Ramblings. As in: Have Words -Will Ramble. As in: Ramble: to write or talk aimlessly or without sequence of ideas, to proceed with turns and twists; meander As In: observances of an everyday life in passing through the spectrum of extraordinary.
KATRINA
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Not since the Tsunami, since the beginning of the War, since 911, have so many eyes stopped in the middle of their lives, and turned their hearts in one accord toward the hurt of the many.We make the calls. "Are you okay? Safe? High Ground?" We wait for contact. Wait for cell phones to work or be turned on again. We search for a word. And we compare stories -
"Mom and Dad lost everything."
"Yes, our friend lost everything."
"Me too. Everything."
Everything. The word echos, following night into day and into night again. Everything. It's all gone. And now, still in the aftermath of rescuing people and counting bodies, the number of refugees inside America's borders are becoming a quick, new reality. Displaced. Lost. With nothing to offer. And nowhere to go.And people want to reach out and want to DO SOMETHING. Want to go there. Want to help in a tangible hands-on kind of way. But going there is out of the question. Just more bodies. More mouths to feed. More fresh water to drink.So we pay another bill, change another channel, open another email and then, make another phone call,
"Did your house make it?"
"No. We lost everything. But we're alive."
And I switch to Mayberry where life is good and quiet and the biggest problem are the two strange women speeding through town. I open an email from a friend- a European commercial that makes me laugh aloud in spite of everything and I forward it to my friend, a lost-everything refugee, on his way to stay with a friend of ours until he can sort through his total devastation. I hope the stupid thing makes him laugh. I hope it makes him laugh aloud until he snorts and tears come to his eyes.I'm counting my blessings. Remembering not to get so worked up about life when it's not a disaster. When one moment in time wipes away all of your history in the blink of an eye. I experienced that as a child. I know what that kind of empty looks like. Feels like.The national Red Cross http://redcross.org has up-to-date information on the relief efforts and what type of donations are needed. So does Fema at http://fema.gov . Both sites offer true blue opportunities to donate as well as a list of other partnering organizations including churches and non-profits. And I know from family experience - When our family needed help, The Red Cross and FEMA - really were there. For people searching for missing family members who may have been relocated - Call 1-888-240-6152 between the hours of 9-5 to see if their names or on the list as located and accounted for. Additional opportunities to give are listed through http://openyourhome.com
At the moment, the disaster hits very close to home. My sister-in-law is trapped in the city. The last phone call out said she was looking for water. And that no water was to be found.
In the days ahead,the folks down south are going to need every dusty, worn-down, mumbled prayer they can get to climb out of this one. And tonight, don't think yours doesn't matter. It certainly does. It matters a lot. If you don't believe me, go ask Dwanda.
posted by River Jordan at 8:16 PM
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BACK OFF BABY!
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Sister and I are paying the price for that lovely visit from Mom and Aunt Kate. Oh, yes we are. And they left us a little something. A pound here and a pound there. Hmmmmmm. Well, it was soooooo much fun going down. But now we have to get it off! Because we don't want to look like this
We want to look like this -
Well, you get the picture.
In The fact is - it's not a vanity thing, it's a health thing. Memaw died early - hadn't even seen the south side of 60 and we miss her. Daddy's heart gave out years before his mind and somedays we can't even breathe we miss him so much so the reality check is - we love to eat, and we love to eat southern food, and we love to eat long, long meals and sit and tell stories until it's time to eat again. But recently when sister and I met at the Loveless Cafe for coffee I had to tell the woman approaching the table -
"With all due respect, Back off with those Biscuits." She smiles. "I'm serious, don't even put them on the table."
"But last time you said to keep 'em coming."
"Yes, but last time I was deranged and immortal but now I'm back on planet Earth and I can't eat six of your biscuits smothered and dripping in that jar of homemade peach preserves with a side order of that hickory smoked bacon. I just can't do it. Substitute dry wheat toast for the biscuits." I am trying to say this while fighting the twitch that has developed at the corner of my mouth and at the center of my eye.
