A Foray Into the Life of a Babysitter

When I was a 6^th grader, about the only way to earn any spending money was to babysit because we didn't earn an 'allowance'. Having a younger sister and 2 younger brothers, I knew how to change a diaper—growing up in the country probably meant I knew how to work a little too—not a 'street walkin' city girl here! That's what parents tended to call the 'fast' girls that talked to boys on main street-- I probably didn't hear the word sl*t or wh*re until I was an 8^th grader --and it was one of those 'street walkers' that told the rest of us what that meant!

My 6^th grade summer, I watched 2 kids daily while the dad slept upstairs until 1:00pm, whereupon he growled downstairs, snarfed up Hamburger Helper or some type of leftover I was instructed to rewarm, and took off for work. No big talker there; don't even remember him acknowledging his children! It was terribly boring-- out in the middle of nowhere and no books in the house. Just magazines filled with smut stories. I didn't tell my mom this, but I think I learned or interpreted or imagined a lot that was entirely dissimilar to the birds/bees talk I was given!

That fall, I either babysat in town for 3 darling little boys whose beds were filled with pee stains, food, and roaches—the crawling kind; or for a toddler boy and his baby sister whose bottles lay strewn about the house filled with clabbered milk that almost made me vomit. Whichever family called first reserved me for a Friday or Saturday night—something going on at the Tavern most likely.

I tried to do the dishes at both places and always boiled dozens of bottles—poor kids. Roach Motel left 8-Track tapes all over so I listened to the Beatles, while Clabber House dad tried to lure me into his bedroom to look at a dirty magazine, pulling at my arm until I became frightened and he let go and left.

Later his wife called to reserve me for the next evening and I burst into tears: 'NO!' They got a return phone call after I told my mom what happened, but I guess back then nobody would of thought of turning the bastard in.

Then there was the beautiful Southern mansion home with the lovely white fluted columns, the gorgeous dark-eyed, dark-haired wife, the 2 sweet little girls, the dad who kept putting his hand up my thigh when he drove my home. For heaven's sake! Does stuff like this happen all the time?

Or the dad that left me have his car to take his kids to the swimming pool all summer—I would of been a freshman then—maybe he did that so he could 'see' his high school gal while we were splashing around and his wife worked her buns off all day long. Hmmm.

Or the couple that littered every room of their squalid rental with hard-core porn within full reach of their 3 youngsters. Glad they didn't have any prying questions when I moved it out of their reach!

But back then a candy bar cost a 15cents or a quarter, so earning $7 or $10 bucks was worth it. I guess.

Kind of opens your eyes to a darker aspect of life...

“Hit Me, Whip Me, Beat Me Like I'm Jesus!”

Imagine working in your flowerbed, peacefully digging the soil, knees pressed in the earth, to look up across the lawn and see a man ripping off his belt, flailing it wildly through the air, & spouting the above phrase!

Wouldn't this make you a bit surprised? A bit unnerved? A bit FRIGHTENED?

I tell ya, some people are just freakin' crazy! This was just one of the scenarios my mom had to endure when a would-be 'suitor' didn't understand the concept of “NO”. Last Thursday was the sentencing trial for my mom's stalker—don't know how many times this man has been to court now, but it seems to be dragging on forever.

Thinking back, I was pretty lucky with my whacko—scary yes, but I only had to drive up to the courthouse twice. This old guy though—wow! Numerous incidents with the police/sheriff's dept.; the meaning of a “restraining order” obviously didn't register in his brain. (Mine at least quit during the year of the restraining order, but resumed once his year was up. Now, what kind of person bides his time, waiting, waiting, for that year to pass by? Possibly the same type of person that ties SLOTH to the bed for a year like John Doe did in Se7en—but instead of pinetree air fresheners there's Natural Light beer cans piled up 3 feet deep!? How can you ever tell which verbal threats are real and which aren't? But this isn't about me........)

After months of harassment by phone, mail, car, bothering relatives and friends, this 70+ year old coot had managed to somehow get charges reduced to 4 felony stalking convictions—this was a slight fine, mandatory mental evaluation, and supervised probation for 6 months. I wonder how that equals out—2 years of hell for her/6 mos for him. ?

I keep trying to figure out which is more potentially 'dangerous'; hers or mine—mine had the Jekyll & Hyde thing going on—get shit-faced drunk and let the harassment begin, while mom's doesn't drink and believes himself to be a 'detective' and 'curious'-- my definition for him is 'downright nosy old bastard' and 'conniving liar' and 'psychopathic serial bully'! Let's not forget to throw in plain old 'asshole'.

