Too Sad to Write Today

Garrison Keilor says it all:

When we got home, it was almost dark.
Our neighbor waited on the walk.
“I’m sorry, I have bad news,” he said.
“Your cat, the grey-black one, is dead.
I found him by the garage an hour ago.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for letting us know.”



We dug a hole in the flower bed,
The lilac bushes overhead,
Where this cat loved to lie in spring
And roll in the dirt and eat the green
Delicious first spring buds,
And laid him down and covered him up,
Wrapped in a piece of tablecloth,
Our good old cat laid in the earth.

We quickly turned and went inside
The empty house and sat and cried
Softly in the dark some tears
For that familiar voice, that fur,
That soft weight missing from our laps,
That we had loved too well perhaps
And mourned from weakness of the heart;
A childish weakness, to regard
An animal whose life is brief
With such affection and such grief.
If this is foolish, so it be.
He was good company.
And we miss his gift
Of cat affection while he lived.
The sweet nature
Of that shy creature
Who gave the pleasure of himself:
The memory of our cat…

Prodigal
March 27, 1996-October 31, 2009

One Last Vacation Story

My mother has a gift for saying stupid things.

Just one example: on our recent trip to Michigan, she kept telling total strangers that she was 86 years old and her doctor, a lovely Sikh man, had suggested that she have knee replacement surgery; however she thought she was too old to go through with it but now maybe she would have that surgery. (After a while I wondered if she was hoping for her own reality show--"86 year old Woman Deciding Whether to Get Knee Replacement Surgery.")

There was a time when I would feel it was my duty to point out to Mom that she was stupid. But in Al-Anon we have two slogans: How Important Is It? and THINK (Is what I’m about to say True? Honest? Intelligent? Necessary? Kind? If not, don’t say anything. )

In this case I happily kept my big intelligent mouth shut.

Amazing how much better Mom and I got along on this trip.

I used to think we could only get along if she changed.

Funny thing that.

A Few Entries from My Travel Journal

(Last week I travelled to Michigan to visit my brother and his wife.)

Oct 7
Flying into Lansing, I thought about all the people down below, affected by the noise of our plane. Maybe some wouldn’t notice. Maybe some would be annoyed: “I have to stop talking because I can't be heard over the noise of that plane.” Little kids might look up and think, “Crash, crash.” or folks like me might pray for our safe landing. Thus I felt a connection with all these people I'd never know and who'd never know me.

Oct 8
At the Lansing Days Inn the elevator had a handmade sign posted inside: “If the door doesn’t open, push Door Open (Bottom Button).”

Oct 9
At Village Market, they put our groceries in an orange plastic bag decorated with pumpkins and bats and this message: “Use this Bag for your Halloween Treats”
On the other side of the bag, sideways, in the tiniest of print: “To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this plastic bag away from children.”

Oct 12
Driving with my sister-in-law, we passed a cemetery. Robin said, “The people who live around here can’t be buried in this cemetery and do you know why?”
“No, why?”
“Because they’re not dead.”

Oct 13
Sign outside a store--TAKE OUT CHICKEN ICE CREAM CONES.

Oct 14
Back at the Lansing Day’s Inn, they offered a free breakfast. JR went down to get some, but came back disgusted.
JR: The coffee sucked and when I tried to get juice, only water came out. They had plenty of cereal, though, provided you like Raisin Bran.

Later I went to check out, and the lobby was empty except for a woman wearing plastic gloves and a man in a suit (the manager?) I heard him complaining to her that the juice dispenser didn’t work.
She got all mad: “Well I put juice in there! This is what happens when Irene doesn’t show up.”
(She saw me and asked what I wanted.)
Me: I’m ready to check out.
Lady:(pleasantly) Oh I can do that for you. (As she processes the papers) How was your stay?
Me: Fine, except my husband tried to get juice out of the dispenser this morning and he only got water.
Lady: (mad all over again) “Well, I put plenty of juice in there!”

Adventures, Travelling with My Mom.

