Okay, not really the big bucks, but some bucks.
I have two stories in today’s Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper:
1. Connect with your pet: local animal communicator works with creature comfort in mind; and,
2. Braids with a neat African twist.
Enjoy!
Big surprise, eh?
| Your Inner Child Is Naughty |
 Like a child, you tend to discount social rules. It’s just too much fun to break the rules! You love trouble - and it seems that trouble loves you. And no matter what, you refuse to grow up! |
My seven-year-old daughter is obsessed with rodents. In particular, with hamsters. A few days ago, she made a list of every type of rodent she could think of. This morning she wrote and illustrated the cover of her next book: “All About Rodents,” featuring an adorable line drawing of a hamsterish-looking mouse.
During the past six months, we’ve gone through the frog obsession, the tiger obsession, and now, the rodentiae obsession. Luckily for us, tigers are not typically pets. If you want to read about the frog fiasco, you can here.
The girl came home from the school library this week with a book called “My First Hamster.” I quickly turned to the predator page, which warns that dogs and cats are natural predators of the furry little rodents. Given that we own two cats, and that another four or five ‘hood kitties think they live here, I doubt a hamster is safe in the pnav (I haven’t seen the wild cat around much, but given that he did rip the molding off the bottom of the front door one night when as I accidently locked him inside, I imagine he’d be to a hamster cage what Godzilla is to Tokyo).
The rodentiae craze stems from the Calico Critters collection. If you don’t know about Calico Critters, you probably do not have a child between the ages of five and ten. Calico Critters are these little animal families that you can dress up (or in our house, dress down). They come with doll house type accessories and rather pricy dollhouse options. Lots of kids I know adore them.
My kids particularly like the twin baby sets, which they call the “super babies.” We own the hamster, mouse, kitten, bear, bunny, and puppy twin sets. We’ve probably lost a set of each and had to buy replacements at least once. But my kids love them and will play with them for hours.
I think I’ve persuaded the girl that fake baby hamsters, even with the lost potential, are a safer, saner bet than the real thing. Can you imagine the trauma if one of the cats ripped the pet rodent to shreds in my girl’s bedroom? I still haven’t recovered from the baby bunny the cats brought in and left 1/2 dead at the top of the stairs. There was blood in every corner of the house. I’d walked in on a massacre.
The most interesting thing that I know about rodents is that their incisors are like fingernails–always growing. If rodents don’t gnaw their incisors down, the poor critters will start looking like saber-tooth tigers, and eventually, die. Poor babies.
P.S. Forgot to mention that my girl has started a fantasy baseball team starring the “super babies” that she calls the Cleveland Rodents. Which, thinking about it, seems the more appropriate moniker.
I was writing a post last night, but it was eaten by Blogger. Then I had to go to our monthly hood chicks night and drink Cosmopolitans.
I’m feeling a bit of blog apathy. And you, my sweet commenters, seem to be feeling apathetic as well. What’s up? Spring fever? Is everyone on spring break? Or just taking a break from their ‘puters and the multitudinous blogosphere?
One of the few comments I’ve received this week was an anonymous hate comment (not from my dear A., who doesn’t do nasty). I erased it, but I was entertained by the fact that the rude one was dissing my writing, while neglecting to use commas properly. I’m supposed to take that seriously?
Anyway, I got to thinking about random haters, and I decided the commenter must be someone I’ve actually wronged. Which got me thinking about ex-boyfriends.
Recently, I met a woman who told me a great story. She’d been engaged to a man thirty years ago, but they’d broken up before the marriage. They’d gone their separate ways, ultimately married others, and lived full lives. Then, one day, she’d read this book called The The Five Men Who Broke My Heart. The book got her thinking about her former fiance, and she Googled him, then e-mailed him. Both were now divorced, and they revisited, slowly, their former love. Now the two are re-engaged.
Sweet story, isn’t it? Isn’t there always someone from your past who you can imagine ending up with again, given the chance?
