Weblog 72

June 24, 2007~ 12:15am
Baby anything is cute. No matter how vile an animal usually looks to us as it ages into full-grown, when they are helpless little bitty things-- they are adorable! I came across a site about Tribulation Point in Queensland Australia, where there is an ominous threat to the rain forest due to development and the encroachment of man and his pollution, and they're trying to save indigenous bats- who are dying off like crazy. They've set up a 'bat nursery' where folks can visit and help out in the care and feeling of infant bats.



Isn't that sweet? Tiny enough to hold onto the miniature bottle and be cradled in the hand, his wee hand wrapped around that of his protector.



He looks quite content and pleased, his eyes scrunched closed with pleasure.

Too bad we lose our tenderness towards living creatures as they age. As soon as the cooey baby stage is over, they become fair game for our fear and loathing. (Oh, and yes....we do this with people too.) May we always be able to see the neediness inside everyone, so like an infant's. Help out when we can....warm a bottle...give sustenance, encourage everyone to grow- even away from us.





June 24, 2007~ 12:25am
Saw my son and the whole family this evening. We met at the Linden Grove Restaurant, which has, in my opinion, the best food in town. The boys look not much different in a year- and I was amazed. I'd expected them to seem so much older- but the shock of seeing them this time was much less than the human weeds they looked to me at his same time last year when they visited. And I don't feel as 'out of touch' with their lives as I did then- (though there were whispers of "she's the OTHER grandma, Gabe"- to the youngest, from the two older ones.) I think I stood up ok to his scutiny. We went back to my daughter's house (she and her husband are still on their Cook Forest camping trip)- but Nicole and Matt had access to the key and free run of the place, which- with its huge yard complete with sandbox, basketball hoop, playhouse, two large trees to climb and lots of rolling grass to tumble and jump in, run through a sprinkler- is ideal for them. They were happily catching lightning bugs- they claim do not appear in Arizona, so they were delighted with them.

Yes, this week will bring another trip to Kennywood and the Children's Museum- and I will be storing up memories to see me through until we make a drive up to West Point and visit with them on their own turf, perhaps in the spring. Life is so fast....and some parts of it, so sweetly fulfilling, it's a wonder anybody sleeps at all, for fear of missing something.






June 24, 2007~ 2:00pm
Mothers are tricky entities to deal with. Mostly, they can produce guilt for no earthy reason at all, and do it magically with tone. It's an ability that I am convinced increases with time because we are naturally, as compassionate beings, apt to feel more responsible for the elderly than we do the young and fit.

Here is my conversation with my mother that just occurred on the phone. (We are meeting at my nephew's house this evening for dessert. He was gracious enough to invite all of us over to meet with Matt for some socializing, since my son and his family are in town for the week.)

Me: "Hi, ma."

Mum: "D'you just get UP?"
(DISAPPROVAL)

Me: "No. Been up for about an hour."

Mum: "Ah....."
(DISAPPROVAL. SLEEPING FAR TOO LATE WHEN FAMILY EVENTS ARE ON THE BURNER.)

Mum: "What time you coming?"

Me: "Regular time, ma. We're shopping and eating first, just as usual."

Mum: "Not any earlier?"
(DISAPPROVAL. FAMILY EVENTS REQUIRE SOMETHING ALL-CONSUMINGLY OUT OF THE ORDINARY.)

Me: "Ma, whenever I take you to Kathy's on a Sunday like this and it's set for 6:30 we always have plenty of time, so there's really need to do anything differently."

Mum: "Oh...............................ok."
(ENORMOUS DISAPPROVAL. EVERYONE SHOULD GET FUSSED UP A LITTLE OVER THESE THINGS...THAT IS, IF YOU REALLY CARE....IF YOU'RE NORMAL.)

This is my life, such as it is. Those things that should be easy-going-joyful, become anxiety-producing for no good reason. Ah, god...it's always been thus and I should take it all with a grain of salt, but of course that's interpreted as shiftless-- a lack of caring-- but hell, I don't do 'preparatory anything'- I just do- and be done with it. I think that's because so many picayune things over the years have been elevated to 'alert' status for no damn good reason.

I should be able to just shrug all this off, but of course---
I've been slowly and carefully programmed. LOL!




June 24, 2007~ 10:30pm
It's been a day of family. It's been a day of joy and of shock when I realized how far apart are our political bases. It's a subject I skirt whenever I can, having a son who is 'career Army', and a mother and most relatives who are conservatively "Republican" in their beliefs. I realize now what a mongrel I am in this particular mix, not of the breed at all, and that realization makes me sad. It makes me feel woeful- as though the world has gone crazy around me and everyone accepts it as normal and 'right'. Where did I come from? Where did they?

What shapes these brains so differently? How can people so connected by blood see the world so diametrically in opposition? This must be how the North and the South felt during the American Civil War; it's an awful feeling. My poetry site is down- (they're moving to a new server) so I thought, wtf...I'll just post this here. It has the one thing necessary. It tells my truth.


Harsh Epiphany


It happened when he said
well

awful
as it sounds
I'd rather be fighting them over there
than seeing another
sky
scraper go down


and that
is the moment I realized
I could
never

never ever

talk to my son

honestly
about it.

