The Three Graces

Bear with me… Here I am, feeling that naughty snide personality surfacing again—but hey, I have come to the realization that I have not blogged much about the WOMEN in this area. Now, to use the term ‘woman’, well—I’m just not sure it’s appropriate—in fact I sometimes even think of them as a ‘paradox’ of womanhood, a misnomer—or some type of ‘oxymoron’ of womanhood—MINUS THE ‘Y’!

Here I am, bored, standing around talking to Hippy Bill, Cowboy B-not D, and Vinny-my-new-boyfriend. (I call him ‘my boyfriend’—that’s another blog; he reminds me so much of an old friend called ‘The Blaze’ from Long Island [not really a boyfriend either] that I almost think they are the same person!) We have been snorting with irreverent laughter, chuckling/eye-watering, non-stop giggling and Vinny has just finished licking my forearm (sorry, you HAD to be thereto understand the humor of arm-licking by a near-total, boy-friend stranger, but what the hell!)

It is hard to maintain a straight face with our joking around, but now we all just observed (shame on us) “RUBY” once again:

LITHIUM RUBY. 67 yrs. Ruby truly believes that she has boyfriends, but they do not believe this themselves. Ruby is a day late and a dollar short. Ruby has defunct time-span socialization. She may be ‘on drugs’. A space-cadet. Ruby perceives men-that-she-likes have relationships with her (even though some are married—she even invites them AND their wives over), and if she finds you sitting with them drinking coffee, her walk into the gas station slugs down like a slow-motion film. Snailpace, then Standstill. It takes many seconds of staring to see.that. Brenda. Is. Sitting. By. Gerry. Ron.is.sitting. across. From.brenda. del.is. sitting.by.ron. … Ruby likes Ron. Ruby likes Del. Finally—comprehension! Ruby now shoots dagger-eyes at Brenda and Gerry, because we obviously must be putting the moves on her imaginary boyfriends and there is no place for her to sit. Ruby now takes more shuffling steps toward the Pepsi machine. It.takes.several.seconds.to.find.a.cup. It.takes.several.seconds.to.find.a.lid. It.takes.severa.seconds.to.find.a.straw.It.takes.several.seconds.to.find.the.pop.machine.features.and it.takes.several.minutes.to.decide.which.kind.

When Ruby pulled up to the outside window, I whispered to Bill that her bra was hanging out all over the place; like her tank top was on SIDEWAYS—“Don’t look!” He says that she always drools on the countertop, but I have never seen that facial phenomenon—only the vacuous, then glaring suspicious eyes—“DROOL? No WAY!”

Bill resists the urge to tell Ruby to rearrange her tank top for better coverage (“I don’t want to see THAT!”); normally he is open to open cleavage views. She looks completely disheveled, like she’d put the moves on one of her ‘men’ in a back alley or something. Ruby finally finds enough money to pay for her pop and leaves—she looks at each coin for 5 seconds apiece, I swear!

Back to us bored Wamegoans: The awesome new chiro-doctor has told me this morning to “do nothing below the belly-button”. I am sure you can imagine the conversation that ensued… more uncontrollable giggling. Perverts.

ANGEL of The Three-Ringed Circus: I’d been thinking of “The Bearded Lady” earlier today, so I must add this now. Teg and Bail will know who I mean! Angel is a fairly young gal—around my kid’s age, but twice their size. When she walks in the door, men of all ages automatically (and subconsciously) grasp their chins or lower jaws. I have seen this experience more than once and believe me; it’s extremely hard to wipe the grin off the corners of one’s mouth while observing the blue-collar class in distress.

They are male. They are mesmerized. They are speechless. They are…………….scared.

Downright frightened.

Angel has a beard thicker than theirs. They have even whispered this in awe as they stroke their own whiskers. “My God! Is that a girl?” Yes. Yes it is. And her facial hair is at least an inch long today.

