The Dog and I

I'm not what you would call a dog person. Of course, it's true that, next to the television's remote control, dog is man's best friend. Perhaps my justified ambivalence toward Poochicus Biteyourbuttabit is due to too many an untoward encounter with the snarling, hydrophobic malevolence of a Fido, a Rover, a Rin Tin Tin, intent on my evisceration. This since toddlerhood. I have scars yet upon my person that prove my canine-fanged point. Would I lie to you, dear and curious reader?

Fast forward past a quarter-century of caring for dozens of family pets - both canine and feline (don't get me started on Miss Kitty and her dozen siblings!).

My current assignment is house sitting, and that with a most unusual doggie in attendance. She is what is commonly termed "a love" and is a lumbering ottoman, though she actually hails from Oz. She and I have the same monikers in real life, which may cause you, the discerning reader, to scratch your proverbial noggin. But names truly are not at issue here. What is at issue is whether or not I shall become a worthy care-provider for Cara Mia. She has caught me totally off my guard. With ravenous abandon, our well-padded lady broke into an unattended, opened can of dog food. She was licking her capacious chops when I caught her.

She was not the least embarrassed.

She dropped the can at my feet and let out a lusty belch, all the while wagging her tail ...

I Am ... Free

Stronger, younger men would despair to find themselves in my place.

My circumstance - immobility of my lower limbs - would become an irreparable psychological blow to what many fellows believe the defining characteristics of manhood. Taking risks that are possible only in youth, these sturdy heroes march forward with confidence. They stretch toward a future of assured promise and prosperity. My frame, however, has been weakened by degrees through a lengthy illness. This sad body lies inert at the threshold of atrophy. The divan shall evermore be my home.

Though the physical is irrevocably on the wane, the spirit is, conversely, waxing most prodigiously. Though my feet no longer provide me the simple pleasure of a solitary promenade, nor the capacity to gambol about the sylvan expanse of my family's estate, I am, more than any robust youth who runs and leaps, free.

 

I possess a joyous liberty and fullness of heart that soars higher than a lark. Useless limbs are no longer a source of ruing my entry into the world. Spiritual emancipation arrived when I recognized the sublime importance of the dearest yet simplest of gifts. A student of so many years ago brought me the means to record my every thought: pen and ink and paper.

 

I have found freedom in the bottom of an inkwell.

 

Daisy

Golden Gloriosa Daisy,

 

Never do you cease to 'maze me.

 

Pretty face toward sky upturned,

 

For your company bards have yearned.

 

Gentlest of winds cause you to sway,

 

Inspire us e'er to dance all day!

The Book Stall

 

An otherwise beautiful day was scarred by an incident of wanton brutality.

 

Bending over the tattered shreds of poverty and despair, Marcus gently slipped his sturdy right arm under the slender shoulders of the frail young man. He carefully raised Sergei's trunk to a slightly more elevated position, yet all the while being careful not to inflict any further pain upon the victim. Marie and Ava Sturges, elderly spinster ladies, had been taking their usual early morning walk when they happened upon the poor boy, crumpled in a heap in the narrow lane behind The Book Stall. Ava, the spryer of the two sisters, hastened to Marcus's cottage while a distraught Marie kept watch that no further harm should befall the destitute immigrant. Her protective spirit and the righteous indignation she felt on Sergei's behalf were weapons far greater in strength than any her tiny body could literally wield.

 

Scarcely able to utter more than a few unintelligible words, Sergei's blue eyes, now opened, told more the story of his life than his garbled speech ever could.

 

Marcus, the third-generation owner of The Book Stall, recognized the lad immediately. Sergei had arrived from "the old country" some weeks before and had been frequenting the tiny but surprisingly well-supplied book store. The owner, a patient and good-hearted man, listened attentively to Sergei's poor English and deduced that the immigrant wanted a French-English dictionary. Naturally, Marcus knew down what row and on what shelf the somewhat worn yet still serviceable Dictionnaire Larousse sat. It was still too early to understand why a man named Sergei was of the French tongue. Names had yet to be exchanged. Nationality to be learned.

 

Purchase made and in hand, Sergei motioned with the other hand, which was clutching a notebook and pen, over to the little set of table and chairs by the sunny, cheerily curtained window.

 

"There ... there?" he continued pointing.

 

"Yes, of course!" Markus beamed, taking Sergei by his elbow and escorting him to what would become his new classroom.

Let Your Passion Move You

 

Aunt Rose had been writing down her thoughts from the moment she learned to put pencil to paper. Feeding Rose's fervid imagination were the tales spinning about in the old and dusty books left behind by the last tenants of the decrepit farmhouse. She fairly devoured each and every tattered, dog-eared page. Is there any other eatable in this universe that can be so devoured yet, beyond all human reason, remain intact sufficient for countless more tasty repasts? Clearly a precocious child, the young Rose applied herself in school - she was a model student - and excelled in all subjects. The study of English grammar and literature, however, was her passion.

Upon graduation Rose was determined to continue her education; she became a self-taught woman at a time when "education" and "women" were words infrequently paired together. Despite long hours spent tending the garden, the livestock and diverse other chores peculiar to life on a ranch, Rose used her evenings to feed the mind. It was the young scholar's custom to read in bed until she finally dropped off, her will no longer able to fight off much-deserved sleep. An open book in one hand, a pencil now motionless upon a word-cluttered notebook in the other: this, an evening's literary drama played out. 

Mama would come dutifully into the tiny bedroom every night to check on Rose. Removing the wireframe eyeglasses from her little girl's bowed head, Mama gazed upon the big family's youngest child one last time for the day. Bemused, she had to wonder what would become of so singular a young lady. The kerosene lamp shone no more that night ...

The outlook of her family and of older members of the community could be described as nothing other than provincial. "There goes Rose the bookworm!" the old hens would cluck as they huddled together on the general store's wooden walk. Rose would throw them a cursory smile and breeze on by as she headed to the stationers three doors down, then to the book seller's stall. The old women were not necessarily malicious in their tittering; they were simply amused at the thought of a farm girl's getting higher than herself. Rose was not embittered (it simply was not her nature) but annoyed at the narrow view so tenaciously held by the older generation. Not to mention the lack of vision of her contemporaries.

Few among Rose's acquaintances (and none of her family) presumed that this young author's first book would sell. Quite to the contrary, Hard Work Will Not Kill You became a national best-seller. In the course of its 383 pages Rose described how she, her ten siblings and old-world parents turned a rundown ranch in the San Joaquin Valley into a profitable enterprise. This meandering but spellbinding account included a detailed family history as well as the plucky raconteur's philosophy on a number of matters near to the heart, most notably that of the modern woman's place in the worldwide community.

