More Spoor (A Stalling Tactic)

I have been a bad bad girl and have been off on a "flit" spreading the porky viral load to South Florida and back.  Fresh stories are a brewin' but until I can spit them out, here're some of the scent markings comments I made on other people's blogs.  Hey! No frowns there! Just sit back and relax!  Enjoy the azure blue sky.

(Oh! And CAUTION if you don't like bad words and feel as though you must "correct" me, stop now!  I use them.  My friends use them.  And, incidentally, so do you!  Glass houses and pots calling kettles etc.  So bite me!) 

~  The principal could've amped his street cred exponentially if he had simply called the girl's phone to see from where the ringtone emerged. And, if she could've actually sent texts on her phone from the wedgie-place, THAT would've impressed me too. And finally, I will never borrow someone's cell phone again!

~  It's when the bag of cat shit ends up in the freezer and is mistaken at holiday time for Aunt Polly's pecan log cookies, THAT'S when the chickens come home to roost.

~  Process. I write to give voice to things I would've said to people had they been listening, or even acting like they were listening. That way, if they are interested, they can get back to what I was saying at their leisure. Of course I will have already moved on by then.

~  You got to tell that inner dialogue of yours to lighten up! When my mobius loop of self- loathing fires up, I wrestle it down into a full nelson headlock and kick its frickin' ass. If you get tired, I am sure Sweets will tag in and gladly dole out the harsh on your behalf as well. With every subsequent beat down, that little whispering hissing asshole negativity demon is learning that it is unpleasant getting jacked up by me and is limping off to do something related but less hazardous. Like sell used cars. Or politics. (Hope I made you laugh!)

~  (This one came back to me)  Linnnn: Christ on a biscuit, no wonder Willy Wonka left the Oompa-Loompa birthing room out of the tour. Can you imagine the fucking mayhem those little brats would have wreaked in there? That fat German kid probably would have eaten all that shit too, even though the taco meat probably smelled like rotting bird diarrhea, and then the Oompa-Loompas would have inflicted massive loompadeath on that obese fuck.

~  Oh did I tell you about the kid who barfed on his phone as he was walking right next to me? I screamed and ran.

~  ...the kindness of strangers. She probably was the Queen of the Underworld and with one simple hand gesture kept the goblins and gremlins and Tupperware Ladies from descending on your ass in the dark of the night. Must've been the pink dress. And she didn't make you guess her name in some fell game of cat and mouse. Damn, you were lucky!

~ Born in the wings of a theatre, (kinda, my Mom was an actor), I learned never to throw a hat on the bed, whistle backstage or utter the name of Shakespeare's "M" play before a performance of any kind. Those little nuggets of "magical thinking" (I like that description by the way, very fairies and unicorns) became my OCD touchstones even when not anywhere near the theatre.

~  The Boy Cousins wanted to marry me at first. I am told I was ok with that until after lunch they lured me out on a sandbar in the middle of a river in Missouri in my new red cowgirl boots. I sunk up to my waist in the sand/mud as the boy cousins ran gleefully away. At dusk my Uncle Bob found and liberated me, leaving my red boots behind in the vacuum grip of the mud. And I had peed my pants at least twice during the hours that went by. Life metaphors a'poppin'!

~  From my experience with Soccer Leagues, the BigWig tends to be a paralegal in real life!

~  Taking a wrecking ball to the hell-spawn igneous monolith of a 4 year long perniciously evil writer’s block was the first reason. And, attached like a sucking lamprey to that, the need to drive a stake through the heart of the parasitic oppression (read Douchebag) who once called my writing fluffy, frivolous and not significant. Second: To supplant the Dreaded Annual Holiday Letter which never manifested until Groundhog Day after several rounds of excruciating self-inflicted guilt. Well, the gaining of jiggling holiday poundage was in there too. “It” (my blog) is more than what I expected, however. It seems to be saving my heretofore sucker-punched, lost and wandering soul. And even though AdSense banned me for innocently checking out every one of the ads with which they initially festooned my blog like some vomitous pinata,(no clickeee no clickeee) I am not writing for money (yet), I am writing for love.

~  Flowers! Full tank! Cupcakes! All the while juggling his very own ass that was handed to him! Tim is strangely angelic. And nimble with that ass juggling.