That we were
of two
poles
repelling each other
and always would be, despite
the fierce, the very real
love
between us, I hold
the burning truth like a grenade
to my breast,
daring the pin
to be
pulled. Never wanting
the explosion,
wondering
if the thing will ever go off
unawares, or if
I will

one
day.





June 25, 2007~ 4:30pm
You know that post up above here, about the baby things and the neediness? Scratch that. Right now, outside my kitchen window is something- I have no idea what- that has persistently chirped or tweeted in the most panicky ongoing fashion for the last 15 minutes non-stop, and I swear to God, if I had a hammer I would mash it to a pulp.....

(So much for that bullshit of mine.) LOL!! It's stopped now. Perhaps someone has beaten me to it.

I am rather sour- though I should not be, having been at the receiving end so often of these last minute changes- but the plans to join the brood at the Children's Museum have been deep-sixed by a last minute decision to go sometime today- when I was already at work. Tonight I am hibernating, resting up, going to work tomorrow and whatever happens, happens. Plans are for the naive. I am no longer naive-- not this week anyway. Gonna hole up here, read my 'Hannibal Rising' book, revel in the perfect vengeance of Dr. Lecter and enjoy my f*cking self. lol....




June 26, 2007~ 9:30pm
This was a cook-out night. All five grandchildren racing about through the garden hose sprinkler, showing me how they could read. Eli was reading a book about a dog who was reluctant to speak (Eli was very proud since he's in kindergarten, but reads. Hell, I didn't read till first grade-- and that was with being pulled kicking and scratching to school--I hated it. lol)- and of course Bill had to interrupt, lugging a big library book about TORNADOS to where my son Matt and I were listening to Eli, and sitting on the glider.

"I feel it is my duty...." he began...(wha?? where the hell did that come from?) but Matt and I were laughing too hard to hear the rest. He was the most pompous little fella imaginable. LOL!!!! Reminded me of one of those midgets from the Lollipop League, from the Wizard of Oz--- and how odd that he was carrying that book about tornados. Life makes strange connections everywhere you look.

Tonight, I did a good deal of computer housecleaning and got rid of just about all my bookmarks. I decided I want to just write- not read a bunch of other stuff, sometimes getting all fussed up about it, and for what? What gives me pleasure? Well, on the computer, writing does. Not reading. Not ever. It makes me feel competitive, angry often, disappointed most every day, so why do it? Out they went. I like to browse where my fancy takes me...getting information, images, teaching myself a lot of things, but the rest of it is soul-killing to me. POOF!! All gone.

New leaf. Entirely. Turning back the clock 7 years. Brand new page. NO GROUPS. One constant friend. It's the prescription that works for me, and always has, I've realized.

And tomorrow.....KENNYWOOD. Heat, humidity, cotton-candy stickiness, dizziness, and the smell of popcorn and sound of of the merry-go-round's historic calliope, five grandkids happy as clams, pulling my hand this way and that. Memories.

The real kind-- some of which find their way here.




June 28, 2007~ 1:30am
I am home from work tomorrow.....a scheduled vacation day, and I am sore, and tired, and limp as a dishrag. If anyone EVER invites you to Kennywood in Pittsburgh.....say nooooooooooooooo!-- and run as fast as you can! It is simply OBSCENE that they have that park opened in the summer season, where parents and grandparents simply slog along, nearly DEAD, and wait in long lines for rides that the two-year-old you have with you, cries to get on, then HOWLS, kicks and SCREAMS to get off again. The humid, jungle weather makes this experience......well...beyond the pale, believe me. Spring and fall...those are the seasons to schlep from ride to ride in comfortable, cool and sunny temperatures; certainly not the Latin American hell season of summer in Pittsburgh. The park should open April 15th, close at the end of May, and reopen September 1st through October 31st. It's inhuman as it is.

A break came today in my 10 hours there, when a thunderstorm rolled through. A clean, politically correct 'smoke free' park was momentarily forgotten as I lit up, grinned into the broken open, rumbling sky and DARED THE SON-OF-A-BITCH to take me out.......please....

I do, however, have a fetish for vintage carousels and calliope music. (One of those damn things like parades and martial music, that never fails to make me tear up...lol)- so I am sharing the best part of this day.



Ah.......and it was cooler there, and with the storm, they'd turned on the lights. I sat with the( then sleeping) 2 yr. old caterwaller... and I watched the revolving horses, and looked up at the grinning jesters painted in wonderful shiny colors, decked in white lights...



This was the best part of this day, of which nothing pleasant can be recalled other than the half hour where I did nothing but sit, rest my feet, enjoy the breeze that had kicked up, and witnessed how the fat, waddling Pittsburghers made for the merry-go-round like it was another 911, once that thunder started. Cowards. The rain felt wonderful!



And the bas relief sculptures enjoyed themselves.......as did I, alone- with the then silent, completely oppositional two year old. (Somehow, I do not remember Bill getting away with these sort of histrionics. There seems to be a 'cuteness' exemption for girls that I have to say smacks of reverse sexism. No. She is not helpless or more heart-rending being a gurl. That's ridiculous. She's fully capable of stomping entire solar systems with her ire and her 'spunk'.) I'm glad I took pictures.





This is the last time I will put myself in that amusement park in June. Period.......unless I am as zonked as that- or drugged. Yes. I do believe drugs would work. LOL!





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