getting the message

So, the other week as I was standing outside of work, a truck pulls up. The guy driving it looks vaguely familiar. He starts chatting me up.

This happens a lot on my office street -- it's a small town, and I'm clearly "not from around there." One of the first questions men ask me is where I live, and unless they're really creepy, I usually interpret it to mean, "which town," because obviously I don't live in that one. Everybody knows everybody there. Hell, when I was thinking of changing apartments back in April, before I got to know Luchenne better, and mentioned it to the guy who runs my favorite junk shop, the next week when I went to get my lunch at Subway, the girl behind the counter asked me if I'd found a new apartment yet. It's that kind of town.

Anyway, I get a lot of attention there. Most of the time it's flattering, and this guy seemed nice...a lot older than I am, but nice. Until he asked me out, and I remembered that he'd come in to the office once to see about starting his divorce.

Um. Now, I have a policy of accepting date invitations from almost anyone, but a legally married man is crossing the line. Especially when he has a ten-year-old daughter, and his oldest kid from his first marriage (the one that's currently ending is his second) is only five years younger than I am.

I had given him my cell number before the nice rational paragraph above crossed my mind, however, so when he called me right after work I had to turn him down. I told him I couldn't see a man who was still in the process of getting a divorce. I also said I didn't want to hurt his case, since he wanted custody of his daughter, and I didn't want to complicate matters and have the situation wind up hurting his little girl. He was disappointed, but said he understood. I congratulated myself for cleverly getting out of that one.

But I was dragged out of a nap this afternoon by my phone ringing, didn't recognize the number, didn't pick up, and when I listened to the voicemail, it was him, asking me if I would consider hanging out with him "as friends," until his divorce was finalized.

I was very glad I didn't answer the phone. Part of me wanted to bang my head against the wall, part of me was ashamed for not just coming out and telling him, "look, I'm not interested," and part of me was annoyed. I mean, I guess you can't blame a guy for trying, but what's a forty-something doing wanting to try the "just friends" label? When has that ever worked? And whom has that ever fooled? What, was I born yesterday? And part of me was mad on behalf of his daughter. Is he just okay with dating and having women "friends"? When he called me that one time after work, his daughter was in the house -- just leaving to go to a friend's, but still in the house. What's he thinking of? Little kids need stability, not Daddy-who-dates-around. I don't want to be part of something that wrecks a child's sense of solidity.

I didn't call him back. I think silence will answer eloquently. I don't have "just friends," except for guys I've known from years back -- they get grandfathered in, my high school friends, my college friends, the guys I met when I first moved to South Bend, because we are friends, in a lot of senses we grew up together. But this weird garbage? I don't think so.

Sigh. As Sir Peter said, paraphrasing Sports Night, "Beware the Almost-Not-Quite-Divorced Man."

housekeeping

It's back to the mad nest lining.

Don't know what brings it on, but periodically the only thing that makes me happy is holding a drill. The other week I found the perfect (cheap) Monet Nympheas print to put behind an old window I bought back in April, and hung the whole thing up on my bedroom wall for an old-time gardeny effect -- which I hope to find psychologically warming when the freezing snows howl outside my real windows in January. And of course by "hung up" I mean "drilled into the wall with eight unnecessarily long drywall screws which blend beautifully with the old stain of the wood, because the frame was satisfactorily heavy to warrant such measures. Oh and took out once because I misgauged the placement the first time, so I had to try again."

I did mention once before that my method of putting up wall arrangements is, if you want to be charming about it, whimsical. If you're not trying to be as kind you might call it cockeyed. I hold up the object, guess where the nails/screws might go, bang them in, and see if I was right. If I was, yay! Job finished. If I wasn't, okay, cool, let's give it another go. If I misjudged it by a tenth of a millimeter and the plaster won't accommodate my mistake, I'll either spackle if I'm feeling patient (yeah right; so far that option is only theoretical), or, nine times out of ten, come up with something new or live with the mistake.

So a few of my walls are full of tiny holes, like the miniature soldiers' bullet holes in Secret of the Indian.

But the whole process makes me happy. If it stressed me out, I wouldn't do it that way. I'd rather guess and guess and guess again, and wait for that moment when my whole gut tells me, Yes. You got it, than fiddle around for far longer than I'd like with rulers and pencils and angles and whatnot and find out I'd guessed wrong anyway. Way too technical. And I'm impatient. I prefer to judge with my eye and with that something else that tells me it feels right, that everything is well suited and in its proper alignment and in harmony with itself and its neighbors. The only measuring tool I find worth troubling with is my trusty level.

So the other week was the window, Tuesday was finding a new home for the two small Van Goghs that the window displaced (that involved a hammer and not a drill, but a hammer is fun too -- and an adventure in my walls, which are all plaster, and which are studded as whimsically as my hanging methods, so you never know when you're going to run into one and run the risk of a bounceback blow to the forehead, even if you've tapped it out beforehand -- some of the walls are good-old-fashioned studs, some of the walls are latticed), and today was the new coathook contraption I bought antiquing.

Next it's going to have to be some more old crates in the hallway, as supplementary bookshelves, and a bow-out to the absence of available floor space. But that won't be until after I've hung the pot rack in the kitchen, with Meg and Phillip's help -- that kitchen wall is latticed, and won't hold a couple hundred pounds of pots and pans and pot rack, so I'm following their recommendations, and that's going to cost a dollar here and there. The result is going to be fantastic -- I can't wait.

So currently all flat surfaces in my apartment are free of unnecessary papers, everything is in its proper place, the bookshelves are beautifully arranged (there's something so attractive about full, organized, arranged bookshelves, like walls of comfortable, happy, inviting, protective friends), and, with the exception of just a couple more things I'd like to hang up (drill), one of which I have to find first, two or three of which I have to buy first (crates), two of which I have to do some work on (windows, pot rack), the feng shui is just about perfect.

But it's nice to have ongoing projects around the house -- always something to keep me busy. Always a little more finish to the nest lining. Always the prospect of more drilling.

And once my drilling opportunities are exhausted (weep), I may have to turn my attention back to sewing. I should make curtains for the kitchen.

I should also strip the paint off the valance windows and let light into the hall.

Happiness.

a sleepy fancy

Friday comes and I hit the wall. Or rather, the wall hits me.

Last night I was so tired that I fell asleep reading in bed with the light on. I didn’t wake up until two a.m. to switch it off, drag the extra pillow from under my head, and roll blearily back under the covers. I don’t remember the last time that happened – when I was fourteen, maybe. And then this morning my body found it impossible to get up. I kept pushing Simon away from where he insistently stood shoving his nose into my eye; awkwardly guarding my face with my arm, I mumbled pitifully, "G’way..."

But the day came rolling onward with a royal carpet’s grand inevitability – maybe a careworn tattered grandeur; King Friday is a little old and leaky, stooped over the towns and fields with a muggy benevolence that really does nothing to liven one up. I stood on the sidewalk after Deb got the mail, smoking a cigarette and breathing the asphalt soup of the half-rainy air and wishing my eyes would open all the way.

If today were a statue, it would be of an old, old man, with a kind, deeply lined face and short scruffy beard, vague eyes staring off into the distance. He’d be wearing motheaten old heavy robes, a battered crown overgrown with ivy that waves over one ear and drapes itself down his back, and holding a green, eroded scepter in one hand. Bare feet. There’d be moss and bird droppings scattered all over him, and he’d be sitting in some weed-grown corner of a neglected park, his cement figure darkened in the folds with rain, the occasional pigeon lighting on his shoulders and arms with simple ceremony. Some vagrant with a sense of humor will have left a Styrofoam cup tucked between the fingers and thumb of his free hand, resting on the arm of his bedraggled throne. You wouldn’t be able to read the brass dedication plate anymore under the patient fingernails of time and the blazes of graffiti, but he doesn’t seem to mind or notice. He’s just sitting in his corner, soaking in the acid rain and the quiet of the park, a faint smile worn onto his face, and only the occasional drug trafficker or bum or immortal college kid breaking free from an afternoon of summer boredom knows he’s there.

of sweetness and Simons

I have never met a cat this devoted.

Rather, I suppose, I have never met a cat this devoted to me. I'm sure there are plenty of cats who are deeply attached to their people. But Simon is something of a wonder.

This cat gets so upset when I'm gone that he refuses to use his litterbox (a potentially life-threatening condition, for male cats). He wakes me up every morning purring in my ear and walking all over my back and shoving his head in my face. If I'm lying on my stomach with my arm over my head, and trying not to respond, he wriggles his head under my arm, and if that doesn't work, he pats my face with his paw. Tap, tap tap. Mom? Get up, Mom. He comes when I call him. He loves the weekends when I'm home all day and don't do anything; he'll come periodically to see what I'm doing and hunker down on the arm of my chair next to me, and if I'm taking a nap, he's curled as tightly to my body as he can get. On weekdays when I'm not around as much, he follows me all over the house, and curls up in whatever room I happen to be sitting in. We have developed a few of our own games that he loves to play, most of which involve chasing or ambushing me.

He loves to be kissed on the forehead, and will incline his head sharply as just the last moment the better to receive a kiss.

Right now he's playing with a plastic milk jug ring -- his favorite toy -- and usually whenever I give him one, right before I leave for work, when I'm standing around in the kitchen, he brings it to the rug at my feet and plays with it there. Now, however, he's rolling all over the floor with it in the living room, having carried it to where I am.

