One Hot Mama, part deux

Okay.
So, back in March (ALREADY! Holy shit, but time hurtles ever onward; but that's another post.....) I'd written about the Saga of my Hair and how I was ready for a change and how that change involved a throwback hairstyle from my childhood and from Jane Fonda's Hanoi Jane/"Klute" period (namely, The Shag) and how my former hairdresser simply wasn't getting it around the look I wanted and so I quietly fired the dude and found a new hairstylist--a woman--who gave me exactly the shaggy 'do I'd been questing for. And it got long.
Long for me is to my shoulders and down--way down--past my ears.
But then we moved swiftly from Spring into Humid Summer, and the 'do would not behave.

I have cowlicks up the kazoo--on my crown, at my forehead, at the nape of my neck. And I have a bit of wave, especially around said cowlicks.
So, no, contrary to popular belief, my hair is actually NOT dead straight (it used to be more-or-less dead straight when I was wee. I am no longer wee, and let let me tell you, your hair texture does change as you get older).
I am also not the sort to flat-iron and do a lot of conking/manipulating in order to achieve a Look. I work for a big corporation that hires a lot of 20-something chickie-babes who tend to pretty much be knock-offs of one another. Lots of them are blond (this being the Midwest) and lots of them have long, flat-ironed swingy hair.
In my opinion, they are all interchangeable.
Hair, to me, needs to be sexy, but also fun, kicky, simple, relaxed and terribly easy to style, for men as well as women (it is advisable that you NOT resemble an uptight, self-loathing brain-dead refugee from the Republican National Committee). Personally, I like finger-styling my hair. I am not opposed to running some goop through my locks to add volume, hold and shine--in fact, these are attributes I rather appreciate in a head of hair--but beyond that, I need simplicity.
Especially when it's humid beyond belief and when, after much early-morning pre-work wrangling my hairstyle lasts all of 2.5 seconds and ends up wildly fluffy and weirdly wavy and completely unmanageable after a quick swim to the bus stop.
Which it has since, oh, May.
And so, observing all the chicly-shorn, cropped pixie cuts adorning the program-working heads of many of my fellow 12-steppers, I decided to return to a shorter 'do. A little different then my usual pixie, with more verve, choppiness, texturizing and kicky personality.


As she cut it, I felt the Real Caitlin emerging again.
And, yes, this latest hairstyle has indeed been subjected to bouts of horrid, cat-flattening humidity (my cat Abby becomes about 5 feet long and flat as a bear rug when it's hot out) and has held up a heckuva lot better. No whirls and whorls, no unholy, unruly flips and flops, no throwing up my hands in the women's restroom and shoving the fluffiness behind my ears.
Oh, and I have bangs again. Cute, fun, textured eye-enhancing bangs.
I have learned that living in the nation's midsection means necessarily submitting to the wild extremes of the weather, in many ways, and my hair is no match for this region's humidity. And just like my impending return to the west coast, getting my hair cut shorter is a return to what I know, to what works, to what is familiar and comfortable and ultimately very me.
So now I'm more of a Cute Mama.
And that suits me just fine.

When in doubt, increase your options

I'm terrible at making up my mind. I mean, I ultimately do, about many things and in many circumstances, but usually only after much hemming and hawing and weighing and measuring and speculating and waffling. According to the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, I am an INFJ; this stands for "Introvert/Intuitive/Feeling/Judging" and everything has a percentage.

I am 40% Judging. This not only means I tend to be opinionated (I am), it means I assess a given situation and often have a hard time coming to a decision.

This difficult aspect of my personality manifested itself this afternoon as I stood gazing into the freezer case at the grocery store. I wanted ice cream. It's been hot. And cool foods are good for hot days (see my earlier post on mayonnaise).



In fact, I headed to the store wanting a specific flavor of ice cream: Mocha Almond Fudge, to be exact. My favorite, just about, made by Dreyer's (or "Edy's" out here).

There I stood. But they did not have my flavor. They had many others, but not Mocha Almond Fudge, and I walked to the store in 90 degree heat specifically to get Mocha Almond Fudge.

Which meant, I had to decide on an approximation. And after picking up and putting down numerous half-gallons of ice cream of other brands and flavors, I finally settled on two pints of Ben & Jerry's--Coffee Heathbar Crunch and Mint Chocolate Cookie. Because a singular decision just wasn't being reached and I didn't want Buyer's Remorse, heading home with an entire half-gallon of something I'd get bored with. So I did the next best thing.



I decided I didn't need to limit my options, that I actually had choices about things in life (thank you, Al-Anon!), and instead of settling for one flavor I really liked, I'd settle for two. It felt indulgent and terrific and exactly like the right decision to have made. After all, variety is the spice of life, as they say.

I don't know who "they" is, but it works for me.

Yum.

Happy Feet

My dad, at the ripe ol' age of 75, is one hip (or "hip-ish") dude.

He wanted--and received--a pair of those foamy, plastic-y, trendy "Crocs" shoes for Father's Day, and he's been wearing 'em.

