Saxon Bennett's Blog, page 3

LITTLE MISS FIDGET

The story of little Miss Fidget begins as a young girl with unflattering hair is forced into the educational system. This known fidgeter is moi. I tried to convince my mother that after having tried kindergarten for half a day that I had decided it wasn’t a good fit for me so I wouldn’t be going back. Imagine the shock and awe of this revelation when she told me I had no choice. It was prison or kindergarten. (Just kidding.) The fidgeter was born.

I did my best to keep my fidgeting discreet after I got called out and told to “Sit still or I will dip your toes into a pool of alligators.” (My kindergarten teacher believed in tough love.) By the second grade and all through college I figured out a way to fidget without detection.

The method to this is to sit in the third row from the front next to an innocuous student. They’re not difficult to find  You’ll be virtually invisible because the good students are in front, bad in back. In between—not memorable. Thus, I would fidget—barely perceptive toe tapping, leg crossing, and other yoga like positions, running my hands up and down on the desk tabletop, the smoothness soothing. Over the years I must have come up with 1,001 different ways to fidget unnoticed.

I have recently created another fidget. I rub the fabric of my pants between my thumb and index finger. This repetitive motion is referred to as “self-comforting.” I do it when I’m in the car because of the high rate of automobile accidents. If I’m not driving, I self-comfort.

I was caught in the act by the All Seeing Eye—Layce. “What are you doing? Did you know you do it all the time—like whenever we’re in the car,” Layce said, looking over at me while waiting at the stop light.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, looking down at my right hand, which was frantically stroking my pant leg.

She gave me the “hairy eyeball,” but said nothing, waiting for my confession. I knew she knew. She knew I knew she knew about my fidgeting issue.

“Okay, I admit to being a fidgeter. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed before.”

“I have noticed before and this latest fidget is creepy. You have to stop, now, before it requires therapy.”

She was making me nervous so I rubbed harder. “I need help.”

“Stop, you’ll wear your pants out.”

When we got home, I researched fidgeting. There’s a whole lot of info out there and a whole lot of “people who fidget.” Fortunately, I found the solution on Amazon. It’s a small cube, each side with a different activity for you fingers. Six sides with seven different stress relieving features: click, flick, roll, and spin.

I ordered it and paid extra for two day shipping.

The Fidget Toy

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This thing is awesome for fidgeters. Word of advice: Don’t use it when it’s in your pocket because it will look like you’re playing pocket pool.

So you fidgeters out there take heart. There is hope. Fidget away!

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Imaginary Pets

I woke up this morning, eyes wide. “I forgot all about Rascal.”

“Rascal?” Layce asked, setting down my coffee. We have coffee in bed on the weekends. Then we read the online New York Times because we’re liberal elite snowflakes.

“Yeah, remember the dog in 2nd book of our new True Heart series.”

“Oh, him. I like Rascal. I like that he’s pit bull mix from the shelter. And Parker saves him.”

“I know, me too. I’m on page 47 and I haven’t mentioned him once. Where is he all that time?”

“You need to fix that,” Layce said, sipping her coffee and checking out the New York Times to see what fresh hell the powers-that-be are unleashing on us this morning. “You know, if you didn’t put animals in our books we wouldn’t have to worry about tracking them.”

“It’s just Rascal. One dog. I can fix it.”

“I’m talking about your fixation with putting pets in our books.”

“Like what?” I inhaled the aroma of my coffee. The first cup is always the best.

“Let’s start with our very first book together with Mr. Pip (More than a Kiss), then the hedgehog and Oscar the Weiner dog in (Crazy Little Thing),  the telepathic cat (Kiss and Tell), all the dogs in Jamie Bravo’s Worst in Show. Moving on to the books you wrote solo, the Burmese Mountain dog, (Back Talk), Annie and Jane the mixed breeds (Family Affair Trilogy), the Pipster the amazing catching dog, (Date Night Club) to name a few. I’m sure I’ve missed one or two.”

