My Own Private Penn State Was... Everywhere

The Penn State scandal is everywhere.  Turn on television, radio, open a browser, pick up a newspaper or magazine and there will be some mention of the sensational allegations of child abuse.  Most of us believe there is real substance behind the heart-rending accounts, but I use the word "allegations" as even Sandusky is entitled to his day in court. Hopefully it won't end with the injustice of the Casey Anthony trial.  Personally, I think we may never know the real number of boys whose lives were irrevocably damaged.

Sexual abuse is a silent killer that alters a child's sense of trust and self-worth.  It lays waste to the very principles that parents labor to instill in the minds and hearts of their children.  All of us still struggle to find a balance between teaching respect for authority and when to ring the alarm bell.

I find it hard to listen to reports and testimonies from anyone who has been victimized, and wonder if there is any adult out there who has been fortunate enough to have never been subject to some form of actual or attempted abuse.  We've seen the shocking number of priests whose crimes were swept under the rug as the church shuffled them from parish to parish.  It seems every month or so there is another account of a coach or teacher accused of some form of predatory activity.

My book, "Ednor Scardens", didn't start out that way, but eventually became a vehicle for purging some of my own experiences as a young girl.  And yet the anecdotes recorded there hardly scratched the surface.  Some will likely go to the grave with me, but I still find it hard to believe that these all happened during the 1950's and early 60's, a time that most people naively think of as a more innocent time.

Unlike some kids, my own exposures began soon after puberty:  Between the ages of 11-14, there was a flasher at the library, a guy with a hooded sweatshirt who appeared at the kitchen door, a bus driver at the end of his route (my aunt lived at the next stop....the first on the new route), two different men sitting in parked cars on the way to school, and the father of two of my neighborhood friends.  I know those girls must have wondered why I stopped coming to play at their house, but it came so closely on the heels of an assault by a man who worked at the ice skating rink near my home that I didn't go anywhere for weeks.  The other incidents will remain buried as the men responsible are deceased.  They are beyond reach and distressing their family members serves no purpose.

My parents never discussed improper touching, but most kids know instinctively when someone has crossed that line.  What they don't realize is that it isn't their fault and that they need to tell a parent or other trusted adult. I never told because I was afraid of losing the small amount of freedom I'd earned by virtue of my preteen and teen threshold.  And by the time I reached fourteen, I was no longer a quiet, trusting child.  I was athletic and finally capable of defending myself, or at least out-running someone.

So to those who lament the wounds inflicted on the mighty Penn State dynasty, your tears are wasted on me.  And if you are a parent, and haven't discussed this issue with your children, don't wait.  It is one that must begin early and be repeated periodically in age-appropriate ways.  We live in a sadly dangerous and confusing world, but it's always been that way.  We just didn't know it. 

THAT ORANGE RUBBER BAG.....The Real American Horror Story

Ever since "Twilight" hit the book stores, we've been assaulted by a tsunami of books, movies and television shows that feature vampires, werewolves, zombies and assorted supernatural elements.  Some are better than others and I'm too ashamed to tell you how many times I've read the entire "Twilight" series.  I once watched the movie every day for thirty days in a row...but that's my problem (one of them, at least).  Some thngs are scarier than others, depending on your childhood experiences:  visits to the dentist, prostate exams for men, and the fear of what kind of comments health professionals make to relieve the tedium when we're out cold on the surgical table.

If you're wondering where I'm going with this.....well, I just got finished filling out a shaft of paperwork for a, um, oh christ, I'll just say it...a colonoscopy.  There, are you happy?  Can you sit there reading this and lie to me electronically that you don't have a little snarking smile on your face?  I don't want to go.  I hate it.  But I have a family history that is scarier than the prospect of undergoing the procedure.  And the 24-48 hours before the procedure are more frightening than the colonoscopy itself.  You can either drink a gallon of a foul-tasting powdered mix or endure a 32 to 40 pill regimen.  The recommendation is to prepare yourself to spend 1-2 days on a toilet.  Some wise-ass recommended stocking the bathroom with your favorite magazines or a book you've been meaning to read.  Avoid tear-jerkers as you'll be losing enough fluid already to cancel out all the anti-pollution efforts of the last two years for the Chesapeake Bay.  At least during the colonoscopy, you'll be sedated while the surgeon plays "Where's Waldo" in your plumbing.

