No Time for Tea

It was an oddly built house, two stories set securely into the hillside at the very top of Schoolhouse Lane but with a glassed in sunporch on stilts on the front. It looked and felt off kilter, as if the supports might just uproot in a strong wind and set the entire house tumbling down the impossibly steep incline and into the sea.

“What nonsense!” my grandmother said briskly, “I declare, that house has stood fifty years and will stand for another fifty!”

Still, after Uncle Len had remarked that the structural integrity of the house was compromised, it was hard not to notice that she kept her visits brief and took pains to avoid the sunporch. She denied this lack of faith often and loudly, of course, but there it was.

“No time for tea!” she would say brightly, drop off a basket of biscuits and jam or fresh honey and hastily shuttle me out the back door. When it came to the house on Schoolhouse Lane, she was always on her way to somewhere else and running late.

Miss Hilda, however, who passed the house twice a day on her morning consititutional, was far less inclined to be tactful.

“A horror, Alice,” she would say through clenched teeth, “An absolute architectural, L shaped horror, there's simply no other civilized way to put it. I shall never understand what they could have been thinking to make such an abject failure of a proper sunporch! It's a blight on the landscape.”

“I Imagine they were thinking of the view,” Nana would suggest mildly and Hilda would snort with disapproval.

“Perhaps the view will be adequate compensation when those spindly stilts give way and the whole structure collapses like a house of cards,” Hilda would reply haughtily, “ I remain unconvinced.”

The house never did give way to the wind or the storms, not even to the elemental forces of not one but two hurricanes. But long after it's residents and critics were well buried, a night fire swallowed it whole and in time the weeds and wild grass reclaimed the ground. Last time I was home, I stopped on the road above where the house had so proudly stood. Not a remnant remained except the view.

Milk & Maple Cake

Just before the storm, hit, the wind abruptly died and the ocean went dead calm. There was a bitter heaviness to the air, something you could almost taste, and a sense of doom in the gathering clouds. It came on so quickly that we were nearly caught unawares. In minutes the bright summer afternoon was gone, replaced with a darkness that glowed 'round the edges and settled like an impenetrable cloud over The Point.

My grandmother, who still remembered what war was like, sprang into action like a drill sargeant, rounding up Ruthie and I, corraling both nervous dogs and sending us all into the dining room, the only interior space the house had to offer. She settled us into a corner and like a magician, whisked off the damask tablecloth and flung it over us for shelter. In an instant, the world turned completely and smotheringly black.

“Dark ain't gon' hurt you,” she shouted firmly to be heard over the thunder, “Jist stay put!”

Terrified and close to tears, we stayed, holding each other and the dogs tightly.

It was a vicious storm. The walls vibrated with each crash of thunder and we could hear lightning crack like gunfire. At one point, Nana said later, the old candlestick telephone gave a shriek and a hiss and erupted into a shower of sparks.

“Like to stop my heart, that did,” my grandmother confessed, “Damn thing could've set the house afire.”

And then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

By the time Ruthie and I crept out from under the tablecloth, Nana was surveying the damage.

The swing set had been thoroughly uprooted and lay forlornly on it's side. The flag pole was intact but had developed a definite ocean-ward lean and the clothes line was in tatters. One of the double garage doors was off its top hinge and sagging badly but most odd, was the splash of color in the middle of the strawberry patch – Willie Foote's infamous red Radio Flyer wagon, the very vehicle in which he'd soared over the guardrail and into the sea just a few years before – lay upside down and only a little more battered than usual. It's wheels were still spinning lazily.

“I declare,” Nana sighed, “You girls best go rescue that wagon 'fore Wille comes lookin' for it. He's right fond of that old thing. And stop in at Uncle Len's on your way back. 'Pears to me we'll be needin' some carpentry done.”

Ruthie and I, reluctantly but dutifully, righted the wagon, pulled it up the driveway and trudged all the way to Willie's, arguing every step of the way about how much trouble we'd be in if we left it on the side of the road instead of trying to cross the front yard which was always a waist high tangle of snarled up grass and weeds with a life of their own and who knew what slimy creatures living in the underneath. It was well known that not even the Sullivan boys, as brave and reckless a crew as we had, wouldn't cross the yard without their snake boots on so in the end, we decided to set the wagon on the edge of the yard and kick it in a few feet.

“Close enough to trip over,” Ruthie decreed and took a step backwards in case we'd woken anything up.

“Ayuh,” I muttered, keeping a cautious eye on the ditch, “C'mon, let's go back. Nana was makin' a maple cake before the storm. Might be done.”

“Race ya!” she yelled without warning and took off like a shot.

We ran so fast and so hard that we completely forgot about stopping at Uncle Len's and Nana scolded us both for being such flibberty gibbets but then said, never mind, she'd go herself on the way to the post office. We had cold milk and warm maple cake and the storm, like all the ones that had come before, was soon forgotten.