She who laughs last laughs best ... all the way to the bank.

The Past and Present Unite

 

Finding a small window of settled weather this morning, I ventured forth on a brisk uphill walk through my usual haunts. Actually, my ambulation did not become brisk until the roadway leveled off, permitting my huffs and puffs to regulate. The sky was piled high with mountains of vanilla-cream clouds, spilling luxuriantly one over the other so that there was no discernible beginning nor end of their cumulative mass. Light and shadow, in particularly sharp definition (given the sun's ins and outs), highlighted the contours of the towering meringue peaks.

 

I found a neighborhood home empty and for sale. A foreclosure. Wandering cautiously onto the property, I was lured to a spacious deck giving onto the most stunning view of a golf course studded with both evergreen and colorful deciduous trees. Tenderly embracing the expansive green were rolling hills whose dusty timber had been washed clean by the previous evening's downpour. What arrested my gaze, however, was the brilliant light from an otherwise watery sun that flooded Miner's Point in pearly opalescence.

 

A genuine showstopper.

 

 

This late afternoon would be a perfect time to remain indoors and curl up in front of the fireplace with a good read. Possessing many a good book but no obvious fireplace, I have to bolt. Cabin fever has gotten the better of me, so I'm going to put on a brave face and raincoat and dash headlong into the blustery and darkening remains of one hour's daylight.

 

Drawn along the same path, I surge forward, my frame a near-horizontal incline against the punishing gale. Upon entering the same property as the day before, I find shelter under the eaves of the house. They afford little more than minor relief from the rain but virtually none from the wildly circulating winds. I don't mind. I knew what lay ahead the moment I stepped out my own front door.

 

Once again my attention is fixed on a Miner's Point now enveloped in a wild and woolly atmospheric condition so different from that of the day before. Undulating foothills and their swaying sentinels roil in a sea of cascading and sprinting vapors. A barely discernible mountain pass is in evidence only because a string of diamond-like automobile headlights and blurred red taillights are flowing downward and upward respectively on a distant roadway cradled within sloping walls of earth, stone and tree.

 

I've never before been this soaked to the bone and loved it so ...

 

 

Like a moth to the flame, a poet to the babbling brook, a drunkard to the grog, I expect to be pulled in once again. Whether by simple desire or actual gravity, who can say? Perhaps the draw to this property has proven merely a flicker of subconscious recognition of similarities to my childhood home.

 

My third visit to the bank-owned home with the killer view shall be tomorrow ...

 

Calm is as good as any a word to describe the new day and its weather as I saunter along from my current digs to that greatly missed, fabled "childhood" home on the hill. Though the look of the sky is an autumnal cool and gray overcast, yet Sol gently, unobtrusively illumines the dirty cotton batting, thereby spreading an expansive cheer and warmth throughout the vale.

 

Perched once again on the deck and looking outward with the eyes of a thirteen-year old boy, I am transported back a half century. Having come from the fertile valleys of central California and landing on the highest peak in a little, unincorporated hamlet, I feel that all the air has been squeezed from my lungs. It could've been literally, but, of course, you must realize that I'm speaking figuratively.

 

My family and I were standing on the deck of a home for sale. The old darling was beautifully hewn of stone and rough timber. She was a mere shell - an interior yet to be fitted out - but with such potential. My mother, enamored of the entire package, commented to the owner that only one thing was missing: a view of the ocean. The lady of the house smiled and directed my mother's gaze over to the left. Pointing to a break in the trees on the distant range, Mrs. Emerson said, "Look, Dear." There, faintly but absolutely, was a sliver of blue crowned by whitecaps.

 

My "new home," too, affords a Pacific glimmer, one that beckons this grown-up "thirteen-year old" to cast off and dream on toward the morrow ...

 

 

 

 

 

---

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Kitchen/Husband Dilemma

Dear Happy Homemaker,

I have a sink full of dishes, an empty fridge, a nonworking kitchen range and a lazy husband. I want a fresh start in life but don't know where to begin.

What do you suggest?

Thanks.

Abby

Dear Abby,

Toss the dishes, unwashed, into the trash (bin in the U.K.). No need to do the washing up in situations as extreme as yours.  Purchase a hefty supply of Chinette (these are the "nice" paper plates) and plastic eating utensils (there are some very choice upgrades in this arena). Fill your fridge with ready-to-eat comestibles and, on occasion (per your budget), splurge on take-out delicacies. Upon completion of your veritable repast, toss all waste into the trash/bin.

Regarding your reprobate mate: whether to feed him or toss him is totally up to you, dear!

Hope this helps!

Happy Homemaker!

Decay and Descent

Someone - scholar, drunkard, librarian, laborer - had to have felt himself slipping away into nothingness and recorded that event before his complete and final expiration. Unless, of course, he slipped away too quickly with no one the savior. To be sure, few men put their sorrow to paper before they die.

 

Perhaps it is too much, the autumn transit that is forcing this man, captive and unwilling, into a forward march toward darker times. The summer sun kept me cheered and pushing onward in pursuit of a furtive dream. Only briefly did that elusive and mocking vision peer back at me before running on ahead, ever beyond my grasp. There was no discouragement, no thought of my quitting the chase, however. The summer's heat and length of day invigorated me toward the continuous effort required to enter the unmatchable beauty of a dream realized.

 

Today is different. Tomorrow, likewise, shall be this "different," autumnal reality. The change was imperceptible. Summer, in all her robust glory, held on long and vigorous with warmth, birdsong and a good humor capable of lifting the spirits of even the perpetually dispirited. Now the sun has gone; all that remains is the oppressive damp of a landscape gone cold. What confronts me - blocking all routes of escape either forward or backward - is that slipping away into the nothingness of certain decay and descent into oblivion. 

 

A once joyous world of hopes and dreams has departed, where nothing seemed impossible in the mind of the visionary. The unsavory replacement is a disintegration into the dark and fearful realm of grief and affliction. Finally ...

 

Eternal silence....

The Beavs

Dear Happy Homemaker,

I am beside myself with anger in livid color!

My pet beavers, Leva and Tuu, have occupancy of the master bath, their aqueous home being the not small Roman tub. Being the literate and clever cleavers they are, Leva and Tuu went through my entire collection of ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST and HYDRAULICS FOR DAILY LIVING and conspired to render them into a dam spanning the estimable breadth of said Roman tub.

What shall I do?

June


Dear June,

Send the Beavs to college. Get new magazines (back copies are pricey but eminently obtainable).

Rather than allowing yourself to get bent all out of shape and giving these rascally rodents the business, I'd recommend that you should see the aqueous humour in this incident fraught with mandible mirth!

Eddie Haskell, er, Happy Homemaker!