Quite by coincidence, an email popped up in my inbox today from a popular company that specializes in customer reviews of local service providers such as contractors, repair men, etc.  Today's topic was, "Does colon hydrotherapy provide a healthy flush?"  Now I don't know about you, but I'm not all that keen on getting this advice alongside roofing repairs and lawn maintenance.  Apparently this practice is called a 'colonic' and people actually pay to have it done to rid their body of 'toxins'.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This is where my basic childhood fears come into play.  My mother wouldn't have known a 'colonic' from a hole (sorry) in the ground, but she was a big fan of monitoring her kids' bowel habits.  If you didn't poop for two days, she'd loom large in the hall with the.....drum roll, please....enema bag.  I hated that orange bag with the hose and hook and would go to any length to stay beyond the reach of that nozzle.  She didn't give a fig about toxins.  We knew what she was really after....and I'm not shi**ing you.

So, be kind to me for the next few weeks as I face down the gastroenterologic boogieman, the professional spelunker.  At least mom never had a camera and it was over quickly once she could grab hold of you and plant a knee in the middle of your back.  Just don't call me on the phone until its over because I'll be holding on desperately to my Kindle...and my voice might sound a little strained.  

EDNOR SCARDENS - From Semi-eulogy to Four Book Fiction Series

A cardboard box landed on my front doorstep yesterday.  As the UPS truck drove off, I felt a bit like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings...springing out the door, grabbing the box and withdrawing back into my house cave.  Opened the box and carressing "my precious", I sighed happily that the day I held my printed book in my hands had finally arrived.

The journey from first putting pen to paper - alright, hand to laptop keyboard - had been a long one, and I wondered how many writers had traveled the same road I had.  I was sure that none had started the same way.  Most begin with the intention of writing a short story, novella or novel.  They jot down ideas or carry a germinating story seed in their head for varying lengths of time until, like a baby, it just has to come out.  My own process didn't even faintly resemble that.  My creation was born of fear. 

Allow me to backtrack a bit in explanation.  Years ago, my parents began the sad journey from independent living to assisted living, to nursing facility, and I was afraid that I'd be called upon to put together a eulogy for one or both of them.  I'd been fairly self-centered as a teen, and when I married a military pilot and moved away from home, I missed alot of the everyday things that my parents did.  Long distance phone calls were expensive, and we didn't have the luxury of extended discussions.  The end result was that I missed the opportunities to delve into my parents' past lives, to understand how things really were for them growing up.  My mom had a penchant for spinning yarns about her life whenever she wanted to make a point or issue an obligatory parental warning "from experience".  My sister-in-law and I used to call it "The World According to Irene".  As an example, when she first entered an Assisted Living community, each new resident was welcomed in the facility's newsletter with a brief spotlight based on their answers to general questions.  Mom listed her favorite hobby as ice skating.  She was in a wheelchair, so you get the idea.  Even if I had gotten the time to delve into her past, I'm not sure the answers would have been dependable.

With each family member's passing, my original core of relatives grew smaller, and I had a recurring dream that when my turn came, there would be no one at the service other than my own children and grandchildren.  And they wouldn't know squat about my life before I became their mom.  The dream always continued with one of them standing at the lecturn, fidgeting, and then realizing that they knew very little about me.  It sounds selfish, but who can control their dreams?