It's a respectable color, nothing outrageous (tho he did say he'd agree to wearing yellow, if they'd had 'em, as he has a penchant for most things either yellow in color or lemon in flavor, but the place they were ordered from had only more conservative colors in stock), and they seem to fit him fine.

But I don't think my sister's pug, Noelle, quite knows what to make of them.

Without further ado, I bring you my father's feet (and I think this is a hilarious picture, so this post was an excuse to use it):

Bring Out the Best

It's summer. Well, not quite; not officially, but soon. June 21st, to be exact.

Although, really, right around Memorial Day, and then just after the holiday itself, summer happens in earnest. It gets hot. Armpits and legs needs constant shaving (if you're a chick; hell, even if you're a guy and you're into it. This is a liberal, equal-opportunity, live-and-let-live kind of blog). The window air conditioner gets installed and my personal guilt rises about the hole in the ozone and just what sort of "carbon footprint" I'm making while the cat and I cool off.

But perhaps the most overt harbinger of the seasonal shift is gustatory. Plebeian and gustatory, but gustatory nonetheless.

I begin eating a LOT of mayonnaise.



Potato salad gets made. So does tuna salad. And in goes the mayo. And, admittedly, a bit of sour cream like the best Jewish Delis, but this blog entry is an ode to my mayonnaise-loving WASP side.

It's the kind of cool meal a body wants on a long, hot, bright day that wakes you up at 5:00 and doesn't end till around 9:30, when the sun finally decides to fade out of sight and leave the next 8 hours or so to the moon and the mosquitoes.

In fact, I made tuna salad for dinner yesterday, and had it for lunch today. I plan to have it for lunch tomorrow. I was inspired by a friend at work who had whipped up a batch for her husband and son. Just a few weeks ago, I made a batch of potato salad with redskin potatoes I'd bought at the farmer's market; they hold their shape well and don't just crumble into pasty mush when you mix 'em.

It hits the spot, when the mercury registers 90 and warnings are posted about air quality.

Sure, there are other warm-weather comfort foods that aren't mayonnaise-based. Deviled Eggs. Anything grilled. Fruit salad. Ice cream. And these are all good and delicious and very Betty-Crocker-in-the-50's, and they definitely all hold an esteemed spot in the pantheon of Classic American Cookery.



But to me, quite simply, it's just not summer 'til I get my mayonnaise.

Pack it in

Man, I am just itching to get the hell outta dodge, and I am so totally okay admitting that, here and anywhere else.

Just recently, one of my managers at work--conversationally, in passing--asked if I'd chosen an actual departure date for leaving Minnesota. At that time, I hadn't, really; all I knew was that I was leaving sometime in early October, and that was about all I'd established. So I went back to my desk and flipped through the calendar that hangs on the wall there and figured out a date to be done with work (September 21st, a Friday) and to be done with Minnesota (September 29, a Saturday).

Which should land me at my destination (Portland) sometime within that first week of October, and that was always the plan.


And not only can I not wait for salt air, mountain passes, the beach and fresh seafood, I can't wait to be back in a place where I am simply not esoteric (or if I am at all, no one gives a rat's ass either way), where I am, instead, pretty much the norm, or just some variation of the norm.

Here in the Midwest, I just always have this strange, overriding sense that, no matter how much I'm liked by people, how "down" with me my friends have been, I'm still a titch quaint in my perspectives and dealings with the world. I rant about things like global warming and eating less meat and gender roles and living car-less, and I most often receive kind, tight-lipped smiles and the verbal equivalent of a "there, there" pat on my head.

Okay, well. This might be a bit extreme. I admit, I am a bit crabby today because of a head cold I developed over the weekend, and now that I'm doing the actual work of preparing to leave--I've cleaned out my closet (3 huge bags of little-worn clothes) and 3 shelves of my living room built-in (lots of crap amassed there over the last 4.5 years since I've been living in this apartment)--I have my "eyes on the prize," so to speak (my destination) and I'm getting restless to be there. The ball is rolling, and my feet are itchy.

But time does go quickly, and it will soon enough be the date of my departure. In the meantime, I busy myself with adding tasks to my growing to-do list, such as getting my cat a new carrier/pet stroller thing for her comfort during the long drive and buying an American Automobile Association (AAA) membership, very practical for triptych plotting, as well as in the event of a van breakdown somewhere en route across the continent.



Stuff like that.

I'm transitioning already, slowly, and caring less about things here and more about things there. And I'm just excited to be closer to my family and to be spending October out west (I love that month) and to be able to buy a much cheaper plane ticket home for Christmas and to start the Life Coach training (ah, a career that doesn't involve outsourcing to partners in India!). And my friends have been very accommodating--one is accompanying me on the cross-country drive, one is letting me stash my crap in her "extra" room once I get there (there's a whole history here that I won't indulge, but let me just say, she is an utter doll for agreeing to this), and one that is letting me crash with him while I regain my footing there.

So I'm excited and growing more restless by the day, and I have the vague-yet-palpable sense that I am beginning to slowly, surely, identifiably pack it in and hang it up and call it quits. The summer will unfold and soon it'll be the first hints of fall and then the end of September and there I'll be in a van, cat, plants & friend, motoring across the miles.