“Okay, okay, so I have a soft spot for imaginary animals.” I squinted at her. “If I remember correctly you have Asshat in A Perfect Romance who kills squirrels and eats everything except their butt holes.”

“There is that,” Layce said. She went back to reading the paper. “But it’s only one cat, one time.”

I harrumph. “Don’t let me forget about Rascal.”

“I won’t, but maybe next time we could have a pet free book.”

“Sure thing.”

“You say that every time we write a book and every time an imaginary pet shows up.”

“I can’t help it that strays keep showing up at our fictional front porch,” I said.

Mister Beans, our real cat who showed up on our real porch, leapt up on my lap and nearly sent my coffee flying. “And imaginary ones don’t spill your coffee either. No offense, Mister Beans,” I said.

“None taken,” he said, stalking off, his tail in the air.

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Layce and I stared at each other. “Did he just talk?” she said.

“No, I’m pretty sure we just imagined that.”

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Valentine’s Present, Part II

I told Layce that I wanted an English bull dog. (see her blog “I Just Got Played” for full explanation.) I got a cappuccino machine instead . It was my Valentine’s present. She didn’t have a gift idea so she was highly amenable to my plan B—a cappuccino machine.

Operating a cappuccino machine isn’t as easy as Starbucks makes it look.

First, we had technical difficulties with the “filter retention clip.”

“Did you read the manual?” I asked. I always read the instructions on everything, literally. You would not believe the stuff you learn from instructions. In fact, if I ever quit writing novels, I’ll become a technical writer and write instruction manuals.

“No.” She always says that. We make good partners because of our different methodologies when it comes to new kitchen appliances.

We eventually discovered that the filter retention clip was malfunctioning. With gentle twisting and turning, and a little brute force, we managed the get the clip working. Next we searched for cups to fit under the filter nozzles. I hadn’t realized that all our coffee cups were too tall.

“We’ll have to get some of those cute white porcelain cups—the elite liberal kind so we look posh,” I said.

“Yeah. I’ll add that to the stainless steel steamed milk pitcher that I had to order.”

“I’d like to start using fresh beans but we’d need a coffee grinder.”

“I thought we had one?”

“We did but something happened to it,” I said. (Em and I used it to grind up crayons for an art project. Don’t ever do this.) I changed the subject. “I want to learn to put those hearts and trees on top of the coffee.”

“And then you’ll want some of the fancy syrups to add to your frothy drink with the tree or heart shape.”

“I’d forgotten all about the syrups, thanks for reminding me. It’ll help me channel my inner barista. I might need a do-rag and green apron.”

“This is getting very involved,” Layce said.

“I need the appropriate accoutrements if I’m going to become a barista. It’ll be another one of my hobbies. Every afternoon as we read the New York Times and Vanity Fair, I’ll make us this excellent cup of perfectly brewed coffee.” I imagined myself wearing a do-rag and a green apron calling out “Layce, your amazing cappuccino is ready.”

“Your hobbies do keep you out of trouble despite the accoutrements.”

I ignored her facetious tone. “I’m going to research about becoming a barista. I’ll need to buy a couple of books.”

“I had no idea that a cappuccino machine was going to start a new obsession that requires so much stuff.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t get me a dog,” I said.

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TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT

I had just returned from Washington where I’d been visiting family and friends. I sat at the kitchen bar amid stacks of paper, several library books, and my laptop.

Layce eyed me and asked the question that gets asked a lot in our house. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to come up with a grocery list that adheres to all the dietary restrictions I learned about when I was in Washington. Everyone there is on these certain diets. I thought we’d give them a try.”

“Let me guess… you’re doing research?”

“Precisely. See one diet is completely sugar-free. You wouldn’t believe all the stuff that has sugar in it. We’ll need to make our own ketchup, barbeque sauce, mayonnaise…”

Layce interjected, “That sounds like a lot of work.”

“Then we’ll just go sauceless. We can make ice cream that kind of tastes real by using coconut milk because we can’t have regular milk. Or bread, so no toast. And we can’t have peanut butter because that has fat, which we can have, but we can’t have because of the sugar.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Layce said, picking up one of the diet books from the library and flipping it open.