So to save them this embarrassment and assuage my fear of an ignominious send-off into the great unknown, I sat down one evening in 2009, intent on typing out a half-assed autobiographic page or two that I could email them for safekeeping until the eventual time came.  What I hadn't counted on was how much I would remember.  As I wrote down little vignettes to keep the account from reading like a timeline diagram, I became possessed.  When I finally looked away from the computer screen, dawn was breaking through the window.  Without realizing what I was actually doing, I sat there, night after night, for three weeks straight, until more than 350 pages had been disgorged.  Surely, my kids never wanted to know that much.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards contest caught my eye, so I edited like mad, changed the names of people and schools in the story and entered it.  Although I didn't make it to the final round, I wasn't willing to just let the manuscript sit, so I passed it around to family and friends, unaware that they were actually serving as beta readers. More changes came, adding and deleting to better suit a story that some would actually want to read.  It wasn't strictly autobiographical anymore, but the emotions of the main character still glowed in my brain.  I knew I couldn't let the story and the characters end there.  So I kept writing about them through  books 2, 3 and 4.  By the end of the Charm City Chronicles as I've dubbed them, the characters have matured into adulthood, some married, some living through tragedies and some succumbing to them.

I sent out query letters to literary agents and was encouraged by the number of requests I got for fifty page samples, but without magic, vampires and the like, I didn't find one willing to take a chance.  Then one day I got an email from the head of a nascent group...Fantasy Island Book Publishing, and the result is what you see in the photograph.  One journey has been completed, yet the most difficult one lies ahead:  marketing, media, social networking, and sales. 

And although they'll need to clarify which parts of the book are fiction vs. nonfiction, I don't think my kids will have as much trouble delivering a eulogy.  Just don't let let the opening line be, "The World According to Kathleen".         

STRADDLING DISNEY

A couple of weeks ago I took my seven-year-old granddaughter to Disney World for her birthday.  Yes, it was a ridiculously expensive present, but this past year has been all about the birth and cuteness of her new baby brother, so I decided that several days dedicated totally to her would be better than another box of clothes or the latest doll to hit the shelves.

She excitedly counted down the days before we stepped on the plane together, and she plugged herself contentedly into her iPod after the thrill of the rush down the runway.  As we sped through the clouds, I heard her singing to herself, “Baby, baby, baby……oh….” and knew that Justin Bieber was capturing her attention once again as he often does during our car rides together.  Her ability to memorize lyrics has vastly improved in the past year, and the result is often disconcerting as I hear her recite the rap streams that she and her friends practice while riding the bus to school.  She mimics Ludacris with, “She woke me up daily, don’t need no Starbucks.” 

Part of this is my own fault, as I often have music on when she’s in my house or car, and at times the lyrics are not always G-rated.  Some songs that sound so bouncy and fun turn into something rather different when the words come out of a teen-in-training’s mouth.  She LOVES Katy Perry, but I drew the line when she piped, “There’s a stranger in my bed, there’s a pounding in my head…I smell like a mini-bar….“  from the hit “Last Friday Night.”  Even I have sung along happily to songs like Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” without realizing it was about a kid taking a gun to school to shoot other students.

She has one foot in childhood, running full speed to the Mad Teacups ride and pining for an visit to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, while the other is planted in an adult society where she’s bombarded with suggestive television ads and songs with questionable lyrics.  She paints her nails and frets over whether she’s too fat to wear a bikini.  The child in her wants to hug the performers dressed in Disney character costume, but she declines when I ask her to stand with Minnie Mouse for a photograph.

At the end of one exhausting day at the Magic Kingdom, we wound down for sleep by watching one of the funny video shows with clips of babies and animals doing silly things.  A commercial came on with a scene promoting an upcoming movie.  A couple kissed and then the young man pulled off his shirt before proceeding to do the same for his girlfriend.  I managed to hit the channel selector before hers came off, and my granddaughter looked at me and asked, “Nana, do people always take their shirts off before they kiss?“  I quickly assured her that they do not.  Without skipping a beat, she added, “Did YOU ever take your shirt off when you kissed a boy?“

I’m all for giving truthful answers to kids’ questions IF it is appropriate, but I paused for a moment.  I knew that like most kids, she’d walked in on her mom and dad more than once in various stages of undress, so I flat out lied and told her I might have done it a few times but only with her grandfather after we were  married.  A cop-out, for sure.

