Take It Easy

The day opened bright and fair brought me into the peak of my form, fizzy to an almost unbelievable extent, and enchanting one and all with my bright smile and equally bright wit.

We were in Wilma Fine Arts Gallery, Ms. Wonder and I, to de-install her most recent photography exhibit, Harbor Impressions. 

At the apex of good cheer, I stepped out of the gallery for the cooling breeze and hot coffee, where I was offered an opportunity to buy a pack of cigarettes for a gentleman who seemed in dire need of them, and on his birthday no less. 

I'm not a cigarette handler so I gave him a bit of cash instead, assuming he could find someone who would accept the money in return for the coffin nails.

A few minutes later, I had a similar offer to unite a man in need with his personal needful--a can of Mountain Dew. What a day! Does it get any better?

It was as if, Sysiphus had been provided with a bulldozer to move that boulder up and down the hill.

And then, Bang! Pop! Pow! Just as I was feeling like saying, This is the life! along came the first of those wicked text messages. The phone lay on the counter too far away for me to see the messenger, and I eyed the thing askance. I think that's the word I'm looking for. It means an untrusting look, to look with suspicion as if expecting something to pop out and bite me in the ankle.

You may recall that it was a text message that started the rannygazoo involving Lupe and my Aunt Maggie. The posting is called, An Aunt's Curse, but I wouldn't bother reading it now--not germane (closely or significantly related; relevant; pertinent).

Had circs been different, not that they ever are, but if they had been different I might have enjoyed an after-dinner saunter down Front Street with Ms. Wonder who was back at the gallery wrestling with canvas prints and cardboard boxes. It's her alternative to working crossword puzzles.

The air was full of warm summer richness. A gentle breeze coming off the river refreshed the spirit, and the sky was probably full of stars. I say probably because they were dimmed by the street lights but I'm sure they were there. Probably.

But to enjoy the gentle night requires a tranquil mind and tranquil was exactly what my mind was not. Not tranquil; full of thoughts about text messages. What to do about them was the question I asked myself.

"Do about what?" asked Ms. Wonder who had shimmered from somewhere up uptown to join me outside Drift Cafe.

"Did I say that out loud? I asked.

She didn't respond to my question. Looking back on it now, I suppose there was no reason for her to elaborate.

"Poopsie," I said. "I've gotten text messages that I'd rather not have gotten."

"I'll bet they're from Crystal Cove, aren't they?" she said.

"You do know everything, don't you?" I said.

"Don't let it worry you now," she said. "The night's too beautiful for worry. Remember that tomorrow is another day and there's always hope in tomorrow. 

"That tomorrow is another gag day might have worked for a Broadway play like Wicked," I said, "but it doesn't work in real life."

"I believe you're confusing Wicked and Annie," she said. "But it doesn't matter. Look--forget the text messages, enjoy the evening, and by tomorrow morning your cares will have melted away like snow on the mountaintop."

"But what if they don't melt away?" I said.

"In that case," she said, "you might want to get away to where your troubles can't find you."

"You mean somewhere like Cheers," I said. "Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Like that, right?"

"I was thinking of somewhere like Jamaica, or Australia, or even the United States of America," she said.

"I've heard that Australia's nice," I said.

"See," she said, "you feel better already, don't you?" 

Then she put her arm in mine and we sauntered on down Front Street like F. Scott and Zelda living another day in paradise.

Modern Life and Cats

"Modern life is not a lot of fun if left to its own devices," I said to Ms. Wonder and I felt it to the core.

"You seem low-spirited," she said and I think I've made it pretty clear that it was so. I was as low-spirited as I could stick even though Uma, Queen of Cats and Empress of Chatsford Hall lay at my feet doing an impersonation of an eel out of water in the hope, no doubt, of receiving a treat for the effort.

Empress Uma Maya 

"No, Poopsie, modern life is not much fun at all. Consider how Napoleon must have felt when Nelson sailed the British fleet into Cairo Bay and burned the French navy. Couldn't have been pleasant for him."

Sagi (Sagitarius) M'tesi

"It must have been much the same for Peter II when Catherine the soon to be Great, led the Russian army to the Winter Palace where he was in residence. No," I said, " modern life is just one damned thing after another, just as Shakespeare told us."

She gave me a quizzical look and I realized that she was about to interrupt my soliloquy with some drivel about Shakespeare but I wasn't done yet. I continued.

Beignet Lafayette

"But instead of searching for the silver lining of life's muddle-headedness, do you know what most people do? They get all hotted up and the pressure builds until they start leaking at the seams. You can find them grinding teeth and clenching fists and giving passersby a look that could open oysters at 20 paces. Only makes things worse, if you ask me."