I just completely love this cat.

plans gone awry

I had planned on doing a few things this weekend. I had planned, for one thing, to attend the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Friday. I had planned to clean my house this morning. I had planned to go to a get-to-know-you-dinner-church-thing. I had planned to read Harry Potter slowly, to savor this, the final book.

But I was too tired to go to the midnight release. I went to bed instead. So today, I only did three things. I went to the bank to deposit my paycheck. I went to Borders to buy my reserved Harry Potter (where, happily, I ran into Meg and Phillip -- lovely strange arrangements of space and time). The line was negligible. I was out of the store in ten minutes. No one shouted spoilers. I was grateful.

And I read Harry Potter. I couldn't stop reading.

I finished it in nine hours. It was Beautiful.

a song of comfort, for the moment

Vito's Ordination Song

I always knew
you
In your mother's arms
I have called your name
I've an idea
placed in your mind
to be a better man

I've made a crown
for you
put it in your room
and when the Bridegroom comes
there will be noise
there will be glad
and a perfect bed

When you write a poem
I know the words
I know the sounds
before you write it down
When you wear your clothes
I wear them too
I wear your shoes
and your jacket too

I always knew
you
In your mother's arms
I have called you son
I've made amends
between
father and son
Or if you haven't one:

Rest in My arms
Sleep in My bed
There's a design
To what I did and said

~Sufjan Stevens

i don't want to work

This is possibly the worst part of the week: Sunday night.

I do. not. want to go to work tomorrow.

Ugh.

trials and trialities

This is why Americans are taking fewer and fewer vacations.

Coming back is a bitch. I spent all of Monday wondering if I could somehow invent a body double to come in for me, so I wouldn't have to deal with the First Day Back. Blugh. The peace and relaxation lasts into the work week for all of an hour before all the stress and worry you left behind redoubles in ferocity and you wish you hadn't gone away at all.

The Reckoning Time has come for the Big Unmentionable Screw-Up of a month or so ago, and I'm dealing with the repercussions. Boss-Man has been beyond understanding, but even his kindness has limits, and he's been emphasizing the employer-employee dynamics of our interactions, and less and less of the friend-friend or surrogate father-surrogate daughter. It's reasonable and understandable, and I certainly fouled things up royally and am doing my best to be an exemplary, shining, professional employee, and am taxing myself to the extreme to make the firm work to make up for it as best I can. At the same time I feel lost and lonely and sad -- he and his wife have become centrally important to me, and a rug has been yanked out from under my feet, and I feel disoriented.

Yesterday was a Bad Head Day. I moved into my own office -- a definite yay, because I could break down in tears a few times in privacy and sniffle my way through transcriptions. I drove home and spent an hour and a half just watching the cat, who is having another bladder episode and isn't doing very well. He was adorable, though, and we played a new game of Sarah Peeks over the Edge of the Armchair and Simon Ambushes Her Face with His Paws. Watching him play and wash his sleek black coat made me feel a little better. Mostly I felt shell shocked, barely capable of doing anything but stare fixedly ahead of me. I ate dinner because it's something one does.

At least I went to see HP5 with Joan. That was a huge booster.

It was a day of internal turmoil, and a sense of overwhelming aloneness. I get like that sometimes. Mostly when everything on every side appears to be yielding to flux, with little constancy. Work has been in upheaval for months, Simon's health yo-yos disconcertingly, and human relationships are tenuous at best.

These are the times that should throw me back on the solid rock of Christ; but these are the times when I tend, like the pillbug (or "roly-poly," as they're called around here), to draw myself up into the smallest spiritual ball I can and wait for everything to pass. Like I'm always afraid that, with so much hurt from relying on flawed human systems, if I open myself up to the divine, and God abandons me, I won't survive, so I'll just go it alone, thank you, because if I fail myself, well, that's nothing new, and I can live with me all right. Any finger poking from an outside source, and I draw myself up tighter.

And it's not like I talk to people about it much either. I'll talk to my mom, or Meg and Phillip, or Leigh Ann, but often, and sometimes even then, it's when I'm coming out of it. If someone who sees me on a regular basis asks me how I'm doing, I tell them fine, or okay, or not so good; I may even give them the facts; but I shy away from divulging how horrible I'm actually feeling (except to my poor mother. I bawled on the phone with her while driving to work this morning). Call people? Answer their calls? Nah; I have other things to do. Like mentally catalogue all the spots on the walls.

I don't know. I feel like I used to be a little more open, but maybe I wasn't. A high school friend of mine I was catching up with a few weeks back told me she had no idea how difficult my years were back then; I did a good job of hiding it, she said. But I think living alone, with no one seeing how I am when I come home and hounding me about it, has made me more reclusive. Instead of opening up and becoming part of a larger community, I hole up and shrink into my own four walls and mental corners. My attitude is less, "Be with people," like it was in college -- another time when I experienced a lot of stretching, flux, and pain, and then I didn't turn to everyone for help and talk about things ad nauseum, but I did spend all my time with people, just being in company, and the surrounding was healing -- than it is, "I'll get over it." I don't even really cry much anymore. I just sit there, force myself to go through the daily routines, and wait for it to blow over.

I suppose I should try to learn something new, however. The smallness of my own system of dealing with these times of pain is suffocating.

Eliot, as always, says it best:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but required, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

~from East Coker

So maybe I'll get there.

my mate

A couple of months ago, my beloved mate (pronounced "MA-tay," for those unfamiliar with Spanish) "gourd" -- actually a cup of palo santo wood -- a gift from a friend who'd made a missions trip to Bolivia, cracked. This was due to gross negligence on my part: I, who had so carefully oiled it after each use, allowed it to sit for three days with wet mate leaves in the bowl. I paid the price.

Very sad. And being under severe budget constraints, I decided to wait awhile before getting a new one. I waited so long I almost forgot about my beloved beverage...until I read on Rica's blog how much she enjoyed her mate in the mornings. And then I could almost taste the mate dulce hot on my tongue, and almost cried from wanting it so badly.

It was she who introduced it to me in college -- most of our other friends made faces and rinsed their mouths out, declaring that it "tasted like the woods." Being a self-declared wood-nymph (and known to a few of the people who would later become my good friends as the weird Tree Girl -- I could be seen, from time to time, gathering leaves, collecting twigs, and, yes, throwing my arms around a few of my favorite campus boles -- on the lonely days when hugs were scarce, squeezing a slender tree tight was an excellent substitute), I eagerly tried this taste of the woods, and fell in love with the strong, sweet flavor that she'd brought with her from her childhood years in Argentina. Her family brought me a palo santo gourd and bombilla (the metal straw with a perforated end through which you drink the water) from Argentina when they visited one Christmas, and I admittedly enjoyed carrying the accoutrements with me on late-night study sessions, because the pot-bellied gourd and the loosely ground, dark green tea look like preparations for a marijuana bong blast.

I sighed sadly when my first gourd cracked a year or so later, ordered a new one, without the traditional shape, online, and jumped up and down like a giddy child when Shelley brought back the more authentic one from Bolivia. I was never able to throw any of my old ones away. They've become holders for pens and whatnot. And the Bolivian gourd has lived in quiet destitution at the corner of the sink since its death at the end of May.

My new one arrived today. Luchenne was sitting on the porch with me when the mailman arrived; I was on the phone with Jen, recounting my sister's latest escapade (Luchenne was laughing her head off in appreciation and disbelief), and when I saw the little cube-shaped box I squealed, "Is that for Sarah?!" The surly mailman actually sounded a little less surly when he handed it over, and I tore the tape apart with my keys while Jen waited and Luchenne demanded to know what it was.

"This is a cup for drinking a tea I like from South America," I said.

"South America?" she said. "How does it work?"

I showed her. She expressed interest in trying it out. As I explained the tea and how it tasted and how the gourd and the bombilla work, she shook her head and looked at me.

"Sarah, you need a man," she said. "You need someone older. None of this twenties shit. You need some nice man in his forties. Someone knows how to treat a woman. No more of these boys." And she shook her head again and patted me on the shoulder and went upstairs.

Well, I'm taking her advice with a heavy grain of salt, of course; this is the woman about whom I've called the police a few times to intervene regarding her own relationship. And I don't know that age makes a man. But I do agree that I need more than what the past few years have been giving me, or whom I've been choosing from them. Although I'm not sure why my South American tea should be a catalyst for this particular train of thought...but then, I'm not sure what catalyzes many of her trains of thought. She's complex.

But it's lovely to have my mate back. I made a huge carafe of hot water as soon as I got upstairs, and the mate dulce was delicious.

Rica, I don't know if I've ever thanked you properly for introducing me to mate, but I say it here: Thank you. It's become an intrinsic part of who I am, the way coffee and books and writing are an intrinsic part of who I am. And I owe that bit to you.

all quiet on the western front

For now.

The drama has been hilarious. Last week my neighbor across the hall's niece moved in for awhile. The niece immediately earned the title Crazy Girl. And that was no cute-ism or affectionate dub. The girl was spun-out nuts. Schizophrenic, delusional, psychotic. Exactly the sort of person I worked with at the Center for the Homeless. She had no concept of personal space. Her eyes rolled when she talked. Nothing she said made sense; she made word sandwiches and changed her name four times within the first two minutes of meeting me and asked me to babysit her kids and offered to pay me a thousand dollars she clearly didn't have and made up all sorts of stories about being a student at Notre Dame. She ordered me to make her coffee, talked back to her aunt, and told me she was sweet. I calmly refused to do anything she asked. She kept changing tacks to try to get me to comply with her. I calmly kept refusing, told her to go upstairs so I could talk to her Aunt Lu, and told my neighbor the girl needed help and where she could take her.

