C.A. Haddad's Blog, page 8

Calling Public Works!

Doctor Foster
Went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain
He stepped in a puddle
Right up to his middle
And never went there again

Roads, taken and not taken.  Roads, a potent subject of poetry.  “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost.  “Song of the Open Road,” Walt Whitman.  “White in the moon the long road lies,” A. E. Houseman.  “The Roads Also,” Wilfred Owen, one of my favorite poets.

A short diversion here.  I was in London once with a group of people; and this blowhard was going on and on about the Imperial War Museum, describing its World War I rooms in excruciating detail.  Not being the most patient or tolerant person in the world, I broke in and said,  “A visit to Wilfred Owen’s memorial in Shrewsbury says all there is to say about World War I.”  That stopped him dead because he had no idea who Wilfred Owen was.  I can only hope that the other people in the room, including his wife, were happy for my intervention.

But back to roads and the deterioration thereof.  Even though we did not have a harsh winter, with spring come the potholes.  At least in the Chicago area.  Lake Shore Drive, anyone?  And I don’t mean the song.  How many innocent, unsuspecting drivers have lost a tire rim to one of the potholes along Lake Shore Drive?  No, don’t bother raising your hands.  I know you are multitudes.

Why do new roads crumble almost as soon as they’re paved or even repaved?  Why do public works trucks go along broken roads and throw a little bit of tar and gravel in the holes and expect this to last?

Cars have an advantage, in that for the most part we can rev ourselves out of the massive holes that have formed on the roads, on the driveways into such establishments as grocery stores and libraries.  I speak very personally here.  I will admit to being a driver of cars for the most part. Thank the good lord my eyesight is still good enough to judge the depths of the oncoming pothole and swerve to avoid.

I do not ride a bicycle—anymore.  I gave it up over fear of being run down by a car, although in our area it’s cars that must be afraid of bikes.  Bikers go in feral packs, dressed in their fancy outfits.  And may I say I think many of these bikers only took up the sport so they could buy the biking gear to look sportif.  Bikers, or cyclists, if you will, hog the roads, paying no attention to traffic or to traffic rules.  Still, despite my extreme  annoyance at having to pass the feral packs, my heart goes out to those who stay to the side of the road, the crumbling road, where they must deal with uneven payments, unexpected holes, and loose gravel.  (On the other hand, have you noticed that even when there are smooth bike paths, cyclists prefer to be on the roads.  Just to annoy us?)

And consider the road walkers because, let’s face it, not every area has sidewalks.  In fact, sidewalks are a luxury, even when they are uneven and easily trippable.  I myself am a road walker.  I like to stay along the side, even though I admire the fact that most drivers are very respectful of walkers.  Still, I take a hiking pole with me because the sides of the roads are treacherous.  One false step and down you go, off to the hospital with a torn ligament or a broken hip.

Is there a solution?  Actually, not.  Sad to say, we are now addicted to roads; and roads will always deteriorate.  How nice sometimes to just disappear into the woods and use the deer paths of old.  And yet, we’re not deer, are we?

Novels That May Never Be Completed: Series 1

“You killed your husband?”  Merl was hardly awake when her sister called and blurted out the news.  She never particularly liked Bob, always so bossy and condescending, but she thought her sister Elsa would wait it out until he died of diabetes or something.  After all, there was a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow of dull grays.  “Do you need help getting rid of the evidence?”

Merl and her sister hadn’t always gotten along.  Merl supposed it was because there were two years separating them and they had always been too competitive.  Merl, being older and wiser, thought she had the advantage, but Elsa was prettier, more popular, and everything Merl knew she would never be, like a size 2 in her youth.  Still blood and water and all that.

“I’ve called an ambulance,” Elsa told her over the phone.

“Better than the police,” Merl agreed.  “But I assume he’ll be DOA.”

“What?”

“Dead on arrival,” Merl clarified.

“God I hope so.  Can you meet me at the hospital?”

“Which one?”

“County General.”

“Oh, that’s a good choice.  I’ve heard their doctors are incompetent.”

After putting down the phone, Merl had to decide quickly what to wear.  She chose her gray slacks and her pink cashmere twin set because dressing in black too soon might look suspicious, like she knew something and she really didn’t—yet.