“We can have a lot of potatoes,” I said, doing my best to look delighted. “You like potatoes.”

“I don’t like this diet. What about the other ones?”

“My parents are doing this one where all your meals come prepackaged. They have these enormous boxes of food that come every 28 days. I think they’re working on a six-month supply because they can’t eat all the low-calorie food. You have to eat five meals a day. It sounds time consuming.”

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“It sounds expensive,” Layce said putting one book down and picking up another. She sniffed it. “This one smells like French fries.”

I ignored her. “They are sinking some cash into this and they’re running out of freezer space,” I said. I omitted telling her that there were boxes of food everywhere. It would come in handy in case of a national disaster or an apocalypse.

“What’s the next diet?” Layce asked, picking up my research papers.

“This one is kind of complicated,” I said.

“They all sound complicated,” Layce said, peering over my shoulder at the laptop where I was looking for grams of this and grams of that and what had fat, what was a carb and what time of day you could eat them.

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“Not really. You see, for breakfast you can have fat and one carb, lunch has to be fruit and veggies, carbs but no fat. You can eat all the veggies you want with each meal except maybe breakfast but who wants broccoli with oatmeal.” I studied my papers. “No, wait, we can’t have oatmeal because that’s a grain and I think it’s got sugar in it, but we could have blueberries, those have sugar too, but it’s a different kind like glucose or sucrose. We can have veggies except corn or peas because they are carb. Who knew? Then at dinner we can only have protein like chicken, but no carbs and veggies, but not peas or corn. Then there’s something about gluten, so no pasta for lunch or breakfast.”

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Layce picked up my papers, stacked the library books, and closed my laptop.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she dumped my research into the trash can.

“I’m making the menu with gluten, peas, sugar, barbeque sauce, eggs, bread, pasta and oatmeal, and we’ll eat them in any order we like three times a day.”

“But what about the diet?”

“Have you come up with a menu after all your research?”

“Well no, I can’t figure out what we can and cannot eat.”

“Exactly. On your diet, we’ll starve because we can’t eat anything, and then we’ll die dreaming of pasta and toast with peanut butter on it.”

She had a point. I did what I usually do when she makes sense—I listened to her. (This is not to imply that she usually doesn’t make sense.) *smirk*

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Toasty Mittens

 

It all started with a quilting pattern called “Toasty Mittens,” (Like I need a pair of toasty mittens. I have about five hundred pairs of gloves.)  I had purchased the pattern when I was in Spokane. My mother and my quilting guru took me to this awesome quilt shop. There were all these amazing quilts, baskets, an entire set of dresser drawers—okay, maybe not, but you get the point. I got punch drunk on quilts. So I was out of my head when I bought the Toasty Mittens pattern.  The woman said they wouldn’t be getting any more patterns for the Toasty Mittens because winter was in its final throes. She said I was the lucky one.

I’d put off making them for a year. I mean, who makes Toasty Mittens in July? I found the pattern and the powers of guilt for buying the last pattern shamed me into making the mittens.  So I laid out the pattern and pulled out the instructions.

They read as follows: “PLEASE READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE DIRECTIONS BEFORE STARTING! Ok-we had to say that and we know no one ever reads the directions first—BUT—please at least take a look at them.”

I was offended. I always read the directions and the safety warnings before I begin anything, especially, things that might prove to be hazardous to a person’s health and well being.

I read the directions before I began. But, somehow, that didn’t save me from ending up with mittens about 100 sizes too large. So, I did what I do best… I went rogue. I turned the Toasty Mittens into a pair of Toasty Oven Mitts.

I finished the mittens and gave them to Layce. “Here ya go. I made you a pair of oven mitts.”

“Wow, these are nice,” she said, turning the mitts over. The oven timer went off. “Perfect timing, the chicken casserole is done.”

I beamed proudly as she put on the oven mitts and pulled the casserole dish out of the oven.

Then the mitts caught on fire.

Layce dropped the casserole dish and waved her hands in the air, shouting, “My hands are on fire, my hands are on fire!”