I waited for her response, one that would make me feel that we commiserated if that's the word I'm looking for, but she didn't say anything, just gave me what passes with her as a compassionate look.

Lucy Lucille Lupe 

I remember thinking that brown eyes do a better job of portraying compassion than green eyes, but then it isn't her fault that she has the eyes of an elf, and besides, I knew what she meant. 

"Something really should be done before it's too late," I said.

"Done?" she said. "You mean something to change the general attitude of people you meet? Do you think that's possible?"

"Thank you for asking," I said. "I really would like to see people sweeten up a bit and I think I have the perfect antidote to whatever it is that poisons their outlook."

"Go on," she said.

"P.G. Wodehouse," I said. "It's imperative, the way I see it, that modern man, and woman too if she cares to join us, read Wodehouse to learn the importance of aunts, or rather, the importance of avoiding them."

Abbie (Abracadabra) Hoffman 

"But not cats," she said, always having her finger on the nub. "People must realize the importance of socializing with cats."

"Cats to be sure," I said. "Of what value would life be without cats? I mean, what's the point?"

We began to discuss the Wodehouse cannon and the relative importance of aunts and cats but somewhere along the way, and I'm not sure exactly where it occurred, I began talking about my own writing, and my hope that perhaps I could help supply some relief to pedestrians as they navigate life's potholes.

Eddy Spaghetti 

"I've paid my dues, the way many writers do, and I feel it's time I give back some of what I've learned," I said. "I shall stick to writing about what I know, which is normal life, or in the words of George Costanza, nothing at all, because that's what I know best. 

I'm as apolitical as an oyster but I'm not naive, at least I don't think so. I hope that I can follow in the great man's footsteps--I allude again to P.G.--and produce quality work in my latter years, just as he produced in his. Neither he nor I peaked early."

"I hope you consider offering spiritual guidance to your readers," she said.

"Not as such," I said. "My stories will be in the context of my own spiritual outlook but I will not be explicitly spiritual. I don't care to be preached at and I don't intend to engage in the practice. I have some knowledge of the Bible due simply to the age in which I grew up. We memorized and quoted Bible versus in primary school and I can nail down an allusion as quickly as Jael, the wife of Heber, who was always driving spikes into the coconuts of overnight guests.

"The plots I prefer are much the same as those of Shakespeare's comedies. The foibles of love and the antics of those trying to win or escape from love's embrace. There will be a scarcity of mothers and fathers, only because of my own upbringing, but a pile of aunts, uncles, and cousins, of which I had so many that laid end to end would stretch from here to the next presidential election."

"And cats," she said as Abbie Hoffman, who had just wandered into the room, and apparently decided that the number of felines in attendance exceeded the fire marshal's recommendations. He left the way he came.

"Absolutely cats," I said. "Cats add value to any subject and the absence of cats wounds even the best literature."

We both mused on this concept for several minutes, cats being a deep subject and a wide one too.

"I shall attempt to apply what I have learned from the master," I continued, "and use metaphor to the fullest extent. From bees fooling about in the flowers to the stars being God's daisy chain. I hope I can do it. I've certainly marinated myself in his works--not God's but Wodehouse's. I do hope so. These are truly troubling times we live in and we must battle the powers of darkness before we are undone."

"Excellent plan," she said. "I can't wait to see where this new path leads."

"Me too," I said and I meant it like the dickens!

Wicked, Fierce Sashay!

Each morning, I walk the trails of Brunswick Forest. I was there this morning right after sunup. 

It was a beautiful day, light, bright, full of sunshine and birdsong but it quickly turned to the dark and ugly side with birdsong replaced by a rash of ugly hissing from the Sewer Harpies. A perfect example of just how true the P. G. Wodehouse quote, 

"It's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping."

I know! I hate it too. I try to deny the truth of it but sometimes the behavior of the Fate Sisters crosses the line, if there is a line, and demands that someone speak out saying, 

I'm mad as hell, and even if I can't do anything about it, I'm going to give the Fates a piece of my mind!

I began my daily ritual this morning by honoring two special trees that stand on the forest boundary. One of them has obvious windstorm damage. All the limbs on the southwest side have been broken away and the tree canopy is lop-sided. Even so, it grows and flourishes there in the forest. 

I too am lopsided due to a vehicle accident that the Fates seemed to think I'd earned while performing my military duty. I feel that the tree and I share a special bond.

