Lucidly Dreaming (Part II)

(You'll either want to start with Part I or just revel in the lost, confused feeling. Totally your choice.)

I've never figured out the why, who, or anything else about the Violent Bad Guy dreams. I can never see the face. There are no features, just dark, like a shadow, like just nothing there. He's big. Deliberate. He never speaks. Like when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come won't say shit to Ebenezer Scrooge. Silent, scary motherfucker. He chases me (of course he does), and I can't run or scream. I mean, I try, but my legs are congealed oatmeal, they just won't work, and I fall down and my screams come out with all the force of a weak kitten, despite practically herniating my diaphragm with the effort. He doesn't hurry. He doesn't have to. He knows I'm not really going anywhere, even while I claw at the grass and scream my nonfunctional throat raw. The thrill is in the chase, and he likes it nice and slow. It's terrifying. Pins-and-needly prickling in my bowels, my organs go slack, like they're going to slip out of me.  The grass comes out by the roots in my hands, and my feet keep slipping. My muscles won't fucking work, and he's coming.

Could it be any more "classic nightmare" here? The only thing I'm missing is an escape route through my school locker where I can't remember the combination.

He never actually catches me, though. I wake up. Every time. Which tells me that shit must be scarier to the lizard part of my brain than splatting onto the concrete was in the falling dreams.

The Violent Bad Guy dreams would come maybe a couple of times a year. I could never tie them to any real-life event or person. I mean, I had a pretty idyllic childhood. My biggest trauma was probably when that deranged German Shepherd tried to rip my face off but had to settle for a goodly chunk of my arm when I instinctively blocked my face with it. Pretty interesting, having the deep tissues of my arm hanging out there on display, but nothing some stitches and a good plastic surgeon couldn't fix. I never had bad dreams about it, though, and besides, Violent Bad Guy was a two-legged stalker, not a berserker dog. Other than that, my most tortuous ordeals were mowing the lawn, toting firewood up the hill in the snow, and wailing tragically when my dad unplugged the phone without warning during my Very Important Conversations. He also made these annoying kissing sounds when I was talking to my boyfriend. Even so, not really the stuff of nightmares.

So fast forward a couple of decades and change, from the nearly forgotten falling dreams to me closing in on thirty, still occasionally dream-fleeing Violent Bad Guy, but not giving it much thought. One day, in a rare conversation on the subject, someone asked if I'd ever considered lucid dreaming. I had to ask what that was. "Pfft, oh, that's some bullshit," I said. "Please. Like I'm going to magically be able to run now because I decide to. Gee, great idea, why didn't I think of that? Sure, okay: I decide I can run now. Poof!" My friend opined that maybe it wasn't about running. Maybe I should consider confronting Violent Bad Guy. Ask him what he wanted with me and who he was.

And I freaked the fuck out.

I did not want to know who Violent Bad Guy was, what he wanted with me, or anything else about his creepmeister ass. I mean, do you really want to know Jeffrey Dahmer's motivations when he comes a-calling? No, you just want to get the fuck away from his ass. You're not going to ask him to tea for a nice chat, you're going to run, Forrest, motherfucking run. Or at least claw the grass till your nails bleed and low crawl like an Airborne Ranger in the kill zone after you fall down. Ask him what he wants, my ass. I don't give a fuck what he wants.

My friend quietly suggested that I may want to investigate my extreme reaction as well as the lucid dreaming idea, to which I emphatically replied, "Fuck that."

Some time later, at the library, one of the display books was about lucid dreaming. Weird. What are the odds? Flipping through the book, I realized that turning the falling dreams into flying dreams had actually been some form of lucid dreaming. Cue Twilight Zone music. I checked out the book. (This was before Wikipedia had emerged as the foremost authority on life and everything in it.)

The next time Violent Bad Guy showed up in dreamland, I was vaguely aware of it being a dream. I still didn't want to ask him shit. The idea of hearing whatever voice he was packing ... too much hell no to even contemplate. Darth Vader would probably sound like Dora the Explorer by comparison. No. But I felt calm. Controlled. I think it's about the control. The deciding. It felt like things change now. I remember that calm from way back when I decided I wasn't going to fall anymore in the falling dreams. It's like things have already changed, even before you've actually done what you've decided to do, even before you know if it's going to work, because you feel different. Resolute. You're not afraid. It's really an incredible [what the fuck, you mean this was all I had to do all along?] feeling. I wish I could duplicate it in real life, feel that sure and solid, but I guess in real life you know way down deep that there's no out, no waking up. There's no locker combo to remember and no National Geographic (Reader's Digest) article assuring you it's physiologically impossible for the worst to happen.

He was coming, like he was always coming, but I didn't have that fear where your organs go all loose and tingly, where your muscles go soft and weak. I didn't run or scream. He was getting closer -- I told him to stop. I told him I wasn't going to run. That I wanted him to leave. That I wasn't afraid now. I even threw in some hokey, woo-woo shit about him no longer having power over me. Hey, it was an intense moment; I went with it. He kind of expanded, genie-out-of-a-lamp style, like he was going to just envelop me, absorb me without chasing me at all [oh, fuck], but he didn't.

He just walked away.

Yeah, kind of anticlimactic, but that's how it went down. Sorry.

I'm not really a woo-woo type of person, but I do believe there are things that we as humans don't fully comprehend. Dreams are still a mystery to me. I don't have a clue why they're so bizarre, and I don't know how they relate to our lives or or what purpose they serve. What I know is that I've never again experienced the terror of falling in a dream since the night my I made my little-kid self fly instead. And that it's been nearly two decades since I told Violent Bad Guy to leave, and I have not dreamed about him since.

I know. Woo-woo, crazyass shit. I swear, I'm lucid.

Lucidly Dreaming

So the subjects of sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming have come up, what with so many of you writing about ghosts and weird dreams of late. I haven't experienced sleep paralysis (probably just jinxed myself), but I do have a lucid dreaming story. I know. Cue scornful eye roll. When I first heard of lucid dreaming, I pronounced it bullshit and made some joke about Ouija boards.

My elder daughter's original art. Perfect for illustrating a weirdass-dreams post.

I'm not really a woo-woo type of person, but I do think there are things that we as human beings just don't have the capacity to comprehend. Things we just can't wrap our brains around. This is true even without the woo-woo aspect.

Take dogs, for example. A bloodhound has about 300 million scent receptors in his nose, compared to our 5 million. Dogs can smell cancer and Parkinson's disease. They're freaking scent savants. The smell section of their loyal, little pea-brains is 40 times bigger than ours. That whole "they smell fear" thing? Basically true. They smell pheromones and whatever weird shit gets released when we break out in a sweat. They can probably smell sad poetry in our tears.

Dogs are basically experiencing a whole world that we don't even know is there. Wild.

Granted, it's probably for the best, given what dogs like to sniff. I don't care to know the intricate, subtle notes of the steaming horse dung enrapturing my dog any more than I care to sniff my friend's ass in greeting. I'm fine with a handshake, thanks.

Norm? That you? Come closer ...

Sure, we trump dogs with our comparatively keen eyesight, but we're the naked mole rats of the world compared to eagles. Dolphins and bats hear a whole spectrum that we can't. Echolocation and shit. Vampire bats and pit vipers can find your ass by some kind of thermo-detection, and that hairy, eight-eyed spider? It can see ultraviolet light.

Good luck killing it with fire.

So given that we humans can't even perceive normal, everyday goings-on that animals with sharper senses experience as the norm, it's not a stretch to think that there may be other things we can't pick up on, let alone comprehend.

I don't know how or why my grandma was there at the end of the bed my first night home from basic training, shortly after her death. She was there by the collection of Avon decanters she'd given me over the years. You know, those bottles where the plastic cap is the top half of a lady and the bottom is a glass skirt full of noxious, flowery perfume you never wore because your signature scent was Love's Baby Soft. My mom said it was a dream. That's what people say when you tell them some crazy shit that happened at night with no one else around. Except it didn't feel like that. Grandma was there. Admittedly, as ghost stories go, it was kind of a non-event. She didn't say or do anything. She didn't levitate or make objects fly or reveal some profound universal truth that changed my life. She was just there.

I don't mean like "in a dream" there. I mean there.