As Gonzo sings in the Muppet Movie,"You can just visit/but I'm going to stay/I'm going to go back there someday."

No love lost

I hate the weather here.

Now, I know some of the people who peek at this blog are native Minnesotans, and they love this state with every cell in their bodies; they were born here, some of them got married here and had kids here and continue to happily, lovingly call it home. And that is okay with me. They are absolutely entitled; they can love it. And they can know that this is where we part ways, where we stop seeing eye-to-eye, that I simply do not share their fondness for this region. Perhaps I am not built for it, or I'm too wussy and soft, or I merely bitch way too much, or I am impatient or unrealistic or I give up too easily. Perhaps.



Whatever the case, I must vent. I am at the mercy of the weather here, and I hate it.

Hate it, hate it, hate it.

It's either somewhere below zero and the windows are frozen shut and it hurts to breathe or you're slogging through snow up to your kneecaps, or it's humid and your hair frizzes and your thighs rub and your chest feels clammy and the air begins buzzing with mosquitoes and then the skies open up with an amazing clap and rain dumps from the heavens at a breathtaking rate.



This is what happened this evening, just as (wouldn't you know) I left my apartment to catch the bus and get to where I needed to be by 6:30. Two blocks into it, my jeans were soaked to the knees and my Tevas were squishing water with each step. And so I said, fuck this, I'm going home. And so I turned on my squishy heel and went home and everything has been peeled off and is drying and my plans have fallen completely through and I'm pissed.

I don't have a car, which I mostly like, but sometimes, I admit, it can be very challenging. Sometimes. On days such as this, when I leave work early, rush around, clean the dishes, change and make my lunch for the next day, only to have my plans rudely aborted by the unpredictable Plains weather.



Bleh. I have never lived in rain this hard; yes, it rains on the west coast, but it tends to hang around and fill the air mistily or fall steadily, and one can (I feel) more easily cope; one doesn't come away after 2 traversed blocks soaked to the skin and looking like something the dog dragged in.

In many ways, this place has been very, very good to me, and good FOR me, perhaps more importantly. Indeed, there will be much to miss when I move, like my 12-step group, my church, my apartment, and the friends I've made.



But I can say with absolute certainty that never, not ever, not even once, not even briefly, will I miss the weather.

My Bad

Okay, so.

It appears I haven't posted anything since May 6th. And this is sort of a problem for me. Not because I'm into over-functioning; in fact, I enjoy a bit of leisurely foot-dragging from time to time and do truly appreciate the relaxing merits of the whole couch potato metaphor.

I just can't go that long without saying something about something.

I was out of town for a week, soaking in the delights of the Bay Area, where I was visiting my family and attending an Al-Anon 12-step retreat called "Let Go & Get a Grip" (more on the retreat later; it was an intense experience and worth the dedication of an entire post) so I wasn't in the mindset to ruminate and come up with anything.



I suppose I could've kept a sort of running commentary on the other day-to-day events with which I occupied my time in Berkeley--pedicure (I had one in Portland last summer with a friend which was WAYYY better; this particular place has gone way downhill, but you can't really tell that just by staring at my toes), great food (same Chinese restaurant 3 times, in fact, and may I just share the observation that prawns taste totally different 'out there' then here in the Midwest), a visit to A.R.F. (Tony LaRussa's Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek--I wanted to adopt about 10 cats and dogs), shopping (I splurged on a great outfit in my eye color at one of my favorite boutiques in North Berkeley called Bryn Walker), walking my sister's pug up the street, and basically just enjoying the company of my family, whom I have come to appreciate more and more as I (and they) get older, and since I have moved 1500 miles away.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

It was hard to leave (I cried--I ALWAYS cry when I leave the Bay Area, so I'm glad I decided to pay attention to that overt and repetitive emotional cue that I need to be back on the west coast, and I will be by October of this year; I'm so rooted there, to that whole west coast metaphor), but it was good to see my kitty again (who was a bit of a problem child in my absence, having been unflatteringly described as a "meth factory rat catcher" by my neighbor; I have since made amends with the offering of a home-made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting;

food cures all. Almost. And, for the record, tho a bit scratched, my neighbor is not at all ticked. It was all quite amusing, actually) and sort of get back into my day-to-day routines.

Like cooking. And walking.

And, yes, updating my blog.

No Words

I got up early--too early--Saturday to participate in the Humane Society pet Walk-a-Thon. I suspect it once started out solely as "Dog Walk-a-Thon," but many people bring other sorts of pets--lizards, cats (many of whom were being pushed in pet strollers or closely cuddled in kitty versions of human baby "Snuglis"), ferrets, even a rat in a tiny plastic cage with shavings in it, strapped to a Radio Flyer wagon as part of an ad-hoc circus train coterie of creatures, all of them apparently owned by one single family.



It's always a good-natured, whacked-out event; as I've mentioned in other posts, animal lovers can be quite eccentric. I count myself among that lot, though as I get older, my eccentricities and my mad love for my fat tabby are the least of my concerns.