Easter Tidings

“Nothing like Easter Sunday to bring out the faithful,” my grandmother observed sourly as she winced her way up the church steps of the Baptist church, “Warms your heart, don't it, Jan.”

My mother, a devoted Christmas/Easter christian, glared at her but Nana pretended not to see and my daddy pretended not to hear. He took both their elbows and steered them firmly inside while we trailed along after. It was, as predicted, standing room only and being an uncommonly warm morning for April, the sanctuary reeked of lilies and too many kinds of perfume. There was not enough space for the six of us in one pew so my daddy wisely separated my mother and grandmother and split the three of us children between them. Despite the crowd, the service started on time with all three choirs singing the processional loud enough to make the old stone walls tremble. I was, as usual, swept away when we stood for “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”.

Baptisms were a traditional part of every Easter service so there was no sermon. Instead, we witnessed a solemn parade of white gowned church members accept Jesus Christ as Their Personal Savior before being lowered into the warm water and emerging sin-free, at least for a time. Later I would come to think that 12 is far too young and tender an age to be making, never mind understanding, such vows but at the time I still had hope and determination for my own salvation. I hadn't been tested then and I wanted very badly to believe.

We sang another hymn while the minister dried off and dressed and then he blessed us and the choir launched into “The Hallelujah Chorus”.   Even my world weary grandmother seemed moved by the music and a half century later, I still know every note of the soprano part just as I was taught and still get goosebumps when I hear it.

“World'd be a better place with more music and less preachin',” she remarked to the pastor as we passed.

“Amen, dear lady,” he smiled and patted her hand, “Amen.”

Intervention

Sometime over the weekend, the computer at work crashed - and did a thorough job of it, to be sure, it won't even start much less provide internet access - and we are so disgustingly technology dependent that there's nothing I can do without it. I explain this to Michael, call the IT folks to schedule an intervention for late this afternoon, and resignedly head home. It means going back this evening but it can't be helped. I do my best to be optimistic but it's yet another body blow when the tentative diagnosis of a failed hard drive is confirmed almost immediately.

I will not, will not, WILL NOT wonder what else can go wrong. Apparently it's interpreted as a challenge.

I spend the in between time with an old Bette Davis movie and the three dogs. The tiny one has adapted so well, he now feels free to chase, straddle, ambush and generally harass the kitten. She, in turn, stalks, swats and ferociously feints at him. It's loud, enthusiastic, a tad obnoxious and almost entirely playful so aside from warning him that she could easily knock him into next week and reminding her that he has teeth, I don't interfere. I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if they end up best buddies.

When I get back to work, things have not gotten any better. Our trusty IT girl has vanished with the malfunctioning hard drive in tow and Michael is in a state over the mail. The forwarding order from three weeks ago has still not taken effect and there's no telling how many checks are out there in the postal service never-never land. When you can get them to actually answer their telephones, the post office employees are drearily indifferent to our missing mail dilemma and their collective double speak sets my nerves on edge.

I leave Michael to his muttering and set out for home where I can close the door and hug my dogs.  I think reality needs an intervention.

Told You So

On a sunny but cool-ish April afternoon, I let the dogs out and the little dachshund immediately goes straight to the doggie door on the garage and wiggles through, just as he's been doing for the past week. I've followed him once or twice but have never been able to find whatever it is that he's so convinced is there. I've been inclined to think that one of the neighborhood stray cats has been searching for a place to have her kittens and as has happened before, the little dog would alert if it happened but so far there's been nary a single bark. I suspect it's a waste of time but he's becoming a little obsessive about it so I decide to traipse after him one more time.

The garage, to put it charitably, a combination landfill and hoarder's paradise, is a disaster and I often wonder how it's still standing. I try never to go in except to do the laundry and I confess there have been times when the darkness and mustiness have unnerved me. You never know what may be lurking in those black corners, rustling and watching in yellow-eyed anticipation.

But this is broad daylight, I remind myself, and the little dachshund isn't afraid, so why should you be?

He has managed to climb up on the old church bench and then navigate to the mid-level shelf, nosing aside an old ironing board and weaving around a half dozen old paint cans, a roll of discolored carpet and several boxes of trash. I climb up after him, vaguely thinking that if I fall and break a hip, I'm going to regret leaving my cell phone on the charger and not in my back pocket but what the hell. The dog sits, cocking his head at the space between the exterior wall and the shelf and looking somewhere between expectant and curious. Still, I see nothing, no movement, no eyes (yellow or otherwise), no hidden dangers. The dog whines very softly, paws gently at the wall and pushes away a clump of lint the size of a basketball and I'm suddenly up close and personal with a pair of red-rimmed, curious eyes, peering at me from less than a foot away. It's a young 'possum, definitely annoyed but not overly concerned by my presence and completely indifferent to the dog who is now panting and wagging his tail furiously.  While I'm considering what, if anything, to do next, the small intruder makes an independent decision, turning tail and easily slipping over a board, back into a nest of lint and out of sight.