Angel has 2 special brothers and a VERY SCARY MOM. When I picked my kids up from The Kindergarten Wall many years ago, I was terrified enough to cross the street to wait. Oh, what a Blessing to our community, this family! After the daily ear-splitting scream/cuss/slap show, we all breathlessly hugged our own tiny sane children and hustled them home to safety. Shudder.

IM NOT LISA; MY NAME IS _____, or, Truly _____: Unfortunately, I must bring up my ‘oxymoron minus the y word’ once again. I’M NOT LISA has just pulled up to the pump, causing Hippy Bill to perform eye roll groans. Oh God. I was a nonbeliever until I’ve observed this with my own 2 eyes, but I’M NOT LISA is the epitome of clumsiness. A true Bull-in-the-China-Shop. PLUS Lithium! I kid you not! We have 2, 2, 2 females that so obviously take some kind of mind/time altering/time-warp-funk prescription candy they should probably be on a sci-fi movie.

I’M NOT LISA sometimes stuffs all sorts of candy bars into her purse, oblivious that everyone is watching and when confronted, her confusion is an act worthy of an Oscar. She really doesn’t know what she’s doing. She spills. She drips. She stumbles. She speaks in tongues. She argues with unknown entities. Again, she spills. Is she drunk?? Today she has opened her car door and all of her change has rolled underneath. Sadly, it is a real site to see her picking up enough to get $5.00 worth for gas.

Once inside, she has filled her giant cup with ice. It crashed to the floor. She always drops EVERYTHING! At least there was no pop in the cup today and kind soul that I am, I could NOT bring myself to help her chase her ice cubes all over the tile. Why not? Because she doesn’t wear UNDERWEAR, that’s WHY NOT! IM NOT LISA is a big lady. Quite large. She manages to find the thinnest of spaghetti straps and the shortest of terry-cloth shorts MINUS appropriate underclothing, and, frankly, I did NOT want views of her woo-hoo nor her taa-taa’s hanging out all over the place if I ingratiated myself to help. But I finally did. I felt badly.

IM NOT LISA has so kindly moved to Oztown to ‘help’ with her young relatives—Alas, she is NO help. Sadly and embarrassingly, THEY help her. Sadly and embarrassingly, I decide to help IM NOT LISA pick up part of her ice cubes, post the “CAUTION: WET FLOOR” sign, and wipe the slick spots with a towel. Why?

It seems somewhat ominous to denigrate women when I am ONE MYSELF.

Ah well.

I will burn in hell for writing this blog.

And I’ve only just begun….

Measels & Woodchucks, Buns Berry Baseball, Death.

“I saw a measel! This morning. One my way back from the Dr….” I tell Brigham this as I swelter in the raspberry patch clad in candy-striped pj bottoms and a long-sleeve gray inside-out Tee. There isn’t a breath of air, not a single tree leaf stirs; it was in the 90’s before 8:00am when I went for my hip/back appointment; as Hippy Bill states…it’s hell-hot now. Fry-able.

(“Kansas has 2 temperatures” in the World According to Bill: “Hell-Hot or Bitch-Cold. Nothing in-between.”)

Brig raised a slight eyebrow, unimpressed by my new mammalian species… “I couldn’t tell if it were a muskrat or a weasel-thing…” I offer this explanation, but it’s too oppressive to talk. 2 nights ago I’d seen a rare woodchuck, the 3^rd in my lifetime, and excitedly began that tale, but he burst my bubble when he asked if it were down by the old ball field… Harrumph. He’d spotted it too. “So. How much wood was it chucking? MINE was chucking baseballs…”, I say. But he didn’t find that worth conversing over either.

He’d Appeared Out Of Nowhere moments before, startling me like a damp orange apparition as I swiped the sweat from my eyesnoseears, teetering and diving down again for another purple/black elusive clump hidden in the still, mosquito-laden understory of humid silver leaves.

