They Don't Make Things The Way They Used To

Humanling and I went to the craft store for some jewelry supplies. I found something for her to make that seemed simple and easy. There were these little round tubes that you place on a plastic pegboard to create a pattern and then iron (whoops, didn't read that part - I don't have an iron and was going to use the curling iron). Being the anal Capricorn that she is, she read the package and told me that it had been Safety Tested and she seemed pleased with it.

As I did the dishes in the kitchen, I heard a sudden coughing and Humanling emerged, face beet red, eyes milking with Choke Tears. She couldn't speak and my mind thought of four things - get her outside closer to other neighbors who might know what to do, slap her on the back, ask if she can speak and hope for the best and....the faucet is still on - I'd better shut that off.

Once outside, she was able to talk. She had put one of those pieces in her mouth and swallowed. She's nine. I am hoping that this is the wildest thing she ever attempts.

She couldn't produce a reason as to Why this happened right away.

Until I heard her say with grave disappointment, "This product was NOT Safety Tested!!!"

Just call her Quality Control Inspector #13.

Vaudeville Egg Dance

I love the internet.

Humanling and I are friends with the eggs.

(Imagine Droopy dog's voice)

I am happy.

Won't You Be....Won't You Please....Please Won't You Be....My Neighbor

I'm a damn good neighbor. My only criteria of that is not calling the cops when my drug dipped neighbors have psycho girls punching, biting and burning people and then yelling underneath my bedroom window "JUST TELL ME WHAT I DID WRONG!"

My neighbors moved in a few months ago. I rather like them enough. They're mere kids. A couple of guys and they have a lot of 'traffic' going through. There's even a 'look out' guy who I like to address as Shady.

But the guys and they're friends/customers/frontmen are all nice to me and the Humanling. So I really don't care what they are doing behind their wooden door, so long as it doesn't involve my fire alarm needing to go off.

The first paragraph up there is actually a rerun of 24 hours ago.

As I held two juicy tomatoes today (I hate tomatoes but I buy them at the farmers market every weekend for the 85 year old woman downstairs. Actually, I buy her one. My sink overflowed into her apartment this week though, so this time I got her two.) Humanling called to me that the neighbor (not Ned) wanted to speak with me. The tomatoes and I complied.

He wore a Brooklyn sweatjacket and stood before me looking serious. He wanted to apologize for the noise last night. He explained that it was his girlfriend that was heard in the metro area, screaming last night. Apparently there is a drug issue (did I mention that before?) only she wasn't having the usual cocktail and blatantly was touchy feeling with some other guy in this dude's apartment. He walked in on it and she didn't attempt to stop what she was doing. So he asked her to leave. That one request caused at least three people to get punched in the face, bit and burned with cigarettes.

I now applaud my decision last night, mid irritation, not to open the window or go downstairs and confront. I pulled a Ghandi, I stayed peaceful, and it eventually subsided.

Brooklyn showed me his arm. A two inch burn slide. He seemed pretty legit about it.

Within four more minutes, I knew that a move to another state had gotten messed up because of his father who he hadn't seen since he was five. That the girlfriend was supposed to move down but didn't and he came back to be with her.

I was informed about the other roommate who is slipping off methadone back into the real deal. And how Brooklyn basically goes for a walk alone sometimes or stays in his room to avoid all the traffic. Originally I thought they were one big happy Plant farming family over there.

Whenever Humanling and I walk up the mutual hallway and the telltale smell and fog tap our senses, I unlock the door muttering, "I see Cypress Hill is home."

I have no issues with their stuff behind their doors. And I applaud the boy for coming to apologize to me. And .... I felt the impulse to fix it. But what could I do - hand him a Gregg Braden book and a candle?

Within an hour, I ran into another acquaintence outside. This one probably in his early 50s. The answer to "How've you been?" was a mini-series. He's hooked up with a crack addict who's ex fought him in January. Then he had some medical thing and lost his job in May. Only to get hit in the crosswalk by a truck. Another impulse to lift to the light and make it better.

If I weren't married to His Royal Turdness for a year and a half, I wouldn't understand it. And because of that marriage, I want peace for these guys more than they'd ever know.

Joe Jonas is performing a duet with Miss Piggy as I write this. I don't have Humanling as a hall pass since she's in bed sleeping. I know way too much about these guys so maybe its time to disengage from all things electronic until the morning.