The drive to County General this early in the morning was easy.  She didn’t even know why it was called County General.  That made it sound like a big city hospital, when really they were in total suburbia. But it was a teaching hospital for the city, so maybe that explained the nomenclature.  Parking in the emergency lot, Merl made her way through the self-propelled doors to find her sister sitting in the waiting area, all hunched over.  This called for a little bit of drama.  “I came as fast as I could!” Merl exclaimed for the benefit of a receptionist who really couldn’t have cared less.  The receptionist was waiting for seven o’clock in the morning, when she could leave.

Taking the plastic chair next to Elsa, Merl placed her arm around her sister’s shoulder and said, “My darling, my darling, what has befallen you?”

Elsa gave her a murderous look under her lashes.  “Weep or something,” Merl urged.

“He hasn’t been pronounced yet.  There’s still hope.”  And at that, Elsa gave this very wicked little grin.  Fortunately, she covered her mouth to do so.

“You’re sure he’s dead?” Merl asked in a whisper.

“I waited forty-five minutes,” Elsa returned the whisper.

“What happened?”

“Later.  I’m preparing myself.”

As if on cue, this young doctor with her hair pulled into a ponytail came through the sacred doors, through which only the anointed could pass, and saw the two of them, the only people in the waiting area at this hour.  She came up to them.  “Mrs. Brownstein?”

Elsa looked up hopefully.  What an actor, Merl thought.

“We did all we could.’

Hand went quickly to mouth, as Elsa asked, “Does—is he—“

“I’m afraid we couldn’t save him.  I’m so very sorry.”

Oh, the tears!  Good god, Merl thought.  Elsa had missed her calling.  And yet, the Hillside players were always looking for performers.

Elsa was saying nothing, so Merl thought she should ask something that she thought sounded appropriate.  “May we see him?”

Nodding, the doctor said, “Certainly.”  She led them through the sacred doors and there was Bob Brownstein, covered with a sheet, never having lost the weight that he should have around that big gut of his.  While Elsa cried her eyes out, Merl asked, “Does anyone know what we’re supposed to do now?”

At that Elsa said, “We’ll use Heaven’s Haven.  They always do a good job, and they’re connected to a very nice catering service.”

Too quick a recovery, Merl thought.  But the doctor had other things on her mind and wandered away, leaving them in “peace.”

It took a while for Merl to get the story of Bob’s death out of her sister.  Not that she pressed.  There was just too much to do with the funeral, the relatives, and Bob’s sister going through Elsa’s house looking for keepsakes Bob’s mother allegedly gave to Bob that should have gone to the sister.  “My mother-in-law had the worst taste.  I gave Karen what she wanted, after I took said crap to an antique dealer to make sure it was worthless.  Garage sale crapola,” Elsa assessed.

But there was finally a day when they were completely alone, so Merl asked, “Nu?”

Elsa took a deep sigh.  “You know what a slob Bob was, wet towels on the bathroom floor.  Never learned to hang up anything.  His underpants—don’t get me started.  So Karen’s grandson is having a bar mitzvah, and Bob says to me, ‘You should really lose ten pounds because you’re beginning to look like a chunk.’  I wear a size six.  I have cottage cheese for lunch every single day.  Meanwhile, do they even make pants that fit around that waist of his?  After he said that so casually, I stayed up that night thinking and thinking and thinking about all the slights I had endured from that man and all the socializing I had to do for his business, the people coming in and out of my house and me having to be gracious when I didn’t even like most of them.  And then he insults me when he’s made no effort to look like anything but a giant tub of butter pecan, his favorite.

“It just got to me, you know.  So I took the bread knife from the kitchen and went into the bedroom, grabbed hold of his pajamas tops, twisted them to wake him up; and when he did I held the knife as if I were going to stab him through the heart.  The aim was to threaten him that if he ever said anything like that to me again, I’d—

“But I didn’t really get to say anything because he saw the knife and he saw me and, well, he shat his pants and peed all over and had a heart attack.  I could have done something but I thought, when God hands you lemons—  So I waited.” 

“No jury in the world would convict you.  Especially if it was packed with women of a certain age.”

“Sometimes I feel I should confess to the children.
“Are you out of your fucking mind!” Merl shouted.  “This isn’t ‘Crime and Punishment,’ that you never read, by the way, despite your A paper on it.  Don’t know who wrote that for you.”

