Hanging By A Thread

"On what slender threads

do life and fortune hang."

-- Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Spider 5-7-14

"See him lying there with broken bones

And a child's smile on a man full grown

If he'd gone just another inch by now he would be dead

At times a life can hang by such a slender thread."

-- Kate Wolf, "Slender Thread"

I had this goofy great aunt named Marian. She was my Dad's aunt. My Grandpa's sister. 

Marian was plain and quiet, reserved and a little mysterious, but always kind. We jokingly called her "Aunt Magenta" because she once wore an uncharacteristically loud pink blouse to some family thing or another -- possibly a funeral -- and the name stuck. (In our family, you only have to do a thing once to earn a lifelong brand for it.)

I never got to know Aunt Marian very well. She just kind of nibbled around the edges of our sparse extended family.  

I think maybe Marian was at my wedding. I can't remember for sure. She's not in any of the pictures. I do know her daughter got pretty trashed at the reception and kept grabbing a microphone and crooning "Amore! Amore!"

I wish I'd taken the time to get to know Aunt Marian better. If I had a chance to do it over again, I'd want to ask her a few questions, and I'd want to say a few things to her. Mostly, I'd want to thank this shy, unassuming woman whose last name I can't even remember. Because as it turns out, Aunt Marian was a brave, quick-thinking heroine who literally saved my life before I was even born.

I was cleaning out my workspace over the weekend and came across a faded, cardboard tube containing a printout of my hometown newspaper from Jan. 14, 1927. It's been gathering dust on the top of my bookshelf for years. I forgot I even had it. 

In the newspaper is the story of a man named Howard Kunkle who came home drunk and in a jealous rage one afternoon toting a loaded revolver. Kunkle shot and killed his wife and seriously wounded a neighbor during a 2-hour shootout and standoff during which police armed with machine guns unloaded some 3,000 rounds of ammunition along with tear gas bombs into the man's house before he ultimately shot and killed himself. According to the extremely graphic eyewitness accounts of the story, the woman's 14-year-old daughter was in the room when Kunkle -- her stepfather -- started shooting. She shoved her little brother, 11-year-old Franklin, out of the room just as bullets began to fly, but not before witnessing Kunkle fatally shoot her mother and a neighbor.

The 14-year-old girl's name was Marian.

Her little brother grew up to be my grandfather.

I remember my Dad adding a wrinkle that the newspaper left out -- that my grandfather was carrying a metal lunch pail that actually deflected a bullet that might have killed him. He'd say "If it wasn't for that lunch box, none of you would be here right now."

With all due respect to the lunch box, I think the credit should go to Aunt Marian.

Lunch pail or no lunch pail, all I know is that I wouldn't be sitting here wondering about it or about how close my grandfather's brush with death was if Aunt Marian hadn't pushed him when she did.

My great grandmother died that day, with two bullets in her breast and one in her back.

But thanks to Aunt Marian, my grandfather escaped with his life, and my father's life, and my life, and my children's lives.

I spent time yesterday retyping the story into my computer. The print is deteriorating, fading away, so I wanted to get it down before time renders it completely illegible. 

I never asked Aunt Marian or my grandfather any questions about what happened that day because I didn't know about it. No one talked about it. They kept it a secret, from me anyway. Maybe they were embarrassed, ashamed about the sordidness of their past. More likely, it was simply too raw and painful a memory and was best left alone. I can respect that. But I'm also glad I finally learned about it, that my dad made the effort to secure a copy of the newspaper and that he shared it with me.

I will share it with my boys.

I want them to know about the quiet heroine in the magenta blouse who had the quick reflexes and bravery to stand in the path of flying bullets and rescue four future generations, including theirs, with a single well-timed shove.

I think it's a good thing for them to know how slender a thread their lives hang on.

And no pressure, but if either of them ever has a daughter, I think it might be a good thing to name her Marian.

Good Reading Glasses

"The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision

and strengthens our most fatal tendency --

the belief that the here and now is all there is."

-- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Reading Glasses and  a really good book 5-6-14

"I have two pairs of reading glasses.

One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction.

I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same."

-- Steven Wright

I'm at that age where I have to hold anything I want to read at arm's length and squint real hard at it. 

Labels at the grocery store. The program at a show. Wine lists and menus. A baseball schedule. 

When it's still a blur, I've begun doing this thing where I'll ask my husband or one of my kids to "tell me what this says." Or, I'll just give up. So what if the jam is full of poison chemicals and corn syrup? Toss it in the cart! Who needs menus and wine lists? I can just order one of the specials that the waiter described and ask him to to bring me a glass of whatever he recommends to go with it. And that program? Who needs it? It's just a bunch of ads. Pay attention to the show, dammit!

Yes, I wear glasses, which do a Cracker Jack job of focusing my vision most of the time. But my regular glasses are no longer up to the task of reading and other close-up work. My optometrist has gently thrown around the b-word --bifocals -- but I balk at the thought. I feel like it's a slippery slope.

