Nancy Martin's Blog, page 9

The Best Inventions of All Time, according to me

by Barbara O'Neal

In the days since Steve Jobs died, I have been thinking a lot about the impact of his brain on my own personal life. It's big, I gotta tell you.  Originally, I was resistant to the lure of the Apple Man, but he seduced me with a tiny gadget, the Shuffle.  What walker could resist a machine the size of a half dollar that could be loaded with hundreds of her favorite songs and clipped to her collar?  Not this one, that's for sure. 

It was the gateway drug.  A Shuffle led to a Nano, so I could mix up the playlists a bit. Then an iPhone, because who could resist a whole computer in your pocket?  And it was such a dream machine that I fell to a Mac for my desktop, this enormous, HD lovely screen and no clunky beige box to have to find a place for; and then….hey-sanna, ho-sanna, sanna-sanna, hey: the iPad.

This all started me thinking about great inventions, and which ones matter the most to me, personally.  This is my list. 

CamelBak hydration systems.  For the uninitiated, this is basically a backpack with a water bladder inside, attached to a tube from which you drink.

This is the first thing on my list because I live in Colorado and it is DRY here. Before the invention of Camelbaks, a long hike required a silly number of water bottles in the backpack, and one always had to carry a bottle in the hand, which leaves only one hand free in case you need to scramble, and you may not know this, but even the weight of a 10-oz water bottle is annoying on the elbows after a few hours.  You feel it, the repetitive bend and fall.  Along came Camelbaks, in a zillion sizes, and hikers round the world rejoiced.  I have many sizes—a big pack for days on the trail, smaller ones for short hikes around town with friends.  The best part is filling the bladder about a quarter of the way full the night before and tucking it into the freezer.  Top it off in the morning with water, et voila! Ice cold water the whole day. 

Modems
This technology has morphed into a lot of things, but my heart-stopping moment was the day in maybe 1988 or '89 when my father, a gadget geek from way back, invited me and my boys to come over to his house to see his new toy: Prodigy, the online service.  He gleefully typed in his information, and the computer made those little noises that later became so familiar to us.  My other said, "The computers are talking to each other!" and a chill ran down my spine.  The world blew open for me in that moment, and even though it was years before the rank and file had access to the Internet the way we do now, the road started for me there, in that dark office, with two modems talking to each other.

 

Pizza cutter
I know.  Silly.  Unless you've baked 90 billion pizzas for 6 hungry boys and had to struggle with cutting them with a stupid knife.  My list, so I'm adding it.

 

 

Electric kettle
It used to be hard to find them in the US, so my first encounter with them was in England. Now, as I have mentioned before, I am a serious tea drinker, and I will not heat water for tea in the microwave because it loses temperature too quickly, so I always had to turn on the stove to heat water for tea.  Entirely inefficient. I love, love, love my electric kettle.  (This photo, thanks to Flickr, is from Ben Templesmith, who titled it, "Behold America. And electric kettle. You push a button and it BOILS WATER. #rarethingsintheusa. I can now work late nights thanks to this brilliant invention.

 

iPad
I'm torn on this one, honestly, because I am an iPhone addict, too.  My phone has a camera that takes amazing photos, which the iPad doesn't do.But I love my iPad insanely. We are best friends. We go everywhere together, upstairs, downstairs, to the local coffee shop, on planes and in hotel rooms. It's my own personal programmable TV, loaded with all my favorite stuff, historical dramas mostly, and some teen shows like Felicity.  It's my food & exercise diary and my bank, and with the addition of the teeny external keyboard, my writing computer, too. I can curl up in my chair and be anywhere in the world and I can do it with my fingers and not stupid mouse. 

 

Other inventions
I asked my beloved, Christopher Robin, what his favorite inventions are. His answers:  microwave ovens, which saved him because he can't cook, and 24/7 stores, which amazed and delighted him, coming as he does from a country where the shops closed at 4, and noon on Wednesday.  "If one needs paper hankies at two o'clock in the morning," he said, "one can buy them."  (What I think in reaction to that is, yes, but you have to get up and get dressed and drive to the store and buy them.  But to each his own.)

How about you? What are a few of your favorite inventions? 

 

 

 

Help!

(No woodpeckers were harmed in the production of this Poe-m.)

 

POE-TRY

By Nancy Pickard

 Once upon a noontime sunny,

While I pondered life so funny,

Over many a cup of strong and caffeinated bean,

While I nodded, dumbly happy,

Suddenly there came a tapping,

Something gently rapping  at the wall behind me.

"Tis some little branch," I muttered, 

"A tree twig tapping at my wall--

Only that, and nothing more."

 

Ah, with horror I remember,

It was in the damned September,

When came this tapping in the Fall.

"Maybe it is winter tapping," said I, vainly hoping,

Tapping, tapping at my wall?"

 

But then the tapping grew to knocking, then to pounding,

Chilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors often felt before;

So that now, to still the pounding of my blood, I yelleth,

"Damn you, woodpecker! Stop entreating entrance to my chamber!

You cursed visitor entreating entrance to my chamber--

You bird of Hell, stop pounding at my wall!"