The second tree special to me is a specimen that is as close to death as a tree with green leaves can be. It has a slender trunk and is missing the top half. It has no real limbs and instead only a few small branches that grow directly out of the trunk. The center or heart of the tree is missing from base to apex, probably due to some insect infestation. And yet, this tree sprouts green leaves every spring.

Like that tree, I too am not fully present. My body is in that period of life when it regenerates one measure and decays two. Much of my heart, my spiritual and emotional heart, is missing, and yet I somehow continue to show new growth in season.

After greeting these two friends, I offered my gratitude to the Higher Power that rules life on Earth. I declared myself willing to accept life on life's terms. I usually feel better after doing so and today was no exception. 

Then, I turned to begin my sashay along the trails, thinking of Mockingbird, who joins me most mornings and encourages me with a sunrise serenade, and looking forward to meeting up with Rock, my strength and my refuge against the slings and arrows that we hear so much about on the news broadcasts. 

I was, in the words of Mr. Wodehouse, feeling particularly braced with things in general. Then...

Bam! Crack! Crash!

I took the first hay-maker right between the eyes and then a follow-up blow to the abdomen! The universe had set me up for the one-two combination. I was stunned. I was shaken. The ground rolled like waves on the ocean much like that earthquake I experienced in San Francisco.

I hesitate to describe the exact nature of the imbroglio because the emotions are still raw.

In that instant, the enlightened Genome you know evaporated and was replaced by the foundation-level, survival-level animal. In the immortal words of my sainted Aunt Cynthia, I gave the Mystic Manager a piece of my mind, and had that manager been present, I would have given him/her a punch in the mystical nose.

You may be shocked by my admission. No doubt you think of me as one of the most delightful people you’ve ever met. You remember me as one who remained quiet and reserved in the company of others; one who listened and spoke only when spoken to. 

Genome, you say to yourself, what has happened to you? 

No doubt, my violent reaction was due as much to the encouragement of Princess Amy as it was to the perceived affront. But since I want to never mislead my public, I must disclose the full list of those who have mentored me in the art of self-defense. 

My early childhood role models are these--Donald Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, Yosemite Sam, and the Red Queen from Alice. If you're among the privileged to remember their reactions to the slings and arrows of life on life's terms, then you will understand my behavior.

And so, without apology nor rationalization, I leave you to make of it what you will. Fierce Qigong! 

Your Morning Update

I woke this morning nearly pain free and, if not in mid-season form, then near enough for time trials. I don't suppose I've ever come closer to singing, "Tra-la-la." When Ms Wonder came into the boudoir with a steaming cup of Bohea I said, "Poopsie, I feel good this morning."

"I wouldn't worry about it," she said, "it's probably a normal feeling for most people."

"What's the day like?" I asked.

She said it was very clement or some guff like that.

"You mean the sky is blue, the sun smiling, hot and cold running water? The usual amenities?"

"Domestic offices," she suggested but for me it was another near misses and I let it go.

"Then I think I'll take myself out for an airing," I said.

"Don't forget we're meeting Tiger and Wild Bill for breakfast at 9:30."

I had forgotten all about this tryst as it came suddenly on the heels of my having to cancel a dinner engagement with these two love birds. I quickly climbed into the outer crust of the Durhamite weekender: Thai fisherman pants and Steve Miller Band tee--the 1999 Last Call tour--and the Aldo boaters, sans socks, which adds just a hint of diablerie, and I think you will agree that I need all the diablerie I can get.

Finally upholstered, I emerged and found two waiting for me on the porch attired in feminine fabric. Not the porch but the two waiting for me. Ms Wonder bunged herself into the sports model and Mom, still standing on the porch, waved us off like an Archbishop blessing the pilgrims.

I'm not much for chatting in traffic and remained strong and silent, the lips tight, the eye ever vigilant, until we were out off the Chatsford estate and sailing down the highway. Then I got down to a subject that has troubled me for some time.

"Poopsie," I said, "there is something about the pairing of these two that has troubled me for some time."

"Wild Bill and Tiger," she said, "they're a perfect couple. A match made in Heaven."

"Oh, I agree," I said. "Nice work if you want my opinion. I  think they're both on to something good and should push it along with the utmost energy. Why wait until December, get married tomorrow is my suggestion. No, it's not that I object to either of them. Both are the soundest of eggs. None sounder. It's just that they both fell in love at first sight."

She said something about people who don't believe in love at first sight but it was, in my opinion, a side issue and should not divert us from the subject at hand.

I explained that I would expect nothing less of Bill. After all, strong men before him had been smitten with Jenny to an alarming degree. Wonder interrupted me to say that it probably had something to do with her profile. I agreed that it might possibly be the profile as seen from the right.