Danny Boy

I have been given the moniker Danny Boy, though when signatory in frequent matters of a somewhat official nature, I flourish a splendidly looped Daniel Boyd-Blatherstone. Citizens of the colonies - typically awed even by ersatz royalty - are loath to exhibit outwardly their enchantment with the Crown and feign to deny it. I admit, however, to being a cheeky bloke of no especial renown, unless you count an arm unmatched for roll tossing among my peers. On many a painful occasion of ribald hilarity, I have lobbed a stale petit pain at a cheerfully accommodating chum, only to have an hysterical nanny take me by the ear and toss me unceremoniously to the kerb. All is fair, I suppose, in lob and war. My society became less in demand, particularly due to these scrappy luncheon escapades, when it was only the domestics and we. Sympathetic, and in no-wise innocent-bystander friends were summarily overruled by parents given to put implicit trust in the lies of their help. My compatriots-in-crime chafed, their pleas and pleases trodden upon by unyielding familial tyrants, they who had apparently forgotten their own youthful designs in mischief and mayhem. Time has passed since those wobbly days of infancy - days of carefree abandon. Needless to say (but I shall say it, nevertheless), I am now a strapping youth of no mean aspect, a paragon of grown-up-ed-ness, displaying more than a trifling modicum of emotional maturity, which is an arguably singular personal trait for one who remains rather youngish in the matter of chronological age. I am the oldest person of my age with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted.

A SAHARAN SOJOURN

I have made a gentle landing in the midst of French West Africa, the land of my forebears. As the companion of my mind, Gaspar, plays ever so sweetly upon his apricot pipe, I follow along with words unuttered to this ancient song of the pharaohs. He provides me solace and companionship as I pick my way through the sands of so unforgiving a Saharan tableau. There is no reason to fear a sojourn of indeterminate length, however. I am certain of success as I follow the sun to White Algiers. The elements - certainly hostile toward most manner of men - have never impinged upon the realization of any of my objectives. My current pilgrimage is toward the discovery of the principle wood whose melancholic, heart-rending magic my grand-pere conjured each day at Sun's zenith so many years ago. The people of his village (will I truly ever discover its location? I have no map, only the leading of my heart) were said to have been transformed by this wailing sortilege. Surely, they have passed; I will speak with their children. Such events are always emblazoned upon susceptible hearts and minds ... As I make my way through the scorch of desert by day, I envision an oasis that promises relief from Sahara's devastating and torturous blaze. Simoom is my companion of the moment; Gaspar has not left me entirely. The soft wail of the duduk has, for the moment, been stilled. Parched lips do not for an excellent embouchure make.  Simoom. My beautiful, sleek cat of the Stone Castle. She is white like the sands, tawny like the sands. She is burning and solitary like the sands. Simoom saved my life ... It is once again that I set foot upon the sands of my beloved, killing Sahara.   Was it I who chose such exquisitely brutal a landscape, this ancestral home of countless generations past? Surely not; in fact, I possess little knowledge whence I came. I have traveled far and am weary. Fatigue, however, cannot prevail against the exigency of learning who I truly am.   Contemplation upon the draw this infinite expanse has had upon me since my petitesse causes my endlessly inquiring mind to boggle. An unseen but inexorable purchase sets talons upon my vulnerable heart; that stoic logic which begs my return to reason and abandonment of this folly is impotent in face of my yearning to discover the key to my family's arcane issue. It will not relent.   I must see this through, no matter the outcome ...   It could not possibly have been a more arduous journey, this traverse across a diabolical union of both shifting sands and searing winds. We have been sucked dry. Hoppie, my faithful four-footed beast of burden and enduring companion, suffers less from the near-complete desiccation that succeeds in withering my own liver. Water has become the most precious but rarest of commodities.   We seek shelter. We seek water. Many a phantom mirage has loomed up before my scorched eyeballs. An optic message relayed to a mind weary and anxious for any shred of assuagement is entertained, however transparently suspect my logic has become. I find a disconcerting comfort remembering the song of the pharaohs that Gaspar used to play upon his apricot pipe. It is a dirge that haunts this broken man, a derelict whose termination perches ominously upon the illusory desert horizon.

Special thanks to M. Balzac, Ms. Currier and Grand-Pere for their inspiration.

The Sea and the Sky

The Sea is my mother, my father the Sky. Both are eternal and vast, each in their way. As I rise slowly yet inexorably from my mother's protective embrace, I reach toward Father, my life-giver, now become my mentor. He draws me up as spiraling vapor whose aspect is phantom-like yet, nevertheless, possessing true substance.

Under the aegis of Sky, I will harness my chariot to Sister Wind and travel Earth's four corners, showering my bounty upon her children. They will laud me; they will offer me prayerful thanks. However, I will look upward toward Father and downward toward Mother, seeking their approbation.

It is they who have given me life and continued existence.

Praise must be directed accordingly ...

Polly: A Beautiful Soul

Polly had wasted too much time being beautiful. In soliloquy she ruefully yet sincerely admitted as much. The salivating wolves about town managed to pucker up sufficiently and whistle, but it wasn't Polly's brains that the fellows were whistling at. Polly's pulchritude made her a target for mere, curious stares of disbelief amongst bashful boys; however, for Canis Lupus, the hapless maiden was true quarry.

 

This young and genuinely sweet lass lost hope of ever finding a companion who looked inside the person in order to view and appreciate that one's heart and soul. Soon, however, kindred spirits would serendipitously cross paths, and restoration of faith in one's fellowman would occur.

 

A kindly Mr. Kitchen and a luminous Josie would bring succor to a soul famished for simple but joyous friendship.

 

She could not have made a more simple request: kindly let me alone. Of course, Polly was far too polite and cultured to speak her mind. Her thoughts never formed into any wordy protestation that should actually escape the lips. Rather, when accosted by garrulous old men or biddies, she would find herself seized by a trifling indisposition, most likely triggered by some innate survival instinct. Consequently, by the mere lowering of her eyes, she spirited herself away to an imagined location of tranquil repose. Perhaps she might avert her glance to a object of feigned interest in the middle ground. The harmless but unwelcomed interlopers ceased to exist.

 

Polly hated rudeness most passionately and knew that these kindly old folk were, in general, of cheery and lovely disposition; however, as you and I both know all too well, some people are quite unaware of the tempest brewing as they noisily and lustily chat one up no matter the "weather."

 

Those closest to Polly were ever aware that the tragic specter of Polly's childhood lay subconsciously but anxiously in wait, struggling once again to break free of Polly's fragile will and enshroud her with a resurrected, crippling sorrow. These dear people - surrogate mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters - surrounded her with every care and protection humanly possible; yet, there is only so much one can do for the youth who despairs over her irretrievable losses.