 

Presently my rage grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,

"Sir!" screamed I, "or Madam, your forearbance I implore!

But the fact is I was napping and you gently hahaha came rapping,

And so  faintly hahaha came tapping at my chamber wall,

And I've run outside to wave my arms and yell at you to

STOP IT!!"

 

Deep into that darkness peering,

Long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before:

Could I rid us of this 'pecker?

Chase it, banish it, DESTROY IT,

Tiny Downy Woodpecker bringing down our chamber walls?!!

Holes it was a'pecking, pecking, pecking, pecking

In our chamber walls!  Counted I now TEN of them,

Ten holes widening in our chamber walls!

   

Back into my chamber turning,

All my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping louder than before,

"Surely," I said, "he has started now a new hole!

Let me see what fresh destruction this wee demon now explores!"

Rushed I out to see THREE NEW HOLES growing bigger

Evermore!

 

Bigger even than the bird of hell they were! 

So big he could have fallen in them,

And how I wished that fate upon him--

Tumble in, you redneck pecker!!!

Earth will see you nevermore!!

But no, he did not fall in them,

Merely pecked pecked pecked around them,

Widening their edges until the Raven screamed--

"My God, come look at this, Lenore!"

 

Which in fact, our neighbors do say:

"Do you know that you have 'peckers?"

Teeth grit we, and smile and say, "We do know."

"You should fix that, 'fore they ruin you."

"Thanks so much," say we, "for your advice,

But next time 'fore you utter it,

THINK TWICE!"

At last  I flung the shutter, when,

With many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped the cursed Pecker of the hellish days of yore--

(When in another house I replaced whole panels

That his kin had polka-dotted!)

Not the least obeisance made he;

Not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady,

Perched above my chamber door -

Perched, and pecked the g'damned door!!

Oh, all right, I made that part up.

Coming from my fevered tete.

He has not stepped into my chamber--yet. 

He merely taps, EVEN AS I WRITE THIS,

Even after filling all the holes he made before!

With sticky stuff our helper filled them,

Telling us the bird would hate it,

But he ATE it,

And now he taps some more!

 

I grow desperate upon this shore.

"Be this word our sign of parting,

Bird or fiend!" I shriek upstarting.

"Get thee back into the tempest

And the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no plume as token of the damage thou hath wroken!

Leave us broken! - quit our walls and floor!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and tell me,

I most piteously implore-

How longst wilt thee haunt me?!"

 

Quoth the rednecked pecker,

sneering from my chamber door--

"Hahahaha! Forevermore!"

 

Anxiety Dreams

Margaret Maron

I'm late for my Spanish exam.  The class starts in ten minutes and I'm on the wrong side of campus.  Plus I cut the last three classes and haven't studied at all.  Plus, I'm not sure what building the test is in.  I spot a classmate, but he disappears, so I keep running in the direction I think he was going.  I'm going to flunk!  I've never flunked a course in my life, but I'm going to flunk this one.  I'm going to lose my scholarship.  Only, where is the damn building?

 

This is when I usually wake up.  This is when I realize that I never again have to take a Spanish exam as long as I live.  But I do have to turn in a book in three weeks and I'm still 20,000 words short.  From here till then, I'm going to be running across campus every night in my dreams, in a panic because I'm late, I'm late, I'm LATE! 

 

 

But at least I no longer have the elevator nightmare.

 

 

I walk into an ordinary building and push the elevator call-button.  It arrives, it's empty, it's self-service.  I step inside and push the floor number.  The doors close and immediately the elevator morphs into the elevator from hell.  The top of the cage is open and I can see the cables and pulleys in the concrete shaft. They all look old and ready to break.  I can't trust it. The walls become brass accordion gates and the floor is nothing but rough-hewn boards with big cracks that let me see how bone-crushingly far I'll fall if the cables give way.  Everything shakes and rattles.  I push buttons, desperate to stop at any floor, never mind the one I wanted.  I'm totally terrified and I awake in a gibbering lump of fear.

After suffering from this dream for years, I finally investigated nightmares and read somewhere that the dreamer can take charge.  At the time, I was skeptical, but the next time the elevator doors closed and the walls and roof started to disappear, I said in my firmest dream voice, "That will be quite enough of that.  Stop it!"  And darned if the elevator didn't settle down, return to normal and take me to the floor I wanted without a single incident. Nor has it ever returned.

Unfortunately,  no puedo hablar español and I haven't been able to persuade my Spanish exam to go away when I'm racing toward a deadline.

What's your worst anxiety dream?

Bad Dog

By Sarah

When it comes to the behavior of our own dogs, I think many of us lead with our hearts over our heads. But now that my own head almost got bitten off the other day, I'm rethinking this whole Dogs Rule thing, especially when that dog's known as a Chinese Fighter.

This is what happened: I got out of my car on busy State Street this weekend - a lovely, Indian Summer day - and stepped on the sidewalk where a really interesting looking dog was resting, feet first ON THE SIDEWALK - this is important.

.....Here is a picture of the breed in resting formation.