~  I have seen the pig and he are us. Hi! High on Tamaflu I am making no sense but actually did, in fact, receive the Swine Flu diagnosis. And, yes, Jessica you will shit yourself if you have it…it’s part of the package. In fact, I was driving by Atlanta thinking “this is where Jessica lives” while puking in a McDonalds bag at 70 mph. Stay home. Assume horizontal.

~  (Sound FX: Tires screeching, the “crump” of metal on metal, horn stuck on beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.)

~  Your pups are the spittin' images of my first two dogs - Cody and Bill. They actively babysat my kids leading many to say that they were raised by wolves. So be it. I know of no better foster parents than those dogs. Kept the babies nice and clean and always afforded a soft landing when toddling. I am usually a tremendous smart ass when commenting, but I want to thank you for sharing your sweet buddies so I could properly remember my two devoted companions who lived to ripe old ages, passed on and come to me now in my dreams, smiling.

~  Since, in a diabolically patient post WWII revenge plot, my 12 yr old Japanese rice-burner tried to kill me by refusing to disengage cruise control at 70 miles an hour, and I had to stand on the brakes before it plowed into the front window of the Quickee Mart in Port Charlotte Florida potentially killing several stinking homeless men and a collection of Mexican migrant workers,I, like you, broke and desperate needed a new "reliable" non-homicidal vehicle. So Ursula, the PT Cruiser, came into my life - only 2000 miles on her and she was cheap. I could tell it was messing with her self-esteem when I first glimpsed her slumping like some emo teen in the lot. All because she hit a bear while being driven by the car dealer's buddy. Had to have that car. So I have a new-ish cheap car with something most people would find repulsive - bear fur permanently inbedded in secret places. I am so fucking weird I find that fascinating! In short, like I am capable of that: The dealers have secrets to ferret out, and one of those shady bear-killing bastards may have a new "reliable" vehicle for you with maybe just one small skeleton in its closet.


~  "Oh nowhere. Just out to get cereal and play darts." Cereal turns out to be the lure I will employ to coax my freakishly recalcitrant spawn into the local CVS to receive the shot(s). I have the shot-giver, an old gal who is slow and gives those place-the-tip-of-needle-on-epidermis-and-push-in-slowly shots, training to increase her speed so I have at least a chance of subduing the one while the other gets darted. Otherwise all bets are off.

Pearl Earring

The Courtyard by Marriott in Tifton, Georgia. I needed sleep. Don’t even remember dropping my bags, but I do remember one thing. I looked out the window. At a cemetery. Right there butted up against the hotel.

 Ah, the quiet. Yes.

Swine flu had evicted me from my elderly and virally susceptible parent’s home, and turned me out shivering and woozy onto the freeways of three states. Ursula, my Chrysler PT Cruiser, performed beautifully. She and I battled a constant drizzle, everlasting road construction, mother truckers and a razor blade volcanic-gates-of-hell canker sore painful Eustachian tube throat. I spiked and broke fevers in as many hours as we drove, soaking my clothes and car seat. The exhaustion pump was primed and the common sense of all my loved ones whispering in my ear compelled me to pull in and hunker down. So the Courtyard it was. How did I check in? Doesn’t matter. I locked the door twice and fell face first fully clothed into the cloud deck of five pillows and floated through “sleep’s dark and silent gate.”

The rest was a dream.

Eyes open. Standing at the sliding door in my underwear looking out at the dusky cemetery. Pine trees shed needles down on grey gravestones and a stocky boxy mausoleum. Purple clouds shrouded the bruised and bleeding sunset. A lady who looks like my Aunt, carried a rake and walked the long aisles between the graves. She looked up at me. I ducked away.

Eyes open. Pitch blackness, I stand holding the curtain aside. I look out over the cemetery. No detail. Nothing. Like someone held up black velvet over my eyes. Green lights streak through the blackness. No sound.

Eyes open: Something’s covering my face. Homespun. I recognize the weave, it is so close to my eyes, and backlit by candlelight. I hear a voice. She’s arguing with a man. “She has nothing to pay!” “Oh yes she does,” said he and I felt the cover jerked from my face; my earring snatched out of my earlobe; and the sting. “This’ll do just fine,” said he. “Leave the other,” said she, “She deserves somethin’ purty for when she rises up again on the last day. 'Sides, might be bad luck if'n you take th'other'n” The homespun shroud was tossed back over my face. I feel soft hands smooth out the cloth over my face.  The candlelight yields to blackness. I can’t move. Said she, “Let’s call her Pearl, since no one’s a claimin’ her.” Says he, sniffing and spitting, “Makes sense. That’s all she’s got to her name.”