I attended the walk with a friend, her mom and her Border Terrier (the "Benjie" dog), and had a fine time, even though we turned around about a quarter of the way through and left. All told, we spent about 3 hours there and patted the heads, sides and hindquarters of quite a canine assortment.

Lots of pugs. That's always good.

When I came back, my neighbors were chatting with a friend, and as their front door was wide open (and they are directly across the hall from me), they saw me approach and started chatting with me. She told me she'd had her first chemo treatment Thursday.
I wasn't sure how someone undergoing chemo should or would look. She looked....normal.
She was chatty and fairly animated and didn't look too tired. She showed me what others had done for her; there was a lovely hand-made quilt on her bed, a stack of carefully-knitted prayer shawls on her chest of drawers. A cluster of mylar balloons bobbed in the air.
And she had all her hair. For now.
"I get another round next week," she said. It would be a different, more potent combination of drugs. That, she said, is what would make her hair fall out.
"All of it?" I asked.
"Yep," she said. "Even my eyelashes."
Then she showed me the wig she'd picked out for herself. Close to her natural color and shorter, sort of wavy, but obviously a wig; there's a certain unnatural sort of doll-baby sheen specific to nylon hair.



She talked a little more, the cats alternately hissing and running back and forth between the open doors.
I asked her about her thoughts on buying a home, something she had mentioned only a few months earlier, prior to her diagnosis. I admit, it was my way of getting a sense of her future.
"It's not a plan any more," she said. "I have to let that go."
I stared at her. I wasn't sure what this meant, exactly, and I didn't really want to read too hard between the lines.

I am in recovery; I go to a weekly 12-step meeting for those of us that have issues with enmeshment and codependency. At those meetings, when I am listening and present, I often find I have something meaningful to share; it's kind of a goal, sharing something in a group setting from which others might benefit.
In this situation, watching my young neighbor begin her battle with a rare cancer, I felt utterly verbally inadequate.
I smiled weakly, and then said, "I really wish there was some combination of words, something pithy I could say to make you feel better......."
"What can you say," she replied. What can anyone say, is what she meant.

This morning, she knocked on my door to borrow my heavy-duty Acme juicer.
"There's a juice combination from my cancer cookbook," she said. "Kale & Pineapple."
I brought it over and set it up.



So no, maybe there aren't any words.
There are only hand-made quilts and prayer shawls and mylar balloons bearing simple sentiments. And there is juice.
Juice is good enough.
Juice will have to do.

Always Eat Dessert

I ran into my building’s caretaker on the steps a couple of days ago as I headed to the basement to retrieve the cold wash I’d just done; it’s his girlfriend—my across-the-hall neighbor—who has Leiomyosarcoma, the rare cancer that she’s just begun to battle. They went to Boston last weekend and met with an energetic and passionate doctor who spent 3 hours with them discussing options—“The difference between Midwestern Protestant and East-Coast Jewish,” as my neighbor said—and in about a week and a half, she’ll begin a course of chemotherapy.

It’s true, in an odd, guilt-producing sort of way, that someone else’s adversity (in this case, my neighbor’s discovery of her cancer) can help put one’s own life and neuroses into sharp perspective; I thought of this as I enjoyed a cookie in a meeting at work.



It's not (and I do feel it necessary to qualify this) that my neighbor's cancer is a grim-yet-convenient excuse for me to compare circumstances and how "lucky" I am to not be coping with it myself, but rather, a dire just-across-the-hall reminder of how much menial bitching I've done--and still do--about truly inconsequential things. I used to have neuroses about sweets, about eating too many of them and what they might do to me: diabetes, cellulite, rotten teeth, pimples. Sweets were “dangerous” and “powerful” and could affect my body negatively and the pleasure of indulging in them was always superseded by the weird, unhappy, nearly obsessive bout of negative self-talk that invariably ensued.

I’d left my neighbors some chunks of homemade gingerbread; I was caring for their cat while they were in Boston, and I like to cook (and bake), and I personally adore gingerbread. But I don’t need a whole pan, and I wanted to share it. The caretaker mentioned this as we spoke, in passing, how much they’d liked it. I thought it might be nice for them, after that, after the flight and the news and the anxiety, to come home to their kitty and the familiarity and comfort of a plate of home-baked sweets.



And I thought, yeah. I think I get it after 41 years of "Oh, I shouldn't eat that" neuroses.

It goes without saying that a preventative mindset is a good thing; it makes sound sense, therefore, to be conscious of where your food comes from and to make healthful choices and avoid trans-fats and eat your veggies and get plenty of fiber and don’t smoke and get plenty of sleep and pop a few vities and take your flaxseed oil and exercise regularly and drink in moderation and....yes, all of those things.

Of course, there are no guarantees.

And so, because of this, because there are no guarantees, the finest, most life-affirming, optimistic, glass-half-full thing you can do, without making excuses or offering apologies or attempting futile shows of "willpower" and absolutely without the merest smidgen of self-consciousness, is always eat dessert. Make room for it. Order it. Bake it yourself, and get drunk on the aroma. Lick the batter from the pan. Eat the cookie dough. Enjoy the hell out of it. Share it. Savor it.

Savor it.