The little dachshund sighs with disappointment but there's a definite glint of "I told you so" in his eyes.  He's not likely to let me forget this.

An Anniversary Wish

The boy I once wanted so desperately to marry has just celebrated his 46^th wedding anniversary and I can't help but smile.

I can barely remember how young and foolish and innocent we were then.  It would never have lasted, of course, but at the time I was so blinded by possibility that I couldn't see how it could ever have gone wrong. I imagined a cottage on the edge of the sea, with a fireplace for the winter and a vegetable garden for summer. I'd learn to make bread and fish chowder, we'd drink honeysuckle tea year 'round and raise dairy cows or maybe rabbits. There'd be a cat for every window sill and a whole pack of dogs to keep us company when we were snowed in on the long winter nights. Come spring, we'd invite family and friends in and make our own music on the veranda until it was summer again and then we'd go berry picking or fishing in the cove or shell collecting along the shore. Youth knows no limits and young love no shackles. Seasons, however, come and go and come again as new. Landscapes change and rarely go back to what they were. It's easy to get lost in the world you leave behind, to mourn for it and remember it better than it really was but reality is a obstinate, determined sort of creature and will have its way. Put 1500 miles and an ocean between lovers and they will move on.

That was the last summer I was to spend on my beloved island. I was seventeen, he was twenty and although we kept in touch for a time, it was mostly superficial. Like it or not, both our lives were already neatly laid out and the summer - while a blissful and precious time – had been only temporary. He packed his old Chevy with his books and his grade twelve diploma and got a job with the mainland newspaper and a one room apartment that overlooked the water. Not long after, he met his wife. I dutifully went to college and stalled for time and it was some sixteen years before I saw him again and then only for a moment. I remember feeling warmed by the fact that he was as good looking as he'd ever been, that his smile hadn't changed the least little bit and that he was so clearly well and happy. Marriage, children and island life agreed with him.

“Wish you had time to meet my wife,” he told me.

“Me too,” I said and to my surprise, realized it was true.

That was over 30 years ago and now he's a grandfather, happily retired, growing roses in a cottage with an ocean view and celebrating his 46^th anniversary with a lady I never got to meet but suspect I would like. Probably a lot.

Well played, old friend.

It's Policy

I don't mean to complain, but I would be enormously grateful for just one day when it wasn't necessary to declare war just to get something simple done and done right.

My trusty old Nikon lens begins to grind and shimmy on it's mount and I dutifully pack it up and send it for repair. A few weeks later, it's returned but being at work, I miss the Ups delivery truck. Fortunately, I live within a few minutes of the distribution center so I call to tell them not to bother with a second delivery attempt, I'll come by and pick it up once the trucks have had time to get back.

“No,” the Ups rep tells me shortly, “You can't do that.”

“No?” I say innocently and having no clue I'm about to unleash the demons of customer service,

“Why not?”

“The shipper has frozen the delivery options,” I'm told with a bored tolerance that's quite close to indifference, “It can only be delivered.”

“Okay,” I say mildly, “Then let me give you a different delivery address.”

“No,” the agent repeats, “We can only deliver it to the address you gave originally.”

“How,” I say tightly, “Do I get the delivery options unfrozen?”

It's another 20 futile minutes to get Nikon on the telephone, explain the situation, and have them tell me, in a tone of voice eeriely like the bored tolerance of the Ups agent, that no, they can't call and release the package. It's policy, they tell me flatly, once the order has been placed, there's nothing they can do. I demand to speak to a manager, not because I expect a different outcome but because somebody needs to be told how imbecilic this so-called “policy” is.

When the smoke clears and I decide I've had enough of this nonsense, I decide to do what I should have done in the first place and drive to the Ups distribution center to lay my case in front of the local people. I'm immediately apologized to and the package is traced within a matter of seconds - it's still on the truck and the truck is still out - but it's due back that evening and I'm welcome to come back after eight or first thing in the morning. With a brief but artful tap of the keyboard, the agent arranges for the pickup.

“Whatever did you call our 800 number for,” she scolds me gently, “They wouldn't know their collective ass from a hole in the ground.”

“How is it,” I can't resist asking, “that you still have a job when you can clearly think?”

Sometime in the night, the beginnings of a not very nice idea take root in my mind. I have an overwhelming urge to cause some mischief at Nikon and when I pick up the lens the following morning and sign for it, I take pains to use a name that's not my own and make sure my signature is indecipherable. I think I might just call their illustrious customer service department in a few days and ask them what they've done with my lens, maybe make a federal case out of wanting a refund. They'd catch on in time but maybe it might upset their policy applecart just a smidge.

The idea appeals to me. Betcha my mischief can out run your policy.