Eyes open: Cool air slaps my face. I stand on the balcony overlooking the cemetery. My nightgown seems inadequate against the drizzle, the coolness. People stroll among the gravesites, long dresses, hats, parasols, men in black tails. A horse-drawn carriage draped in black clip-clops and stops. The carriage decants a pine box, plain and anonymous that is manhandled by the workman somewhat hastily into a yawning red clay hole. A preacher preaches. Dirt reigns down on the top of the box. The people fade away among the pines as the workman employs his shovel. He looks up. I duck away.

Eyes open: The alarm was bleating, the radio weather report was blaring, and television was telling me that 24 soldiers have perished in Afghanistan. My throat, my eyes, my legs all tried to unknot. Why still exhausted after 10 hours of sleep? Swine flu sure kicks ass. The CDC wasn’t kidding. I stumbled to the sink and I eventually got my act together for a whole new day of driving ever closer to home.


Checking out, the desk lady frowned and looked at me with concern in her eyes. I looked sick, grey and pasty, and I knew it. I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be ok. Not far from here until home.”

She said, “Oh, I am sure you’ll be just fine but did you know you’re missing an earring?”

Swine Before Pearls

I like entertaining the odd conspiracy theory now and again.  It is fun to debate the peculiar circumstances surrounding the JFK assassination, UFO sightings, and the existence of Sasquatch. My current curiosity revolves around this:  How in the hell did a Mexican pig get infected with a chicken virus, mix it up with a few other human flu viral strains, add a mutation or three designed to evade vaccine, and then deliver it to a human child at ground zero? 

I want to know who french-kissed that pig.

Or is it some kind of subtle grass roots mad-scientist style warfare introduced by those homicidal fanatic hater peckerheads who don't like us very much and want to weaken us where it counts?  The best and brightest generation, the kids we are depending upon to inherit this United States for us when we are aged, confused and ineffective, our adolescents and teens, are catching the worst of it. Some are dying. Obama just today declared this virus a National Emergency. Vaccine availabilities are lagging pitifully, some fear the danger that may be lurking in half-developed and possibly mercury contaminated vaccines and won't even get them when they are ready, ER's are bulging with misery.  I can hear the haters now, "Screw bringing down Wall Street, this virus is the bomb!"

The Emergency Room at Transylvania Hospital in Brevard, North Carolina didn't seem too crowded.  In fact it was kind of nifty since the windows facing out framed the heli-pad and we were treated to an exciting view of their emergency rescue 'copter humming-birding in and out.  In the waiting room with us were just a couple of people looking forlorn and uncomfortable wearing surgical masks.  I was one of them.  Seems the puking in my car was the big DING! that should've alerted me that something was indeed awry.  And in my usual state of blissful denial, I ignored the sore throat, cough, nausea and bone-snapping aches allowing that lotus-eater bliss that comes from regularly eating Aleve. (Angels sing!) When that stuff kicks in, the baseball bats raining down on my long bones and skull cease for at least 8 blessed hours.  Normal, un-cranky and even personable are descriptors for me at these times.

Truth be told, my kids were sniffly and complaining when I embarked on  my annual pilgimage to the cool serenity of the autumnal, on-fire-with-unbelieveable-color Appalachians.  My kids are always sniffly with something.  It's part and parcel of attending that giant infested petri dish we call High School.  But this was more.  After both their throats closed up in a red inflamed clench, and the fevers began their attack, they were Clinic-bound with their father.  After each receiving a swab up the nose, ("Mom I think they touched my brain!") and swabs in the throat ("Mom, I thought I was going to hurl all over the guy!"), tah-dah!  The cards they swiped with the kids' boogers revealed Swine Flu, or for the more scientifically inclined, H1N1. 

I like hi-nee.  Works for me.  Like something unwelcome up the wazoo!

"Mom, I have the Swine Flu!"

"No. You've got to be exaggerating. Can't be, my little drama queen exciteable one.  Princessa della Luna, put your Eagle Scout brother on..."

"Mom, it is H1N1 Swine Flu. I have it too. You better get checked."

"Ohhhhhhh... (Expletive deleted just this once. It was saltier than usual.)"

That's how my mother and I landed in the ER. 

And, yes, I have apparently french-kissed the pig.