But dreams are weird, too. If they do stem from something lodged deep in the subconscious, that's disturbing because that shit  is bizarre. Bizarre like you might need therapy. Or a straitjacket. Do dreams try to give us weirdly coded answers to life or are they just completely random? Do they portend future events? My mom dreamed about Bobby Kennedy's assassination before it happened. Imagine seeing the TV replay your dream. Freaky. No wonder she said Grandma came in a dream.

Not sure I want to delve into my daughter's subconscious. Love you, honey. You know that ... right?

I've never experienced sleep paralysis, but the esposo has. It only ever happened at the family house. Where both of his parents died. His siblings all agree that there's some kind of ... something ... in the house. A presence. I know. Woo-woo shit. Surprising, because the esposo could win the prize for most practical, sensible person on earth.  So his stories of waking up to the feeling of something, someone, pushing down on his chest and him not being able to move were kind of freaky, as he's not generally down with nonsense or woo-fuckery. It seemed to fit the description of sleep paralysis. Okay. Reasonable explanation. But my reasonable, practical esposo still feels as though something, or someone, was there.

And it hasn't happened since we moved into our apartment over four years ago.

I said earlier that I'd thought lucid dreaming -- where you consciously take control of your dreams while you're dreaming -- was bullshit, but I actually had an experience with lucid dreaming as a very young child. I just didn't know at the time that it had a name or even that it was anything odd or controversial. It wasn't until decades later that I even realized that what I'd done was lucid dreaming. You know, that woo-woo bullshit I didn't believe in.

Like this, but from the cloud instead of the bank.

When I was little, I used to dream that I was falling. Like from clouds or skyscrapers. High bridges. It was terrifying. I don't know if I had the falling dreams because of my intense fear of heights or if I developed that fear because of the falling dreams. I don't suppose it matters. I'd usually wake up before impact, petrified, but not always. Sometimes I couldn't wake up before splatting against the concrete rushing up at me. I never actually died in the falling dreams, but I always thought I would. My hands are sweating now, just thinking about it.

Then one day I read that it was impossible to die in a dream because the shock to one's system would be too great; the brain protects us by making dream death impossible. I nearly peed from relief. Okay, the article also mentioned isolated cases in the South Pacific where people's hair had turned white overnight from the shock of having dreamed their death, but I dismissed that. I lived in Kansas, not the South Pacific, I reasoned. I was, therefore, safe from dream death, according to little-kid logic. Now, I want to say I read this in National Geographic, but it was probably Reader's Digest and of questionable veracity. No matter, it was an enormous relief to me as a child. This was one time when reading things that I was too young for worked to my advantage, unlike those unfortunate incidents with The Amityville Horror and Audrey Rose. Still not sure if The Joy of Sex and that whole Anaïs Nin thing worked for me or against me, but hey, that was childhood in the days before passworded Kindles.

Anyway, the next time I dreamed I was falling, I wasn't quite as terrified. I knew, on some level, that I wasn't going to die. I remember waking up and being aware of the difference. The next time, it was stronger. Maybe I was closer to being awake, I don't know, but I was cognizant enough to know not only that I wouldn't die, but also that I wasn't going to fall at all.

I would fly.

And I did. It was wonderful. Even better than the time I dreamed I was galloping through open fields on a real horse. I never had another falling dream after that because now I could fly. Sadly, the flying dreams quickly tapered off until I didn't have them anymore, either. I tried to make them happen, but they never did. I never realized there was anything unusual about all of this. I was so young, I guess I just chalked it up to outgrowing the falling dreams. I never gave it much thought beyond that.

I wish my daughter could illustrate my life. 

I've had three recurring dreams in my life besides the falling/flying dreams. There's the tornado dream: a tornado is coming, and I'm responsible for kids and/or animals. I'm literally herding cats. Or toddlers or puppies. I get the last stragglers corralled in a basement, only to see that others have gone out to look for me or each other. I tell the remaining ones to stay put while I go find the others. Rinse, repeat. So freaking stressful. The tornado dream comes when I really feel out of control of my life.

There's also the house dream, which is decidedly more pleasant. I'm exploring a labyrinth of a house, with towers and turrets and secret passageways and all manner of delightful secrets, sometimes even pets. This one comes when I'm facing a big change in life. It's usually good, though surreal, except when a stairway goes wonky so I can't get to where I need to be, and there's a black hole under the stairs. I've never actually fallen from a gone-wrong stairway, though, which I attribute to the flying dreams of long ago.

And then there's the Violent Bad Guy dream, which brings us to the crux of today's tale.


To be continued ... 

(Oh, get that knot out of your panties, it's already almost finished. This is a blog, not The New Yorker; I passed the bounds of brevity a couple of paragraphs back. Also, JP: payback's a bitch, baby.)

Coffee Fields (Not) Forever

(In which I introduce the child who will become the esposo, a trap is laid, and cherries are not cherries at all.) 

I saw this while taking Tonka on his constitutional, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.

Yes, we have cloudy days here, too.  But only during the rainy season. And only later in the day. (Score!)

One of the coffee fields around the corner is for sale. See the terracotta building peeking out from behind the sign? That's my apartment. There's an empty lot behind us, then this little coffee field (cafetál) to the east of the empty lot. Makes for a nice view out the back windows.

So one more farmer bites the dust. Whoever buys it will surely put up apartments or cookie-cutter houses. Or worse. They already built a childcare center on the other side of the lot behind us. The teachers are either hard of hearing or sadistic, because they recently added microphones to the fun. Now the whole neighborhood can sing along to jolly songs. All morning long. They also painted the wall facing us a lurid neon blue that screams at me from across the empty lot. Along with the kids.

Anyway, this is my view of the soon-to-be-razed coffee field. The mountains are hiding.

My current view to the east from my back windows. Little coffee field rocks some verdant green.

On a clear day, you can see the mountains, too. Somehow, them basically being a parade of volcanoes isn't scary. Volcán Poás is the only active one within view, anyway. True, the world's second-most acidic sulfur lake sits up in the crater, but hey, the geysers can't reach this far, and the lake is such a tranquil, milky aqua-green that it lulls you into believing it's gentle. Okay, those three tourists were just struck by lightning there this week, but you can hardly blame the acid lake for that. Volcán Turrialba, which occasionally belches ash when it's feeling petulant, is southeast of us, out of sight, but it's the one that will coat the floors with a fine grit that's slicker than goose shit and makes you cough. It's the wind pattern, not the proximity.

Cafetál by the empty corn field. 
Volcán Barva (inactive) is to the left.

I know the farmer who owns some of the coffee fields that run the length of the opposite side of the road, aka Tonka's Poop Path. He's an older gentleman with one of those really old, classic trucks. He plants corn in the one field that's not a cafetál. He has chickens and two grouchy little dogs that are Tonka's friends. I hope he doesn't follow suit. I sure would hate to see him sell.

Transporting coffee by ox cart, 1920s
La Nación - Manuel Gómez

More and more independent coffee growers are selling. The big coffee corporations keep picking up more and more of the market. It's sad. Back in the early 1800s, Costa Rica gave land grants and free plants to anyone willing to grow coffee. Coffee became the country's most profitable export until bananas surpassed it more than a century later. (Tourism now out-earns them both, despite the occasional stray lightning bolt.) Yes, an elite class of coffee barons rose up, but there were a lot of independent growers, too, and those small-farm coffee growers made a huge contribution to the development of the country.

When my esposo was growing up, coffee was important, and not just for waking up in the morning. He grew up poor. His parents raised eight children and buried two more who had died in infancy. His father drove construction equipment, and his mother had the harder job of raising seven boys and a girl. She made tortillas by hand and washed clothes by hand. No family car. The kids didn't just share bedrooms, they shared beds.  They watched TV through a neighbor's window. And every year, the boys picked coffee so they could buy clothes, shoes, and supplies for school. My esposo says they "weren't really poor". Because they only had to pick coffee before school started, not all the time. They didn't have to work during the school year. Perspective, people.

I never had to work as a child, so my perspective on what "poor" means has shifted.

Of course, you laugh about it later. Like childbirth. Or basic training. At family gatherings, once the beer and guaro* are flowing, the childhood stories start, and someone invariably brings up the coffee fields. I learned that picking coffee is no easy task. You're paid by volume, by the bag, but you can't just fly through there willy-willy. Only the ripe, red cherries (or berries) go on to become those brown, addictive, magical beans that breathe life into us every morning. You have to pick them individually, and carefully: you can't pick the green ones yet, the dried up purple ones are no good, and if you strip the branches or pick the stem from the plant along with the cherry, the flowers won't bloom in those places and next year's crop won't grow.

