Two Dreams

Monday
Sister tells me she can cure the wounds on the insides of my legs.  She convinces me to soak in a bathtub full of steamy green jello.  Very soothing.

Tuesday
Same sister as a little girl hides in the bathroom in my old apartment.  She is dressed in white undershirt, panties, and anklet socks.  Hiding behind my daughter's blue and white striped blanket which is thumb tacked to the wall.  I hold her hand and walk her into the hallway.  She wants to be hugged and I happily hug her.

Toodle Oooo

Hi, Doll!  How are you feeling today?  You look gorgeous!  I swear!  You are the only one I know who still has the hair of our youth.  Thick and, what's it called?  Lustrous.  Yeah, that's it.  All shiny.  But you never did color it all the time like the rest of us, did you?  Maybe that's what's paying off now.
 
Look what I brought?  A loaf of that cinnamon raisin bread you like.  And even a tub of that cream cheese frosting.  We feast today for sure!  You can eat this can you?  Okay!  You know what this reminded me off?  That loaf your aunt made.  The one with all the brown sugar kind of gooshing out of the sides and making the edges all burnt and crispy.  Remember that?  Remember that time we snatched a loaf and brought it down to the lake even though it was freezing out?

We hiked through the dunes to the float all up on shore and we sat there for what?  Hours it seemed like.  Didn't it start sleeting or something?  Those damn ducks.  I always wanted to tell you how much that day meant to me.  And I always wished I had told you about what Kevin What's His Name told me.

Here, let me help you with this.  Anyway.  Remember that black and white lacy bathing suit you had what in oh, freshman year?  God how I wished I had the boobs to carry off a suit like that!  Even I thought you looked as sexy as the queen of Sheba in that suit.  Well, one time we were out here and had just swum in from the float.  Remember how gross the bottom was back then?  You were all wrapped in towels like usual.  And the wind kicked up a bit and for a second there we all saw your legs.  All white and round and not one speck of sand on them.  Well, Kevin What's His Name let out this kind of little sigh and turned away really fast.

Man, I asked him what was wrong and, I swear he said your legs just drove him crazy.  Really!  He said especially that beauty spot you had on the top of your thigh.  Is it still there?  He said, and I swear he did, that he wanted to just roll over to you and kiss your leg right smack on that beauty mark.  True!  Then he kind of sighed again and made me swear never to so much as mention it to anyone.  And I didn't.  But I never figured out he thought to trust me.  I mean he knew we were friends, right?  Maybe he secretly wanted me to tell you.  Should I have?

Well, so I hadn't thought about that day for years and years until I saw this raisin bread at the grocery.  It's not crispy like your aunt's, of course, and there's no damn ducks.  But talking to you has always been special to me.  Kind of centered me I guess.  So I wanted to tell you and bring you some.  I know things kind of suck right now and, let's face it, we don't have a whole lot of sleety days on the float anymore.  Right?

Here let me get that.  No, it's no trouble.  We're friends right?

Start The Day Out Right

Choice

Everything Buttons Can Do

But Why?

Celebrate! Celebrate! You ALWAYS Can Celebrate Your Birthday! (For My Sister Mary)

Today's Birthdays according to Dead or Alive.  Bet all these folks would celebrate if they could.  And it was allowed.



9/26/1875 Edmund Gwenn Entertainment
9/26/1888 T.S. Eliot Literature
9/26/1889 Martin Heidegger Philosophy
9/26/1895 George Raft Entertainment
9/26/1897 Pope Paul VI Religion
9/26/1907 Anthony Blunt Art,Espionage
9/26/1909 Bill France, Sr. Sports
9/26/1914 Jack LaLanne Other
9/26/1919 Barbara Britton Entertainment
9/26/1925 Marty Robbins Music
9/26/1926 Julie London Entertainment,Music
9/26/1932 Manmohan Singh Politics
9/26/1933 Donna Douglas Entertainment
9/26/1934 Winnie Mandela Politics
9/26 1947 My Ex Husband
9/26/1942 Kent McCord Entertainment
9/26/1944 Anne Robinson Entertainment
9/26/1945 Bryan Ferry Music
9/26/1946 Andrea Dworkin Social Activism,Liter...
9/26/1947 Lynn Anderson Music
9/26/1948 Olivia Newton-John Music,Entertainment
9/26/1948 Mary Beth Hurt Entertainment,Theater
9/26/1956 Linda Hamilton Entertainment
9/26/1966 Craig "Ironhead" Heyward Sports
9/26/1967 Shannon Hoon Music

All the Best to these Birthday Folk!!

Vocabulary Illogica

Grouchy old woman here...

Some words are simply not needed.  Personally, I don't see the need for "snail mail."  Email was the new phrase and it quite adequately defined its purpose.  Mail, referring to the postal service means of communication which had been in use for many years, was also a clear definition.  Let us use those two (mail and email) and leave us alone.

However lately a phrase has been tossed specifically in my direction and it has particularly gotten my goat.

"Bury the hatchet."

What the hell does that mean? 

Do I get to smash a sharp implement into something or somebody?  Do I get to use the level of force of my own choosing?  Do I get to select the item or individual?  If so the phrase is becoming interesting.  But my guess none of these is intended by the original speaker.

My guess is that I should let go all the nasty, evil ill truths spent over the years by these individuals.  I should let all these folks off the hook (There's another doozy of a phrase!) so that they can continue their lives with consciousnesses clear and total lack of responsibility.  This assumed burying will  eliminate any culpability or verbal discussion to clarify any centuries old confusions.  No matter what it means, there will be no hatchet burying on my part.