"From the left too," she said.

"Well, I suppose in a measure from the left too but you can't expect men in this hectic age to take time to dodge around a girl trying to see her from all sides."

I readily understood why Bill fell for Jenny for she is liberally supplied with oomph. He, on the other hand, a good egg, none better, but he's one of us, or that is to say, he has the face that you grow into.

"But he's no Brad Pitt," I said.

"Well," she said, "you're no Brad Pitt," as if that had anything to do with it.

Sometimes I wonder about this Poopsie, descendent of Count Alexei Orlov who helped Catherine the Great ascend to the throne. Give that one some thought and I think you will agree that there is reason for concern.

"Would I look a little like B Pitt if I had hair?"

"No."

"If I had a chin?"

"Nope."

"I suppose I must look like Beaker, the Muppet."

"Beaker had hair," she said.

"A bald Beaker," I said.

"A very cute bald Beaker," she said giving my head a nubbing.

This give and take left me feeling better about things and I would have carried on but we were nearing our destination and I was required to twiddle the wheel to avoid a passing tree and then we arrived at William's Gourmet Kitchen. We decanted ourselves and went inside to break the fast with the aforementioned friends.

I do hope this update answers all questions about the whereabouts of this post. It is here like that mountain we hear so much about. Once there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was. Now there is.

Coffee Therapy

It was one of those breezy, humid mornings when nature seems to be considering scaring the bejeezus out of local inhabitants with a hell of a wicked thunderstorm.

"Better stay home. Who wants to negotiate downtown traffic in a monsoon?" The words floated up from Princess Amy's control room deep in my brain. The mid-brain is the location of her command and control center, or so I'm told, but I wouldn't know the mid-brain from the suburbs.

"Sorry, Amy," I said. "I need to get out of the house. I feel like a balloon with more than the recommended dose of atmosphere, if atmosphere is the word I want."

Wind Horse was purring smoothly as we crossed the newly renovated Memorial Bridge. I immediately saw the thunderhead rolling up the river from the stormy Atlantic, moving past the port, on its way downtown. Lightning bolts danced about in the depths of the darkness. It looked wicked and I didn't like it.

"Faster, faster!" urged Amy. She was talking to me, not the storm. "Castle Street's going to be a river by the time we get there."

"Easy, Amy," I said. "Don't allow your knickers to get all twisted."

By the time I parked, the floodgates had opened, and the downpour obscured my vision. I walked quickly through the rain with a bowed head and an angry heart. I was fed up with all the nonsense that Life was throwing my way over the past week. I was mad as hell and I wasn't going to take it anymore. That's what I told myself but I was at a loss as to what I would do about it exactly.  

Pausing halfway through the cafe door, I assessed the state of the interior. Several people were in line ahead of me. Not good I thought and I could feel Princess Amy taking it big too. 

"I told you!" she said. "We never should have left home. Maybe you'll pay more attention to me next time"

Rather than getting in line, I waved to the barista behind the bar in a way designed to indicate I was desperate for an infusion of Jah’s mercy, and pleading for her to do her utmost to do something about it.

She nodded in a way that assured me she would attend to the matter immediately. I knew this maiden well and I was certain that just like an Arabian genie when her lamp is rubbed, it would be with her the work of an instant to vanish from the crowd and reappear at my table with the promised elixir.

"There's nowhere to sit," said Amy.

I scrutinized the room and there to my wandering eye appeared, my old pal, Doyle Jaynes, seated in the middle of the room, with a peculiar look on his face. It was a look usually seen on the faces of dog walkers who, on rainy days like this one, wish they'd chosen another career. 

I crossed the room and nodded to Jaynes who had finally looked my way. As I sat, I asked, "What's wrong with you? You look like...well, never mind what you look like. I probably look the same."

"Mine is a long story," he said, "full of heartbreak and grief. I've been abandoned by the one I most depended on."

"Well, so is mine a long story," I said, "although I'll bet it shares nothing in common with yours. Still, a warm, friendly environment and a bottomless supply of steaming brew-ha-ha help to make a fine day for it. Who'll get us started, you or me?"

And just at that precise moment, the barista arrived with my cappuccino. Perfect timing. A good day to die, as my ancestors would say. It's a traditional term meant to indicate that one has lived a good life and has no unresolved regrets hanging around.

Each day is a special and unique gift. No matter what comes with it, it's the same day--good or bad, happy or sad. Seems to me, we might as well accept life as it is and get on with it. When there's a dry spot with a friendly face in it and a mug of globally brewed and locally roasted, who needs therapy?