It takes some skill to pick coffee. To do it quickly, even more.

So one of the boys -- the name changes, depending on who's telling the story, but I'm pretty sure it was my esposo -- spied a big bunch of the reddest, ripest cherries, lying on the ground. One of his brothers must've dropped them! He must've been going too fast and missed his bag. What a prize! A good-sized pile, just there for the taking among the leaves. He snatched them up ... along with a big, steaming handful of dog shit. His trap-laying brothers se cagaron de risa, as the phrase goes in Spanish. In Costa Rica, you don't laugh your ass off, you shit yourself laughing. Appropriate.

Growing up in Ohio, we learned to watch out for yellow snow.  My esposo learned to watch out for pretty, red coffee cherries on the ground.

Picking coffee here in Costa Rica is kind of like picking strawberries or grapes in the US. It's a job nobody really wants to do, a job people do to survive. A lot of Nicaraguan immigrants pick coffee here. There's a lot of prejudice and discrimination here against nicaragüenses. Some ticos complain about nicas "taking their jobs", but picking coffee is like working on the pineapple plantations; it's the last job people want. Everyone likes having that hot cup of yodo on the table, though.

I hope the fair trade cooperatives can get more of a foothold here so that small, independent growers and pickers here can have some security. If you guys have access to fair-trade coffee, please consider coughing up a little extra to support it.

café chorreado

A lot of ticos make coffee with a chorreador. This was my coffee maker for my first year or two here. If someone hadn't given us an electric one as a gift, I'd still be using it. Some of the more traditional sodas* make their coffee that way. Some of the fancier ones do it for the tourists who pay big bucks for "quaint" because they don't know enough to go to a regular soda.

Anyway, I'm sorry, little coffee field. I'm fervently hoping the bigger ones on the other side of the road don't follow you. I love our tranquilo little area. Selfishly, I don't want it to change. But more than that, this little cafetál is representative of a bigger change for small farms and for the country as a whole. I guess change is inevitable, but watching the coffee fields fall to housing developments -- or amped-up childcare centers -- is sad.

If McDonald's buys it, I'm out of here.

------------------------------
cafetál - coffee field
guaro - sort of like Costa Rican moonshine. Made from sugarcane. There's a national brand you can buy in stores.
cagarse de risa - shit one's self laughing. Laugh your ass off. Crack up.
tico - a Costa Rican person. 
nica - a Nicaraguan person.
yodo - Literally, it means "iodine", but in Costa Rica it's also slang for coffee. I guess because of the color.
chorreador - old school coffee maker. Basically a frame holding a sock-like, cotton coffee filter.
soda - a little restaurant that serves traditional, cheap, basic food.

Paradise Lost and Found

view from the laundry room window

How many prodigal-blogger posts does this make?  Whatever. 

I found an assload of drafts in here. Apparently, I wrote a bunch of shit while strapped to the roller coaster that is culture shock, after blithely setting off for paradise with nine suitcases and a dog.

I almost deleted them. But this is how I felt at the time, and this was my path from there to here.

I wrote this three years ago.  I'd forgotten the post, but I remember that night so clearly.
------------------

Paradise Lost and Found

It's March. 2012.  Seven months since the exalted move to Paradise and entering into wedded bliss with the proverbial Latin lover.  Who needs Calgon?  This chick probably spends her perfect days on the beach, being served cocktails in a coconut by her surf-instructor husband, listening to toucan calls and the spicy strains of salsa music while all her troubles are borne away on a sultry, floral-scented, tropical breeze.

Bitch probably has a pet monkey, too. 

Well, sort of. I don't live anywhere near the beach.  Or even a pool.  The esposo is a librarian whose swimming skills are about in line with my salsa skills. We are, however, surrounded by coffee fields and volcanos, and we do enjoy the occasional coconut with a straw.  Or box of cheap wine. The breeze, while often floral-scented, has not borne away life's troubles, but it does occasionally deliver volcanic ash or monstrous insects through the screenless windows. There are banana trees (which are not actually trees), palm trees, mango trees, papaya trees, avocado trees, and fifty-eleven-jillion types of flowers, birds, and butterflies. Sunshine. Always.

No pet monkey, though.  Sorry.

I live in paradise.  I wake up to sunshine, birdsong, and warm tile floors every single day.  Except sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to feel like I live in paradise, and I am secretly guilty if I'm not 100% ecstatically happy all the time.  Like I have to live up to living the dream, you know?

There really is no magical place that is paradise, though you can be coaxed into believing in it when you're vulnerable, when you're shivering under a Snuggie, alone in your vast expanse of king-sized bed, listening to the endless rain beat down on the new roof you just paid for in your soon-to-be-foreclosed house, and it's dark by 4pm.

You can sure as fuck believe in paradise then.

I moved to Costa Rica, but my kids didn't.  My friends aren't here. I feel isolated, emotionally and linguistically. I'm getting better at Spanish, but it's like communicating with your head wrapped in a thick, wet blanket. That shit's hard, people. I now have a husband to have and to hold till death do us part, but marriage doesn't magically transport your ass to the pages of Harlequin any more than taking a salsa class magically makes you Shakira. (Yeah, that shit didn't work. Turns out they don't actually put those footprints on the floor for you to follow.)  I traded in my big, empty bed for the challenge of managing marriage across two languages and two cultures, after a largely long-distance courtship.  And that, my friends, no es nada fácil. We could be a weekly sit-com, trust.  Yes, I walked away from my job -- how great is that?  Everyone's dream!  But I also walked away from my own pension and salary, stepping into the role of a housewife completely dependent on her husband in a machista part of the world.  And that kind of messes with your head.

The separation from my kids and friends ... ain't enough paradise to fix that. My insides try to rise up and choke me if I let myself go down to that cellar where the real feelings live; oily, snakey things, locked up tight, away from the daily business of life.  As a single mom, I got pretty good at compartmentalizing, at handling shit while appearing sane and competent, at keeping that padlock snicked shut. Tight.

Until I'm alone.

Because then no one has to know. 

So one night I'm cooking dinner (because I'm a housewife now, y'all) and my iPod pops up this lullaby I used to sing to the kids when they were babies, in that big rocking chair that got left on the porch of my now-foreclosed house.  It was fast, too -- James Taylor reached out and gut-punched me with a baby's song, hard, and the padlocked things slithered out, into my consciousness where they don't belong, except I'm not alone now, because I moved to paradise and new husband is sitting over there playing computer chess, and James Taylor is singing "and you can sing this song ... when I'm goonnnne," and now I'm the one who's gone, and freaking James Taylor slams me back into the rocking chair with that soft, chubby baby in terrycloth sleeper pajamas, except it's not real because now the baby has a goatee and a job and college and  bills and is doing it alone, without his mom, because she's in paradise peeling beets ...

... and then I'm in the laundry room of this tiny apartment, trying to get it under control because I need to be in control, but it won't stop, and I'm looking out at the coffee plants and banana trees (which aren't really trees) under the moon, with the mountains blocking the low stars, and this is paradise, where I'm not alone but I'm a different kind of lonely ... and then new husband is in the laundry room, probably hoping like hell it was nothing he did to make this gringa volverse loca in the laundry room (possibly wondering if this is an appropriate time to practice the "go nuts" phrase he just learned in English), and I try to tell him it's just that I miss the kids ... I just miss the kids ... only it's hard to speak clearly when you're crying and James Taylor is crooning his freaking baby's song, and I'm speaking in English because I can't think in Spanish when I'm crying, so it's harder to understand me, and we're doing that "¿Qué? ¿Cómo?  What?" thing, and I want to punch James Taylor but I secretly believe I deserve to feel this way because (you wouldn't be missing them so much if you hadn't LEFT THEM) really, who deserves to be happy in paradise?

And that's how it hits you. Like a fucked-up, run-on sentence that won't stop.

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of thinking about paradise and happiness and relationships and about how where you are affects how you are.  I'm having a pretty hard time, to be honest, living without my family and my friends.   I was prepared for the whole culture shock thing; I didn't Pollyanna that shit. I know the drill, I've done international moves before.  But not without my kids.  And in those places, there were other transplanted people who got it.  And who spoke my language. 