 

Charles and Wilma Dexter-Hayes had brought three beautiful children into this world: Billy, the eldest, Polly, the middle child, and, nearly ten years after the birth of Polly, Rosemarie.

 

Polly's frail emotional state was due in large measure to heavy and tragic losses - losses greater than any naturally affectionate family member should be expected to endure. Both the youngest and the eldest children predeceased Charles and Wilma at the midway point of their otherwise happy domestic life. Hardly had the family come to terms with the devastating blow of losing the plump and golden-haired toddling babe to a childhood illness than the nineteen-year old Billy was killed in a freak accident while hiking a mere distance from the family home.

 

The unspeakable loss of a precious little one who adored her and a big brother who protected her was, of itself, sufficient cause to unhinge this devoted young lady. Here, though, is the rub. Charles, ever the stalwart gentleman - in every sense of the word - turned dark inside, as though he were a light switched off. He ceased virtually all communication with Polly and her mother, but for a few grunts or gestures to make known some mundane matter that his stricken soul refused to conjure up verbally. Wilma, scarcely able to deal with the loss of her babies, suffered a complete collapse of mind and spirit. Accordingly, she was taken in by a kindly maiden aunt who, despite her age, was in robust health and sensitive to the plight of her ailing niece.

 

Polly's world of loving and being loved came to a severe and abrupt halt.

A Captive Audience of One

Since that "incident" several years ago, I've been unable to rise from my bed without someone's helping me. This bitter reality of helplessness very often overwhelms me, not infrequently to the point of tears. Mary and Jo are such sweethearts to visit me and offer whatever help they can. It's their company that I crave most of all, though I do appreciate the treats they always bring, including books from the local library. I love books, rarely ever bothering to turn on the television. My landlady kindly had cable put it, thinking it a means to keep me entertained and, well, to get my mind off ...

 

I hate "going there," as they so commonly say. Dwelling on what happened does me no good, no good at all. Then, please, someone tell me how to turn off the nightmare of events running over and over again through my tired brain. The trite but still painful question that everyone asks is - they think I'm out of earshot, but I'm not - "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Don't get me wrong; the outpouring of love and sympathy from kith and kin has been my salvation. Of course, I'm disabled FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Why am I the one who survived?

 

I need far more than momentary distraction to escape survivor's guilt. In my literary travels, I allow my imagination free rein. However, my past life and what I read often combine in my subconscious mind. Over that I surely have no control. For example, I see myself traveling untold miles to reunite with my family after so many years apart. When I step off the train, my son and my husband smile widely as I step down to greet them. My son's little arms reach up to me ... then the loves of my life vanish before me. Especially in dreams do actual events become jumbled, yet the cutting, profound pain of loss that attends awakening is all too palpable.

 

I said I didn't want to go there.

Where is the night nurse? She's late.

 

 

I guess I could call the agency to learn what's holding up "Nurse Jane" this time. Patience is a virtue I've never had. A reversal of fortune doesn't necessarily bring along with it a new and improved outlook on life. You know, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, or some such. Au contraire, bitterness and anger got in the way of every decent emotion and positive thought I had troubled deliberately to cultivate. Mind over matter ... someone told me it doesn't matter.

 

Looking out the window - it's to the left of my bed and affords quite a nice view of the bay - I imagine myself the character Johnsy in "The Last Leaf," waiting to succumb to the inevitable. One by one the leaves drop to the snow-covered lane below. My life and my fate are bound up with the last remaining leaf ... do you see what I mean? I get caught up in the story, becoming the central character and booting the real heroine off the stage. What effrontery!

 

It's getting dark and I can tell from the swaying of the eucalyptus trees outside my window that a stiff wind is coming in off the bay. The two-story house next door does not block my view of the sea as it is set back a bit. What I can see is partially obscured by that little stand of trees. The gentle back-and-forth motion of those graceful eucalyptus causes the light pouring through my window to cut in and out. Hypnotic. Comfortable. Warm.

 

Coming to, after a brief snooze, I throw a casual glance out the window and, even as I relate this, a shiver goes down my spine. I am unable to catch my breath. What is that on my neighbor's roof? Dark though the sky has become, there is no mistaking what is there. I am frozen ... its unearthly stare is fixed on me.

 

Its eyes - fitted into huge sockets within a gargoyle's head - are red-hot coals. My mind, my heart, my soul are seared by what is about to become, in a matter of swiftly passing moments, an all-consuming conflagration. That considerable distance of seeming, relative safety from rooftop to bedroom affords me no consolation.

 

Strangely fascinated, I emerge from the initial state of shock and, by rapidly increasing degrees, find myself helplessly captive to full-blown horror. The immediate impulse in any ordinary emergency sort of situation is to reach for the telephone, punch out the requisite 3 digits and then anxiously await the arrival of the community's finest. I, locked into the creature's horrific stare, am incapable of movement. Of rational thought. Of coming to my own defense.

 

Terror has never been so delicious ...

 

Entrancement and enchantment each work their singular charm upon me as four eyes remain set in a fixed stare. Outwardly I am silently screaming, my head exploding and letting fly like shrapnel innumerable questions that have no possible answers. And inwardly? Dare I permit my glacial heart to melt at the unimaginable prospect that, perhaps, this otherworldly entity is my dubious savior?

 

Is he reading my mind?

 

I'm sinking ever further into this conflict of strange emotions, a  tide of angst over which no straight thinking could hope to prevail. My mind says run for your life, though that, of course, is a physical impossibility.

 

My foolish heart quietly insists that there is an unseen beauty in this being whose aspect defies all human description. Most would declare this a beast. Regardless, his presence would doubtless cause a brave man to faint. As I am really no beauty myself, I find it, in the beneficent Law of the Cosmos, unfair to consign any of the Great Spirit's creatures to the prison of human bias. Isn't it too ludicrous, that I, a captive audience of one, should render such pious judgment?

 

Released momentarily from my inward stirrings, I focus once again on the creature's face. His eyes ... they are no longer red but turned the color of the sea. Cool. Calm. Serene.

 

Is this chimera - whether real or in my brain - reading my mind?

 

Certainly my heart has not hardened in fear or revulsion. I know that the creature reads my heart, if not my mind. A gradual but, nevertheless, astonishing transformation occurs before me, so clearly visible despite the physical separation that maintains between us. The absurdly misshapen is metamorphosing into a comely form that commands my unbroken, wondering gaze. Scales of a peculiar geometric form fade into the pink smoothness of human skin. A warm glow surrounds what was only mere moments ago a horror of the darkest grotesquerie. What could only have been construed as his mouth has taken the shape of beautifully formed and sensuous lips. While otherwise stock-still for these fleeting yet intolerably protracted moments of physical modifications, my beast has become beauty.