Sam was with me and I said, "Hey, what a cool looking dog. I'm going to ask the owner what kind it is." Since, you know, we've been on the lookout for a new big dog now that Ben, our gentle mutt, has gone to the great hunting ground in the sky. 

The owner was a young woman, early 30s, late 20s, eating outside at a restaurant here in Montpelier - jeans, flannel shirt, just a little past college stage. She was at the table near the sidewalk, a pink leash connecting the dog to a wrought iron fence. As I passed over the dog to ask her what kind, I said to the dog, "What a beautiful pooch you are...."

Next I knew, the dog was in my face. It was like something out of a cartoon. One minute it was looking up at me with blinking brown eyes, the next minute it was leaping toward my throat and gnashing its teeth, the metal choke collar being the only thing holding it back. Holy shit!

"You startled her," was the first thing the woman said. Not, oh, I'm sorry. Or, down Sheila. But..."You startled her. She is, after all, a Shar Pei."

 She IS after all a Shar Pei? What does that even mean? In 1978 the Shar Pei was voted the rarest dog on Earth so pardon me for not possessing working knowledge of a Shar Pei's quirks. Retrievers wander and like water and tennis balls. Labs are dumb but loyal. Basset hounds (like mine) even dumber and far less loyal though funny. Jack Russell terriers. Smart. Greyhounds, fast. Bulldogs, hard to breed. Newfs, noble. These traits I understand.

But a Shar Pei will bite your head off if you say hello on a street?

Also, may I just say Montpelier has a lot of dogs tied up here and there. It's that kind of hippie place. I have yet to meet an unfriendly one and do you know why? Because people with unfriendly dogs LEAVE THEIR DOGS AT HOME. 

So, back to the scene. All conversation at the restaurant has stopped. I, of course, feel like a fool because I didn't know a) what a Shar Pei looked like or b) that they're easily startled and that c) I have broken some sort of unspoken ettiquette about dog introduction.

"She's never bitten anyone," the woman continued. "She's really a nice dog."

Again...do I care? No. I now do not want a Shar Pei. I am not interested in one as a pet. Nor, do I want to hear the whole history of the Shar Pei evolution as my eyes twinkle in admiratioon. What I want to do is tell this woman that she should be damn glad I wasn't stupid enough to try to pet this dog on the sidewalk. Or that I wasn't a little kid intrigued by a genuinely cool wrinkly dog face. 

By the way, this is the story of the Shar Pei. They are considered dangerous breeds more likely to attack, such as pit bulls. (Pit bull owners will also tell you their dogs are lovely and I sure they are --- to their owners.) Shar Peis were bred for fighting, though the Shar Pei industry claims modern ones are more for "guarding." They are also really, really expensive.

Frankly, it's hard to believe that a dog that starts off this cute could be nasty: 

But to tell you the truth, I'm kind of sick of mean dogs, even if they are wrinkly or beautiful.

For example, there was a dog in our neighborhood that used to terrorize Fred. I'd be taking him for a walk - on a leash - and this dog would patrol his own property in the woods. We'd cross the road and keep to ourselves and still this akita would dash out and pounce. Once, it got Fred on its back with its jaw on Fred's throat. (Fortunately, there's a lot of skin there.) After this happened twice, I actually waited for the owners to pull out of the driveway, stood in front of their pickup truck and said, "Look. I should be able to walk down a street without being attacked by your dog."

They laughed. As did the woman who owned the Shar Pei after I walked away, hands up in disgust. (Perhaps that burned me more than anything.)

Finally - and, yes, I know this is a rant - why do people own mean dogs like this? If it's for protection, shouldn't they be behind electric fences? How horrible would you feel if your dog ran out and hurt someone, especially a child or an elderly person?

Okay...so that's where I stand on the issue. How about you? I am open to any and all enlightenment. Still, when it comes to dogs, I say let's stick to nice ones like these...there are so many.

 

Sarah 

"Dream Date"

by Heather

Two years ago I attended Founder's Day with my friend, author Mary Stella, who's also head of marketing and media for Dolphin Research Center, down on Grassy Key, in the Marathon, the Florida Keys. I love the place. I love the affection they have for their animals, I love the research they do--and I love the way they do their research. . . and so, I wound up bidding on (and winning) the "Dream Date," not really sure what a "dream date" might be.

Well, life has a tendency to intrude on . . . life. The DRC pinned me down to a date, and so I put aside work and headed off to the Keys with friend (and author) Kathy Pickering. 

I am not a Pisces for nothing--I dive, I swim, I love boats, reefs, sea creatures, and, most of all, sea mammals. I love the feeling I get when we start on the eighteen mile "stretch" that crosses Lake Surprise (seriously, I don't know why they were surprised there was lake) and the signs that warn you of Gator Crossings and the feel of breeze and the beauty of the water, just as you drive down. I love reaching Key Largo, which is built up, has lots of boating and diving opportunities and is the opiate of choice for many Floridians--you can be there from central Miami-Dade in an hour. I love the more lonely middle Keys, and the total insanity and history of Key West.

I may never love anything as much as the Dolphin Research Center.

I'd never imagined how wonderful our day would be. On a standard dolphin swim, you learn about dolphins and you share your experience with other people--most swims accommodate six. You get your chance to touch, and dance with or perhaps hug or kiss a dolphin, 30 to 45 minutes in the water. 