I'm afraid that once I go bifocal I'll start wearing beige sneakers and sun visors and sweatshirts with embroidered applique, and worrying how long I can talk on a long distance phone call, and doing crosswords on the toilet, and soaking my teeth in a jar at night, and calling people "Sonny," and tucking tissues up my sleeve, and no longer plucking my chin whiskers, and drinking Ensure, and liking Fox News, and repeating myself, and tucking tissues up my sleeve.

I'm just not ready to go there yet.

So in addition to my regular glasses, I have my "cheaters" -- inexpensive plastic magnifiers from the drug store that pump up the print size so I can see what I'm reading, and keep the b-word at bay. 

So far, they do a good enough job.  I don't need a huge magnification number yet. And even though I've had to switch up a couple of times, there are still lots and lots of stronger ones for me to try before I run out of possibilities. Best of all, they are not bifocals, so I can still cling to the illusion that I am not rapidly schussing down the slippery slope. 

Sonny, that's a good thing.

Downy

"Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty."

-- Haruki Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance

Downy 5-5-14

"There is a gentleness

that washes through this valley..."

-- Kate Mullane Robertson

"The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others."

-- Brennan Manning

If you want to let someone know you love them -- and the someone can absolutely be yourself -- tell them by adding a little Downy to the wash.

The slogan says Downy smells "April Fresh," but I think this sky-blue potion is the fragrance of love.

My son Sam is coming home from college later this week, so I'll be washing his sheets and blankets in Downy so that his bed feels soft and smells fresh. It's a little thing, but it matters to me that when he finally sinks into his own bed in his own room after months on a plastic-covered dorm mattress, it'll be soft and cozy and fragrant and gentle and welcoming.

It's a little thing.

It's a simple thing.

It's an ordinary thing.

But it's a good thing. 

Downy.

Use it because you care.

Life is already rough enough. Your sheets shouldn't be.

P.S. Just for fun, here's the super sexist  Original Downy commercial from back in the '60s. Check out the freakishly big baby!

Weeds

"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill

except for learning how to grow in rows."

-- Doug Larson

Wild violet (Johnny jump up) in the woods 5-4-14

"When weeds go to heaven,

I suppose they will be flowers."

-- L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

Wild vine in the woods 5-4-14

"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to  know them."

-- A.A. Milne

Dandelion in the woods 5-4-14

I spent the late afternoon yesterday, camera in hand, trudging through the woods. I went off-trail, up and down hills, dodging briers and low-hanging vines, searching for majesty.

The brooks were babbling. The birds were singing. Majesty was plentiful in the beams of a brilliant sun streaming down on me through the towering, leafless trees, illuminating the coming-alive-ness of the forest all around me.

I was looking for wildflowers, but mostly I found weeds.

Except for the May Apples and Jacks-in-the-Pulpits, the wildflowers were being shy. Apprehensive. After a hard winter, they weren't quite ready to stick their necks out just yet.

Not weeds. 

While the "real" flowers  were taking their sweet, timid time opening up, the weeds were growing happily and plentifully, running roughshod all over the forest floor,

Weeds are like Nature's little extroverts. Eager and unabashed. Not afraid to show their faces and shout "Look at me! Down here!"

Mother's day is coming, and for many, that means flowers. Some mothers will receive lovely, expensive bouquets and arrangements and hanging baskets purchased from the florist. Others will get last minute grocery store mums wrapped in cellophane. Some might get meticulously cultivated long stemmed roses, and others, tulips snipped from their very own landscaping.

But the luckiest mothers of all, I think, will be given fistfuls of battered dandelions and johnny jump ups, held forth proudly in grubby little bunches by beaming, grubby little children. 

A good mother will oooh and aaah over the loveliness of these "flowers" and carefully place them in Dixie cups on the kitchen windowsill and then dutifully water them like prize orchids. 

Her eyes may brim with tears, prompting the child to ask "Mommy, what's wrong? Don't you like them?" (translation: "Don't you love me?") And she will hug the child closely and confirm that she absolutely loves and adores both the flowers and the child, not minding (for once) the smear of dirty hand prints across her blouse, or the muddy shoe tracks across her gleaming kitchen floor.

She may secretly pop an extra Claritin or Benadryl to keep her allergies at bay. 

And in the future, she may feel a tiny ache in her heart each time the lawn chemical truck saturates the flawless green grass with weed-killer. In the future, no store-bought bouquet will ever mean as much. 

In the future, she may spend a late afternoon, camera in hand, trudging through the woods. And she may go off-trail, up and down hills, dodging briers and low-hanging vines, searching for majesty. 

And she will find it running roughshod all over the forest floor in the happy, plentiful, grubby little weed-faces stretching sun-ward.

Her eyes may brim with tears.  

 

Messy Faces. Sticky Fingers. Clean Plates.

"I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back ribs.

I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back ribs."

-- "Fat Bastard," Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Baby back rib bones 5-3-14

"Spare rib anyone?"