She looks at me as though I am a child. As though I am innocent of eternal truths.
"Honey, there are no substitutes for biscuits."
Amen.
There are no substitutes for biscuits. But someday, in a perfect world, when we have perfected everything, I will walk up to my food replicator like Captain Pecard and say, "Aunt Kates biscuits. Hot. Extra butter on the side." And it will duplicate those biscuits perfectly without any fat or calories or heart stopping ingredients. Until then - I'm cutting back and cutting down and walking more and remembering Daddy and telling stories about him and Memaw.
posted by River Jordan at 12:26 PM
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Miss Piggy and the Midnight Canoe Ride
Saturday, August 13, 2005
It's pushing 5 am. Decided to set the clock on a few hours sleep and GET UP and make myself GET OUT OF BED and go to the park to see the Persied Meteor showers - which by the way are not in the park but in the sky. Well, I think I missed them - the best day to see them was YESTERDAY MORNING, which is a shame because it will be another full year before they come back around. But there is always that other shower. The one that throws low fireballs of blue. No, really. Old blog entries are buried somewhere in here about witnessing just that.
But right day or wrong day - the 4 am skies are magnificent. Shooting stars or no. There I was lying in a meadow beneath the sky listening to the Owls call and looking at Mars and the constelations while thinking, This was worth waking up for. A lot. These are the images I hang onto when I need to breathe. Or sleep. Or be.
BUT BEFORE THAT HAPPENED
Aa few hours ago I was fishing with Mr. W. Okay, he was fishing and I was sitting, and thinking, and dreaming with my eyes open. Mr. Wonderful is also Mr. Outdoors. I am Ms. Matinee. Now, I like being outside - like walking in the woods (equates to strollllling in the woods) - like things that start with C - camping, canoe rides, campfires, and watching for shooting stars while sitting by the campfire, reading by the campfire, writing by the campfire, sleeping by the campfire - but Mr. W. is the one that packs the gear, packs the car, puts up the tent, builds the fire, cooks the food, and protects me from the bears and rattlesnakes.
SIDESTORY
Well, I packed everything one time and picked him up where he was camp counseling youth in the wilderness so that we could go camping directly and post haste but after unpacking everything in the car, he turns to me and says, "Where's the tent?"
"Hmmm, the tent?"
"Yes, you know THE TENT - the thing we sleep in when we go camping? The RED BAG WITH THE TENT!"
"Yes, I remember that thing now that you mention it but I thought it was something else - I thought THIS was the tent????"
We slept Cowboy/Cowgirl style, in the sleeping bags out by the campfire where I was not a) eaten by a bear or b) bitten by a rattlesnake- and the sky was WONDERFUL all night long. (Now, I know where all those open range cowboy songs come from.)
Front Story
Now I am fishing with Mr. W. when he decides the big fish are in a pond that is adjacent to the perfectly good water we are cruising in and that we need to travel through weeds and algae and get over into the other pond. So, he did catch and release many big, fat bass there a week ago. Okay. Fine.
This is the way that it goes. You know the canoe is going to get stuck, don't you? You can see this happening. And of course, it does. And husband gets out and is walking in this dark water and pulling the canoe along (with me in it) in the middle of things floating and crawling all around him and I am thinking - Oh, My hero! this reminds me of the African Queen and he's Humphrey Bogart in the swamp pulling the boat and I'm Katherine Hepburn in the boat doing nothing but being great at being K.H. and looking upset for him. Then I hear these words, "Get out."
"What?"
"Get out. You have to get out and walk."
I look at the black water, teeming with unknowables and weeds and floating clumps of stuff and suddenly I'm no longer Katherine Hepburn (doesn't she stay in the boat? I don't remember Kate getting out of the boat in the swamp water!) but instead I am now suddenly channeling Miss Piggy going 'MOI?' MOI get out of the boat? But Kermie!'