“Put them in the sink,” I yelled, turning on the faucet. Layce held her hands under the cold stream of water until the Toasty Mittens fizzled out. The kitchen reeked of burnt quilt.

Layce stared at me. “Why did that happen? Why did the oven mitts catch fire?”

“I think maybe I was supposed to use another kind of fabric, the kind that retards fire.” That fact had been niggling around in the back of my mind but I had chosen to ignore it.

“So you had me stick my hands in oven mitts that actually promote fire, not retard it,” Layce said.

“In a manner of speaking, but it wasn’t my intention. Who knew one could make self-immolating mittens?”

“Evidently not you,” Layce said. She looked down at the ruined casserole on the floor.

“I’ll clean it up and I’m sorry I almost lit your hands on fire. And I’ll never make mittens again. I promise.”

Layce took pity on me. “They really were quite toasty.”

I looked at the mittens still smoking in the sink. They were toast all right—a soggy burnt testament to my failure. I sighed.

“It was the thought,” Layce said.

Emma came in kitchen, looked at the casserole on the floor and the burnt oven mitts in the sink. Unfazed, she said, “I take it we’re going out for dinner?”

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OUT THE IN DOOR

We were at the checkout counter at the store. I put my card into the chip reader. It made funny beeping noises. On a side note, I have difficulties with anything with a microchip processor thingies. Debit machines do not like me and I do not like them.

“You’ll need to reinsert it. It’ll ask you a bunch of weird questions and then tell you to pull it out,” the cashier said. She smiled sweetly.

I waited for the questions to come up on the debit screen. Layce took matters into her own hands. She leaned over the machine and pretended to read the weird question: “What’s the capital of Turkey?”

“Ankara, not Istanbul as most of us would think. It’s like why isn’t New York City the capital? It seems the most logical choice,” I said.

The cashier stared.

“Who were the original Charlie’s angels?” Layce pretended to read again.

“Jacqueline Smith, Farrah Fawcett and Kate…” I said. “Wait it’ll come to me.”

The machine binged. “You can take your card out,” the cashier said. What she didn’t say  was “and please leave.” I could sense it, though. She handed me the receipt.

We headed to the door. I turned to Layce. “Do you have the bag?” I couldn’t remember picking it up.

She held it up to indicate she did. The cashier glanced over at us but didn’t say anything. Then I tried to get out the “In” door with Layce following right behind me. We both stopped abruptly as the door wouldn’t open. “It’s the wrong door,” I said.

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“Apparently,” Layce said. We backed up and went out the “Other” door.

“I think we need to get out of the house more often,” Layce said walking out to the parking lot.

“Is that wise?”

“Perhaps, not.”

We stood in the middle of the parking lot and looked around.

“Do you know where we parked the car?” Layce asked.

I had no idea.

We walked around the entire lot before finally finding our car. We got in and buckled up. We were halfway home when I suddenly blurted, “Jackson! Her name was Kate Jackson.”

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THE PROBLEM WITH PLUMBING

Today was the day I was going to fix the drain upstairs. I was sick of it. Before you get thinking that I’m plumber, relax. I’m not. It was just a slow drain and I was going to treat it harshly with natural chemicals. I’m eco-friendly. I got online and typed in “how to unclog a drain naturally.” I could’ve gotten sucked into the zillions of sites and Youtube videos for hours, but I didn’t. Instead, I chose the easiest one I could do with the materials I had on hand.

Baking soda and vinegar. I got the supplies together. I had the gallon of vinegar in one hand when Layce stopped me. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m fixing the drain upstairs. I’m sick of looking at my toothpaste residue swirl around in the basin. It’s repulsive.”

“Great. I like when you take household matters into your own hands.” (Those would be famous last words.)

I’d skimmed the article and did not (perhaps) make complete notes. I didn’t want to go look it up again so I winged it. The gist of it was hot water, baking soda, and vinegar. So I shook some baking soda down the drain and turned on the hot water, then poured in the vinegar.

