Pinelands Ponderings

My Clothespins! My Clothespins! NOOOOOOO!

2009-04-29T06:00:00.013-05:00

NOTE #1: This was written much earlier, in the springtime. I forgot it was writ. But it looks like there's some amusing laundry humor here, so...uh...might as well...uh... .
(from 4/29/09)

NOTE #2: I can't fix the consarned picture! Will one of my lovely daughters take pity on me and put a margin around the clothespin? No? Maybe later? When?

*It's raining out there for the first time in several days. We've had an unusual early heatwave in Sub-Philly, broken today by cooler temps and rain.

I've been frantically hanging out laundry for the past few days; near-90°F temps + brisk winds = FFTP (the frantic flapping of the textiles phenomenon) and dry towels in 45 minutes. We're so lucky to live in a neighborhood where the women can hang wet wash out on clotheslines and spit tobacco juice into empty coffee cans.

On a side note, wet weather can make exposed clothespins turn gray with rusty hinges after awhile, so it would be better to bring them in each day rather than leave them out on the line. It gives the neighbor ladies less to discuss if the actual clothing is brought in from the line each day, along with the pins.

Clothespin Blues
(Blind Dry R. Sheetz, c. 1932)
Mah pins is gray,
Dey comes from France,
Mah pins leves rust spots
On da ass o'Mah pants!

Dis load been warshed,
Dis load bin hanged,
Dis load bin breaking Mah back,
Ah'l be gol-danged!

Oh. Oh, dear. *wipes away tear* Those old blues standards always make me weepy!

There are more sophisticated neighborhoods all around us--McMansions on culs-de-sac, big-screen televisions, lawn service, pool service, identical mailbox styles, identical yuppie soccer moms driving identical SUVs, no fences, no clotheslines, no swingsets for the yuplets. Things are a bit looser and nonconforming here in Threadbare Terrace. The rules of this once-pristine development have sort of...um...relaxed in the three or so decades since construction began.

A good percentage of our neighbors are original buyers within our development. Over the years since they settled in, they've tended their properties, been active in the community, grown their gardens, voted in municipal elections, supported local schools, raised their families and stayed in one place until retirement.

With many neighbors now in their senior years, children grown and flown, attending to the homesteads has become somewhat burdensome. Heavy maintenance has been forsaken, and the residences have taken on a patina of lassitude. Broken windows now take longer to be repaired, darkened Christmas lights still remain stapled to windows and roof edges, sidewalks have heaved up in oddly angular ruin, lawns are tended haphazardly. One of our more weary neighbors has taken to jamming plastic flowers up and down her walkway every spring, to the great amusment of the other residents. Matter of fact, a few of her plastic geraniums, faded but stalwart, were seen poking up out of the snow last January. Ooops!

Most neighbors have flowers in their yards that come up every spring--daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinths--reminders of better years, before our knees became too arthritic to spend time kneeling down with a spade and a bag of bulbs.

This fall, I'm going to invest in the future and stick bulbs all over the estate. If my kids keep the property after Mr. Pseudonym and I are sitting up on clouds and laughing at them, they'll be surprised each spring by the brilliant flowers springing up, and they'll stop to remember the day dear old Momma wouldn't stop buying bulbs and had to be carted off to Dazed Valley Recovery Center for a much needed rest.

*Clothespin by Claes Oldenburg + Philadelphia City Hall

Look What the Cat Dragged In!

2009-02-14T20:16:00.031-05:00

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Sweet Stuffs!!! Yes, I know! Well, it's only been a year or so! A lot of things can happen in a year, and some of these happenings may prohibit one from posting to her blog on a regular basis, right? There could be flood, fire, famine, sudden relocation, sudden dislocation, or one might get hit in the temporal artery by a golf ball and spend a year staggering around and repeating "I'm OK. I'm just a hit head ball ouch."

Well, I thank the ever-vigilant guarding spirits none of these unfortunate scenarios actually happened to me. No, I just decided it was time to take a little shmita, a little pause for intense contemplation in the crafting of our lifetime plans as Mr. Pseudonym and I enter our senior years.

I made a New Year's resolution at the beginning of 2008 to take an active interest in our financial, social, vocational and spiritual lives throughout the unfolding year. My intentions were honorable, but my self-discipline was notoriously absent. Other than beginning to check our bank balance once a week (or maybe once every two weeks) (Ah, HELL! once every fortnight--maybe), I found myself unable to contemplate the true weight of our coinage. So much for the finances. *sigh*

On the social front, Mr. Pseudonym and I have always been cave bears, having one or two friends and hardly ever visiting with them. I was more social when I was working and when the kids were little and I was active in the school functions. Now, though, we pretty much stick to ourselves, growling and shooting hostile glances at each other whenever the mood strikes us.*sigh*

Vocationally, Mr. Pseudonym is highly educated and has traditionally been the breadwinner in the family. Mr. P. loves his work, which must be the most rewarding and inspiring state of mind. I take care of the house and Mr. P., do the cooking and errands and perform those functions crucial to our comfort and well-being around here. I'll tellya what, it's a busy and sometimes nerve-wracking job. I don't remember signing up for this gig, but there it is. We don't even want to GO into what must be done to sanitize the cave. Crudely speaking, there are eight anuses in this house and only one person with rubber gloves and a scrub brush. I mean, in one end, out the other, y'know? (Hmmmmm...maybe if I stopped cooking and buying pet food?)

Finally, I've always been the only one in this house with any spiritual leanings at all. To my family's resounding chorus of "BULLSHIT," I've always maintained we need to keep our eyes, ears and hearts open to what we may not be able to understand right now. I just cannot believe there are no other states of being than our earthly cycles of walking around blinking, consuming and excreting, unaware and uncaring, to the day we ourselves are consumed and excreted.

That probably didn't make any sense at all. I'll just go clean something.

Tales from the Caves

2007-11-03T13:25:00.000-05:00

It's been quite a while since I've visited with my five constant friends here. Time and task has plodded on resolutely: spring, summer, planting my lil patch of manure clods, yard patrol and litterbox control, a new paradigm for trashbag utilization, overheating, unbearable silence, boredom, watching the Mr. P's undershirts flapping around out on the clothesline, snack cakes and Court TV.

Spring and early summer were quite enjoyable--the windows flung open, my little seedlings stretching out of their peat pots toward the light, the smell of the earth, the sun warming my blue-tinted, terminally-Caucasian skin. But then the reality of summer in southern NJ set in: saunacious humidity hanging on the motionless, dung-scented air; wall air conditioners buzzing like shaken beehives inside, cicadas screeching like nails on a blackboard outside; postponed day trips; limp hair; staggering birds; blind-darkened rooms; and blastfurnace car interiors making it impossible to bring home a quart of ice cream (lack of a/c in the A/ccord).

I looked up one day and realized my garden had been neglected. The plum tomatoes had blossom-end rot, the cucumbers had screamed and died, the zinnias and white marigolds were growing wild and the weeds were having their way with the more virtuous plants everywhere. I'd been low-level depressed again for several weeks, hiding in the darkness of my cave, eating Devil Dogs and watching Judge Joe Brown re-runs on the tube. The highlight of the gardening season--finding those giant green worms on my tomato plants (the ones with the wasp eggs on their backs)--had come and gone without my notice.

Hi! Like my barrister's wig?
I got it on eBay!

I'd turned into a mindless blob (ref film The 5th Elem*nt, right after Evil-Bastard-Zorg-choking-on-a-cherry scene, priest has been kicked out of the room, Zorg stands alone, holding Picasso, his disgusting, elephantine, fat-rolled, hairless pet over his left shoulder, its idiotic face peeking around Zorg's neck as it waves its trunk aimlessly. The pet is about the size of a two- or three-year-old child, weighing about 60 pounds, flabby, repulsive, undoubtedly malodorous, vile, useless, patently offensive--in short, the only pet for Zorg).

The main problem with turning into a mindless blob is the fear of dying while watching t.v. and eating Devil Dogs. The police would be summoned by concerned neighbors who saw a blood-smeared cat running out of the house. The cat stopped in their driveway, sat down and began grooming itself to clean up the red, sticky fluid covering its face. Upon entering the house, the police find my bloated corpus lying on the floor, being feasted upon by Peanut and Buju. A TVGuide is in my left hand, a snack cake in my right hand. The bottle of Diet Pepsi on the coffee table is still cold, which, in combination with the cats' red masks, could only mean one thing: the severe bloating of the body is not due to death having occurred several days ago. The severe bloating is due entirely to unrestrained consumption of Devil Dogs.

The police take pictures and draw a chalk line around the body. They have to use three sticks of chalk and run the line up onto a wall and down again to outline the entire glutton. "God Almighty, Harry! Did you see the trash cans outside? There musta been two dozen empty Devil Dog boxes! Maybe she was tryin' ta eat the picture off that box under the couch and choked on the cardboard!"

Late summer wasn't a total washout, however. My dear friend and neighbor showed me how to throw several trash bags down at the bottom of the receptacle so one need not continually run back and forth to the box of trash bags. This technique is a blessed time saver around here, I'll tellya! I'm finally adjusting to the silence of flown children. Finally. It's taken a long time, and there's still the question of what to do with the next 15/20 years, but that's a ponderage best undertaken once the anti-D-press-ants are better managed.

And then there's the Devil Dog issue to be confronted. God, have mercy!

Hiding...

2007-08-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

...waiting for summer to end, messing around on eBay, visiting the dollar stores, waiting for my tomatoes to turn red. *sigh*

The LeKS*pro seems to be helping with the depression--the constant sad thoughts and weepiness have stopped, and I'm becoming interested in projects around the house again (poor Mr. Pseudonym!). But the end of summer usually finds me fatigued and anxious each year, waiting impatiently for autumn. My thoughts often stray to putting a brown paper bag on my head, knocking on my neighbors' doors and yelling, "TRICK OR TREAT!" *sigh*

The latest heat wave snapped for a couple of days, but we're due to shoot back up into Habanero Hell shortly. Little J.Q. is getting tired of staring at the back yard but not being allowed to play outside because of the heat.

*!whine!*---*!whine!*---*!whine!* It's too hot! I'm sweating! My plants are wilted! It's 95°F! In the SHADE! My Waterworld DVD is missing! It's too hot to bring ice cream home from the store! Everyone knows how to water ski but me! The dog keeps dropping her frisbee on my feet! We need RAIN! *!whine!*---*!whine!*---*!whine!*

Ah. That's better.

Gardenage, Pt. II

2007-06-29T13:19:00.000-05:00

It's been exactly three weeks since my previous garden report, so we're due for an update.

My cucumber seedlings have been sitting on their mud hills like idiots, unwilling to grow, unwilling to send out tendrils and grasp their tomato-cage supports. It's taken all this time for them to grow a couple of permanent leaves on each seedling. The cucumbers' attitude reminds me of trying to get a teenaged child to clean his/her room.

The tomato plants, on the other hand, are big and bushy, with strong stalks and lush green healthy leaves. They keep making flowers, which get pinched off immediately; the plants need to grow about another foot before making fruit. There are two Roma plants and one cherry. I've never had much luck with the big, round tomatoes. Anyway, Daisy the Terrier used to go crazy every time we picked the round ones. She always thought they were red tennis balls, and she frantically demanded they be thrown across the yard for her to catch in her mouth.

I replanted some bush bean seeds, and this time they all came up. Some had to be discarded during thinning, but I tried transplanting some of them to various spots in the garden, and they seem to be taking root. There's always the horrifying prospect of a proximal bush bean plant mating with a tomato plant when no one is looking, yielding young beanmatoes (or togreenbeans). We would probably opt for a quick trip to the Home for Wayward Bush Beans in that event.

We have enough basil, thyme, dill and parsley to supply the neighborhood. There's something so wonderful about going out to the garden to get fresh herbs for cooking. We can pick the exact amount we need and not worry about wasting big wads of expensive, unused supermarket herbs.

Fresh herbs or not, the weather's been so hot and sticky that no one (me, in particular) has wanted to cook or eat much around here. We've been sluggish, hiding in the air conditioning and unable to summon up much enthusiasm for any outdoor activity. The heatwave is due to break tonight, just in time for Mr. Pseudonym's long-awaited vacation. He's had his nose to the grindstone for far too long, so I'll try to arrange some nice little day trips for this coming week.

There's a place in Pennsylvania I've always wanted to visit: Longwood Gardens is a horticultural masterpiece--1,050 acres of indoor and outdoor gardens, conservatories, fountains, woodlands and meadows. It was a favorite day trip for my beloved late aunts, Shirley and Rose. Perhaps their spirits still stop in at Longwood to pick up fallen seeds from the ground and wrap them in Kleenex for planting at home.

My mother had a green thumb and at one time actually sold live plants she grew herself. She made window boxes and dish gardens, selling them at our local farmers' market back when my brothers and I were quite young. She moved on to more lucrative businesses over the years, but she always enjoyed her many plants at home.

My aunts, on the other hand, weren't really into growing green things. I can't recall ever seeing a houseplant in Shirley's house, although she did grow some flowering plants in a tiny outdoor garden when she lived on 26th Street in Philadelphia. When they were down visiting, Rose would sometimes snap off a stem from one of my mother's bushy houseplants and take it home for potting.

In her apartment, Rose had several glass jars in the kitchen windows containing masses of tangled, overgrown plant stems she had put in water to root. She never rotated these jars, nor did she rotate the pots she had in her bedroom windows. The plants were tall and spindly from seeking light, all of the leaves faced in the same direction and there was a constant showering of dead brown leaves on the window sills. Rose's little indoor displays were the most depressing use of houseplants I had ever seen. These haggard stems looked like prisoners hanging on to the metal bars of their cells--incarcerated, defeated, no hope, no future.

I'm so glad I've inherited my mother's green thumb, as has my middle daughter Pixie. Pixie loves all living things, and she always has a garden in the back court of her apartment building. Pixie is also the daughter who looks the most like me and like her late Grandma. It's those Romanian genes, I tellya!

What WAS I Thinking?

2007-06-24T23:15:00.000-05:00

***Post Edited on Account of Depression***

Junket says I should not leave this post up as originally written. I think she's right, so this is the edited version, with most of the depressive parts excised. You kind folk don't need to hear that crap!

Priscilla
6-25-07

In a rare attempt at self-improvement, I flipped Amazon.com my credit card number so they would send me Learn Spanish Even If You've Never Learned Spanish Before, How To Ask Where The Commode Is In Spanish & Seven Other Languages and 1001 Absolute Must-Have Spanish Phrases You Will Need If You Wish To Escape Being Eaten By Natives In The Jungles Of Venezuela.

After a few false starts, I was ripping along admirably--learned my numbers in Spanish from cero to veinte, and the phrases "buenos dias," "buenos tardes" and "buenos noches." Junket had learned quite a bit of the language in high school, so she was helping me with pronunciation and beginning to conjugate verbs. We reached a stuck point, and Junket had to look something up online. She was kind enough to print out several sheets of Spanish grammar for me, the reading of which summoned back some malevolent ghosts from 40-odd years ago: I had never bothered to learn English grammar, so any attempt to learn another language would be...uh...somewhat compromised.

I couldn't locate Junket's mean-ass, pejorative, ¡Idiota Estúpidio! Online Guide to Spanish Grammar, so I'm printing out a neato English/Spanish grammar glossary I found on About.com. About.com has a section on everything, and I mean everything. Need to find silver buttons with ceramic photo inserts of Pierre Charles LeSueur? Check out 'Bout.com! Need to sleep in a tree for a couple of nights? Visit 'Bout! Eye about to pop out? 'BOUT!!!

Which just goes to show, for every obscure, esoteric, seemingly-unanswerable question that can be asked, there's someone on Earth who knows the answer! Where did all these people with all of this enigmatic knowledge come from? The contributors to About.com appear to be ordinary people, many without a higher education, who are contributing just for the fun of sharing their wisdom with others. When my brothers and I were growing up, our parents were fond of whipping out little bits of their own enlightenment from time to time, just to scare the hell out of us. We didn't understand the weight of knowledge and experience that can be gathered over a lifetime.

Going without schooling is a terribly depressing mistake that can haunt a person forever, so I would not recommend doing this to oneself. But maybe those of us who have never set foot inside any hallowed halls of learning have manged some edification after all, and maybe we can share some of what we know with others. Someone out there needs to know how to transfer baby ladybugs from trees to aphid-infested hydrangeas (a Priscilla specialty)! As for Spanish, well, all I can say is: ay dios mio!

Garden (and other wildlife) Update #1

2007-06-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

Well, the garden is coming along a little slower than expected. Out of a skizillion bush bean seeds poked into an L-shaped row, only three brave little seedlings are pushing their way up. Where are the others? Just lazy, sleepy seeds or are they afraid of something out there?

The cucumber hills were rebuilt and more seeds poked in. They look something like lineman Roy Neary's first attempt to sculpt Devil's Tower out of shaving cream or mashed potatoes in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." That's OK...they can be ugly, as long as the seeds sprout and commence climbing.

The tomato plants are growing nicely, with strong stems and happy-looking leaves, the herbs are taking off like shoplifters and the zinnia and white marigold seedlings are standing proud at the edge of the garden. My dill seeds failed to sprout, but I found a couple of straggly pots of dill at the hardware store and brought them home to live a life of glory, nourished by the finest crap clods on the east coast.

A traumatic memory from the past paid a visit today. Daughter Junket and I, both stinging insect phobic, were terrorized last summer by not one but TWO giant wasp thingies who got into the house at sunset or a little past. When Junket and I were first menaced by The Wasp (or something) From Hell, the instinct to protect my offspring from giant stinging insects was the only thing that kept me from taking off in a fit of hysterics and running a three-minute mile. I mean, this thing was BIG and scary and creepy and LOUD. With Junket cheering me on from behind, I emptied about half a can of Raid on the looping intruder before it hit the wall with a final crunch. A couple of weeks later, the second incident once again found Junket and I clinging to each other and whimpering piteously while waving the can of Raid around for an hour or so.

So Mr. Pseudonym and I were talking tonight when his eyes drifted toward the patio door. I asked him what he was looking at, and he told me a very big insect had just flown by. I turned around, and there it was, The 2007 Edition Wasp (or something) From Hell. Junket came home from work at around 9:00pm and concurred with Mr. P's guess that we had been visited by a "Sphecius speciosus," or Eastern Cicada Killer wasp.

Reading up about this gentle giant did little to assuage my fears. I mean, this thing is HUGE (if I haven't already mentioned this). The males, one-half the size of the females, have no stinger at all and (much like human males) are only interested in finding females for mating purposes. The females have stingers, but they are not really aggressive toward humans; they just want to sip at some nectar or sap, belch and then go hunting for cicadas. The female Cicada Killer stings the cicada to paralyze it, then grabs it up with her feet and flies back to her underground burrow. The cicada is twice her size, but she's just nuts or something, yelling, "I GOT ONE! I GOT ONE!" while careening back to her burrow in a descending zigzag pattern. Once back underground, she plunks the cicada in a cell, lays an egg on it and seals up the cell. Two days later, the egg hatches out in larval form and eats the cicada! I mean, like, ICK!

I hope doing my homework will help me deal with Cicada Killers, though I doubt this will be the case. So, between the giant wasps flying around and giant spiders hanging out of the trees, Mr. Pseudonym will probably have me clinging to his arm and whining, "Kill it! Kill it! KILL IT!" all summer long. Our Raid bill is going to be steep!