The Myth of Common Ground

Just outside one of the city's oldest biker bars, someone has nailed up a wire wastebasket with a hand written sign that reads “Check Your Politics Here”. It starts my night with a smile.

It's a weeknight and while the crowd is light, the music is deafening. Whitney, the blonde, blue eyed bartender, waves to me and a few moments later a diet coke and a red plastic basket of popcorn appear at my elbow. I suspect that the wastebasket and sign might be her idea since last time I was here, a post-election difference of opinion between two bikers got out of hand, a full fledged brawl broke out and Whitney, who stores (and isn't afraid to use) a 357 she keeps behind the bar, was forced to intervene and restore order. In the process, she broke an expensively lacquered fingernail and took it more personally than anyone expected so I didn't imagine she would let it happen again. After that night, the popular opinion became that being petite and pretty didn't mean you didn't know your way around a gun and there'd been no more disputes, political or otherwise.

If you frequent as many bars as I do, there are certain things you get used to. Here in the south, biker bars, in particular, are colorful places and you're almost guaranteed to find at least one prominently displayed confederate flag. The patrons tend to be loud, intimidatingly conservative and opinionated to the point of crude if they're not getting their point across. For someone like myself, this can be hostile territory and while I've never felt threatened or unsafe, I do try and respect the environment.

My friend, Jack, a tree-top tall, blind-in-one-eye old rider with a mane of coarse and untidy grey hair well past his shoulders, slides into a chair facing me and plunks his beer on the table with a dull thud. He grins and gives me a salacious wink.

"Whaddup, girl" he says conversationally, 'Still ridin' that liberal horse?"

"Reckon so, Jack," I say, "Still draggin' your ass in its dust?"

Until recently, if a friend - casual or even close - shared my love of music or devotion to animals but not my politics, it wasn't enough to keep them from being a friend.  I might snipe some here and there, just as they would with me, but I wasn't ready to write someone off over a political difference of opinion.  We could always agree to disagree, so I thought, and concentrate on our common ground.  That, I told myself, was what adults did.  It wasn't ideal but it was practical, reasonably cordial and it worked for years, might still be working today but for the last election.  Much to my dismay, I've come to realize that there are certain things about certain friends that I can't overlook.

It's painful to think that I have friends who are rabidly racist and I didn't know.

It's painful to think that I have friends who think women shouldn't be able to vote and I didn't know.

It's painful to think I have friends who would let the poor starve and I didn't know.

It's painful to think I have friends who would close our borders, take away social safety nets, turn their backs on civil rights, deny science, dismantle consumer protections, deregulate anything that can be deregulated in the name of profit, and embrace a world of exclusivity that isn't even open to most of them.  It's not only painful that I didn't know.  It's shameful.

Except that I did know.  I just chose not to confront it.  I thought I could pretend it wasn't there, that it wasn't significant enough to worry about.  Because here's the thing for my friends like Jack:  even if you aren't a racist or a predator or a woman-hater or a hypocrite, you voted for one.  And it's pretty much the same thing.

So long, Jack.  Gonna miss you.

The Cold

The cold creeps into my bones like a slow water leak. I feel it in my toes and on the back of my neck. It seeps insidiously under my fingernails. We're halfway through March and there's no way it should be this bitter but even the sun's glare has an icy undercoat. I find the warmest room in the house and pull on my thermals and heavy duty socks, wind my trusty muffler around my neck and shoulders and slip into my leather jacket. I'm about to head out the door when I remember my finger-less wool gloves, a gift from a much loved and understanding cousin, one I hadn't anticipated needing until next year. I also remember that the day before when I walked into the office, it was 57 degrees inside. No time like the present, I think, and backtrack to snatch them out of the corner cupboard. It's time to confront this arctic wasteland, this adversary, this merciless and most feared enemy, The Cold. It has to be done quickly before I lose my nerve.

By mid afternoon it's warmed up enough to be civilized but the next morning, the grass is crunchy with frost and so am I. All my life, The Cold has made me impatient, ill-tempered, unhappy and bitter with resentment at everything I can't control. But for the eight small lives that depend on me, I would jack the heat to 80, light the fireplace and the space heaters and stay under the covers until Memorial Day. I'm quite sure that the traditional view of hell is, temperature-wise at least, backwards. If it exists, it's bound to be stone cold, damp-to-the-bones cold, forever cold.

The third and fourth mornings are carbon copies of the first and second with deceptively bright sunshine wearing a knit cap and a coat of icy-sleeved cold.  According to the forecast, warmer weather arrives tomorrow, as much as 30 degrees warmer by the day after and there's no choice but to bundle up and wait out one more day.

A scant three days later, I throw open every window in this small, old house and invite the sunshine and sweet breezes inside.  Birds sing in the azaleas again and the crepe myrtle is starting to bloom.  Instead of leaves needing to be raked, the grass needs cutting.

Hope, shy but strong, beats back The Cold and blossoms alongside every stubborn dandelion.