But a whole day . . . 

We worked first with Linda Erb, VP of Animal Care and Training. We learned the dolphins are given water, because the fish they're fed don't contain the amount of water found in live fish. (They do catch fish themselves, but their diet comes mostly from their trainers.) We saw how willing they were to accept their water tubes, and also how they seemed to appreciate the care they received for cuts they received from just swimming around or rough-housing with each other. 

We started with the babies. We learned how the mothers watch over their young ones, swimming by to check us out. At any time, the dolphins are free to swim away from their trainers. Yes, they work for fish -- but for attention and affection from their trainers as well. Linda has been there 27 years, and they greet her as warmly as my pups greet me when I come into the house. With Linda giving us instructions, we learned the signals the "babies," Flagler and Gambit, are learning at the same time. 

Next, we worked with slightly older "children," Delta and Luna, who are almost two. Kathy and I got to be the first non-real trainers the "children" have ever taken on dorsal tows, and there were false starts, but we all learned together, and it was amazing. 

We exited the water, and I was sad, thinking my time was over . . .

But, then--there's more!

Next we worked with the "boys," Kibby and Tanner. I'm particularly fond of Tanner. I was there right after he was born several years ago. Tanner pretends that he remembers me, and we work on signals, and feed them fish and ice (they love ice!) and I'm thinking once again, this has been wonderful . . .

But it's only beginning. Mandy Rodriguez, co-founder and COO, is there to work with us, too. The dolphins are his children; long ago, the place had been Flipper's school; several of the dolphins today are movie stars as well. Mandy wanted to learn about dolphins and teach the world. He didn't want circus tricks; he wanted a real research center, where, yes, they entertain guests, but so much more. There's an autistic boy there on our dream date day, as the dolphins work with those who need their therapeutic presence. Soldiers, back from trauma, swim with the dolphins, along with other special needs individuals. They've published their findings, and done some of the first "recognition" research, and proven numerous theories regarding the remarkable intelligence of the animals. 

This is a most unusual place; many of the trainers stay forever. It's a family, dolphins included. They are never sold; Mandy would not split up old friends. Dolphins come and dolphins stay. I asked Mandy about hurricanes. When storms come, all the gates are open. The dolphins are free to protect themselves at sea. Every single dolphin has always returned to the center when the danger has passed.

Santini is an extraordinary dolphin. She enjoys people as much as people enjoy her. As a group, Kathy, Mandy, Linda, and I went in with Santini. A dream date? I definitely fell in love. Santini was happy to play, do dorsal tows, backward tows, foot-push tows. She loved to hang around for kisses, and she was even fond of hugs. She's ticklish, and loved to be scratched right on the upper chest. When Kathy and I made mistakes, Santini was training us how to train. 

Dolphin Research Center takes in dolphins and other creatures that can no longer be kept at their original homes, or have been so injured that they can't return to the wild. Louis breaks my heart, rescued from New Orleans, a victim of the oil spill. Only the diligent care and patience of those who helped in the crisis saved Louis's life. If you've seen what the spill did to birds, fish, and sea mammals, you can well imagine.

Ajax . . . Ajax will never really be whole. He was bitten several times by a bull shark. Students at a Florida University research center studied his injuries along with the jaws and bite precision of many sharks to make that determination. He was young when he was rescued, and they believe his mother was killed in her attempts to save him--a mother dolphin is an excellent mom.

Another creature that needed a bit of saving? Karen, the blind sea lion. I'm in awe as I watch the way Mandy's daughter Kelly works with Karen. Her voice is soft and filled with humor and affection. Karen came from a facility where she had outgrown her usefulness, but she had been trained for many tricks. Re-training her so that she doesn't perform at the slightest touch has kept Kelly busy. Karen has received surgery on their eyes, and they believe they can restore some of her sight. She is fun--and obviously loves Karen so much that she's even happy to have Kathy and me.

If you're ever in the Florida Keys, come by. You don't have to swim; you can watch, you can learn. There are beautiful birds here, friendly neighborhood cats, a "splash" zone for children. It's totally nonprofit--you can also find the little square memorials or honorary plaques in the trail that I have there for my mom, dad, stepfather, brother-in-law, and sister. 

Most of all, you'll find an experience with dolphins that's amazingly human. 

I want to do it all again, and again, and again . . . . 

If only all dream dates could be so wonderful! [image error]

 

The Great Playboy Scandal

By Elaine Viets

[image error] The furor over the "Playboy Club" TV series reminded me of another scandal involving the cottontailed menace.

I'm not sure how you say Playboy in Latin, but I may be one of the few people outside the priesthood who studied that language in high school.

Latin, they said, would build character and discipline. I was a character, all right, but I had no more discipline than any other fifteen year old.

Latin, they said, give me a base to learn other Romance languages.Also wrong. After Latin, I floundered around in Spanish class. Today, I can barely order a taco in a Mexican restaurant.

I have no ear for languages. I took Latin for Mr. Henderson's right eyebrow.