“Alex Rosen, when he had a crush on me, before he transitioned to monogamy; and I think he only did that because of his podcast and the need to be au currant.  I mean, he’s had three marriages.  That should have been enough to discover where his penis fit best.”

Was It Ever Thus?

A-tisket a-tasket

A green and yellow basket

I wrote a letter to my love

And on the way I dropped it

The trouble was you dropped it into a mail box and it disappeared from this earth into the netherlands of the post office sorting center.  Too bad, as this was a letter finalizing the elopement plans with your college sweetheart.  You were both graduating, she in political science, you in history; and even though both of you considered yourselves adults, your respective parents didn’t.  Her parents wanted her to take the LSAT’s so she could get into law school somewhere.  Your parents wanted you to come into the family business of steam cleaning rugs and draperies.  Neither of you could imagine anything worse than the paths your parents had set forth for you.

So you plotted and planned, and you promised her that letter with all the details within because, while you could use the pay phone to reach her, the only number you had for her was her home phone, where her mother hovered.

But it didn’t matter.  You had a backpack and a passport, she had a backpack and a passport.  The friendly skies awaited.  Both of you had agreed that the fun would be getting to the airport and taking the first plane out to wherever.  That letter with no return address contained the time and date for the pair of you to sneak away. 

The day for departure came.  It was a month after graduation, plenty of time to prepare, also plenty of time for your love to let you know if she had changed her mind about the elopement.  This you couldn’t imagine as it was true love and true love lasts forever. 

You arrived at the airport and were delighted to find that the first flight out left for Tokyo.  Wow.  No one would think of looking for you there.  Using your two credit cards, you bought two tickets, damn the expense, full speed ahead.  You just could’t wait to see her face when she arrived.

But she didn’t.  Arrive that is.

Desperate, you finally broke down and called her home phone.  Miraculously it was she who picked up.  “I’m waiting,” you told her.  “Where are you?”

“Where are you?”

“At the airport.  Two tickets to Tokyo.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I sent you a letter with all the details.”

“I never got it.”

“Well, get here now.  There’s still time.

“I can’t.  My parents have roped me into a road trip to Grandma’s.”

“But—this is our chance.  Ditch them and get here.” 

“I can’t.  It’s—it’s just too late.” 

“So I guess this is—“

“Goodbye.”

Well, this was a bummer.  No love by your side and most likely a ruined credit rating.  Still, you got on the plane and started your life anew.  You spent the next thirty years in the Far East, working in commerce, doing some dicey deals, as was the wont in some of those countries.  You put your old love aside and married an Australian, had two kids and a good life.  But she died and you were left at very loose ends.  When the announcement came of your college reunion, you decided it was safe to go home, now that your sister had inherited the family business.

Of the three hundred in your graduating class only two hundred some odd showed up.  Including the love of your college years.  She had become a lawyer, as her parents wanted, and was living in Los Angeles, practicing divorce law, which she used for her own divorce.  She looked good.  You couldn’t deny that.  And you knew you had kept in shape, also.  “I wish I had gotten that letter,” she said wistfully.

But she didn’t, and the path she didn’t take was the one you were on.  You wished her happiness and jetted back home.

Did George Orwell Know About Baa Baa?

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

One for my master

One for my dame

And one for the little boy who lives down the lane

Let’s face it.  This sheep was a communist at heart.  Otherwise, why distribute wool to all classes equally?  Why should the little boy down the lane get a sack of wool?  After all, it wasn’t his land on which the sheep was grazing.

And yet, when opportunity knocks, even if it’s in the form of a bag of wool, it’s to be recognized and taken advantage of, even if the sentence ends in a preposition.

So what did the master do with his bag of wool?  It was his due, of course, being a master, but he had no use for it, and it was greasy.  “Lanolin,” he was told.  His response:  “Whatever.”  He gave his bag to his man servant.

There was the dame with her bag of wool.  “Wool?” she questioned.  “Was this supposed to be, some sort of joke?  Doesn’t the whole fief know I wear only silk, linen, and in a pinch cotton?”  The dame gave her bag to her maid servant.