Crazy Girl was around for a couple more days. Anytime her aunt was around she was pretty much under control; she was so out of it she had to be led around by the hand. But when my neighbor was gone, things got out of hand. The music would be turned up so loud I could hear it in my living room with my TV turned up; when I knocked on her door I had to shout at the top of my lungs so she could hear who it was that was knocking, and then she opened the door without a stitch of clothes on. I shouted at her to turn down the music. She glared at me but did what I told her.

Then my downstairs neighbor Tracy's car was broken into and her stereo stolen; the next-door neighbor's garage also suffered a break-in. My car, weirdly, was left alone. No one has ever bothered any of the cars in that back lot.

I left for Chicago the next day, and left my car at the airport; I figured it was safer there. When I came back and dragged my suitcase up the stairs, I noticed there was powder all over the stairs and at the top of the landing. My neighbor Luchenne opened her door when she heard me coming up.

"Oh, it's you," she said. She looked and sounded exhausted.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"I'll talk to you," she said, and went back inside.

I saw Tracy later that afternoon, who said, "The crazy girl set off the fire extinguisher in the hall this morning. Luchenne done called the police on her and they took her away. It was crazy. Every time you go away somethin' weird happens."

So I called the AL, who promised to replace the now-empty fire extinguisher. I mean, sometimes there's no smoke and no fire, but let's put it out anyway! Lu told me Crazy Girl will probably get ninety days for it, so she won't be coming back.

"She was botherin' you anyway," Lu said. "When I hear she have her music up so loud you was complainin', I told her, 'Girl, you got to go. Sarah never knocked on my door about nothin'. You don't bother her.'"

And then I stepped out yesterday to apply for my passport, get a new cell phone (I think I'm in love), head to campus to read on the grass for awhile, and go to the Vine for some drinks with Joan, and the AL called me to ask if I knew anything about the police visit to the house that afternoon to intervene in a fight between Lu and her boyfriend.

"Never a dull moment," I said. "I wasn't home."

So this morning I found broken glass all over the porch, and there's still fire extinguisher powder all over the inside stairs. The place is turning into a dump. I tell these stories to people who live in nice high rises and watch them shudder. But I think it's kind of funny. I never feel personally threatened by any of it -- my car is untouched every morning, I keep out of people's way and stay on everyone's good side and maintain appropriate boundaries, and I have old Betsy standing guard under my bed. And it makes for good stories.

the way home

On the train ride home from Chicago I pulled out Volume I of A History of Women and settled down to enjoy some quiet reading. It was slightly depressing to be headed back to South Bend, even though I was eager to see Simon again, and my ankle was aching, and the train was practically empty, so I was looking forward to losing myself in the oblivion of a book.

At one of the first stops, however, a woman and a small child took the seat in front of me. I helped the mother heave her suitcase onto the rack over my head, and huddled back down to read, thinking, Great. Little kid equals loud, high-pitched, and squealing.

And not exactly the ideal serendipitous train ride partner. You meet John Cusack on the train, you know? That's what you dream about. You're sitting there alone, reading your book, happy but a little lonely, with that slightly sad twist to your quiet smile as you occasionally look out the window, and this sweet, kind, good man sits in front of you and notices you and starts talking to you.

Not a little girl. But as I glanced up at her with her forehead pressed against the glass I couldn't help but catch my breath at how cute she was. Tiny, perfectly formed, with cappuccino-colored skin and curly-frizzy hair escaping from its ponytail to ring around her neck and huge liquid brown eyes like a deer's. She turned her head and saw me and I grinned and ducked my head, and I heard her giggle.

So we started playing peek-a-boo. One doesn't talk to strangers, so we didn't talk. She just popped her head in the gap between the curve of the seat and the window, and I would mock-shriek and cover my face and hide, and she would duck down and smother her laughter. She whispered to her mom that she was playing peek-a-boo with the lady "that helped you with your suitcase." A really articulate little girl. When I got lost in my book again, she would tap on the window glass or scratch at the seat to get my attention, and the game would begin again.

After awhile we both tired of playing, and then, no longer strangers in the complete sense, we started talking. She remarked about how we were going backward. I learned that her favorite number is four, that she is four, and that her favorite color is green ("So is mine!" I said). I learned that she was going to visit her mother's friend Kelly, and that they had four stops to go. I learned that it was her first time on the train. "Are you having fun?" I asked. She smiled and nodded. I asked her what interesting things she saw out the window. She liked the semi truck full of coal, and the tall purple flowers growing between the railroad tracks and the highway. I pointed out an electric power plant. She pointed out the number 8 on a street sign at one of the stops.

Sometimes we both got shy, and then she'd play peek-a-boo again, or, increasingly, wave at me, stretching her hand halfway between the seats and waggling her fingers. I would do the same in reply. Conscious, perhaps, of the unwritten rule that if you don't talk to strangers, you never touch them, we never quite made contact. I never learned her name, and she never asked for mine. But as we approached her stop, she half-whispered that she wished I were going to visit her mom's friend, too.

We arrived at her destination, and I helped her mother lift her luggage down, and then the little girl popped her head over the back of the seat and said, "We're getting off the train now. Bye-bye." "Bye!" I said. "Have fun visiting your mom's friend!"

And she hopped down into the aisle wearing her little plastic backpack, and went bobbing off, and I went back to "The Sexual Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle," feeling sad that she was gone, and praying silently for her protection and blessing as she grows up.

I'll take a beautiful, well-behaved, precious little child over a John Cusack for a random meeting on the train any day. In real life John Cusack will turn out to have a girlfriend, or a wife, or no job, or two girlfriends, or be a jerk, or pushy, or creepy. You can't go wrong with a good kid.

all things go

Tuesday I took the train to Chicago to visit Jess -- not without some trepidation; I hate trains (they harken me back to the Longest Train Ride Ever with John in college, when we spent twelve hours from Pittsburgh to New Jersey with nothing but unaccepted credit cards and a scant bag of molasses cookies, which I have never been able to eat since), and am unsure of myself in any form of transportation that is not my Henrietta; call me a suburbs girl, or a country mouse, if you will. And my last visit to Chicago was exhausting, strained, and not much fun. But I went with the anticipation of seeing a new yet already good friend, and renewing my appreciation of my second favorite city next to Pittsburgh.

The train was packed due to Taste of Chicago, but I had anticipated the possibility of unsavory seatmates, and to that end brought along a Scary Feminist Book which I placidly read the whole way, and which guaranteed my uninterrupted solitude. There's nothing like a girl calmly turning the pages of A History of Women to rebuff a guy's potential advances, especially when the essay titles, written on the side of every page, run along the lines of "Feminine Models of the Ancient World," "What is a Goddess?" and "The Sexual Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle." Very handy.

The trip was a blast. Aside from my bad ankle deciding to act up, in a city where walking is the easiest means of getting from A to B, there were no hitches or hang ups, and all of Jess's friends are splendid and hospitable. We had a massive picnic with enough food to feed half the city in Millenium Park, where we hung out, laughed, talked (the girls exchanged stories of dating disappointments and howled our heads off), set off sparklers, and then headed to the river to watch the marvelous fireworks display.

July 4th was a day of wandering around the city, riding the El, sampling some of the cafes (one of them, the Bourgeois Pig, has sandwiches named after literary works), and talking, talking, talking. Fantastic. About men, the church, the faith, growing up, family, hopes for the future, friends, life, movies, favorite actors. Jess is hilarious, and a great conversationalist. We were joined for dinner by her friend Taylor, and spent the evening at his apartment introducing Jess to the wonders of Buffy.

All in all, a great visit. Exactly what I needed -- time away, a refreshing couple of days somewhere new yet a little familiar, with a sister in Christ.

getting back

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

~Christina Rossetti, from "Up-hill"


Ahhhh, vacation. I'm -- terrifically -- glad to have it. It kicked off Saturday with a visit from The Science Girl, and a day bebopping around downtown South Bend (DTSB, as we locals call it), hitting the Chicory Cafe for lunch, pummeling the used bookstores (well, I pummeled them; Jess was a model of discipline :), and relaxing at Fiddler's for dinner. I had a marvelous time talking, shooting the breeze, venting frustrations, sharing joys from our journeys, and hanging out (thanks, Jess!). I also made a significant addition to my essay collection, which I'm very excited about.

After she left I went to St. Patrick's Park for the annual South Bend Symphony concert and fireworks display with Meg & Phillip & Co., where I had the interesting experience of bumping into a couple of old coworkers from my last job. Funny. The fireworks were great, minus the cheesy radio 4th of July music blaring through them; I prefer the silence broken only by the booms, screams, and whistles of the fireworks themselves. But still, a nice display.

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing but sleep. Today what I should have been doing was cleaning my nastified apartment; what I actually did was rearrange my bookshelves. I've been adding to my library over the past year without making more room for the newcomers, with the result of little piles of books lying all over the place. So today I heaved books onto top shelves, carted spillovers from living room to hallway, and allowed the grown library to expand.