Mr. Henderson taught Latin at our Catholic high school in Florissant, Mo. In a desert of neutered nuns and priests, he was unbearably handsome. He was tall and well-muscled and looked like Sean Connery as James Bond – not that I could see one of those movies. They were banned by the Church.

He had a way of cocking his right eyebrow that was positively wicked. Amo, amas, amat that eyebrow.

The curl that hung down his forehead like a question mark wasn't bad, either.

Best of all, Mr. Henderson didn't do any phony flirting. He just talked about his great love, Latin. He sincerely loved that language. I sincerely loved his eyebrow.

It led me through Caesar's long, dull campaigns. "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres . . . All Gaul is divided into three parts," he translated, raising that eyebrow like a bridge.

I crossed over it to slog through innumerable accounts of the Romans and their booty. They didn't shake it, they took it.

It didn't matter. I would follow that eyebrow anywhere.

And so went the most curious Latin class in history – row after row of lovesick schoolgirls and a couple of guys who were going to be priests.

It was a situation ripe for trouble. Sure enough, Mr. Henderson got himself into the great Playboy bunny scandal.

It started when we heard Mr. Henderson was engaged. We were shocked. It couldn't be true. That eyebrow couldn't belong to another woman.

Then the rumor spread through the school: Mr. Henderson was engaged to marry a Playboy bunny. With blond hair.

If it was true, it was really scandalous. It was a sin just to read Playboy magazine. God knows what would happen if you married a real, live bunny. I tried to imagine that eyebrow next to a blond bombshell in a cantilevered bunny suit with a fluffy tail. My eyes crossed.

The debate raged among the students at school. Was Mr. Henderson committing a sin? Would that eyebrow be twitching in hellfire?

Finally, someone was brave enough to bring it up in religion class, where we debated many great issues. We settled the question of what to do if we were adrift on the ocean in a lifeboat with three people. Could we eat one to save our own life?

The answer was no. All four had to die.

Personally, I planned to eat the weakest passenger and go to confession later. But I felt the chances of this happening in the Midwest were slim. So far, I hadn't seen a lifeboat, much less an ocean.

Anyway, one brave student asked the teacher if it was OK for Mr. Henderson to marry a Playboy bunny. Without actually saying it, the young inquisitor gave the impression the woman was a walking occasion of sin.

The teacher raised both eyebrows at once, something even Mr. Henderson never did. Her eyes bulged. Her lips wiggled like worms on a hook. She struggled not to laugh.

Finally, she said something like what Mr. Henderson did in Holy Matrimony had the blessings of the Church. I can't remember her exact words. They were too painful.

But I knew this for sure: Latin was a dead language.

The Fifty-Dollar Tomato

The Fifty-Dollar Tomato

By Brunonia Barry

Okay, so we're city folk. Or were. But then we bought a house in Salem, MA and it came with a back yard. A big one. The kind of yard that stretches from one street to another, and the kind you have to do something with like actually mowing the grass once in a while, or, failing that, at least trying to grow some grass. So this was our year for landscaping, and we decided to do it ourselves. There was one challenge. While are beautiful big old trees in our back yard, there is no sunlight except on our deck. So we planted hostas and lace cap hydrangeas, tons of them, and, thankfully, they're all still alive.

But then I had this bright idea.  We should have a kitchen garden, in containers, on our deck. We bought herbs and planted them in window boxes: Basil, sage, rosemary, mint, more basil. We watered. They grew. And everything was fine, until I had another brainstorm: "Let's grow tomatoes."

It sounded like a good idea at the time. It would be a container garden. We had some huge pots we could use. We bought heirloom tomato plants. We added fertilizer. They started to grow. We bought wire things to support them. They grew again. We bought bigger wire things to support them. By the end of the summer, the plants were taller than my husband, who is 6'6".

The plants were strong and healthy, but there were no tomatoes. I take that back. Out of three, seven-foot plants, there were exactly two tomatoes. One of them was hopelessly deformed and rotting from the bottom up. The other, we harvested this morning. It's a pretty nice tomato. It had better be. When we did our cost-benefit analysis, we figured that one tomato was worth about fifty dollars.  

Now, I make a mean tomato pie. It takes basil (we have a heck of a lot of basil) and chives (have those too) and a ton of tomatoes (which, of course we don't have). But I was determined to make that pie, so my husband and I set out for the farmer's market in downtown Salem to buy our lone tomato some companions. Just a quick trip… or so we thought. I was so enthusiastic about the prospect of tomato pie that I hadn't remembered one important detail. It's October!

It's that time of year again in Salem, the Halloween capital of the world. Witches, pirates, goblins and (God help us) anyone sporting bloody body parts rule the road. You can't get a parking space to save your life. On a normal day in Salem (is there any such a thing, you ask?) our population is about 40,000. On any given day in October, it could be as high as 350,000.

Of course, we needed a parking space right in the middle of things, and, of course that was going to be impossible. Halfway downtown, we realized it would have been easier and faster to walk, but we were already stuck in traffic, surrounded by road raging residents, a few zombies, and a grandmother driving a Mini and wearing a costume that, from my vantage point, looked like the chest of drawers from Beauty and the Beast. She fought us for the one available space on the street, and won.  When she got out of her car, I realized that she was dressed as a grilled cheese sandwich.