Coming of Age

I came of political age in New England during the Nixon debacle, a hard and bitter time for this country. I was surrounded by like-minded friends who were enraged and appalled by the man and his gang of thugs and once they were finally driven out, disbarred or imprisoned, I rejoiced while my mother wept. I kept my faith and never imagined such a time could come again. I suspect I thought that complacency and a vote every two or four years would be enough to sustain me. Certainly I expected that corruption had been put in its place and that the country had learned a valuable lesson. And then it was 2016.

These days I wake each morning surprised we're not at war. The corruption I thought we would never see the like of again has become pathological and the president we elected drives and sustains it. The freedoms we claim to treasure are slipping through our fingers.  The backward drive to undo years of progress is in full swing.

They even have a clever name for it: Post Election Stress Syndrome.

Before Nixon, I was too young to be an activist. Afterward I was too busy. But between then and now, I came to believe all those in power were - or would come to be – corrupt at best, toxic at worst. The business of politics didn't concern or affect me much and when I did think about it, it was like thinking about dirt. I saw no decency in it and hoped it would wash off.

It doesn't.

Wind Storms

My friend Michael's estrangement from his family, now in its 3^rd month, has brought back memories of my own, now in it's 30^th something year. Forgiveness, so people like to say, brings peace of mind and allows you to move on. It's funny that my peace of mind took root the very moment I cut those family ties and fully blossomed with my mother's death. Forgiveness never got a foot in the door.

Traditionally speaking, this should have troubled me, I suppose, but like the azaleas outside my window, the seasons came and passed and came and passed again while I was tending other flower beds. I didn't suffer or lose sleep over it. My conscience didn't stir with regret or guilt, not even with might-have-beens and eventually, it faded and became unimportant. Though there were still traces of poison,  to paraphrase Anne Lamont, the urge to hit back gradually drifted away. Maybe that's what forgiveness really is, not so much an active act as a passive giving in to forgetting and allowing time to do what it does best.

Michael, never one to take the I'm sorry you feel that way approach, has wounds that are newer. They are sharp edged and raw with anger, still bleeding with what he sees as betrayal and selfishness. He swallowed his pride and asked for help, fully expecting his family to unite behind him but prepared to shame them if they refused. Today he would rather reign fire than forgive but tomorrow, who knows.  We all blow with the wind now and then but The wind, as the old fishermen used to tell each other, she blows in all directions.

Casual Encounters with the Idle Rich

I can't abide buttered parsnips, crooked pictures, or useless society women. The first I can avoid, the second I can fix, but the third - whose only function is to marry and breed more useless society women - is a plague.

They're immediately identifiable by their valley girl speech, their gushing insincerity, their Neiman Marcus wardrobes and their need to mention their neighborhood, which car they came in, and at the very least, two references to how long they've had their nanny. They bring 20 or 30 outfits to a one look photo shoot. There's a touch of entitlement if not outright malice to their magpie chatter and a careless privilege when they “accidentally” spill out a half dozen black credit cards and tell me to choose one. They're overflowing with suggestions on how the photographer should do her job, all of which begin with, “Now of course, I'm not a professional but......” and of the thirty outfits (all with price tags prominently displayed), there's not so much as a facecloth to wipe the drool off the baby's chin. “What could my Bessie Mae have been thinking not to put in a baby wipe,” they twitter, bat their silvery shadowed eyes and give their hair a practiced, over the shoulder toss. I cringe with every word and gesture and pray that I'll be able to keep my sausage and egg biscuit down.

There is a bright spot with this particular moron mama because when she turns sideways to me, I notice her nose. Not only is it unfortunately crooked with a shocking hump in the bridge, it's ski slope long and ends in what looks like a wheel barrow caught in a snow drift. It hooks hard to the left and all her concealer and artfully applied Elizabeth Arden can't diminish it. I know I should be ashamed of the delight this gives me but then she looks down at me, peering over that amazing hump and giving me a nasty, glittery smile with her ironically perfect teeth.

“Oh,” she says with a dismissive sneer that's impossible to miss, “Was I supposed to bring my own toys too?”

Instead of counting to ten, I run through the first five local plastic surgeons I can think of and smile back through my own impeccably perfect bridgework.

“We'll make do, dear,” I tell her cheerfully and for a fraction of a second I think I see her jaw clench but then she remembers that apart from the occasional, sugary sweet reprimand, women in her position don't engage the help. She thanks me, gathers up her child and her designer accessories, slings her Prada bag over her shoulder and stalks off, Gucci heels clicking like rapid fire gunshots.

Would that money could buy class and manners the way the class-less and unmannered rich think it does.

Little Dogs, Little Tyrants

It wasn't 'specially cold, wasn't even raining 'specially hard and two of the three dogs headed out the back door without hesitation. The tiny one, however, took one look at the raindrops splashing on the wooden deck and scurried off like a wounded crab. I caught him in three steps,

carried him outside and deposited him on the damp grass under the shelter of the shrubbery. The look he gave me was part apprehension, part bewilderment and part betrayal.