Always. Because sweets are good. And life, I am learning, finally, is really, truly, laughably, ridiculously blink-and-you-miss-it short. And very unfair.

No guarantees. Even if you do everything right. But do everything right anyway, just in case. Cause it couldn't hurt.

And always eat dessert.

A Breed Unknown

Such is how my female pound-adopted pedigree-less tabby is described on Catster where, yes, she has her own page.

I feel that this latest turn of human-feline events is good to admit.

I also feel that it is quite possible I have now officially crossed that quaveringly delicate threshold from mere mellow cat owner to rapacious Kitty Stage Parent, vicariously living my life through and for my cat like a feline-owning Mama Rose ("Mew out, Abby!")

Is it possible that, sooner rather than later, I will, with no hint of shame or irony, start wearing sweatshirts bearing puffy cat appliques in public and join cat-chat groups and go to cat shows and collect pillows with playful embroidered cats on them and all manner of folksy, cutesy wood, ceramic & wind-chime-y cat-themed tchatchkes?

In my own weak defense, canine co-habitators can be just as whacked; all you need to do is go to a gathering of pugs & their owners where you will bear witness to some of the most frightening displays of gross and humiliating (for the pug) anthropomorphism known to man and beast alike. Pugs dressed like fairies and food and brides and Darth Vader and God-Knows-What-All...it's like something out of David Lynch, or maybe Fellini, though I've never actually seen a Fellini flick so I'm only assuming.



If Abby knew how to maintain her own site, I'd place that chore squarely in her paws. But not only does she not know how, she does not care. I'm sure of this.

Within 10 minutes of setting up her profile ("Pet-Peeves: nail clipping"), I had two requests from a gaggle of random cats asking if they could be added to her page as "friends." In a matter of hours, the cat had amassed quite an enviable social network. I found myself becoming quite a bit "J," as one of my friends might say, at the ease with which she made friends. I eagerly accepted them all, of course, on her behalf. My cat dwells indoors and needs a social life. Even a virtual one. Says me. Her semi-whacked mama.

I told her this. I told her her page was generating considerable buzz in the form of 4 legs and pointy ears and whiskers. I told her she was the feline equivalent of this year's "It" girl, that this was her 15 minutes of Warholian fame and suggested she get herself a publicist, a handler and possibly a lawyer to negotiate the contracts that would surely tumble forth for all those late-night talk show appearances.



I also told her that never, under any circumstances--no matter how her career might someday falter and nose-dive--should she flash her girl-parts accidentally-on-purpose in public; I said it was a cheap & desperate ploy utilized by Britney, Paris and Lindsay to stay sadly current, but that she had been raised better than that. She was a cat with class.

She just yawned and went back to bed.

She has a point. I mean, I AM only one of the gawking, plebeian, celebrity-obsessed public with no life of my own whatsoever. So, you know, thank God for Catster.



A star is born, indeed.

Randomness

I haven't posted for a while, and my blog-surfing public is getting restless.
Therefore, allow me to extract a vast array of random topics from the nether reaches of my brain and deposit them here for your schizophrenic reading pleasure.

I downloaded a Fergie song I really like--"Big Girls Don't Cry." Playing it on iTunes repeatedly, and the lyrics are bouncing around in my brain. I can relate to them:

I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center
Clarity, Peace, Serenity......

Those who know me, I believe, will understand.

I'm sick of 20-something women. I find them annoying and vacuous and just not very interesting. I'm surrounded by them at work. Moving on.

I have a bunion on my right foot and it's hereditary and I don't like it. Stuffing my feet into chic-yet-pointy shoes for work just exacerbates the issue; to that I say, screw this whole suffering-for-beauty thing. I don't want to have ugly feet.



My co-worker mentioned Foghat on Friday and I was like, shit, that totally dates you, but she just laughed. And then I realized I totally got her reference to them and thus dated myself, too. Sigh.

I'm taking care of the neighbor's cat this weekend while they're in Boston researching cancer treatment options. He seems a little wistful. Hopefully he'll come around. And speaking of cats, I'm weaning (well, cold turkey is more like it) my cat off of wet chow, a holdover from when she had her teeth extracted in August of 2006. Her gums have long since healed and she adores her kibble....so we're done. And she stared at me this morning expectantly but there was no more wet chow and so she gave up and put herself to bed.


I hate this, but then, she'd be a 50-pound freak monster kitty if I kept feeding her. Oy.

I was called "Ma'am" this week; it's not the first time this has happened, but this time, it sorta hit me that I just don't FEEL like a "Ma'am" and I was mildly (though privately) indignant; when did "Miss" give way to "Ma'am," which sounds far less dainty and decidedly post-menopausal? I mean, really.

The thing I think I'll miss the most when I move back out west is my apartment. It's adorable and wonderful and full of cozy character and full of my spirit. I will have to thank it and bless it when I leave. It's been a good, good space.

I know I complained copiously about the below-zero weather when we had it, but there ARE drawbacks to warmer weather, too. The windows are open and I've heard someone in the neighboring building LOUDLY hawking up a loogie. Over and over. ALL DAY LONG. Dude!
Not to mention, I've heard people hurling in the wee hours, or fighting, or blabbing on their cell phones, or sitting in their cars listening to bass-heavy dance music at 3 AM. Ah, the joys of urban living!