“Get those 2 big ones! Right there!” he points, but I‘m not Stretch Armstrong and he won’t grasp for them himself, preferring to nibble the already-picked, outer edge-of-the-patch redder-tarter ones. He has on a scissor-mutilated, debilitated-rehabilitated faded orange Tee, cut to expose his biceps, back and ribs: “Dangerously Cheesy” it exclaims, from the “It Aint Easy Bein’ Cheesy” cartoon cat, now crumbling from multiple washings since 7^th grade.

Mr. Cheesy certainly will not risk a sharp raspberry scratch from an evil thorn, having experienced enough pain from last week’s tattoo claw. He’s hot. He’s tired. He’s all scratched out at the moment. Seeing that I’m not risking my careful footing to stretch for the biggest bestest berries, he harrumphs himself back indoors.

I, on the other hand (foot), continue precarious hippo ballet, wallowing delicately amidst the canes. I look for secure footing—one leg astraddle a low-lying clump.

This reminds me of my doctor-visit stance: “Stand up against the wall for an X-ray. Not facing the wall. I’m not going to frisk you! Have you ever been frisked?” Caught off guard by my incompetence (why are you x-raying through my stomach??), I find myself turning forward wondering ‘HAVE I ever been frisked?’and then gasp aloud, “NO!” “Don’t stand with your feet TOGETHER...” he says, “ keep your legs apart as wide as your hips and your knees straight.” I perform this and am still deemed unsatisfactory. “Closer together”. “Closer.” “Closer—Your HIPS are not THAT wide!”

I look down at the space between my bare feet. “Well, they ARE in my MIND!” I tell him. Aloud.

He leaves to go x-ray my solid parts, my bones; my thoughts are safe and can’t be read with his super human ray-gun. Harrumph. I’m disgruntled, having been told “NO MORE LUNGES” and “No attempts at running EVERY day—you’re NOT A MARINE.” I’ve questioned his “No more lunges” statement and he’s told me that the glute muscle works TREMENDOUSLY HARD during a lunge. It strains. It contracts. It squeezes. “Why do you think I do them?” my impertinent, invisible and un-x-rayable mind thoughts say.

Later, as my eyes burn from salt-sweat and Biofreeze (Brig wasn’t obliging when asked to rub my butt muscle so I did it myself-- accidently touching my face), I think that I probably AM doing some gluteus maximus straining anyway with this raspberry balancing act. Super-achy an hour later, I decide to stop.

Swimming away the heat at Paula’s, floating, dreaming, envisioning more unpicked berries—Brig calls from the Mall, cool and sociable once more. A fellow track-relay-mate, on the 4 x 400 one year, has committed suicide that morning. The boy, 3 years older, reminded me a lot of my own son when they both sported a goatee, same short stature, dark-haired and handsome. I had already heard this rumor from Paula’s dad minutes before. Brig always seems aggravated that I ‘know everything before he does’. (“Moms always know everything” I’ve told my kids numerous times. “And we always find out.”)

I am sad that sometimes moms find out things way too late. Way, way too late.

Now he doesn’t really know what to say. Things like this are BEYOND COMPREHENSION. I am the older, the wiser (?) so now I say the things that need said because this is truly such a waste of life and a heartbreaking devastation.

I much prefer the semi-silent conversations that auger forth imaginary measel creatures and light-hearted, trivial thoughts of baseball-playing mammals on a hot summer day…

American Beauty: Flint Hills

I prepared myself for a K-State Ag class 2 weeks ago by a visit to a steep embankment and a walk across a Flint Hills pasture while Bailey’s in-laws were searching for a calf.

I think I am one of those people, who, if not careful, would waste entire lifetimes away by dreaming.

I’ve already wasted away so much of mine.

I can’t help it. I can sit down to examine a flower or a unique seed pod and while needles of soul-piercing sun race up and down my arms, I am oblivious…a minute can turn into 20…or 30… and I watch the tiny gray weevil snuffling along a stem, a minute periwinkle butterfly probing a golden peppered blossom, an alien whitegreen crab spider contemplating a dinner gnat…

Hours I waste. And yet I feel so hugely awed by the smallest and simplest of things; is it so wrong to just waste time? I adored Fairy Tales: Thumbelina sleeping in a walnut shell, images of pixies clad in petals… I could sit there forever, moving a few feet at a time, and still not SEE everything.