Poor Lil' Unwanted Priscilla

2007-06-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Three days after telling ShinyStat to stop sending me weekly traffic reports, I received an e-mail from them informing me my ShinyStat FREE account has been terminated for lack of activity.

Now, a kinder interpretation of this notice would be that I have failed to click on the links in my weekly e-mail from ShinyStat to view my site activity. A more realistic interpretation, however, would be to admit that no one, not even my daughters, are visiting Pinelands Ponderings on anything like a regular basis.

I had noticed my traffic dwindling down over time from a number of early visitors linking through from my daughters' ( Julia, Pixie and Junket ) blogs. This was understandable, since my daughters' sites were raw, insanely funny personal chronicles that, over time, grew more and more addictive to an ever-expanding audience. There was bound to be some gradually-diminishing linkover from their readership.

After all, there just isn't the soap-opera adventure and intensity in my life that a 20-something beautiful young lady would have. I did, however, observe studiously on several areas of widespread interest over the past couple of years. Who could possibly forget my erudite observations on Christmas, Parenting, Grandparenting, Cicadas, 9-11, Kids' Birthday Parties, Reading to Toddlers, Pet Rats, Expired Pet Rats and Insomnia? Uh...apparently, a lot of people forgot!

But that's OK. Looking back on these posts, I'm proud of setting down my viewpoints on these diverse subjects. I'll never be the emotion-wringing writer my firstborn is and will never have the acidic, hilarious take on the world of my secondborn. I'll never summon up the sweet retrospective of my thirdborn. But I'm not my children--I'm me. I'm not comfortable using...uh...unfortunate language or sexual commentary here. Instead, this blog will always contain an inordinate amount of emotion over my grandson, an account of my continuous struggle with health issues, admiration for my pets and plants and a scatological study of the connection bodily waste (from one species or another) has to my daily schedule.

In truth, there is no other Priscilla from the Pines. I'm a weirdly funny, 59-year-old lady who likes techno music and writing surreal, spiritual or science-fiction stories. I'm empathic, caring and unconditionally supportive to those around me, full of wonder at life and love and eternally grateful to have my friends and family beside me each day. I'll keep writing, whether or not there are visitors. ShinyStat is not a useful tool here, and their logo will come down. But I'll keep writing for as long as I'm aware and in love.

Gotta run--Sprinkles the Rat is ringing her bell. Time for milk and cookies.

PLANTZ!

2007-05-29T11:38:00.001-05:00

The recent (or not-so-recent) (or extended) (or something) postlessness on this blog has been noticed by a friendly/familly following. This neglect is due entirely to the circa-Mother's Day "past danger of hard frost" season on the East Coast of the USA. Yeee-HAAAAAAAA! PLANTZ!

My dusty little indoor-started seedlings had been spending increasing amounts of time out on the picnic bench each day, "hardening" to the weather for a couple of weeks before the official planting season began. The white mum and zinnia seedlings stood straight and tall, questing toward the sun. A couple quested toward the earth below (damp off) and had to be plucked out and thrown over my shoulder. But I got enough mum babies to give some away to the neighbors and enough zinnias to stand guard around the crops. The herb seedlings didn't fare as well, but they never do. Some basil survived, but the parsley and dill did poorly.

Mr. Pseudonym spent a whole weekend day digging my little garden. I followed behind him, shaking dirt out of the grass clods and flinging them over my shoulder. (There's just something proudly decisive about flinging flora over the shoulder. So we get a little dirt in our hair! So what!?!) We did a not-so-quick dried manure run, with Mr. P getting outraged at Agway for asking $6.50 per bag of garden crap. I feared he would locate a small horse farm, hand over his shovel and set me to mucking out the stables, but we finally came upon some reasonably-priced manure at Lowe's.

Mr. P thoroughly dug the manure into the soil, but it dried out and left large, rock-hard clods instead of mixing into soft, nicely-enriched topsoil. (Sort of reminded me of my attempts at making pie crust.) The clods were so hard that I couldn't explode them with my rake, so I'll be squeezing dried dung with my garden gloves every time I work out there for the rest of the summer. Oh, well, I'm used to changing babies and scooping out the cat box; what's a little more poop to a dedicated pro?

I fought shit rocks and over-watered mudslide soil to mound up a couple of awkward cucumber hills. Short tomato cages and six rapidly-poked cucumber seeds per hill sealed the pact. That night, however, we got a violent thunderstorm and torrential rainfall. The little hills now look like ice cream cones dropped on the sidewalk, and I fear my entire crop was washed away in the deluge. Alas, I had no insurance.

So, there are now two Roma tomato plants, one cherry tomato plant, basil and zinnia seedlings, thyme and parsley transplants, dill seeds and bush bean seeds in my little square patch of the Garden State. Oh, and a canna plant Junket had given me that's supposed to grow five feet tall and attract hummingbirds. We shall see what we shall see. Amateur gardener updates imminent!

Rabbits and Rubber Gloves

2007-04-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

Easter is such a nice holiday in so many ways. For the religious, of course, the story of Christ's resurrection is paramount. And even for the heathens, this is the season of the Earth's reawakening from her long winter rest. (Well, our part of the Earth has been resting; other parts of the Earth have been lounging poolside, sipping tropical drinks with little paper parasols in them and gossiping with other planets about Pluto being a little, well, sensitive, if you know what Earth means. Confusing? Yes.)

Warm weather and fresh air, rabbits, lambs, chicks, egg dyeing, brightly-colored baskets, plastic grass, special foods, fancy clothing, passing on the bunny myth to the little ones--all of these things mark our emergence into a new season of life once again.

Women feel the cycles of the Earth strongly--as opposed to men, who feel only the bumpy buttons of their remote control devices. As the days get longer and warmer, women everywhere get the urge to clean house (undoubtedly a vestige of our cavewoman days--remove the old animal bones and urine-soaked grass from the cave, pick off and eat the cavebabies' fleas, hang the family's reeking, animal-skin wardrobe out in the sunshine because, y'know, RETCH!).

These days, this powerful instinct in women is often performed as a religious or cultural observance. Before the Passover celebration each year, Jewish women clean their homes top to bottom, gathering and destroying any grain of "chametz" (leavened bread) found in the house. Cleaning rituals in other faiths and cultures also survive from antiquity (although many are linked to celebration of the new year or to various other holidays throughout the calendar year).

While spring cleaning is not technically practiced at Casa Pseudonym, Nature's pull on Priscilla was evidenced recently when she impulsively grabbed up a broom and knocked down the webs of several former house guests. These webs were quite ancient and coated with greasy brown dust, so the house spiders had probably packed up and left for more sanitary accomodations long before Priscilla's uncommon fit of cleanliness. There was also a mass slaughter of E. coli, salmonella and several viral colonies in the kitchen and bathroom when Priscilla found an old bottle of Kill, Kill, KILL! spray bleach under the bathroom sink and went berserk.

Before collapsing from exhaustion, Priscilla nobly managed to sweep up most of the orchard grass bedding that had fallen from Sprinkles' cage before a scheduled visit from the cable company. It's bad enough the cable guy had to perform his duties in the Pseudonym's home office under the close scrutiny of a small rat in a big wire cage. Service people have been known to scream and run out of the house when unexpectedly coming face-to-face with pet rats.

This is really absurd, but not everyone recognizes how really sweet and cuddly pet rats can be. In point of fact, rats are soft, warm and completely docile. Reptiles are cold, scaly and often mean spirited. Reptiles will very often try to bite you, slap the nose off your face with their tails or wrap themselves around your throat and suffocate you. Yes, yes...they're God's creatures, too. But have you ever seen one eat? GAG!

Anyway, About.com offers a Complete Spring Cleaning Checklist, which may help some of us with this annual endeavor. Priscilla has no need of such a checklist: objects at Casa Pseudonym are either reasonably clean or coated with slimey brown goo, making the tasks at hand clearly evident. Priscilla thinks the checklist is for women who don't remember when they cleaned this or that, since everything looks fairly clean from actually having been cleaned within the past few months because these women clean and clean and clean and clean and clean, constantly, every morning, evening and weekend, so that they never have to scream in horror and start chucking things into closets and kicking things under the sofa whenever unexpected company pulls up in the driveway. They also make their beds every single day of their lives. Even when they have the flu and get out of bed for a few minutes, the bed gets made before they run off to hurl in the commode.

Best wishes to everyone for a pine- (or lemon-) scented cave this month!

Counterfeit Carnations

2007-03-30T20:29:00.000-05:00

Went with friend Kathy to her father's grave today. She goes there three times a year--his birthday, Christmas and Easter. She delivers some silk flowers and talks with her Dad for awhile, feeling better afterward for having gone.

I stopped going to the cemetary a long time ago. There are just too many people who have gone on--parents, in-laws, aunts, uncles--just too many. I get no feeling of peace at the gravesites, just a feeling of deep, isolated loneliness. Maybe someday it will be different.

My mother, gone 12 years this coming August, just loved lining up her ducks. After we lost my father in 1991, Mom had a beautiful double headstone put on his grave. She had her name and year of birth engraved on the stone in anticipation of sliding in next to Dad some day.

I hadn't taken Dad's death well, and I hated it when Mom would periodically bring up the matter of having her half of the headstone engraved after her death. I don't know whether she was obsessive about these things or just liked torturing me, but I used to cringe when she would bring up that headstone. I eventually stopped nodding and agreeing to call Mr. Granite at Thrifty Tombstone when she died.

"Look, Mom, I'm juggling too much responsibility while hauling three kids around behind me all the time. I can't promise to call Mr. Granite, but I do have a black, extra-large felt-tip marker at home. I could just swing by the cemetary when you die and write 'DEAD' in big, black letters across your half of the headstone. That way, anyone who visited would know!"

Mom would always laugh while feigning annoyance. From the time my brothers and I were very small, we knew we could always get around Mom's persistent questioning by making her laugh. Dad was a very humorous person naturally, and we three kids learned to use humor to get what we wanted or to get out of trouble. We had some very hard times in our family, but we also had a lot of laughter on a regular basis.

Maybe I'll go to the cemetary with some silk Easter flowers this year. Mom loved flowers.

Oooops...

2007-03-26T01:12:00.000-05:00

Experiencing technical difficulty here...meaning #1 Daughter is up to her butt in work and does not have the time to fix this right now. And Priscilla hereby admits she can't brush cake crumbs out of the keyboard, let alone diagnose and correct template problems on a blog site. The fonts are frightful, hyperlinks are hysterical, captions are calamitous: Girls, we VITIATED!

Priscilla was going to take the whole shebang down but, on second thought, who the hell cares? It's not as if anyone will be reviewing Pinelands Ponderings for the New York Times or anything. So, we will keep the new posts as simple as possible and wait until Daughter has some time to help.

For now, there will be no amusing photographs of flying cranberries (along with hilarious caption), reliable font size, even line spacing and fascinating sidebar info. All three of Priscilla's regular visitors will just have to brave the storm. Many apologies--we know how important those cranberries were.

Postscript: By some miracle or other, Priscilla discovered the Quickie Template control on this thing! We now have options for colors, fonts, cranberries and squirrel pix. OK...it's true the blogsite now looks like Priscilla's returning from vacation to Jamaica with a satchel full of gifts for her family in New Jersey, but these things take time to refine, y'know? Just give up a chance, OK?

A Day on the Town

2007-03-23T17:24:00.000-05:00

Kathy (my dear friend and neighbor) and I had previously scheduled a Slipcover Hunt for today, which was a good thing 'cause, y'know, Kathy's cushions have been getting as bedraggled as my pitiful emotional state of recent weeks. It was a good day to get out of the house and go count some threads.

Junket and I had been scratching at each other this morning, so I arrived at Kathy's in a less-than-ideal mood. But it was a warm spring day, we had at least three leads on SureFit retailers and had made grandiose plans for lunch out. We slid into Kathy's black and tan Toyota Coonhound and set off in pursuit.

Speaking of Surefits, we stopped at the drugstore first so that Kathy could buy a big bag of pull-up diapers for her mother. Nothing strikes terror into Kathy's heart quite so much as running low on Mom's supplies. Alzheimer's is such a charming disease! I bought some board books for J.Q.'s Easter basket and a couple of cocoa butter sticks for my poor hands. (Believe me, you do not want to see these hands!)

So, Melvin, suppose you explain to me why I shlep the BIG tub
of Eucerin home from the drugstore and then you refuse to
put it on! Go ahead! Explain already! I'm listening!
At the mall, we ran our prey to ground at Drool & Slobbier: all SureFits on sale for 50% off. Kathy got some nice neutral waffle-weave slipcovers. I just felt every blanket, sheet, shower curtain, bath rug, quilt and bedspread in the linen department, like a natural woman! *sigh* Nothing like obeying one's primitive instinct to hang pelts or brightly-colored leaves on the cave walls!

Lunch was a pleasant interlude before our final stop, Rock Bottom Dusty Discount Debris, our local mainly useless crap store. I was unable to locate a table runner, but I did manage to get some ceramic flamingo accoutrements for my kitchen.

Kathy dropped me off, and both of us took a short nap before her mother came home on the daycare bus. I went over and helped feed the old lady, which is always entertaining. It's sort of like spooning strained carrots into a talkative octopus on amphetamines.

It was so nice to be out from under the depression, if only for a few hours. It's creeping back now, but that's just what happens. At least I'll have access to Mr. Pseudonym's car tomorrow, so I can get out early in the day and buy some seeds. YES! SEEDS! Probably the happiest time of the year for me!

Does anyone know if peas can be grown on a common chain link fence? Interesting concept, no?

Critter Crises

2007-03-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

Oh, God. Krimpet the Rat took suddenly ill and had to be put down on Friday. Without unnecessary description of her symptoms, it appeared to be cancer. The ground was still frozen, so she lay in state for two days, peacefully arranged in a cookie tin out in the shed. Mr. Pseudonym was finally able to plant her in the rat garden yesterday--another tiny, beloved scrap of life stirred back down into the continuum. She had a great time living with us, and she's busy now becoming spring flowers.

Krimpet's exit leaves only Sprinkles the Nine-Lived Rat in the rodent column, and she's still bouncing around like a WalMart shopper three days before Christmas. She rings a bell in her cage when she wants attention, which is most of the time she's awake. ("DING-DING-DING-DING! MOM! I'M AWAKE! WHERE'S MY COOKIES? AND DON'T FORGET THE MILK THIS TIME! DING-DING-DING!") Sprinkles has survived a three-day escape from her cage before she left the pet store, having her underside slashed open in an argument with one of her late sisters and a serious bout of head-tilt when she was about a year old.

The same day Krimpet went on to the Big Trashcan in the Sky, Onyx the Old, Old Cat took ill. She's been wobbly and taking nothing but water for two days, and she's not able to make it to the litter box today. She's always been fastidious--a little lady--so we know she's on her way out. She's always loved eating, as well, but now she's uninterested. I've been holding her in my lap most of the time, and she purrs and burys her head under my arm the way she always did. We will take her to the vet if she's unable to cross over easily by herself.

*teardrop*

On sunnier topics, #1 Daughter (a.k.a. Mrs.Thumbscre.ws) has obviously done more work on sprucing up Priscilla's blogpartment, and she promises the squirrel pix will be installed soon. She was here last weekend to give us the dining room set she bought with the soon-to-be-ex. The s-t-b-e (we call him "Stubby" for short) has moved on to IKEA high-gloss, and my daughter keeps her new place fairly spartan to minimize the destruction wrought by little J.Q. He just loves coming to the grandparents' house, where he can destroy at will. His favorite activities are trying to "feed" the fish by swishing his hands around in their tank ("Shishies! Eat!"), smacking Grandma's plants leafless, chasing after the pets with his shape-sorter cart and digging through the kitchen cabinets in search of sweets. ("Gamma! Fwoot sak? Kweem? Cookie? Canny?") ("No, J.Q. No. No. No.")

WeeMote KomTwoll!
Wheeeeeeeeee!

Spring may bring the end of a long, long, long spell of depression for Priscilla. Tail's been dragging in the dirt for months now, but maybe the longer days and warm winds will help with the despondency. Either things get better soon, or we jump back on an SSRI and deal with the side effects (such as nightmares of Stubby popping up out of the dining room table with a knife between his teeth and glowing red eyes).

Serious Changes Afoot

2007-02-24T21:11:00.000-05:00

Well, Mrs. Thumbscre.ws finally got some time to work on my page layout. She still has to do some more tweaking, but she came up with the cute lil' pinecones up at the top and some neato text colors. I don't understand a single thing she did--I looked at the HTML and went crosseyed.

I don't know why the font size on the previous postings is so small; Mrs. Thumbscre.ws will fix this when she comes up with more time, which will be roughly when she's visiting Casa Pseudonym again and J.Q. takes another 3-hour nap. Hmmmm...maybe it's time to visit the eye doctor again.

During this "under construction" phase, we would appreciate the patience and forbearance of friends and family who visit regularly. We will be showing essential links, wildlife graphics (squirrels, in particular) and twiddling our fonts and colors until viewing this blog page may cause gentlewomen to swoon. Just watch.

12 Steps & 12 Paparazzi

2007-02-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

Counselor: So glad to see you back, Br*tney.

Br*tney: [sneers] Yeah, well, it's not like I had any f**kin' choice in the matter.

Counselor: No, but what now looks like the worst possible turn of events may ultimately turn out to be a pivotal point in your journey toward recovery.

Br*tney: [yawns, slouches in seat, scratches under left breast with ball-point pen]

Counselor: So, can you tell the group what happened to you after you left us the other day?

Br*tney: Why? So you can, like, climb up my a** the way you did before? No THANKS!

Counselor: Br*tney, you DO remember agreeing to participate in the therapeutic process upon re-admission to this facility, correct? You signed a contract stating you would take an active part in both individual and group therapy while an inpatient here and would attend at least three meetings a week after...

Br*tney: OK! OK! OK! Jesus-Chugged-The-Manischewitz! Look, I'm, like, TIRED, OK? And my scalp is FREEZING! Do you people have, like, a heat lamp or anything around here?

Counselor: Br*tney, you are wearing a coonskin cap, a thick wool neck scarf and long johns under your regular clothing. Let's get back to discussing the events of the past 24 hours or so, shall we?

Br*tney: [softly, with chin quivering] They took my f**kin' umbrella away! I'm, like, DEFENSELESS!

Counselor: Defenseless, not really. Powerless, yes! And we begin to heal at the point we admit our powerlessness.

Cindy [group member]: Yeah, it took me, like, FOREVER to admit I couldn't control my...

Br*tney: I had those popparozzies crawlin' over me like flies on a rib roast, and they took MY umbrella away!

Counselor: Cindy? You were saying?

Cindy: Well, I'm not a celebrity or anything, but my addiction is the same as anyone else's addiction, right?

Br*tney: [stands up, throws notebook and pen into center of circled chairs] WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! You people have NO IDEA what's it's like to be in my shoes, so don't, like, pretend you do! They NEVER leave me alone! EVER! First it's my clothes! Then it's my voice! Then it's who I f**ckin' marry!

Counselor: Br*tney, sit down. Now.

Br*tney: [flops down, sliding chair backward with a harsh metallic scraping...holds face in hands while weeping piteously]

Counselor: Br*tney? Will you please look at me?