Animal Wrongs (aka WTF, Cat?!)

It's another OCD dinner night. Humanling and I walked back from the library (why do people stare? Is it the scarves & mittens? Are we a bit anxious to acclimate to the season's dressings?). It's time for a light dinner.

Eggs? Sure.....

until I stick them in the bowl of water and then one end bobs back up. So are they bad if the WHOLE egg floats or if one end bobs back up? I don't know and my laptop was walking in bitch tracks so there was no easy access. My mother, the Non Beets Maker (who claims that she did - but she also uses a fry daddy so I don't trust that kind of propaganda) would probably just sigh and chalk up yet one more odd thing of mine to my father not being around at the right times. So I didn't call her. She has courage. Just opens the egg carton, CRACK, cook, done.

Not me. I pull out the bright lights to look for cracks, the bowl of water that gives tinier cracks away and tells me if they float. Or sort of float.

I put the eggs back. I wasn't sure and didn't want to throw out probable eggular innocense.

I ended up making gluten free, grilled soy cheeses. With a side of salted ketchup. (How is my blood pressure 98/60? Must be all the eggs I put back in the fridge.)

That worked out well. I then put our little display of triangle and square finger sandwiches out.

And then SHE walked by. The Devil with the bumper car antenna that sticks up in the air scraping along the side of the plate as she walked by. I can still hear the sound - Sccccrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Well half of the plate was still good. I gave that to Humanling. My throat still hurts from yellling at the devil. It's not enough that I shovel her offenses to the olfactory world into the garbage constantly. Or feed her. Or trip over her because she thinks my every move is another can of cat food. She has to completely ruin a dinner that she wouldn't even eat!

Well, let me tell you. Her plan was ALL IN VAIN. Because I'm not rushing to the cabinet for the soft Psssssh! of a cat food can opening. She has food and water and I see her Scccrreeeeeeeee and raise her an absence of a Pssssssssh!

But What Will Our Gang Colors Be?

I stood with my buddy Organic tonight talking, Humanling interjected with her own current event.

Since she had these tonight, and announced it, we are going to start a band. And it will be called
"A Million Farts".

Any ideas for a logo?

Overheard in a Coffee Shop

Customer to Barista (both are men. Customer is probably in his 30s. Barista or rather, Baristo in this case is in his early 20s, if that): Some kids are evil.

Baristo - Nah, not really. It's how they're raised.

Customer: Charles Manson was born into this world.

Baristo (without missing a beat) - and parents raised him.

Humanling Runs the Mafia

If I were in Boys Over Flowers, I would have received a red note on my locker.

I've been marked.

After being scolded for being 'touched' with a hula hoop three times (I'd asked after Time Numero Uno not to know the feeling of being touched with said Hoop and yet it happened two more times while the eyes of the antagonist locked with mine - and YES it bothered me - it was the Point), Humanling gave considerable thought to our relationship in her time out.

She came to the kitchen and announced to me, "You have crossed to the Dark Side of our Friendship".

This means, that I have been "kicked out of the family."

She is now a self-observed orphan, seeing as this is a one parent circus. It's almost as funny as when Cavey and I are on the phone and he precedes a sentence involving some sort of Humanling life-schedule-diet change with "We'll have to....." as if he is ever in the 3-D context of her day.

"We" who? Me and my last name? Is the cat signing school forms now?

I'm pleased and tickled to announce that although the pay off was tough, one hug later, I was back into the linear family line. Since two points don't actually make a circle. Or any other shape.

One...Two..Three....Contaminate!

Is it my imagination or is there a Flash Mob of people who *suddenly* have a cold this week?

((((Hug)))) {Pass it on...}

Today I work from home. I love not getting work face and hair together and not having to cover up the usual Neighborhood lack of Get Up that is usually reserved for weekends. Working for Big Pharma means not wearing army pants and a black Trick or Treat t-shirt to work. It also means missing Regis and Kelly, which in my opinion, not watching it sucks as much as Turdblossom's (special thanks to FireBoy for the name) grandmother's old vacuum cleaner, before dealing with the cat litter. Except for today because it is the seventh anniversary of 9/11.