It had to be coincidence that American Beauty was on later…the odd boy, the strange boy with his camera, filming a dancing plastic bag, and a dead bird… Ricky says it all:

“Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.

and

Why are you filming that dead bird?

Because it’s beautiful.

That was amazing.

What was amazing about it?

When you see something like that, it's like God is looking right at you, just for a second. And if you're careful, you can look right back.

And what do you see?

Beauty.

Is it only dead things?

No. Not at all. No, it's everywhere. You just have to be open to it.”

So its really not that crazy to be fascinated by the foot of a grebe or the claws of a snapping turtle. In honor of Father’s Day, I saw a rare scissortail this morning and I still remember our dad carefully bringing in a dead specimen. As little kids, we ooh’ed over its long feathers as he carefully wrapped and laid it to rest in the freezer…

So, I must post these few pics from Barry and Sandy’s place above their home—and remember, they do no justice to the actual beauty found with the bright fresh air and time and space…

Gumby and Pokey!

Oh!
That blog I wrote under this? I failed to mention the worst part--Gumbyman sits down opposite of me EVERY time he comes in, folding his hands on the table (like churchalterprayer) and STARES. He STARES and STARES and STARES. Its enough to drive me berserk. I do my best to hunker down and duck behind whomever happens to sit in front of me, but Gumby moves about to reposition his view, so its about 20 minutes of Adult Peek-a-Boo before I've had enough and walk out. (Either that or adulteress-gossip'll begin when I find myself nearly leaning on 'ol Coach Guy or something!)
Gumby, I'm ready to Pokey your eyes out!

Gumby Grumble

When I heard I was being ‘badmouthed’ at the gas station last week, I didn’t think much of it until I discovered the miscreant. I raised my eyebrow, “Hmm. Interesting.” Turns out that ‘Gumbyman’ is riled over my raccoon daycare services. What a heel! What a cad! What a lout! Everyone else seemed so fascinated by baby Mogely; he’s adored and becoming vastly popular.

Gumbyman isn’t a true ‘regular’ coffee drinker—he’s lately ingratiated himself upon a somewhat wary and suspicious group of us—most of which get up and leave after a few moments of ‘Cliff Clavin’ rhetoric. Gumbyman knows all. Unfortunately, I heard a few tidbits of one of those ‘back in the war’ stories, which chaps my hide. For godssake people, what is with these men who bemoan their horrible days in ‘Nam—when they have never been there? ! Do they think women fall for this? If only I was a fast thinker—I’d whip out a clever retort—but alas, my brain moves too slow. Since Gumbyman (he’s missing all his teeth by the way) is MY age, perhaps I should view him with AWE! “Oh, Gumbyman, how unawares I was that our very own US government had a such a secret weapon—did you, too, train like the child VC’s?? Were you learning to lob a grenade?? My, you must have had some muscles! (It’s obvious he didn’t fare well socially, being deprived from parental care at the ripe old war-faring age of 9. Or war just does that to a pre-teen soldier.)

In KS it’s illegal to trap a raccoon—(furbearer license needed) and we’re not harboring a wild animal; we are helping to rescue an orphan. Mogely is not in a trap or cage. He is free to curl up under the couch or my collarbone or even in my basket of laundry; thus my excuse if the Game Warden comes knocking. (Good thing we sent him a ‘get well’ card when he was ill!)

Look at darling Mogely—he follows like a puppy, purring and twittering, and playing just like a real baby. He discovered his back feet! Brigham claims when Mogely fell asleep by my ear I was wearing his tail for a moustache.

Not true, but he’s the reason I haven’t blogged much!

Here we are getting ready to plant Lily of the Valley from Grandma...