Br*tney: What? WHAT? I'm supposed to, like, IGNORE it when they call me a bad mother? They were chasing me again! And the f**kin' kid was in my LAP, with a big f**kin' steering wheel around him! He wasn't goin' NOWHERE! And I'm, like, this HORRIBLE mother for trying to get my kid away from those bastards! I didn't know what they were going to to do him! Kev*n isn't as strong as me! He couldn't take it after awhile, always worrying about when some bastard with a camera is, like, going to RIP the baby's diaper off and take a picture of his POO for the Nation*l Enqu*rer!

You wanna know why I shaved my f**kin' head? I was AFRAID of them ripping my f**kin' hair out! THAT'S why! Ripping my f**kin' hair out and selling it on E-Bay! What the F**K!!!

Counselor: Br*tney? Let's keep the focus on the alcohol and substances, shall we? You are powerless, and your life has become unmanageable. That's the real issue, isn't it? The unmanageability of your addiction?

Br*tney: Yeah, like WHOA! The "UNMANAGEABLENESS" of, like, MY...BIG...F**KIN'...ADDIK...SHUN! What about those crazy bastards being, like, addicted to their stupid cameras and to selling other people's f**kin' hair on f**kin' E-Bay? Who rips THEIR umbrellas away from them so they can't even defend themselves? Huh? Huh? Answer me THAT, Mr. Counselor-to-the-Celebrities!

Excuse me, but I have to get a Diet C*ke from the machine before I choke to death from the fur on this hat. I'll be right back, OK? Or is getting a drink, uh, "against the rules" of this place?

Counselor: [stares at Br*tney for a full 15 seconds] OK. Thanks for sharing, Br*tney. Now, Cindy? You were telling us on Tuesday about your mother marrying a Rastafarian in 1997? I think you mentioned being a "Flower & Herb Girl" at the wedding. Can you elaborate on this?

The (Empty) Arms of Morpheus

2007-02-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

I don't remember when my sleep problems started. Mr. Pseudonym says they've been there always, and he should know since he's also been there always. (I feel Mr. P and I have had interwoven lives in previous forms, such as when we were mushrooms or grasshoppers.)

But the sleep problems are continually present and continually distressing to me. I can set myself a bed time and try to stick to it, but things never seem to work out. I'm always staying up way past the time normal people hit their pillows and slide into peaceful intermission. Mr. P has only to plunk himself in bed at a decent hour and he's out like a light within five minutes--literally, five minutes.

I've got to follow a complicated winding-down pattern each evening, and this exercise stretches into the wee hours of the following morning. After all of the good, hardworking, gainfully employed family members have yawned "g'night!!" and shuffled off in their jammies, I pop in a DVD for my reward of the day. Having been up and active for 12-15 hours, I deserve my evening movie. But there are always "urgent matters" popping up that interrupt the movie and have me walking in circles around the house:

Have to restart the washing machine. Forgot the load of whites that has been soaking in chlorine bleach for several hours. Mr. P's undershirts will look like swiss cheese if the wash cycle is not completed this evening.
Krimpet the Rat hasn't been exercised yet--she can come out and watch the movie with Mom. It's a mystery, and there's usually a rat or two in mystery movies, so Krimpet will enjoy the film. She may even have a Hollywood cousin or two who work as extras in the movies, and I'm sure she would love to see her kinfolk squeaking and chewing on people!
Need to hit the loo. A big mug of tea is an integral part of my evening reward, but drinking tea results in "addressing the porcelain" several times over the course of a movie. (Note to Self: business plan: research "peeless tea" for people who want to watch movies start-to-finish, without interruption.)
There's crab dip in the fridge and crackers in the cabinet. Crab dip must be eaten within two or three days of purchase, for safety reasons. As official Safety Officer of the house, I have my duties.
Onyx The Senile Cat is yowling again. She's 16 years old, and she often forgets she's already had supper. She sleeps all day and then stumbles around the house all night, presumably looking for misplaced cat toys from years gone by. If she sees me, she immediately remembers her 9Lives canned tuna and demands to be let into the utility room and given another can of food. She licks the gravy off and then remembers she's not really hungry.
Need box of tissues. The movie is sad or my allergies are acting up. Since I rarely watch sad movies (too sensitive), it's most likely the allergies. In a house with four cats, two rats, a dog and nomadic tribes of dust bunnies, we go through a lot of tissues.
Daisy the Terrier wants out--again. She hears the neighbor's dog barking, and she doesn't want to be left out of any barking initiative going on outside. After all, the neighbor's dog is guarding her own yard, and Daisy's patch is no less important.

--"Oh...wait...it was just the wind blowing some leaves! IN, MOM! OK...all's well...back to the sofa." (jumps up on sofa, turns in circle three times, flops into crescent-shaped dog pattern) "..sigh..yawn...zzzzz-zzz-ZZZ-zzzzz..."

--(five minutes later) "WAIT! What's THAT??? MOM! C'mere! Lemmee OUT! Something's going on in my YARD! It's a BEAR! And he's stealing STICKS and TENNIS BALLS and FRISBEES from my YARD! Grrrrr-ROWL-ROWL-ROWL-ROWL-ROWL! Grrrrrr-ROWL-ROWL-ROWL-ROWL! ROWL-ROWL-ROWL! Oh...wait...it was just some more leaves. Nevermind! In now! ROWL! In! NOW!"

Trash needs to be taken out. We generate more garbage in this house than any other family on the East Coast. Even with recycling, we put out four or five bags a week. I've tried waiting for others in the house to notice the overflowing kitchen receptacle, but everyone here seems to suffer from selective garblindness. So I pull the trash bag out, tie it up and fling it out the back door, into the recycling can. Mr. P gets upset when I do this, since the squirrels throw a luau out there when they find uncovered bags of trash. But I do enough around here without having to run out to the covered cans at the side of the house in the middle of the night, so FLINNNNNNNG!
Oooops! Kitty litter needs scooped before trash bag is flung out the back door! (Ewwwwww.)
Krimpet needs to go night-night. I've fallen asleep while watching the movie (again) and awakened with my hand on a rat. She's sitting there, staring at me with wide eyes, wondering why I've stopped petting her. Time to go back to her condo for the evening.
The fish need to be fed. Each time I walk past their tank, they all swim up to the top, in anticipation of their fish flakes. Sha, Na, Na, Bob, Flippy and Flapjack can't make any noise at all, but they still manage to look pitiful until I make with the flakes.
There's ice cream in the freezer, and it will get freezer burn if it isn't eaten immediately.
Onyx is "hungry" again.

It is now 2:00am. The movie was supposed to have finished in time for me to hit the hay by midnight. The 11:00pm news broadcast re-runs at 2:00am, so I might as well stay up and catch the weather report I missed earlier. Never know when a hurricane was supposed to have blown by the Garden State at 1:00am, which would account for those strange growling noises from the back yard during the movie. Or maybe there were possums fighting over the trash bags out there. News ends at 2:30am. I'm still sitting there, staring at the television, wondering if it's worth getting into jammies at this hour. And I forgot to watch the special features on the DVD.

Wait a minute, Onyx...Daisy hears another bear. *yawn*

Uhoh...BROKE!

2007-01-31T20:40:00.000-05:00

Hmmmmm...
Priscilla goes missing for several weeks, and then her blog shuts down almost entirely, except for a few words and the picture of the hairless kitten. What could have happened--on both counts?

Priscilla Goes Missing

Well, to be perfectly honest, I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with this computer. I want to use it, but I don't particularly like spending any amount of time on the thing.

Part of this paradox stems from the fact that, in the first through third grades, my elementary school conducted regular "H-Bomb Preparedness Exercises." These were the golden days of childhood innocence, when a teacher could still smack an occasional heiny and we all believed that ducking under our little desks and covering our heads with our hands could protect us from nuclear detonation directly over Pinebarrens Public #4. In short, this was a long, long, long time ago. Let's face it, Priscilla is approaching old age rapidly, and modern technology has slipped from her grasp like a glistening toad on an August evening.

"OK children! Under your desks!
Eddie! Stop laughing! This is SERIOUS!"

My kids know everything about computers--absorbed the knowledge transdermally. They even managed to teach Mom basic HTML and talk me into a more interactive enjoyment of the Internet (thus this blog). But for most of my life, personal computers weren't around or weren't easily usable by the average person. Windows changed everything for everyone everywhere, but all of my formative years and young adult life were spent in a time when the world ran a bit slower and more methodically than it does today. Time has been flying by me with ever-increasing speed in the past few years. I'm sure this time distortion is experienced by almost every person approaching seniorhood, probably because we never quite adjust to the social and technological changes of the passing decades.

In summation, I want an instant weather report each day, but I don't want to miss Judge Judy at 5:00pm. I want to know how to translate "Oh, get down on all fours and munch grass!" into French, Spanish and German, but I don't want to read stories about the stock market or computer hackers. I want to read my daughters' online journals, but I have a hard time accepting their risk-taking behaviors in this endeavor. I want to be able to make my own greeting cards, but I don't want to take the time to learn any more about C*relDraw than I already know. I want to have my own blog, but not at the expense of my work, recreation or sleep schedules. I want online friends, but none who will be disappointed if I toodle off to parts unknown for a few days now and then. And I never, never, never want to traverse that vast wasteland known as "chat rooms" again! *!shudder!*

Most of all, I don't want to feel any of my remaining time in this physical form is being squandered on staring owl-eyed at a monitor and tapping away at a keyboard for hours at a time while there are outside squirrels teasing my inside cats at the big glass door to our back yard.

Priscilla's Blog Shuts Down

This could have been caused by any number of things:

solar flares,

a Diet Coke spilled into my hard drive,

TastyKake crumbs migrating into my hard drive

a hacker who hates grannies and pets,

an accidental "delete this blog" keystroke,

a Blogger employee throwing a hissy fit over his/her annual raise and tampering with the product,

Priscilla's children tampering with the product (hey--you've all seen what they do!),

the Internet becoming self-aware on 1-20-2007 and planning domination or destruction of all mankind,

the Internet belching,

tectonic plate slippage, or

just some damned thing or other.

Fortunately, Daughter #l knows more than everything about fixing glitches and gaffes in online publications, and she fixed my blog this afternoon. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

I am happy to be back here and prattling away, but I would like to hear from any of you who also love/hate your equipment or are afraid of being enslaved by computers and/or the Internet. Do any of you feel compromised by having to spend time updating your blogs or by getting lost in site hopping because the Internet is a bottomless ocean? Let me know.

Uhoh...TAGGED!!!

2006-12-30T14:47:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been several weeks since Jo from Tangled Me, being swept up in a meme tagging frenzy, charged me and several other good women to reveal five things about ourselves of which people were unaware.

I must admit, this tag left me looking like a deer caught in the headlights: what was a meme? what five things about myself have I not already long-since revealed in my postings? why on earth would anyone want to know any more about me than I've already been nattering on about for the past year or so? But I value Jo's friendship, and I've honestly been wracking my brain to come up with these five items to comply with the tag challenge.

Wracking my brain wouldn't seem to be such a difficult task considering the hollow sound resulting from a sharp rap on my skull with the knuckles. I mean, there ain't much in my cerebrum but a grocery list and some fond childhood memories! But, DANG! What five things does no one know about Priscilla?

*squint*
*frown*
*remember mint-flavored M&M's in kitchen cabinet*

To be fair, the holidays were upon us, and there was so much work to be done. Christmas was oddly difficult in that I felt so prepared and confident right up until a few days before. Last minute wrapping sessions, a delayed tree snatch and a frantic Christmas Eve meal prep left me exhausted and confused.

I needed Mr. Pseudonym to help with the tree, but he works far away from home with nary a day off ever. He does get vacation and personal time, but he doesn't like to leave the defense of the country to others at Aircraft & Other-Stuff-You-Don't-Need-To-Know-About R Us. So the tree had to wait until the last minute, finally being decorated as part of the frantic Deathmarch Houseclean which always precedes our parties.

One of our Christmas Eve guests is a compulsive talker, and trying to get a holiday meal on the table when she's here is like trying to shampoo a hairless cat on a rubber sheet.

OH, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!

Or like juggling peeled mangoes while walking barefoot across an icy roof. But dinner was eventually served, and the coffee pot was kept gurgling all night. I missed out on a lot of present opening, but I saved most of the kids' stuff for unwrapping at Pixie's house the next day.

The bright spot of the Christmas Eve was getting to see J.Q.'s other grandma, #1 Daughter's soon-to-be-ex-mother-in-law-but-hopefully-lifelong-family-friend. J.Q.'s grandma was sweet (and brave) enough to attend the festivities at Casa Pseudonym, which helped balance out the psychic drain of my compulsive talker friend's monologue.

The evening ended with a weary plop on the sofa and a protracted, wide-eyed stare at the tree. One holiday down, a coupla more to go.

Christmas Day up at Pixie's was, by contrast, soothing and comfortable. Pixie has turned into a really good cook, and she executed an excellent holiday meal. We opened gifts one-by-one under her illegal evergreen while listening to the Spanish-music station on the radio ("RRRRRRRRRRRRUMBA-CIENTOS-CUATRRRRRRRO-PUNTOS-CINCO! HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, AMIGOS!")

Mr. Pseudonym's 60th birthday was three days later, on the same day I was keeping J.Q. My dear friend and neighbor, Kathy, comes over to help with J.Q. each week now. Caring for a wall-climbing toddler who calls her "Cassie" and begs for hugs just to get out of getting his diaper changed seems to reaffirm her faith in life while dealing with her mother's progressing Alzheimer's. With Kathy keeping J.Q. from destroying NJ, I was able to throw a partial turkey in the oven for Mr. Pseudonym's birthday dinner. All of the kids were here, and the baby got a kick out of everyone singing to grandpa.

New Year's Eve came all too soon. I burnt the breadcrumb topping on the mac and cheese to a black devastation while, once again, listening to Mrs. Compulsive's rambling. And, to my astounding great fortune, she and her husband had apparently stuffed some festive dried herbs into their hookah on the way over, so her stories were frequently punctuated by a magestic rise up onto one buttock and the expulsion of several cubic feet of intestinal gas in a long, alarming screech. While she was obviously delighted with her own talents, my friend's performance left me drained of holiday spirit almost until the big ball dropped at Times Square.

But I got out the good crystal and served the two bottles sparkling cider brought by two different guests. Two different sparking ciders, so it looked as if five of us were drinking champagne and three of us were drinking urine.

OK...the purpose of this post is to fulfill my obligation to Jo. So here goes:

I wanted children from the time I was a young child.
I am math phobic
I believe human beings are meant to be carnivorous, but not necessarily cruelly carnivorous.
*pauses to pick meat shreds out of teeth*
I am not an atheist or an agnostic.
I plan to do away with all of my pets by attrition, because...DAMN!...every time I finish cleaning, I dump out a whole catsworth of hair from the vacuum cleaner!

Oh, ALLRIGHT: My kids are aware of most or all of the above, which is frankly boring, but let's face it--I'm not that complicated a person! I will admit to being empathic till it hurts, overly emotional, way too naive for my age and wicked smart, but I don't think about much more than going to the supermarket, watering my plants and feeding my pets!

Oooooo0o! Ooooooooo! Oooooooooo!

When Mr. Pseudonym retires, I want us to buy a Winnebago and travel the United States!

I have always dreamed of seeing the aurora borealis! Literally! I sometimes have dreams about bright, undulating, colored lights in the sky. Sometimes, the lights spell out words or form pictures!

The kids keep saying I need a therapist because I've never fulfilled my potential, but how much damned potential does a woman have at my age? Wasn't the starting bell rung...uh...say, four decades or so ago? And what if I'm basically happy dropping Mr. P's shirts off at the cleaner, throwing the frisbee for the terrier and waiting for the spring planting season? What if I don't feel the need to rush out and get a degree in microbiology? Is this wrong thinking?

Me tired. Head hurts. Will tag others next post, OK?

No, Mama! Scary Man! NO!

2006-12-19T12:51:00.000-05:00

Graham Henderson--1991
Courtesy: SouthFlorida.com*

I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a J.Q. & Santa photo taken this year--very briefly, because J.Q. has had a full-blown case of "stranger anxiety" for several months now.

J.Q. is old enough to learn a little about Santa--at least that the dude carries a sack of toys on his back and says "Ho Ho Ho!" But slapping an anxious toddler on a big, scary man with a burned-out attitude and a musty-smelling fur suit just because I want a picture seemed a little cruel to me.

J.Q. has endured some serious changes in his life over the past eleven months or so. Mommy and Daddy no longer live together, and there are extra caregivers in far-distant locations each week. The little guy never knows where he's going to wake up or who's taking care of him on a given day. But J.Q. is fortunate in having parents who are so committed to his well-being that they make a serious effort to get along peacefully with each other and to assure their child is always in the care of someone who puts his safety before anything else.

In return, J.Q. is a generally cheerful and cooperative baby. Even his temper tantrums are brief and mostly for show--he's just too busy having fun to spend much time in meltdown mode. He has to be seriously past nap time to engage in any protracted crying. There's worlds to conquer: speech, manual dexterity, exploration of environment and emotional manipulation of several aunts and grandparents (biological and voluntary).

Still, it seems a shame to let this particular Christmas go by without at least a brief nod to The Man With All Those Toys and the Serious Cholesterol Problem. So I found a Night Before Christmas board book to read with J.Q. Since he's too young and too impatient to sit through the antiquated Clement C. Moore poem while we look at the illustrations, I'm going to have to modify the story a bit to appeal to his 20-month old sensibilities.

* * *

Toddler Night Before Christmas
(as adapted by Priscilla Pseudonym)

Oooooo! Look, Baby! Grandma got you a new book!
No, no, no! Leave Kitty's tail alone, and come sit on Grandma's lap!

Good. OK...settle down now.
No, Baby! No glasses! Grandma can't read book without glasses!

OK...now, this book is called Night Before Santa comes to Baby's House!!!
NO! Kitty doesn't want any more Cheerios!

OK...let's start. Turn page, Baby.
NO MOUTH! NO! We don't chew on Santa Clause!

Here we go...
It was Night Before Santa Come to Baby's House, and LOOK! Everyone sleepin'!!!
Mousies sleep, Mommy/Daddy sleep, all the little children sleep...

Whoops! That's OK... Grandma just wipe up milky off of sofa and coffee table and magazines and floor. There.
No, Kitty! NO! Go away!

Where were we? No mouth...no glasses...put cup down now...kitty go away.
Oh! Look! Daddy hear something! Daddy jump out of bed!
Daddy has dorky hat on! Aren't we glad our Daddy not wear dorky hat to bed? YES!

Look! There's the moon, and WHAT'S THAT??? LOOK! REINDEERS!
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen... Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen!
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, EIGHT REINDEERS!
You know why so many reindeers?
See that guy in the sleigh? That's SANTA! And Santa MORBIDLY OBESE!

Owwww! OK. No...it's OK. Grandma's mouth OK. Baby's head OK?

OK...more reindeers, more sleigh...
We can just skip these pages...
NO MOUTH! NO! Here, let's get to the good part...

BABY! Come back here! No! No outside! Too cold! No!

(...45 minutes later...)
LOOK! That's SANTA! Isn't he CUTE?
And he's got TOYS! See? And he's smoking a PIPE!
But pretty soon, no books will show Santa's pipe because
Societal Health & Behavior Enforcement Squad is closing in fast, and our civil liberties
are swirling around and around and around and pretty soon go all the way down potty!
But that's another story.

Anyway! See Santa put toys in stockings for little children!