 

Released from an appearance of suspended animation, my beauty begins to move but in an incredibly drawn-out slow motion. Slowly, very slowly, his right arm rises from his side and reaches upward toward me, his hand extended and beckoning. That mouth, those lips quiver ever so slightly ...

 

Beauty smiles at me.

 

 

 

So long immobile but for brief moments up with "Nurse Jane's" assistance, I feel an unfamiliar restlessness in my lower body. My mind and heart coax me arise and seek what awaits outside the barrier of glass.

 

It is no longer a matter of wishing, hoping and fighting long-entrenched despair. A power beyond all that is humanly possible - even in the most extraordinary of circumstances - seizes hold of atrophy and regenerates what was once officially declared dead. In spite of myself, I arise from my imprisoning bed and, as if it were a completely normal occurrence, glide over to the French windows. I do not touch the handles yet, in the manner of a dream, the doors open before me.

 

Standing upon the balcony, I observe with the utmost clarity the pure magnificence of celestial beauty. My mind no longer questions the why, the wherefore nor the how ... My heart says I must follow its direction:

 

                        
I could never lead you astray ... 
Something wonderful awaits you. 
Return to your room, stand before
Your mirror and close your eyes...

 

It is still too much to believe that I arose from near total incapacity, hastened to the windows and beheld what dreams are made of. I've cast off all doubt regarding the validity of miracles in modern times. And Beauty - whether angel, alien or demon - convinces me in my heart of hearts that, truly, something wonderful is about to happen ...

 

Returning to my wardrobe, I momentarily close my eyes. Somehow sensing a subtle change in the direction put upon me, I open my eyes and look into the full-length mirror. I see only myself, no reflection of the room at all. There I stand, tall and erect, as in my vibrant and athletic youth. Now, however, it is as an assured, mature woman. Radiant. Smiling. Possessed, so it would seem, by an inner confidence emanating from my every pore. Behind me I sense a warm and comforting presence. It is he. The aura surrounding his now invisible self does not compete with my inner glow but interplays with it, creating a show of light, not of spectacular brilliance, but of undulating waves of luminescence.

 

My pounding heart fairly leaps from my chest. In the mirror are the likenesses of two men, one younger, one older. My brain must be playing tricks on me. I gasp. The older - a handsome man of not quite middle age - is clearly my husband, Jonathan. Who can that younger man be, who so resembles Jonathan? Is this father and son? No, it cannot be. Both Jonathan and Quentin were killed in the train ...

 

It was a lifetime ago.

 

I feel the gentle touch of a hand upon my shoulder. Rather than startle me, this tactile sensation calms me. As tears stream down my cheeks, I hesitate to confront the dream-like reality that remains unaltered as the mirror's reflection. I lower my head, overcome.

 

Beauty speaks barely a whisper into my ear:

 

                               
Look again. There is nothing to fear. It is your husband
Jonathan and your son Quentin. They've come to take
you home.

 

Looking up once again into the mirror, I smile through my tears and gaze upon the beautiful countenances of father and son. My husband. My son. They reach toward me, bidding me follow them. I step closer toward the mirror ...

 

                                                                            
The bed that Sarah Gardner had languished upon for so many years is now empty. The eucalyptus continue to sway gracefully, their gentle susurration filling the former occupant's room through open French windows.

 

                                   

                           

OUR LIVES: Don and Betty

That delightful pair were actually friends of my parents since college days, back before the war. They had books and coffee and cigarettes in common. Arguments over what current author was making the greatest impact on impressionable American youth could go on way past midnight. Sometimes at their home, sometimes ours. I clearly remember falling asleep on the huge brown davenport in their L-shaped living room. It was in the ell that Betty had the ever-present workmen install floor-to-ceiling fitted bookshelves. She generously lent dozens of books to my mother and - get this - to Stan. He would tuck himself cozily away in a little nook between the old upright Chickering and the potted Kentia, reading this, reading that and reading the other. Don't forget, I was the one asleep on the big D! Hardly something to brag about.

That only scratches the surface of their relationship. When my parents "got religion," the two couples spent less and less time together. Nothing as bad as a rift or such: NEVER DISCUSS RELIGION OR POLITICS! Politics, maybe. They simply drifted apart. I was doing my thing - cars and watching the waves at our coastal retreat, and Stan was doing his - daydreaming, reading and painting scenes of the gentle Pacific. This under Betty's watchful and loving eyes and her expert tutelage. The two flourished and basked in mutual admiration. Mom and Dad trusted their friends implicitly and never let religion divide them.

I don't think the Hendersons went to church. It simply was not discussed.

From Mars, With Love ...

 

Does it not stand to reason that the destruction of one's home should prompt one to seek out new worlds? The Metalunans did so eons ago, yet the attitude displayed toward their newfound hosts, while not entirely benevolent, was closer to humanistic than that shown us miserable humans by the Martians. Why do I refer to ourselves as miserable humans? The decimation of the human race by an alien force cruel and invincible has given rise to such sentiments of despair. The degradation that precedes the most unspeakable of protracted life-terminating procedures would make the tortures invented by human history's most notorious villains appear little more than those devised by schoolyard bullies.

 

I regret that I have survived the initial attack.

 

I haven't much time. Conflict is on the horizon, moving ever closer toward us. Our being a peace-loving people does not mean that we are weak and ineffectual. Yet, by comparison to the powers that are to be, we shall constitute their easiest prey. We are no match for their kind. What is this alien force - so fearsome and implacable - that marches in relentless asymmetrical rhythm: triplet, crotchets, quavers, crotchet? I shudder that such uncommon and foreign a meter should, nevertheless, bring NEMESIS unfailingly to his quarry. Perhaps I ought not to register any surprise at all. My only palpable emotion at this time is convulsing fear - an unholy terror that engulfs every delectable morsel of many a quivering corpse. Corpses lusted after by a famished Martian megalopolis squatted illegally upon Earth.

 

An angry red dust that enshrouds their military machine has reached us, parching our throats, infiltrating our lungs. The carrying wind is bitter and cuts deeply to the core. The descent and ascent of their chromatic war chant fills me with horror as I contemplate the formidable and merciless aspect of these damnable creatures, they who advance slowly but deliberately toward the termination of our race. I hear the brassy salvos of their ordnance. Yet again ... the protracted cacophony of mechanized warfare. NEMESIS is angry. There will be no mercy shown toward our weak, human ilk. He is red. He is MARS, THE BRINGER OF WAR....

