Momomama
Halloween Haiku- inspired by the
Daily Poll
Woodchucks at the Bar, Halloween Night
Everyone wears it
Camo in hunting season
I am you, neighbor.
Annoying Co-worker in Costume
You are no lion
Jackass, even sans the mask
Do not boo at me.
The Cardboard Box
Trick, treat, unicef
Candy? or Money for poor?
Kept the change, hence sweets.
Halloween Costumes Past
Cowgirl
My first year back at SLC, for the Halloween party. I spent that night with dapper guy with top hat after I missed my train home. We dated for a month and broke up after a day of Christmas shopping.
Ophelia
I spent half the evening trying to get away from the guy dressed as a nurse, though he did look pretty sexy. I spent the other half of the evening sitting on the curb with Kenyan John, who was an environmental archeaologist. Or something. We went out on one date after that - we sat at Spiderhouse and sipped tea. He was sweet but also clingy like the bartender at Club de Ville who took me to see Merle Haggard, only that bartender had a wicked Boston accent and John had a delicious accent of an African educated in England.
Miss America 1928 (Swimsuit competition)
The most brilliant costumes are made of last minute decisions to go to parties with a cat burglar, Carmen Miranda and Frida Kahlo. The most deadly colds are made by drinking beer outside in a swimsuit and panty hose on the first cool Autumn night.
Kitty Cat
Vicky drove our male friend B. and me to an abandoned parking lot where we drank 40s on the hood of the car while she patiently watched. We used to hang out at B's place on Saturday nights and he would practice his mixology skills. He was goth in a geeky, sweet and sad way, and he would always be willing for a walk in a graveyard. But not this halloween. We ended up visting my ex, Joe, and his new girlfriend at Motel Six and when the new girlfriend went to the bathroom, Joe kissed me. Joe was my first love, and the best boyfriend I ever had, until Bill. He's married to an Irish girl now, and he's not allowed to talk to me.
Hippie
The costume that was latter revived as Ophelia had it's first incarnation as hippie. I lied to my mother and trick or treated for the last time at 14 with the slutty cheerleader from down the street whose nickname was Snaggletooth. She had a younger sister, but we did not escort her anywhere.
Bride
I wore a nightgown and the bathroom curtains as a veil. My brother was a Blues Brother and we wandered the streets of Walpole, trying to avoid mean kids with eggs and the houses of people who did not like us. When we came home we hardly had any candy. My step- brother and step-sister had gone to a party and poured full pillowcase onto the rag rug the family room floor. Our house was egged and some one wrote "Fullers Suck" in chalk on the sidewalk.
Angel
I wore a sheet. I begged my mother to give me blue eyeshadows. My grandmother said I looked like a fallen angel. My other grandmother filmed me with the new video camera. I talked a lot about school and about Amy Finsmith, whose mom worked with my grammy and who I knew from gifted and talented. Amy's aunt worked at Belmont Park, with race horses.
Cookie Monster
I had a Cookie Monster tee-shirt and a paper bag over my head. Somewhere, there's a picture.
What a bind. I have committed myself to NaNoWriMo, only to now be completely writer's blocked. I can't even think of anything to blog about, for Pete's sake!
I could tell you about the way Momo acts when I give him a bath. How he stands really still and tucks his nose into my armpit and leans into me, forehead first. How once he is out of the bath he runs straight to the bed and lies on the pillows. How the first time I gave him a bath, Leigh helped me and he looked so thrilled to have four hands all over him and how the fleas lept from his body onto our arms.
I could also tell you about my last business trip. I could describe the hotel in Denver. I could find the words to tell you all about the champagne mojitos we had in the darkest bar in the world. Darker, even, than my favorite bar ever. I could recount the two kinds of ceviche we had at the Mexican restaurant we visited for dinner. And I could explain about the man who gave us a tour of Boulder that lasted two hours - two hours in which he should have been making dinner for his family. I could also share with you how I realized that they don't call it Skinemax for nothing.
I should have told you about Santa Fe and its hippies and artists and street people. I am sure you want to know about the man sitting on the ground next to his dog, and that on the back of the dog sat a cat and and on the back of the cat sat two white mice. I bet you are also a little curious about the eight year old boy, I met. You know the one - he looked wild, and had leaves tangled in his hair and he likes to make vegetable soup and is obsessed with the subway.
But I can't tell you about those things, because I have writer's block!
I am gearing up for NaNoWriMo. 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Are you
IN?
I feel an impending career change coming on. I am restless.