Well, time to send the neighbor's cat home and hop in the shower, so that's about it for my apropos-of-nothing mental download.

Oh, and strawberries are back in season. Sweet and full of anti-oxidants, although I could do without the maddening teeny seeds getting wedged into my dental work. But still.

This makes me very happy.

On Giving

My neighbor knocked on my door tonight. She was passing off the key so that I could pop in over the next few days and check on her cat.

Her mom and boyfriend stood in the hallway, overnight bags waiting at their feet; the three of them were getting ready to leave for Rochester, MN. Her black cat and my striped tabby eyeballed each other warily, alternately touching noses and hissing. It was the first time I'd seen her since I'd heard, last Sunday, about the recurrence of her cancer.

Leiomyosarcoma. Super, super rare.

She laughed, ironically. "I won the fuckin' lottery as far as cancer goes," she said.

We talked a little, and I asked her questions. It was in her lungs, and in her liver. And on her shoulder.

They were headed to the Mayo Clinic to discuss treatment options. They might seek second, third, maybe fourth opinions in California, Boston, New York. I would watch her cat. That, and baking, I said, are things I could offer.

I listened to her talk, and then I broke down and cried, a little, and reached forward and hugged her for a few moments. I told her I was horribly sorry, and that it was so unfair. And I was glad I could say that; I don't mind crying. It's as honest as I can get. She said she'd been angry, too, and I told her it was justified. In these moments, I do not feel that God has a sense of humor.

She gave me the key, and I followed her into her apartment so she could show me a few things; there were flowers everywhere.

She pointed to a vase of tulips on her table; take them, she said. Put them in your apartment.

You might as well enjoy them, she said, while I'm gone.

Cosmic Shittiness

I never wanted this blog to be The Blog of Pain; there are numerous such blogs all over the place--just total downer blogs full of total downer entries, one after the other, full of constant bitching and moaning and perpetual oh-woe-is-me-ness.

And I don't want this blog to be that; I want this blog, mostly, to be irreverent, a little quirky, and wildly incongruous--kind of the way my brain works.

But this time, tonight, this entry is going to be about Cosmic Shittiness. Because that's what I'm thinking about, right now, this moment.

I got a call from my neighbors asking for off-and-on cat-sitting, on no real identifiable schedule; we do this for one another, and it's convenient. Living here, in this 8-plex in South Minneapolis has sort of been like a more-functional Peyton Place or Tales of the City, with a Midwestern twist.

Anyway.

My neighbor, who owns said cat, is 28 or so; her boyfriend, also the building's caretaker, is my age, or a bit older. He knocked on my door tonight to follow up on the cat-sitting request, and to explain why it's off-and-on.

My neighbor, the 28 year old, has cancer. All over her body. Her shoulder blade and some other places, but I can't remember what he said.

She'd had it before last Spring, in her sinus, and was operated on, successfully. They took it out, she recovered, life went on. Recently, they went to Mexico, to Ixtapa, and I cat-sat then. They came back tan.

I'll cat-sit again, as often as they need.

The caretaker stood in my doorway, filling me in, explaining it all in scientific details, the options, the chemo. They'd be going to Mayo and some other places. They need to be aggressive, he said. They need to act fast. She's young. It's a rare kind of cancer, and sometimes, those are the worst. She can live with it, for a while. But as usual, no one knows for how long.

No one knows.

And I listened and then he had to get back to his cooking and I closed the door and stood over my sink of unfinished dishes and just said, over and over, to no one, to the universe, to the consistently-unfair cosmos, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She's smart and laughs loud and is a great, thoughtful neighbor and an all-around kind person. And I'm so angry, because it's so...unfair. But then, I don't really know what would make something like this fair. Maybe if she were 60 years older than she is now and had already done the things she told me she'd planned for herself, for this life of hers, like having children.

I have been given this news, the reason for the cat-sitting, and I don't want to have to know. But I can't "un-know" this. Too late.

Now it's a fact. My neighbor, a young woman, with cancer. Unknowable.

And I will watch her cat.

Two Cute

This post is really just an excuse to share the cutest photo of these two French Bulldogs, sent to me by a co-worker who knows I adore flat-faced dogs (the pug, of course, being the family Dog of Choice since childhood, save for an occasional cur or two).

He sent a series of them, but this is the most charming. Just look at those brachiocephalic faces!



"Kola" is the one in the foreground, and "Montgomery" is the sweet/bashful looking guy peeping around behind him (who, sadly, trotted across the Rainbow Bridge some time ago and is, as his owner has said, "In a better place.")

Anyway, I just love this photo. Quite simply, I find it charming, and, as the British might say, it "gladdens" me. So I needed to preserve it--and share it--in this blog.

One Hot Mama

I did it.