So this story got me thinking that if I were to write a similar book, it would be titled Men Whose Hearts I Broke. Which, I think, is more interesting than Men Who Broke My Heart. Plus, there are more men whose hearts I’ve broken. Though I could just be blocking.
There’d be the guy I left behind when I went to college; the guy I left behind when I went to graduate school; the guy I left behind when I moved to London; the guy I left behind when I left London; the guy I left behind in Thailand (okay, okay, I can see the pattern, too). There are a few others whom I’d like to track down. The begging question, of course, is could I imagine ending up with any of these guys again if circumstances and destiny aligned?
I’ll have to think about that.
The recent news from the next county over has got me thinking about, well, sex fetishes.
In case you weren’t paying attention, Master Rick, over in Waynesville, NC, was arrested for performing castrations in his dungeon basement. In other words, practicing medicine without a license. His “slaves” were also arrested for assisting with the operations.
I couldn’t find a fetish that covered castration. Let’s make one up and call it castrophilia, perhaps. Regardless of the name, castrophilia is not a cute sex fetish, particularly as it’s both illegal and potentially harmful (even those though the men did choose to submit to the knife).
So what’s a cute sex fetish? Gymnophilia, for one.
Gymnophilia means you’re turned on by nudity. This is a fetish? I mean, who isn’t turned on by nudity? Didn’t we all spend hours as children surreptiously admiring the saggy native boobs in National Geographic? Didn’t we all know whose Dad had Playboy magazines hidden under his bed? I mean, why are we all so fascinated with Michaelangelo’s David? The big hands, right?
SSure, occasionally being or admiring someone who is only partially nekkid is a turn-on. But as far as I’m concerned, the Full Monty is what it’s all about.
So is anyone not a gymnophiliac? I think we’re all gymnophiliacs together. Now isn’t that cute?
The Yellow Brick Road
I was having major ruby slipper envy this morning when I was packing up myself and my family for the four-hour drive from Atlanta to Asheville. Luckily, the ride was smooth and the day was beautiful. Only two pee breaks.
I seem to have blocked out that traveling with my kids until about a year ago was unmitigated hell. One of them would cry or scream or fight the carseat restraints until the other took over–though often it was simultaneous. Food and candy would be flung around the car, its calming influence mitigated by the accompanying upsurge in blood sugar.
Traveling while potty training was especially pleasant. Every fifteen minutes, I’d ask if anyone needed to use the potty. No. No. No. Yes, Mom, right now. I can’t hold it. SCREECH. We’d pull over to the side of the highway and let the kid pee in the grass–in front of God and everyone unfortunate enough to be driving down the highway.
The Wicked Witch of the West
Then they’d beg for juice. No, I’d say, it’ll make you pee again. But I’m thristy! I’d always give in to the ensuing screams. Which the kids knew already.
Even earlier were the nursing days. Neither of my kids would take a bottle. I weaned both straight to sippy cups. Which had its advantages, although car trips were not one of them. I’ve nursed in gas stations, in parking lots, behind motels, and on one memorable occasion, in front of several prisoners picking up trash off the side of the highway. Well, those guys probably needed a thrill.
While I’m confessing, I might as well admit to actually opening my nursing bra, leaning over my crying baby’s carseat, and pushing my nipple into her/his mouth while the car was in motion (no, I was not driving). Not particularly comfortable, particularly given my smallish breast size, and the fact that I had to hang my body in mid-air in a moving vehicle, but worth it to quell the querulous kid.
The Emerald City
The highlight of our weekend in Atlanta was going out to dinner (kid-free) with my sister and her husband. We went to the new Rosa Mexicano, a gourmet Mexi restaurant that comes to Atlanta via NYC. Can I just say that their guacamole is intergallactic fantastic in a volcanic bowl? That I’d rather eat the verdant green mixture with fresh corn tortillas than almost anything else on earth? That the frozen pomegranate margaritas were the PERFECT accompainment? That when I slipped on the stairs going to the underground parking deck and wrenched my foot it was the fault of my new metallic wedge sandals, not the margaritas?