FYI: When you agree to catch a 5 AM flight, it means your mother calls to wake you at 2:30 AM.

We rushed like crazy to get to the airport by 3:45 and found...the check-in clerks hadn’t come to work yet. A very long line of tired-looked passengers stood in the dim light. Nothing was open, not an employee in sight. I worried. Would the airline clerks ever show up? Had anyone notified Someone In Charge that all us customers were waiting to check in for our flights? But I did nothing, just stood waiting stupidly like all the other Zombies.

My only comfort was watching a longer line of people forming behind us.These were the folks who slept in till 3 or 3:30: A red-headed couple shivering in Hawaiian shirts. A huge Cambodian family. A plump young woman applying mascara.

Just before 4, a harried-looking man rushed in and set up the system. (I imagined him getting up at 2:30 every morning of his life, rushing down in the dark to deal with several hundred people who hadn’t had their morning coffee.)

The long line inched forward. When we were about ten people away from check-in, Mom asked me to help her get her driver’s license out of her wallet. I said, “You don’t need it yet.”
She kept fumbling with her wallet. “They’ll want us to take these out.”
Finally I said, “Here give it to me; my fingers are younger than yours.”

At that point a clerk said something. I couldn’t take the license out and listen at the same time.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Everyone who didn’t check in online needs to move to this other line.”

Before I could budge, everybody—shivering Hawaiian shirts, Cambodian family, Mascara Girl-- rushed into the other line. We, who’d almost been at the front, were now at the back of the line!

I wanted to scream at Mom,” If you hadn’t been so stubborn about getting your stupid license out, I would have heard the clerk and we wouldn’t have lost our place.” She stood clutching her license like it was a life jacket.

Mascara Girl was now right in front of us, chatting with her girlfriend, obviously glad they were ahead of us losers. I thought, a decent person would notice me and say, “Oh you were in front of us, why don’t you go ahead?” But she didn’t, which made me want to yell at Mom all the more.

At some point I realized the real problem: every time I go on vacation, I get scared because I'm leaving my safe home and going off into the unknown. (Mustn’t make a mistake or we are doomed.) When Mom gets anxious it reminds me of my own anxiety. Damn.
(As always, once I connected with my stupidity, I felt a peace and calm undreamed of in normal life.)

Well, the good news is we finally got to check in, we made it onboard on time. Now I sit peacefully in our quiet little cabin in the Michigan woods. Life, Life, you silly old thing.

Poe Gets Inspired and How

When I become Queen of the World, the Ken Burns National Parks series will be required viewing for everyone. And not just because I’m a smug, controlling busybody. Because…

My first visit to the Tetons.
The summer I was fifteen, my mom and her sister decided we’d all meet in Grand Teton National Park .

So we four cousins, aged 15-20 got hauled to this place where there was nothing to do. The grownups spent the week exclaiming over the scenery. Bo-ring. Where were the movies? The hip nightclubs? The amusment arcades?*


In short, where were places to meet boys?**

We kids lounged around in supreme restlessness. It was too cold for swimming. The nearest stores were an hour’s drive away. We were the only young people there.


Of course, it wasn’t all bad. We went horseback riding every day. At night Mom and Aunt Bernadine played accordion and guitar and we sang folk songs.
But beyond that I felt it was a week that could have been better spent.

Now, as a famous radio announcer used to say, “Here’s the rest of the story:”

Years later my husband suggested we vacation in the Tetons and I jumped at the chance. You see, somehow amidst that teen boredom a connection had been made; I felt like the Tetons were MINE.
Upon arrival, I noticed the park had changed. Hmmm. How to describe it? “Majestic?” (Nah, too tame a word.) “Magical?” (Not right either.) Ah, I've got it:

I looked around this immense valley where the mountains touch the meadows and realized I was looking at the face of God.

The moral: Do not be afraid of boring folks by exposing them to holy things. In ten years they’ll have bragging rights.






















*Nowadays this is not a problem.

**Or girls as the case may be.