But husband isn't thinking about The African Queen or the Muppets. He is thinking about FISH and I don't have to ask him what he is thinking to know this. So I get out of the boat and step into the cold, dark water with things all around me and my flip - flops (okay- I'm a Florida girl, I own 'em, I wear 'em and I like 'em) stick in the bottom of the yuck-muck and I say, "But my feet are stuck and they can't get up,' and he says, "Then you'll have to walk barefoot like me."
Oh, yeah right. Sure. Like, I'm going to do that! But I am determined to keep those shoes on and I pull them up with only the greatest effort and you would have to try to walk with your flip-flops in the yuck-muck in the dark, cold water to know what that feels like. So I'm saying some words under my breath and Mr. Wonderful says, "Now, whose not being a good little trooper ?" (This is his way of encouraging me.) And I'm walking - kinda while lamenting "Oh, yes I am," I say, and pull my foot up with all my might with a great sloooop swooosh, look for snakes in the dark to the left "Yes I AM' Pull other foot up with a great slooop swoosh, look for snakes in the dark to the right, "You just don't know what a great little TROOPER I am being right now!!!!!
Then we get back in the canoe and I look for leaches - on me - and we proceed to move off towards this great Tolkien lagoon. Don't tell me that ponds don't have lagoons. This Pond had a lagoon and in the moonlight the entire place took on this very other-worldly Tolkienish ambiance. Something about the moon, the water, the trees and the dead branches which must have been where all the fish hid all night long. A mist hanging over the water. Crickets and cadydids and bullfrogs and my man and a shooting star.
One long, slow meteor traveling across the sky. Just a little piece of stardust blazing by. But it makes my heart - sing.
And in this strange little pond hidden just beyond the mud and water reeds, I wonder and believe and wish like a child.
posted by River Jordan at 6:44 AM
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Cloning and Nekked Women
Sunday, August 07, 2005
I have promised Mr. Wonderful a few things. 1) not to use sharp knives 2) not to cook downstairs at the same time I am writing upstairs 3) not to read while I am driving (there's a back-story here that involves me, a book, a car, and an oncoming train) 4) to never, under any circumstances, to start smoking again (it's been over 10 years ok? geez!) 5) and to love, honor, cooperate with to the very best of my ability, forsake all others and all that stuff. (The last one is very easy - the hardest, hmmmm, not reading while driving and Mr. Wonderful believes while you are stuck in traffic that you are still driving!)
I thought about these promises because I set fire to my fingernail while lighting the grill which somehow fell in between the lines of 1)no sharp knives and 2)cooking with fire or something like that. Now, normally I buy matchlight charcoal for a reason - but Mr. Wonderful buys great big bags of stuff that need lighter fluid - LOTS of lighter fluid - so I poured some on and tentatively lit it and sure 'nuff, it went OUT. Then I POURED some more on. Lots more and then I lit it again - and after the ball of flame died down and I put out my fingernail, we had a nice cookout.
From now on - I'm sticking to Matchlight because HEY, it's worth the $$$ difference to have hair. (Believe me, I have sorta blown off my hair, eyelashes and eyebrows lighting a gas oven in the past, I have some experience with these things - but that's another story.)
PERFECT DIGRESSION
Okay, okay - I'll tell it - but it has to be the short version. My sister was talking to me on the phone, so since I am the kind of person that often does more than one thing at once, I decided to light an old stove of mine to cook something that I totally don't remember now, and I turned on the gas (you know, just to get it started) and then we kept talking, and talking, and talking - and then I struck a match and put it in the stove.
My sister reports the sound of a small whoooosh, a type of flamed explosion, a blood curdling scream (mine) the sound of the phone being thrown against the wall and of her heart-beating in her chest believing she has just witnessed by ear my final demise - then me finally picking up the phone and saying - my hair, my freaking hair! (Or something to that effect.) And her saying, "Oh, for God's sake, I thought you were dead - forget about your hair!" But I'm the one standing in the middle of a cloud of burnt hair which has a really bad aroma with little singed pieces raining down around my shoulders and if I remember correctly kinda having my eyelashes melted together and my eyebrows lifted a few degrees. Then I went to playwriting class with a great story for being late smelling like singed hair and smoke - which almost made loosing the hair worth it!