How can you feel sad when you're "living the dream"?  I feel like an ingrate. I mean, you quit your job, moved to a tropical country and found love to boot?  Bitch, shut the fuck up and get back to your fairy tale before I throw a mango at your ass.

Goddamn.

In Seattle, I had people whom I loved more than life, but I wasn't happy.  I had happy moments with my people, but I wasn't really happy in general.  I don't think most people know how deeply Seattle got in there, what it did to me. It was sucking the life out of me, sucking the me out of me. 

Here in Costa Rica, the sunshine restores me, I feel better, I feel more like me.  I feel happy in general.  I have someone who loves me.  I have my dog.  I have time to breathe. It's warm.  It's yellow and red and so many greens and nothing is grey or cold or damp.  I just miss my kids, my friends.  Sometimes almost to the point of panic if I can't keep it shut up tight, where it belongs.

Even in paradise, life is trade-offs, people. Always.

I feel like I'm healing something, being here.  It's a process, but I feel it happening.  A location isn't really paradise, but it does make one hell of a difference.  There will always be stuff, but sunshine makes handling the stuff easier.  At least for me.  I'm that freaking Seattle crocus escaping the cold, snowy ground, basking my ass off in the sunshine.  Alive.  Sunshine is so fucking good.

Now if I can just find an agreeable monkey and teach it to ride on Batman, we'll be golden.

Hate, Murder, and Small Town Football

On July 12, Luis Ramirez was viciously kicked and beaten by at least six white teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The attack left him bleeding, convulsing, and foaming from his mouth. He died of head injuries two days later, the imprint of his crucifix still indelibly stamped into his chest by an attacker's boot. He was 25 years old.

Three of the attackers were finally charged for the crime on July 25th. Colin Walsh, 17, who punched Ramirez in the face, causing him to fall and hit his head, and Brandon Piekarsky, 16, who kicked him in the head after he lost consciousness, were charged as adults with homicide, ethnic intimidation and related offenses. Derrick Donchak, 18, who apparently chased Ramirez down and tackled him, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and related crimes.

Luis was engaged to Crystal Dillman, with whom he was raising three young children. Luis supported his family by working two jobs: one in a factory, the second picking strawberries and cherries.

Despite the fact that there were eyewitnesses to the brutal attack -- including a retired police officer and Arielle Garcia, a friend of the couple who went to school with the attackers and named them to police -- it took two weeks for charges to be made.

Each of the eyewitnesses heard racial slurs directed at Ramirez throughout the fight, yet town officials were not convinced that the attack was racially motivated.

Retired Philadelphia police Officer Eileen Burke, who lives on the street where the fight occurred, told The Associated Press she heard a youth scream at one of Ramirez's friends after the beating to "tell her Mexican friends to get out of Shenandoah, or you're going to be laying next to him."

~The Morning Call

Now, you all know my dad was a cop. Cops, in general, don't go around telling tall tales about racially motivated attacks in their communities. They'd prefer that racial disputes never happened, regardless of their personal views on anything. They are not prone to go around crying wolf about this, trust. So if a cop says this attack had racial motivation, guess what? Most likely, she's not saying that just for the hell of it.

The investigating officers, though, were not so keen to listen to witnesses, even those who could actually identify the perpetrators. Check out Democracy Now's interview with eyewitness Ariella Garcia. She went to school with the attackers. Knew them by name. Saw where they ran.

The police, however, decided to stay and search her husband's car for guns. Her husband is also -- you guessed it -- Latino. So instead of going after the white attackers whom an eyewitness named and pointed out the direction of escape, the police stayed to search the witness's car for a nonexistent gun, and rough up her Latino husband a bit.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Shenandoah is a small coal town of 5,000 about 80 miles from Philadelphia. All six of the young men who carried out this crime were on the high school football team.

I went to high school in a small farm town of about 6,000 in southern Ohio. Football was big doin's, let me tell you. Friday night lights, baby, nothing like it. Of course there's high school football where I live now, and I'm at most games because of the kids. But here, it's just a high school thing. Most fans not directly connected with one of the high schools are more interested in the Seahawks or the Husky-Cougar college rivalry.

Small town football though, that's different.

It's a community thing. The whole town comes out, every Friday. In my town, there was the fish fry early in the season, second only to the county fair as far as social events. Later in the season, even the smaller surrounding towns would turn out on Fridays to watch us march our way to State, game by game. Our football team was the pride of that town. Hell, the county. Those boys got free tickets at the local movie theater, and free pizza slices at the Wig-Wam, so named to match our high school's mascot, the Indians. (I know. That's another post.) Anyway, our football players were local heroes. If they got caught driving too fast while cruising on Saturday nights, the cops - whom we all knew by name - would issue a stern warning with an admonition to "pay that off with a win this Friday, y'hear?"

The basketball team enjoyed notoriety too, but there's just something about football in a small town. The marching band, the lights, the crisp, cold air, moms and dads reliving the glory days in their own letter jackets from 20 years back. In a small town, thing is, all the adults graduated from that same high school. They all knew each other back in the day, and they know everybody's kids and grandkids now. They all remember sitting in those stands or riding the away-bus. When the town turned out to that field on Friday night, there was connection. Pride. History. Shoot, you didn't even need to go to the class reunion; just show up on Friday night.

I don't know that I can even properly explain what football means to a small town. Truth be told, I'm not sure I can fully understand it, seeing as how I wasn't "born and raised". I think that's one reason my parents were still seen as "the new folks", even years after we'd moved there, and sis and I had long left home. Not being raised that way, they didn't quite get the thing about Friday football. They didn't have any kids on the team or the cheer squad or in the band, so why would they go freeze their butts off in the stands? Didn't they go to all my concerts and watch me sing? Daddy could watch the Bengals on Monday night from the comfort of his own chair. Real football. They thought it was just a high school thing.

But it wasn't.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

So, back to Luis Ramirez and the young men who killed him. As I read different articles and the comments to go with them, all of those memories came rushing back. Folks in Shenandoah are not only reeling from a brutal murder in their town, they've also been blindsided with the fact that it wasn't a bunch of thugs who did this.  Hell, it wasn't even the white trash who live in that sorry shack out yonder on Route 24 past Pine Ridge Road, no, these were football players. The good boys. The quarterback even, who's off to college come fall.

Seriously people, this is a big fucking deal in a small town.

So it didn't surprise me that the charges were so long in coming. It didn't surprise me to read that the beating was not recorded in that night's police log. Yes, I'm serious. "Standard practice", according to police. It didn't surprise me that "despite the witness statements, Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky said he doesn't believe Ramirez's ethnicity was what prompted the fight," or that the police chief doesn't think it has anything do with racism either. (AP)

I have reason to know the kids who were involved, the families who were involved, and I've never known them to harbor this type of feeling.
~Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky

From what we understand right now, it wasn't racially motivated. This looks like a street fight that went wrong."
~Police Chief Matthew Nestor

I think any time there's a fight, and any time you have one ethnic group fighting another, there's going to be racial slurs. I've seen that since I was a kid on a playground 20 years ago, but they never called it ethnic intimidation until very recently.
~Roger Laguna, Walsh's lawyer

All quotes from the Associated Press

A street fight that went wrong? Really? Boys will boys. I wonder, Mr. Laguna, if school-yard scuffles would have been called "ethnic intimidation" in your day had someone died on the playground?

Damn. I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling real confident about justice being served here, people.



Neither did it surprise me to read the horrible, hateful comments following the local articles, though in fairness, they were balanced by plenty of folks who were horrified by the blatant racism and cruelty, shocked at the hate that's crawled out into the light for everyone to see.

That's another thing about life in a small town. Things can seem fine on the surface, especially if you're white. Underneath though, it's very, very carefully balanced. As long as everyone acts right, life goes along just fine. Folks are friendly. And if you're making big yards for the football team, it doesn't much matter what color you are. Whoo-eee, that boy sure can run, cain't he? Only color anyone sees when you're driving down the field with that ball tucked under your arm, is the red and white of that uniform.

Until you start dating Judge Hapner's niece. Then it matters a whole lot. Folks see color real quick then.



