40 Oceanfront Acres and a Mule

“We’ve gotta find shelter! There ain’t no way we are gonna make it back to Ma and Pa’s before the storm hits!”

“I can’t take another step. I’m plum worn out. You go on without me.”

“I’ll be happy to, you old hag! I never did like you none anyways. That’s why I brung you with me. Just in case you didn’t make it, I could go home alone. One less mouth for Ma to feed.”

I cracked up at the old hag part. There’s nothing like your eight-year old calling you an old hag, in all seriousness, and getting away with it.

We were taking a walk on the beach after dinner, and the clouds had formed a thick blanket over the setting sun. The wind had picked up, more like March than July, and it sent the loose top layer of sand flying fast across the rest of the beach, like a grainy, hot, sticky blizzard. My daughter, S, and I walked hand in hand near the water, but not out of reach of the stinging wind, and the effect of the blowing, swirling sand layer combined with the gale forces made both of us think of pioneers trudging through a horrible winter storm. I made a casual comment to her about needing to get back to the cabin, and S just ran with it.

Up ahead of us were my other daughter, E, and my husband. They were enjoying an after-dinner stroll on the beach, made more challenging because of the wind. They were not enjoying the Oregon Trail hardscrabble story that unfolded behind them. As S and I role played louder, my spouse and older daughter walked faster. But once the pioneer drama began, S and I were powerless to stop it. We had to see the story through to the end.

In one hand, S carried a bucket. Our original plan was to look for creatures that exposed themselves at low tide, which it just about was right after dinner. Normally, we spend our time eyeballing tidal pools for tiny hermit crabs, burrowing shells, and the occasional sand flea. We filled the bottom with wet sand and a bit of water, in case any living creatures needed to be collected and relocated. The wind rolling over the sand changed everything.

“Storms a’brewin’,” I said to S. “We better take cover.”

The next thing I know, my daughter, who normally struggles with the “th, ch, and sh” sounds in speech therapy, sounds like she is channeling Laura Fucking Ingalls Wilder. She dazzled me with her fairly detailed knowledge of the trials of pioneer life. I guess that private Montessori education is paying off.

“We can’t go home yet, you dunce. We gotta go to the trading post. Pa needs more tar to fill the space between the logs in the cabin. And Ma asked me to get more coffee and corn meal. We need flour too, else meals are gonna get scarce come full wintertime.”

“Whaddya have that gun fer?” I asked her. “Are we going hunting?”

“I wish I could shoot you with it, you old hag! You sure are stupid. You always were, like you got dropped on your head when you was a little baby in your mama’s arms. Of course we’re hunting! What are we gonna trade with if we don’t have some animals? I can’t trade you, now can I?”

S was totally in character, minus the coon skin cap and moccasins. I had to stop and laugh.

“What’re you stopping for? Didn’t I just tell you to hurry up? We don’t have time for none of your lily-footed lollygagging!”

“Lollygagging?” I choked out. “Where did you even learn this stuff?” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “Look! Sand fleas!” Right in front of us, a few of those fast burrowing crabs were trying to hide in the sand before the next wave came.

“What in tarnation are you talking about? Them’s rabbits! Shoot ‘em! Shoot ‘em before they get away!”

I reached down and grabbed one before he could finish hiding in the sand, then tossed him in the bucket that S carried.

“I got one! Looky! I did it!”

“Well, you only got one. You let the others get away, ya dummy. Now how are we going to get all that Ma and Pa need at the gas station?” S said.

“You mean trading post,” I said. “They didn’t have gas stations back in pioneer times.”

S smiled at me,” Oh yeah, I mean trading post.” She resumed her back-woods style of dialect.
“That rabbit, plus them deer I shot up, will give us plenty to trade for what Ma needs."

“Stop screaming,” E screamed at us. “You’re embarrassing me.” E is convinced in her pre-teen way that literally everything her family does is a public embarrassment. I am kind of enjoying it, to tell you the truth. It gives me the opportunity to really make an effort to take things too far.

“We ain’t screaming,” S said, back in character. “We’re just talking over this storm.”

E rolled her eyes and walked faster away from us .