 

Why these war-beasts have kept me on I haven't a clue. Perhaps my ruddy complexion is a reminder of the basic hue of a home deserted yet scarcely forgotten. I cannot by any stretch of the imagination - and there's been a great deal of such "stretching" lately - attribute to these coarse and loathsome creatures any delicate sentiment characteristic of our gentler race. These Martians are scorpions - they are malefactors to the most extreme degree.

 

Upon first sighting of the alien beings, we humans found ourselves both inescapably transfixed by their revolting semblance of a face and, subsequently, retching with violent abandon, overcome as we were by their unimaginable hideousness. My viewing INVADERS FROM MARS when a child could not have prepared me for what started out as a little boy's nightmare. Now-extinguished friends had earlier tossed off the initial radio contact from the Martians as a higher power's benign interest in an inferior intelligence.

 

Such fatuous naivete has cost us dearly.

OUR LIVES

Our paths should not have crossed. Not at this time. Not in this place. He had been in Paris (no, not that Paris), and I was headed for The Sound.

The water was a bit choppier than usual. I had forgotten to take the requisite Dramamine. Those who know me well know I can't even manage a carnival ride without major nausea. So it's no surprise, then, that I "went by rail," the old ferry bobbing deliriously like a cork. Am I digressing? The paths that crossed. Yes ... never would've imagined....

The other green passengers and I finally made it to shore. Shaken but safe. The waves were merciless and we nearly took out a section of dolphins before mooring. I was never so glad to hit the shore, and hit it we did. Once on the dock, I dodged the hustle and bustle as best I could, but how do you stop a tidal wave? I simply wanted to get to Town, flag down a cab and get to the old Henderson place and settle in with Betty and Don. They would be glad to see me, I them. It had been too many years.

I got jostled - not the usual or expected jostled - so abruptly that my grip fell to the splintered deck and I lost my balance. Before I completed my tumble forward, I felt a firm clasp on my shoulder. Suspended animation, the descent abruptly arrested. As I regained my composure and a measure of dignity lost, I turned around to thank the stranger who had stopped my fall.

It was no stranger ...


It was Stan, my younger brother. We had neither seen one another nor even talked to each other for the last 5 years. The parting had been acrimonious, to say the least. I was his hero, his mentor in all matters, and he didn't accept my reasons for leaving home. But that was then; this is now. We looked into each other's eyes for what seemed hours, oblivious to that hustle and bustle surrounding us. Neither of us uttered a sound, perhaps each in his own way afraid to be the first to give in (you know, a guy thing).

I knew in the next few moments, however, that we both were home ...

Tears were streaming down the face of my big and tall little brother.

Agnes and Sebastian - A Celluloid Drama

They could not be further apart in their respective worlds – worlds separated by time, place and action. I have concluded that the dramatic unities shall find themselves divided and conquered unless the author succeeds in tying together the widely divergent comparisons and contrasts of the lives of a pair of unforgettable people. I am forced to admit, however, that this literary chasm is not likely to be bridged. Even my writer's pen can scarce be expected to join together two such different souls.

I speak of two acquaintances: Agnes and Sebastian. Wishing not to suspend too much of the readers' disbelief, I must, nevertheless, acknowledge that the drama about to unfold may seem extraordinary, incredible and – let's be frank, all right? – patently ridiculous (but only in some of the particulars).

Agnes is a beautiful and winning novice in a Montreal, Quebec nunnery, whose brides of Christ are the little sisters of Mary Magdalene. She is artless in the superlative sense. Her voice is lilting and childlike, yet - when spontaneously given to hosannas - it is that of an angel. Agnes is an innocent of God; indeed, she is AGNES OF GOD. Simplicity, brevity, piety …

Agnes is pregnant.

Sebastian, Sebastian … where does one begin?

New Orleans, 1937 – The Garden District. That only describes time and place (and barely so), but it is a beginning. We never spy Sebastian at home and in his personal jungle. In fact, when he finally does make his entrance, we do not see his face. We never do. Yet no one need declare outspokenly that it is the visage of Adonis. It is this beautiful face that has dared to view another countenance: Sebastian has beheld the Face of God. And lived. Onlookers - men, women, children and even dogs - are mesmerized by this elegant man, only to fall in love with him, him with such charm, such charisma. Of the four categories of mammalian subsets referred to, only one group is allowed to cross the invisible line and participate. Sebastian – the gentle and soft-spoken arachnid – knows the truth about God.

The truth makes absolutely no difference, however, as Sebastian approaches the crossroads of his life. It begins, it ends: SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER.

Sebastian is a cannibal.

For the Love of a Good Read

Dear Armchair Travelers,

Are you all set for the adventure of a lifetime, to the fabled and mysterious Burma (known today as Myanmar)? American tourists start out on an art expedition that will take them to the true Shangri-La and, eventually, to the jungles of Burma. But mystery, intrigue and death cut a wide swath across the pathway of the travelers, who wish only to soak up the rich cultural heritage and perhaps make a little statement about the benefits of the American way of life. Sidetracked by a harmless but intent, recluse jungle tribe, the unknowing "guests" plunge into a survival of the fittest contest that they never bargained for. Let's just say that, in strange and unfamiliar surroundings, there's going to be culture shock. If they survive the elements, SLORC, malaria and the Nats (no, NOT gnats), will the American travelers be the wiser and stronger for it?

The images are haunting, the characters are flawed yet nevertheless sympathetic and Ms. Tan's writing style is delightfully idiosyncratic! A mythical holy man tells his followers that each day he has pledged to save a hundred lives. He elects to save fish from drowning, and as success is added to further success in his rescue operation, he buys more nets that he might save ever more. It is evil to take lives, but it is noble to save them.

Have you already read this captivating foray into the steamy jungles that hide and protect the Karen tribe? Do you believe miracles can happen in the middle of nowhere? If you haven't yet read SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING, I highly recommend that you get it, plop into your favorite armchair, and settle in for a wondrous journey that will undoubtedly enchant you.

Nowadays happy endings may seem impossible, yet....

 

 

Despondent Writer Jumps Up and Out Basement Window

DESPONDENT WRITER JUMPS UP AND OUT BASEMENT WINDOW

Disassociated Press News Release (October 25, 2008):

An aging writer was found today by passersby, lying dazed and confused outside his basement studio window, in what local authorities are treating as a failed suicide attempt. Witnesses claim to have seen Gabriel Horne, age 60-something, leap up through and out the window of his subsurface residence.

It is understood from neighbors, who scarcely know Mr. Horne due to his reclusive nature, that he was depressed/angry/enraged over countless letters of rejection from various book publishing firms. They admit to knowing this only from having observed piles of shredded letters at the base of his mailbox, which shredding was always accompanied by screams and cries of despair, which, naturally, drew worried but frightened neighbors to rifle through the mail, but only after Mr. Horne had clomped furiously back into his lowly hovel.

