"Have a nice morning?" she said to me as I entered the front door.
"Hardly," I said.
"Too bad," she said, "I thought you'd be cheered by a walk on this beautiful morning. Did something go wrong to spoil it?"
"Just Mabd up to her old tricks," I said.
"Mabd?" she said."
"One of the Morrigan sisters," I said. Immediately her twin eyebrows lifted and wrinkles appeared on her forehead. It was the look I'd expect if I'd told her I was giving up qigong. I thought it best to add some context. "Celtic goddess," I said. "A triune, in fact; Mabd, Macha, and Nemain. You probably haven't been introduced."
"No, I haven't," she said, and the way she said it didn't convince me that I'd clarified anything. But I thought it best to move on or risk losing control in the loose gravel and ending up a spoiler in the ditch.
"Perhaps an example will help," I said.
"Yes, let's have one," she said.
"Yesterday, as I drove down Ocean Highway to the post office listening to the radio station that plays 60's music..."
"You mean 60's on 6, the SiriusXM station."
"You're behind the times, Poopsie. It is, as you say, the SXM station, but it's Channel 73 now."
"Why did they change the channel?"
"Never mind," I said. "Let's stay on topic or I'll never get this story told. The problem is that after the recent change in the program schedule, the only song they play by Sonny and Cher is Baby Don't Go. I've heard it every day now for several days in a row and I can't over-stress that I don't like it."
"Oh, too bad," she said.
"You'd go that far, would you? No, that doesn't come close. Princess Amy was spot on when she said that with all the hit songs that fantastic duo had in the 60s, surely SXM could find room for some of the more popular hits."
"Princess Amy is in your head," she said.
"Right," I said, "she sits atop my medulla oblongata, next door to the hippocampus."
As I gave voice to those words, I couldn't help but wonder what that little glob of gray cells in my brain has in common with the hippo, which I'm told is a member of the horse family.
"My point is that we're talking about your limbic system, not some spoiled little princess, which is how you often refer to her," she said.
"But what's it have to do with horses?" I said.
"Spoiled little princess, my ass," said Amy. "I'll make her think spoiled princess."
"Calm down, Amy," I said.
"I am calm," said the Wonder, "and don't call me Amy and what the hell do you mean when you say horses? You're getting distracted."
Well, now I was distracted. I hadn't meant to speak to Amy aloud and I didn't want Wonder to know that I carry on conversations with the defendent, especially since it seems important to her, meaning Ms. Wonder not Amy, that I disavow any knowledge of the princess. It was clear that my next remarks should be carefully choosen. But Ms. Wonder spoke before I could get the words out.
"Amy is nothing more than a cute name for your limbic system," Wonder said. "It's fun, just like your lagoon creatures are fun, but they're pure fiction."
"Drivel!," Amy said." I may be obliged to listen to drivel now and again but I'll be damned if I'm going to listen to pure bilge. Tell her to put a sock in it!"
I bit my tongue because the urge to calm Amy down combined with the urge to correct Ms. Wonder on the subject of lagoon creatures was great. I'm sure you understand. And yet, I knew that if I allowed myself to speak, I couldn't be sure who I'd address first and, well, read the paragraphs above one more time.
"Don't have anything to say? Does that mean that we're in agreement?"
Well, this was a fine kettle of fish, as Stan Lorell said. The Wonder was waiting for me to speak and had even gone so far as to prod a response from me. The problem with that, as I saw it, was that no matter what I might say, one of three different outcomes could result and two of those three outcomes were bad outcomes. Not good odds as outcomes go.
"Back to the subject," I said, "it's a sad song and I don't want to listen to sad songs. When I get a little sad, Amy...I mean my limbic system finds more sad stuff to pile on until my cup overfloweth."
"Oh, I know," she said, and I'm sorry you have to deal with that."
Did you notice that the atmosphere changed with her last remark? Sympathetic it seemed to me. This was my opportunity to get out of the ditch and back on the asphalt. I decided to press ahead.
"Yeah," I said, "and to get back to the subject at hand, this morning as I drove down Ocean Highway to the post office listening to the 60's station, guess what happened?
Sonny and Cher singing Baby Don't Go?
No, I said. It was Sonny and Cher singing Baby Come Back.
You see? Not only does the Universe mess with me, but she rubs my face in it. Baby Don't Go and then Baby Come Back. That's not a coincidence, Wonder, that's a cruel joke.
And you think it's proof that the Universe...
That's Mabd at work. She knows my whangee is warped and she wants to exploit it.
And Mabd is one of the Morgan Sisters?
Not Morgan Sisters, Poopsie. The Morgan Sisters are gospel singers and I'm told devote themselves solely to doing good in the world. No, it's not Morgan, it's The Morrigan Sisters, Nemain, Macha, and Mabd; sewer harpies, the lot of them!
What are sewer harpies?
Wonder! I said. Sewer harpies are loathsome, predatory women that dwell in the darkest, vilest depths of the human mind. At least that's my definition. You'll find something a little bit different in Greek mythology.
"Wait," she said, "are we discussing creatures of Greek mythology or Celtic? You're confusing me, but it doesn't matter because it's all nonsense. Mabd, or whoever, isn't actually hanging out in sewers waiting to mess up your day."
She took a deep breath and I hardly breathed. What happened next, I realized, would set the course for the rest of the day. Eventually, she began speaking again.
"There's a much better explanation for all this," she said. "Would you like to hear my thoughts?"
"Absolutely," I said, "but before you speak let me make you aware of the last bit of my story. Just so you have all the facts."
"By all means," she said. "Let's hear it."
"When I left the post office, I entered the turning lane on Ocean Highway and there was a small sign at the side of the road. That sign read...and you aren't going to believe it, but the sign read, Crawl Space Ninja. How can you argue with that?"
She gave me a look that wasn't one of her familiar patented looks. It might have been the look she would reserve for me if I'd told her that I was a crawl space ninja. It might have been one that I'd see if I told her I'd decided to raise cocker spaniels.
I waited for her to speak and I waited what surely was no more than a few seconds but seemed like several embarrassing minutes.
"Well," she said, "I suppose there's no arguing with that."
Without any further argument, she went upstairs and began her day's work listening to her personal playlist on Spotify. Amy and I continued our discussion of the SiriusXM program schedule.
Later on I Googled hippocampus and learned that the original comes from Greek mythology and is described as the upper body of a horse with a lower body of a fish. Someone given the job of naming parts of the brain thought that that little globule was shaped like the mythological "sea horse."
That's right, sea horse. All of us have a sea horse in our brains. And I get sideways glances just because I have Princess Amy riding mine.