And it does not and should not matter.  As I have said and written before, I do not blame anybody else for my problems.  Despite my repeating this again and again a specific individual has persisted in spreading this illusion.  My life doesn't have that many "problems" in the first place.  And secondly, I think this individual adores being in the central of any family drama.  If she would finally shut up about me she would have to find a new victim and this is probably easier for her.  And since she does not have the guts or the courtesy to speak to me directly these are the only options I have been allowed.  That will probably never happened either.

Anyway, it seems like every time I get this crap off my chest this group brings it up with a new twist to hurt me and make themselves apparently innocent.  They are not.  Neither am I, for that matter.  The difference is that I have a grasp of reality and they do not.  Please, please bury your own damn hatchet.

Good Morning

Dandelion = Rustic Oracle

Now to the laundry...

Good Bye July!

Made it through another month! Farewell to Nora and welcome to Silas.  Hottest, driest weather and then drizzly, invisible rain.  At last an effective drug combo and the beginnings of a truly new attitude.  Six decades makes me the slowest learner I can imagine.  Ah, yes.  But the guts of it is that I am still learning.

Mornings without tears.  Into the slipstream of writing, reading, and working on projects I deem important.  Whoa Nelly!  Who is the big brave girl?

August agenda still to be determined.  Thanks to the Troll,  precious daughters and their babes, Baby Sis, and Mary K. there's a good chance I will make it yet again.

My Sick Humor

This is what happened in my neck of the woods last night.

One person killed, two others critically injured after pepper spraying a clerk; robbing a gas station; and high speed chasing it with the police.  Flight for Life  and roads blocked off for hours.  Tragedy or karma depending on your point of view.

My first thought, "Death by texting?"  I know, I know...

Frenzy

Usually I try to get my laundry at least started early in the morning.  Many of the tenants here at Elder House have professional helpers who begin their work day at nine.  The washing machines fill up quickly.  This past Friday I made it to the laundry room later than I had planned and, yes, all the machines were taken.

No worries.  I perched in my usual spot and opened my book.  Some brilliant individual had propped open the laundry room door by wedging a yellow plastic dustpan underneath.  A blast of air conditioned air swirled into the hall.  Very welcome as the halls are not temperature controlled.

Not all were happy about this.  "Why is that door open?"  The lady in the splashy sundress asked me in a challenging tone.  I told her I didn't know, didn't do it, but was glad for the breeze.  She huffed off,  "Some people are just selfish!"  What?

Leroy (Don't Call Me Sir I Was An Enlisted Man) rolled past and made his usual crack about me guarding the place from all and sundry.  I smiled and assured him I'd let him know if we were under attack.  One of the Dianes had joined me for a bit of wash day conversation and Leroy  loudly pointed out her "size thriteens" in the aisle.  "Move those things outta the way or join me up in my room.  You know what I mean?  Join me?"  Rude and tasteless.  What?

By this time a washer had opened up and I hustled as best I could to start my load of clothes.  How sad is it that my entire wardrobe, so to speak, fits in one machine?  Back in the hall the Other Diane and Kathy had joined us and began a spirited discussion about Grandpa John.  Apparently he has some bladder control issues that the Other Diane had discovered and she was describing an embarassing elevator incident.  I didn't say a word and feigned interest in my book. (Always wanted to use "feigned" in a sentence.)  What is up with these people?

My experiences here, as I've said have been overwhelmingly ones of consideration and kindness.  Was this Friday morning behavior a new thing that I just hadn't seen or heard before?  The days have been steadily getting hotter and maybe that makes old folks act crazy.  A long holiday weekend is near and most of us will not have any fun plans.  Does that induce bad behavior? I'm not sure.  But I got my clean laundry out as soon as it was dry and hightailed it back to my airconditioned room.  Frenzy is just not my style.

And didn't I say that Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise thing wouldn't last?

Omitted

The daylight woke her as it usually did.  She couldn't see any sunshine in this far back room.  What she noticed was the way the shadows changed on the bowl of wooden fruit.  Darker in some places and curves that weren't really there accentuated.  Pears, apples, maybe a mango.  They bore little resemblance to their life counter parts.

"Breakfast is ready!"

She rolled over and contemplated the items on the dresser.  She had memorized the contents of the drawers.  A cardboard box of pins.  Warranty pamphlets twenty years old, describing the care of small appliances  no longer in the building. Glass coffee pots.  Hand tools belonging to a dead man. Ephemera with no discernible glamor or use. All so tightly packed the drawers had to be wedged open for frantic searches.  A shrine to days gone by. 

"Did you hear me in there?  I said breakfast is ready!"

From under her pillow she drew out a plaid flannel bag.  She buried her nose in its softness and inhaled the scent.  Yes.  There it was.  Still there.  The fragrance of her own house.  Her own room.  The perfume she could no longer afford and no longer purchased. Sticks of cinnamon and tiny fragments of dried cloves.  The freshly laundered pajamas belonging to her children.  All gone, but the smell, the aroma persisted. "I will not cry.  I will not cry! I will NOT cry!"  She droned her regular morning chant.

"I will not call you again.  Why do I bother cooking if no one in this house will drag themselves out of bed?"

She heard foot steps pounding across the floor.  She reached inside the flannel bag and touched the three clothespin dolls she knew were inside.   Each was wrapped in a different colored piece of felt. By now a little sun was illuminating the room.  She left the dolls inside the bag.

Nothing To Do With It

He asked me why I kept the light on over my door.
I told him it was so that my soul could find its way out if it wanted to.
He snorted air through his nose and said,  "Soul?  You're kidding, right?  What makes you think a person like you...Look you really don't even have a soul.  No soul!  Okay?"
"I don't have a soul?"
"Of course not.  Why should you have a soul?"  He turned several pages in his magazine while shaking his head.
And so I reached over and, as hard as I possibly could, slammed his chubby fingers in the silverware drawer.