tears mixing into an intoxicating brew. I worried that I alone was suffering from terminal uniqueness.

Now, through luck or hard work or some alchemical mixture of it all, I am high on life without the hangover, without the paranoia, without the double-think, worry link. It's not a "fuck-it" defiant sort of not caring, but rather a Wow! There's so much beauty, let's be quick to savor it all, without all the hoopla around looking or acting a certain way, like a "movie-star-out-of-our-bodies-and-out-of-our-heads" sort of way. Being inside our body and heart makes life so much more fun!

And so, it was easy to bond with Cheri, my walking companion Wednesday, over the simple fact that there were eagles and pickle weed in the world... so close at hand!