It is said, too, from an anonymous source, that Mr. Horne's only savings, from a bank account started in elementary school, was not insured by the FDIC (given today's monetary crisis and by a frivolous and cruel twist of financial fate), hence the writer's impoverished state and consequent inability to buy ink cartridges at STAPLES.

(Contributed by Horace Hack, Staff Writer, Office of Runonsentencesextraordinaire.)

Laundry Bucket, er, WASHER!

Dear Happy Homemaker,

I live in a tiny apartment with no hookup for a washer/dryer laundry center. Being totally without coin for the laundromat and hardly able to afford TIDE, how in the world can I maintain my clothing spanking clean? While I may be poor, I do have some tattered shreds of pride that remain affixed to my person. Filthy rags I cannot abide.

Thanks,

Cleveland


Dear Cleve,

Rather than stoning your garments creekside or scrubbing your knuckles raw on the washboard, you must assemble for yourself the following appliance:

Manually-operated washing machine

Obtain:

5-gallon plastic bucket

Toilet plunger (new)

Hand soap slivers

Cut hole in center of lid bucket that is
slightly larger than plunger handle. Take
plunger and center it in the bucket.

Partially fill "washer" with water suf-
ficiently hot to soften soap slivers that
find themselves scattered about bucket's
capacious lower level.

Add clothes and warm water within a
number of inches of the bucket's top.

Affix lid securely to bucket, allowing
plunger handle to poke through.

Apply motion in upward/downward strokes.

When the above cleansing actions are
complete, drain bucket by tipping it (either
to the right or left - your choice) into a re-
ceiver basin for your next load.

Refill "washer" - with all internal items intact -
with rinse water.

Repeat the above procedures as desired.


Do not kick the bucket ...

Happy Homemaker!

Who Is She?

It's natural to be curious about the folk who inhabit your life - well, isn't it? Some individuals are certainly open, or shall we say "up front," about who they are and what their very important outlook on life happens to be. Quite contrary to this rabble of pedestrian traffic, however, is the rare inscrutable one.

An old lady passes by my home daily and I peer down at her elderly yet still somewhat spry frame from my drawing room window. Without any variation in routine whatsoever, she stops dead at the same spot - a little break in the waist-high stone wall - and leans into the smoothly cupped-out hollow. Her midriff and elbows rest upon stone polished by wind and water come from the sea and her chin sits solidly in her upturned palms. Given the angle of my window relative to the depression in the stone wall where Madame resides, I have no difficulty ascertaining her stance.

What does she gaze upon so intently each day, from noon till one, whatever the weather? Beyond the surf there lies a plump and verdant island and, farther still, the open sea. Does she patiently but futilely await a love long ago lost at sea? Perhaps she watches the sky in the hope of being taken unto her deity's warm and protective embrace. Is she, therefore, awaiting something or someone, or is she simply wiling away the time, longing to escape the mainland and adopt the barbaric tribal life on that mist-enveloped tropical isle?

I am as perplexed as I am curious, but I do love a mystery and shall be content to spin a yarn or two at the old dame's unwitting expense.

Heaven forbid I should go down to the wall, make her acquaintance and - when the time is right - ask her to explain herself.

What fun would that be?

The Forbidden City

We're about a fortnight's journey from the Forbidden City. Our yak must think we're crazy, pushing on relentlessly as we do. Not to mention the nomads, who travel but a few miles and then permit their beasts to browse the high pastures. You see, we've encountered diverse setbacks - following mountain trails that led us smack into rocky walls that showed us no immediately recognizable path of ascent. Then there were the shifty-eyed brigands - known throughout the region as Khampas. Their encampment - Gyak Bongra - is a name that makes brave men tremble; that, we learned, to our chagrin and a potentially disastrous termination of our lives. 

As it stands, we did escape, mainly through a bit of bravado and the use of our wiles. But our chief cause of concern is the bitter cold and our fending off its ravages, frostbite being our principal worry. We have no gloves, but only old socks as their replacement. Often we've no choice but to bivouac in the open. Rarely do we come upon an "ihega" - a sheltering stone fence, that protects against the wind. The below-freezing temperatures frequently render sleep impossible, but eventually, because of sheer exhaustion, our slumber becomes leaden. 

We've bluffed our way through various check points on an expired travel permit. Some subordinate officials are skeptical, but others are happy to see us on our way. Llasa is but the distance of a few days. 

What further challenges await us? Despite our physical pains and utter exhaustion, we are drawn inexorably toward our objective. If only by dint of sheer determination and will, we shall see the fabled city at the top of the world.

Signing off for now,

Armchair Traveler/Companion of Peter and Heinrich, on our sojourn through Tibet.

Reference: SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET, by Heinrich Harrer, 1953.

Can I Be a Good Mother? Joan Talks.

Isn't it an ironic twist and so very, very Hollywood that I was named Joan. Not so unusual a name, I admit. But that a cute little blonde girl should have as mother dearest a gorgeous, raven-haired madwoman named Christina. What an almost consciously planned twist! If you're not into the old flicks you wouldn't see the irony. The bitter irony of my life.

Those old black and whites held me irresistibly captive, glued to the screen as I was, bewildered that the movie star after whom I was named could be so good and kind on screen (well, if the script called for it) but so different in real life. I'm enough of a realist now, as an adult, no longer to be swept away by the Sturm und Drang of a fanciful photoplay. Or Hollywood lives. Though the physical pain of the irrational beatings I received as a child is gone - I do have some scars, however - the inner pain has been little eased despite love from caring friends and supportive family members. A good shrink helps too.

My sister Joleen, older and, I'll reluctantly admit, wiser, has an outlook I'm simply not able to adopt. Not at this point anyway. She's always been sweet and kindly disposed by nature. After our mother would have one of her characteristic tantrums - volcanic explosions, more aptly - and she and the house were four sheets to the wind, it was Joleen who brought her the wet washcloth and tried to calm us kids down. Dad was at work. That's just it - he was at work. He didn't see the half of what SHE did to Joleen, Toby and me.

My adult's intellect acknowledges that the father has to be gone long hours to pay the rent, put food on the table ... of course! Of course! But the beaten and bruised little girl is screaming for help to the big, protecting daddy who seems never to be there at those cursed moments when an uncontrolled rage is visited upon helpless children.

Why didn't my daddy protect me?

Can I Be a Good Mother?

Having a baby doesn't make you a loving and selfless mother automatically.