BABY! Leave...the...CAT...alone!
OK. Long story short...Santa comes to Baby's house with TOYS!
But only if Baby is good: be nice to kitty, stop ripping off Grandma's glasses, no fishing around in the trash, no throwing food, no pinching other people and stop trying to escape from house.

Oh, and Baby has to eat at least ONE thing per day that isn't grapes. OK?

Baby! NO! NO!

*thanks to aussiegal for recommending "Scared of Santa" site to Pixie:
http://www.southflorida.com/events/sfl-scaredsanta,0,2245506.photogallery?index=1

Evergreens of Yore

2006-12-05T09:34:00.000-05:00

A short break from mall skipping to remember trees gone by:

Like Pixie, I'm of a mind to get me a cut tree this year although, not being as audacious as my second-born, I'll go about it legally. I've been using my little two-foot, plastic, laser-lighted, psychedelic conifer for the past few years. I got it for $12 two days after Christmas in 2003, and it has been causing passing motorists to drive into my mailbox each holiday season since that time.

This year, however, I'm a little more on top of the holiday than is my usual habit. Most of my shopping is done, and it may be possible to get together for some tree decorating, cookie baking and assorted Holiday Magic with friends and family within the next couple of weeks. Younger Brother is into baking, and I got some really neat 3d cookie cutters from W*lliams-Son0ma for our baked-gift preparation needs. And there may be enough time to drag home a fresh tree from the local garden mart.

When I was very young, my family lived in a small house on 3-1/2 acres of prime NJ farmland (pine trees included). Each December 23 or so, my brothers and Dad would put on their boots and ear muffs, grab an ax and trot off to the woods behind our house with Mom yelling after them, "Not too big! Not too big! Do you hear me? NOT TOO BIG!!!" They would drag home Pinezilla and pull/push it into the house with my mother's anguished cries as background music. They would then commence chopping off the top, the bottom and 10 or so large branches before Dad could prop it up in our rickety old metal tree stand, slide it into the customary corner of the dining room and fill the reservoir in the stand with fresh water.

The ornaments and lights would come down from the attic, and even Mom (fortified by a glass of spiked eggnog) would participate in the tree decoration. The lights rarely worked without Dad's magic incantations (which cannot be repeated in polite company, so I'll just omit them here). The ornaments were old and sad-looking, but we children always thought we had the most beautiful Christmas tree on earth. Until the dog crawled under it to get himself a drink and the whole thing started tipping over. Good thing Dad had wired the top half to the wall!

Many years later, Older Brother was visiting my parents' house with his family one Christmas, and it came time to put up the tree. Brother climbed up into the attic and brought down the tree stand and the box of ornaments. He looked at the sad, lopsided little metal tree stand and said, "I had one of these once! I know what to do!" He put on his coat, picked up the tree stand and dropped it into the trash on his way out to the car. He came back within an hour with a brand-new, heavy-duty tree stand. I don't think we even had to wire the tree to the wall that year!

Mr. Pseudonym and I had at least one child, possibly two or three, the year we procrastinated a little too long in getting our Christmas tree. It was Christmas Eve, and I was wailing in my frazzled husband's ear, "You can't just not get a tree for your child! You can't DO that!" Our oldest must have been three or four that year, which would mean we had a three-year old and a newborn, or a four-year-old, a year old baby and a newborn. To Mr. P's reply that he was unable to simply shit out a tree on demand, I countered with my sighting of a perfectly serviceable little white spruce-looking thing growing in our own back yard. It was just the right size, Mr. P. had a sharp saw in the shed and all of the kids were asleep. TREE TIME! There was just one problem--it was raining buckets that night.

Mr. Pseudonym opened the back door and stood with the cold rain splashing in his face for a few seconds. He somberly shut the door and turned to stare at me. I stared back, just as determined and sure of my position as Mr. P was sure he didn't want to be outside rolling around in the puddles. We stared in mute standoff for what seemed like forever, but Mr. P had been married 13 or 14 years at that point and knew when to give up and get dressed. He pulled on his boots, grabbed an umbrella and headed across the yard to get his saw from the shed.

I followed with my own umbrella, softly singing "I'm Dreaming of a Muddy Christmas" while waiting by the little tree. Mr. P lay on the ground, hacking away at the tree trunk while I held my umbrella over his head and thought about standing at the bottom of Niagara Falls. The little tree fell over, and I rushed into the house to spread out sheets and towels over the hardwood floor.

Mr. P dragged the saturated tree into the house, and we let it "drain" on the dropcloths for an hour or so before putting it upright in the stand. It stayed undecorated for quite a while after that--we didn't want to get electrocuted from stringing lights on a dripping wet tree. Mr. P got changed into dry clothing and I made a pot of hot coffee.

So Santa had a tree to put his presents under that year, and I think Mr. P and I resumed speaking to each other by the next morning. Now that's what I call a successful Christmas!

Priscilla Posts!

2006-11-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm SORRY! I've been at the mall! For a month!

Actually, most of my Christmas shopping is done, and I can spend December finishing up the odds and ends--fattening the stockings with extra trinkets and baking cookies. Last year was a nightmare, and I've made good on my promise to myself regarding this year's festivities: no procrastination/no last-minute panic/no throwing slippers at the t.v. just because the Mormon Tabernacle Choir launches into Joy to the World just as I run out of scotch tape.

This year should be fun with little J.Q. He's at a good age for Christmas--old enough to reply "Ho! Ho! Ho!" when asked how Santa goes, but not old enough to ask for real pricey toys. I'll be looking for some special pre-Christmas books for him this year, which reminds me of when his mother was a little younger than J.Q. at her second Christmas. She was demanding to be read her favorite book around fifteen times a day, and we finally had to kick Jingle Bells under the sofa when she wasn't looking so we could get a break. ("Look at horsey pull the sleigh! Run horsey, RUN! Go, horsey GO! Uhoh! Horsey slipped on the ice and crashed into the Ukrainian Credit Union building! Maybe horsey should take a nap now!")

Long story short ('cause it's jammie time), Priscilla is still alive and whiney, but there's so much to do and so little time. Further adventures anon.

Priscilla Takes A Sick Day (or Three)

2006-11-02T11:23:00.000-05:00

Rats! I was going to do a really nice essay on making Halloween costumes for little kids. But when I sat down at the keyboard, my neck disks decided to stage a coup and overthrow my best intentions. Crushing, burning pain at C4-5, complete with nausea, flattened me for two days or so. And I don't handle "flat" very well.

So the Halloween costume piece will have to wait until next year (God willing, 'cause, y'know, at my age y'never know). For now, I'll have to write about all of my cats developing matted fur at the ass-end of their backs, which must be some kind of fall-shedding and winter-coat-growing phenomenon.

Or maybe I'll just skip it. Yeah.

The Country Living Fair

2006-10-16T13:40:00.000-05:00

Fall—my most favorite time of year! The leaves are just starting to get serious about turning color in my part of the Eastern Seaboard. By Halloween, we will have lost most of our leaves after a day or two of rain and wind, but now they’re going orange, red and gold in sequence: vines first, deciduous trees next and the sturdier shrubs last. Even if we haven’t had any cool weather by the middle of September, the vining plants tip us off to the unofficial beginning of autumn.

Every fall we have the holiday I’ve invented for my family—my Annual Breakfast before the Country Living Fair at Batsto, New Jersey, held this year on October 15. Most holidays just depress me. There are a lot of memories about late family members who had their birthdays or died on the major holidays, but the month of October has no sad memories or associations for me.

I don’t even know how many years the Country Living Fair has been held at the restored 19th-century village of Batsto. Composed of thirty-three historic buildings and structures--including the Batsto Mansion, gristmill, sawmill, general store, workers' homes and post office--Batsto Village is a New Jersey Historic site and is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.

Historically, this area was the homeland of the indigenous Lenni-Lenape, who signed the first Native American treaty with the newly-formed United States Government on September 17, 1778. Although some small Lenni-Lenape communities remain in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the modern Delaware Native American tribes are located in Oklahoma. (See also Lee Sultzman’s Delaware History, Susan Ditmire’s Native People of New Jersey and Terrie Winson’s Lenni Lenape)

In 1784, William Richards bought the Batsto Iron Works (originally built in 1766). It remained in his family and was operated by his son and grandson (who built most of the village) for the next 92 years. Along with the pig iron industry in general, Batsto declined in the mid-1800's, finally falling into receivership after a brief period as a glassworks. The complex was purchased by Joseph Wharton at a Masters Sale in 1876. Wharton made improvements to the mansion and many of the village buildings, built a sawmill, cleared the land, planted cranberries and other crops, and ran a forest products and agriculture business until he died in 1909.

Wheeeee! Cranberries!
Managed by the Girard Trust Company in Philadelphia from the time of Wharton’s death, Batsto was purchased by the State of New Jersey in 1954. The few people still living in the Village houses remained as long as they wanted, and in 1989 the last house was vacated. Today the village is the core of Wharton State Forest, which in turn is part of the Pinelands National Reserve. (See also The Pinelands National Reserve and NJPineBarrens.com)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Family and friends are to meet at my house at 9:00am sharp! Well, the sharp part is negotiable. It’s hard to get out of bed that early on weekends, and we usually get a call saying several people will be straggling. Brother brings his pure-bred Westie and his pure-bred basset hound, since most fairgoers bring their pure-bred dogs. I would bring Daisy the Terrier, even though her lineage is a little jumbled (just like mine!) but, unlike her superchilled cousins, she can’t behave herself for five minutes (just like me!).

Mr. Pseudonym kindly helps with the last-minute "desperation" house cleaning and I work hard on breakfast, making a lot of things from “scratch” and setting a beautiful table. I receive many compliments and a bit of criticism from my family for using the “good china,” so to speak: “Why do you have to use fancy glassware? Why not just put out the carton of juice? jug of maple syrup? jars of jam?” Oh, well, they can’t help it; people from the Pine Barrens tend to be a bit…uh…how shall we say… primeval. We finish up breakfast while yelling at the dogs to stop racing around the house like ferrets on speed (Daisy's influence), and we finally pile into several cars for the trip down to Batsto.

This year, we had perfect weather--not too hot, not too cold, lots of sunshine and a crisp, autumn breeze. There are always a lot of crafters at the fair, but I'm not especially into buying old washboards costing $32 because they're decorated with artificial flowers and hemp-vine bows. But there's also music and dancing onstage, food and drink vendors, a see-through beehive, pony rides, antiques, a footbridge over the cedar-water river and a display of old cars, tractors and various motors. (A side trip to the Batsto-Pleasant Mills United Methodist Church will take place on another day, but it is of special interest to our family since Brother and Sis-In-Law were married there!)

The Village itself is worth walking even if there is no special event going on. The mansion is huge, with tall windows and a wide porch three-quarters the way around it. Some of the worker's homes have been partially restored, and the visitor's center has a gift shop and flush toilets for the faint of heart. (We studiously avoid the Porta-Potties sprinkled here and there because, you know, ewwwwwwwww!)

Using the mansion as a rendezvous point, our party splits up to pursue our varying interests. Brother leans backward and takes off at a trot, to be yanked around by his dogs at about 10mph for the entire day. I make a bee-line for the antiques and the kids seek out the food vendors lest they faint from inadequate nutrition. We meet several times on the mansion porch to compare our plunder (Brother lashes the dogs to a post while he catches his breath). When no one can walk another step and even the dogs seem subdued, we finally head back to my house for coffee. Everyone agrees this has been the best Country Living Fair Day yet.

This is a wonderful day for me, and I look forward to this "holiday" all year long.

K*therine is 21

2006-10-12T01:43:00.000-05:00

K*therine was born on October 12, 1985, about 12 months and three weeks after her sister Sarah. We weren’t planning on another child, especially this soon, but we adjusted quickly to the prospect of having one more to round out our family.

With Sarah being born in the E.R. the previous year, I spent most of this pregnancy worried about delivering the baby at home, suddenly and without medical assistance. The obstetrician’s nurse assured me that in such an emergency, babies will more or less birth themselves--we would just have to cut the cord, wrap the baby up and wait until the ambulance arrived. I wasn’t reassured.

We weren’t sure when K*te would be full-term, but September 22nd (Sarah’s birthday) came and went, as did 23rd (the date I wanted for K*te’s birth) and the 24th (Julia’s birthday). My neighbor, Kathy, had her baby around October 1, and still I waited…and waited…and waited.

On the morning of October 12, I got a slight pulling sensation in my back, followed by a few more spaced regularly over the next half hour. “That’s it,” I yelled to my husband, “Off we go! ” I was not going to have this baby at home! In just three hours and forty-five minutes, we got our K*te. She more or less birthed herself—the doctor cut the cord, did the requisite procedures for newborns, wrapped her up and handed her to her Dad. Our third daughter didn’t want to open her eyes; she was comfortable and warm and just wanted to sleep.

From the beginning, it was obvious K*te had a unique personality. She was quiet and introspective as an infant, with her own special outlook on life. As she grew, her personality developed into a Day/Night pattern of unrestrained laughter alternating with cool detachment. She was either acting out in shameless comedic performance or she was coolly reserved, letting no one inside her head. K*te was an expert at mimicry; she could always make us laugh, which got her out of a lot of trouble growing up. She had a stubborn streak, however, which worked against her in relations with her parents and teachers.

I wish I could say K*te grew up happily and uneventfully. I can’t. As with all of my children, K*te was “different” from her peers. Wickedly intelligent and disdainfully observant, she found no common ground or fast friendships while growing up. She spent a lot of time lonely and isolated until a series of unfortunate alliances in her late teens sent her on a fast descent into a world of misfortune. For what seemed like an endless, torturous time, we could not communicate with our little girl. As with Julia, we could do nothing but wait until she came back to us.

Finally, finally we got our K*te back, all 5 feet, 1-1/2 inches, 106 pounds of her. She has had to work hard at understanding where she’s been and where she’s going. She’s a good daughter, a good employee and a good friend. She’s grateful for her renewed relationships with those she loves.

K*te’s 21 going on 41, frequently showing a lot more common sense than people many years her senior. She’s assertive and opinionated--a force to be reckoned with--but her intentions are usually toward helping others with compassion. K*te suffers no fools, though; she’s been down that path and can read the signs.

Happy 21st birthday, K*therine, our surprise baby. We celebrate this day with much happiness.

Incoming! Incoming!

2006-10-10T14:42:00.000-05:00

Hi Grandma!

Hi! I was told that you have cornbread. I have not been fed in weeks. Really. My sisters say I'm fat but really I'm just big-boned and I need cornbread. My mom says that you have an empty cage and that you have cornbread and you take care of special-needs rats and that I'm a special-needs rat. What are special-needs?

Did you get the cornbread yet? I'm dying of starvation. Really. I really am.

Love, Krimpet

Hi, Krimpet!

Yes, I have cornbread and ice cream and cookies and all kinds of stuff. You can come stay with me tomorrow! You mama said so! Grandma won't starve you. You will have all you want to eat and you can play on the couch every day! Remember how we played on the couch?

Special needs means you are big-boned and need more cornbread. So, you come over here with your mama tomorrow and stay with me so you won't starve any more, OK? I have a big cage with a platform just for you, and you won't have to share your food with anyone. Sound good?

Grandma

Hi, Grandma With Cornbread!

Thank goodness! They wouldn't believe me when I said special-needs means I get to have all the food. And cornbread. Playing on the couch was the best. There were crumbs there. And a dish of milk. And they were all my crumbs. And my milk.

I am ready to go to Grandma's house! Where there is cornbread! Come on, mama! I will see you tomorrow, Grandma. I will try not to starve to death before then.

Love, Krimpet
P.S. Cornbread

R.I.P. Pokey

2006-10-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

Ready or not, here I come!
Pokey - 2004 to 2006

My daughter, Junket, was working at a pet store when she started bringing home rats. Not the ugly, snarly, sharp-toothed, nasty-tempered sewer rats we see in horror movies. No, these were pet rats, in a variety of pretty colors and coat styles.

I don't know how Junket got around my policy of "absolutely no more critters will be brought into this house!" She must have worked on me for weeks, but eventually Sniffy, a brown agouti rat, came home with Junket one day. She had a ruffly, brown/gray coat, sparkling, fiery eyes and tiny pink ears. Her long tail made me instinctively react with aversion, but when I saw her holding a bit of cracker in between her tiny, star-shaped paws and nibbling at it resolutely, I began to fall in love.

Sniffy's long, twitching whiskers, constant lithe movement and comic antics won me over eventually, and I didn't object too strongly when Snowflake and Hambone came home to live with Sniffy. (Rats are social animals, and they need cagemates, preferably from the same litter they were born into.) Some time later, Sprinkles and Pokey came home as well.

When Junket had her own apartment, the first three rats went with her, but I kept Sprinkles and Pokey. (Rats only live from three to five years, and all of Junket's rats eventually succumbed to mammary tumors and old age. It was hard to lose them.)

Sprinkles, our bad luck rat, had been lost for two days in the pet store, attacked and severely injured by one of her sisters after she came home, removed from the original community because of aggression and suffered a bout of "head tilt" last year, which is a common rat ailment resulting in sometimes irreversible circling, off-balance movements. Sprinkles is perfectly healthy today, having recovered almost completely from the illness. Pokey was not so lucky.

Pokey was a sleek, soft rat with a gentle personality. Unlike her naughty, 90mph, always-in-trouble sister, Pokey preferred to climb up Mr. Pseudonym's chest and get petted and fussed over while she chewed the buttons on his shirt. She loved cornbread, melted ice cream and watermelon. After her snack at exercise time, she would sit on a convenient human shoulder and groom herself fastidiously, washing her face with her little paws, licking and smoothing down the fur on her flanks. She wasn't the smartest rat, but she was photogenic and totally cuddly. She was a little doll.

About four weeks ago, Pokey slowly developed the classic symptoms: an awkward, slow, circling movement with the head tilted to one side, falling over frequently, having difficulty eating and difficulty keeping herself clean. By the time she saw the vet after we realized what was happening (and after a holiday weekend), she was far advanced in the illness. The vet did not know if she could be cured, but she prescribed antibiotics and told us to hope for the best. We helped Pokey eat, bathed her and administered her medicine, but she went downhill steadily. By today, she had lost a lot of weight and her fur was sparse and matted. Her left eye was halfway closed and she was showing symptoms of blindness. Unable to clean herself, she was dragging pureéd food and feces all over her cage. It was time she was given rest, since it was apparent she would not recover enough to lead a normal, active life.

I fed Pokey some ice cream, sponged her off and held her close before she was put down. As I rubbed her head, she closed her eyes and ground her teeth--a sign of affection or contentment. I said goodbye to her and wished her well in her next assignment: give back to the Earth what was given to her, nourishing the lifeforms who could use her body and transforming into all she could become.

I feel honored to have known Pokey.

Traffic Noises

2006-10-03T22:23:00.000-05:00

It's 12:00 midnight, and there's still intermittent traffic, the occasional trolley car and neighbors talking to each other down on the sidewalk in front of Jul's new bachelorette pad. The apartment is just outside downtown Philophilus, my daughter's street marking the dividing-line between Snooty Terrace and Pit Bull Commons (which is why she had her car desecrated three times in as many weeks just for parking a block over the line). Jul and J.Q. are sound asleep, but I continue looking out the window and listening to all the sounds below.

