Mysterious things are happening around my house.
Strange, eerie, beautiful (and sometimes maddening) things.
Those of you who follow me on Facebook are well aware of the MASSIVE beehive that has taken over a portion of my property … and my life. If you’re not yet familiar with THE HIVE, don’t worry. The saga will likely result in a metaphor-rich post about productivity, fertility and sweetness. It’s obvious the all mighty honey bee is my latest animal spirit guide.
When Henry was an infant he went through a ghost phase. And by ghost phase I mean he saw ghosts (ie: waved at Nothing, smiled at Nothing and acknowledged the presence of Nothing in a way that was both unsettling and mystical to his reasonable parents.)
This phase lasted from about nine to 12 months of age. It began one morning when I waltzed plodded bright bleary-eyed into Henry’s room and spotted him staring into space, smiling and blah-blah-blahing at a very specific Nothing in the corner of his room.
“Good morning Henry,” I said.
No reaction. He was too preoccupied with the Thing I Could Not See to pay me any mind.
For three whole minutes my perfectly rowdy baby failed to whine, coo or so much as nod in my direction. Although I was invisible, the Thing I Could Not See remained perfectly in focus.
I stared at the Nothingness he was staring at.
What on earth was he looking at? Or better yet, WHO was he looking at?
“Henry? Yoo hoo? Good morning,” I sang croaked.
It took some effort to divert his attention. When he finally did turn to face me he gave a little goodbye wave to the apparition in his room.
“Sweetheart, did you see something over there?”
He smiled smugly as if to say YOU DUMB ADULT. YOUR EYES ARE TOO OLD TO SEE WHAT I SEE. Returning to his usual helpless state, he threw his arms in the air and grunted – the universal baby sign for GET ME OUT OF MY CRIB DAMMIT.
|| Note: This is a post for my Opa, whom I’ve written about many times in the past. (See The pitfalls of downhill roller skating or While my Opa was sleeping, or Dies ist Opa.) He died Jan. 6 after suffering for several years with Alzheimer’s disease. He was a jovial, outgoing sprite of a man whom most people describe as a character. He spent as much time creating life stories as he did telling them. Even at his foggiest, he could captivate a small audience, albeit by then most of his tales were wildly embellished or completely untrue. When it became clear that his star in this world was fading, I began the subconscious process of squirreling away memories — both significant and slight. The one you’re about to read falls under the second category. I’m not sure why it floated to the surface. Memories are like dreams sometimes. When they roll in you must abide. ||
A memory: I’m seven, maybe eight years old. I’m holding a coffee can that has two holes punched through the tin. An old shoelace is knotted through each hole to form a kind of coffee can necklace. It’s hot out. July, maybe. I’m in Upstate New York, wearing purple jelly sandals and a tank top. My arms are browning under the midday sun. My tongue is stained with blueberries.
I hand the coffee can to Opa.
I loop it around his neck like I’m crowning him with a gold medal after a long race. It dangles against his chest like a clumsy locket. Inside the can is motor oil, or at least I think it’s motor oil. It’s thick and black and Opa won’t let me touch it.
“Dees is dirty stuff,” he says, as he plucks a beetle from a raspberry bush and drops it into the can.
I trail closely behind him. My sisters too. The air smells like grass and manure. The breeze is subtle, but my hair is fine and flies away easily. We’re in my Oma’s garden, a large unshaded plot divided into neat rows of cucumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes and berries. We’re inching our way through bushes, my sisters and I, our shadows following Opa’s shadow, our legs burning from thorn pricks.
This is Henry when he was four months old. He couldn’t crawl and he couldn’t sit. He was nursing every few hours and puking every few minutes. He was smiling. Always smiling. He did that pretty frequently pretty early on, which I took to be a good sign.
My baby will be happy, I said.
And boy was I right. When he’s happy, he’s really happy. When he’s frustrated, he’s really frustrated. He exists in a perpetual state of One Extreme or The Other.
Sometimes he’ll hang around in The Middle. When he’s in The Middle you’ll know it. He’ll bring you a book and in his most civilized babble, ask you to sit still with him and read.
He likes to flip the pages on his own. Usually he turns to a picture of a cat, or a dog, or a truck. Each time he’ll identify these creatures as “lights.” Everything is a “light,” or as he likes to say it, “ite.”
My kid loves the light. Airplanes are repeatedly identified as “ites.” Dogs are ites. Squirrels are ites. The garbage truck is an ite.
Henry aches to be in the light every second of every day.