It turned out that the trading post was at the jetties, the pile of rocks where we usually stop and turn around to head back to our condo. S and I pretended to trade our sand flea and imaginary deer carcasses for some imaginary sacks of coffee, corn meal, and flour, along with the wood and tools that our imaginary Pa needed to shore up that cabin, which was also imaginary. What was real, however, was the walk back, over half a mile in strong winds.

“Can we stop now?” I asked S.

“No, you old hag! We have to get back to the cabin. Not that I wouldn't mind letting you freeze to death out here."

“No, seriously, can we stop? My throat is all dry from talking like that.”

“But I don’t want to,” S said, sounding like herself again. “I’m having fun.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But if I get all dry and choky sounding, than I’m out.”

We finished our walk, the trudge back from the trading post to the cabin in the woods, just as the storm hit. We lost our extra deer carcass on the way, and some of the wood that Pa needed. S threatened to leave me, shoot me, and beat me. She reiterated how stupid I was and how much she hated me. I argued back, tried to redeem myself with catching more rabbits or even some squirrels. I got blamed for wasting bullets, which were hard to come by.

And we irritated E some more. And my throat got really dry and scratchy. But we made it back to the condo, er, cabin.

“That was fun!” S announced brightly.

“It sure was,” I said, trying to return to my normal speaking voice. “Where’d you learn all that stuff about pioneers?”

“At school,” she said. “I miss school. It’s fun there, except no one will play pioneer with me. Camp’s fun too, but different, because we don’t learn stuff. No one will play pioneer there with me either. But you did.” She let the waves clean out the bucket, returning that traumatized sand flea/rabbit back to its home.

“I did, didn’t I?” I said to her, and we smiled at each other. Not bad for an old hag.

A Lot of Crap at Sears

So, back to my nephew’s birthday gift, and the mall. If you remember from last time, I was not able to get SM the game he wanted, but it was allegedly due to arrive at the store the same weekend my nephew came to town. I knew he would love to visit the store anyway, seeing as how they had all those wonderful figurines and other fantasy items one would normally find at a mineral and rock store or a head shop.

After eating too much for lunch at the Indian buffet, we, meaning my sister, LM, my daughters, E and S, my nephew, SM, and I, stuffed ourselves into my SUV and headed over to the mall. E and S were happy to go, as they are the kind of girls who don’t mind shopping if they think there might be something in it for them. It's easy enough to bribe them with some earrings from Justice or a clearance shirt from Hollister, so they were content to come along.

I parked near the entrance where the game store is, tucked away in the unpopular little leg of the mall that it shares with a cheap walk-in hair salon and an off-name jewelry shop, right near Sears. We went in the store and looked around. Immediately, SM decided he needed to go to the bathroom. After the monster lunch we had, I wasn’t surprised that someone didn’t have to poop right away. I asked the cashier where the nearest restroom was located, and she told us to head over to Sears.

The five of us rushed to Sears and discovered the bathroom was in the farthest corner of the store from where we were, sandwiched between the optical center and the photography studio. SM entered the men’s room, and the rest of us went in the ladies’ room. It was a nice enough public restroom, better than one would expect of a Sears, with a well-lit waiting area and reasonably clean floors, so we did our collective business and met back up in the waiting area of the optical center.

SM, feeling refreshed, wanted to head back to the game store, but I convinced him that it would be more efficient if we strolled the mall looking for the other stuff and finished up at that shop, since it was on the way out. He reluctantly agreed and we all sauntered about, trying hard to not lose each other in the Saturday afternoon crowd. We looked at shirts, we found some earrings, and sampled some nauseating tea. By then, SM had asked about a gazillion times when we would go back the game store, S complained about walking, E didn’t want to talk to anyone because she didn’t like any of the shirts at Aeropostale, and LM and I couldn’t remember why we agreed to go to the mall on a weekend with three kids.

When we got back to the game store, SM looked around again. This time, S had to go to the bathroom right that minute. I grabbed her hand and rushed her back to Sears. We made good time, considering we already knew where the bathroom was, but when we got there, the door was blocked by a couple of Hispanic kids pushing around a shopping cart. Well, the kid doing the pushing was about two, and she was trying to push it into the ladies’ room. The other kid, a boy of about ten, was trying to stop her. Since our polite excuse me’s, spoken in English, did not seem to be understood by the two, we forced our way around them and entered the bathroom.