The result? Wonderful! There's nothing quite like the quiet, even-lined order of hundreds of books surrounding you to make you feel at peace. And of course I'm loving to feast my eyes on the newest additions: Four out of a five-volume set of A History of Women (I ordered the missing one online), The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit, Women Warriors (about mythological and historical female fighters), and two books on Jungian interpretations of the feminine in fairy tales by Marie Louise von Franz. Ahhhh. (I mean, I may have vastly mellowed out since college, but I can't get away from my roots, now can I?)

And tomorrow is going to be a fly around, clean the house in a blaze of hurry sort of morning, before I catch the train to visit The Science Girl! I'm hoping I can do the housecleaning quickly, because I usually do better with a deadline hanging over my head.

I've been dragging around in a fuzz of lethargy the past couple of weeks, barely able to do anything productive. But I'm hoping that lots of rest and vacation will fix that. It's time to get back on the horse.

haiku

Dark June sky--
behind the fading fireworks
one star

i'd swim across lake michigan

My route home from work takes me along a two-lane country highway and along some backroads -- Boss-Man introduced me to it last fall, and I started taking it, not because of its expediency (it's only faster by a minute or two), but because of its remoteness. I have watched, over the past nine months, the fields slowly switch out their wardrobes from autumn to winter to spring and to summer. Half of the commute is through cultivated fields rimmed with forest; half is through partial forests themselves.

I have fallen wildly, irrationally in love with the irrigators. When I first moved to the Midwest, I thought they were the ugliest things I had ever had the misfortune to witness -- huge, spindly, ungainly-looking pipe systems on wheels stretching across the fields. But they sit there all year, patient like the land, silent and still in winter, and now in the dry June active and almost alert. The other day the late afternoon was bright, hot, hazy; the sun pressed down on the whole spread-out world, which looks much bigger out here, under a bigger sky; the clouds piled up white overhead, the trees and fields were jewel-green, and the irrigators dotting the fields as far as the eye could see shot stop-motion fountains of pure white against the blue-and-green backdrop. For a few minutes, driving down the highway that cut through the fields, I was almost too happy to breathe.

Yesterday evening as I drove home and danced in the car to Josh Ritter (there are those artists whose voices you love with your body as well as your heart and mind and soul, and he's one of those for me), I turned down the road onto one of the forested lanes. As I waited for traffic, pulled out and picked up speed and gloried in the "pied beauty" all around me, I realized that I have become a woman perfectly adapted to her environment. I fit into it, and it fits into me.

It's taken me a long time to fall in love with the land. For a couple of years it was painfully difficult; I missed the hills. It was like that Hallmark sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall -- I couldn't write my name on the land. I resented everything about Indiana, about the Midwest. I didn't like the culture, didn't like the people.

But now I love it, more than I detested it before -- love it with the passion of someone who has chosen her home. Pennsylvania will always be the Home State, and have beauties that no other place can share, and the fact that I was born there will always count for something far deeper than words or any other selected alliance. But I have chosen the Midwest, and that counts for something too.

I realized yesterday that, although I've never stooped down and written my name on the land, it's written its name on me.

So here I am. And, God willing, here I stay.

the double curse

Well, it looks like the migraines are connected to my menstrual cycle.

Mad props to Mom for figuring this out first -- I tend not to pay attention to these things. But last time it came on the tail end of my cycle, like an evil Superman riding the backlash of Haley's Comet, and that was just a few weeks ago. Now I've finished up another monthly and "it's baaaaaack!"

Like it's not painful and inconvenient enough having the red visitor anyway. (One of my college friends, obviously a guy, once said, "I don't get why you girls always complain about cramps. You'd think if it happens once a month you'd get used to it." I looked at him and said, "Hey idiot. If you slam your hand in a door once a month, it still hurts.") I call it The Silent Curse. The one God put between the lines in Chapter 3 of Genesis. The unspoken one. "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing [and everything connected with fertility]..."

And the thing about migraines is that any kind of change in body chemistry -- ANY -- can trigger one. Chronic migraine sufferers have to be careful about their diets, their sleep schedules, their emotional states. Getting up an hour earlier can mean a few days of lying in a darkened room (makes Daylight Savings Time a bitch). Late night out drinking? Dumb. Skipping meds? Stupid. Getting ridiculously stressed out? Beware.

Unfortunately there's not much a girl can do about being a twenty-something fertile woman, and Here Come the Headaches. But thankfully, due to modern medicine, there are ways to get around even that. Looks like I'm going back on The Pill. I don't want to. I prefer the Natural State. And I really don't want to mess with the hormones and scale it back to only three or four cycles a year. But if it staves off a monthly migraine, I'll take it.

I put in a call to the doc's office this morning, and I'm waiting for a callback.

Le sigh. It would be nice if I knew what started all this. I've always been a headachey kind of person, but it was never anything that a couple of Ibuprofen wouldn't handle. Now I'm on so many meds I have trouble remembering to take them all, and none of that started until December. But hey; it happens, and you roll with it. I have a fabulous doctor and great insurance, and very understanding bosses who love me to pieces, so I'm well taken care of. And maybe one day the migraines will be gone for good. In the meantime, God is faithful, and I'll keep on keeping on. Even if I have to wear sunglasses indoors for a few days.

you're never too old

They flushed out the hydrants outside the office this morning, and Boss-Lady let me dash outside, kick off my shoes, hike up my skirt, and run around in the water in the street splashing up a storm. The people driving by were laughing at me.

Sometimes it's good to be five years old again, just for a few minutes. Plus it's been gods-bloody-awful hot here, and walking back into the air-conditioned office with wet feet felt divine.

a sarah and a john

There's something about relaxing with old friends.

John came up from New Jersey this weekend, and we spent it as old friends will -- a crazy Friday night, followed by a Saturday and Sunday of nothing but lounging around, eating, sleeping, watching TV, shooting the breeze about everything under the sun (love the mixed metaphors? I do). Simon was ecstatic to have Mommy home most of the weekend, and lay around and purred, and all in all it was lovely and peaceful and fun. I was even motivated to cook -- my favorite Greek meatballs (full of rice, parsely, and orange zest) in a tomato-onion-beef-broth sauce. Delish.

So now it's back to the work week, but I have a week's vacation coming up after this one, and I'm excited to lie around and relax, spend all day sitting on the porch if I want, spend all day on a beach blanket if I want, catch up on some writing, mess around on the guitar, hang out with Meg and Phillip, rest in any way I choose. It's been a long eight months on the job (and I'm coming up on my year's anniversary -- the longest I will have ever held a job -- hooray!), and I'm looking forward to the break, so that I can come back to it refreshed.

But nothing beats old friends. John and I were the inseparable duo our senior year at Grove City, and some patterns are pleasant in the repeat. (We were arm-in-arm everywhere in college, racing off to Sheetz for a Shmuffin at ridiculous hours, or correcting snowman anatomy in the dead of night howling our heads off, or misbehaving in any way we could get away with, which wasn't hard since we knew all the security guards, passing notes and making shocking comments in class, raising the eyebrows and mouth corners of our professors.) Mutual affection goes a long way. And it was nice to have someone to bid good morning to as I padded out into the hall on my way to the kitchen to make coffee.

So he left this morning, but neither one of us believes in sad goodbyes, so it was a quick hug and a bright bye-bye! and then off to work for me, and off across the interminable expanse of Ohio for him. He's heading to Pittsburg, and I'm jealous. Marvelous city. Best city. But I love my South Bend, and I'm in love with my life, and church was phenomenal yesterday-- about slowing down, and savoring life, and letting the good things catch up with you, letting the still small voice speak, and not being addicted to the speed, the pace we usually set for ourselves. I, like any good American, plunge myself in the rush -- it's distracting. But it's summer, it's lazy and hot, and it's a good time to take my foot off the accelerator and peel back a few layers and learn to float in the shallows, and not race for the rapids.

Slow down, girl, as Like Summer says.

So it was a beautifully slow weekend, good for the soul, and I'm glad my John was here to share it with me.

Daily Poem

I wrote this at the end of June in 2005, but it was missing something. So I pulled it out a week or so ago, and broke it into sections based around the monastic daily prayer cycle. I think it works.

Daily Poem

I. Invitatory

Charge our stiff backs with power
to roll into the morning.

II. Matins/Lauds

As we squint over the rims of our coffee
let our eyes see blessing in the quivers
of the leaves outside the window,
dappling the table with spatters
of the sun that rose too soon for our taste.

III. Terce

Let us want nothing more than
the feel of your presence under
our dry palms as we check our e-mail,
the light slide of the Spirit
like a finger along our jaws
directing our heads to turn
and putting love into our hands
so that we smile and tell people hello
and give our spare quarters
so others can use the vending machines.

IV. Sext

As we walk out to the parking lot
listing chores, call us to lift our eyes
to trace the boiling summer clouds
shaped like clay in your hands.

Put a song between our teeth and our tongues
like bread from the beaks of ravens
that we may taste praise
not of our making in our own mouths.

V. None

Teach us to feel above the twisting
in our intestines when our coworkers
call us “you people,” when our families
forget to phone, when the feral yellow cat
kicks over the tomato plants for the twentieth time,

for we know we have said “you people,”
we have refrained from words of comfort,
and we have kicked gravel at strays.

VI. Vespers

Let us take the stones we so readily gather
into our hands, and use them to line gardens.