As I watch her move in quantum leaps toward the awkward preteen years, I hope she keeps asking those questions.  As embarrassing as they can be, I want her to hear other voices….caring adult voices…to counter the too-much-too-soon culture we live in.  And I need to change the play lists on my iPod.     

What's A Nice Homeschooled Girl From Maryland Doing in Nairobi????

This might sound like just another slick, pick-up line....admittedly, one that you wouldn't get to use too often.....but I got the chance to talk with a young woman just like this recently.  Kaylie Sauter is a soft-spoken twenty-four year old woman from Baltimore County who until a few weeks ago was teaching Art classes in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya in East Africa.  And she's going back to do it again.

I was struck by her strong convictions and her courage, as I'm uncomfortable at times just walking in downtown Baltimore.  So, I decided to ask her why she has chosen this path.

Let's start with a little background.  When you were growing up in Maryland, what kinds of things were you involved in that planted the seed for your current endeavor?

Kaylie:  I've lived in the same house since childhood, in Baltimore County, Maryland. I was homeschooled and then attended Liberty Christian in Eldersburg. In high school I switched around between homeschooling and Mount de Sales Academy while I also attended Carroll and Catonsville Community Colleges. Upon graduation, I went to Houghton College in Upstate New York where I double majored in Art and Communications with a minor in Intercultural Studies - which took me to Tanzania for 4 months.

I vividly remember going to an orioles game with my dad when I was around 9 or 10 years old.  And I saw the same homeless man begging for money on the street before we walked in and again when we left. I decided I wanted to help and convinced my dad to give this man some money.  Afterwards I remember riding back to our parking lot in a shuttle bus and vowing to the Lord that I would dedicate my life to help people. The memory of that man has stuck with me ever since.

My parents encouraged generosity and loving those who have less.

What drew you to what you did and where you were this past year? What made you decide to return?

Kaylie:  I was living in Charlottesville and working with an accomplished oil painter, Malcolm Hughes, while living with my aunt and working part-time at a cheese shop.  But doing all of this still left me feeling restless.

I heard about an organization called BuildaBridge in Philadelphia and agreed to go to an annual event called the Arts Institute that attracts artists world-wide to provide training, networking opportunities, informative seminars, and hands-on arts experience.




I sat down to breakfast one morning with one of the founders of the organization, Dr Nathan Corbitt, and shared with him that I was looking for a way to use my artistic talents in a tangible way that would help those who are most in need. This is when he told me about the position in Kenya. He didn’t say IF you go to Kenya, but used the phrase “when you go to Kenya…”. He told me I would be teaching an art class in the Mathare slum, networking with groups of artists needing support in adopting a community-service mindset, and devloping marketing opportunities.  I would run art camps that BuildaBridge had created, similar to those they've begun in countries all over the world, called The Diaspora of Hope Art Camp.

After being there for a year I've developed deep and meaningful relationships, and I've seen the receptive enthusiasm of children and artists alike. The personal fulfillment of knowing that what I do can bring hope and healing to those living in the slums makes it a no-brainer for me to return.

Did you have any fears about going so far away and to such an impoverished area? Did you have difficulty convincing your parents to agree to it?

Kaylie:  My parents have been great in their support and recognizing that as an adult I can make my own decisions.  They respect that.  I'm careful and take realistic precautions such as not traveling late at night or venturing deep in the slums. Initially, I was fearful of pickpocketing or stealing and was very cautious even walking outside my door.  Now I'm much more relaxed in general.

Have you had any close calls as far as your personal safety is concerned?

Kaylie:  I was mugged at gun point because some guys wanted my computer that I was carrying, but besides that, no!




Have there been any funny incidents or language-related problems due to the very different backgrounds that you and your students/co-workers have?  Anything that made your students look at you like you had three heads due to cultural differences?

Kaylie:  People in Kenya are charged by the minute for their phone use, so when you want to get someone to call you but you don't want to use your own money, you can call just so the phone rings and then quickly hang up… this then shows the person you called and they will feel compelled to call back. This is called “flashing”. In my language, however, flashing means taking off your clothes  So when people would say, “I will flash you”, I thought in my head- please NO!
Have there been any heartbreaks for you in your relationships with your students? 