Mom had her hang-ups before we were born, Sis. I think she took out all her frustrations and anger on us because she was so mad at life and the hand she was dealt. No one in Dad's family respected her though she sure as hell tried to win Grandma's approval. Since her own mother had died when she was only four, Mom needed a surrogate female to guide her through those early years raising us. She had no idea what she was doing. Despite the distance Grandma put between herself and Mom, Grandma wasn't evil and conniving. She didn't hate Mom - just didn't know how to deal with her crazy daughter-in-law.

So here we are: Mom was screwed up early-on, but you know just as well as I do how much she loves us. Maybe she has a queer way of showing it, but, now that I'm older and a little wiser, I want to be forgiving. I'd hope my family would show me a little compassion if I turned crazy. Well, crazier ...

You know, Joan, Mom wasn't ready to take on the responsibility of a brood of kids so soon after she and Dad were married. Even those times she took off and Dad had no idea where she was and we kids were crying our eyes out, she never really abandoned us. I realize that sounds ridiculous because she was truly gone physically. Dad was frantic. We felt orphaned, though, of course, Dad never left our side.

When she finally returned, one time, and then another, she was so pitiful. Even as a little girl - though the oldest of us three - I could feel her grief and see the guilt etched around her mouth and eyes. Kids don't need words and big explanations to see into the heart of an adult. Mom dragged home sorrowful and her tail between her legs after she got her head back on straight. She hated herself but loved us so desperately.

It's no wonder we question our ability to be good mothers, if and when that day should ever come ...

Gloomy Gus Says "Get Real!"

 

Dear Gloomy Gus,

 

I'm Pollyanna and I'm glad all the time. Since I fell out of the giant elm tree outside my bedroom window when I was a wee lass, I've thanked heaven that I received no more than a scratch on my pretty little forehead. I'm really blessed and I wish to spread goodwill and cheer to all whom I meet. Now that I'm quite grown up and have inherited Aunt Polly's considerable fortune and, in fact, her entire eponymous village, I want to do good toward all. It is not enough, I feel, simply to go to the homes of the less fortunate and, along with Nancy (yes, she works for me now!) hand out jars of calves' foot jelly and the like.

 

What do you think I should do with my millions now that I'm in complete control of my life and my fortune (yes, it's really, really mine!) and village and inhabitants entirely in my thrall?

 

Regards,

 

Pollyanna H.

 

Miss Priss Pollyanna,

 

I took a blow to the head very young in life when I was dipping pigtails of precious darlings like you in my inkwell when I was supposed to be doing my arithmetic in class. Mr. Kravitz would have been thrown in the slammer if he did that today. Of course, Mr. Kravitz got the go-ahead from my parents and the local constabulary to use whatever means necessary to keep me in line. I digress. I think I counted some 20 self-references: "I," "my," "mine." Don't quote me on the figure - like you would!

 

It makes me sick that your "I" problem wasn't attended to sooner. But that's not the issue now. It's on the back burner for the moment.

 

Have you finally replaced the boiler that nearly took down the orphanage and all its hapless victims? Your dear Aunt Polly sure had to be hit over the head before she saw to renovating that derelict building where she stuffed all the parentless children. And when you have guests over, do you serve them more than a "light lunch"? That was pretty cheap of your aunt, who surely had the staff and means to put on a real feast. What do you plan on doing to help the orphans? You're an adult now - well, at least chronologically. Do you have Adult Services available to these now-grown orphans? I doubt that you do, or even care. A lot of good your money does you. You are so not selfless! You talk the talk, but will you walk the walk? All that you Harpingtons do you do for show!

 

It doesn't matter what you plan on doing here on out after my entirely justified diatribe. My mind's made up. Money is the root of all evil! And you'll grow old and lonely like your spinster aunt because no one will have you.

 

So there!

 

GG : - (((

 

 

The Sacred and the Profane

 

Dear Mr. Cosmo Politan,

 

I would gladly drop all concerns practical and necessary just to lie down and listen to Brahms Or Bach. Yet, I do have daily chores about the house that require my attention. I want the best of both worlds, so I listen to recordings of classical music while I bustle about my home-care duties. However, my professor at music school said that it was sacrilegious to do the profane, like scrubbing the toilet, when listening to Bach. I find that music - any music - is motivating and elevates my spirits while doing the perfunctory.

 

Isn't he being a bit extreme?

 

Carl Phillip Emmanuel

 

Dear C.P.E:

 

Not at all! He wouldn't be where he is today without high standards.

 

I, on the other hand, allow myself some leniency. I play Handel's "Water Music" when bathing. Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" accompanies my roasting a chicken. When I can't fix my mind too sharply on a matter of importance, on goes Debussy's "Reverie." Likewise, Claude Achille's "The Afternoon of a Faun" when I dress a deer. And when I'm feeling especially contrary, I clean house to take my mind off the music (which, like the water, is always running).

 

You, however, should follow your teacher's advice not to mix the sacred with the profane, thereby retaining and nourishing your classical purity.

 

I'm jaded and can get away with it.

 

Cosmo
 
     
 

Are you in a muddle over domestic chores? Ask Happy Homemaker for practical and up-to-the-minute advice. You won't be disappointed!

Dear Happy Homemaker,

Hi. My name is Suzy and I have ugly wax build-up on my very old linoleum floor in the kitchen. Sam (my hubby) and I want to upgrade the floor but are not certain if it would be cheaper to strip the old floor or buy terrazzo. Little Johnny has a flame thrower in his toy box, and I was wondering if we could kill two birds with one stone by melting the wax with heat and barbeque a chicken all in one fell swoop? Today's the 4th (July) and it's raining so we can't barbeque or we'd catch our death. Our church is lousy with janitors who could strip the floor, but Sam and I don't trust any of them any farther than we could throw them. We're into sports and have good throwing arms, too.

I'm really in a quandary, HH! Please reply asap because we're having company over this afternoon and want to show off our new floor (or, at the very least, a clean floor!)

Thanks heaps!

Suzy Q.

 

Dear Suzy:

I feel the flame thrower is out because I have taken the liberty of checking out your homeowner's policy and, should you fail in your intended purpose and conflagrate the house, your agent will search for loopholes to CHA (not CYA). Perhaps you might check out lovely designer painter's tarps and swath your ugly linoleum with one that matches your equally ugly walls (don't ask me how I know). Perhaps, too, your lazy sloth of a partner (I know you two are not married) can plug in the kitchen range, precluding all need for dangerous incendiary devices. Additionally, you're beer-budget folk ... pretty high-and-mighty thinking you can afford terrazzo! I'm not impressed. I don't trust your church janitors either; when I say "no" to their religious tracts EVERY Sunday morning, they ask if they can leave one of their business cards instead, offering huge discounts on their services. Fools.

I hope I've been of some help, Suzy!

Yours truly,

Happy Homemaker!