Beautiful, Really

It is dark outside and I am back at Aristotle's Coffee Garage, my friend Lisa's lovely shop, the one she closed after she got married and moved away.

In the dream, it was a usual morning.

I arrived at 4:30am to write for a few hours before dawn.

Just as I was about to close my notebook and start making pots of coffee, getting the shop ready for customers, the coffeeshop phone rang.

I answered it, and there was a long pause.

Then, clearly, it was her.

She called me by name.

She wasn't a good sleeper, not at night, at least, so standing there in the pre-dawn dark alone, I wasn't surprised she was awake with me. I laughed.

Que? Que quieres Abuela? What do you want?

How is the weather there?

The weather? Why?

Porque, she replies, porque I need to know if it's as nice there as it is where I am.

Where?

Mi cielito.... you know where I am.

And then, like a boulder crashing every bit of happiness I had allowed to bubble through me, I did know where she was.

Is .... the weather beautiful .... there?

She laughed. Everything is beautiful here. Ay, mi hija, you don't even know!

I almost think that maybe I know, but I am almost speechless, and have to force the words out of my mouth.

Yes Yes, Abuela, the weather is so lovely. It's Fall...

Que rico! She replies, and I nod my head silently, holding the phone with both hands.

Then my cellphone alarm went off, sending me back into a room where I was alone in bed, hugging a wet pillow, forcing myself to smile into the predawn dark.

Before I make coffeee, before I wake my children up to face another day, I go outside.

Yes, I tell myself, biting my lip to force back tears, more out of habit than desire.

The weather is beautiful, really.

War and Peace

I look up from my writing, like waking up from a trance, and it takes a few seconds to realize exactly what is going wrong in the living room.

Zack-a-roni! Stop using my yoga mat as a cannon!

He sits on top of the rolled mat, now pretending it is a horse, and acts like he is the one being shot

Sweetheart, there is no more shooting. The war is over.

It is?

Yes, it's over.

Did we win?

Well, there is peace.... listen.

He gets off the mat, walks to the sliding glass door and nods his head.

We won, Mami. It's all quiet here.

I nod my head, and return to writing, thankful for the peace.

Dial Tone, A Salt and Buttery

For the third time in a row, she punches all the numbers into the new phone, then hits a black button which ends the call.

Again, I repeat the numbers, watching her frustration grow.

Then I stop announcing the numbers and ask, "Did you hear a dial tone?"

She looks at me like I'm nutso.

I repeat myself.

"A dial tone... did you hear one?... before you started dialing?"

"What's a dial tone?" she asks. Her brother reaches up and I plop him on the counter next to her.

He repeats the question, "Yeah, what's a dial tone, Mami?"

My two kids look at me with puzzled faces.

They are masters of my cellphone, able to effortlessly take pictures, set them as wallpaper, and send them to Tita as text messages.

I realize that, for their entire lives, we have not used the land line.

Nothing good has ever come from those calls anyway.

Doctors, lawyers, sales pitches. Forget it.

For years the phone at home has been unplugged, ignored, unwelcome.

I recently changed the home number, bought a new phone which would work during power outages, and have been trying to teach the kids how to dial "old school."

Finally, Zoe hears a dial tone, hits all the right numbers, and calls my dad.

While she is explaining the concept of "dial tone" to my ever patient St. Winn of the Hibiscus, Zack pulls Zoe's shirt away from her neck and pours salt down her back.

She screams into my dad's ear, so I take the phone from her.

"Hang on Dad..." (then) "Zachary Lemon, PLEASE do not salt your sister!"

Dad replies, "He's assaulting his sister?"

"No Dad," I exhale, suddenly outnumbered and outgunned. "He's pouring salt down her back, and apparently it tickles and..."

"Tell him to rub some butter on her."

"What?"

"Assault and buttery... that's my boy."

Zack, who hasn't broken eye contact with me since I removed the salt from his possession, tries to turn the speakerphone on so he can catch what his grandfather is saying.

I block him with my hand.

"No Dad, I'm not going to give these kids any more ammunition. They've learned enough for today. And I have to get them to school now... "

"Assault and buttery, that's really good! You should blog that!"

"I will, I will," I promise him as I tell him I love him, freeing up my hand just in time to catch Zack wildly catapulting himself off the counter, proclaiming, "Butter!"