Kaylie:  My students come from abusive homes, some even physically abusive, and both the mental and physical scars they carry are heartbreaking.

How do you sustain hope in the face of such deprivation and trauma that your students experience? 

Kaylie: I use the arts to teach the children about hope, even in this hard world they were born into. I encourage them individually every chance I get. I speak kindly to them, asking them to dream and challenge their thinking. I visit their homes. I initiate art camps during the holidays so they have something to look forward to. I point them to Christ, who offers himself as their eternal hope.



Anything you'd like to add.......especially if readers would like to make a donation to help support your work?  

Kaylie: Checks can be made out to "Kenya Project" and mailed to: BuildaBridge International, 205 West Tulpehocken Street, Philadelphhia, PA 19144    Anyone kind enough to help should include their name, address, phone number and email.  They should also specify whose work they are supporting (Kaylie Sauter), as we are volunteers.

Here is a link to the video which Kaylie created about her year in Kenya.  The images are gorgeous and unforgettable!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qniwK9BovEg

The Five Dollar Love Letter

The story began sensibly enough, explaining how the U.S. Postal Service is going bankrupt.  Stop gap measures weren't going to help, said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe in his Congressional testimony, as salaries and benefits comprise 80% of the organization's annual budget.  The rise of electronic mail has caused a dramatic decrease in revenue, he explained.  Ya think? 

Mr. Donahoe is the second highest paid government employee, second only to President Obama and one step ahead of Vice President Biden.  If first class mail volume has plunged, why hasn't the USPS behemoth shrunken accordingly?  Most of us communicate and pay bills via email and phone, using the mail service for things we can't handle in that manner.  The U.S. taxpayer would probably save money if the U.S. government offered free internet service and public computer stations instead.  Times have changed, but bureaucracy crawls, unable to adjust quickly enough.

He warned of the end of Saturday mail delivery.  I don't know about you, but I'm quaking in my boots at the thought of having to wait until Monday for my junk mail.  Cutbacks to three days a week delivery?  Bring it on.

The most bizarre part of the hearing came courtesy of Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill who lamented the absence of handwritten letters from her children.  She groused that she had to impose a rule, forbidding her college-attending progeny to send her text message requests for money.  "I was getting this gibberish spelling 'need money 2day'.  It's ridiculous!"  Is this woman in the early stages of dementia?  Do you have any idea how much we just paid to have her parenting rant entered into the Congressional Record?  Even worse, is she representative of who is in charge of running our country's affairs?  Gather closer, dear readers, to hear her idea to save the U.S. Postal Service.  She wants someone to come up with a marketing campaign to promote the "value of the written letter...to someone you love".  She prosthelytizes that we would all be surprised how far it would go to stabilize the Postal Service's budget.  Senator McCaskill has simultaneously made me embarrassed to be both female and a boomer.  I'm surprised that she isn't a member of the Tea Party, spouting that kind of idiocy.

Can someone please force Jon Stewart to become Dictator Emeritus of the United States of America?

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THE FRIENDLY SKIES OF FML AIRLINES

The whole idea behind air travel is that it’s supposed to be faster and easier than other modes of transportation.  In the early days of the industry, it was even considered glamorous.  People dressed up to take a flight….men wore suits and ties, women wore hats, gloves and heels.  You were allowed to take more than one suitcase without having to auction off your eldest child.  An all-female crew of stewardesses offered you a choice of lunch or dinner menus in addition to beverages.  Those times are long gone.  People dress one level above just rolled out of bed.  If your flight is delayed, you could starve if you unwisely chose an airline other than Jet Blue or Southwest, who still sling mini-packets of peanuts and chips to the masses.  You can expect to be felt up/patted down by people who are paid to do it.  Male and female flight attendants stalk the aisles, ordering you to turn off your phone/computer/ipod, close your tray table and bring your seat into an upright position.  Seating space is small, and I always manage to snag a seat assignment next to a man with an intestinal gas problem.   