The pervasive lonliness of suburban living seems so far away when I'm in the city. At home, I keep the television on all day, just to hear human voices. With all of my kids grown, I now have the "peace and quiet" I wanted so desperately when they were little. I must admit, these days I would gladly trade my "peace and quiet" for a little human interaction. With Mr. Pseudonym off to work early each day, the walls have a tendency to close in. I so look forward to hopping the train for Philophilus each Tuesday afternoon and babysitting J.Q. each Wednesday.

Since Jul's separation, it takes an hour less travel time to get to her new home in the city each Tuesday. I stay overnight and wake up on Wednesday mornings to J.Q. grinning at me and throwing his little arms around my neck for a long hug. After he's diapered, dressed and has slugged down a quick bot-bot, he grabs for my keys, toddles over to the front door and yells, "Key! Door! Go!" while nodding his head in a "yes" motion. We hurry downstairs for our morning stroll.

>

In the new neighborhood, some of the people walking around are obviously distressed, but most are friendly and polite as I smile and wish them a good morning. Last Wednesday, J.Q. and I met the man with two kitties in his front window and the man with the guitar and the strong blues voice two doors down. Sometimes we walk to the BP gas station store to pick up some milk, juice or a box of crackers. The man takes our money through a small opening in the bottom of a large, thick plexiglass window. He shoves the change and a plastic carrying bag back through the hole.

It is amazing how many people have dogs in the city; we see all sizes and breeds out for their morning walk. Unlike their country cousins, who are just let out into the back yard to do their business each morning, these dogs must be walked twice a day, minimum. And their owners must carry a supply of plastic bags to pick up their animals'...uh...butt flingings for proper disposal. Twice a day! Ewwwwwww! These people must surely love their dogs! Once in a while, we see a somber-looking person being pulled around by a huge, lumpy, drooling canine who looks as if it should be guarding the gates of Hell; J.Q. and I omit the greeting and cross the street when we see these couples.

There are more flowers and plants in most of the container gardens outside the row houses than I put in my large, suburban yard this year. Morning glories climb up iron handrails, and long, trailing plants complement the colorful annuals in the window boxes. "Look, J.Q., pretty flowers!" Predictably, the little hand shoots out to grab a fistful of impatiens from a container, but I learned to keep baby at a safe distance from the plants the first week I went up to the new apartment. J.Q. must content himself with chewing on my keys while studiously absorbing all the bright sights and loud sounds of the city.

The bay windows at the front of most row houses seem to be decorated in themes: patriotic, angels, imported glass, floral arrangement, religious icons. Once in a while, we come upon a house decorated with thousands of mirror fragments or having an ornate, custom-built stairway to the entry. Any house in any row may be painted or decorated in a completely different manner than the rest of the houses in the row. The occasional failed attempt at artful decoration pops out like an outhouse in The Hamptons.

We conclude our morning walk with a 20-minute stair-climbing session outside J.Q.'s apartment. He loves stepping up the four stone steps to the entry door and then stepping back down, over and over and over, clinging tenaciously to the handrail while Gramma keeps a firm hold on the back of his overalls for added stability. His little legs are so strong, and he could keep this activity up for another 20 minutes, but I remind him that there's grapes and waffles and milk upstairs. His little arms shoot out toward me, and he demands to be picked "Up! Up! UP!"

I have fond memories of visiting my aunts' row houses in the city when I was small. My parents had their own business, and they frequently shipped us off to stay with my aunts during the busy holiday seasons. My brothers and I had so much fun racing Sparky, my Aunt Shirley's dalmation, up and down the two sets of interior steps. We worked out a nifty, multi-floor communications system using slips of paper, a hat and a long length of string. (Sparky ate some of the handwritten notes, but it didn't seem to hurt her.) We listened in on my Aunt's telephone calls when she couldn't see where we were. There was a playroom on the third floor, with an electric train set and a doll house. There was a tiny back yard with a grape arbor in one corner. We were allowed to pick the grapes as they ripened, and I can still remember the thick skin and sun-warmed sweetness of the fruit.

I've asked Mr. Pseudonym a few times if we might someday live in the city for a few years, but he's no more keen on this idea than on any of my other ideas. His parents moved down to the Pine Barrens when he was small, as did my parents. They wanted the acreage of a rural setting, since both fathers had a background in farming and animal husbandry. My in-laws went into poultry farming, and my father kept chickens and tended a huge garden. My husband cannot imagine walking back into the noise and confusion of urban life.

We will probably remain out in the "country" after Mr. P retires. We no longer live in as rural an area as our parents did, but we have a big lot with trees we planted ourselves and much grass to mow during the summer. Everyone drives everywhere. Our neighbors may or may not see us as they hop in and out of their cars, there are no corner stores with familiar faces and we cannot walk to the local library. The night sounds are different here: cicadas instead of trolley cars, loud music from a teenaged neighbor's passing car instead of people coming and going at the corner pizzeria, rolling thunder from miles away instead of the honking horns of irritable motorists.

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in both settings, I suppose. But the city pulls at me, especially since my daughter's move to Philophilus. I'll stand at the window and watch the traffic lights changing for a long time before going to sleep.

A Little Break Here...

2006-09-25T13:44:00.000-05:00

While pregnant with K*therine, I kept hoping she would be born on September 23, right between Sarah on the 22nd and Julia on the 24th. But K*te was a stubborn little baby even before she was born, and she held out till October 12. I now realize how hard it is to execute close-together birthday parties (so much shopping, wrapping, decorating, party planning, cake baking, balloon-inflating), and I'm grateful each year for the little break between Sarah'/Jul's and K*te's celebrations.

The girls are all grown now, so we have simple get-togethers not requiring much planning on my part. It was quite a different story when they were all little, though. At around three years of age, little kids begin having parties to which their playmates are invited, and that's when the fun really starts--peaking in the teen years with the Birthday Girl sometimes running off to her room in tears while the pretty cake turns into a river of molten icing and candle wax. If there is a cake, that is. Sometimes home-made cakes explode in the oven; sometimes invited guests spit all over the cake by way of "helping" the Birthday Girl blow out the candles; sometimes the family dog takes enthusiastic advantage of a moment alone at the decorated table.

From the simple, family-only baby parties in the first couple of years, children's yearly celebrations get more complicated as they get older. As an exercise in gratitude and a simple "heads up" to my younger friends with kids, here are some recollections of my own kids' stage-related birthday adventures:

Three to Four Years Old
The party guests arrive on time, dressed adorably, bearing gifts they refuse to turn over to the birthday child. Moms (and the occasional Dad) stay for the festivities, drinking coffee in a corner of the yard and watching their children behave abominably. There is much spilled soda, a smashed cellar window, a few skinned knees, a couple of pee accidents, at least one bee sting and much spontaneous crying. A virus-laden child guest shares his/her plague with all party guests and parents attending (so make your pediatrician appointment 24-48 hours prior to the party). Oh, and be sure to have an extra cake in the refrigerator, just in case.

Five to Seven Years Old
Party guests trickle in over a two-hour period, with about half calling out "sick" an hour before the festivities are scheduled to begin (overbook on this one). The clown will blow his transmission on Rt. 42, so there should be a DVD player at the ready, stocked with several movies featuring poop jokes as the main theme. Little boy guests have been known to practice their karate moves on the birthday cake and/or stacked presents, so a watchful adult needs to be assigned guard duty. Parents of invited guests may suffer "head injuries" which prevent them from remembering to pick up their children at party's end, so make sure you have their home addresses, cell phone and Social Security numbers. The family pets won't come out of hiding for a week but, with enough gentle care, it may not be necessary to consult an animal psychiatrist.

Eight to Ten Years Old
This one should be an "all boy" or "all girl" party, depending on the birthday child's gender. Parents dropping their children off at all-boy parties should be required to sign a release form at the door, since boys will be poking the family pets with sticks, throwing rocks at each other, daring each other to eat spare boxes of birthday candles, calling the police to report child abuse, dropping out of trees and chasing each other into brick walls during the course of events. "All girl" party guests will simply leave a plugged-in curling iron on someone's bed and then get into the host mother's makeup and jewelry, so an in-force homeowner's policy should suffice.

This is also the age at which "all girl" parties may take the form of a sleepover. A word to the wise--don't.

Eleven to Thirteen Years Old
This is the age at which female children ramp up into all-out hormonal derangement. Three weeks before her birthday, the child will insist there be no preparations made for a party. Her reasoning is that no one likes her enough to attend such a fete, and she will not allow anyone to put her through the embarrassment of handing out invitations which will be unanimously declined. Two days before the actual date, she will charge out of her bedroom at 7:12am precisely, tears streaming down her face, wondering aloud if anyone, anyone at all, gives a rat's ass that she's to be denied acknowledgement of her one special day this year. After all, how will it look in front of her friends if her family just ignores her birthday?

Gifts for the Birthday Girl must be chosen with caution, since she will be embarassed to tears by so thoughtless a gift as, say, a stuffed animal ("My friends will think I'm a baby!") or a book of poetry ("Yeah, like, I'm so, like, stupid that my parents have to buy my books for me!") or a box of her favorite chocolates ("Why didn't you just buy me a girdle to go with the candy--I'm going to get, like, so fat!") Makeup or jewelry is acceptable, as long as the colors and design are totally bizarre. Clothing is acceptable as long as one has a goth/punk paraphernalia emporium in the local mall.

Especially in the case of a female child, this should be a co-ed party; she will need someone to hang with after her invited female guests form a clique that does not include her. Male guests need to be cautioned about spitting and cursing, and any CDs they bring in will need to be examined for the Explicit Lyrics label.

Fourteen to Sixteen Years Old
Parents must absent themselves from the actual soireé lest the birthday child die of embarassment from having such creaky, wrinkled dinosaurs hovering around the cake. There are to be no childish decorations hung or cutesy foods served. This is a mature party with grown friends attending, and no parent-inspired humiliation will be tolerated. Parents are to order the pizza and soda, place the money on the entertainment center and then go down to the rec room, where they are to remain until the last guest has left. No matter what sounds or smells emanate from upstairs.

Seventeen to Nineteen Years Old
The birthday girl or boy will be celebrating at a friend's house, since that's the way it's done now. Gifts will be accepted on the actual birthday morning, as long as there's a receipt in the box for exchange purposes. Gas money for the car should be given since Mom used it to get to the supermarket yesterday and half a tank went missing. And there are to be no chores expected on this special day because even slaves got a little time off now and then for, like, a gourd festival or some shit like that. And don't expect any thank-you notes to the relatives, either, for their cheesy Good-Will Special presents.

These days especially, when all of my kids are grown and busy with their own lives, I think back to their first birthdays. Each little girl, on her special day, was propped up in her high chair and shown a cake with one candle stuck in it. The lights were dimmed, the candle was lit and the baby stared wide-eyed as people sang to her. Then she was given her first piece of birthday cake--all for herself, not a little piece, but a big, giant piece of cake all for baby! And, after a moment's confusion and with much encouragement, the little dimpled hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of cake and stuffed it into her mouth. Her eyes got big, everyone laughed and our hearts clenched with such overwhelming love for this little doll-creature. And that love, over time, becomes tempered and disciplined, but it never dies. Your child is always your child, and we hope to see many, many birthdays together before we must part.

Julia is 25

2006-09-23T23:09:00.000-05:00

Twenty-five years ago today, I had my first baby, Julia. A quarter of a century...a generation. Funny, it doesn't seem that long ago.

Mr. Pseudonym and I (mostly I) had gone through infertility studies and treatment for a couple of years by 1980, with one first-trimester spontaneous abortion that year (another would follow Julia's birth). I was emotionally distraught as the months turned into years with no viable pregnancy, and it wasn't long after the mis that I decided to stop trying. I just wasn't that brave or strong, and I didn't want to cry any more.

For some strange reason, my fertility peaked in the winter months of December or January, and I found myself pregnant again six months or so after I'd given up trying. A good endocrinologist and weekly shots of progesterone sustained my pregnancy this time. I left work at 8 months and on September 24, 1981, after 19 hours of labor, had a full-term 8 pound 1 ounce baby .

There's no words to describe the emotional rollercoaster we rode in the days and weeks following Julia's birth. Mr. P and I were older parents who never expected to get a perfect little baby girl. We were a little psychotic in the beginning, hovering over the bassinette, chewing our nails and listening to the baby breathe. After about a week of frantic disorder, my mother (not the most nurturing individual in the world) finally took pity on us and made dinner at our apartment before we starved to death. We were able to relax over time as the baby grew strong and healthy, but nothing could prepare us for the force of her personality.

From the beginning, we now realize, this girl was a person who devoured life, without restraint or reasonableness, relying only on her force of will. Terribly intelligent but oblivious to the rules of human interaction, Julia plowed over, under or through anything standing in her way. She would not be subdued or controlled, and her approach to young adulthood can only be described as hell bent for a brick wall at 120mph.

How does a parent deal with a kid who will not concede an inch? You don't. Life will deal with her, and you can only wait for her to come back to you with new insight, in a teachable state . We tried our inadequate best and hoped our daughter would find her way back to us before it was too late.

Julia hit the brick wall, dropped her arrogance, grew a conscience, learned quite a bit about living with other human beings and married in good faith in 2003. The dissolution of her marriage this year, as painful as it has been, has given her such intimate knowledge of herself. She has worked hard in therapy and in dealing with her changed circumstance, formulated her own code for living, separated herself from her enabler and struck out into a new life based on careful self-examination and acceptance of reality.

This is a brave, strong woman, our Julia, and her future is full of promise. She's worked to overcome her character defects (except for a few especially delicious ones!) and faced the future with courage and dignity. There's still a lot to learn--we never stop learning and growing, hopefully. But Julia's acquired some tools that will help her along the way--honesty, introspection and, most importantly, willingness. She will make a good life for herself and her son, little J.Q.

Happy birthday, Julia. We are so proud of you.

Sarah Is 22

2006-09-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

22 years ago today, I had my second baby. She was born in the Emergency Room at a big city hospital because she was in kind of a hurry. Three years earlier, it took me 19 hours of screaming pain to get her older sister born, so when I woke up with mild back pain to signal the imminent birth of Sarah, I interpreted this to mean that nothing was imminent. So I just wandered around waiting for the real bad part to begin, but it never did.

A couple of hours after the first symptoms, we called the doctor and told him I was having mild contractions every few minutes. He told us to get to the hospital right away, so I went off to get dressed. Mr. Pseudonym called my mom to come stay with little Jul. I came out to the living room a few minutes later and told him that I felt "vaguely pushy." This feeling intensified on the drive to the hospital, and I told Mr. P that he'd better not stop for aspirin. Good thing, since having a baby in the parking lot of a convenience store usually gets a lot of embarassing press.

Things got decidedly urgent in the waiting room at the hospital and, as they were loading me onto a stretcher, I told the ER doctor that I didn't think I could make it upstairs--the baby was on its way out, and he'd better catch it before it hit the floor. The doctor looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but he got on the phone with Obstetrics and they told him what to do until they could send a doctor down. They sent Mr. Pseudonym out into the corridor (unfortunately), and the Obstetrics doctor came down and said, "Priscilla, just pop the baby out; we don't have to do a thing to help." So I popped her out, and they wrapped her in a blanket, called Mr. Pseudonym in and handed his new baby to him.

Sarah didn't look or behave like her older sister. She had dark hair, darker skin and visible eyebrows. She looked more like me than like her dad, and she seemed crabby and colicky from the start. And she made the cutest little squeaking sounds; we nicknamed her "Squeaker." She did have colic for about three months, and that was hard on everyone. The second child is a tremendous adjustment for the whole family, and a colicky infant puts that much more added strain on the parents and siblings.

But Sarah's personality turned sunny after her tummy problems were over, and she grew into a real character--funny and imaginative, with a sweet disposition. At around 11-1/2, she started turning into a teenager and all bets were off, but our "good" kid was still there underneath, biding her time until she got through those rough growth years.

Sarah has her own apartment now. She works long hours and goes to school full time. She's bright, independent, edgy, funny and resourceful. We are so proud of her. Happy 22nd, Squeaker!

Comments? Anyone? Anyone At All?

2006-09-16T21:06:00.000-05:00

For a long, long time, it seemed as if four to six people, max, were visiting my blog on a regular basis--my daughers Jul thumbscre.ws, Caer Coenister Caer's Donut Dungeon and Junket Mischievous Junket, a sweet lady with amazing spirit, Jo, at Tangled Me and maybe an occasional curious relative or two. Anyway, it was just the daughters and the sweet lady who were commenting, but that was OK 'cause I was just doing it as an exercise in reading/thinking/speaking/writing to preserve gray matter as I trudge inexorably toward my senior years.

Then Caer mentioned casually one day that she could track visitors to her blog with the aid of a site meter. She could tell how many people visited her blog and how they got there (search engine, referred from another site, wandered in by apparent mistake) and get quite a lot of free statistical information regarding the ebb and flow around her site. Seemed like a good idea at the time, so I signed up fer free and was able to track the four people who visited my blog regularly and the one or two random strangers who stumbled in about once a month looking for lyrics to Willie Nelson songs.

When Jul went through her separation from mr. thumbscre.ws and Caer broke up messily with exBf, a flurry of readership on their sites ensued. Jul's blog had been gaining a wide audience based solely on her astounding writing skills, and Caer's sweet/funny/aching tales of obsessive love gone feral started bringing in visitors like Free Can of Soda Day at WalMart. Junket and I watched our site meters in amazement as more and more people clicked over to our blogs from the links to us on Jul and Caer's sites.

Our statistics tore through the envelope and began orbiting the earth when Jul's estranged husband's mistress inexplicably decided to comment on her husband-stealing expertise on the site of a popular blogger friend of Jul's (So Close: Would You Look Away, 05 Sept 2006). Comments from Jul's friends who were visiting the friend's site tore Miss Mistress apart like a careless capybara in an alligator-infested swamp. Co-Blogger Friend put up a second posting a few days later, following Steve Irwin's death, (So Close: Following Your Heart. A Question, 08 Sept 2006), and the carnage continued. Over 100 more commentors continued to rip the hapless mistress to shreds, and the site meters on all of the Related Gals' sites contined to spin out of control.

Since that time, things have settled down a lot. Caer took down her blog due to complications involving exBf's sharing knowledge of her site with people who really shouldn't have been exposed to it, Jul forged on with her adventures in wicked good writing, singlehood and peaceful co-existence with her soon-to-be ex for the sake of their child, and Junket and I watched our stats shrivel daily.

Now, Junket is an amazing writer on her own, and she will undoubtedly find her own level and own group of friends with her dark, poetic observations. But I cannot imagine this particular blog, Priscilla's Ramblings About Her Pet Rats and ShopRite Coupons, will ever again enjoy an audience of more than three daughters, one or two online friends and the occasional Willie Nelson fan.

*sound of wolves howling in the darkness*

But that's OK; the more I write, the more often I have to use thesaurus. com. And I have to keep up with the basic html. That should keep the old gray matter jiggling.

*sound of tumbleweeds rustling*

This is a better way to spend time than if I were watching soap operas on t.v. or gossiping about nothing on the telephone for hours on end. Or obsessing about my memory loss. Or about the cats' hairball problems.

Comments? Anyone? Anyone At All?

*sound of an acorn hitting the shed*

OK... nevermind.

niNE-Eweven?

2006-09-11T22:25:00.000-05:00

I saw Mr. Pseudonym off to work this morning for the first time in six weeks and, breathing a slightly guilty sigh of relief (hey--I love the guy, but six weeks?!), sat down with a cup of coffee to check out the weather on t.v. I had forgotten what today was.