In the past week I have decided to become a chef, a private investigator, and a wildlife biologist. The first two aren't impossible, and the second seemsmost likely. I wonder how one becomes a PI? And do the Adirondacks need one? Can I move in to Higgins' Lake Placid boat house? Should I get Bill to team up with me so we can be Stahl and Stahl, PIs? Will I have to shoot people? I have kind of a nosy, stalkery personality anyway, so why not use it to make money? Shit, I could spend all day googling, and snooping, and following. Plus, I would get to have some awesome outfits. Since it's winter half the year up there, and I'd have to blend into my surroundings, I picture myself in a white fur hat, white jacket with fur color, white pants and white skis. Very Alias meets Dr. Zhivago. Or I can just borrow Bill's camo. I am so looking into this as a career. Too bad I am not a retired cop with a past and a drinking problem. I'd be a shoe in!
When the package says that consuming too many sugar free candies can have a laxative effect, believe it.
I should have had the beets.
Why the hell am I craving beets? What kind of world is this?
I am sitting on the steps above a sunken living room, thrinking about how sunken living rooms seldom make
appearances outside of the novels set in the seventies. I am listening to a brilliant man read his story about a young writer who stalks Nabokov. The writer is reading about Lolita and I am having a Humbert Humbert moment myself, As I find myself sytaring at the beautiful boy who lives in this house with its sunken living room and roaring fireplace. He's
seventeen, or sixteen, or he could be eighteen, but it doesn't matter. He's just so pretty. When I arrived at the house I could see him through the glass doors, his back to me as he bent over the piano jkeyboard, playing Chopin. The
story features a shoe store and shoe laces and a crummy hotel. The boy told me earlier that he was looking at colleges, Hopkins, Princeton, Brown. He wants to study economics. His mother spends the party refilling wine glasses and fluttering around in her kimono. Half way through the reading I get up from the steps down to the sunken living room to get a napkin from the buffet. The boy's mother has her kimono off and the maid is zipping up her top while she rearranges her breasts against the tight satin. The boy's father wears a tweed jacket that might was well have arm patches and he smokes incessantly. It's not often you see grown-ups that smoke. Not these kind of grown-ups, anyway - not grown-ups with a beautiful brilliant son and a daughter who poses in a picture with Paul Wolfowitz on the mantlepiece.
Damn business trip! Back on Friday. Maybe.
You vote: Electronic pressure cooker or ice cream maker?
I think it's obvious.
Bill and I had our wedding thing yesterday. An engagement party. It was fun. Even though I couple of times we found ourselves staring into each others eyes and I felt like we were totally nauseatingly cute, so much so that I almost threw up. And then someone did that bang on a glass and then you kiss then and we just sat there, thinking someone was about to give a toast. Other than that, I think we handled it well.
Thoughts that Ran Through My Head At My Last Meeting
That's yellow chalk? I thought they were cheetos.*
What the hell is that guy's name?
Man, the other guy is cute though.
Hey cute guy, you should come to all my meetings.
That is an ugly green.
Dean Green.
Wonder why Dean Green never mentions that he has the same name as soul singer Al Green. Only he's a dean.
But they both sing well.
That is an ugly green.*
How the hell can Scott only be two years older than me if he has two kids?
Hey Scott, What was the other guy in Whams name again?*
Focus! The web! Focus!
The orange is better.
I'm hungry.
Don't yawn don't yawn don't yawn.
Shit.
Why do I always yawn in meetings?
Wake me up, before you go go.
Andrew Ridgely.
*spoken aloud
It's been a while since I shared the beauty of the Plattsburgh Press Republican want ads. In today's edition, the ad for a bartender is followed by the ad for the chemical dependency counselor. And then, there's this:
"WE ARE CURRENTLY
accepting applications for our Christmas Wreath industry. A work friendly atmosphere. Students are welcome. Please call (518)236-7665, 9-6 pm. Mooers Lawn & Garden."
"A work friendly atmosphere." Well THAT'S really unusual for a place of employment.
Here's why I don't watch sports. Last night I happened to tune into Game One of the Red Sox/Yankees series. I have not watched nor listened to a single baseball game all summer. I had no plan to watch this one. I am a non-practicing Red Sox fan. My fandom was a condition of my birth, something inherited and seldom used, like a gene for earwiggling, or linen hankies. So if you ask if I a baseball fan, or if I root for a team, I say the Red Sox - and I have even made reference to Billy Buckner's ball dropping and the curse of the Bambino. However, I can never tell you where the Red Sox are in the standings, I can't really spell Nomar Garciaparra and I can't tell you what he looks like, and I can't name anyone on the team other than Nomar. But even so, last night I turned on the game and terror, TERROR, gripped my stomach. WHAT IF THEY LOSE???? I could already feel the heartbreak. Watching the Sox battle the Yankees and maintain a lead was like watching a teen movie where the cruel, gorgeous guy asks out the quiet, shy, honely girl - you just know that when it comes time for the date, she's going to get stood up. I recognized the fact that I was about to go into deep stress mode, so I shut the game off. Once the tv was off and I was curled up in bed with Momo, Annie Proulx and a cup of tea, it was like baseball had never existed. Until this morning, of course, when my New York City radio station announced that the Sox had indeed won. I suspect that had I continued to watch, the Yankees would have taken the lead. The Sox are like that for me; whenever I really decide to care, my heart gets broken all over again. So I wish Nomar, and whoever else plays on the team, all the luck and baseball magic in the gight to break the curse. I just can't watch them try and do it.