Until recently, my travel experiences haven’t been too bad, and the only horror stories I knew were the ones I’d read about happening to other people.   I knew my turn would come one day, but I never thought my trip would rival the slave galleys of centuries past.  It’s an outrageous comparison, but I was impressed that I’d actually paid for the privilege. 

Welcome to FML Airlines.  If you aren’t familiar with the abbreviation, I invite you to google it.  I’d rather not start using the “F” word in my blog.  How silly of me to think that just because I’d forked over a couple of hundred dollars for a “confirmed” ticket and seat, that I’d actually get to the destination I’d booked. 

Has anyone noticed that there are still people working at the terminal counters even though we go online and make our own reservations, print our own boarding passes and haul our own small bags on and off the plane?  What do they do?  I can tell you…..they pick up little microphones and announce in garbled fast food drive-through lexicon that your flight no longer exists.  They have a stash of fortune cookies behind their desk from which they pull an assortment of reasons:  maintenance ‘issues’, weather delays, bird strikes, etc.  I fully expect to see a YouTube spoof to rival the wedding party rendition of Chris Brown’s “Forever”.  Instead of bridesmaids and groomsmen, I envision TSA and Airline workers singing, Lily Allen’s  ”Never Gonna Happen” as they waive bouquets of boarding passes for nonexistent flights.

My first brush with air slavery was a 4:30 p.m. nonstop flight from Birmingham, AL to Baltimore, MD that was supposed to take 2 hour flight.  To summarize it briefly, after sequential imprisonment at the gate and on the tarmac, I landed after 11:00 that night due to maintenance issues and plane substitutions.  I thought it was a fluke.  Ah, but this past Monday was a payback for years of trouble-free travel.  After leaving my home at 9:30 in the morning for a 12:15 flight (also to Birmingham),  I learned soon after that the flight was delayed due to the ubiquitous maintenance issues, which meant I would miss my connecting flight in Charlotte, NC.  The airways were clogged with passengers whose flights had been cancelled over the weekend due to Hurricane Irene, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy for the agent to find a substitution.  The only thing he could arrange was to fly from Baltimore to Chicago……six hours later……and then from Chicago to Birmingham.  I took it, but worried that I’d be stranded in Chicago if the rest of the day went the way it had begun.

As I waited in Chicago for the connection, I raged inwardly when I saw the gate agent pick up the P.A. microphone to announce that there would be a delay because the plane had hit a bird.  We did take off an hour later and I landed in Birmingham a little after 10:00 that evening….over 12 hours after leaving my house that morning.

That’s how long it takes to DRIVE to Birmingham from Baltimore, and if I had car newer than the 13 year old Honda that sits in my driveway, I would have done that…and saved about $300.  Just think, I’m only about 100 trips away from paying for a brand new Prius.  

  

STALKED BY HURRICANES

In 2006 I moved, returning to my home state of Maryland after spending 36 years in New Jersey, Florida, California, Virginia, Puerto Rico and Louisiana.  If you guessed ex-Navy wife....bingo.  I repatriated to Maryland for two reasons:  family and New Orleans' weather.  For six months out of every year, I was a nervous wreck, watching weather forecasts over my shoulder from June through the first of December.

I'd been relatively lucky, and experienced just two partial house floodings that weren't related to hurricanes.  Both were related to excessive rainfall.  I'd lived in that house for years with no problems, but a combination of poor landscaping, fencing and a neighbor who installed an inground pool sounded the death knell.  After the first flooding, I put in new carpeting and decided to purchase flood insurance.  If you're familiar with flood insurance, you'll know that there is a 30 day period before the policy takes effect.  So, about 22 days after I purchased it, we had 21 inches of rain in 24 hours.  My kids still laugh at my futile attenpt to help the yard drain.....pushing water out of the gate with a broom.  I also knelt on the kitchen floor and cried, praying that the inevitable wouldn't happen.  God probably had too many other people to listen to that night.