That’s where we found the rest of the Hispanic family. The mom was busy changing the diaper of the smallest of the children, but not on the Koala station changing table. Rather, she opted to stink up the waiting area by using the upholstered seats. Behind her was her oldest daughter who quietly observed her other two siblings, a pair of girls younger than four who were busily washing their flip flops in the sink and drying them under the hand dryer. S scooted around them and found an empty stall. I told her I would wait outside, and tried again to avoid the shopping cart duo outside the door.

S joined me when she finished, which was moments before the Hispanic mom came out with her gaggle of children. She put the three smallest ones inside the shopping cart and pushed it, leaving the three older kids to follow behind her. In the whole time I saw her, I did not hear her utter a sound to any of them.

“There are six of them,” S whispered to me. “How can she take care of six children?”

“I don’t know. I bet it isn’t easy,” I said, demonstrating my mad filtering skills.

“I wouldn’t want to have five brothers and sisters,” S said.

“I wouldn’t want to have six children,” I answered her as we walked through Sears.

S and I got back to the game store in time for SM to decide he needed to yet again go to the bathroom. E rolled her eyes a bunch, and we found a dirty sofa on which to sit and wait while my sister took my nephew, yes, back to Sears, for yet another bowel movement. They were gone for a good ten minutes, and when they rejoined us, my sister declared her mall shopping/pooping experience to be over.

“I’m done,” LM said. “I am ready for a nap.”

“Did we even buy anything? Find a penny, need a penny,” I said.

"Give a penny, take a penny," LM finished, laughing.

“You got me earrings,” S replied.

“I feel like we should have at least purchased something small at Sears, seeing as how we desecrated their restroom repeatedly,” I said.

“I want to look in the game store some more,” SM said.

“No!” LM and I yelled at the same time.

“We’ve already been there three times,” E whined.

“But I never got to finish looking,” SM said.

“Another time,” I told him. “Like when we haven’t eaten a buffet lunch. Anybody need to go to the bathroom before we get in the car?”

No one answered me.

Black Hawk Down

Are everyone’s pets weird, or just mine? If you think about it, the whole idea of having a pet is pretty weird. Normally, we try to keep animals out of our houses. You wouldn’t want a raccoon climbing in your dishwasher, licking your plates clean, would you? We tolerate more from our pets than we do from our friends and family. You can’t come over, eat my houseplants, puke on my floor, and take a nap. I would frown upon that. But if my indoor cats do it, I clean it up, and quickly too, so no one else has to complain about looking at a turd-shaped hairball. My cats are more than just gross. They are odd, truly bizarre critters, and if I didn’t love them so much, I would really hate them.

My younger cat, Moshe, is a three year old tuxedo short haired kitty with a solid body, a heart of gold and a head full of air. He doesn’t just look at you with a blank stare; he looks at you like he had a head injury, his eyes almost googly. He sleeps hard, like a man, and he plays hard, like a polar bear. He is not graceful or light on his feet or any of the usual things that cats are often considered, but he is annoying and curious, so you know he is all cat. To his credit, he is extremely gentle with children, who have been known to carry him around, use him as a pillow, put hats and clothes on him, and do other things that cats normally would not allow humans to do. So he pretty much gets a free pass on the other stuff, such as sitting on top of the refrigerator, opening closet doors to hide, and making biscuits in my armpit every morning around 4:30.

My older cat, Yoko, is less of a joy to have around. She is mostly black, with long hair, piercing green eyes, and shiny black cat lips. She looks like she is angry most of the time. It’s not like her ears lay flat or her tail wags angrily. It’s more like she is sneering contemptuously at you. She is the one that my children’s friends are afraid of when they come over, the one who growls when the door bell rings, bites you if you touch her without her permission, or attacks if a dog somehow makes it inside the house. She ranks herself as slightly higher in importance than one of my daughters. But she does care about us, and she is very protective, in her own way, of her family. We put up with her because she is our responsibility and because she has yet to destroy the furniture.

One of the things that I love about Moshe is that at three year old, he is still very playful. He will play fetch forever if only you would keep throwing his red foam clown nose for him. He carries his clown nose around in his mouth, spitting it near you, so you still have to bend over and pick it up before you throw it again. Yoko, on the other hand, doesn’t play well with others. Her idea of fun is to attack her reflection on the floor, or to hide and jump out at you when you walk past, or to try to climb the door frames and attack you. She is very fond of attacking.