I bet a lot of people in Shenandoah truly do not understand how this possibly could've happened in their community. They're good-hearted, well-intentioned folks who have never had to see things any other way because life has always gone along according to their way, and they don't even know it. I can well imagine how this has torn through this little town.

I also know there are plenty of people there who know exactly why this happened. People of color who have to be hyper-aware of their white neighbors' approval and comfort level every day of their lives. You can bet they're under no illusions. But there are also people who left comments like these in the local paper's accounts of the story:

TNT: Nothing he did in the U S was legal! Now my taxes are going to investigate his death and prosecute his assailants > Parasitic even in death!

Mary: Illegals...the name says it all ...goodbye and good riddance!! Those kids did us a favor, too bad they will have to face unpleasant consequences

Deer Hunter: Follow the leads of the good Sherrif and Hazleton's honorabe American leader. Nobody wants these illegals in town. Nobody! ... They have no rights. They are in your town and are bleeding it dry. Shenandoah residents should legally carry cocealed weapons to protect themselves, their property and their young women.

Tina: If these children were such cold blooded murderers they would have killed him there he died later on, yes because of the injuried these kids inficted on him, but they did not intend to murder him, it was an accident.

ddd: These boys are not cold blooded killers it was just an unfortunate mistake. Yes they must pay for their actions but if you knew them and their parents you would not be making such harsh statements against them.

John: Every city in America has a bad section. It usually has a high amount of minorites. When minorites move into a predominately white, safe and quiet town like Shenandoah, people are only assuming the worst because their reputation speaks for themselves.

Dakota: heres my 2 cents the big question ...Does his being illegal mean he deserved to be beaten to death.... YES!!! HAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!
~Comments from articles in the Pottsville Republican & Herald

You get the idea. Tip of the iceberg. Many seemed to regard the death as secondary, with Luis's immigration status firmly establishing itself as the real topic of discussion. In a nutshell: if he weren't here illegally, they wouldn't have killed him.

Again, other commenters did talk about how much more difficult the immigration process is now and how it's not really possible to "do it like our grandparents did" any more. Some local commenters even brought up globalization and US corporate colonization as the real issue behind modern immigration. These commenters condemned the beating and the boys responsible; they called it out as racism and were candid about the ongoing racial tension in their town. I was somewhat relieved to see a number of comments in this vein.

In the end though, it comes down to the fact that people were justifying murder of a human being because they disapproved of him being in the US. A man was killed by some angry racist teenagers with Town Hero complexes, and the biggest discussion point was the dead man's immigration status.

There's something very very wrong with that.

Of Grammar and Grandparents

Today is National Grammar Day.

This celebratory day is brought to you by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. And lest you think this particular day was chosen willy-nilly, think again:

It's not only a date, it's an imperative. So march forth on March 4th!

Clever. I was thrilled to find that you can disregard certain grammar "rules". It's true. Feel free to:

1) end a sentence with a preposition.
2) begin a sentence with a conjunction.
3) use sentence fragments with discretion.

They have this to say about sentence fragments:

We’ve been told not to use them, but when we do it with a light hand, they can improve the flow of our writing, making it easier to understand.

This is a huge relief. I know what you're thinking. Please, Cowbell does that shit all the time. That's true. My blog writing does tend to be more casual, particularly when I'm getting my bitch on, but the truth is, I am a grammar freak. I even do proofreading and editing for cold, hard cash. In official writing, I would never write a sentence such as, "And I'm all about some ice cream," or "That's where I'm at," but it works here.

Anyway, knowing that I can righteously begin a sentence with "but" or end a sentence with "to" makes me happy. Yes, I do it anyway, but now I won't feel like my grandparents are shaking their heads disapprovingly from the clouds.

Thank you, SPOGG. I salute you.


So, my grandparents.

How I wish they'd lived to see National Grammar Day. My maternal grandmother entered the world in 1907, the only girl born to a farming family in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Her own grandmother took a look at this squalling, newborn girl-child and remarked to her daughter (my grandma's mother), "You may as well throw her in the river, May. A girl's just another mouth to feed on a farm."

Luckily, my great-grandmother ignored her mother's advice and did not throw my grandmother into the river. My grandma went to school, worked on the farm, helped to run the house and take care of her brothers, and eventually became a teacher. She later earned a master's degree in English, despite being "just a girl" from a generation in which women were lucky if they ended up with a high school diploma.

When I think of my younger years at Grandma's house, I think of books and the color blue. Grandma loved both. There was blue in every room, and at Christmas time, the house and tree were always wrapped in blue lights.

My grandma was 40 years old by the time she had my mom and uncle (he was born in January; my mom that December, 11 months later) so I didn't know her until she was in her 60s. She didn't run around and play baseball with us, and she wasn't much of a cookie baker either, although she kept a steady supply of those miniature, individual ice cream bowls in her freezer, each accompanied by a tiny wooden spoon. What Grandma did was read and tell stories. She also still taught, driving off to her classes in her blue Plymouth Duster, wearing a smart pantsuit, her beautiful white hair brushing her shoulders. Grandma was an artist as well, something she passed on to my mom, and which trickled down through me and my sister, to our own children, exploding full force in the Bohemian. I credit my artistic skills, somewhat diluted, and definitely dusty from neglect, to my grandmother.

We loved hearing Grandma's childhood stories, usually about some mischief involving her older brother, my great-uncle Ted. We especially loved hearing stories of when our own mother was a girl. I felt like I was being let in on a secret. She would also make up wonderful stories with animals and invented countries. The worst was when she'd insist we make up the ending ourselves! We wanted her ending, but she wanted us to think for ourselves.

Grandma wasn't one for gifting us with underwear or Barbie dolls at Christmas. She bought lots of books, and had even more in her house. Grandma read to us from the time we were babies, as did Mom. I did the same with my kids, and so did my sister. When people hear that I learned to read at four, and that my kids learned at three and four, they attribute it to "being smart", but I don't think so.  (Okay, we're smart, but that's not what was going on.) It has more to do with constant exposure to the written word, adults never assuming a child is too young to learn, and with making books and stories more exciting than toys.



My Grandpa George, whom Grandma would eventually marry, was a self-educated man. He was born in Chicago, but spent time in Norway as a child. His mother, who had come to the US from somewhere near Oslo, had two sons, Grandpa being the younger. She committed suicide, the story goes, by drinking a large amount of Lysol or some sort of lye-based cleaner. My grandfather was the one who discovered her body.

He was 10 years old.

Grandpa George had dropped out of school by the 8th grade, but he never neglected his education. He served in WWII, and did various apprenticeships, coming up through the ranks, becoming a journalist the hard way. By the time I came along, he wrote a regular newspaper column and had once run his own radio show. I can still hear him doing the sign-off in his booming bass, to make us laugh, "And that's the news ... by George!"

Grandpa had an enormous printing press in the basement, a cast iron beast that dwarfed me. Its weight was measured in tons and it made an unholy racket. It was an old-school press, where the ink is rolled across a huge platter and the type is actually metal letters, set in careful lines. The walls were lined with drawer upon thin drawer of movable type, higher than my head, containing the letters and words formed in my grandfather's mind.

Grandpa told stories as well, fantastical tales told with gusto in a resonant timbre, which had Grandma shaking her head, admonishing, "Now don't you go putting wild ideas in those girls' heads, George," which did nothing but encourage him.

Ever since I can remember, Grandpa would quiz us with vocabulary words before we could sit down to eat. "Where is your proboscis?" he'd ask. My sister pointed to her knee. "Well, my chickadee, that's no proboscis, but that bone is called your patella. Say it! Patella!" Giggling, we'd point to our eyes. "What?!" he'd roar, "One's proboscis is not made for ocular work! The eyes handle the ocular responsibilities of one's body!" (rolling his eyes around like a madman) "The proboscis is meant to inhale! To detect an arrrrroma!" (rolling the "r" until we shrieked)

And don't even think about mumbling around Grandpa. "Enunciate your words, young lady! We come from a long line of enunciators! I'll not have mumbling in this house!"

My grandparents, each in their own way, loved language. Whether written or spoken, it permeated their house without us even being aware of it. My mother and uncle each grew up to become language aficionados in their own ways, before passing it on, in turn, to my generation.