Otherwise, mainstream daytime tv is mostly poison. The commercials make me want to petition God's powers for ten minutes so that can I develop billions of Stretcharmstrong legs and kick off everyone's brainwashing caps. Especially on a day like today. Hearing one more commercial about women who can't deal with laugh lines when your body is disposable eventually anyway, seems like it comes from a less evolved planet. But yet, they agreed to keep political campaigns off the air. Something in which the end result will hopefully bring about positive and permanent evolving change that is beneficial change. But leave the Botox commercial on so that between rememberences of 9/11, we can go back to problems that never seem to evolve spiritually. Yeah, I don't want to look haggard either. I'm getting ready in a couple of months to trade my 38 model in for a 39, and who knows how I'll feel in 10 years. But that's what I strive for - inner beauty - evolved spirituality, so that injecting youth serum into my skin isn't what's crossing my mind at that point.

I watch these kids talking up on the podium, giving a beautiful and simple speech that echoes shades of adult reality. They say that they miss their father. In identifying with others, the first thing I do is parallel it to myself and think of Humanling's dad. Who is alive. And lives down the road. And leaves me to answer with shades of adult reality to Humanling why he doesn't call or come by. Why doesn't he take care of her. These kids sounded as though they truly miss a father who can't be around. Humanling misses a father who chooses to live within basically the same exact crossing of meridians on the map of the world, but chooses not to be proactive.

It seems unfair to watch all these young enough children, crying in their innocence. Perhaps many of them will take that early reality gash and work it into something sustainable for the world - be it politics, scooting most of the world's countries onto the same page or the food and environment sector. We usually won't change the status quo without the burn.

What I remember most about it here in Connecticut on 9/11, besides the minute by minute events themselves, is the methodical way in which we all left our jobs to go. Go wherever we had to go. Silence. I don't recall there being sound, traffic lights, road rage, speeding, talking, pedestrians. I remember our large campus emptying out silently, cars along the road in a muted traffic jam without the stopping. Just the slow moving toward whatever we would find when we got there. The sound of sadness I suppose, maybe the sound of a hole in the collective soul of all that is.

I guess when you are at the sound of complete silence it can only get louder. Where we are now sounds like chaos with two different high heels on. But there are paths starting to gain tread that will hopefully bring around the balance. We have to just keep on passing the love out.

Whether or not you believe in him, it is said that the way to be a fabulous human is to act like Christ, every minute of everyday. Whether or not you believe in him, is that such a bad way to be?

I'm going to make another pledge to myself and see what the sifting eventually leaves in my hand. I'm going to look at the divorce next week with love. (well YEAH I will LOVE to be divorced but I mean this differently). I want to walk into that courtroom and check Turdblossom and the being that he clutches close to him for security (and for the reason of probably to try and miff me because I hadn't yet seen him rise above anything unless it is a 100% investment in something that he needs) and I want to be able to smile at them. Hi. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad you're here. And now, I'm glad we can part and good luck to you both. And the kid that is being put into a situation with someone who didn't do so well with his Starter Marriage (With Kid version). Good luck to you guys because if i keep hating, I'm going to need a bigger ribcage to fit thicker and more constrictive bars over my heart. And as the heart is the single organ with the most electrical activity (not the brain), I think its important that it has all the breathing room that it needs. So maybe I am doing this for myself. I am. But I'm doing it for all of you too. For my Humanling, for my mom, for anyone who has to pass through my energy in any sense and for anyone who will pass it forward. I don't want to be like the factory farm slaughtered animals that die with adrenaline raging into their bloodstream (for all to eat by the way, something to think about - you are what you eat). I don't want the adrenaline that exposes me whenever I think about the perceived wrongs that this Turd Van Blossom has put upon me. I want to be able to look at him and the situation with nothing but a pure, clean of tension and pure with positive intention, vision.

Energy is contagious. Hand someone a good vibe - boost them up - they most likely will hand it off to someone else and before you know it, you have another bad hair product commercial - "And they told two friends, and so on...and so on...and so on...." (Sorry if you missed the 70s - you missed some Einstein moments in televised commercial space).

One of the side effects of all these products that they are continually forcing into your consciousness is that YOUR RISK OF BEING HUMAN NEVER GOES AWAY. So with that - with an honest and open heart, free of competition, free of jealousy, free of hate or the metal bars that tighten over your chest, bring someone up. And they'll tell two friends. And they'll tell two friends. And so on. And so on.

Irony Chef

Dannnnnng. My OCD has molted and returned out of the sand stronger than ever. It's a good thing this only happens once in a while.

The OCD nemesis has snuck up and camphored Miss Shop Organic & Local, Don't Waste and Don't Buy New Unless Necessary.