Since she doesn’t get to go outside to do her attacking, pouncing, and killing, Yoko has to use her feline talents on things around the house. She has been known to disarm a skein of yarn, leaving it beside my bed so that in the morning, I will no longer feel threatened by the fact that I don’t know how to knit. She has also systemically killed a bag of muffins, a bedroom slipper, and countless Christmas ornaments, carrying them up the stairs and leaving them as offerings so that I can see what an excellent mouser she would be. If only just once, she could be given her freedom, to go outside, to capture and kill that chipmunk that teases her on the patio step, to feel the heat of his fur turn cold in her mouth. But she can’t because I didn’t spring for the feline leukemia shots, and I don’t like to brush her.

Every once in a while, though, she likes to kick it up a notch, as Emeril would say. She looks like she is sleeping, and then, Bam! your water glass is knocked over, soaking your stack of library books. Or the kids go back to school, so she feigns a bladder infection so she can pee in the air vent in the sun room. Or, she will take out a helicopter faster than a Somalian militia fighter.

I woke up last night, about 4 in the morning, to the sound of crunching. It wasn’t so much like a potato chip snacky crunch as it was a sort of chop-shop kind of crunching. Whatever kind of crunch, it certainly wasn't a usual bedroom noise, so I got up to investigate. I put on my glasses and stumbled around in the dark.

This was not the first time I have awoken to chewing in my room. One time, Moshe figured out how to open the pantry door in the kitchen. He found a bag of cat treats on the floor of the pantry, and he carried it up to my bedroom like a baby kitten, where he proceeded to chew through the package to get to the yummy nuggets inside, all under my bed at three in the morning.

Anyway, last night I found Yoko under the vanity space of my bathroom counter, eating my husband’s remote controlled helicopter. It’s a small copter, made out of Styrofoam and small parts, all coated in a bright green layer of (most likely) lead-tainted paint. Yoko had carried the copter upstairs in the dead of night, and she was busy dismembering it when I found her hunched over it.

Did she think a toy helicopter was food? Was there something in the paint that had a natural meaty richness in its taste? Or was she pissed that I went out of town for a night and left her home alone with the rest of the family? She didn’t even want to see Phantom of the Opera; at least, I didn't think she did. She never mentioned anything to me.

I was the bearer of bad news this morning. I was the one who had to tell my spouse that his beloved remote controlled helicopter, the one he liked to fly inside the house, was permanently out of commission, done in by the same creature that puts her butt in his face as a sign of affection. I did refrain from reminding him that if he had put his toys away, this would never have happened. No one likes an “I told you so.”

So we are down one helicopter, but the two cats remain at large, ready to strike again at any hour, when we least expect it. No wonder we have them in our lives. They certainly do enhance our quality of life.

The (Im)Perfect Gift

My nephew SM just turned twelve, and at that age, kids have very specific likes and dislikes. I asked my sister, LM, what he wanted for his birthday. She said money always works. I don’t particularly like giving money as a present. It is the gift equivalent of giving a homeless person ten dollars. You would like him to spend it on food or shelter or new clothes, instead of meth or MD20/20. Well, the same goes with gift giving. If you give a teenager some cash, you will be disappointed, most likely, in where that money went. I don’t want to know I gave a child the opportunity to buy a crappy video game or twenty dollars’ worth of Mike and Ikes. But if there is something in particular that the birthday boy or girl wants, well, that I don’t mind getting. After all, I want them to be happy. Just not wasteful.

The difficult part about buying for teenagers is that they have expensive tastes. They want clothes from the overly fragrant Abercrombie and Fitch, or a Flip video, or a new iTouch, or a cell phone, or a video game system. They don’t want a Barbie or a Webkinz, which fall below fifteen dollars. Gone are the days when a couple of new shirts from Old Navy elicit a “Cool, thanks!” Now, it gets a “oh, Old Navy. Where’s the gift receipt?” And as the gifts get more expensive, the list shrinks. They only want one or two things, because they know that there is only so much they can hope to actually receive. Somewhere in the past ten years, they learned being greedy is not an attractive quality. Or maybe when they realized there is no Santa, they also realized that there is no way they will ever get everything they want.