-- Adam

Leo working on ribs 5-3-14

I made baby back ribs for my carnivores yesterday.

They picked and licked all the meaty pork bones clean while I enjoyed a tasty salad with strawberries and almonds.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Either way, it's always a good thing when there are no leftovers after a meal. When they eat every last scrap, that means they liked it.

I take a clean plate as the highest culinary praise.

There were no leftovers.

Spitting Like A Dude

"If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art."

-- Pablo Picasso

"His and hers," 5-2-14

Rose:

"Teach me to ride like a man."

Jack:

"Chew tobacco like a man."

Rose:

"And spit like a man!"

Jack:

"What, they didn't teach you that in finishing school?"

Rose:

"No!"

Jack:

"Come on. I'll show ya. Let's do it. Come on. I'll show ya how."

-- Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic

My college cross country coach used to send me on training runs with the men's team. The other girls on my team couldn't always sustain the rigorous training pace I needed to challenge and push me hard enough. So I ran with the boys.

Guy runners don't like having a girl in their midst. Otherwise nice guys who are friendly and kind become like the bulls at Pamplona once you're on a serious run with them. They don't think it's cool, or cute, or sexy, or adorable or amusing. To them, you are nothing but a nuisance. You are also competition, and they will die before they let you beat them.

They will not slow down for you.

They will not wait for you.

They will not talk to you.

They will not acknowledge you.

They don't care if you're tired.

They don't care if you're hurt. 

They don't want to chit chat.

They won't laugh at your jokes.

They're there to run. Period. 

If you want their respect, just shut up and run, balls-out.

And you sure as shit better know how to spit right.

If you do a girlie "ptooey" that dribbles down your chin, your leg, or God forbid lands on someone else, you will be ruthlessly and cruelly mocked. Don't mistake this ridicule for favor. They aren't joshing, or flirting. They aren't teasing you because they like you. They are not trying to have a conversation with you. Spitting like a girl is an epic fail, and they will continue to shame you until you either quit, or fix it.

Thankfully, the dudes I ran with cared way too much about the dignity and integrity of their pack to allow a lame spitter like me to sully it. They saw it as their duty, their responsibility even, to school me on the finer points of spitting like a man. Under their tutelage, I learned how to roll a blob of my own saliva and hold it between the curved end of my tongue and the roof of my mouth, just behind my upper front teeth. They taught me how to launch the properly-positioned blob fast and far with a blast of air from way, way back in my throat. It took a couple of tries, but I was a quick study, and before long, I was spitting with impressive distance and velocity and a satisfying, manly "thw," followed by a respectable "splat" on the pavement.

They taught me how to gauge the wind so that my spit carried away from me instead of blowing back in my face. They even remedied my sniffle-and-wipe runny nose technique by showing me how to blow out snot by pressing one nostril closed and blasting mucus out the other side.

Once I got the hang of it, my street cred went way up with those guys. 

They still didn't want me there, but at least I wasn't an embarrassment anymore.

Yesterday was pretty windy, and I was out cycling for a couple of hours, and inevitably, I needed to spit. And every time I sent a spitball flying, I felt grateful for the dudes who did a good thing and helped a girl get it right. 

Tapping My Inner Domestic Diva

"My second favorite household chore is ironing.

My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint."

-- Erma Bombeck

Self portrait 5-1-14

"The only time I ever enjoyed ironing was the day

I accidentally got gin in the steam iron."

-- Phyllis Diller

As wife-ing and domestic duty-ing go, I've never really seen myself as much of a housekeeper, let alone a "domestic diva" or even "the little woman."

It's no secret.

I pretty much suck at housework.

But every once in a while I get a bee in my domestic bonnet. It happened yesterday when I finally tackled the mountain of my husband's un-ironed dress shirts.

"The Laundress," Edgar Degas, c. 1869

"The Laundress," Toulouse-Lautrec, c. 189

He wears a dress shirt and tie to work every day. He has 75 dress shirts. I know, I counted. With that many shirts, I can go quite a while without ironing them before he runs out. But there eventually comes a time when I have to roll up my sleeves and just do the job.

Some of my favorite paintings have always been Edgar Degas' and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's studies of laundresses. I think I like them because these girls look like they feel about as bored and uninterested in the drudgery of their mundane chore as I do. They all look as if they'd rather be anyplace else but stuck behind the ironing bored --er --board.

"The Laundress," Edgar Degas, c.1873

I was inspired by these women for today's self portrait. So if you pressed me for the truth, I'd have to admit that ironing the shirts wasn't just about ironing the shirts.

I had art in mind and a new camera lens to try out. And the light coming in the window was pretty great.

So while it may look as though I was fulfilling one of my domestic duties, in actuality I was hard at work making an homage to some of my favorite painters.

I mean, the ironing still got done. I did it. I still get the wife points, right? I just had to have an ulterior motive to give me the push to finally get around to actually doing it.

Whatever it takes, boys and girls.

Whatever it takes.

.