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!