SM doesn’t mind the Old Navy so much, as he is not yet a clothes horse. But he has definite ideas about what he wants for a gift. This year, he had only one suggestion. He wanted the game of Stratego. But not just any old Stratego; he wanted the Fire vs. Ice edition, which involves wizards and dragons. It’s the strategy game of Middle Earth. He played it while he was away at camp, and really enjoyed it, and now he was hankering for his own game for plotting and scheming at home.

My sister kindly emailed me this one item birthday wish list, and it took me a few days to even remember how to pronounce Stratego. At first I thought it was some sort of computer game. That shows you how much I am into strategy, war, or wizards and dragons. I figured whatever the hell it is, I am sure it can be had at Amazon.com. Wrong. I couldn’t find it the usual routes online, and I wasn’t about to do eBay. I didn’t have that kind of time. So I had to shop around old skool.

First, I hit the Target, because at least they have a decent toys and games department. I searched and looked. They had a Twilight version of Clue, and a SpongeBob Operation game. They even had a Simpsons Clue game. They did have a Stratego, but it was a classic wooden boxed edition, not the fire vs. ice one that SM desired. So I left empty-handed. Well, I left without the game. There is no such thing as leaving Target empty-handed.

Next, I tried a couple of other options. Barnes and Noble was also a no-go, which was fine since they mark up their games anyway, to cover the cost of the mood lighting, classical music, and comfy chairs. I followed up the book store with a stop at Toys R Us, which I haven’t been to since I realized I could get everything my children wanted for Christmas online. I went there after a meeting, and I was too scared to leave my laptop in the car, so I had to carry that inside along with my oversized purse. I looked like I was going to be spending a lot of time there instead of dashing in and out empty-handed like I did. But at least I wasn’t mugged by one of those iffy men who linger in the parking lot at the Toys R Us. I can never tell if they are there to kidnap children, rape women, break car windows, or buy the entire stock of Star Wars: The Clone Wars figurines. My guess? All of the above. I didn’t even bother with going to Wal-Mart, since they never have anything I need. Which left me one last option: the game store at the mall.

When you think of a game store at the mall, you are probably thinking of a Game Stop type place, where one can find every new and some used video game, a store where you can’t tell the pimply-faced teenage boy employees from the pimply-faced teenage boy customers. Well, the game store I am talking about is a board game store. It’s hidden in a corner of the mall near Sears, and going in there is like going into 1985. The games all look slightly used and dusty, and every inch of shelf space is crammed full of puzzles, games, and collectibles.

I went to the mall after the gym, about 10:15, and the store was closed. I walked around the mall, checking to see if most of the stores were open, which they were. I am not much of a mall person, even less so when I am wearing stinky wet gym clothes, no make-up, and my matted morning hair up in a ponytail. So I walked around for fifteen minutes, looking at crap I don’t need, before I moseyed back to the store, which now appeared ready for business.

The lone employee was a plain mildly obese woman, dressed all in black, wearing gobs of eyeliner just a few centimeters shy of her actual eyes, so that it looked more like eye underliner. She asked me if I needed help, and I told her I was looking for fire vs. ice Stratego. She took me to the strategy game section, and while we could locate the democrat vs. republican version, the fire vs. ice one eluded us. She looked on the computer and said she had one coming in by the end of the week and wrote down my name and phone number. Before I left, I noticed a small group of teenagers and a grown man lurking in the back of the store, near the display of twelve-sided dice. I was glad to see they were in street clothes and not capes, cloaks, and breeches, although I had no doubt that at least one of them owned a jerkin.

The game did not come in by the end of the week. I got my nephew an iTunes gift card and some clothes instead. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but at least he knows I love him enough to go to the mall.

Stop Mocking Me

A few months ago, I started a new eating plan; I hate to say “diet” because that implies there is only a goal of weight loss and at some point a return to normal eating. Right now, how I am eating is my new normal. I made changes because I gained weight over the past year, and I wasn’t happy about it. I missed some of my clothes, and I missed feeling good about myself. My friend JR had also gained some weight, about half a pound or so, (why do I surround myself with skinny people with body dysmorphic syndrome?), so we decided to support each other on our way to healthier eating and hopefully some weight loss.