I fired my hairdresser. It was simple, painless, fast and necessary. And it was time. I'd been seeing him for almost 4 years, and he was okay--just okay--while my hair was still and only a pixie cut; but in the past year, I began to want more; I needed some things to change, and for that, I suffered needlessly. Still, I was unwilling to let the relationship end, although it was merely a business agreement. I am not always good at such things, even when they prove without question to be detrimental; I hang in there. I make excuses for the other person. I tell myself patience is my finest virtue, when really, I am being passive. It is a character defect I am working on. Trust me.



My former hairdresser has seemed fairly checked out for the past year. I mean, pleasant and all (albeit spacey), but I was really, really consistently hating what he was doing to my head. I used pictures. I explained. He highlighted & cut. And I'd pay (plenty), leave, slink home, stand in front of the mirror, and think, well, it's still growing out and besides, there's always the next time. And the next time was invariably the same.



It all changed when I recently met someone with fine, straight hair just like my own, with the exact shaggy haircut I've been desiring. I asked for the name of her hairdresser and she happily obliged, saying "She'll make you feel like a Hot Mama!" Conveniently, she was located downtown, near where I work. I made an appointment (which in and of itself felt like a profound betrayal of my old hairdresser, but I quashed those feelings). I went. I explained. She wrinkled her brow, lifting clumps of my hair and saying, "There's a lot I need to correct." OUCH. But correct, she did. Expertly. Perfectly.

It is true; one's ego is often entirely wrapped up in one's hair. I know what I want; I know what I like. I do not have a hard time articulating things, not always. I have fine, unruly, cowlicky hair that needs a certain amount of coddling to look decent. She got that. She said, "I'm old enough to remember when shags were in the first time."

My former hairdresser was a mere sprout, somewhere in his 20's. He didn't truly know from the glory days of the Jane Fonda shag.



So all is now good. I've been liberated. And I've learned an important lesson: if you don't get what you want the first time from a hairdresser, chances are you won't get what you want the next time, or the next. Move on. Lots of people cut hair.

Rules for life. Rules for shags. Rules for my ongoing recovery.

And, yes, it's true. I finally feel, for all practical purposes, like one Hot Mama. :-)

Let the Sunshine In.....

Thank God.

Things are thawing in the Nation's Refrigerator. It's beginning to look a lot like....Spring.

The time changed (3 weeks early) this past Sunday morning, and we went from cold and dark to bright, warmer and sunny, pretty much overnight.

I'm not complaining. The seasons here literally butt up one against the other, with little to no transition time; it's just so sudden, it takes some getting used to. I'm still wearing Winter turtlenecks and drab earth tones. I suddenly have the urge to replace everything in my wardrobe with breezy florals and pastels.



Things are melt-y and slushy outside, and the last big snowstorm will soon be but a memory.

This just makes me want to return to the land of citrus trees, shaking ground, salt air and endless coastline that much more (yes, I'm talking about California).

Until that actually occurs, however, I can at least keep eyeballing this photo:

There's a word for it

"Navel-gazing" is a term I use for the perennially self-involved. You know, the type of person who goes through endless years of psychotherapy ("analysis," if you're from New York), encounter-grouping, and basically all manner of self-realization, usually peaking in this area around midlife, at which point the evaluation of one's navel becomes even more exquisitely profound, thanks to perhaps a failed relationship or two, the specter of death, the first few gray hairs, kids (if any) growing up and leaving home, and the (imminent) loss of one's parents.



I'm a little (okay, a LOT) that way. I grew up in Berkeley. Berkeleyans, in general, are all at least a little that way. We wrote the book on navel-gazing. We're really good at it. It's a West Coast thing. We use terms like, "You're not hearing me," and "I'm not okay with that," and "How are you around that?" When we're distressed, we tell one another that they're "pushing our buttons." We are encouraged to "get in touch with our anger." We even ask our Inner Children to come out and play from time to time.



Anyway. My friend in Portland, with whom I have discussed at length the concept of navel-gazing, and with whom I have copiously navel-gazed, came across this word and sent it to me:

Omphaloskepsis. Greek derivation. Definition: Contemplation of one's navel.

I wonder if this makes me an "Omphaloskepsist."

Blog on, Blog off

No, I haven't blogged for a while. I believe part of the reason why is the nearly back-to-back snow storms we've been having in these parts, leaving me feeling draggy, terribly unwitty, and badly in need of a stretch of hibernation.

We had a major storm last Saturday/Sunday, followed by another this past Thursday into Friday; bands of bad weather that came roaring in, only to dump copiously, leave a mess and flee--somewhat like a recent former friendship.



Ah, but I digress, however briefly. You get the drift, no pun intended.

Today, I made my way on foot to the grocery store, as I do many Saturday mornings. All was white and treacherous, and I do mean treacherous. After living here for 5 years, I no longer take the most quotidian functions for granted, such as stepping off the curb and crossing the street. After the city has plowed, great heaps of dirty snow are pushed into 4 or 5 foot mounds along the curb, and there they sit. Now, one does not merely step ever-so-daintily over these mounds, no; one must prepare to scale them, ascending, hitting the man-made summit, then descending, praying all the while that one does NOT slip on one's ass. The best one can hope for in such circumstances is that another has gone before, leaving deep foot impressions in the snow, thus creating a sort of helpful stair-step effect.