Well, there was the man servant and the maid servant and the little boy down the lane, who was their little boy, and here they were all of a sudden with three bags of wool.  “Let’s get busy, the maid servant said.

And busy they did get.  They washed the lanolin out of the wool, then carded it and spun it.  But that was only the beginning.  While the man and maid servant were at work, the little boy found natural dyes to use before the weaving.  The results were most marvelous.

The last market day before snows came.  The family only had to display their cloth for it to be sold right quickly.  The money they earned provided them with wood for the fireplace and food for the table that happily consisted of more than root vegetables this year as winter set in. 

Spring came and the sheep needed shearing.  Once again Baa Baa Black Sheep distributed his wool equally.  Once again the servants were the beneficiaries.  But they would only get one bolt of cloth from this one very generous sheep.  It was the maid servant who approached her dame and asked timorously what was being done with all the bags of wool from all the sheep in the field.  “See the estate manager,” the dame said, waving her servant away.

And thus a deal was done in a most uncommunistic way, as the estate manager wanted a cut of the sales.  But that didn’t stop the man and maid servant and their little boy from having their own cottage industry, which grew and grew and snowballed into something white, fluffy and totally satisfying.

They left their positions with the master and the dame, hired helpers who were paid piece-work wages, grew so wealthy that their son had to become a banker.  He was then able to loan money to the master when it was needed for the dowry of his daughter.

And thus, we owe capitalism to that one black sheep in that field long ago.

The Great Escape

Rub a dub dub

Three men in a tub

And who do you think they be

The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker

They all went out to sea

Let’s say you live in a country called Turkey.  But for our purposes we’ll call it Chicken.

Twenty years ago to the day there was a free and fair election that brought to power a politician you were proud to vote for because he was for the people and you were, let’s face it, people.

You could breathe free for the first time in years as the yoke of the military was finally lifted from around the neck of Chicken.  Your country had gained the respect of the world for at last breaking free of tyranny.

The next election rolled around five years later and why not vote again for the person you were taught to call Dear Leader?  All other candidates faded before the constant presence in billboards and banners of the visage of your Dear Leader. 

Life was good for you at the time. Business was going well.  It was true that Dear Leader, that humble man of the people, had become very rich and so powerful that whoever spoke against him found themselves out of a job or facing charges of—well, whatever.  Because whenever anyone dared to speak out, Dear Leader called “Chicken Little,”and the sky fell upon the opposition.

Fifteen years on it was time for a change.  You weren’t as happy as you once were.  Members of Dear Leader’s party approached your business each month for a donation for the good of the country.  But weren’t you already paying taxes?  And then you needed a monthly permit for your butcher shop, something unheard of before.

Opposition rose against Dear Leader, and you would have joined that opposition but Dear Leader called “Chicken Little” and those who spoke were arrested for treason and thrown in jail.  You were afraid.  Besides, what could one voice do against Dear Leader?   You had to make the best of it, even after your favorite newspaper was closed down and your favorite television station lost its license, its journalists put on trial for sedition.

But life went on.  You could always watch another channel.  Books and magazines began to disappear from the news stands, but you weren’t a great reader anyway.  Besides, you liked the simple pleasures, taking your family to the city square each Saturday, where there were market stalls and buskers and always something lively going on.

But then Dear Leader called Chicken Little on the City Square, saying it was a corrupting influence on his people.  Instead he would build a monument where people could worship the freedom he had given them.  But where was the freedom if you couldn’t even go to the city square on your one day off?

The young people took to the streets.  They wanted the freedom and joy the square provided, not some monument to an ossified government.  The young people were arrested, including your son and the candlestick maker’s daughter.  You went to the authorities, but no one had any record of anyone by your son’s name being held.  So where was he?  Where was she?  This couldn’t be happening in their country where freedom was so cherished.  Could it?

There was a fly over of Dear Leader’s palace, according to the military a normal training exercise, but Dear Leader cried Chicken Little again and all the pilots were arrested, along with the crew members and the mechanics on the ground.  There was a child, who was supposed to present flowers to Dear Leader when he visited the factory the child’s father owned.  Instead of handing the flowers to Dear Leader, the child dropped them and ran.  The factory owner was arrested for disrespecting the state, and the child was sent to an orphanage.