BACK ON TRACK
So, I've promised my husband no matter how bad the day or the circumstance NOT to ever smoke again because I know that it will kill you as surely as a barbecue grill or a gas stove or reading while driving - just a little slower and with a lot more nasty long-drawn out symptoms. (Peter Jennings http://abcnews.com life was just cut short and who can forget the final words of Yul Brenner on the subject http://headnandneck.org
But sometimes my characters smoke just because they choose to and if they decide to quit that's their business. I try not to tell people what to do, emphasizing try here. But I have the most success in that area of my life in my writing. Characters get to be characters (not me) and thus far (Elizabethan mood shift) I have liked the ones that knock on my door. More on character development and upcoming classes at http://inthewritersroom.blogspot.com
IN THE NEWS
So, the shuttle landed safely - which pleases me to no end and I look forward to settling down with some popcorn and watching all the updates via internet that I missed on TV. And you too can follow the news - http://nasa.gov Yes, I'm a shuttle bug and a space enthusiast. And maybe while not a trekee, I do know enough Vulcan to communicate - okay, only that "Live Long and Prosper" thing which was just the coooooollllest when it came out - so far ahead of "May the force be with you." I did watch all the old star treks at least once, all the movies, and The Next Generation which had some incredible thought provoking scripts. There's this one GREAT EPISODE where Pecard (Picard?) and this other Captain from another space ship are sort of kidnapped and beamed down to another planet where they have to unite and fight this invisible alien monster thing. . . Well, you would just have to see it to understand. It was all about STORY. The Power of Story.
So Science is continuing to move forward in one way or another. You know they cloned the dog in Korea and you know about that whole genetic clone bank in California - Yes, the Genetic Savings and Clone Bank. No, I'm not making that up, check it out for yourself. http://savingsandclone.com I had this GREAT conversation with a couple of family members that I'll keep anonymous on their front porch in Georgia that was the greatest clone conversation ever. I mean ever. And I want to talk about, I really do. But, I've decided I have to write about it in a play or some publishable form so I just CANNOT tell you here or I will never write it. It'll be as spent as a 2 dollar bill. (Hey, anybody have any of those anymore?)
Oh, that other news - yeah, yeah, all the pop stars are popping and shopping and marrying (kinda) and divorcing (sorta) and spending money and jet-setting and you know, same story, different planet. Okay, so they kinda live on a different planet because it might as well be a different planet compared to all the people I know. But they are on the cover of ALL THE MAGAZINES WITH pieces of their lives either reported or guessed about and if it isn't them it's half nekked women (okay just nekked, nekked women) and 44 new ways to please somebody's something. As my aunt Kate says - (Well, maybe I shouldn't put that here but it is real funny and I wish I could. When you see me, ask me and I'll tell you later. Promise.)
It Makes me think about MY BIG EXPERIMENT TO INCREASE THE INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF ALL AMERICAN'S Everywhere. OVERNIGHT. But I don't have time to write about that now. But maybe later. Maybe in some OpED piece that the NY Times would just love to pick up. I joke but I am oh, so serious. http://nytimes.com
But wherever you are today doing whatever you do - go on and get your groove on and do it extremely well while having fun all the way- whether it's hanging sheet rock, or filling out GOVERNMENT FORMS (Did I mention Dante? Insert appropriate level number here!), or painting stripes on the road so we don't kill one another, or teaching little children to sing! or old people to remember - make it good. Really, really good.