So yes, I am a grammar freak. It's in my genes. As a child, I could diagram a sentence down to the tiniest detail. I used to ask my teacher for the most complicated sentence she could come up with. I may not have been able to balance an equation like the math-whiz kids, but my sentence diagrams were the stuff of legend. I don't know if US schools even teach sentence diagramming these days. I used to keep lists of interesting vocabulary words, and yes, as a matter of fact, I did read the dictionary.

To this day, I am far too easily amused by grammar humor, such as the title of Martha Brockenbrough's book, Things That Make Us [Sic]. How clever is that?

I loved the book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. That title is a scream! It comes from a sign found at a zoo's panda exhibit, meant to convey the fact that shoots and leaves are the mainstays of the panda's diet. The addition of the commas, however, has the panda suddenly doing a dine and dash -- eating, then grabbing its rifle for a shooting rampage, and finally leaving the scene. Come on! That's funny stuff, now.

Is it really just me? Fine. Whatever.

Anyway, that's the story of why National Grammar Day has put me in mind of my grandparents, and why I think they'd get such a kick out of it. Happy National Grammar Day, everyone. Now I have to go call the Bohemian and indulge in some geeky grammar humor which she will, no doubt, appreciate. She comes by it honestly, too.

Love's Recovery

This post is a day late and a dollar short, which is perfect, considering the subject. Yesterday, February 15th, was Singles Awareness Day. It was also my former anniversary. I know, right? We didn't have rain on our wedding day, but really, one's former anniversary falling on Singles Awareness Day is even better. We were supposed to be married on Valentine's Day, but had to wait a day for the license. Every year people asked, "Why didn't you just get married on Valentine's Day?"

I think it worked out perfectly. Single's Awareness Day was just waiting to amuse me.

Lots of single folks bemoan the existence of Valentine's Day. The flowers, the chocolates, the jewelry, the surprise dinners, the chipped teeth from hidden rings in cakes and champagne. Even partnered people hate Valentine's Day. The pressure to think of something unique with which to prove your unflagging love. The unspoken competition to outdo your girlfriend's girlfriends' boyfriends. The whole thing seems a cunning conspiracy meant to torture partnered and single people alike, stamped with the Hallmark gold seal of approval.

Whatever. Valentine's Day does not find me tracing the tracks of my tears to the strains of old love songs. It does not find me lamenting lost relationships through the sad filter of a lone wine glass. Valentine's Day, these days, is just another day. If anything, it reminds me that I am strong, that I have choice, that there are many things worse than not having a partner. It reminds me that being alone does not have to mean being lonely. Singles Awareness Day falling on my former anniversary is just a deliciously ironic twist.

And you all know I love some twisted humor.

Back in the 80s, the ex and I -- soldiers both, in the service of Uncle Sam -- were dating. We met in communications school, after basic training, through a convoluted course of mistaken identities, which is another tale altogether. After a few months, our class came down on orders. His orders were for Germany; mine, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Now those of you familiar with my sun addiction know that Arizona could've well been the best thing to ever happen to me. Being embroiled in the throes of young lust, however, we were devastated. So we made the only choice that kids who think they know everything could make: "Let's get married! Then we can apply for the Army married couples program and be together! Forever!" So we did.

My orders to Arizona were changed to Germany, and the course of my life was changed forever.

Three years later, the Bohemian was born, and not long after, Teen Demon made her raucous entry into the world. After a suitable time of recovery, the Male Offspring finished off the fruits of my labors. These are the positives I took away from 10 years of marriage, and the reason I can't regret the choice made on a long-ago February 15th.

The 11th year found me back in the States after discovering that the "forsaking all others" bit had fallen by the wayside along about the time I'd been laboring with Male Offspring. February 15th of that 11th year brought, not an anniversary, but a legal summons, informing me that the ex had changed his mind about our signed agreement. He now wanted full custody.

I came away with custody and a load of legal debt that took years to repay. The ex and I got past our differences, I went back to Europe, and we had a great co-parenting relationship for about eight years there. That was actually a best-of-both-worlds deal: the kids had both parents, and we each had a built-in babysitter for hot date nights or weekend trips. Those of you who know the rest of the story are aware that this, unfortunately, did not continue. The ex now lives 12 time zones away rather than across town, co-parenting has gone the way of the dodo, and he brings the follow-up wife, whom no one gets on with, along for his annual week with our kids.

All of this leading to the point that things change, and we get through. The Valentine's Day - February 15th combo has run the emotional gamut for me, over the years. From new love and happiness, to security, to devastation, to fury, to bitterness, to indifference, to wry humor. I came out the other side, and can laugh now, because time allows me to see that what I once believed was the worst thing that could happen to me, was, in actuality, the best. Once, I was devastated to the point of being unable to function. I couldn't comprehend how my heart could continue to beat, how my lungs could continue to draw breath, how my organs could continue to function minute by minute in the face of such unimaginable pain.

Seriously. I wondered how my body didn't just die.

But it didn't. These days, what seems unimaginable to me is the thought of not going through that, of not knowing myself. We made a damn good go of it; we were 18-year-old, foolish kids from different cultures, from opposite ends of the country, who'd known each other three months. We made it 10 years and three fantastic kids on that platform, far from friends and family, with minimal support. We had a good run, and the kids, the lasting proof of that erstwhile union, are already making a positive impact on society. But the marriage was not the right place for me to be.

So Valentine's Day and February 15th aren't much more than a blip on the calendar for me these days. A toast to choices made. No regrets.

Hindsight is a clear-sighted bitch, y'all.

Happy love yourself day.

There I am in younger days, star gazing
Painting picture-perfect maps
Of how my life and love would be,
Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection,
My compass, faith in love's perfection,
I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen

Indigo Girls, Love's Recovery

Down on the Farm

I spent most of my early childhood in an Ohio suburb where my dad was a police officer. Before that, he was in the military, and we did tours in Georgia and Kansas, but I mostly remember Ohio. During my 8th grade year, my parents (basically Mom) decided we needed a change. We were moving to the country! We would get back to basics, grow our own food, drink well water and unpasteurized milk, and eschew grocery stores in favor of homegrown eggs and livestock. My sister and I would benefit from small-town life in countless ways. It was to be a great adventure.

Mom worked at the city government center, right next door to the police department, and she was a vivacious presence. Her coworkers and the boys in blue surprised her with a big going-away party. The gifts were of the living, breathing, shitting type, in the form of a real live goat, some chickens and a pig. We had to keep them in the suburbs until the move was finalized. Our neighbors were less than thrilled, and I'm sure we broke some city ordinances, but with Daddy being a cop and all, I guess they looked the other way.

I, being eighth-grader in the throes of a junior high romance that was sure to result in marriage and happily-ever-after, was having none of it. I would not leave my boyfriend or my friends. I would not live with a bunch of hicks. I was not going, and that was final.

We moved that summer, to about 30 acres outside a small town in southern Ohio, population just under 6,000. I was shocked to discover that this was considered the big time by local standards. Why, we were the county seat! We had the fair. Land sakes, we had the stockyards right next to the high school, with livestock auctions every Thursday right outside our classrooms. We had a stoplight in the center of town, after all, along with a McDonalds out State Route 62, and even a Dairy Queen out route 124 past Pea Ridge Road. We had 17 churches, y'all. By local standards, we had landed smack dab in the midst of a bustling metropolis.

Mom, having read all the back issues of Mother Earth News, was determined to jump right into farm life. She painted our mailbox with bright colors, proudly proclaiming the presence of Rainbow Ridge Farm. Turns out our definition of "farm" and the local definition were two different things, but we wouldn't realize that for some time. Other meanings of the rainbow emblazoned across that mailbox are still not realized to this day, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Mom's first project was the chickens. We would have our own eggs, raise our own meat, and sell the extra for fun and profit. Mom figured she needed a twist on the usual old chicken & egg operation, something clever to make us stand out. A hook. She ordered exotic chickens. A lot of them. These were chickens with names like Tophat Special, Black Cochin, Blue Andalusian, and Phoenix. They sported glorious flowing feathers, worn as hats or boots, and came in wild assortments of colors. These were some fancypants birds. Mom also got some Bantams, cocky miniature gents, strutting imperiously around the yard. Who wouldn't be proud to add birds like these to their flock?