Now, in my defense there was an evident oversight in my youthful education in the chemistry department. Apparently, when you combine certain above mentioned ingredients they are explosive. Of course, it’s the quantity that determines the size of the explosion. Due to my cavalier attitude concerning the use of the correct and precise directions I had no idea how much I’d put in—a bit like the pinch of that and dash of this kind of thing.

I watched as it gurgled then poofed out white foamy stuff  “Ha, it’s working, and working. And it’s still working,” I said, as the foamy stuff fell over the edge of the sink onto the floor.

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“Layce??!!” I called downstairs.

“What?”

“Do you remember why I came up here?”

“To fix the drain.”

“It’s not fixed. It’s more broken.”

“How broken?” she said. I could hear her getting up out of her chair.

“Like we might need the shop wet vac.”

She ran up the stairs. She looked into the bathroom—at the sink—at the floor. “What did you do?” She narrowed her eyes, “Exactly?”

“Hot water, vinegar, and baking soda in unknown quantities.”

“You know that’s how you make a bomb, right?”

“No, I did not,” I said, as more foamy stuff came out of the drain onto floor. We were both standing in white foamy liquid.

“You can blow the pipes out if you put enough of that stuff in it,” she said, pointing at the gallon of vinegar sitting next to the oversized box of baking soda.

“Well, at least I didn’t do that,” I said, throwing bath towels down to sop up the water.

And then there was a pop and water rushed out the bottom of the pipe. I stared at it. “Well, at least the drain isn’t clogged anymore,” I said.

I have henceforth learned (online) that the pipe was most likely in need of repair as it was suffering the effects of old age. That the “bomb” was not in any way responsible for the burst pipe.

I cannot emphasis enough the importance of following directions.

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THE PROBLEM WITH BLACK

“What are you doing?” Layce asked me. She asks that question a lot but that’s a whole other thing. She was referring to all my black clothes laid out across the room and on the bed. I have a lot of clothes. I don’t know how to wear them but I have them but that’s a whole other thing.

“I’m trying to sort out my blacks.”

“What’s to sort out? It’s all black,” she said pointing at the clothes.

“They’re not actually.” I picked up a pair of black jeans and a black long sleeve shirt with zombies on it. “See the jeans are one kind of black and the shirt is another. Each one has its own hue.”

I put the jeans down and picked up my new black tactical pants (the ones that have all the weird pockets) and put them up to the zombie shirt. “Ah ha, see the same hue. This is a match.” I folded them up and placed them together alongside the other perfect match I’d found.

“Why are you wearing only black now?”

“I’m mourning the loss of our country. She is dying before our eyes. I got the idea from Johnny Cash. You know he sings, ‘I wear black for the poor and beaten down living in the hopeless hungry part of town, i.e. America. I wear black for the sick, old and lonely i.e. people without Medicare or Social security… ”

“Stop, I get it.”

“I could sing the whole song for you.”

“That’s okay.  Maybe some other time. So you’re going to do this for four years?”

“No, I’m going to do this until he gets himself impeached or he blows up the planet. Either way I won’t need to wear black anymore.”

“I think I’ll wear my Hillary 2016 shirt until then.”

“That’d be awesome,” I said.

Layce rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to send Emma up to help? She has a good eye for color.”

“It’s all black.”

“Exactly.”

My new life in black. That’s Quentin. He’s a very learned bear.

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WHO ME, WORRIED?

Hell, yes I’m worried. In the days before the Orange Man, I used to worry about little things. At the time I considered my worries worth worrying about.  I used to worry about not worrying—like if I didn’t pay attention to my cares and anxieties they would grow like sea monkeys and surround me. Now, I can’t even remember what I had to worry about.

The other day I got my worry box out to see what it was I worried about. What were my fears in the pre-DT era? I can tell you they were absurdly small things. I won’t bore you with my paltry scraps of paper stuffed in that box. I wrote them down and put them in the box because it made me feel better—like I’d passed my worries on. I put my trust in the infinite wisdom of the Universe. I knew that things would sort themselves out. I could relax.