Let us step upon the ruins of old orchard walls
and breathe moss in the air of the evening.

VII. Compline

For we know, O Lord, that today is a jar
of dark moving water
and the pattern of light on the surface
will run red over the backs of our knuckles
when we draw forth wine under your watching.

Teach us, then, as we drag ourselves
under covers and muffle the bedside light,
to close our eyes with clear vision.

Teach us to sink beneath our relief
at another day’s end, to stretch
toward your hands and to open our mouths.

Teach us to cry out, Amen.

the boy in the bar

I heard this story from a friend of mine.

Keith grew up in the same small town that I did. Unlike me, his family had lived there for generations. North East has its old time families stretching back to 1700s, when the community first began, and those families have divided themselves evenly between the gentry and the scrabblers. Keith's family belonged to the long-established North East poor.

They lived in a run-down gray cement-block house next to the ruins of the old woolen mill, covered with ivy, that had once supplied thousands of blankets to the Union troops during the Civil War. The back yard was full of clotheslines and abandoned pieces of broken machinery and flung bicycles and toys. It had an air of carelessness about it. We passed by the house often on our way to the beach.

I didn't know Keith much until youth group -- he was a few years a head of me in school. His younger brother was in my grade, and always getting detentions. We didn't have classes together. He didn't come to youth group often, but Keith did. He was a new Christian, tall, earnest, a little awkward. He didn't come from a good home. His favorite song was Psalm 51. I avoided him when I could -- he was always a little too intensely interested in me, and some of the things he said were inappropriate, but looking back I don't think he knew it. He was always trying to do, and to be, better.

His driving ambition was to be a cop. A few years after I graduated high school, I found out through the grapevine that he'd achieved the first part of his goal, and entered the local police academy. I could imagine his pride. I got to see his pride a couple of times, on my visits home. He loved to talk to me in church. He had that same wide smile full of crooked teeth, same buzzed haircut, same air of excitement, same earnestness, same hard handshake. He was always asking my dad questions about police work.

I learned, just a couple of months ago, what drove him. Late one night, when he was a very small child, his alcoholic parents took him and his little brother to the bar with them. While they were there, someone noticed a five-year-old and a toddler at the bar and called the police. When the cops arrived, Keith said he was terrified. He was confused; he had no idea what was going on, or even what was wrong; just that there was trouble, and he was in it, and he thought he had done something wrong. Everyone was angry and upset.

But one of the cops, a huge man, stooped down to him and explained to him what was happening, and told him that it wasn't his fault, and that it was going to be okay. Standing there in the dark of the bar, surrounded by drunken grown-ups and policemen and cigarette smoke, Keith suddenly felt secure, and safe. He knew he wasn't in trouble. He knew that there were good people in the world. This cop, who was here to bust his parents, somehow made everything all right.

That moment changed this little boy's life. Keith said from then on, he wanted to be a cop himself, so that he could do the same thing. Make the scared and vulnerable of that small town feel safer. That moment made all the difference in the world to this kid. Instead of growing up to follow his family pattern and become a deadbeat alcoholic, he decided to make something of himself. He decided to go to school. He decided to go to church. He still has his problems, but like the best of us, he's still trying, still plugging away.

That cop was my dad. When I heard this story, I started crying. I'm proud of my father for a lot of reasons, but I don't think I've ever been as proud of him as I was in that moment. I've been to the bars in North East; I know what they're like. I can imagine the atmosphere, and the child's fear, and my father bending down to a scared little boy and putting a hand on his shoulder and calming him with just a couple of words. My dad's had a lot of rough stuff to deal with through his job, most of it thankless and joyless, but he's maintained a heart for the small and the helpless. And I understood, finally, why Keith was always following us around in my growing up years. And I never knew. And neither, I think, did my dad.

I love how God takes the small moments, and makes them great. I love how he puts us in the right place, at just exactly the right time. I love how nothing is wasted, and I love how always, wherever you turn, there is love. Channeled, flowing, and unceasing. And I love that that night, twenty-odd years ago, the conduit of that love was my father.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I'm glad you're mine.

Lucy

Last Thursday I went with Meg to pick Phillip up from his dad's place so we could go out for Chinese. We got a grand tour of the house. The house features two dogs, a cross-eyed cat, and several large tropical birds. The newest, and current favorite, of the house is a huge blue macaw named Lucy.

Phillip was scratching Lucy's head, and, animal-lover that I am, I went up to join him in the activity.

Lucy took a chunk out of my finger.

So I followed Meg, with my finger pouring blood from a parrot's dirty beak, into the bathroom. As I poured Listerine over the wound, since we couldn't find any peroxide, I remarked, "I don't love Lucy."

Later, just before we left, I went into the aviary to look at one of the other birds, and to demonstrate my lack of ill will. Lucy followed me, sat on the edge of her cage, and kept reaching out to bite at me, all the while saying, "Hello." I tried pretty-talking to her, but she just kept trying to bite. I had to get between her and the table, a very narrow space, to return to the kitchen. Pretty talk was ineffective.

I thought to myself, Screw you, parrot, and walked right up to her and stood over her. I made myself as tall as possible. I towered over her. I leaned in threateningly. I hissed. I glowered. I spread my arms out a little. I turned myself into a Really Big Bird.

Lucy got the message. She shrank down, stopped streching out her wings, and eyed me cautiously. I stared her down for awhile, and then proceeded back to the kitchen. Meg wanted to know if I'd won the pissing contest. I smiled and told her yes.

Meg told me later that she wouldn't have been at all surprised, when Lucy bit me, to have seen me reach out and snap her neck in two.

I must admit it was tempting. I'm going to have a nice ugly scar on my forefinger...right over one of my favorite scars, from the time I was cutting the metal ring off a glass bottle to make a decoration for my room, and the knife slipped. I liked that scar. It was graceful, elegant. Now it's going to be buried under a parrot scar.

But the parrot scar is cool. I got it from a parrot. I had to cut off a flap of skin when I got home -- it was a really nasty cut, and bird beaks are dirty -- and it's healing up, and will probably look awesome, in its own way.

But still. I don't love Lucy. The bird had no facial expressions at all, beyond that weird alien malevolence that tropical birds seem to bear. Give me finches, cardinals, robins, and chickadees any day. Hawks and owls are awesome too. But leave the macaws in New Zealand or wherever the hell they're from. Maybe they're happier on white sand.

sometimes i amaze myself

Like when I go to pour a glass of water from my Brita pitcher, and the lid falls into the litterbox.

the daily grind

I just found the end of a pretzel I'd been looking for this morning. In a rage of hunger I was chowing down on pretzel roddy goodness when Boss-Man came up to the front office needing copies of something made, so I hastily swallowed pretzel powder and threw the rest of the pretzel somewhere on the desk and pretended I wasn't eating anything on the job. (Not that he cares. He eyed me with the stern glare of a sumo wrestling coach this morning and demanded to know if I'm eating, and informed me that he wants me to gain thirty pounds. I'm not turning into Elephant Girl to suit you, I retorted.) But still, unprofessional. "How bay I hep oo?" "Waw ovvice. Coudoo hold pweeze?" So I lost the rest of my snack, but there it is, next to the typewriter. Now, however, it has become by definition "gross" and must be thrown away.

Things at work are vastly improving thanks to the magical appearance of COMPETENT PART TIME HELP. It's like -- it's like -- springtime in spring. (And if you don't know what a miracle that is, come visit me in northern Indiana/southwest Michigan in April.) It's the unexpected bliss of things happening when and how they're supposed to. I didn't know such a wonder could be.

And, better yet, I'm getting this amazing little gem called MY OWN OFFICE. Yes, my own office. Four walls. A door (sort of. The door is upstairs somewhere). The big copier. My favorite typewriter. Drawers. Shelves. Cupboards. My Own Space. A place to work. The receptionist will answer the bulk of the phone calls, deal with walk-in clients, and the intake of new clients.

And I will be able to do my actual job. Drawing up documents. Organizing files. Keeping an eagle eye on deadlines. Learning more about law to be a better right hand to the Boss-Man.

I actually look forward to going to work these last couple of weeks. For a while it was horrible with the old incompetent help, and then it was stressful with no help at all, and then it was the letdown and fallout from not having to be stressed anymore, and now it's evening out. The new gal is fantastic and really enjoyable, fun to talk to, and fits right in. On top of being competent, smart and efficient.

Vast sigh of relief.

I need another pretzel.

My Five-Hour Dog

Friday morning I went downstairs to drink my coffee on the porch, have devotions, and journal, according to my usual summer custom. The new neighbor's kitten had left a couple of kitten droppings on the porch, so I stuck my head in the door to grab the broom, and when I turned around, a large, powerfully built dog was coming up the steps to greet me, ropy tail wagging madly, tongue lolling in joy.

"Well, hi there!" I said as I bent down to her. She immediately covered my face in kisses and panted eagerly and anxiously. I looked her over. She had a collar, but no tags, and the collar had the remnants of a broken chain snapped off at one end. She waggled all over while I ran my hands over her short, shiny coat to see if she were too skinny; she wasn't, but looked a little hungry, and more than a little thirsty, so I went back upstairs to grab a loaf of moldy bread I hadn't gotten around to throwing out, a plate of cottage cheese, and a bowl of water.