“Seriously,” I told him firmly as I tried not to laugh, “You won't melt.”

The look changed to indignation when a raindrop landed on his head and startled him. He jumped a little then shook it off and took a few small, tentative steps sideways. All I could think of was Harry Potter in the maze but without Harry's courage. Another raindrop landed, closer to his hindquarters this time, and he shivered miserably. While the small brown dog and the little dachshund watched - in amusement, I had to wonder - I brushed the branches and shrubs away and re-located him to a mound of pinestraw. This seemed to reassure him and he nosed about for several minutes then finally hiked one tiny leg and did what had to be done.

“What a good boy!” I told him when he trotted back and made a hasty run for the back door.

Safely back in the house and only a little damp from his adventure, he immediately regrouped and reclaimed his un-timid inside self, snatching a treat from my outstretched hand, unleashing a Wagnerian chorus of barking at the cats and tearing after the youngest at full speed.

Twenty minutes later, he's laid out fast asleep and snoring like a freight train. Little dogs rule.

Babies R Us

Not being a mother myself, I've always felt a little handicapped when it comes to babies. I know enough to agree with the new parents about how amazingly beautiful and precious and perfect their newborn is but I've never quite seen it. I don't mean to be crude but they all look like squinched up monkeys to me and I doubt I could tell one from another.

The agency gets quite a lot of baby pictures from parents who are convinced their little angel can be, given the chance, the next Gerber/Pampers/Ivory Soap/Huggies baby. We hear how playful and sunny-natured they are, how well-behaved and affectionate, how they love to have their pictures taken. We hear how easy they are to work with, how bright for their age they are, how talented and how astonishingly photogenic. We hear with sickening regularity, how everyone who meets little Bambi or Jessilynne or Jackson or Owen says they should model. Mothers, far more than daddys, gush at how well their little bundle of joy takes direction.

Oh, please.

Infants eat, sleep, cry and soil their diapers. They're not even house broken never mind career-oriented.

Some of these parents, I have no doubt, are sincere but others are looking for no more than what they think will be a quick payday. Exploit your child, get rich quick, and land on Easy Street. It never occurs to them that the grainy, out of focus cell phone image might not be worth the pixels it takes to create. It never occurs to them that they might have to make an actual investment in their child. They're offended by the idea that we're looking for children who can read and focus for more than 15 seconds and actually sit still and quiet for 20. They don't seem to realize that a 6 month old baby ought to be allowed to be a baby.

So we're headed into this new project cautiously - a department store in a nearby state has put out a casting call for all ages starting at 6 months – and Michael has decided to test the waters.

I have a sudden urge to look for a life jacket.

What Would Michael Do

Never let it be said that my friend Michael hasn't taught me a thing or three about the art of the threat.

The internet was out again when I got home and At&t had an automated message in place so they didn't have to listen to their irate customers. I was annoyed but outages are painfully common and it's not always shoddy equipment or incompetence so I decided not to make a federal case of it. It took ten hours to repair and I was back on line by midnight but the very next morning, my wireless network mysteriously disappeared and with it, my internet access. Determined not to lose my temper this time, I put in the call. I had a suspicion that conserving my energy from the day before might come in handy.

For a full half hour I went through the standard script and repeated all the standard quick fixes that had already failed. I was speaking English but wasn't sure what language I was hearing, being only able to pick out a few words here and there, still I persisted until we got to the inevitable point where I was told I'd need a technician. Their first available appointment was Monday. Could I be at home between 8 and 12?

A 10 hour outage just the day before and now I'm told it'll be two days before it can be repaired? I didn't think so and firmly but calmly said as much but all it got me was a shrug I could practically hear and a lukewarm apology. What would Michael do, I asked myself and the answer came with blinding clarity - he would lie, bluff, threaten and not give an inch.

“Let me explain this as clearly and succinctly as I possibly can,” I said, feeling poisoned by own pleasant-ness, “Comcast can be here in a heartbeat and they'll be delighted to have everything changed over by the end of the day. While they're doing that, I'll be organizing my Uverse file,

every missed appointment, every bait and switch promise of fibre optics, every guarantee of blazing speed and every outage. I'll deliver it personally to the Public Service Commission by close of business. So, unless I see an At&t technician here today, there won't be any At&t service on Monday. Do you have any questions?”

Apparently he didn't because although it killed me to swallow that much rage, it got me my internet back that very day.

We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works ~ Douglas Adams

Tillie's Chickens

The day Tillie's chickens got loose was a Saturday. The canteen had closed early and there was little or no traffic except for the ferry passengers. My mother and grandmother were playing gin rummy on the sunporch, my brothers were eel fishing somewhere up island, and I was deep into a new Nancy Drew Mystery when from out of nowhere, a cloud of chickens descended into the blackberry patch and commenced to shriek and cackle loud enough to wake the dead.