We ended up parking half a mile away on the other side of the Common and walking back on Essex Street. The pedestrian walkway starts at the Peabody Essex Museum and is lined with multiple witch shops. It's interesting any time of year, but October adds a dramatic street theater / costume party element. We didn't see the usual Bridget Bishop re-enactor being dragged through the streets (Bridget was the first of Salem's accused witches back in 1692, and they reenact her trial several times a day for the tourists). We did see several witches, a proselytizing minister trying to save some souls, and this gentleman:  

As we approached the farmer's market, we passed an old dog, wandering by, dragging his leash. He was moving so slowly that, at first, I thought it was someone in a dog costume, but no, this was a real dog, and his owner was nowhere to be found.  We have a sixteen-year-old Golden Retriever we treasure, so we're suckers for an old dog, or a lost dog, or any dog actually, so we had to stop. We looked around for his owner. We waited. Guessing that the dog had come from the Farmer's Market, we finally led him in that direction. He stopped at every tree along the way.

The market was crowded. We scanned the area. Finally, we spotted a booth that was selling dog biscuits. We figured it was a good place to start. At least they were dog lovers, They'd help figure things out.

They knew the dog immediately. He belonged to one the farmers. He was evidently a great escape artist. As a reward, the woman selling the dog biscuits gave us an assortment of every flavor for our Golden Retriever. The runaway dog would get his biscuits later, so as not to reward his truancy. He didn't want to have his picture taken. He wasn't in the mood.

Our good deed done, we did a bit of shopping. We came home with seven pears, six ears of corn, amd a pumpkin. We had become so involved in finding the dog's owner that we forgot what we had come for, the tomatoes.

We considered going back, but decided against it. The Haunted Happenings Parade was about to start and there was a 5PM ban on street parking. People were already lining the sidewalks. After that, it would be the candlelight vampire hearse tour, followed by a zombie pub crawl . We figure we probably won't see downtown again until early November.

Do you have any fall traditions in your town? Do you celebrate any Halloween rituals? Have you ever tried to grow your own tomatoes?

Obviously we're not having tomato pie tonight. I'm looking for a recipe that features corn and pears. Our fifty-dollar tomato will be sliced and served au natural, with just a little olive oil and some of our bumper crop of basil. Our sixteen year old Golden Retriever, who is normally up and begging for any dinner dish we're preparing, is ignoring our fruit and veggie entrée. He's in the corner of the kitchen, happily chomping on his biscuits.

 

In Which Something Odd Happens

JOSHILYN JACKSON

SO! As the title intimates: Something odd happened.

See this thing? It is a big node-y box of electrical wire hook ups and mysterious magicness, like a HUB, or something. Okay fine. I tried to front like an electrical playa, but I don't know what this little cluster of stuffs is. There are a LOT OF THEM in the world, and the electricity and cable and maybe phone things and all matter of magical modern-life wires and whatnot goes through them.

The signs all over them probably say, but I have never yet whipped up sufficient interest to read them. I don't even know what it is called....Mysterious Energy Knobbit? What-ev. We have one in our neighborhood.

Heck, we probably have a buncha; it is a piece of generic scenery, and so I tend to look riiiiight through it, unless it is doing something at that very moment to call my attention, like, say exploding, or perhaps rising up in front of my child's heedless bicycle as she yells over one shoulder and wobbles off the road, causing her to fall and scrape up her knees.

This one I have pictured above about has never set itself in the path of my personal child's personal pink bicycle, nor has it exploded, so I had no idea it was THERE. I habitually looked right through it. Kinda like it was squirrels.

You know how you do that? Look through squirrels? Because the yard is full of them, and probably also full of bushes and weeds and rocks and whatnot, but who can pause and look with their eyes with such intensity that they notice every freakin' squirrel? Sherlock Holmes, maybe, and he was a cokehead. So. Me? I am not Holmes. I am not a cokehead. Put a LLAMA out there. I promise to notice that.

DIGRESSION: There is ONE squirrel I notice because he has a brain disorder; he likes to come up onto our porch and LICK THE BRICKS.

Then the dogs go BUH-ZERK, barking these hysterical high pitched frenzy yarps (Ansley) or these low wooooooooobling tornado warning bays (Bagel).

Both dogs, multiple times a day, become desperate to inform me that EITHER the armies of the damned have indeed risen and are coming across our lawn to crack my open my skull and snarfle out the delicate meat of my brainses, OR that same squirrel is licking the bricks again. One of those.

It is usually the squirrel.

You better believe I notice HIM, the brick-licking, dog-maddening little freak.

Anyway, I did not notice that power box either, until it went and did something extraordinary, which was, "Be attacked by a crazy person with a machete who desired to hack down into its tasty innards and yoink out all the copper wiring to sell."

I hear this, I IMMEDIATELY think "Meth head." I think Meth Head for two reasons.

First because this is SO not a good idea for a crime. A person who was NOT on Meth would have better ideas about how to steal. I am not on meth, and I had ten better ideas about how to steal as I TYPED THAT SENTENCE.