People have told her that she will 'never get rid of him' and this I find very irritating if not downright frightening after reading about it...follow that link! And did I mention the he is a church minister?! [rolling my eyes here]

I'll try to write up some more details at a later date...right now we hear he is back in court for bothering another woman and her family...oh brother. What a guy!

Fresh Bread and Killer Whales

I found out this week that my son has been baking bread up in his bedroom. He had a loaf of plastic-wapped bread one day and I'd just assumed his girlfriend's mom had given it to him—but no, he'd bought supplies and a breadmaker that he'd found on sale. I had no idea—the smell must dissipate by the time I get home from work.

I was trying to find some bread recipes since I'd seen his—my cinnamon rolls are fabulously kick-butt and delicious, but I wanted something non-sweet and 'artisan'. Crusty. Hot. Mmm. (Never mind the fact that I'd put back on the 10 lbs I lost for my daughter's wedding in one tiny month—what a loser I am.)

There are tons of “No Knead Bread” recipes online which looked wonderful, but it was this awesome site with this doll-face, kick-ass, bad-ass baker that drew me in!

Damn! I was already yanking the flour from the kitchen cabinet before I finished reading the blog! If he can do it, so can I, by golly gee. I mixed up a batch but since I don't sport a tattoo, I guess I was jinxed from the start.

I could of cheated with a fine-line Sharpie like I've done in the past (it's a good way to get the idea of 'tattooing' out of a young kid's head-- “Let's DRAW one on ya for a couple days, so you can see if you'd like one or not...” You, know, get it out of their system. I've even drawn the 'twisted barb-wire tattoo' around my thigh one day out of boredom and it looked real!)

Anyway, I was bound to fail...since I've always held a vendetta against white bread (bad, bad, bad white flour!), naturally I tried to substitute way too much wheat flour. And my bread really did look decent on the outside and fairly decent on the inside, it was just a little too chewy-- think gummyworm candy—well, not quite that bad, but not that soft, melt in your mouth consistency.

So, bad-ass baker, cook on! I'll try again some other time and though I hate to admit it, I might even try 'pure white'.

The Green Kingdom, Cry to Heaven

I started reading another book, Lost Man's River yesterday, begins about 1908 like my last one...but I think I am still on a rain forest kick.
I scrounged around my piles of books until I came to The Green Kingdom by Rachel Maddux, which isn't about the typical rain forest, but is an awesome book in which a 'lost' land is 'found' and everything inside is green—all shades/hues/tints. The descriptions are remarkable and enables the reader to conjure up all types of imaginary plants and animals based on her descriptions. The characters which become trapped here must experiment and virtually start their new lives from scratch, as everything existing here is totally foreign. What is poisonous? What is not? There's beauty and horror in this book as the strengths and weaknesses of each person are revealed.

I found that old, dusty book several years ago when I worked out at The Sharing Place in the summer—brought it home and love it. I think the author was from Wichita, KS—which surprised me at the time because I'd never been introduced to it, nor her, in my college days at KSU—maybe they didn't want to push an author that graduated from the enemy college—KU. (I took a lot of Lit. classes in college and am certified to teach English too, though you'd never guess that NOW.)

Music is incorporated into this book, an area in which I am totally UNfamiliar—never did learn how to read music—my piano teacher had marked our keys and fingers with numbers, which really screwed me up. While I can appreciate reading about music, there is another book that I love to read in which I can actually HEAR it while reading—Cry To Heaven.

I read this statement about Rice's books: “To her admirers, Rice's books are among the best in modern popular fiction, possessing those elements that create a lasting presence in the literary canon. To her critics, her novels are baroque, "low-brow pulp" and redundant.” I'll somewhat agree. When in high school we all read Interview With a Vampire and enjoyed it. (I liked the movie too, except for the unnecessary nude scene!) I read Feast of All Saints and liked that.

However, when I tried to read some of the other vampire/witch books, they seemed so 'forced', like they were written for an audience that didn't care as much for the beauty of her written word, but the strange intrigue. Kind of like some of Stephen King's books—trying too hard/a pretense. If Rice could capture the aura of Cry to Heaven again—well it was awesome. Makes me cry with its beauty and emotion. If I revised the above italicized statement, I would exclude this one book, (and probably Feast of All Saints). Lovely, awful, sad, wonderful.