The noise woke the dogs and they rounded the corner from the back door at full speed and full volume, anxious to join in the melee. There were chickens in the thorny blackberry thicket, chickens on front lawn, chickens in the air and one lone, brave soul roosting suicidally high atop the flagpole.

“Good God Almighty!” I heard my grandmother shout from behind me, “It's an invasion! Jan! Ring Elsie and have her ring Tillie to come round up these filthy creatures!”

I will never forget the sight of my normally staid and well-grounded grandmother charging toward the blackberry patch with her apron flapping and shouting “Shoo! Scat!” at the top of her lungs while my mother held onto the doorjamb to keep upright and laughed herself to tears. Next on the scene was Uncle Willie, running across the road in his longjohns and denim overalls, wielding his trusty shotgun and yelling something about chicken for dinner.

“The ditch, Willie!” my grandmother yelled, “Mind the ditch!” but Willie only had eyes for the chickens and propelled by his own momentum, he raised the shotgun over his head and just before he reached the ditch, gave an almighty jump. It was, of course, to no avail and for several seconds he and the shotgun disappeared from view while a number of the chickens took flight. During the time it took him to climb out and shake off the mud, the ferry docked and a steady stream of traffic began winding its way past. The lead car, a station wagon with New York plates, perhaps unfamiliar with the habits of chickens, slammed on its brakes just as it reached our footbridge and ended up sideways on the dusty road, narrowly missing a particularly defiant chicken and grazing the guardrail. An untidy family of seven tumbled out like a can of worms and set off a torrent of protest from the cars behind.

“Willie!” Nana was yelling, “Put that fool thing down 'fore you shoot yer damn foot off! Ain't a gonna be no shootin' chickens in my yard when they's children about! Jeanette! Pull yourself together and git on that damn fool telephone!”

“No need,” my mother hollered back, “Yonder comes Tillie!”

And indeed, Tillie's rattletrap old pickup was careening down the steep gravel drive, backfiring with every bounce, spewing clouds of exhaust and spilling a trail of wooden chicken crates in its wake. Tillie herself was behind the wheel, wearing her signature pith helmet with attached veil, a corncob pipe clenched between her toothless gums.

“Look out, Alice!” I heard Uncle Willie shout, “She don't always stop where she's a mind to!”

Tillie, in her 70's at the time, was a formidable woman, the kind of woman the island folk were pleased to call “colorful”. She'd raised chickens for years and had recently taken on bee keeping, a decision that caused her neighbors some alarm and aroused an unhealthy curiosity in their children. She'd come into the world one-armed from some long forgotten birth defect and was known to be a shrewd businesswoman, as spry as a mountain goat and a devout atheist. My daddy had once said that in a community of people who prided themselves on their natural reticence with strangers, Tillie practiced an enviable economy of speech with everyone. She was not one to waste words.

I watched and listened as the pickup's uncertain brakes screeched to a stop just shy of the blackberry patch and Tillie emerged, a coffee can of chicken feed tucked under her elbow-less arm. Before she'd thrown the first handful of feed, the chickens were gathering around her in a cloudy haze of beaks and feathers and one by one, Nana and I caught them, my mother shoved them back into the wooden crates, and Uncle Willie toted the crates into the bed of the pickup.

The tourist children cheered.

When it was over, we were were dusty and feathery and everything smelled like a chicken coop but every last creature, save one, had been captured and crated.

“Tillie,” my grandmother said tiredly, “You swore you was gon' clip their wings.”

“Ain't had time,” Tillie scowled, climbed back into the ancient pickup and drove raggedly up the gravel driveway in a cloud of blue smoke. Nobody had noticed that the chicken on the flagpole hadn't fallen for the chickenfeed ruse. When she saw it, my grandmother hustled me inside and Uncle Willie got his chicken dinner after all.

False Friends

Maybe I was feeling more cynical than usual or was just tired or just couldn't take one more passive aggressive, saccachrine sweet post about coming together. Maybe I'd had all the hypocrisy I could stand for one day. Or maybe I didn't want to listen to one more word of preaching from one more holier-than-thou false friend. It had taken quite a long time to see it but I finally realized that her condescending can't-we-all-get-together crap was remarkably one sided. All those heartfelt, “Just my opnion” posts leaned sharply right but were so couched in civility that I'd been blinded, had envied her refusal to call a spade a spade, had thought she was a genuine peacemaker. She could, I now dismally understood, sling mud with the best of them and it wasn't pretty.

“Enough lectures on compassion and niceness and Mr. Rogers,” I say outloud and hit delete. I'll miss her music but not her moral superiority or her superficial charity.

It's always unsettling to confront an unpleasant truth but it's worse to find out you've been had.