SECOND because the ODD THING that happened. I know, right? Copper wire-stealing meth head with a machete AND a brick-addicted squirrel with an oral fixation, and we are JUST NOW getting to the odd thing! Welcome to Friday.

So anyway, SECONDLY, I think METH HEAD because...wait for it... Wait for it... THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REP AT COMCAST TOLD ME IT WAS A METHHEAD.

Let us pause here to give my fellow Comcast customers time to recover from that information. Go on. Breathe into a bag. Pour yourself a stiff and fortifying drink. Fall prostate on your fainting couch and take a big whiff of smelling salts. Whatever you need. We will wait.

Ready? No? I can see you are not able to fathom this.

I cannot blame you, really. Let me say it again: I called Comcast to find out why I had no phone, tv, or internet, AND THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REP ACTUALLY TOLD ME WHY I HAD NO SERVICE.

Granted, it was TERRIBLY disturbing to know a meth head WITH A MACHETE was trolling around my generally bland and woodsy and peaceful little neighborhood looking to crack open things that might contain valuable things. Like, say, boxes full of wiring. Or, say, people full of healthy, transplantable kidneys.

But that was not the thing that put the most strain on my credulity.

It was that she responded in a complete sentence with actual information while using a POLITE---even CHEERFUL---tone. While I was still reeling from THAT, she gave me an estimated time when my service would be RESTORED.

Those of you who are NOT Comcast customers probably are not getting why the rest of us are so stunned that actual drool strings are falling onto our pants from our unhinged mouths, so let me explain how we feel about Comcast.

Usually, when something is surly, or hateful, or smells particular corpse-like, or is ruining our good time, or causes a violent allergic reaction that almost ends in death, or makes one suicidal, we call that thing, "Comcastic."

Sample dialog ---

Person 1: Wow, I see what looks like a tidal wave of RAW SEWAGE bearing down on us, so within thirty seconds, we are literally going to drown and die in poop-infested waters. Also, in case we survive, and PS I really I meant to tell you this BEFORE we had all that sex, sorry; I may have Chlamydia.

Person 2: Comcastic!

I am so bedazzled by the light of a polite and helpful Comcast customer service rep that I do not think I have yet fully processed the part about the METH HEAD wandering my neighborhood. WITH. A. MACHETE.

Anyone else have COMCAST? Anyone noticed a SEA CHANGE? Or was this girl an anomaly? Should I buy more guns? Yes? What should I shoot? The squirrel or the dogs or meth heads WITH MACHETES? Do you think the Comcast girl was LYING? How would she know that about the meth head ANYWAY? Was SHE a cokehead? A CHEERY, POLITE cokehead? I am all aflutter.

What Part of No . . .

By Elaine Viets                             

"Wanna go up to my room?" Jack asked.

"Huh?" I said.

We were waiting for the doors to open for a hotel banquet. More than a hundred people were packed into the cocktail party before the meal. The room was hot, noisy and uncomfortable.

I was sure I heard wrong. Jack was my friend. Okay, he was someone I talked to at conferences. I liked him.

Jack knew I was married. I'd mentioned Don often enough.

He couldn't be hitting on me.

He was. Jack invited me up to his hotel room for a quickie.

"I'm married," I said. "I've been married forty years."

I thought that staggering number would squash any further attempted friskiness.

"Me, too," he said. "Thirty-two." He grinned like he was proud. Of what?

"Excuse me," I said, and elbowed my way through the crowd to get away from him.

I haven't lived a sheltered life. I worked some thirty years for newspapers, radio and TV stations. The news business is hardly a ladies' seminary.

I know adults commit adultery. They also smoke, drink, cheat on their spouses and their expense accounts. I may have stretched some mileage figures but I don't bed hop.

I take marriage seriously. I'd promised to love and honor Don. I made sure the word "obey" wasn't in my vows. I wouldn't swear to anything I couldn't do. We'd agreed to love each other, and if the marriage didn't work out, then we'd call it quits. But I wouldn't make a fool out of my husband.

I'd always thought adultery was about revenge: It was a way for angry cheaters to get back at their spouses.

Many offices are like high school: People run in cliques. The drinkers meet at the same watering hole. The druggies have their own secret signs and signals, and mainly sell pot to one another. One of them, a middle manager I didn't much like, was known to make a profit off his friends. They bought from him anyway.

The office cheaters were a rather dreary bunch who seemed to enjoy sneaking around. They got their kicks coming back to the office with faces flushed and clothes slightly askew. They enjoyed knowing the staff saw their minivan rockin' in the company parking lot.

(Yeah, you read that right. A minivan. They were married with children. Stolen sex among the stale french fries. Gets ya hot, doesn't it?)

The cheaters weren't the beautiful people, either. The average adulterer was . . .well, average.

I don't like displaying my vices in public. Like most of the staff, I went home to my family.

Whenever I started work at a new place, some of the cheaters would hit on me. Once I made it clear I wasn't interested, they went back to their world and I stayed in mine.

That's why I was so disappointed and angry with Jack. I'm no femmes fatale. I didn't flirt with him. I wasn't wearing a provocative dress. I'd known him for years and thought he was one of my "safe" friends. Now our friendship was over. What the heck was he thinking?