This is my photo of the water wall that divides the bar from the restaurant proper. So cool. Rosa Mexicano is in Atlantic Station, the new, ultra-hip, high-urban-density, sustainable development near mid-town. On a warm spring evening, there were tons of folks–families, couples, groups of friends–out and about. Finally, Atlanta is thinking about infrastructure. It’s about time.
Home Sweet Home
Ahhhhhhhhh….love Asheville. Love the mountains. Love the pnav.
P.S. If you’d like to read some of the writing I’ve been doing for pay, go here to read my profile of a cool new Asheville coffeehouse.
Forgive me not
A soft tapping at my front door . . . I am alone. I know before I open it who is standing there. My shotgun is loaded and ready to fire. I feel calm.
He steps into my carpeted foyer, stops beneath the hand-carved chestnut archway, crafted right before the blight destroyed those lovely trees. Each detail of the entranceway is seared into my mind. Except for him.
The room is silent as we stare at each other–his eyes filled with remorse, mine with cold vengeance. Ashes, the gray housecat,leaps up to catch a fly on the wall. The munching of his prey breaks the silence.
He removes his cap and lowers his head.
“Maam, won’t you please forgive me this time? I can’t go on living without it.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t.” My voice is flat, emotionless.
He slumps to the floor, as I recoil from the impact of the weapon.
I awake in a sweat. Calmness replaced by rage. It tears through my body like a thing alive. The dream is always the same.
This drunk–this loser– took my sweet Noelle’s life, severing her spinal cord with his pickup truck. The impact sent her flying 20 feet into the air, smashing facedown on a country lane. The stain of her blood never washes away.
It was a brilliant August afternoon. Noelle, fourteen-years-old had just fallen in love for the first time–puppy love. She was radiant. Fate screwed up; placing her on the roadside as a drunk driver swerved into her–leaving this woman-child with her life before her, semicomatose for the ten longest days of my life. I would not disconnect her, nor watch her exist in a prison of hopelessness. With heavy heart, I summoned the courage to tell her it was okay to go toward the light.
The drunkard will come again and knock upon my door. I would prefer to break his neck,letting him suffer her loss, nothing left but eyes not quite seeing, distant, a mirror to a perfect, sound mind. Shooting him is too easy, too merciful, and one he might prefer.
Awake, I forgive him, for there is no room in my heart for hatred or anger–grief and sorrow saturate my soul.
His teenage years were troubled, I hear. A stretch in Vietnam pushed him into a life of alcohol and drugs. I contemplate the irony. My husband, brothers, sons and relatives were all spared from serving in Vietnam. Yet this senseless ”police action” takes the life of my daughter twenty years later. A stranger, so affected by that conflict, destroys my daughter and himself as well.
Yes, I forgive him, except in my dreams and as long as I never see his face in the light of day. This killer comes again and again, knocking at my door. I shoot him again and again, until one night in my dreams, anger gives way to true forgiveness, setting us both free.
I’m in hot Lanta for the weekend, visiting family and getting some baby time. My younger sister brought her twin girls, ten months old, to town. My youngest sister, who lives here, had her third child a week ago today.
Damn, being around all these babies makes my kids seem downright mature. Incredible though it may sound.
And no, I’m not having baby lust. Okay, maybe a pinch when I hold the little bundle and sniff his milky head. But just a tiny, minute pinch of lust.
I don’t miss stinky diapers or sleep deprivation or postpartum hormonal surges. My poor sister said she sobbed for an hour after a singer she liked was booted from “American Idol” the other night. No, that I don’t miss at all.
Because I’m feeling uninspired, I’m going to keep this short, and just send you over to Ashvegas for some entertainment. He’s continuing the Neuticle updates, based on the never-ending fascination of our local television news for the ridiculous and sensational. Welcome to our warped little corner of the mountains, y’all.