There are people in the world who, for whatever their private reasons may be, intentionally keep you from knowing who they really are. You admire their sense of fairness, their oft expresed tolerance, their small and capital C christian values of kindness humility, and faith. You think they practice what they preach and are encouraged to follow their example and look for the good in people. And then one lazy afternoon, you stumble into their underneath and find it's mean spirited, two faced, and cruel.

I'm not naive or innocent enough to think that we all don't have a little of the hypocrite in us but I still want to believe that for most of us, our public face is not all that different from the one we see in the mirror. At least, I hope so.

Lights Out

“Being afraid of the dark at your age!” my mother said churlishly, “I won't have it.”

“At least I'm not afraid of a mouse!” I shot back with a defiance I didn't feel. I was eight.

She paled, her face twisting first into an ugly sneer and then a bitter smile, snapped off the lightswitch and slammed the bedroom door. I instantly pulled back the frayed curtains to let the light from the streetlamp in. Later, my daddy would come with a small cartoon figure nightlight, kiss me goodnight and remind me to be sure to unplug and tuck it under my pillow come morning.

“Just don't tell your mother,” he warned me.

“I hate her!” I whispered fiercely, not caring if the words hurt or made him angry, but he just stood at my bedroom door looking haggard, sad and defeated.

“Don't say that,” he told me quietly, “Your mother is terribly unhappy.”

“I don't care!” I muttered and turned on my side so I didn't have to see his face, “It's not my fault and I hate her!”

He sighed audibly but chose to say nothing more. The door closed with a soft click of the latch and I heard his footsteps on the stairs. It wasn't long before the familiar sounds of another one sided fight drifted up through the heat register. She screeched and wailed and threw things and eventually launched into one of her standard You don't love me and you ruined my life crying jags. I knew it all by heart and it ended just as it always did. The more he retreated into silence, the louder and more abusive she became until finally the front door slammed and the old station wagon pulled away. I retrieved the latch key from its hiding place, taped to the underside of the window sill, and quickly locked my door. It wasn't likely she'd be sober enough to bother with me again but unlike my daddy, I had no place to run and there wasn't any sense in taking chances. If she'd discovered the nightlight, there was no telling what fresh hell would follow so I kept myself awake until I heard her drunkenly navigate the stairs, turn out the lights and close her bedroom door. I'd had eight years to fine tune my hate and I never completely gave up the hope that one of those ugly nights she might trip and tumble down the stairs, maybe spend the night out cold in her own vomit, maybe even break her neck and die. Harsh thinking for an eight year old, I expect, but I'm not sure I completely understood the concept of death. I just wanted her gone and didn't much care about the details.

Looking back, I see this was one of my earliest lessons in how to provoke someone past their breaking point for no other reason than to force a reaction, any reaction. During my second marriage, the frustration and rage of dealing with an alcoholic with zero affect drove me right where my mother had gone so often. I screamed and howled and threatened and threw things with the same ferocity and utter lack of control and got precisely nowhere. Every. Single. Time.

A part of me became exactly what I despised. I also strongly suspect it explains the lack of compassion I've developed for victims since it's easier to blame them and conveniently bury the fact that it took me 13 years to get out of an abusive marriage.

I am frequently in awe of my own hypocrisy.

Barking Back

Judging from the sounds coming from the yard, the Hound of the Baskervilles is loose on the other side of the back fence.

Unintimidated, the little dachshund lets out a howl and flies off the back deck, racing at full speed toward the noise like a heat seeking missile. The small brown dog follows right behind him and the tiny one is at her heels. In a matter of seconds, the chilly, gray morning is a hotbed of chaos

with the hound baying on one side and my three presenting a unified front of protest on the other. They can't see each other, can't tell what they're up against, but nobody will back down or give a single inch of ground. I feel like there's a metaphor here, something about the current state of the country but it's only 6am and I'm fuzzy from lack of sleep. I can't quite put it together. Unlike the current state of the county, the hound's owner begins calling him about the time I start reining my three in and it isn't long before peace is restored. The sun is coming up by the time I get everyone fed and settled in and it being a Saturday, I crawl back into bed and naively hope for hour of oblivion.

I find facing what the country has become in just the last two weeks is demoralizing, exhausting, and unrelentingly oppressive. Any last shred of optimism I might have had is gone, replaced by a sorrow, an apprehension and a rage that go to my very core. I go to sleep in dread and wake up hopeless and have nightmares in between. I sign petitions, I regularly call and email my protests to those in power, I donate and march when I can. But no matter what I do, I can't seem to shake off this sense of disaster, this dull feeling of watching my country being systematically torn apart, dismantled in the name of profit by those in power.

Life, however, goes on. I go to work and the grocery store and the post office as if nothing has changed. I force myself to pick up my camera and find music. I tell myself it will get better, that it must get better. I spend a great deal of time willing myself to care. And I watch and listen to my three small dogs refuse to be out shouted or silenced by the bully behind the fence.

If they can be that brave, then surely so can I.