Then you, the butcher, was accused by a member of Dear Leader’s entourage of giving her a piece of meat that held too much fat.  And the baker failed to deliver his quota of bread because the farmers couldn’t deliver the wheat, due to crop failure.

You knew it was only time before Dear Leader’s troops came to your door.  You would end up where your son was, in the land of the disappeared.

What to do?

In the darkest part of your house, the candlestick maker came to you and said he was getting out before he ended up in jail, like so many other family members they knew.  Would the butcher like to join the group already assembling?  If they could make it to the coast, his uncle had a boat that would take them away from Chicken into a life that might be more precarious, but also might be more free.

So leaving behind a son, leaving behind a daughter, one night you, the baker, the candlestick maker and your families stole out of the city and made for the shore.

What awaited you?  You had no idea.  A sea of troubles?  Or a sea of plenty?  But at least you were free, and this time you would pay more attention to freedom’s cost.

Serial Killer?

One misty moisty morning when cloudy was the weather

I happened to meet an old man all clothed in leather

He began to compliment and I began to grin

How do you do, how do you do, how do you do again

What happens when two predators meet?

The fog always brought something primal out in Misty.  When it was sunny, she was sunny, all happiness and light.  But it was in the darkest part of her soul that she really felt alive, so she longed for the days of the deep fog, where she could linger in that miasma of the unexpected.

Misty never knew what she was going to do.  All she knew was that the fog would cover her actions.  She always brought along a knife, not that she ever used it—well—okay, occasionally, but usually not on humans.  Usually.

This dark morning, as she was walking along the empty city sidewalk, tall buildings on either side adding menace to her steps, she was startled, when out of the fog came an old man from the opposite direction.  If they continued on their paths, they would collide.  Misty held her knife at the ready.

The old man was dressed all in leather, not like a biker but like a butcher, as if he was protecting himself from a spray of blood.  It seemed he would not give way, as they approached each other on the sidewalk.  And so it was that she stepped one way to let him pass and he followed her every move, as in a macabre pas de deux.  

“What’s a lovely young lady like you doing out in a fog like this?” he asked,  She noticed his teeth were all too white, like beacons, but sharp as a wolf’s fangs.

Misty grinned.  He thought she was prey.  Easy prey at that.  “The same as you,” she replied.

She could see hesitation in his eyes, trying to judge what she meant.  Yet they were alone, seemingly all alone in the denseness of this fog.  Why would he give up this perfect chance?

So he made his move.  He lunged at her with a quickness that belied his age, and she brought the knife up against his chest, but-

The leather.  The thick leather.  Her knife went nowhere, not even piercing the hide he was wearing.  Was it hide or was he some sort of—

Misty had no time for contemplation.  The old man tackled her and brought her down. She knew if she didn’t act quickly, she’d be dead.  Knife in her hand still, she brought it around to the back of his neck and stabbed with all her might.

Did he even feel it?  Had it hit the leather instead of bare skin?  He held her in his grip, the leather felt like cold slime along her body.  A feeling of absolute desperation rose within her, she who had so loved the darkness of the fog.  She knew she had to escape back into the light if she were to survive.

He had his thumbs on her eyes now as if he were trying to gouge them out.  The knife.  Her only hope, but he seemed invincible to pain.

Misty swung her right arm around, not even being able to see where it would land.  On flesh, she prayed, on flesh!

Her eyes were free once more as his hands retreated.  “You hussy!” he whispered horsely.  “You won’t get away from this old man.”

He made a grab for her knife hand, which set him off balance.  With all her force, she pushed him over so that now she was on top, but how to get loose?  The old man still held her knife hand, all she had left as a weapon were her fingernails.  Time to ruin her manicure?

She scratched at his face and then punched him in the left eye before she remembered it was the thumb in the eye she had to use.  To protect himself, he released her knife arm.  Weak as it was from his pressure, she took the opportunity to slice it across his cheek, cutting deep.

The blood gushed down his cheek onto his neck, into and over his leather garment.  But it wasn’t enough, was it, not for someone like this who would take advantage of the fog to perpetuate death.

Misty brought the knife weakly across his throat. A slice too slight?  But perhaps not, as the old man’s hands came up to try to close the gap.  His eyes bore a look of shock and terror.