Every station was carrying reports of the 9/11 memorial observances in New York, at the Pentagon, at the Flight 93 Temporary Memorial in Pennsylvania and all around the nation. At Ground Zero, survivors of those who perished in the attack read the names of the dead, including the name(s) of the beloved lost of each person reading. Other survivors placed flowers, cards and other tributes in the reflecting pool where the north tower of the World Trade Center once stood. The pool glistened in the sunlight while survivors wiped tears from their eyes and hugged each others for comfort.

It's been five years and, for many of us, watching film of the attacks still produces that crushing feeling in our chests, that horror and disbelief, as if we were living that day over again today. Our lives as Americans changed forever on 9/11/2001. We lost our innocence and our sense of being sheltered from the cruel savagery mankind inflicts on itself around the globe. We were children before 9/11--naive, gullible, unaware and overly confident. We knew of the horrors of life elsewhere, but we were convinced our country's fortifications would always provide security and safety. We had never been attacked on our own shores in this manner, and we could not come to terms with experiencing firsthand that which we had seen in news reports from other parts of the world.

I sat, watching the memorials, waiting for the tears to inevitably begin flowing down my face. There was a camera shot of the reflecting pool showing a little girl of about three or four years dipping her fingers in the pool. She had long, dark hair done up prettily with a ribbon to match her pink dress, and her older brother stood next to her. The camera swung away briefly to focus on an elderly man crying inconsolably as he placed flowers in the pool, and then it returned to the little girl in the pink dress.

The little girl was laughing and squirming away as an adult standing behind her attempted to gently pull her away from the pool. She grabbed some floating flowers and swished them around in the water, laughing as her brother smiled uncertainly at her antics. She began a little dance as she shook droplets of water off her hands and then said something which made her brother burst into laughter himself.

I have three children of my own, and I remember how little girls in pretty, pressed dresses and ribboned hair can cause their parents crushing humiliation with a few careless words or a bit of inspired misbehavior. All I could think, while watching the child on t.v., was, "Oh! Her parents must be mortified!" As I watched, the child continue in her naughtiness, I began to smile. Kids will always be kids, and if we are lucky enough to be able to raise them comfortably, we can count on them repaying us by behaving like savages--with reckless abandon, at the worst possible times, without a care in the world.

As the names of the dead continued to be read by the weeping and shaking survivors, I found myself continuing to smile. That exasperating little kid was the daughter, step-daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin or dear little friend of a person who died unexpectedly five years ago today. That healthy, scrubbed, pretty little child with the terrible sense of timing is going on with her life, carrying a piece of a 9/11 victim along with her. We just don't know for sure, but perhaps a part of those we have lost looks down on us all the time; maybe we feel them smiling down on us with the sunlight and hear the sound of their laughter in the wind.

Comin' Down The Home Stretch

2006-09-05T12:59:00.000-05:00

Mr. Pseudonym has been home for almost six weeks now. What was originally thought to be a torn inguinal muscle turned out to be a pinched nerve in his lumbar spine, which can mean a long, hard recovery. Seems his L4-L5 disk decided to ooze on down toward the tailbone for a little r&r, crushing the nerves in its path and rendering Mr. Pseudonym unable to sit, stand, walk or sleep without agonizing pain in his right hip, groin, leg and knee.

We finally bought a walker with an attached seat so Mr. P could perambulate a few feet and then sit when the pain welled up. He was unable to walk more than a few feet at a time (or sleep more than two hours at a time) for at least two weeks, which was the hardest part of his illness. We've been to the x-ray/MRI facility, to the orthopedist, back and forth to the drug store, to the spine surgeon and to physical therapy. The epidural injections which might have speeded healing have been delayed by the spine surgeon's busy schedule, so we are not certain Mr. P will actually be getting this treatment. Looks like he will be well enough to return to Aircraft & Other-Stuff-You-Don't-Need-To-Know-About R Us next Monday, in which case we will call the Dr. Henrietta Nucleo-Pulpossi and tell her to hang her needles in someone else (no offense to this popular physician).

It has been interesting, to say the least. The kids pitched in to help with transportaion, errands, grass mowing and the like. I had to stay out on the couch at night for several weeks while Mr. P rolled around in the bedroom, trying to find a comfortable position, pillow between his knees, wracked by pain at 3:45am most days. We bought a shower chair and a hand-held shower. The pain medicine, as these types of medicines often do, sapped Mr. P of his enthusiasm for life; his woodworking tools gathered dust, the pet rats chewed on the electronics supply catalogues, the new DVDs remained unwatched and Home Depot's doorway remained undarkened by Mr. P's shadow. He took to sitting on the couch for hours on end, remote control in hand, flipping through the channels with the sound off.

"Why do you have the t.v. muted if you're watching it?"
"Because it doesn't [click] make any difference if [click] you can hear it or not. [click] It's all shit."
"If it's all shit, then why are you watching it at all?"
"I don't [click] know. [click]"

I tried my best to keep Mr. P active and involved in life, but it was an uphill climb. I've always got ideas for sprucing up Pseudonym Estates, but each of my home-improvement suggestions was met with the same bland observation of, "Well, that could be more complicated than you might think at first," or "I don't know what would actually be involved in that," or the all-purpose, well-worn disclaimer, "That could be problematic." So I continued to bring him trays of food in front of the t.v. and schedule medical appointments.

Things got so bad that we went out and bought a 3-disk Simon & Garfunkle retrospective and played it constantly for a week or so, mentally revisiting the Scarborough Fair of our youth. It's kind of hard to get angry about anything these days. Back in the 60s and 70s, there was always an injustice to rail against, some cause or group to ally oneself with for the betterment of mankind and the planet. These days, we are lucky to retain enough righteous indignation to switch from regular to decaffeinated Folgers. Must be some middle-aged thing. Lukewarm blood. We spoke of reselling the walker on eBay now that Mr. P is done with it, but we have become so pessimistic that we will probably wrap it in plastic and store it for future, inevitable use.

The physical therapy has done wonders, though, and I will pack Mr. Pseudonym off to the aircraftery Monday morning with a full tank of gas, lunch money and his I.D. badge clipped to the front of his shirt. He will be back to his scintillating stress analysis, I'll have my days to myself again and his spine will have learned not to fight with sliding glass doors. As always, we must remain grateful--some people never recover from these types of injuries. We are lucky.

Sledgehammer (the darker side of Priscilla)

2006-08-29T18:37:00.000-05:00

I can't recall being this depressed in a long time. It's like there's a heavy wool blanket that smells like wet dog on my head, and someone keeps hitting the top of it with a hammer.

BONK! I'm tired, my eyes are dried out and foggy (except when I start crying), I can't make a decision (not that there are any decisions worth making), my body feels too heavy to drag around and my thoughts are going to kill me.
BONK! I'm a terrible mother and my kids hate me.
BONK! They're plotting against me.
BONK! I've ruined my life and the lives of everyone around me. Even though I wasn't directly responsible, VanGogh cut off his ear because of people like me. The Johnstown floods of 1889, 1894, 1907, 1924, 1936 and 1977 must have had something to do with me or my nefarious ancestors. We won't even go into the Peshtigo Fire of 1871.
BONK! I have no right to a thought, an opinion, an emotion, relationships or property.

BONK! I am uneducated, unaccomplished, ignorant, controlling, dishonest, insincere, self-important, melodramatic, two-faced and generally bad.

BONK! I have brought shame upon my family.

Is that everything? No...wait...

BONK! I'm a bad cook.

It looks like it's time to visit Dr. Friendly and get back on the SSRIs. I have an appointment for September 13 and, if I still feel this way, I'll ask him to dose me. I could call now, but I don't really believe the medication will help. Or that may be just a depressed, negative outlook. At the very least, there will be the initial side effects to get through--nausea, trembling, over-sedation.

Dr. Friendly had me on a new SSRI first cousin, Cynnamon-balta (not its real name, but close), which did jack-shit for depression but diminished the arthritic pain in my hands and feet by about 80%. Unfortunately, combined with my regular pain medicines, Cynnamon-balta sedated me to the point where I was continuously waking up facing a wall. I'd be sleeping peacefully, dreaming of loading the washing machine, and I'd wake up to find myself standing, with my nose pressed up against an interior wall of the house.

Those of us with this type of depression will understand: nothing looks right, nothing seems worthwhile, self-esteem is lower than mole crap, there is a marked decrease in energy and a profound sense of isolation. It's a terrible, terrible place to be, and I've been cycling in and out of it for months now.

I've also apparently passed on the Weeping Curse to all three of my daughters (although, judging by the sales statistics on the SSRIs, so has everyone else in the country). I had spoken with my Caer today--the one who had to take down her outrageously funny blog because she is ending a relationship which she had hoped would never end. Her blog address was revealed to an innocent friend in her ex's family by way of revenge, a person who cannot believe the truth about her family member and who never should have been hurt in this way. Caer's situation is so sad and regretful, and this event would have been enough to handle in and of itself, without the added burden of chronic depression.

But there it is--the MONSTER--the illness that saps our strength by telling us lies about ourselves. There's medicine now, and sometimes it works. But sometimes it doesn't. And there's a long road to travel before getting to the right medicine for the right person, which takes more energy than a depressed person can summon up.

I need to see the ocean. I need to think about cool, bright autumn days and pumpkins and little kids in ghost costumes. I need to smell cinnamon and vanilla. I need to hug my grandson, have him bury his head in my shoulder and mutter, "Anana, Anana." All things being equal, I can achieve all of these needs in the immediate future--possibly even before the new SSRI kicks in.

Heatwave Advice

2006-08-03T10:18:00.000-05:00

Folks up and down the east coast, especially those in New Jersey, continue to swelter in the hot sun on the fifth day of our current heat wave. The t.v. news program editors have dug out their "Hot Weather" scripts, blown the dust off and handed them to their anchormen and anchorBarbies. We are all familiar to tears with the same boring advice to viewers: stay in air-conditioned places, use fans, check on the elderly, don't go out at 12:00 noon, yadda-yadda-yadda. Yes, newsfolk, we know. You've been harping on these same suggestions every summer for as long as there have been televised news broadcasts.

We here at Pseudonym Estates feel it's high time for an updated, high tech approach to informing the public about health and safety considerations during hot spells. People already know to wearing light, loose-fitting clothing and to make sure Grandma isn't out on her porch, standing on a wobbly step stool and swatting at a hornet's next with a broom in 98°F weather. Unlike Rocky Balboa, we aren't running up and down the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We are puffed up like well-fed ticks from drinking water. We realize these are not the days to bake potatoes non-stop or to lock Phydeaux in the car while we run in to WalMart to try on snorkeling attire.

So, let's throw out those tired old scripts and fire up our imaginations! Here are a few modernized suggestions for hot weather advisories. Perhaps our gentle readers will be able to come up with a few more of their own.

Hot as a Bitch Wolf in a Pepper Patch?Here's What to Do!

No air-conditioning? The bastard finally exploded just when the thermometer did likewise? Soaketh thineself! Go out to the back yard, turn on the hose and wet yourself down! Your wet hair and clothing should keep you nicely cool until the repair man can get out to your house (typically, one week from today).

Stop cooking! Yes, proper nutrition is important, but at what price? Are those pork chops more important than your own safety? Do you want them to find you on the kitchen floor, clutching your spatula, mummified, lying there like a dried toad on a tar roof? No? Then go out to the supermarket, buy four gallons of vanilla ice cream, five jars of gooey toppings, two 14oz. cans of Redi-Whip and a large jar of masaschino cherries. Trust us, no one will complain.

Burn down your own shed! (This suggestion may be a little left of legal except in South Jersey. Check your local ordinance on arson and related activities.) It's old and rickety, and you've been meaning to get one of those molded resin jobs from Sear's anyway. So just torch the bastard and have fun watching the firemen spray all of that cool, cool water on the flames.

Modify your dance stylings! Most of us like to go through the day with energy and enthusiasm, starting the morning off with a slow to moderate twist while we load the coffee maker, progressing through to a macarena or upbeat cha-cha after our second cup. Our lunchtime waltz break segues into some preparatory disco or country line dances, and then into our hot rhythms afternoons of funk and hip-hop house. Only in the evening, after our daily tasks are completed, do we slide into our samba, tango or Viennese Waltz. During extremely hot weather, however, it is best to stick with the slower dances throughout the day; there's nothing that can't be done to a slow, Smooth Foxtrot or an Argentine Tango.

Throw a luau for the pets! They don't understand why Mommy and Daddy won't take them outside to play. But extremely hot weather is a great time to dress the critters up in flowered kitty or doggy shirts, throw a tablecloth on the living room floor and serve their favorite foods to that hip-snatching Hawaiian music on the stereo. (You'll want to keep your hula dances a bit slower than usual, of course.) Decorate their food and water dishes with fresh flowers, light a few tiki candles and invite little Fifi from next door to come over for some Alpo with Pineapple Sauce! Needless to say, you won't be extending any invitations to any neighbor pets whose owners have called the police in the past to complain about your constant loud music, singing, dancing on the lawn in your jammies or Rastafarian houseguests.

Treat your neighbor to lunch! Ladies, you know which neighbor we mean, don't you? She's out there in her bikini every time your husband starts to mow the lawn or bring in the trash cans. She's either sunning her shameless hide or dipping a toe in the pool, but she's always... out... there. Next time she's face down on her beach towel with the back of her bikini top unsnapped, as she loves to do, quickly run in and get a well-chilled, very large raw beef liver and lob it over the chain link fence directly onto her back! Then stand back and listen to the screeching!

Blackout? No air-conditioning, no lights, no television, no stereo, not even a fan to circulate the hot air? Not so quick--let's not jump to conclusions! Just because you haven't turned on that fan in a long time, it doesn't mean there isn't still some electricity left inside it! Try turning the fan on, and see if it works.

We need to go lie down now; the room is spinning and we hear harp music getting closer and closer and closer. Why, it's St. Peter! And he's got popsicles!

Mr. P's Crippled Crotch

2006-08-03T01:10:00.000-05:00

It was painful to listen in as Mr. Pseudonym called his boss and reported no change in his condition. He's still unable to walk without the aid of crutches, and he's frustrated to be away from his busy desk at Aircraft & Other-Stuff-You-Don't-Need-To-Know-About R Us. He had deadlines and due dates before his inguinal muscle ripped, and he's not happy about abandoning his duties to lie about the house. Mr. Boss offered no advice other than to state that a 5-day absence due to sickness was the maximum allowed before an employee would be required to apply for disability status.

We finally figured out what the precipitating event was: a week ago last Saturday, Mr. Pseudonym replaced the track under our sliding glass door at the back of the house. This necessitated picking up a 100 lb. glass door repeatedly and placing it either on the floor or back in its frame. Mr. P felt no muscle strain or pain from his efforts, but there was damage done nonetheless. As Junket so superfluously observed, "Well, I guess you won't be picking up any more glass doors by yourself, will you, Dad?"

Most people don't like to go in to work each day. Some people mildly dislike their jobs, others actively hate their jobs, but there are few who really love going in to work. Mr. P loves going in to work. He drives an hour and a half each way to get to work and back, but he's glad to be there every day. He enjoys interacting with his co-workers, and he enjoys the challenges of his other-stuff-you-don't-need-to-know-about projects. He's been a good provider for his family and a good employee to his company. And now he's felled by a STUPID GLASS DOOR and may be facing a protracted period of disability!

I dunno...
Makes me want to take a hammer and go after that door. If it weren't 83°F with 79% humidity at 2:25am, I might put on some safety glasses and give that door a glass whuppin', but we don't need excessive heat and biting insects inside the house right now--not to mention the noise of the cicadas.

Ah, well--I shall pamper Mr. P tomorrow and make sure he takes his medicine on time. We've known each other for 50 years, and he's been my best friend and closest confidant for 35 years (37 if you count the engagement), so there's not much life can throw at us that we can't get through together. And this includes torn crotches and babysitting rats.

dasfdpwewr=032=054vb6 .............................oetbav[r'UWI43304 OREKEAPFKJBMBVRRRRRRRRRRRRM,,,,SER 4RQ4SSSSSSSS9R 845 KDL.

WHOOPS! Fell asleep on the keyboard again! Morpheus insists!

Ole, Ole! Ole, Ole! Feelin' HOT-HOT-HOT!!!

2006-08-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

It's still 86°F at 10:24pm, with the humidity around 73%. Daisy the Terrier is confined to the house, and it's pitiful to see her attempts to engage us in play by repeatedly dropping her frisbee on our feet and wagging her tail frantically. Even the cats are hanging back when we open the door and they get their whiskers slapped back by the hot, humid air. They would normally like to go outside and chase bugs across the lawn on a warm summer night.

The boy cicadas seem to be having a good time, competing for the girl cicadas' attention by scratching out their highly-spirited muscial compositions:

scritch-EEEK! scritch-EEEEK!
scritchity-EEEK-EEEEK-EEEEK!
Look at my bulgy red eyes, ladies!
Look at my lacey wings!
Listen to my scritchity songs,
You sexy female things!
scritch-EEEEK! scritch-EEEEEK!

A little misbehavior on the part of Mr. Pseudonym's hip/groin muscle necessitated our venturing forth into the bake oven today. Muscle stiffness over the past week or so developed into raging pain and a pronounced limp by late Sunday. The doctor couldn't fit us in until today. Junket and I had taken to pushing Dad around on a computer chair whenever he needed to go to the bathroom, but our friend Kathy came up with a set of crutches this morning, which are helping get him around a little better.

Dr. stopped short of saying, "I'll be damned," but his best guess is that Mr. P has a strained or torn inguinal muscle. There was no precipitating factor--Mr. P didn't move any refrigerators or anything...just, "Lah-dee-dah-dee-dah, RIP!" They're not called "groin muscles" for nothing! We treated Mr. P to a couple of x-rays and a bottle of woozypills, ran home and poured him back onto the sofa. He's now watching movies nonstop and wishing he had access to a zero-gravity chamber someplace.

Caer's rats are still here, eating us out of house and home while anxiously awaiting Mommy's return. By the time Caer gets back, these rats are going to be twice as big as when she left! That's OK...Grandma likes to spoil them, too. I'll take my Sprinkles and Pokey out for exercise first this evening, and then I'll gather up Caer's Krimpet, Linky and Sloepoke if I'm not too weary. Rats will fight with other rats not of their biological or adopted families, so I never exercise Caer's rats with mine. A prolonged introduction and acclimation period would be necessary, and Caer's just not going to be gone that long.

They run back and forth on the sofa, in and out of the sofa pillows, occasionally jumping up on my shoulders for a better vantage point. (Mr. P's gone to bed, so he won't be eaten by rats while he is disabled and helpless.) They have their own special blanket to run on, since they have the unfortunate habit of "marking their territory" by urinating. Riiiiiiight! Like they bought that blanket and launder it regularly!

Rats are smart, comical and affectionate pets. I'm glad I got over thinking of rats in terms of bubonic plague vectors and got to know them as sweet, furry little friends.

Onward!

Cicada Karaoke

2006-07-24T22:43:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: We are back in the heat again--forcast for this coming Tuesday says 98°F with calm winds and dead birds dropping out of the trees. *grimace* It just takes me so long to do a posting that I overlap myself!