Our eating plan is pretty strict, in the sense that we do cut out an entire food group, and I don’t mean cookies. No dairy. No wheat. No sugar or sugar substitutes. No caffeine. No alcohol. No refined or processed or artificial anything. Lean proteins, lots of veggies, some fruit, and whole grains like brown rice and quinoa are all allowed. Our only real cheat is a daily piece of dark chocolate, which is full of antioxidants and also preventative. It prevents homicide.

We started out strong, eschewing sweet fruits and evil cheese and waist thickening bread. When we noticed results, we felt all self righteous and full of will power. But the constant munching on horse fodder got old, and JR and I began a quest for food that qualified as healthy but still felt like real food, or better yet, junk food. Brown rice cakes gave way to rice chips. Peanut butter switched to almond butter. Have you had a soy chicken nugget? It’s got the same greasy, stringy quality of a real chicken nugget, only it’s soy! How cool is that?

If you think about it, eating a soy chicken nugget defeats the whole purpose of what JR and I were trying to do, which was to eat healthy whole foods, real foods, instead of processed ones. Last time I checked, nuggets of soy protein, engineered to taste and feel like chicken, don’t grow on trees. But they taste good, and they are not made of beaks and wing tips. Therefore, we like them.

One day, I was eating my lunch when my sister LM called for a little midday chit-chat. LM knew of my new eating habits, but until our conversation, did not know how far things had evolved.

“What’s up?” I asked her, my mouth full of food.

“Not much. What’s for lunch?” she asked me.

“I’m having mock chicken salad in hydroponic lettuce leaves with organic tomato slices. I am making the switch to mostly organic food,” I told her proudly.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Hydroponic lettuce leaves? Did you get them at Epcot?”

“Hardy har har har,” I said. “I got it at Earthfare, if you must know. They are delicious, and my mock chicken salad is nestled happily inside its little lettuce blankets. With pillows of tomato slices. It’s very restful, my lunch.”

“And what the hell is ‘mock’ chicken salad, anyway? Is it making fun of you?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s saying, ‘Do you really need to eat that much for lunch? Maybe one less scoop of salad would be a good idea.”

LM laughed, so I continued. “’Why bother?’ it said. ‘You look ridiculous in that shirt, by the way. And what did you do to your hair? None of your friends really like you. They are just pretending. Do you really think eating like this is going to make you lose weight? You might as well be eating a donut pizza.”

LM snorted. “What an insulting lunch!”

“I know, right? ‘And you’re still fat!’” We both cracked up.

“But seriously, what makes it mock?”LM asked.

“Maybe it’s dissatisfied with how things turned out. Or it’s got a bad attitude.”

“Or it’s spoiled?” LM said.

“God, I hope not,” I replied. “Nah, it’s some sort of soy thing. Mock chicken. Not mocking.”

“Well, what’s wrong with chicken?” she asked.

“Nothing is. But I like the mock chicken salad better.”

I do. It’s stringy like chicken salad, with the right balance of parsley to celery and very little mayo, so it’s not all wet and sloppy like messy sex. I like Earthfare’s salad much better than Whole Food’s mock chicken salad. Theirs is cut into strips, and wet, wet, wet. Blech. Plus, if you buy real chicken salad, there is always the risk of white and dark meat, mixed together. I like my chicken segregated, with the dark meat on someone else’s plate. Not to mention gristly bits of tendon, ligament, or whatever detritus floating around, hiding under a bit of relish. And how about when there is a bone fragment encased in a bite of meat? Not only is real chicken salad like a crime scene, it’s also a potential choking hazard. There are no bogus bones in the mock chicken that I have yet detected.

LM and I talked a bit more, and then she said,” Well, let me let you get back to your soylent green, and I will talk to you later.”

“My salad said good-bye to you. And thinks you need a new hair cut.”

Mock chicken salad or no, I do feel better eating less chemical-filled crap passing as food. For the most part, I feel really satisfied and content. Until someone suggests getting a big mixed drink or some dim sum or a pizza or some frozen yogurt, and then I feel like a neo-hippie vegan-leaning freak. One that misses pizza, by the way, since no one has come up with a tasty spelt crust. On the plus side, however, is that I can have a really obnoxious and complicated order at Starbucks.