She followed me up the stairs like she belonged there. She whined and scratched at the door when I shut it on her. She followed me back downstairs and ate some of the cottage cheese and drank a lot of the water, and when I sat back down to continue my morning routine, she sacked herself out at my feet and went to sleep.

I petted her while I read, watched her breathing slow down and even out, and thought. Occasionally her paws would flex as she stretched and sighed. She slept with her hind legs crossed in an adorably dainty manner that contrasted with the sprawling abandon of her front paws.

She was a pit bull.

When the next-door neighbor took his dog out to the car for a vet appointment, my new friend shot off the porch and was on the street meeting Shannon before you could blink. I ran over to pull her away, but she wasn't being vicious, just sniffy. Dan, the neighbor, confirmed my pit bull suspicions. The dog (I called her Bella -- she really was a beautiful animal) and I returned to the porch. She went back to sleep. A squirrel came up to the remnants of the bread not six feet from her nose and she just watched it idly. I looked at the sores on her side and didn't know what to do.

The temptation to keep her was overwhelming. Never mind the landlord's objection to dogs. Never mind that my apartment is too small, let alone my income. Never mind any of it. When I went inside to shower, I let her follow me up and into the apartment. Simon was not happy. I never heard a louder hiss come out of that cat in my life. Bella just wanted to play; he just wanted to hide. I pulled her away from him and shut her out of the bedroom where he was holed up under the bed. I showered. I got ready for work. She followed me all over the house, happy to be doing whatever I was doing. I thought. I called Animal Control and reported her found, and learned that if I kept her for a week and nobody claimed her, she was mine. I also found out that pit bulls can't be adopted out once an officer comes to pick them up.

I took Simon to work and left her at home in the apartment all morning. (Yes, I know. I am insane. I allowed a strange pit bull the run of my apartment. Even my crazy neighbor thinks I'm crazy.) I did some pit bull research online, and learned to my regret that pit bulls are highly energetic and require (as the fake Professor Moody from HP4 would say) CONSTANT VIGILANCE with other animals, as they can't be trusted not to fight, even though they are sweet and even-tempered with people. And I could never do that to Simon. Kitty comes first.

So I called Animal Control again and asked them to meet me at my apartment at half-past noon. They said it was highly unlikely they'd be able to, in case they had to respond to an emergency; but when I pulled into the driveway, they were just arriving.

So they took Bella away. I would have named her Lyddie, if I'd kept her. But she was someone's pet -- probably not ill-treated, if she was so sweet. And she didn't destroy any of my stuff. Not any of it. It looks like the only thing she did all morning was take a long nap on my couch.

Oh yes, and pee on my floor. Four times. Evidently not a housebroken dog. So I spent my Friday night glamorously scrubbing baking soda and vinegar into the hallway carpets, and handwashing all my rugs in the tub (and understanding anew how much washing machines have revolutionized modern life). But that was a small price to pay, I think, for inviting a stray into my house, and for having gotten to meet such a lovely dog.

Simon has settled down. I was afraid he'd begin to abandon his litterbox in favor of remarking his territory, but I underestimated his good kitty manners, and all is well.

I hope that the good girl gets her owners back, if they deserve her. I hope she doesn't get put to sleep. It was wonderful to have her, if only for five hours, and even if my carpet is still drying out from all the stain and odor treatment. She was fantastic.

Ciao, Bella.

"These Mashed Potatoes are So Creamy"

I had the privilege of serving this recipe to a couple of friends last night, and judging by the rate at which they disappeared (the potatoes, not the friends -- I'm not running a cannibal camp or a Cooking House of Horrors here), I thought I ought to share.

Ingredients:
3-5 lbs. Idaho baking potatoes
1/4 c. milk
1 stick butter
1 package Philadelphia cream cheese
plenty of salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:
1. Wash and peel the potatoes and cut them into eighths. Place in large saucepan and just cover with water. Sprinkle with salt. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat to medium, and cook, uncovered, until soft (20-35 minutes).
2. Drain. If you're a cheater like me and have a Kitchenaid, place the potatoes in the mixing bowl. If you're a psycho antique shopper like me and happen to have an antique potato masher (those things are THE CURE for lumpy potatoes), use it to mash up the potatoes until thrillingly smooth. If you're a normal person, use a fork. It won't get out all the lumps, but it will be close enough.
3. Add a splash of milk, half a stick of butter, and the entire package of Philadelphia cream cheese to the potatoes. Put the mixing bowl in the stand mixer and use the whisk-like mixer head. Set the mixer on speed 3. (Or, if you're not a cheater like me, use a hand mixer.) Once all the ingredients are blended, add the rest of the butter, and begin to add the salt and pepper.
4. Adjust the seasoning and add more milk as desired.

The result? A dish worth dialoguing about in Hollywood. Perfectly reheatable. So creamy.

undesperate houseperson

Since getting my Dyson from my wonderful parents when they came to visit, my housekeeping has been revolutionized. Suddenly it's fun to vaccuum, and the broom is facing indefinite retirement. The bare floors are cleaner than they've been in a long time, and my back doesn't ache afterward with bending over the dustpan. Sweet.

Well, one is never satisfied with merely one kind of convenience, so this week I broke down and bought a Swiffer WetJet. Anything to make the mopping of the kitchen, entryway, and bathroom floors easier. I put it together just now and mopped -- and what a cinch. Delight! Joy! Time savers and efficiency untold!

It also eases that part of my mind that has always been unquiet about dumping Lysol water down the tub. I know there are earth friendly cleaners out there, but I've never found them to be terribly effective. The Swiffer-ma-bobber sponge pad thingie absorbs all the liquid and the dirt, and you just dispose of it when you're done. (Yes, I know, it's still waste, but it's not toxic liquid waste that could easily seep through the century-old piping systems of my historic neighborhood into the surrounding soil.) My mind is more at ease.

And my house is cleaner quicker, and the floors drier faster! Huzzah!

question

Why do dead jade leaves glitter?

A quick search on the trusty favorites, Google and Ask.com, revealed nothing but bad poetry and cheesy short stories.

What mineral is in them that makes them all sparkly when they're dead?

in the land of the living

I woke up this morning with the vestiges of a migraine still wrapped around my head. I'd been popping Imitrex like candy all week, to no effect; so yesterday I called my wonderful, fabulous, amazing doctor, closed the office early (with Boss-Man's permission), and went to get shots from one of the nurses. (I hate getting shots in the arse, by the way. I turn into this puddly fully-grown baby.) Then, to my shock and wonder and gratitude, the nurse said the doctor wanted to know if I wanted him to write me a scrip for steroids, since he remembered that those had worked against the Killer Migraine of December. When I first went to his office in January, I was told he hated prescribing steroids and wouldn't do it. Of course I said that would be wonderful, and a minute later she came back with the magic slip of paper.

I had just enough time to drop the scrip off at the pharmacy on my way home from getting the shots before the extreme drowsiness of the drugs set in, and then Meg later came and drove me back to pick up the 'roids. I started taking them this morning, and I think they're going to work. God bless my wonderful doctor, God bless Meg (no offense, Meg), and God bless God.

The AL came this morning to pick up his rent check, so I was able to follow up on the midnight phone call of the other night, and he has already spoken with the neighbors. When he left I sat on the porch drinking coffee and enjoying the perfect morning. South Bend in summer is quite a thing. My porch is on the side of the house and faces the long and narrow yard, and not the street, so I get a lovely view of the trees and the other houses, and it's incredibly peaceful. Everything is green and gold in the sunlight, and quiet.

It got me thinking about blessings. I love the house I live in, love the neighborhood, even, today, love the landlord, who noticed all the weight I've lost and was worried about me and recommended his church's food bank if I ever find myself unable to afford anything but cereal again. The new neighbors who moved into Kevin's old apartment seem like they're going to work out and be fairly quiet themselves (at least so far; I'm, as Mom put it, "cautiously optimistic"), and it's more wonderful than I realized not to have Pslightly Psycho Kevin lurking just behind his door to spring out and talk to me whenever I just want a private cup of coffee and some time to journal and read the Bible, or to bristle with resentment when I have a friend over (he was very propertarian and it was irritating and weird).

I have a guitar, for absurdly cheap, many, many months before I expected one. I have a cat who responded to his medication in ways I hadn't dared to hope. I have a bank account with money in it again. I have a job that is mostly satisfying, working for people I love, and who love me. I have Meg and Phillip, without whom I wouldn't have made it through last summer -- without whom, in fact, I wouldn't have stayed in the Midwest at all -- and who have become, not just family, but anchors of solidarity, good times (and "good" in its deepest send, not just "fun," although that's there in abundance too), trust, and affection. I have red coffee cups to drink from in the mornings. I have my parents and my sister, who, though far away, are always with me, and whose love I can count on at all times -- we've walked through fire together, and God has burned away a lot of dross over the years, and forged us more closely together, and it's been incredible to experience and to witness. I have Leigh Ann, the one person who is so much like me it's one of my greatest blessings, because I know I'm understood, and whose laugh is infectious. I have a church that preaches the Word truthfully and passionately, that looks to the needs of the community. I have a comfortable bed. I have medications that help me face and overcome depression and headaches, and I have the Holy Spirit to bolster my courage on the days when they don't work as well and I have to power through.