From Last Week:

The heatwave has finally broken, with daytime temps and humidity lower at last. It's been a gradual shift over the past week, but cold air hit my face when I opened the glass door to let the cat out this morning. COLD!

I had become accustomed to wincing miserably as the hot, wet, Eau 'd Sewage Treatment Plant air slapped my face each morning. The little dials inside the electric meter out back of the house had gone "SPROING!" and scattered miniscule metal parts all over the inside of the protective glass dome. (Not to worry; the electric company will be able to figure out what to charge.) Everyone I ~~bitched to~~ commiserated with described the same set of heat-related physical symptoms: lethargy, listlessness, digestive problems, depressed mood. It seemed we had slid off New Jersey and plopped down into Hell without even the opportunity of a fair trial.

But then we had a few thunderstorms and things began to cool off, the daytime/nighttime temperatures going down a few degrees each day over the past seven days. Early morning today must have been in the 60's--a little promise of autumn to come.

After a busy day, and when I finally got a chance, I took Daisy the Terrier out to the back yard to chase after the frisbee. Daisy only weighs about 25 pounds, but she leaves deep ruts in the yard with her hind paws as she charges off after a thrown toy. She's solid muscle and lightening-quick, using all her senses to catch or track her toys. It's wonderful to see a little terrier at work; their speed, agility and comic determination always amaze me.

Daisy likes to "hide" her toys rather than return them straight to me. We had a rash of huge spiders out in the yard a couple of summers ago (webs a good three feet in diameter), so I'm careful when walking under trees to get Daisy's hidden whiffle ball or frisbee. I got rather traumatized by a particularly large spider while searching for puppy's whiffle ball one evening. She had spun her web out of a pine tree and across to my clothesline and I almost ran into her web headfirst. I looked up just in time to see her perched on her intricate construction, two feet from my face. Talk about a potential screaming, hysterical back yard ballet!

Now, Mr. Pseudonym and I are gentle, ex-hippie type people, and we don't like to go around randomly stomping on other living things just because they don't look like Bambi. But Mizz Spider was the type of woman who could make the blood drain out of a very large, muscular dockworker's face. She was at least and inch and a half long, with a full, ponderous body and long striped legs.

We tolerated her presence with trembling good humor until several of her sisters decided to set up shop at crucial points on the front and back of the house. They liked to move their webs a couple of feet over from the previous night's web each time they spun, so we never knew what we might be running into when leaving the house. We had taken to peering fearfully out of our doors before attempting exit to see who was merrily spinning her way into our nightmares that evening. Reluctantly, but before they could lay their eggs for next year, we wiped out the whole community one evening with a can of Raid and a broom.

We had seen this same type of spider adorning several stories of a hotel we stayed at on one of our vacations, two dozen or so of their giant webs spread across the outside of the hotel building like patches of angel's hair on a Christmas tree. We were not anxious to host our own "Jump Out In Front of the Humans & Scare Them Into Shrieking Temporary Insanity" workshop at our home the following summer. Even after the slaughter, I still wouldn't go out by myself in the evening to exercise the dog for the rest of the summer; Mr. Pseudonym had to tolerate my whimpering and hanging onto his arm while he inspected the trees with a flashlight before Daisy and I began to play.

Cicadas, however, are another story. For some reason, they don't scare me. They are big insects, with a no-nonsense exoskeleton and disturbing noisemaking capabilities, but they just don't seem that threatening to me. They don't bite or sting (good thing for us!), content to suck on plant juice and sing their shrill, grating, intrusive arias up in the trees each evening. During daylight hours, they will occasionally fly into us by accident, with a loud "THWAP" as they hit the space between our eyes and fall to the ground insensate. Since cicadas are, as I said, BIG and prehistoric looking, the thwapped individual will usually look down at the stunned insect on the ground and immediately begin screaming, running around and waving his/her arms wildly above the head. "EEEEEEEEK! EEEEEEEEK! EEEEEEEEK!" we will exclaim. But there really is no reason to do this.

Cicadas are actually quite beautiful, with the many species varying in color and size. Their characteristic ear-piercing "song" results from the male cidada rubbing his special abdominal "tymbals" together to attract a mate. Most cicadas have multiple-year life cycles. There are "annual" and "periodical" cicadas, with life cycles, respectively, of two to eight years and 13 to 17 years. So, while there are usually some species of cicadas around each year, some of these lil' sap suckers arrive in great numbers every 13 to 17 years. (See Periodical Cicadas, http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/projects/cicada/NA/Magicicada/index.html

It is amazing to me that these insects spend all these years underground, sucking on tree roots and going through several stages of development, only to emerge as adults so infrequently. Junket once found a molted exoskeleton from a cicada and ran around after her sisters, scaring them with it for a few days. She was so proud of herself: "I named him STING ASS," she explained. Junket is indeed mischievous.

107 In The Shade

2006-07-17T12:35:00.000-05:00

I had to reschedule Sprinkles' and Pokey's vet appointments today. The SHared unInspected Taxi has no air-conditioning, and I just couldn't see packing ice around the rats and taking them out in this weather for just a routine check-up. They can go next Monday evening, when Mr. Pseudonym's well-chilled little silver Civic will be available.

The shaded thermometer outside the back door now reads 100◦F, which feels like 105◦F to 107◦F when we factor in the New Jersey humidity, or roughly meaning "you're FRIED, Pineys!" Under these conditions, the New Jersey State Bird has been known to swarm out in choking clouds, even at mid-morning, from the low-lying foliage. The cloud then heads straight for the average NJ housewife at her clothesline. Within five minutes, there is left only a heap of collapsed skin and bone in a housedress, a couple of clothespins and a cigarette poking out from between its clenched teeth.

Junket and I are gratefully hunkered down in the cool darkness of Pseudonym Manor, two wall-unit G.E. air-conditioners straining under the load, confused animals gathered at our feet. Daisy the Terrier doesn't understand why we can't go play frisbee; the cats are staring listlessly at the sliding glass door which lets out to the back yard, wondering who will stalk the birds in their absence. Solid food doesn't go down easily, but lies at the bottom of my stomach, complaining bitterly.

An old friend once told me she watches certain films on very hot days. Her favorite cool-down film is Waterworld, which I have never seen in its entirety. (If I'm going to watch a hosed-down leading man, it ain't gonna be Kevin Costner; I'm more of a Mel-Gibson-in-his-tight-leather-pants, c. Mad Max, kind of girl.) When the temperature exceeds 95◦F, I like to watch Fargo, It's A Wonderful Life, The Day After Tomorrow or Smilla's Sense of Snow. Well, that last one sort of irritates me with its implausibility; Mr. Pseudonym just bought it so he could look at Julia Ormond. Mr. Pseudonym also likes to look at Audrey Tautou. Both of these ladies look somewhat like I did in my youth, which is of some small comfort. Well into having completed my sixth decade in this body, my skin is a bit rumpled and careworn these days.

It's OK, though--I've given up makeup, for the most part, and J.Q. seems to find the crosshatched wrinkles on my face to be of considerable interest. I still hold him when he's sucking down his milk or juice, even though he's been capable of holding his own bottle for quite some time. He stares into my eyes, pats my face, tries to stick his fingers up my nose or rips off my glasses and giggles while driddling milk out of the corner of his mouth and down his neck. We only have these few precious minutes before he flings the empty aside and chases off on all fours after the cat or the nearest available electric outlet. He's tall, solid and wiry at 15 months, and he doesn't believe in holding still for much these days. My babies didn't either, and they've run all the way into a time in which I cannot comfort or protect them.

Oh, never mind me. It's just the heat. I need to brave the baking sun just long enough to get to an icy-cold Target and buy myself some toys.

Or maybe not. It's just not worth the stress. I'll pop in my Oceanscapes DVD (fishies, foamy waves, coral reefs, blue-green coolness, tranquil tinkly music), make some iced tea and let the day wind down.

Pet Cemetery

2006-06-26T19:48:00.000-05:00

Mr. Pseudonym and I moved to Inalienable Heights in 1983, when our oldest child was not quite two years old. We bought a small rancher on a big lot, thinking the baby would enjoy tearing around the large yard and that our family would remain small.

Wrong! Two more kiddies arrived within three years of the first, the endocrinologist having found out what was wrong with me. So we found ourselves a family of five, stuffed in a family-of-four house, with several of us having a deep longing for pets. (Not Mr. Pseudonym; the only thing he has a deep longing for is the remote control.)

The first pet was a kitten for #1 Daughter. Despite a few moments of hysteria when daughter was informed that Mom had mistaken the gender of kitty and that he would have to be named Jessie instead of Jessica, Jess turned out to be a much-beloved pet. He met his untimely end on a busy cross street a mere year or so after we got him. I had to go claim his body, shovel it into a garbage bag and store it in the neighbor's garage until Mr. Pseudonym came home and hacked out a grave under the giant oak tree at the northeast corner of the Pseudonym Manor estate.

I'd had previous experience with hacking out kitty graves when my neighbor's Snowball crawled under a shrub the year before and gave up her ninth. Kathy and I had to get the job done before her two boys came home from school and saw Snowball's deflated remains, so we set to work with vigor. Problem was, our back yards were mostly crabgrass, clay and tree roots. We tried digging a grave on her southwest corner, but the roots were just too thick. We both worked feverishly at her northeast corner, and we managed a shallow depression just big enough to hold the black plastic Hefty bag. We flung Snowball's bagged remains into the poor hole, shoveled dirt over the top and tried to tamp the dirt hill down with our feet. But every footstep set the grave to undulating since neither of us had thought to let the excess air out of the Hefty bag. We stood there, panting, in 90 degree heat, staring at each other. Kathy leaned on her shovel, gagged once and lowered her head. "Well, look, Kath," I said, "unless it rains real hard or Spot decides to investigate the interesting aroma, it will probably be OK." Kathy gagged again, and we piled a few fallen tree limbs and assorted sticks and rocks on top of the rippling grave.

Jessie went under a bit easier, thanks to Mr. Pseudonym's exemplary digging skills. And he even made a little tombstone for Jess out of pressure-treated wood engraved with puss' name and dates. We got our Onyx from the local shelter the same day because I do things like that for no apparent reason. She was six months old then and is still alive today, some fifteen years later. She just doesn't look too good these days.

A long string of pets and random animal corpses have been interred under the oak tree since those early days. We had to expand our pet cemetery out from the oak and into the surrounding yard over the years for lack of space. There was a snake found flattened on the road; a few heat-exhausted birds; two or three cicada exoskeletons; Beaureguard the guinea pig; Caramel and Lucifer, the hamsters; Uncle Blackie the fish (after a lovely, candlelit, public viewing of his cadaver on a cardboard coffin/catafalque made by #3 Daughter), Creamsickle and Alex (also fish); Rumply the Brave Stray Cat (we only had her for a year--she was old but very determined and personable); our first dog Roxy, who lived for fourteen years; and, most recently, #2 Daughter's pet rat Nutmeg and #3 Daughter's pet rats Snowflake, Sniffy and Hambone.

To be truthful, when the kids were little, a few "bad" fish went down the toilet to "live with the other bad fish in the sewers" after chewing the fins off their sisters. Recently, Floppy, sister of Flippy and Flappy, was found in a mummified state where we keep the fish food, so she went down the toilet too; it was just more expedient. In addition to the two less-adventuresome fish and Onyx the cat, we currently have cats Jean, Peanut and Buju, Daisy the Terrier and pet rats Pokey and Sprinkles. (Pokey is my thumbnail picture; she's fat and sleek from her daily milk and cookies snack at exercise time.)

The old oak tree was here when we moved in; as a matter of fact, the old oak tree was probably here 100 years before we moved in. And there was an old maple on the other side of our lot. But Mr. Pseudonym and I had planted everything else in the yard ourselves--the burning bushes, viburnums, Norway maples, tulip tree, two lines of white pines along the east and west fences, two Japanese maples, the bridal wreath and, most recently, a little hydrangea bush which serves as a memorial for our Roxy. All of our plantings were little when they first went in, and now several of the trees tower above us and shelter the yard and house. They will all come down, eventually, but we probably won't be here to see them change. They will all go back to the Earth to begin again, just as our little furry (and scaly) friends have gone back to the Earth.

Mr. Pseudonym and I are getting older and older by the day - our children are all grown, and we sometimes think about retiring to another state when the time comes. We no longer need to worry about uprooting the kids from their neighborhood, there are more peaceful places to live and our current hometown is too loud and smells funny. I daydream a lot about Virginia, or the New England states, or even the ancestral home in Ohio. But then I step off my back landing and feel the life vibrating there: life we planted, life our kids climbed and carved their initials into, life in the air and flitting around above the grass, life we helped send on to its transformation, life we are only dimly aware exists. It's all out there, rollicking around in a small square of the Garden State, lifeforms too numerous to be counted.

And it's life that gives us a sense of experience and emotion. The scent of an early summer morning, the echo of my children's laughter, the memory of butterflies flitting around their wading pool, red tomatoes hanging from tall plants, squirrels swinging back and forth at the top of Mr. Pseudonym's little experimental cornfield, tiny blue robin-egg shells, thunderstorms that failed to wake the little children, the smell of digging in the earth, the soft brush ends of white pine branches, birdsong, dew on spider webs, ants forming a line into the house to get at spilled juice. I wonder if I can really leave this place and these memories some day.

Some of our pets could have had better lives, and I think of this often. No excuses offered, but I didn't always fully understand my moral obligation to treat all living things as I would wish to be treated. I didn't always see them as my little brothers and sisters. I didn't always see that all life nourishes all life, that we are all of the same substance and that we will all swirl through the life cycles of Earth continuously for as long as She exists. It takes living through times of "birth" and times of "death" to understand our part in the big picture. No animal in my care now ever wants for food, a comfortable house and a respectful, loving relationship with his/her human companions.

We will meet again, all of us. There's so much work to be done.

--Revised 7-01-06--

PANIC (or other things just as amusing)

2006-06-09T12:30:00.000-05:00

Waking up from a dream of my parents; they were walking like mobile wax figures, expressionless yet somehow disapproving. A new house with many rooms--each room with one or two washers/dryers and piles of dirty clothing. I'm telling Mom I'll make lunch for Dad. He's ill and old. She goes off with one of my brothers. But it's Christmas, and there's very little time before company descends like locusts with a yen for candied sweet potatoes. I have to run out and get presents for everyone, but the house isn't cleaned, and the turkey is lying on the kitchen counter, naked and pale...

Start down the corridor... something's wrong. I'm awake, but not walking a straight line, and I keep scraping my arms on the bookshelves. Thirsty...terribly thirsty. Can't breathe through my nose... and the dream pops back in for a few seconds: didn't set the long tables, white tablecloths, who's supposed to cook the turkey? I'm falling forward...

Wait. I'm facing the wall. Again. Fell back asleep while walking. Well, at least this time I'm not waking up facing a wall and then turning around to see Mr. Pseudonym facing me. I just can't bear that strange, Christ-Kicked-Over-A-Hurdle look on his face. Maybe Junket will make coffee. Pain's running up and down my spine in cruel waves. Go back...get medicine. Junket's asking what's wrong. Don't want to talk. Thirsty, so thirsty. Can't breathe. Air's too heavy - too stale. Junket's ready to talk agenda: what time is mammogram appt?, is Dad still going for his foot x-ray tonight?, do I still need the car?, if I need the car, can I be ready to take her to work in fifteen minutes? Just sit down for a minute and take deep breaths...

Voices - first of the herd of company - and I'm not dressed yet...not even showered. What presents was I supposed to buy? Why does house look so torn apart? Who's going to do all of this wash? Why is the turkey lying on counter like a sodomized backwoods trail hiker? Falling again...

Something's wrong. Just breathe. What do I need? Junket's asking what's wrong again. Phone's ringing. Find remote control - maybe t.v. will divert from pain. Click remote control...click, click, click... . Junket's saying Mr. Pseudonym wants to know if his foot x-ray is still on for tonight. Wave of guilt (was supposed to have arranged for referral to be sent to radiologist on Wednesday - forgot - oh, SHIT! SHIT!)

Waving away phone at Junket's exasperated, "It's DAD!" pronouncement. I really don't care if it's Jesus inviting me out to the diner for steak and eggs and an x-ray of hubby's foot with his eyes when we get back to the house. I gotta go stand on the back steps and look at the sky for awhile. Just BREATHE!!!

This is a bad day, as so many of them have been recently. Trouble sleeping, trouble waking, physical torment, nightmares, guilt, telephones ringing, lost hours... ah, GOD! Junket has to call Kathy, our friend and next-door neighbor, a middle-aged lady who is also at a stuck-point in life. Neither of us can get away from our increasingly-distressing family situations. My girls are breaking free of their "this is all I deserve" relationships, and I feel pain when my kids feel pain. My neighbor cares for an end-stage Alzheimer's mother without much help or understanding from her all-male family.

Kathy flies over in record time, having loaded her mother onto the daycare bus just minutes before. I've stood by her for the past sixteen months or so, since she's been providing care for her mother entirely by herself. She's done the best she can with the situation, Alzheimer's being almost as cruel as money-hungry relatives. Her sister - who had shared caregiving responsibilities with Kathy ever since their father's death three years prior - waited until she could legally get her sticky hands on her share of their father's estate and then, on the magic, legal date, bailed out on caring for their mother. The sister screeched up to the Heritage Dairy store where they traded off Mom every other night, yanked their mother out of her car and shoved her into the back of Kathy's car, yelling, "I hate the f***ing bitch! I don't care WHAT you do with her!"

So, I became Kathy's sister, because if your own family bails on you, then you have to make a new family. Kathy needed a sister, I never had a sister - VOILA! I got a spare Mom out of the deal, my own mother having died in 1995. The spare Mom smiles at me, holds my hand, and speaks in long, rambling, rhyming sentences about dogs and her father and little kids being cute and helpless. Even in end-stage, curse-word shouting, nose-picking, crayon-munching, milk-spilling, cell-phone hiding, talk-to-mirrors, bead-playing, trashcan-browsing, rawhide dog-bone licking, crap in your giant diaper Alzheimer's, Marie is kinder, gentler and more thoughtful than many "normal" adults I know. And Kathy and I have grown much closer in the past sixteen months. We raised our kids together, but now we share things we never touched on in over 20 years of friendship. And when one of us is in trouble, the other is right at her side.

Kathy makes me stand on the back steps and breathe the cool morning air. She pats me on the shoulder and tells me it's just Panic (which I already figured out), makes me a cup of tea and takes over the world for me when I can't think one more thought. I'm so grateful to have her.

Day 2 With J.Q.

2006-05-26T15:48:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I agreed to spend two days with little J.Q. in the first place. I know how my body feels after spending one day with the lil' devil: wide band of gnawing pain across lower back; hot poker twinge in left, right or both knees; weakened, worn-down muscles from lugging a dense, highly-compressed hominid around for 10 or so hours; T5, my constant vertebra companion (pictured above), sending an intense, two-inch wide tingling sensation from himself to my right underarm and then on around to my right breast nipple; a defeated, demoralized mental state caused by flecks of dried feces on exposed skin, chewed shoelaces, several small bite marks on my face and chest, Gerber Stage 2 Sweet Potatoes & Apples smeared on my eyeglasses and a long, jiggling strand of booger hanging from the hair at the nape of my neck... .