Right now, I need a box the size of a refrigerator for all my concerns. I’m considering clearing out the coat closet and turning it into the worry box. I’ll write my worries on scraps of paper, open the door, and throw them into the deep recesses of the closet. Then I got to thinking about the closet. Is that where I’m going to have to live for the next four years, hiding behind my anxieties and waiting, endlessly waiting, for that knock on the door and the storm troopers to take me away?

There are so many things, big things, to worry about that I can’t sleep. Every dystopian scenario from books and movies run through my head. I try to come up with contingency plans but can’t. I have never in my life felt so overwhelmed that I couldn’t come up with a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. I am a planner. I used to think that I could handle any emergency with reasonable calmness, to look at it with a clarity that allowed me to function well in a crisis. I don’t have a plan for a post-dystopian DT world.

I don’t even know where to begin. I have a passport and a Rand McNally road atlas. Will I be able to stay in my homeland? Will I know when to cut my losses and run? Where in the world can I go? Where is the port in the storm? What about my elderly parents will they be safe or will they get scooped up too because they are guilty by association. If we all run how will they get their medications? What do we do about our houses, our children’s education, our bank accounts?

In the comfort of pre-DT, we couldn’t see why people didn’t run away from the brutality of dictators. Why didn’t they just leave everything behind and get the hell out while the getting was good? Because most of them couldn’t.  I like to think I’ll be able to run when the times comes, but will I? Will I wait it out and hope that reasonable, kind, people will keep us safe, will not allow us to be interned into harsh camps where we’ll get the gayness beat out of us, starved, sick, our humanity dropping away because it’s about survival of the fittest now. Will we have the fortitude to hang on and pray that one day the madness will end and we’ll be set free?

The only answer I have is—I don’t know. So I let my worry consume me and I wait for a day that may never come again. A day when I sleep without nightmares and I don’t worry when I wake.

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ONE-TWO-THREE

The recount is more about us as Americans than getting Hillary in the White House. Believe me I can envision her saying something like “Wow, this has been one wild ride,” okay maybe without the “Wow,” part but you get the picture. In fact, I’m recommending us all sending out positive vibes, prayers, manifestations, meditations, anything you believe in to make this happen. I know, I know, it’s a long shot but so was the “Big Surprise,” we all sadly witnessed as the election results came in.

What this recount means is that we, as Americans, are not putting up with rigged elections. Now, whether it was or not, it still means that we value our elections, that we won’t take unfairness, trickery, hacking, malware, and outside influences messing with our democracy.

With recounts we are saying to ourselves and the world that we believe that our democracy is working. By doing the recount we are trying to bring integrity back into our elections–something that authoritarian regimes do not have. We are saying that we are not going down like a beaten dog. We’re going to bite back.

The protests, Jill Stein, bless her heart, (I take back all the bad things I said about her), and all of us that did what we are so often known for–we put our money where our mouth goes. Jill Stein became our mouthpiece. All of us that contributed to this cause showed the world that in a matter of days we raised millions to insure the legitimacy of this election.

Now, I know that people are calling us sore losers. We know that Trump said the elections were rigged, not in his favor, unless he won the election. Huh, how does that work? Most of the Trump camp is keeping quiet. I fully expected to wake up this morning to find Trump tweeting at 3 a.m. that this recount is VERY UNFAIR. He won a TREMENDOUS victory, the electoral college is a DISASTER unless he wins because of it.

The powers that be keep trying to squash this recount thing down, the long shot, the likely outcome that HRC will not be president, that it would certainly be a “surprise” if it did  happen. And what about those angry Trump people the one we thought would rise up with their pitch forks and rifles? It might be a civil war excepting that a lot of the Rust Belt are not rifle-toting haters. They are Americans who believe that scamming people is wrong.

Trump has already tipped his hand by breaking most of his promises before he has been sworn it. He’s scared moderate Trumpers with his frightening cabinet choices. Will these be the people to rise up—doubtful.  This might be a way to save face. The guy cheated and cheaters should not prosper. But if that means that we get a fair election, we’ll just have to take the chance. Our people protested without guns and look what it got us—a recount.

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