In case you’ve wondered why your comments suddenly have to be approved before they show up on The Lance, here’s why: idiotic spam comments now flood my inbox and it’s way worse than ever before. Have other WordPress bloggers noticed this?
I decided to share my favorite one with you, because on top of making no sense (typical of spam), it’s friggen hilarious. I think “Britany Mclauren” deserves a guest column, don’t you?
A new comment on the post “On waiting and wish sticks” is waiting for your approval
http://www.whilemyboyfriendwassleeping.com/2011/06/01/on-waiting-and-wish-sticks/Author : Britany Mclauren
Comment: Besides Halloween night accessories, it is rarely a good thing when you have lions in your home. Yet many people don’t understand such a true problem these scary crawlies are really. A lot of them, for example the brownish recluse, one such search engine spider in location, will surely have fatal consequences.The issues spiders and other pests are usually a problem throughout the slide a few months happens because this is when the climate along with temperatures varies as the weather conditions calme. This makes just about all pesky insects restless, plus more planning to walk, such as roaming straight into locations like attics, publication shelving, cabinets, cabinets, storage sheds, and garages. They are especially fond of darker places. Almost all lions carry venom, that is utilized in order to relax his or her feed.
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PS. Lion illustration by the talented Kevin Waldron.
If aliens exist, they look like cockroaches. Trust me.
I have a J.Crew catalog in my kitchen that I’ve never opened. Its only purpose has been to kill cockroaches. Never has a catalog filled with overpriced cargo pants been so functional.
(Full disclosure: I love J.Crew. I get the catalog because I enjoy the company’s clothes and plain-faced models. Just because I’ve taken to smearing pale pink cardigans with bits of brown bug guts doesn’t mean I’m making a statement. It was there when I needed it and for that I’m grateful. However, now that I’ve used it for mass roach killings I can’t stomach opening it to look at clothes.)
Florida is a disgusting place to live in the summer. You walk outside and your face melts into a puddle at your feet. You dress to avoid pit stains. The sun is so blinding you wear sunglasses on top of your sunglasses, your husband’s deodorant over your pH-balanced deodorant.
But this is just heat. Heat I can handle.
Swamp ass might tickle when it starts to spread, but at least it doesn’t run across your kitchen floor when you’re baking a chocolate cake. At least it doesn’t crawl out from between the folds of your washcloth when you’re about to scrub your face. At least it doesn’t have antennae.
Floridians call cockroaches Palmetto bugs.
Palmetto bugs sound adorable. Palmetto bugs sound whimsical. Palmetto bugs sound like something that might teach you a life lesson in a Dr. Seuss book.
Calling a cockroach a Palmetto bug is like calling a maggot a creepy crawler. A maggot is a maggot. A cockroach is a cockroach. People who call cockroaches Palmetto bugs are delusional.
Personally, I think New Yorkers living in Florida invented the term because they couldn’t deal with the fact that cockroaches also retire in paradise.
Why I won’t have a pumpkin this Halloween:
Because the weather here in Florida is swamp assingly hot. Because I carved a pumpkin with my sister PK two Saturdays ago only to have it rot and fill with bugs one week later. Because I spent $25 on three pumpkins two Saturdays ago only to have all three rot and fill with bugs one week later. Because I even carved a pumpkin for THE PUG that resembled the pug and looked like Pikachu when it was lit. Because both of these pumpkins were so delicately rendered, so beautifully carved and cleanly gutted that I’d never be able to replicate them. Because replicating their faces so soon after their demise would be disrespectful. The grieving process has just begun.
The day of the epic carving the weather dropped below 50 degrees. It was glorious. Crisp. Chilly. I wore a lightweight scarf and a long-sleeved shirt. When I gutted the squash, my hands were so cold I rubbed them together for warmth and then I saved the seeds, coated them in salt and baked them at 350 degrees. I drank warm tea and soaked my bones in PK’s hot tub. It felt like fall for 24 hours and then one day later, it was over.
For one day I was able to go without deodorant. For one day I was spared the onslaught of weird, random bugs that are STILL nesting under the hood of my car. For one day I was able to open the windows in my house and fall asleep to the sound of cicada bugs. For one day my pumpkin and the pug’s pumpkin sat lit in the front yard, their big round eyes fresh from carving, their pokey smiles oblivious to the impending rot.
The morning I tossed them in the dumpster I called PK for moral support.
“Hey. How rotten is your pumpkin?”
“It’s not bad. I mean, there are bugs in it and it’s a little mushy, but nothing too gross.”
“Have you looked at this morning?”
“No.”
“Open your door and take a look.”
<Shriek.>
“Yes?”
“It’s a rotten monster!”
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