On the up side, we're getting closer to Easter (more chocolate!) and Passover (more macaroons!), both of which I love for the aforementioned foods. As a reward for my I-may-as-well-be-trucking-up-Everest-'cause-they-won't-find-my-
corpse-till-Spring-thaw outing today, I treated myself to one of those funky Manischewitz cans of Almond-flavored macaroons, the tiny, chewy ones that usually become part of a "Hello, Jewish Neighbors!" endcap display at this time of year.



So all is not utterly horrific. Just cold and white. But The macaroons are a reminder that Spring can't be too far off. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.



Though I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of slogging through slush. Ah, Portland! Rain never looked so good!

And baby makes three....or four....or five.....

Okay, enough starfucking. Let's get real for a moment.

I work in a very fertile office; perhaps I should amend that to read, a very fertile MIDWESTERN office. And I work with a bunch of designers, and designers, generally speaking, tend to be female (yes, there will be future posts on hysteria, hormones and thongs, all of which are painfully rampant in my place of employment, but not right now). Typically.



Now, I've been in this job for four years. And in that four years, we've had engagements, weddings and knockings-up. Lots of 'em. Surnames are changing faster than Britney's hair (or lack thereof). So what happens in an office when any of the aforementioned Life Events occurs? Showers are tossed and envelopes are passed, because I have nothing better to do with my laughably paltry salary than to go in with about 40 other people on a high-tech stroller that does everything but parallel park itself and brew espresso.



Yeah, I don't think so.

Now, I like having fun. I'm nice. I have the patience of Job (most of the time). I participate in quite a few office functions. But moreso and to the point, I am single. I have a cat. I have friends. But I do not have a husband, and who knows if one will be presenting himself to me in the foreseeable future. And I don't plan on having kids. But I AM adopting more pets. Someday.

So there won't be showers for me (unless I start throwing myself New Pet Showers, which wouldn't be a half-bad idea, but I'd have to get the pets first). No envelopes circulating with other people's cash stuffed into them for my giddy benefit. No pastel-sprinkled cupcakes to wreak havoc with the glycemic index of 40 sedentary cube-dwellers. No sitting around a conference room participating in tragically insipid shower-themed games, but in that, I feel I'm being truly merciful. Frankly, I should be thanked.



There is, in fact--surprise!--another baby shower this week, or early next week, but I declined it; I've decided enough is enough and put a personal kabash on all manner of Office Shower Involvement. A girl's gotta have some boundaries.

And as it so happens....I've discovered I'm not the only one.

8 ball in the corner pocket & 70's schlock

Was greeted this morning on my Earthlink homepage with the entertainment headline "Britney shaves head, gets tattoo," or something like that.

Of course, I took a closer look and, caffeine kicking in & curiosity piqued, I jumped over to the ever-reliable PerezHilton. Indeed, the girl has seriously gone around the bend and now resembles a startled, slightly-fuzzy billiard ball. Yeah, screams for help and all that. When you're a 20-something bazillionaire who didn't have a "normal" (and what IS that, anyway?) childhood and was thrust head-first into scrutinized pop-stardom adulthood, I think it makes you a little screwy.



I've never been a fan of her music; I did see a drag queen at a local club perform to "I'm a Slave 4 U" and I actually kinda dug that whole slick, sleek pop-ish, sexy and really quite hot (yes, yes, I REALLY want to be a drag queen, most people know this about me....) metaphor, but other than that, not really a fan of her flavor of over-produced musical bubblegum.

She's been acting out for a while, but this is pathetic. It's a nervous breakdown made public; it's also too bad she spawned kids at such a young age when it's obvious she's so NOT emotionally developed herself. She's sort of going through all the bizarre acting-out teenaged stages she missed by being in the biz and, as the theory goes, you must go through all stages in life--at some point--to grow up. For some people, they just come later....



Apparently depression and alcoholism run in her family, so I hope her ass lands in recovery (or there's an intervention on her behalf); if she's serious about it, it'll be here in MN at Hazelden, NOT some swanky "recovery" center in the Bahamas. Please.

Speaking of over-produced musical bubblegum, I Net Flix'd "Phantom of the Paradise" and I highly recommend it. It came out in '74, is horribly dated and terribly over-the-top, but it's GREAT! It's a tongue-in-cheek rock musical/fable with one of the (seriously) best scores ever, written by the bizarre but extraordinarily talented Paul Williams, who is the WEIRDEST little shag-haired, strawberry-blond aviator-glasses-wearing chipmunk-cheeked squeaky munchkin-like dude in the world of entertainment. But he penned such Carpenters faves as "We've Only Just Begun" and "Rainy Days and Mondays," and he wrote all the songs for the Muppet Movie, my fave being "The Rainbow Connection" (ah, Kermie!). And he's done many others. Lots of talent in a strange package.



Anyway, this flick is a kick, with touches of "Phantom of the Opera," "Faust" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray," not to mention overtones of pulpy, kinky 70's porn. I'm SO ordering the soundtrack. Oh, and I'm pilfering my brother's original poster to frame & hang right next to "Hedwig!"