Rising, Misty almost stumbled back down on the old man’s still beating heart.  But he was fading, while she was covered in the old man’s blood.  The fog was deep still, and it wasn’t too far back to her studio apartment with its welcoming shower.

She left the old man on the sidewalk, his every gasp weakening.  In the fog someone else might stumble upon him.  She was done.

It wasn’t until the next morning, as she was listening to the news while she got ready for work as a children’s librarian, that she learned the old man in leather was responsible for the death of three young women, each killed during a deep fog.  The police had no idea this was the man they had been after for so long, until they went to his apartment and discovered trophies from his killings.  There would be no tears for this one, just cases closed.  As for the mystery of who had done him in?  No one particularly cared.

Oh, Grandma!

Hey diddle, diddle!

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon;

The little dog laughed 

To see such a sport, 

And the dish ran away with the spoon

If you have a grandmother, she’s probably shown you her spoon collection.  You probably pretended to be fascinated.  Oh, yes, Grandma, there’s your spoon from a silver mine in South Dakota.  That must have been an exciting trip.  Yeah, you’re faking it big time.

I had a grandmother who collected spoons, but not the memorial kind.  I had a grandmother who stole spoons from every restaurant she ever went to.

You might wonder why your server collects your silverware almost as soon as you’re done with it.  (Okay, this is pre-pandemic and hopefully post-pandemic when we have servers.)  Said server was probably ordered to do so by the management because management was cognizant that people like my grandmother existed.

I knew what she was doing, of course.  I would roll my eyes and say, “Grandma, please don’t.”  But she would get that shifty look, place her napkin on the table, her eyes darting around to see if anyone noticed except me; then she would wrap the napkin around the spoon and slide it so that the spoon would drop into her open, waiting purse, the old-fashioned kind that snapped shut.

Was Grandma a kleptomaniac?  No, for some reason she just collected spoons.  And if we were out for a grand meal, there was the soup spoon, followed by the regular spoon, followed by the dessert spoon. I think this is why she ordered sherbet a lot of the time.  Those spoons were quite dainty.  I did see her once, when we ordered ice cream sodas, strawberry, the favorite of both of us, try to cram that spoon into her purse, but no such luck.  She gave me a look of disappointment, I just turned away and rolled my eyes. Again!

Grandma died, as grandmothers tend to do.  It was left to the rest of us to clean out her house because she stayed in that four-bedroom until the end.  We pondered the nine boxes of Easy Spirit shoes she never wore and the linen dish towels from various countries around the world.  Mementos I doubt she could have stuck in her purse.

And, of course, there were her spoons.  Some even had the names of the restaurants from which she snatched them.  Should we treat them like overdue library books and try to return them?

My thrifty uncle took it upon himself to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Meaning the silver from the baser metals.  He had the silver spoons melted down; and with the money he received, we had a grand celebration in Grandma’s honor.  All spoons remained on the table.  I think.

But Who’s Counting?

As I was going to St. Ives,

I met a man with seven wives,

Each wife had seven sacks,

Each sack had seven cats,

Each cat had seven kits:

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,

How many were going to St. Ives?

This blog is personal.  I have always had problems with numbers, along with a history of failure—as in:  I cannot fail to mention that, despite my brilliance, my SAT math score was well below average.  Can I still remember it?  Does humiliation ever leave us or are we left constantly unmoored?

Let’s start with the multiplication time’s table.  After 5, what’s the point? But there we were, droning away in our seats, as if repeating the tables would help us figure it out when it was needed.  Okay, I remember that 12x12=144.  And the tens table was doable.  But 9? Unfathomable.

I grew up in New York State, where there’s such a thing as the Regents, which you have to pass to get your high school certificate.  Math was an essential part of the curriculum.  So I had to take algebra, geometry, intermediate algebra and trigonometry.  Three years of hell with the Regents every June.  Talk about trauma!  I didn’t even attempt calculus, and the first day of physics was enough for me to realize that I should drop out.  The teacher started with something about pendulums.  The only thing I knew about pendulums was from “My Grandfather’s Clock.”

Along came college, where there were still distribution requirements.  Thank god for today’s students they no longer exist.  I had to take a year of either math or philosophy.  I chose the latter.  Why then were there all these A/B/C equations, taught by someone with yellowed fingers, stained from continuous tobacco use in class?