I could go on, but in truth it's all worth it. It's wonderful to see that crooked little grin when J.Q. first sees his Grandma Priscilla and to see those little arms shoot out for me to pick him up. Those cool, solid little legs. His rose-petal-soft skin. The smell of his silky, soft hair as he nestles under my chin. His muttering, "NaNa," in this case meaning Grandma, but also meaning hungry ("na-na-NA-NA-NA-NA!") or banana ("NA-NA! NA-NA!"). His recognition and delight in our special baby games - rolling the ball, patty-cake, little piggies, so-big, peek-a-boo. His craftiness, his silliness, his determination. His doll-like physical appearance. He's just the sweetest little thing, and it's so, so easy to forget my own physical limitations when asked to put in a some extra time with the little guy.

So, when #1 Daughter, Mrs. Thumbscre.ws, asked me for an extra day this past Wednesday, I agreed. After all, it was just a one-time thing as she switched over to a 5-day work schedule; next week J.Q.'s usual daycare could take him for the extra day. I was with J.Q. every Thursday anyway, and #1 Daughter's new schedule would put her at home sixty to ninety minutes earlier than usual, so WHAT THE SMOKIN' HELL? More time with baby, RIGHT?

Wrong. While J.Q. was the most adorable, pleasant little guy on Wednesday, he had a different agenda in mind for Thursday. I didn't sleep well on Wednesday night and was grateful on Thursday morning for the little coffeemaker #1 Daughter had installed up in my room at her house. Even the Brown Marmorated Surprise East-Coast Visitors clinging to my bedroom windows seemed to be moving a little sluggishly Thursday morning. I had two cups of coffee down before the first of them lumbered over to ask for a sip.

I thudded down the steps slowly on swollen legs and took the handoff from Mr. Thumbscre.ws on his way out the door. J.Q. seemed a little sluggish, too. His "Hi, Grandma!" grin was a little shorter and less enthusiastic than on Wednesday, and he objected strongly to being put down on the floor while I made his bot-bot. Matter of fact, he objected strongly to my doing anything but holding him for most of the morning. I kept J.Q. up until after lunch before attempting to put him down for his nap. We played upstairs for a long time before we went outside in the stroller to be rolled back and forth and back and forth, staring at the big tree until he conked out.

J.Q. went out just in time. T5 had been at me for some time, bitching steadily through the morning hours and then ramping up to bullying nastiness by 1:00pm. "Look, Priscilla, you idiot! I can just hunker down and squeeze that disc all the way out to your f***ing liver if you want!" (Priscilla has stopped using the F word - T5 has not.) "Now, I want some morphine, an ice cream sandwich and to sit down and watch Court TV, so put that brat in the crib and let's get some TUBE TIME IN!"

Baby was in a better mood after his nap, and he decided to stage some races with his stuffed dachshund and get Grandma hoppin' as well! I'll let J.Q. explain his favorite Activities for a Thursday Afternoon (When You A Baby!)

Hi, babies! Me J.Q. Me CUTE! Gwamma say so!
Dis how me keep Gwamma busy so she not get bored and take nap.
You twy dis wiff YOUR Gwamma, too!
But not twy wiff MaMa/DaDa - dey get MEAN!

Chase Cat. It hard not go HEE-HEE-HEE when we get Kitty in corner, but if we waff too much, Gwamma will hear and get Kitty tail out of our mouf before we can BITE IT. Ha-ha-HAHAHAHAHA!

Take Diapey Away from Gwamma. Dis work well wiff a pee-pee diapey, too, but Gwamma not get scared wike wiff poo-poo diapey. Just when Gwamma is open second tab on diapey, stick wittle hand under our butt, gwab first tab, yank diapey stwait up and pwetend we COWBOY and diapey is LASSO! If we fast cowboy, Gwamma get face full of pee or poo, and she skweam and skweam and skweam! HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Dis one never get old!

Pee in Gwamma Face. Always good for waff! Gotta give old bat kwedit, dough, she getting faster wiff cover up Mr. Winkles before she get compweetwee soak. HEE! Pee-pee FUN! Poo-poo FUNNER!

Stuff Peas Up Nose. Why dey get so mad? It not dere nose... It OUR nose! Maybe we need get a few peas out for snack in case we get hungwy beefore supper! WOTTEN GWOWN-UPS!

Spit Cottage Cheese All Over Gwamma. P'tui, p'tui, p'tui! Me spit food on you-ee! HA-HAAA-HAH! Wait...Gwamma! NO! NO! No washkwoff! Me not done! REAWY! ME HUNGWY!!!
GWAB! Gwab EVWYFING! Gwab weemote contwols, magazeems, Gwamma gwasses, toity papoo, icky buggies, folded waundwy, cords, dirt on fwoor, dvd's, table-kwoff, cups, pwates, ovver people food, cabinet handoos, baby powdoo, shoewaces, kitty food, toity bwush, newspapoo, banana, gwandfovver kwokk, Gwampop muff-tash, pen, kitty, doggie, bwanches on twees, wight switches, noses, EVWYFING! Gwamma go, "NO, J.Q.!!! NO! J.Q., NO! FTOP, J.Q.! FTOP!" Ha-ha-ha-HAA-HAAAA-HA-HA-HAAAA-HA! Oh, and stuff EVWYFING in mouf! Or up nose!
Me Add More Soon. Me haffa put Gwamma down for nap now. She fussy.

Oh, CRAAAAAAAAP!

2006-05-23T01:36:00.000-05:00

Not AGAIN! I just knocked over a bottle of Diet Coke, and it's run all over my desk, meaning 4-7" of paperwork that should have been taken care of long since but never was. This is two days after I dropped two separate bottles of Diet Coke on the kitchen table, which was also gaily festooned with Stuff That Any Normal Person Would Have Put Away Three Days Ago. I must hang my head in wretched misery.

No...wait...I can't hang my head, either. There's been various slimes dripping out of my nose for a few weeks now, and I don't want any of it glueing up my keyboard. I've sprayed lots of stuff up my nostrils and then flung my head back proudly to acquaint my sinister sinuses with the deliverer of their retribution ("Take THIS, you plugged-up little bastard chambers!): NeoSynephrine (didn't work), 4-Way (didn't work), Sinex (didn't work), Saline Spray (didn't work), Flonase (didn't work), SinuKick (didn't work), Muco-Rooter (didn't work), SneezeRite (didn't work), Flapper-Zapper (didn't work), Catarrgh-Not (not worked), Son-of-a-Sinus (didn't work), Kill-Goo (didn't work), and Booger-B-Gone (didn't work).

The only thing that gives me even sporadic relief is crying. So I pop in a real sad movie a couple of times a day. Suggested titles for nasal disgorgement (temporary):

Jersey Girl (hokey, yes, but effective at times)
Million Dollar Baby (Mr. Pseudonym almost had to take me to the ER over this one)
Mystic River (it is beyond my comprehension how as fine an actor as Sean Penn could have at one time married that shallow, self-possessed, pointy-titted, bleached-out, first-generation trailer trash removed, licentious, vulgar, rattle-voiced, fabricated, hyped-up, ugly, rotten piece of fly-blown dead cow meat.) (but that's just my opinion.)
Dead Man Walking (shall I repeat myself? or do you get my drift?)
The Deer Hunter (it ain't about Bambi's momma!)
Bambi (they shot Bambi's MOMMA, for God's sake!)
Philadelphia (watch this while folding laundry; you're gonna need more material to blow your nose on than a lil ol' box of Kleenex!)

I could go on, but I don't even watch these movies in reality! Cause I don't like to cry unless I absolutely have to, and life hands us too many absolutely-have-to occasions for tears, if you ask me. Laughing hysterically will also temporarily clean out the nasal passages (and put a scare into the more tenacious rubber cement sinusial encampment), and for this there is only one penultimate movie scene: Apopka the Snake Man from Ernest Saves Christmas. Do the research; you'll thank me next time your nose is ambushed.

It Was The Best of Mother's Days, It Was The Worst of Mother's Days...

2006-05-14T18:40:00.000-05:00

Holidays have never been my favorite days--too many sad memories going back too many years. But any Sunday when all the kids are here--and now J.Q. too--turns out well in the end. Sunday dinner was way too much work for my special day, so we ordered out from a new bbq place we recently found. Their ribs are almost as good as Mr. Pseudonym's, and the New Jersey Pulled Turkey Buzzard, I predict, will revolutionize smokehouse cuisine in the United States.

It was wonderful watching J.Q. gnawing his first rib bone. He didn't know it was something to eat at first, but he was sitting on Aunt Sar's lap and observed her voracious rib attack, so he figured things out and couldn't be separated from his own greasy wand for quite some time after that.

Daisy the Terrier was circling the table with moist, longing eyes during dinner, as usual. She was given handouts, also as usual, and was happily running back and forth between the yard (prime rib bone burying ground) and the dining table for half an hour or so.

J.Q. was finally washed up and crawling around on the kitchen floor. Dinner was finished, and leftovers were being put away. No one was eating, and Daisy wasn't begging, but she took exception, for some reason, to the baby crawling near the table and knocked him over with a sudden burst of growling and snapping. J.Q. was frightened and crying; we were all upset, even though Daisy is a small dog. There wasn't a mark on J.Q., and I don't think the dog actually attempted biting, but it was still awful. Daisy was banished to the back yard for a while and seemed suitably ashamed when she came in, but we will be doubly vigilant over the baby-dog interaction around here from now on.

On a happier note, Priscilla made out like a BANDIT this year! Lots of flowers (roses and impatiens) from the younger daughters, a Tea For One pot and Belgian chocolates from the oldest and a Flip-It floor cleaner from Mr. Pseudonym. PLUS, my birthday is just three days away, so I may rake in more plunder later in the week. I get one week of greed per year and enjoy it thoroughly!

I asked Himself to get me the floor cleaner because I'm convinced that the proper array of housecleaning gizmos will eventually yield me a clean house. I have a traditional vacuum, a Clorox Ready-Mop, a Shark cordless 9.6v hand vac, a RoboMaid Robotic Sweeping Machine from Europe, every possible cleaning powder/solution available and now my dry/wet hard floor cleaning machine. Just one problem, though--my kitchen floor always looks as if a lunch wagon has crashed into a cage full of cats.

I've never gotten the hang of keeping a clean house (or even a reasonably neat house) (or even a slightly cluttered house) (or even a house that will look better when the Mrs. thereof is released from the institution for the criminally insane). I feel terrible about this, but about the best cleaning method I've thus far come up with, after 35 years of marriage, is to keep the vacuum cleaner, a bottle of Windex, a can of furniture polish and some cleaning rags prominently displayed about my living room so that, if anyone comes over, it will look like I've just started to clean. I might actually get away with this if it weren't for that heavy layer of greasy dust covering the vacuum cleaner.

At least I used to have the kids to blame for the condition of my house. But now they're all off on their own. Maybe it's all the pets (Daisy The Disreputable Terrier, cats: Onyx, Jean, Peanut & Buju, rats: Pokey & Sprinkles, fish: Flippy, Floppy & Flapjack), maybe it's my ADD, maybe it's a time warp of some sort - I just don't know. But I am sorely ashamed of this hovel. *sigh*

Gotta run and read my Flip-It manual. Happy Mother's Day to all, and to all a Good Night!

I'm IN! I'm IN!!

2006-05-10T15:47:00.000-05:00

I'm IN!! I'm Bleedin' IN!

Months have gone by, as they usually do when one approaches old age faster than a fart, without my posting anything. I tend to get wrapped up in troubles--mostly my childrens' troubles--and I forget promises I've made to myself. Promises to do something just for Priscilla: promises to accept reality, promises to simplify my environment, promises to clarify my mental process, promises to BE HERE NOW, as we used to say when we were hippies and read all that eastern philosophy written by fat, bearded westerners with the stench of quarter-pounders wafting out from their beards.

I continued to read my three daughters' posts with delight. Despite their interminable thrashings through young adulthood, no one can say that these little women are not bright, and funny beyond belief, and beautiful as Arabian thoroughbreds. Well, realistically, gentle readers of these musings would have no way of knowing my girls are beautiful; I mean, they could be as ugly as viperfish. So we will have to take my word for it: they have trails of drooling, tumescent males following behind them on most excursions. Mr. Pseudonym and I, just to witness the amusing spectacle of the male reaction to something of beauty, stay quite a few steps behind them when we are out as a family. And then we whimper a lot and wring our hands and sigh pitifully.

My girls have repeatedly urged me to balance out their blogflections with those of the previous generation. I would be able to offer buckets of sage wisdom on varying subjects of interest to those of the vaginaed persuasion who regularly visit the girls' blogs, having personally (myself) experienced dysfunction in my family of origin, depression, the Seven Year Itch, addiction, the Therapeutic Process of Continuous Co-Pay, infertility, becoming an older parent, multiple female offspring parenting, turning 40, multiple teenaged female offspring parenting (and accompanying gentleman callers) (!!!SCREAM!!!), caregiving parents who have slipped on the banana peel (metaphorically speaking), loss and grief, turning 50, young adult parenting, the wedding of the first child, the birth of the first grandchild (there is no adequate description for how this feels), the acquisition of pet rats and the inevitable onset of sliding on one's ass* toward the senior years.

I didn't blog, however. I sat with my children, argued, hugged, listened, fed, cried, yelled, gave money, comforted, annoyed, made tea, lectured, cried a lot more, reinforced, changed direction, celebrated, meddled, backed off, let go and grabbed back for more hugs. It just didn't occur to me to write about the events of the past few months or the past five+ decades. There was just too much to do, too much to worry about and too many conversations to have with Mr. Pseudonym and the kids.

Then, yesterday, I went to the doctor. I was feeling decidedly snotty and out of sorts, but just going in for a routine check of my meds and sausage ankles. My doctor, a kind man who likes to help his patients, was delighted to see mucous and a red throat in a patient whose spine has been turning to poorly-glued broken china for the past ten or so years. "Yep, Priscilla," he intoned while emerging from the samples closet, "you've got a BAD, BAD infection! You have to take this medicine right away and go to bed!" So I limped out of his office with a brown paper sack full of antibiotics, the name "Mucinex" written on a prescription form and feeling much sicker than when I had bounced in thirty minutes earlier.

Too ill to stop at the drugstore to find out what "Mucinex" was, I sent SarLiveSound (AndSweetie) out to the store, muttering "it had better not be guaifenesin" under my breath while sliding into my bed of gasping anguish. It did indeed turn out to be guaifenesin, but in a pretty, bi-colored tablet form, one color for instant release and one color for extended release! I could have bought a gallon jug of guaifenesin on my way home and taken a big slug every four hours, but the $12.00 charge for Mucinex somehow lent creedence to the severity of my illness. The antibiotic tablet actually did make me quite ill, as would ingesting any tablet that would choke Seabiscuit. Wait...maybe I was supposed to poke it up my... . (no...that's just not logical!)

Upshot? I'm sick and not doing laundry, gardening, cooking, visiting or any sort of errand today. After much username/password anguish, necessitating a frantic bout of whining to my oldest, Mrs. Thumbscre.ws a.k.a. The 24/7 CompuHelpDesk & Mother's Milk Machine, I'm signed in and blathering prodigiously about nothing! Mr. Pseudonym's workshirts remain wrinkled, the terrier's unexercised, J.Q. will not be pulling Grandma's hair with one hand and yanking her glasses off with the other tomorrow, the mail's unopened (bills getting colder and colder), Junket has gone over to the neighbor friend to help with the Alzheimer's grandmom by herself, the stove is cold, the garden bleak and dusty, with one lonely dried clump of manure sticking up from last year, and I'm sitting here going on and on and on! About SQUAT! Ha-HAA-HAA-HAAAAAAAA! *cough*

Y'know what? It feels good to write. It's something to do for myself...just for myself.
------------------------------------------------------------
*this misused word being the only vulgarism to be employed in this blog, my daughters having used up all the the f-words and variations available.

"Little" Christmas

2005-12-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

When my kids were very young, they used to wake up on the morning of December 26 and immediately begin crying because Christmas was over. Desperate-witted as I was, I used to tell them, "Oh, no! Christmas isn't over! Do you know what today is? It's LITTLE CHRISTMAS--the day you spend doing nothing at all but having fun and eating Christmas candy and cookies! Now, let's play one of our new games!"

My kids are no longer gullible and easy to handle. They're all young adults, with adult-sized problems. I'm looking forward to sharing the easy part of my grandson's life with him--the time when he can still believe in Santa and still be pacified with a quick explanation of how much fun there is to be had each day. He was only about eight months old this Christmas, which meant he was more interested in knocking balls off the tree and chewing wrapping paper than in playing with his new toys, but next year should be really wonderful for all of us.

And next year, I really am going to simplify Christmas!!! I'm going to get my shopping and wrapping done early so the holiday doesn't turn into a forced march during the last few days. On December 23rd, 2005, I had just finished my shopping and was busy screaming at everyone around me to get busy wrapping, baking and cleaning.

What had I been thinking all throughout November and December? Was a morbidly obese elderly man in a red suit with white fur accoutrements supposed to have arrived at my front door with gifts for everyone on my list plus wrapping paper and scotch tape? Were the nice man's elves supposed to have wrapped and tagged all of my gifts while I made coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich for my perpetually-hungry visitor?

We had to work into the wee hours of the morning on the 24th and 25th, and it all seemed so senseless. Toward the end, I was piling five and six gifts on top of each other, throwing a big piece of wrap around them and mumbling under my breath, "Go ahead, you miserable shits--complain about your gifts being wrapped together and I'll jump up and snatch your pointy heads bald!"

My own procrastination had whupped my heiny once again and ruined what could have been a very enjoyable holiday celebration. I had, once again, turned Christmas into Angry Resentmas.

Hmmmm...I feel a New Year's Resolution coming on.

Who's That Up on the Rooftop???

2005-12-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

Who's that up on the rooftop?
Must be Mastercard,
Must be Mastercard Swat Team!

Well, here it is, December 20, and I'm in my usual shape for this time of the year:
--House torn apart...
--Six bags of flour, four bags of sugar, five pounds of butter sitting in the kitchen, waiting...
--Giant shopping bags full of presents making it difficult for us to enter our bedroom...
--No Christmas tree up, even though two little artificial ones are stored away in the closet...
--Mastercard smoking and changing shape...
--UPDATE--four and three-quarters pounds of butter waiting, one-quarter pound of butter (having fallen from the refrigerator) eaten by terrier. One greasy, burping terrier stretched out in the sun, eyes closed, reflecting on the beauty of life.

I try to keep Christmas simple and enjoyable. This philosophy doesn't work, of course--never has, never will. I'll explain more later, after I get back from the post office, the mall, Sears, Walmart, K-Mart, the pharmacy and the supermarket.

Primary Pinelands Pondering

2005-12-18T20:06:00.000-05:00

My oldest daughter has been blogging her guts out here for some time now, and I've enjoyed reading her posts. She deals with a full-time job (with attendant grinding commute), an under-one-year-old baby and a full homemaking schedule to round out her day, and she still finds time to blog.

My daughter also periodically reminds me that I haven't written anything in some time and that the Blogger venue would be simple to use even for the uninitiated. So, I guess I can yank my ample buttocks up off the couch now and again to jot down a little confusion from from the deepest folds of my brain for the amusement of my family and for the shock and awe of those complete strangers who straggle by.

My apologies to my family for embarrassing them to tears and my plea to the complete strangers: please don't track me down and break into my house and smother me and steal Aunt Rose's diamond ring while my husband and the terrier lie snoring and farting not five feet away.