My hands feel like they are not connected to my arms and my head seems to be floating a good six inches over the top of my neck. When I felt that achiness in my back yesterday I knew this was coming. My skin even hurts. And all I want is to sleep. Between Mo and I, we are a walking sick ward.
Poor Momo. He was limpy and pouty and blah last night and this morning, so I brought him to the vet. Only to discover he has the LYME DISEASE! So now he is going to get doggie tylenol AND doggie anti-biotics. Please send dog love to the MOMO!
Anyone know where I can get a seven year old boy of my own? I spent this weekend with my soon-to-nephew, Brian, at my soon-to-be mother-in-law's house. Seven years old and the cutest thing you ever did see. I was out taking the dog for a walk when Brian and his dad arrived. When I got back, I saw the jeep parked in the driveway and the ruckus coming from down on the dock, so I walked down to say hello. Before I had even opened the gate Brian was flying up the dock at me, and then he threw himself on me in one of his patented flying monkey bear hugs. We wasted no time getting to work. We looked under every rock in the yard for crickets. We had a pine cone tossing contest. We threw sticks in the water. We followed the raccoon tracks down Emily's little beach. We made boats out of cardboard, old vegetable containers, empty spools of yarn, army guys and toy animals. We ate pasta with ketchup and bologne and chicken nuggets on Emily's bed and watched SpongeBob, becuae everyone went off tto work, or dinner or a party and left us alone. Aunt Peggy, Emily's sister, came over, and taught us trick with paper towels and spit. We played Rummy. We ate ice cream. We ate goldfish and cheetos, too. We had a tickle fight. And then we collapsed, exhausted, on the couch and watched only the silly classroom parts of Kindergarten Cop. And he called me Auntie Marfa. That night, when Bill and I were reading in bed I told him he could just return whatever birthday present he had gotten me, because all I wanted was a seven year old boy. Or maybe to BE seven, again.
Well, the man gets the deep fat turkey fryer, rippedbox and all. He's gonna love it.
I had lunch with my friend Autumn today. She brought her son, Jacob, along. Jake is about 6 months old and, bless his heart, is the happiest baby you ever did see. It was sort of a funny feeling though, sitting at the table with a baby in the high chair. Jake was looking all around the restaurant and I realized that the place was filled with women and their friends and their babies. And these people were my peers. Yes, some parents of little ones are older than me, but for the most part, they, well, just AREN'T. Everytime I hear about another old friend who is involved in a pregnancy, I imagine that old friend in the most immature situation I have ever seen them. And then I imagine them holding a baby in that situation. I think I do this to scare myself out of thinking I too could have a baby. But when I picture myself holding a baby at my most immature moment in recent memory (which involved a few gin and tonics, a cute bartender and some mild exhibitionism and was four years ago) the only odd thing about it is that I am in a bar - having your breasts exposed when you are holding a baby is kind of normal.
Oh, for the love of turkey and Bill. All the poor bastard wanted to put on our wedding registry was the deep fat turkey fryer. But alas, none of our stores carry them. So, in my infinite wisdom, I have decided that I will buy him one for his birthday - which happens to be tomorrow. So I have spent the last two days driving from Home Depot to Home Depot, calling Target after Target, and looking through Odd Job circulars. Everyone sort of giggles when you ask after the deep fat turkey fryer. They either plead ignorance or extoll the virtues of the vat of boiling oil. But they never say, "Aisle Five, on the right." I could, of course, buy my beloved the $80 34 quart variety or the $129 42 quart one. But the fact is, I only love him $60 worth. And for that I get a mangled box and the prospect of missing parts. And that's what he's getting. Since the 30 quart $59 fryer is only in stock in mangled boxes at one Home Depot in a sixty mile radius, that's what the man is getting.
My 60 year old admin just said to me: "True Dat."
I NEVER should have mentioned fall! Now I have thrown myself into a panic over what comes after fall....CHRISTMAS! I have not begun to think about the Christmas Crafting! EEEEEEEEEEEK!
Have I mentioned how much I love fall? And October? It's not because my birthday is this month. Of course not! It's because on nights like last night, I am warm enough in a woolly sweater when I walk the dog. And the air smells like woodsmoke, even in the suburbs where I live.