Almost as an afterthought, Mom invested in some of the more traditional (read: boring) chickens, Leghorns and the like. (Pronounced "Leg'erns", not as in "Fog-horn Leg-horn". They'll know you're not born 'n' raised if you say "Leg-horn". I found that out.) These hens would show themselves to be the steady layers, and also ended up as pets for my sister. Sis spent many an hour communing with her winged yet flightless friends, a pair of Rhode Island Reds named Oh Tame One and Two Tame One, a Buff Orpington hen inexplicably dubbed Mr. Man, and the queen of the flock, a Barred Plymouth Rock called Clara Clucker. Clara was also somewhat of a hussy, judging by the missing feathers on her head, where the rooster often grabbed hold for some obnoxious courting.

Chicken as pet, of course, was not the norm in farm country, but then, we weren't your typical farm family, even down to Mom's method of poultry raising. Well, these were fancy birds! They couldn't be left to fend for themselves in a cold, dark barn. Mom installed one of those plastic, blue baby pools in our dining room, complete with heat lamp, where the chicks began their lives. Turns out there wasn't much call for fancy poultry on most farms, so we ended up with a good sized flock of the oddest looking chickens around. We had plenty of eggs, though.

No matter, a chicken's a chicken, whether plain or fine, and chickens are for eating or laying. Mom donned her coveralls, boiled a giant pot of water, and armed with instructions from one of her farming books, set out to get us a chicken dinner. First there was the question of how to kill the bird. The axe method didn't appeal to Mom, so she decided on the swing method. Grasping the bird around the neck, she swung him round and round and round, the idea of course, being to break the neck. Mom, spent, finally dropped the lifeless bird to the ground. Before she could catch her breath and dunk him in the scalding pot to loosen the feathers for plucking, that bird raised itself up and ran straight away, Mom hot on its trail. At that point, I couldn't watch any more, but much later that night, a scrawny, stringy meal, flanked by potatoes and carrots, appeared on our dinner table. I refused, but Mom didn't put in all that work for nothing; she insisted everyone give it a try. She assured us this free-range bird would be so much tastier than those awful, store-bought, chemical-filled carcasses that we'd never go back to freezer fare. We all took a bite, chewed ... and chewed and chewed. Mom tried to keep a cheery smile pasted on, but she mercifully gave up, leading the charge to scrape the remaining bits into the trash. It was back to plump birds encased in plastic, fresh from the meat aisle after that.

Chickens were not the only farm fowl in those days. We had three geese: Uncle Ed and his harem. I'm not sure what the original purpose of the geese was. I think Mom had the idea to introduce goose eggs to the local palate. (She also thought to introduce goat milk to dairy country, but that's another story.) It is possible that Mom's idea was to have a Christmas goose on the table, but if so, the chicken dinner incident clearly took care of that. Regardless of their intended purpose, the geese soon found their niche. They were guard geese. Seriously people, if you need a guard animal, consider a goose. They will beat out any dog. Our geese would patrol the perimeter of what we considered the "yard", which was basically the part we actually mowed with the mower. If a car turned down our quarter mile gravel lane (that's "driveway" to you city folk) they would come a-honkin' and a-flappin' to accost the intruder. Geese can have a five-foot wingspan, and they're strong. When they're running up to you, pumping their necks and honking and flapping their wings, trust me, you think twice (or twicet) before messing with them.

I loved the geese. Sis was a chicken gal, but something about their sharp pointy faces, beady eyes, and jerking strut kept me from getting too warm and fuzzy with the chickens. The geese though, were round and plump with nice eyes. They, like most of our other "livestock", became pets. I thought them adorable. They would sit in my lap and make quieter versions of their honking sound. I'd pet them and carry them, and they'd follow me and Sis on our rounds. They were loyal and their comical antics made me laugh. They were also the source of that Midwestern phrase that still slips out, unbidden, from time to time, especially on snowy days: "Damn, that's slicker'n goose shit!" Goose shit, of course, being some of the slickest stuff around.



Future installments to follow: the school bus, the great goat debacle, donkeys and peppermint candy, Pig, the Buck Stove, and FFA.

This Old Motherfucking House: Episode IV

Episode IV: Roto-Rooted

I am not at work this morning. Oh, I'm still connected to my work files and email, via the wonders of modern technology, lest you think I'm here with my stockinged feet up, quaffing caffeine and stalking you.

I'm home because I'm expecting a visit from the Roto-Rooter man. No, you freaks, the plumbing and sewage company. If it were any other type of Roto-Rooting, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting at my keyboard.

The drains are backing up again. Since this just happened in October, and seeing as we have since installed a high tech "hair catcher" that sits atop the bathtub drain, I'm thinking my problem may be worse than Teen Demon's prodigious hair donations. I suspect every homeowner's nightmare: tree roots.

My last house, a rental, came complete with a cheap and petulant property manager: a small, elderly, British dame named Doreen. Doreen was, to borrow a phrase from my father, "Tighter than a crab's ass ... and that's waterproof."
The homeowners had moved to Georgia, on a mission to translate the Bible into Georgian or something. Yes, I mean the U.S. Georgia. My rent covered the owners' mortgage in Georgia, the monthly payment to Doreen's property management company, and left them some profit to play with. Bitterness over that arrangement is what got me into my current situation, having thought that I, too, could finally catch a break by getting in on the formerly-profitable Seattle housing market.

We all know how that turned out.

Anyway, one time our drains clogged up. Doreen came by, all a-flutter, and said, with a pinched face, "Well, you have two teenage girls in the house; they can't be flushing those feminine products down the drains! Children use too much toilet paper! Now they don't know any better, but as the tenant, you are responsible for the cost of clearing drains due to negligence!"

First of all, unless you've drilled peep-holes into the walls, Doreen, you have no idea what we're flushing down the drain. We lived in a country where you could barely flush toilet paper down the drains before moving here; we're not stupid enough to flush tampons.

Second of all, you're a bitch.

Anyway, this being beyond Jay's abilities, she called out the plumbing crew. She imperiously informed me that they would run a camera down the drain - at extra expense - because "the owner" wanted to know the cause of the blockage. She had apparently briefed the plumber on our irresponsible flushing habits, because he told her, "Well, your problem is bigger than a clog, ma'am. It's not bathroom products after all," [Ha!] "You've got tree roots! Got nothing to do with the tenants -- you need to start regular root maintenance. I can schedule you out for every 6 months." He then pronounced, "Good thing you had us run that camera down there, ma'am!", with a sidelong wink to me.

By the look on Doreen's face, you'd have thought the plumber gave that stick up her ass an extra good twist.

Anyway, Doreen grudgingly paid the bill, the guys cut out the roots, and we were flushing freely once more. She informed me that the plumbers would be coming by annually to clear the roots. "Didn't he say every six months?" I asked. "This visit cost enough," she replied. "I've spoken with the owner, and annual service will be fine. Those plumbers always try to sell you more than you need. The owner isn't made of money, you know!"

Fast Forward: Christmas Eve, 2004: Cowbell is draining boiling water off the potatoes in preparation to mash them up into yummy deliciousness. The water doesn't go anywhere. I foolishly flip the disposal switch. Boiling potato-water erupts. Somehow I don't get burned.

I won't detail the rest of the story, mainly because I enjoy low blood pressure. It was a sad and sordid tale, starting with me borrowing a plumbing snake from my boss on Christmas Eve, and ending with a porta-potty in the front yard for two weeks during 20-degree weather, bulldozers in the back, a large scale pipe replacement and intensive sewage cleanup. Guess what, it wasn't the potatoes, too much food in the drain, or wayward feminine products, much too Doreen's surprise. It was the tree roots. Seems the annual maintenance schedule wasn't quite enough to keep those pesky tubers out, and the entire pipe collapsed.

The owner ended up with a bill for about $10,000. This included a new sewer pipe, the porta-potty rental, replacing carpet and walls on our lower level, and paying for COIT to clean up, sanitize, and dry the place. Yes, the sewage pipe backed up into our ground floor. Nasty doesn't even begin to cover it. At one point during this whole Charlie-Fox, Doreen came by to check the progress. She handed me a Glade plug-in air freshener. "I thought this might help," she announced. I stood there staring at the thing, wondering how that was possibly going to make a dent in the situation.

I bet she billed the owners for it.