So, two radically different books that include the human condition and music—every time I loan out any copies of Cry to Heaven, I never get them back—from girls OR guys (you'll see why after you read it). I don't loan out The Green Kingdom—so that's the one left to read!

River of Doubt

I finished this book earlier today hoping for vivid details of Roosevelt's Amazon trip. I learned much about his character and that of the Brazilian Indian advocate Rondon. I wistfully wished for a writing style like James Michener, who has the ability to make his historical (and invented) characters come alive in his adventures, but this was not the case, so that part was disappointing for me. However, I did really enjoy the descriptions of the green rainforest itself--the ecosystems/coexistence and dependency of plant-insect-animal life. I will have to google more about that!

And if people stranded in the gloomy rainforest, or those left for long periods of time, tend to become more and more fearful and nutty-- well, just look at this plant I found online--talk about running into something creepy!:
Now, take a look at this: http://dearkitty.blogsome.com/2007/02/06/worlds-largest-flower-in-bloom-mild-winter/

Museum of Natural History

I started reading a book last night about Teddy Roosevelt's adventure trip down the Amazon; an ornithologist from the Museum would receive $150.00 a month salary for stalking specimens--3 times the average American wage at that time. I am reminded of this through Dan's blog--the pic he posted of a statue reminded me of the Yanomami tribe from South America that I'd written about in college--but on closer observation, I think his pic was a Somai gal (blurry text). Anyway, I left the book at work and was looking forward to reading about the pack animals slowly starving to death on their grueling trek! When the museum caught wind of Teddy's route change down a dangerous, virtually unexplored river...they disapproved.

I particularly liked the quote about people going off the beaten path to explore new territories rather than living life like a tourist(--the aggravating part of our Guatemala trip was having to stay with the group for safety reasons).
Back in the day, a job with the Museum would be a thrill--who wouldn't want to take part in an adventure into the unknown--be the first to see new land and life?

Sunday, I ventured down this road by Mudfeet Farmer's land. I thought I might find a snake sunning itself in the dust on a somewhat cool/warm weird afternoon, but I turned around 100 yds later after the grass was rustling and a distinctive odor of skunk arose.

Instead I climbed the north fence into an excellent fishing pasture with 3 ponds and scads of dung beetles clearing off the paths. Bailey and I first noticed this phenomenon when insect hunting/fishing on a hot afternoon. When the fish aren't biting and your mind wanders, you notice all the small things in life that you've walked past before.
Busy little creatures working with life partners, rolling dark marbles up and down the cow trails--pretty amazing to see the teamwork involved as they moved their creation around a rock or weed stem. Such intricately hard work! I read that these beetles save humanity (and cattle) from disease by annihilating cow patties, hiding their well-wrapped egg/larvae under the soil, thus ridding the world of germs and fertilizing the soil at a faster rate.

Sunday was different. I was rather puzzled--virtually no action whatsoever--just cow patties with little beetle feet and buns sticking out like stiff pokers no matter where I looked. For some reason, Jim Jones and David Koresh filled my mind...because I finally touched some of their little feet--and eventually received some slight motion--but one lil critter really appeared dead even when yanked from it's sticky prison.

Geez--was this some type of beetle mass-suicide? Dive headfirst into a shit pile and drown? And the mastermind behind this??--no GrapeAid--just gooey poo. "I command thee...step over into another plane...death is your friend." I don't think that "dying with dignity" would be an appropriate phrase here though, if your head was buried in a pile of crap! What would cause so many of them to stop work upside down and just 'freeze'? The only thing I could think of was temp...when the sun vanished under a cloud, the breeze was chilly. How sad. Too cool to move your joints, so you choke in ochre ooze!

No, I did NOT stick them headfirst into a cow pattie just to take a pic.

Newton's Law

For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Been observing the candidates and I had to post these comments that I read, after I was dissin' Obama's lips below!:

"Let me tell you what. I don’t want to see McCain naked. Ever. I can barely look at him. His white hair and eyebrows that sit atop his plastic-like head have the blinding power of 10 millions suns and I’m just sayin’, I don’t wanna see his white-haired ass all over the boob tube for the next 4 years. Although Sarah Palin is kinda hot, she doesn’t even out the McCain blinding effect. McCain cannot be the next president because he downright creeps me out. He makes me feel like I just got molested and I’m pretty sure that might mean he’s a molester. A molester of the American people’s hope...."

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