In short, I have a full, rich life, and I'm thankful for it. It's a little life -- I don't have swarms of people that I'm always spending time with, and in fact, most of the time, especially in summer, when the grad students are gone, the only people I see from week to week are the bosses and Meg and Phillip. But I keep in touch with the people I love who are farther away, and I write, and it's a good life. As God sees fit to expand it, so much the better: so much more to be thankful for.

Meg said yesterday, and I think she's right, that whatever I do whenever I find out what it is I'm supposed to be doing, it's going to be writing. I can't stop writing. I can't not write. As soon as I finish this post, I'm going out on the porch for my second cup of coffee, in a red mug, and some journalling.

A long time ago, just coming out of one of the deepest periods of despair I'd undergone, when I realized for the first time, in a personal and visceral, and not just intellectual, way, that God was good, and that truly "all things work for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose," this became one of my life's Psalms:

I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.

The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
"O LORD, save me!"

The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.

Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.

For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.
I believed; therefore I said,
"I am greatly afflicted."
And in my dismay I said,
"All men are liars."

How can I repay the LORD
for all his goodness to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.

Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
O LORD, truly I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant;
you have freed me from my chains.

I will sacrifice a thank offering to you
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the LORD --
in your midst, O Jerusalem.

Praise the LORD.

~Psalm 116

the door at the base of the stairs

My neighbors have developed this distasteful habit of leaving the bottom door unlocked whenever they go anywhere.

Backtrack. Begin again. The saga is a little more involved than last night's incident.

The two second floor apartments in my house share an entryway on the side porch. So we have one common key for the bottom door, and our own keys for our apartments. This bottom door is old and kind of crummy, but it's still a barrier, particularly because it's noisy and you have warning when anyone comes and goes. I've had problems with its lock before...like the time it fell out, and I had to call the AL to come and screw it back in. But it's got a couple of interesting latching features -- the one where if you push it one way from the inside, a person on the outside can't unlock it, even with a key; and the one where if you push it the other way from the inside, it stays unlocked.

My neighbors like that feature.

They tend to forget their keys. Two months ago they forgot them so often that they became masters at jimmying the lock to their upstairs apartment door. I would watch them through the peephole and thank all my nurturing as a paranoid cop's daughter that I had made the AL install a deadbolt on my door when I moved in (I've been told that my door, with all its locks and chains, resembles that of a New York apartment). They borrowed my kitchen knives on a couple of occasions when their hairpins or whatever didn't do the trick. And when that failed, they invented their own backdoor, thanks to the broken-down basement door.

Side-story. Two and a half months ago, someone (we all think it was the neighbor's boyfriend, whom I've never found personally threatening, but who has beaten the living crap out of the neighbor on occasion) broke down the basement door. Why? We don't know. Nothing valuable was taken from the basement. The only things stolen over the course of two months were garden tools and my beer. Oh yes, my beer. And of course the AL took his sweet time fixing the damn door. I finally called and chewed him out because

Loop-around. They couldn't get back into their apartment one night, so they went into the basement and brought up a ladder. They leaned the ladder against the roof and climbed in through a window. They then proceeded to leave the ladder up at all times, giving them and anyone else who wanted direct access to my own bedroom window. I, of course, freaked. I tersely told the AL what was happening (he said that they said they were using the ladder to "clean their windows" -- "No, they're using it for a back door when they forget their keys," I snapped), had Kevin lock the ladder in his apartment, and arranged with the AL to rent the basement all to myself for a ridiculously cheap price so that nobody else could be down there. He finally padlocked the door. I am the princess.

Fast forward. The neighbors have still been leaving the bottom door unlocked. Annoying, but not too frightening, so I called the AL and asked him to talk to them about it, which he said he'd do "if he remembered," meaning he almost certainly forgot as soon as he hung up the phone. I've privately fumed about it a little, but figuring it wasn't too big a deal, I just clicked the latch back to the lock position whenever I noticed it was unlocked, and went about my business.

Begin story. Last night at 11:45 p.m. as I was getting ready for bed, I heard someone start to pound on the bottom door. Since it wasn't accompanied by the boyfriend shouting to be let in, I knew it probably wasn't the neighbors, and they seldom have visitors. (I really do get along with them, by the way. These spurts of weird drama are few and far between, and most of the time I enjoy having them around. They're entertaining and generally good-natured.) The pounding went on for a few minutes while I waited tensely in the bathroom.

And then...I heard the bottom door open. And someone (two someones) came up the stairs. I slipped to the peephole to see -- yes -- the back of an unfamiliar man's head in my stairwell.

Disbelieving is an apt word for how I felt at that moment. This shady guy just walked right up the stairs to the neighbor's door. Just walked right. up. the stairs. No one has EVER done that in the two years I've lived there. They knocked on her door for a minute, then left. At that point, I was feeling that my space had been violated. I was feeling a little frightened. I waited till I heard the car pull out of the driveway, then I grabbed my Maglite, the really big one that could break someone's skull, and with rising ire and the question How did they get in? Did they break the door down? Or...? beating time with the blood in my head, I shut off the stair light (damn the neighbors for always leaving the stairwell lights on at night, are they retarded, don't they know that anyone outside can see anyone inside when the lights are on?), tiptoed down the stairs and examined the lock. Unlatched. [Insert. Profanities. Here.]

So then I was...furious is a good word. I sat down on the porch and pulled out my phone. I was angry with my neighbors for leaving the fricking door unlocked whenever they go anywhere. I was angry with the AL for being lazy and uncaring. I was angry with those strange creepy men for just walking up into my territory without a by-your-leave. Then -- isn't this stupid? -- I flipped open my phone and hesitated about calling the AL. I actually hesitated about waking him up at close to midnight. Then my brain kicked itself and said What? So I called, and the aftermath of terror gave my voice an extremely short edge as I informed him of what had happened, that the situation was unacceptable, requested him to please speak with the neighbors about leaving the door locked at. all. times, and that if it did happen again I would call the police.

Then I waited up until the neighbors came home and told them that the door had to stay locked whenever they left, because of the two strangers who had just walked up the stairwell. They took it pretty well; they usually do. And I'm a nice person who is generally pretty easy to get along with. So I don't anticipate problems with it in the future.

But sometimes I get so irate with my landlord that I think my head is going to explode.

Oh yes, and the headaches are back.

End story.

the office mascot

Three months ago I brought a grapefruit to work.

It's still there. It's shriveled and not very grapefruit-looking anymore, and in fact more closely resembles a pathetic orange, but it's hung in there. Boss-Lady, in her crusade to make me eat more, found it on the table in the break room, and put it next to the coffee maker a couple of weeks ago, with EAT ME!!! written on it in green marker.

So I turned it around and drew x'd out eyes and a Mr. Yuk mouth in black ink.

It was all downhill from there. The next time I went up to pour myself a cup of coffee, the thing had paperclip ears. I found a kitchen knife and stuck it in the top of the head. A hook nose appeared. I added a coffee filter skirt. She gave it pencil legs. I decked it out in key-tab earrings.

So there she stands in macabre glory in the breakroom, our office mascot, whom I've secretly named Griselda. The grapefruit was so dried-out it didn't run any juice at all when stabbed with all the various things we stuck into it. (Glad I didn't eat it.) I think she's kind of endearing.

Obviously Boss-Lady and I have been under various pressures that lead us to take strange morbid vengeance on innocent fruit. Our office mascot can't be a nice fluffy puppy or a duckling. And we certainly can't display it in the front office. We showed the Boss-Man, after hours one day, laughing our heads off, and he looked worried. I took advantage of the opportunity to summarize the historical premise of Beloved.

it's always funny

Last night while talking to my sister on the phone I watched a squirrel fall off a telephone wire.

She mentioned, and she was right, the similarity between this and the squirrel sequence from Disney's The Sword in the Stone. Except this squirrel wasn't being chased by anything. It wasn't even moving very fast. It was just sitting there, then it started to move slowly along the wire, and it just...lost its grip. It hung on for dear life by its front paws, its little back feet quivering, and then it fell. Into the tree branches directly below it, which yo-yo'd violently under its plump early summer weight while it scrambled for a hold and retrieved its normal squirrel heartrate and, I imagine, its normal squirrel dignity.

It reminded me of me trying to do a chin-up.

Why is someone falling always, always funny? Why is it even funnier when it's an animal? I always expect animals to be more graceful. They have those animal instincts, and those four paws, and that natural agility that we as humans are supposed to lack, and need all these tools and big cerebrums to compensate for. So when I watch Meg and Phillip's dog trip (with two more legs on the ground than I have), or Simon take a flying leap at the bed and ricochet off my leg, or a squirrel fall off a telephone wire, it's hilarious.

On Memorial Day Meg and Phillip and I saw a human act of amazing stupidity, however, which made the squirrel's internal balance, by contrast, look even and regulated. We headed up to Warren Dunes to watch the sun set, which of course involved climbing Tower Hill (entirely made of sand), which, however much eroded it's become since my friends' childhoods, is still a challenging climb (a good thirty-five degree incline toward the top). We then selected a smaller, isolated dune nearby from which to watch the sun and the water in privacy and peace, and were just settling in when, lo and behold, the evidently drunken driver of a white Jeep decided his automobile could make the climb up Tower Hill.

He made it about ten yards.

And got stuck.

And took about five minutes getting unstuck and back down the hill. Sand was flying in lovely graceful arcs from under his tires while his motor roared, in full view of everyone on the crown of the hill, and on the beach below.

As Phillip said, "It was worth the drive just for this."

As I said, "Do it again!"