And if someone asks you 'HOW ARE YOU?' today and chances are - they will - look at them and say 'Alive, Man. I'm alive!' and smile like you know it, you mean it, and you LIKE IT. A lot!
posted by River Jordan at 9:07 PM
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Mr. Wonderful and The Left Side of the Planet
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star." Friedrich Nietzsche
This was emailed to me recently by my writer-friend, Herman. He collects quotes and sends them along. Timely for me considering my recent discussion on chaos theory. But then - there was Nietzsche. An often misquoted and misguided Nietzsche. For years I went around saying - What doesn't kill me makes me stronger . . . what doesn't kill me makes me . . . " but lordy, lordy was I ever getting tired. Just weaker and weaker. Sometimes what doesn't kill you just makes you wish you were dead. Well, not all the way dead. But just a little rest my dear soul, stop the planet and let me get off for a few spins and then hop back on - dead. Dear, old, dead Nietzsche - but I like the quote as I try to resettle the chaos in my life. To implement systems to combat the theory that if one must have chaos to give birth to a dancing star then I am giving birth to galaxies and if you don't believe me check with Mr. Wonderful - otherwise known as my husband.
Yes, he is now THE official Mr. Wonderful because I recently bought a friend a Mr. Wonderful doll - have you seen them? You have? Well, I'm the last to know anything and I'm an eBay reject so it takes me awhile - but for any person on the left side of the planet that has not seen a Mr. Wonderful, you press the hand and the doll says ALL the right things that a woman needs to hear. NOT WANTS TO HEAR. NEEDS TO HEAR. Like, "No, honey, you don't look fat in that - how could ANYTHING make you look fat?" AND "Here honey, you take the remote. I don't care what we watch as long as I'm with you!" and so on - and with such a drippy, syrupy, sweet voice that it cracked my husband UP who pressed the hand over and over so much that it's a wonder he didn't wear it out before my friend received it. I should have bought him a doll. He spent the rest of the day pressing his own hand whenever I asked him something and saying THE PERFECT WORDS. Now, get this - he has known them all along because he was making them up as he went along. I SAID, YOU FAKER - You've always known the perfect w words - now just say them in EVERY situation, EVERY time I need to hear them - yeahhhh, right. And when the cows come home . . . (but truth is, he's too good to me to talk about because that would be - boring and gushy stuff and who wants to read about that.)
Presently, Mr. Wonderful is remodeling the kitchen. Only, the re-model was interrupted and now it's stuck in mid-model which is located somewhere around the 7th level of Dante's hell.Okay - not compared to living in a country that doesn't have a well or clean water. But in a functioning expectation of American-Life-on-the-run kind of hell. Suffice to say - you're not being invited over for dinner anytime soon. Don't call us, we'll call you kind of thing.
But in consideration of countries in need - check out the updated news at http://worldvision.org From my work with World Vision and interviewing previous employees with the organization, they are above board in everyway. Check out the website and draw your own conclusions. In particular, check out the gift catalogs where you can buy a goat, a cow, chickens or a well, etc. for a family or a village to provide a better life. (Kinda takes your mind of the remodeling or problems of the day and puts them into perspective.)
 New Discoveries - PASTE magazine http://pastemagazine.com Some great reviews and interviews. Free CD Sampler in EVERY ISSUE.
The BACON OF THE MONTH club. No lie!BACON delivered to your doorstep every month. What more could you hope for?
Here's the stuff straight from the Pigs mouth. - "The Bacon of the Month Club is the greatest of all gifts. IÂm not making that up. I get calls from customers all the time that tell me this. In my humble opinion no other club in the universe gives you as much pleasure and sheer delight as The Bacon of the Month Club. The Bacon of the Month Club is the go-to gift for that person in your life who loves bacon, who has everything or who has very little. Join for yourself. Give yourself the gift of bacon." Okay, that is lifted straight from The Grateful Palate Gift Handbook - and the weblink is strange so just go google bacon of the month and follow the BAM link to the goodies. Y umm, yumm. Think I have the perfect person in mind for this lovely Christmas gift!
posted by River Jordan at 11:48 PM
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