Being rather rootless with no particular aim in college, I found time to read an unassigned book and suddenly decided I wanted to be a doctor.  This entailed taking inorganic chemistry.  Did everyone except me know that inorganic chemistry was basically math, where everything had to balance?  Leave aside the lab where my partner wouldn’t let me touch a thing because he did want to get into med school.  What were all those problem sets?  Why did I have to use a slide rule to solve them?  Yes, I’m that old. No calculators in the golden days of yore.  Slide rules that had to be mastered.  But I came through with a solid C.  And decided that the world didn’t need my caring hands to add to its problems.

Graduating as an English major—is anyone surprised?—I muddled through a few years until I met my husband at Princeton.  He was an electrical engineer and so knew something about numbers.  We married.  I blithely told him I would handle the checkbook.  Somehow he expected the checkbook to balance.

Years passed with my husband in total control of our finances and anything measurable.  During those years I was warned many times by female friends that some day I might have to take over all of this money business.  I pooh-poohed them—and then my husband fell on his head and had a brain bleed.

I’m nothing if not a fast learner.  Give it a year or two.  And now I’m in total control of our finances, checking sites to make sure every penny is accounted for.  But math still rears its ugly head.  Because I started to play canasta.

Did you know there’s math involved in canasta?  You can go down with 125, 155, or 180.  I sort of intuit when I reach 125.  155?  Give me a break!  At least 180 is round.  The people I play with are patient, if not sympathetic.  They even help me count when I ask what 60 and 50 make.  Those jokers sometimes make life difficult.  By this I mean the cards, not those with whom I play.

And now, to top this blog off, I’m going to try to figure out the riddle.  I will insert my answer and it will probably be wrong.

And yet—with the skills of an English major, I reread the riddle and begin to discern only one person was going to St. Ives.  The rest were headed in the other directions.  I breathe a deep sign of relief!!!!!

But hold on.  What if they were both going in the same direction toward St. Ives?  The single speaker of the riddle caught up with the man and his seven wives and they had a jolly time walking together.  Wait a second while I give the mind a most needed rest.

I got to above two thousand and quit. Do I get partial credit?

Faint Heart Never Wins Fair Lady

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet

Eating her curds and whey

Along came a spider and

Sat down beside her and

Frightened Miss Muffet away

Spider Ronkowski always had a way with women ever since high school, when he was quarterback on the football team.  There wasn’t a cheerleader who wouldn’t go out with him—and live to regret it?  He had hoped to get a football scholarship to college, but he was deemed too lightweight—sorry, light in weight.  Still, sports were in his blood and in his personal profile on his site, so he went out for baseball and became a reliable right fielder.  There were still baseball junkies in Nebraska, so he never suffered from his change of sports.  He was still the man.

But high school ends, as does college, in order that real life can begin.  Spider Ronkowski wanted to stick with sports as a journalist or a tv reporter.  But he had two problems.  With sentences he never got the hang of this subject/predicate thing, not that any prof would dare fail him. Said prof would have to answer to the coaching staff if that happened.  As far as tv, he discovered there were too many has-beens, as in has been great at one sport or another, for him to qualify.  So were the glory days over?

Everyone finds his or her path.  Spider found his working his way up the food chain of a suburban Target, moving into a management position, which suited his nature, and he wasn’t a bad boss, not really.  There were a few claims of sexual harassment, but that was par for the course with women nowadays. However, now that he had hit his middle thirties, he decided it was time to settle down. All he had to do was zero in on someone suitable.  That someone turned out to be Mazie Muffet.

Mazie Muffet was one of several pharmacists working for CVS inside his Target.  He had his eye on her, but she didn’t seem to have her eye on him.  Basically, she was too busy, answering phones, answering questions, filling prescriptions.  Still, there was lunch in the break room, where he’d often find her, sitting on the couch he installed in case any of his workers needed to lie down.  No-one could ever claim he wasn’t thoughtful.  That’s where he sought her out, tried several times to sit down next to her, until she’d say, “Social distancing, please,” or “Masks up.”

So he’d move away and say something like, “Why do you eat cottage cheese every day.  You don’t need to lose weight.  Actually, your body could use a little bit more heft.”