But apparently he wasn't that drunk.

God bless America.

The Hint Half Guessed

I'm branching out a little bit.

As I'm finding, more and more, that thoughts and questions of God, Christ, the Bible, the church, Christians, Christianity, faith, and the way faith is lived out in the practical and the daily, as well as in the ephemeral and the mind, occupy space in my head, I thought I'd devote an entire blog to it.

As I say in my Welcome post there, I don't want to overwhelm anybody here, and there are times when I could post on four or five related or unrelated topics on the subject in one day. (Plus the part of me who loves your interaction, my faithful readers, is afraid of boring you, and seeing the "0" in the comments section makes me sad. Not that I'm an attention seeker or anything...) But nevertheless, a sanctified space (har har) to reflect upon these things, where you may comment or not as you will, may free everyone up a bit, and leave me to my thoughtful, random, funny, or whatever, personal anecdotes here.

Anyway, take a look-see whenever you like, I'm sure the posts will begin building up fast, though there's not much at the mo...and join in the conversations as you feel inclined! I've linked it on the sidebar, and you never know what you may find...HappyGirl, SadGirl, RantGirl, ThoughtfulGirl, AwedGirl, IrateGirl, JoyfulGirl...it could be surprising!

if the brakeman turns my way

Conor Oberst, under his group's name, Bright Eyes, outdid himself with his newest, Cassadaga.

The kid has made himself a name for being brilliant, bitter, depressed, and prolific, but nobody's heard much from him since 2005, with the dual releases of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (one of my favorites) and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.

Cassadaga, so far, blends the best of both albums in a flavor that's digitally bluegrassy. I enthusiastically love it.

Listening to Bright Eyes is an experience like stepping out into an electric storm -- you're not quite sure if there's a center, and neither is he. He uses rich religious imagery wistfully, mockingly, angrily, reverently, and beautifully. The songs themselves, the rhythms, the chord changes, the melodies, are charged with something indefinable. Some kind of longing, enraged joy. It's an experience.

I haven't gotten past track 4 yet. There's so much buried in each song. So I listen to one, put it on repeat, and listen to it for a week. Over and over and over. (I can do this because it's a half-hour commute each way to work, and no one's ever in the car with me. I wouldn't do this to a passenger. Well, except for maybe Meg or Leigh Ann.) Then I move on to the next.

Sometimes I pop out the album and put in something else for awhile -- Sufjan, or Hem. Something soul-uplifting. Bright Eyes is one of those out-of-the-depths artists who can really drag you under after too long, but whose naked stare at the thing itself, wanting to know so badly what the thing is, is amazing.

And the beautiful thing about Cassadaga is that, after all this time of searching and raging and screaming, the first few tracks are about healing and peace.

Just so incredibly cool.

bookends

Thank God for three-day weekends.

Things have been insane on the work front. Unmentionably, and not because of my Unmentionable Screw-Up of last week. No, the office assistant has been, for months, causing undue amounts of stress with constant and quite important other mistakes, which one of the other staff members and I have been pulling our hair out to correct. Fortunately, said office assistant resigned, which has evened things out a little bit -- no new mistakes to deal with -- but I've taken over a number of her tasks, on top of the ones I'm already doing, and it's been, quite simply, wearing me out. I haven't been as sharp, as on top of things, as I usually am, more prone to slips of memory, and a little less energetic.

Argh.

The Boss-Man and his wife are both out on vacation this week, so I'm the boss in their absence, and in charge of the training of the new person we've hired. A little heady, at times, I'm sure, but not exactly a Relaxing, Cat's Away kind of week, where I get to take off my shoes and in a leisurely fashion tidy the office up a bit. So I need this Memorial Day like a fish needs water.

Yesterday I took a three-hour nap...then went to bed at nine, and didn't get up until eight this morning. I'm feeling close to human again, hooray of hoorays, and looking forward to a long shower and some time to clean the apartment. It's beautifully sunny out after a whole weekend of rain, which we certainly needed, but I'm planning on an afternoon outside, and it's much more fun to do that when it's 80 degrees and bright.

I'm still picking away at the guitar. I've named her Saturnina...don't know why, and I'm sure my parents' friends who indefinitely loaned me the guitar will get a hair-turn over that one. But it seems to fit. The lovely instrument stays beautifully in tune. I've taught myself how to play scales. Strumming is a joke still (my rhythm was always a fluid, organic thing; I was much more suited to Debussy than Bach on the piano), but I'm hoping to pick up lessons for that. Right now I'm learning the chords.

The two things I miss most in teaching myself tiny bits of guitar are my piano and all the theory books I hated so much when I was nine. My piano teacher, an old troll of a woman who used to make me cry at lessons (Laura and I would take turns as to who went first from week to week, and the weeks I went first and came out of the piano room with tears on my cheeks, Laura would take one look at me, and her eyes would narrow, and she would march in and deliberately play such an awful lesson that our teacher would come out with tears on her cheeks -- I love my sister), always had me filling in chords and transposing on music sheets and workbooks, and I always wanted to throw them in the trash, and now I'm glad she made me do it, and wish I had them right next to me, because guitar is all theory. I love picking out songs by ear, and it was so simple on the keyboard; I don't get it nearly as well on the guitar, because the execution of the theory is different, and so I have to do it all in my head.

Fortunately Meg and Phillip have an electric keyboard that I just found out about, so when I was at their house on Friday I picked out the chords to a newer rendition of a hymn I love ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"), and put it in the key of C -- so easy to work with -- and this morning I fiddled with it on the guitar, and it worked! It's far from perfect, because my fingers haven't learned the chords, so it's slow and fumbling, but the chords are right.

I love music. Writing is the world I live in, but it's a discipline, a craft, it's the work I do, the quest, the compulsion, the fire in my bones, the burden on my back, the blood in my veins, the place where the joy and the despair and the frustration, the succeeding and the failing and the trying are fused into one inseparable thing. Music is the kite, the wing, the wind, the thing that seizes me and lifts me away. When I step into a song, into the melody, the harmonies, the composition, there's no struggle, little effort, and no demand; there's just the listening, the hearing of the strains of harmony, and the joining; when I sing, I shed myself, I expand, I lose, for a few minutes, the burden, the consciousness of me; I go somewhere else, pierced by a joy beyond joy; I become fully alive: free. Writing is the journey (and I live and believe in the journey); music is home.

possibilities

While poking around in Pandora's books with Adam last week, I found a piece of Christian junk mail.

I seized on it like a treasure hunter in king Tut's tomb. I hate Christian junk mail. The envelope was already open -- scribbled on, in fact -- which I guess was kind of like discovering, as the openers of Tut's tomb did, that it had already been visited by grave robbers, but still, I unfolded the insanely long cover letter with relish to read, across the top, NATIONAL REPENTENCE DAY: SEPTEMBER 26, 1997.

This piece of mail is ten years old.

I was astonished at the poor taste. Here I've been thinking that the Christian approach has gotten worse over time, not better, but in reality it's not as bad as it once was. I was so offended by the big flier with an old lady's surprised face on it that said SHOCK YOUR MAMA: GO TO CHURCH THIS EASTER which I found in my mailbox this year that I set it on fire, right after the Kingdom Hall pamphlet illustrated by dragons and the whore of Babylon that I found fluttering in my door...and that church (with the shock-your-mama flier) had the excuse of my having once given them my address.

But this ten-year-old piece of exhibitionism appeared to have no preamble. Just a long diatribe about repentance to a pair of strangers. Enclosed was a piece of sackcloth, with a self-addressed, postage-prepaid envelope inviting the addressees to return the sackcloth if they wanted to participate in National Repentance Day.

The truly glorious thing is that this will be the tenth anniversary of this bogus holiday, which I can't find is regularly recognized or practised.

I'm trying to come with ideas for how to use it. I have to do SOMEthing with this little piece of sackcloth -- it's too perfect.

But what? I'm toying with the idea of mailing it in with some kind of note. Nothing horrible, mean, cruel, or nasty; just something funny.

Hm, maybe that Comcast flier -- which I also passionately hate -- about discovering the Buddhist secrets of the universe by getting cable.

more reasons to celebrate

Less hair came out in the shower this morning. Hooray!

the silent alarm

For over a year now, I've barely needed the electronic alarm clock that I nonetheless faithfully set every night. I have a failproof backup that no weather or blackout could fool: my cat. Or rather, his stomach.

He knows his breakfast time. So, anywhere from six o'clock to seven in the morning, I wake to the incredible heaviness of cat paws treading all over my back. (When he hits the right sore spots, it's like a very nice massage.) He lays his head on my shoulder and purrs in my ear. When I grunt and roll onto my back, he prances across my chest and flops onto me and rolls around with happiness. He shoves his head into my face -- his equivalent of a good-morning-I-love-you-I'm-so-happy-you're-awake-please-feed-me kiss. He mrrrows.

It's all very sweet. But lately it hasn't been as effective. Kind of like the radio alarm gets to be ignorable.

So he's invented the beeper setting: chasing his tail. On me. All over me. At six o'clock in the morning.

This is hilarious, but much less endearing. So I've invented the snooze button: a good swift scissor-kick under the covers, which effectively sweeps him off the bed. And five minutes later he's at it again. I can never decide if I'm furious or deeply amused.

I can see it in the history books: And the Breakfast Wars carried on well into the afternoons on Saturdays...