Ever since then, my nerve endings would fire up whenever I heard anything approaching torrential rain.  I kept a list of things to pile into the car after having to evacuate twice in the path of hurricanes that missed us:  family photo albums, silver flatware and jewelry(looters), two dogs and a cat.  As August of 2005 came around with its stank heat and humidity, I watched the usual reports of yet another storm forming with an uncertain destination.  As the storm grew in size and intensity, heading toward the bullseye of New Orleans in the form of Hurricane Katrina, I joined the caravan of evacuees and headed toward Natchez, Mississippi to one of the few hotels that allowed animals.  Due to the scarcity of rooms, we were only able to secure a room with two twin beds.  You can only imagine being in that room for four days with the following:  me, my daughter, her then-husband, a 7 year old, 5 year old, 1 year old, two black labs, two cats, a Siberian Husky and a Malamute. 

When my daughter announced she would rather kill herself than stay another night, an old boyfriend of hers invited us to stay with him in Nashville, Tennessee.  I'm inclined to nominate him for sainthood as we stayed there for nearly two weeks before the authorities in Louisiana would allow us to return.   

As anxious as I was to return home, nothing could have prepared me for what I found.  Just a mile from my house, I asked my daughter where we were.  The devastation as we drew closer was unimaginable.  My own home fared far better than most to the south and east of me.  As I opened the front door, the smell of the refrigerator-freezer was stunning.  We bungied it up and hauled the entire unit to the curb.  There was no savlation for that appliance.  There was black mold piled several inches atop my favorite oriental carpet in the family room and forming on the baseboards.  We pulled up the carpeting and padding to join the refrigerator.  I'd had a new roof put on the house the month before (darn it!) which held up well, but lost several sections of the 6 foot privacy fence.  A possum had taken up residence in the garage.

Adding insult to injury, my insurance company denied my flood claim, but having worked in insurance previously, I knew they were wrong.  I argued policy wording with them for nearly two months before I wrote to the White House.  Within a week, the regional superintendant of FEMA came out to the house and decided that my insurance representative must be smoking crack.....of course, it was a covered loss.

So, I finally had the repairs completed, sold the house and moved back home.  Now, I sit at my laptop writing this blog while I keep checking the weather reports for the projected paths of Hurricane Irene.  I've raided my bathroom cabinet for sleep aids and leftover painkillers to suppress the anxiety which swells with each passing hour.  If I didn't have to babysit this weekend, I'd be cozying up to multiple bottles of rum on Sunday.  As far as I'm concerned, Katrina and Irene are both nasty bitches.  I hope God hears me this time.

CRY ME A RIVER....OR A POOPY CHOCOLATE PIE

Usuallty I read a book before I will see the movie based on that book, but I made an exception when I went to see "The Help".  As I sat in the theater, alternating between laughter and tears, I wondered what it is that makes people cry.  Well, I can't speak with any authority about anyone other than me, but I've come to realize that it is the human face and the written or spoken word.

When I was much younger, I didn't cry about much, other than tears of extreme frustration when I couldn't figure out how to do something...usually math.  To this day, I still think algebra sucks.  Once I reached adulthood and had a baby, something happened.  Some sort of biological switch was flipped.  After that and even today I cry over too many things and not all of them deserve the salty exudate.

I can't stand in a crowd and sing "The Star Spangled Banner" without feeling the moisture brim in my eyes.  This makes no sense to me as I'm not a USA-chanting zealot.  When I took a trip to Italy a few years ago with my sister-in-law to her ancestral home of Boiano, we visited a nearby cemetery and I was overcome, hurriedly wiping away tears.  There wasn't a soul there that I knew or loved, but the Italian custom of embedding photographs on the grave markers was heart-rending.  If the grave's occupant hadn't lived long enough to have a formal photograph taken, as was often the case with children, the photos were taken after death, with their little bodies surrounded by floral tributes.  All I could think of was the broken lives of the parents and families left behind.

Yesterday I drove to Gettysburg, PA to visit some old friends who were traveling the country in an RV.  We saw a film and visited a magnificent museum dedicated to the tens of thousands of soldiers who died there during the civil war.  The faces of the young soldiers, so many in their teens, whose bodies lay with diaries and pictures of wives, girlfriends or children in their uniform pockets tore my heart to pieces.