Enough *

I stand under the starless night
always quiet,
always alone,
under the dimmed waxing moonlight
and give thanks for
the moon's perpetual reflection
of always changing sun.

On this silent dark Sunday
I am completely faithful that
for today,
and for now,
the moonlight
is more than enough.

Zack Singing and Dancing (#3 of 3)

Zack Dancing and Singing (#2 of 3)

Zack Singing and Dancing (#1 of 3)

$10 and a Cookie

"It's been a long day already," I confide to the blonde stranger behind me in the crowded line.

"Hump day," she says, encouraging.

I take a deep breath. Nod.

A man asks her, "Did you drop $10?"

She shakes her head, he walks away.

I look in my cardholder, my $10 is gone.

Dammit. I exhale and almost stomp my foot.

"It was my $10," I tell her.

She calls him, he waves us off, "Yeah. Right. That other guy said it was his, too...."

I exhale, controlled, stoic. "Fine, OK. I'll put it on my credit card."

"Let it go," she says, sounding more like me than I do.

I nod. "Yes, he must need it more. I hope he enjoys it."

My jaw is clenched as I say this, reflecting my true thoughts.

I feel stupid, tired, and unusually irritable.

She introduces herself, I tell her my name, we each order our sandwiches.

There are no carrots, no spinach and really nothing looks good, so I end up with a turkey sandwich, spicy mustard, bread.

As we make it to the end of the line, I point at the cookies. "I'm going to buy you a cookie, which kind would you like?"

Her face lights up. "Macadamia nut."

I order one for her, one for our mutual friend whose virtues we are both proclaiming.

As I make my way to the cashier, a guy taps me on the shoulder. "Is it really your $10?"

"It really is," I reply, looking him straight in the eye.

He hands it to me, a little disappointed in losing his windfall. I thank him, warmly, then he disappears.

Minutes later, before we part, my new friend gives me a big hug, a real one, the kind that really does make you feel better. I thank her, and make my way back to the building.

Our friend is in her office in front of the computer and I surprise her. "Thank you for sending me an angel... I brought you a cookie."

She laughs, which, it turns out, is exactly how this story was meant to end.

I Choose to Speak Up

Palin is a woman who is seen by many other women as an anti-feminist, most particularly for her choice to oppose women's fundamental constitutional right to retain control over the most private decision a human could could make.

(There are many references to her long standing position, including Time Magazine.).

The United States is a land of liberty, tolerance, diversity and respect.

Anyone -- male or female, Republican, Democrat, Independent or otherwise -- who supports a government so large and invasive that it would regulate, limit or eliminate choices in such an intensely private sphere will *not* have my vote.

And, by the way, I support your choice to choose, to vote and to be heard, regardless of how you stand on this issue or any other.

The Bulldog and The Bull Moose

Gloria Steinem recently compared Palin to Phyllis Schafly, the conservative anti-feminist who argued that the Equal Rights Amendment would lead to unisex bathrooms, *forcing* our daughters to share bathrooms with strange men at Sears.

Inspired by Steinem's article I decided to figure out else who Ms. Palin reminds me of....

Victoria Woodhull, the 19th century pre-19th Amendment feminist who ran for president on a ticket with Frederick Douglas? No.

Betty Friedan, the woman whose book, the Feminine Mystique, liberated millions of women from the narrow belief they were being sold that a clean house and happy children were the singular path to happiness? No.

Then it hit me.

Like a bullet.

Palin reminds me another gun-toting Vice President who had a brood of rambunctious children, and who also had a thing for shooting moose.

Roach Tale

Zoe, Zack and I are standing in front of her classroom waiting for the rest of her class.

The first bell rang while we were all eating breakfast in the school cafeteria, now we are waiting for the second bell.

Zack points at a huge toffee colored roach which is laying upside right by my feet, antennae waving.

Kill it, he commands.

I don't obey, instead giving it a sliding push across the hallway.

The momentum of my kick allows it to get back on its feet, where two little girls see it and scream.

They slam their classroom door, and the roach happily follows them, crawling under the door.

Another teacher pops his head in the room to see what the commotion is, and leaves the room, laughing

Zoe shakes her head. Look what you've done. You should've killed it.

I shrug. Not my style. And anyway, isn't this more fun?

Within seconds, Zoe's class arrives and she disappears into her room.

Zack and I walk away to face the rest of the day, unstained by even the slightest murder.