It was hard to interpret the look she gave him because of the mask she put on, as she suddenly rose; but he always had a way with women, so he was sure she had taken the compliment well.

One evening, when they were leaving the store at the same time, he asked Mazie Muffet if she’d like to go for a drink.  She paused and then said, “I don’t believe you’re in my bubble.”

“Baby, I could be in your bubble any day,” Spider said suavely.

For some reason, she took out her car keys and held them as a weapon, as if he’d ever needed to force anyone.  He started to consider that maybe she wasn’t the right one for him.  After all, he was a MacDonald’s man, and he was beginning to think she was way too lactose tolerant.

But he decided to give little Miss Muffet one last chance.  His Target was having a friendly Sunday night softball competition with the local Walmart.  It would be his chance to show what he was made of, having been a star college athlete and all. He even came to the game wearing his college letter jacket.

Miss Muffet came in a t-shirt and jeans and running shoes.  She was a good-looking package, but he was doubtful of her athletic abilities, so he had her batting seventh.  He played cleanup in the batting order.  In the fifth inning, he had already knocked in two runs, by making a sacrifice at second.  So he was along the sidelines when it was Mazie’s turn at bat.  “You go, curds and whey!” he cheered her on with a firm, cupping pat on her rear.

She turned swiftly around with the bat in her hand to acknowledge his encouragement.  Or that’s what it looked like to him.  Surprisingly, she hit a grounder to first, touching base just before the throw.

Eighth batter was a pimply stock boy whose mother had come to cheer him on.  Jeez!  But he hit it way into center field, and Mazie was able to make it around to third.  Was this their chance to more than even the score?  But—batting ninth was the community college girl who handles returns.  What hope was there for team Target?  However, she laid down the perfect bunt and both pitcher and catcher raced for it, while she hightailed it to first.

In came Mazie, blazing along the base line from third to home, and there was Spider, urging her on.  He waved, shouting, “Come on, curds!  Come on, whey!”  And she came on, as the catcher was caught by indecision, finally throwing to first.  Meanwhile, Spider was standing by home plate to welcome Mazie’s run.

But she did’t stop when she touched base.  Instead she plowed into him with a force he couldn’t imagine and a knee that came up to his groin, leaving him—hors de combat?

At the parking lot, after they won the game and well after he semi-recovered, if one could recover from such a blow, Mazie came over to him and said, “You touch my ass ever again and you won’t have a groin to worry about.”

Finally!  She had made the first approach instead of the other way around.  Despite her rather harsh words, Spider took this as a sign that she was interested.

That Crazy Mixed-up Kid

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again

Here is the sad situation of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex?

Prince Harry, formerly valued member of the British royal family, made the decision to step away from the limelight and live a quiet life of introspection with a wife who equally values privacy and shies away from the press and all publicity.

Wait!  What was that Oprah interview all about?  What were all these deals with Netflix and their web site and their constant statements about their lives of service?  Why are we bombarded by carefully placed stories about their acts of generosity—and their feuds.  Every single day!  If they wanted privacy, surely they could find it behind the gates of their lavish mansion, because giving up being royal doesn’t mean giving up living like one.

One can sympathize with Harry, sitting on that wall, losing his mother at such a young age, not staying in the army where he was allegedly happy, always being the subject of gossip, always having to play the part of a lovable rogue.  Well, he can breathe a sigh of relief.  He’s not lovable anymore, although he had gone rogue.

Harry could have handled his departure from royal duties with dignity, but instead he preferred to act like a petulant child.  And think what he was leaving behind.

Oh, I don’t mean the royal trappings.  He has obviously recreated that for himself.  Instead he left behind a sense of duty, not to the crown but to his brother, the brother with whom he had shared so much as they dealt with such heart ache.  Where they had shared “royal” responsibilities before, now William was left in the lurch.  It might not seem as if William is doing much, calling people with an encouraging word, sympathizing with those in distress, making appearances dressed in funny royal costumes.  But reaching out and giving comfort to people is important no matter what position you hold in life.  He’s not living a life of self-aggrandizement as are Harry and Meghan.  Maybe he isn’t happy with all aspects of his life, but who is?

Well, Harry has made his choice, and he claims he’s happy with his withdrawal from public life.  So can we ask him now to please just shut up.