I quietly asked a few trusted female friends. They said Jack had never hit on anyone they knew.

Why did he change?

If I had gone up to his hotel room, what next? Would I have to look at him adoringly the whole conference? Would we run to each other's rooms at the next convention? Or pretend it never happened?

I have no idea.

That's why I'm asking you, TLC. Why did Jack suddenly go rogue?

 

Call the Roller of Big Cigars

Call the Roller of Big Cigars

by Nancy Martin 

It's been a month of family visits here at chez Martin. Lots of relatives have been using my house as a launching pad to visit elderly Aunt Nancy perhaps "for the last time." Mind you, every year, family members make this pilgrimage—that is, every year for ten years, so nobody ever really takes that "for the last time" too seriously. After overcoming numerous medical incidents, Aunt Nancy is still quite perky.

But after the hilarious family stories wind down—we enjoy the way my brother Jock tells the tale of his boyhood hike in the woods with a friend that ended in a forest fire (just a teensy one) that he and his buddy completely didn't see until they wandered out of the woods with the fish they'd caught but my mother still suspects they started (he swears not. I kinda believe him because although he loves the outdoors, he wasn't exactly the start-a-fire-from-nothing type back then—I mean, c'mon, he was a doofus at the age of ten)---anyway, after the tall tales peter out, the conversation eventually turns to "end of life" plans.

Does your family talk about this stuff? Because what the rest of us are supposed to do with you after you die a big topic when we get together. I think our obsession with this subject is a result of there being only twelve places left in the family plot, but there plenty more than twelve of us vying for the spaces. (Although I suspect there are family members who have no intention of ending up on a hilltop with the rest of us for eternity, but they're not speaking up yet.)

Cremation or embalming? Which way do you lean? My dad was adamant about embalming, so that what we did when he passed away. My mother, though, wants to be cremated and buried beside him, but . . . does it seem weird to you that they haven't chosen the same thing? (My mother, by the way, is very firm about wearing her Do Not Resuscitate bracelet. If she has a nice, fast heart attack, that's the way she wants to go. If she wakes up after having a stroke, I do not want to be at the bedside for the tongue-lashing, lemme tell you.)

Next decision? Is there something you want to be buried with? Like . . . a family heirloom or photos of loved ones or . . . your scuba mask? (I'm not saying who wants his scuba mask, but . . . his name starts with "J" and he might be my sibling.) Personally, I kinda like the idea of taking my chocolate chip cookie recipe to my grave.

A friend of mine went shopping for a suitable outfit for her mother to be buried in.  Seems the daughter never liked Mom's taste in clothes, so she found a tasteful black suit for her to wear.  On sale, too!

Or if you want to be cremated, is there someplace special you want your remains to end up? My sister chose to spread her first husband's ashes off the beach of the island where they loved to go snorkeling. (Except she couldn't quite commit to that decision and also kept some of his ashes on the mantel, and I wonder if her second husband regrets all of the first husband isn't enjoying the Caribbean.) My cousin Maggie wants her ashes mixed with some kind of concrete product and left underwater to create a reef. (I'm not going to worry about the details of her request, since I am absolutely sure she's going to outlive me. She's very healthy.)

My husband wants his ashes spread on a football field.

 Now, since I don't suppose that's a request the Steelers are going to approve even if he has been a football official for decades, I sometimes amuse myself by picturing my children boosting each other over the fence in the—er—dead of night to honor his last wish.

What about your funeral? Do you want something tasteful or outlandish? A big noisy wake or a nice memorial service with poetry months after your demise? Here's the poem I had read at my dad's funeral. He was a pilot. Not long after he slipped the surly bonds of earth, Ronald Reagan also died, and the same poem was read at his funeral. Which I don't understand since Reagan wasn't a pilot, but my dad would have been pleased. 

 Aunt Nancy has already written her obituary, by the way. She doesn't want her cause of death listed in case it's embarrassing like choking on a ham sandwich, which you have to admit would be the last thing you'd want people to remember about you, right? Is there something in particular you want listed in yours? Or not?

Here's our only family scandal where death is concerned: Great Aunt Nelle wanted to be buried with her husband, whose family had a plot in--gasp!--a completely different cemetery! Years after her death, Aunt Nancy—who was very fond of Aunt Nelle--started lobbying to dig up Aunt Nelle and move her over to our family's plot to be with her sisters. This turned into a big To Do. The whole idea blew my mind, and I must admit I came down hard on Aunt Nelle's side, so she's still with her husband.

So? If we find you passed out on the sidewalk, do you want us to call the EMTs to start CPR? Or do you want us to pop a bottle of champagne and talk about the good times? And what's your idea of a great place for your remains--in whatever form you choose--to spend eternity? Do you talk about this kind of thing in your family? Or is it taboo and therefore you take your chance that Uncle Milt might decide to bury you in a clown suit in your beloved Mercury convertible?

About our family plot that's too small for the remaining family members? I'm voting to build a mausoleum so we can all be together and hear the same stories over and over.  Makes sense, right?