Tonight is one of those food nights where I throw out everything that I start to make. And it sucks. I suck altoids come to think of it. But not cinnamon. Never cinnamon.

I cut up some raw farmer's market cauliflower for Humanling and I. My idea was this - a plate laid out with slices of boiled egg, raw cauliflower, slices of banana and apple. I started to boil the eggs and then cut up the banana and califlower and noticed that the apples were kinda stewing in something brownish. Ok, no apples. An all white dinner. I put my cauliflower with raw garlic and apple cider vinegar. I'm not a raw foodist unless its fruit. I don't like eating things raw out of the ground - mostly because of OCD. My secondary reason is that it simply tastes better cooked for me.

Upon peeling the eggs, and peeling off half of the layer while doing it (what's the trick anyway to not whittle the egg itself down to a yellow mound with a thin layer of white around it?) something bothered me about the smell. I could smell maple syrup. Only I was peeling eggs and the syrup was safely behind closed fridge doors. Now I used up all the eggs on this. So I threw them out.

It's ok, there's still cauliflower and banana. Hey Humanling! We're gonna do something CRAZY tonight! First half dinner now and second half dinner after we go to the store and buy apples and eggs! And then have those!

I whipped out a new brand of organic peanut butter that I'd bought to lay down with the bananas. Why the torture? Why do I taste things first? Why didn't I treat my last marriage like this before proceeding? Peanut butter was completely stale. My brain is hardwired to have sympathetic taste buds for HL. There was no way in hell she was going to eat this. Yeah, maybe your parents or my parents woulda done this or that but I'm not doing it. I'd rather she not shun peanut butter for all of God's version of eternity because I forced the Foulness of Stale upon her.

Garbage.

Ok, here. A plate with bananas and raw cauliflower. {Huge smile of deceit and falsehood. } Seeeeee? Doesn't that look great? When you're done with that, we'll hop on over to the grocery store and get the rest!

Three bites into it. "The cauliflower tastes funny."

Probably because I soaked it in vinegar to 'clean' it.

..........

Ok, let's go.

..........

So basically, most of that went into the garbage as I told her how fun it would be for me to make pancakes when we got back!

I sliced up an apple for her as a snack (which thankfully didn't have bird crap on it or a spot of anything that would send me into a panic ripple).

Then I started to make the pancakes. *Note* Never put the egg in last.

I cracked the egg into all of the only gluten free pancake mix left within a Not Going Back to the Store radius. And it stunk. Only you wouldn't know it.

Unless you were me and sniffed the inside of the egg shell. Because that's what I do. This is my life. I am not caught doing this ever. The reason being, there's nothing to catch. If someone is in my house while I make eggs, I announce that I'm going to do it. And laugh it off like we all do it. Ha ha ha.

It smelled fishy to me. Forgive my being out of school for 20 years or so but the genus Hens Aquaticus got past me.

Garbage.

I trodded back into where Humanling is patiently waiting for dinner and announce that There Has Been a Mix Up on the Pancakes.

"We're not having pancakes." She says sounding bored.

So I offer the very eggless gluten free mac and cheese or the other gluten free Chinese rice noodles. Then scooped her previously uneaten cauliflower and threw it into a pot with more veggies and am cooking them.

Seriously. I can't stand my CSI of the Culinary Brain issues. I find it hard to believe that I haven't stabbed myself to death out of annoyance during these episodes. Of course, with my luck there would be something like raw egg on the knife already and I'd live to find out about it.

Many times I can stand up to it and say No. I'm not doing it. We'll just take more probiotics or we'll just eat it to prove that it's fine. But then there are nights like tonight where I cry Uncle in one swift egg sniff.

****On an end note after I posted this, I went to finish making the mac & cheese and found that the foil packet of 'cheese' slipped onto a burner that was on. Not enough to burn it, but enough to cake it up inside and smell funny.

Cheese. Garbage.

{Me presenting bowl of food to Humanling} "Um, hello. Well, there was kind of an issue with the cheese."

Humanling: Did something else go wrong?

Me: Well yes. The cheese burnt inside the package BUT (this part said really fast) I put a lot of butter in there and salt and ripped up tiny pieces of soy cheese to melt in it!

***The bottom line - I hear her spoon furiously clinking against the glass bowl. I have managed to feed her dinner again, by the graces of God.