The bill did not cover our ruined Christmas dinner, or the fact that a dear friend visiting from the East Coast could not bring herself to stay in our house, so I didn't see as much of her as I'd have liked. It didn't cover my frostbitten ass, or the humiliation of using a porta-potty in my FRONT YARD. One of the neighbors actually waved to me as I was heading in there one time. I only paid 1/3 of my rent that month, which twisted the stick up Doreen's ass even harder, but after reading my all legal-like letter, she sucked it up. "Well," she huffed, "I certainly don't know how the owner will take this ... the bill was so expensive, he's really going to need that rent money,"

Not my problem. Hope he has enough left over to pay your fee.

Anyway, that experience was pretty much imprinted on my brain, so tree roots were the first thing that entered my mind this morning. Oh what I wouldn't give for a simple grease clog, or a load of flushed tampons.

The Roto-Rooter people refused to give me a ballpark estimate over the phone, but they cheerily informed me that their Free Estimate was absolutely free of charge! (Yeah, I know what "free" means, lady)

This guy better get here soon. I've got to pay a visit to my friend John, and it's not going to be a quickie.

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

UPDATE:

So I pretty much hate Roto-Rooter. First off, the lady on the phone this morning told me twice, very specifically, that they charge by the job, not by the hour. Okay, fine. Second, I'm in the wrong business, folks. Should've been a plumber. The guy, once he gets here, tells me his rates are $170 for the first half hour. They charge in 15-minute increments after that. When I relayed Phone Lady's info, he looked puzzled and said maybe she was new. Right. Whatever, asshat, you think I don't recognize your company's sneaky sales tactics? Please.

He estimated it would be between "$211 at the low end, to about $350 on the high end. Before tax," That's assuming it's not a bigger problem than he can ascertain before getting in there with his snake. He was nice enough to go get his bigass wrench and take the cap off of the clean-out access in the yard for me, once I told him that his price is not an option for a single mom before Christmas. He also gave me some DIY tips. Y'all know how I love DIY projects! Why let him have all the fun? So anyway, I'm getting ready to play with my snake now. I've only got a 25-footer, with no cutting blades on the end, but who knows, maybe it will be a giant hairball after all. Or maybe someone's been secretly flushing tampons. If only.

Oh, by the way, I went to coffee shop and bought a chai latte. The real reason for the latte was so I could surreptitiously utilize the latrine.

----------------------------
UPDATE II:

The bad news: it looks like roots are involved. I pulled up a small but very nasty mass of TP and what I thought might be a tangle of hair. Whoo, was I happy to see that disgusting mess. Upon closer inspection, however, it was actually a tangle of very fine, dark, baby roots. Crap. The good news: it looks like they're only about five or six feet into the pipe. Worse news: my snake is too puny to handle it. It bent in several places.

I'm headed to Lowe's now, to get a more substantial snake, one that can actually handle my needs.

Also, if you ever go to a coffee shop, specifically to use the restroom, but you buy something to make it look like you're not just there to use the restroom, don't buy something with caffeine. I have to pee already.

Tales from the Crypt

So the last post got me to thinking about sick and twisted family traditions. Our little family did not develop this particular brand of humor by accident.

My family of origin was rife with twisted humor. My mom, seen here with me and baby sister back in days of yore, was prone to punnery and word play, while my dad leaned more toward dry, sarcastic wit and scatological humor. It was my dad and I who often teamed up for jokes and hijinks. My mom and sister were, by default, often the victims of our depravity.

My parents moved us out to the country my freshman year of high school. That's a photo of my dad from that time. The one perched on his shoulder is Clara Clucker, my sister's Plymouth Rock hen.

We lived on about 25 acres, outside city limits. And by "city", I mean fewer than 6,000 people, townies and country folks combined. Our house was set about a quarter mile off the unpaved road. Country folks don't have driveways; they have lanes. Probably 2/3 of our land was woods, which started at the bottom of the hill behind our house.

Neighbors were widely spaced. The nearest ones may have been within shouting distance, meaning they might have heard an all out, blood-curdling scream if the windows were open, if the wind favored you, and if their TV wasn't turned up too loud. There were no streetlights, so dark meant dark. Satan's asshole dark. A car crunching down the gravel road was a rare enough occurrence to bring us to the front windows.

Daddy brought home a VCR one day, probably my freshman or sophomore year. This was a big deal in the early 80s. The newest technology! He also brought home a ColecoVision video game system, on which I spent many a happy hour with Donkey Kong and Mario. Anyway, with the VCR came the concept of family movie night. My dad and I loved scary movies. Mom and Sis, not so much. In fact, not at all.

Like the night we watched the original Halloween. Remember that scene where the young couple is in bed together, and the boyfriend leaves to go get her some milk or beer or something? (my sister and I were shocked to see the nekked breasts of the girlfriend character revealed, right there in our living room! The VCR was the best invention ever.) Anyway, in the scene, the "boyfriend" comes back covered in a sheet, wearing his glasses on top of the sheet. The girlfriend thinks it's cute, but of course it turns out to be the murderer, and she meets her demise in grisly fashion. It was scary as hell.

After the movie, Mom went to brush her teeth. A terrified scream pierced our tender eardrums, and my mom came flying back down the hall from her bedroom. Daddy had pinned a sheet up on the wall, and, in a stroke of genius, pinned up a pair of those black glasses with the nose and mustache attached as well.

Then he unscrewed the light bulb in their room. Genius.

The moon was out, so there was just enough light for her to come face to face with a ghostly sheet, complete with glasses. When the light didn't work and the realization kicked in that my dad, the prime suspect, was still out in the living room, and therefore, not under the sheet ... well, that was all she wrote. Mom had a major freak out.

Mom was not amused, but my sister and I sure were. I'm pretty sure part of Sis's laughter was relief at not being the intended victim this time, but still. My dad was well pleased with himself.

At some point during those years, Salem's Lot, a Stephen King thriller involving vampires, was made into a mini-series to be shown on TV. Daddy and I couldn't wait. Mom and Sis reluctantly agreed to watch.

That's me and my sister, over there to the left, long before any depravity had started. Well, actually, maybe some depravity had taken root; this photo was taken not long after I'd decided to cut my sister's hair. My mom was not happy, as she'd already scheduled the photo session. I thought Sis looked great, and was quite pleased with myself, as you can see in the pic.

Don't we look sweet as sugar, with our little nautical theme going on there? By the time high school rolled around, a lot of the sugar had worn off. Along with the nautical themes.


Anyway, Salem's Lot was showing! A mini-series was a big deal before Tivo, Netflix and 500 cable channels. Hell, before DVDs. Everyone in town was going to watch it. The fact that there really wasn't that much to do in our town made it an even bigger deal.

Salem's Lot was seriously scary. It had these horribly heinous vampires who would show up even in my nightmares, so you can imagine my sister's. In fact, looking at the fangs and yellow eyes of this guy to the right, I'm gaining a clearer understanding of why that beastly devil-rat from the last post currently making the rounds in my house freaks me out so much. There's an uncanny resemblance.

The Salem's Lot vampire may be lodged more deeply in my subconscious than I realized.

I don't remember a whole lot about the plot in Salem's Lot, but I do remember there was this floating little boy vampire who terrified my sister. He would appear at the window of the sleeping movie-child, and scratch ... scratch ... scratch against the screen, enticing the child to invite him in. The little boy vampire scared the crap out of my sister. He pretty much scared the crap out of me as well, but my mind was already formulating a plan.

That night after everyone was asleep, I carefully removed the screen from my window and picked up a long stick I'd placed there before bedtime. The stick was long enough that I could lean out and scratch ... scratch ... scratch against the screen of my sister's window, her room being just down the hall from mine.

I guess she wasn't sleeping too well that night, because it didn't take long for the scream to come, a scream like the undead loosed from the confines of hell. Timing was critical. I waited until she ran out into the hall, an extra beat for good measure, then ran out of my room, asking, "What happened?! What's the matter?"

My sister stopped cold. If I, the chief suspect, was in the house, in the hallway ... then who was outside scratching on her window?!? Sis continued to protest when mom told her it must've been a bad dream.  No! She really did hear something outside, she did! She wasn't crazy!

The folks checked Sis's room, but thankfully did not check outside, where the incriminating stick still lay. Daddy didn't say a word. The raised eyebrows and barely visible smile said enough.

Years later, I told Sis and Mom the real story -- Daddy and I were practically howling. Mom and Sis ... not so much.