Sometimes the mind creates a visual, prompted by reading something sad.  You may think it ridiculous, but I can't read E.B. White's "Charlotte's Web" to myself or aloud to a child without my voice breaking when I come to the part where the spider dies.  The first time I ever heard of this classic story was when my then three-year-old son watched the movie on television.  When Charlotte expired, he turned to me and asked in an unsteady little voice, "Did Charlotte die?"  I nodded numbly as tears rolled down my cheeks and he ran from the room, crying "I'm never watching television again!".  Even White, the author, wasn't immune to the power of his own writing.  When he narrated the audiobook of "Charlotte's Web", he struggled through seventeen takes before he could get through it without betraying his own emotions.  White paced in agitation, berating himself and mumbling, "This is ridiculous.  I'm a grown man, crying over an imaginary insect."  And yes, spiders aren't insects, but that's what he reportedly said.

Things don't even have to be sad to make me cry.  If something is funny enough, I'll laugh until I cry.  If you've seen or read "The Help", and recall the chocolate pie scene, you'll know a prime example of that.

So go ahead......post/share something strange or unexpected that makes you cry.  Just don't expect me to sit here dry-eyed while I read it.




 

ARREST ME......Please!

How many times can I be arrested?

It’s pretty hard to read or watch the news without being alternately horrified and laugh-out-loud amused at the things that human beings do.

The blurb about the man who let his 8 y.o. son drive his truck on the interstate while the guy slept, intoxicated, in the back beside his 4 y.o. daughter left me shaking my head, but when you think about just the everyday things we do, it really isn’t all that difficult to be ticketed or even arrested. I wondered how many things I could do to bring it on purposely.

When I woke up, I turned my iPod/Bose unit up loud enough for my neighbors to call the police. I walked the unleashed dog and left his bag of poo on the sidewalk. I hate carrying that stuff! Since I only had one bag with me, when he poo’d again, I didn’t clean it up. After dressing for the day, I left the house to go to the post office, leaving my purse and driver’s license in the house while I exceeded the 25 mile an hour speed limit with an unrestrained child and a dog in the back seat. The package that I mailed contained a bottle of wine. I took the clerk’s pen.

I stopped by a local nursery and bought two tomato plants with a check from an old closed bank account. When I got home, I selected a spot in the common area of my townhouse development. Since we’re not allowed to raise vegetables on our own property, I planted one there too. The framing around my front door was looking a bit worse for wear, so I painted it orange….not an “approved” color., and hung my laundry out to dry (also not allowed).

After dumping some old paint down the street drain, I left the can in the paper-only recycle bin and decided that I liked my library book too much to bother returning it.

My errands left me feeling hungry, so I had lunch at a nearby restaurant and walked out without paying the check. After all, a crowd was gathering around the kid and dog who looked a little sweaty while waiting in the car. When I returned home, I could hear the garbage collection truck’s motor rounding the corner. I couldn’t miss it again, so I dashed out of the shower and placed the trash can by the curb. Why should it be such a big deal that I didn‘t have any clothing on?

Before heading home, I decided to cool off by tubing on the nearby Gunpowder River. After parking the car on some guy's front lawn (not my fault that there weren't any spaces left on the street) and renting a tube, I secured my cooler of beer, flopped onto the rubber surface and drained a can of beer. There weren’t any trash cans nearby, so I tossed the empty into the woods. Deer will eat anything, won't they?

It had been a trying day, so I decided that I needed a sleep aid. The stuff had expired, so I flushed the capsules down the toilet.

Ridiculous? Yes, for the most part, but for better or worse I did it as a small illustration of how closely our lives and activities are governed by those we vote into office. Let’s face it, the majority of laws are created in order to protect us from the criminal and thoughtlessly harmful acts of others. I’m thankful that I live in a country where citizens and lawmakers care enough to at least try to keep my food sanitary, my water clean and my neighborhood safe. It helps to remind myself when I send those quarterly tax payments….from the bank account that actually has enough money in it.