WINNER: Sunday Add-A-Caption Game

The Birthday Boy has chosen from all your excellent captions. . .

Congratulations, "It's more fun to stay anonymous!"

A therapist observes a patient undergoing Stage 3 of treatment at the region's controversial new clinic, Caligula's Cure for Claustrophobia. Patients who endure 8 hours under the bed progress to Stage 4: a night alone in the clinic's unlit crawl space, accompanied by a variety of spiders and rodents.

From the b'day boy, you get:
a maplewood dinette set
a trip for two to beautiful Baffin Bay, off the coast of Greenland, way north above the Arctic Circle,
and a Hot Pocket.
Enjoy them in your dreams, "it's more fun to stay anonymous"

All right, Wazooers, a few more hours and Martin, newly 35, who made fried rice and dim sum-style dumplings (with handmade dumpling dough) last night for 29 people to celebrate his own birthday (I did make a complicated, many-step black-out cake, and while I was grumpy about it, it was rich and delicious)--anyway, THAT Martin is going to vote on the Sunday-Add-A-Caption Game. So get your last entries in for possible consideration and questionable virtual prizes!

And don't forget to say Happy Birthday to my gal Sal, wonderful friend, indispensable auntie to my children, and an uncommonly strong ray of sunshine in my daily existence.

Sunday Add-A-Caption Game: Birthday Special

Go to it, ladies and gents! And don't forget to send happy thoughts to Martin, who is 35 today!

Just an FYI: I was pleased to find out that a poem of mine that appeared recently in The Christian Century is now available online--you can access it by clicking on the link in this post or the link on the right. And if you're feeling peaky, read my story in the O-R this Sunday--hopefully it will make you count your blessings :). . .I'm full of steak and happiness; I got to go out tonight to celebrate Martin's Birthday while good friends took care of the brood. Lovely.

Winter Exercise

We've all been doing what we can to get a little exercise around here. By virtue of her size and determination, Bea's been fitting quite a bit of cycling into her winter schedule.



Today I clocked thirty minutes on friend Sal's treadmill, followed by a spinach salad. Despite Elspeth's observation that "Mommy, it looks like you're going to have another baby," I feel virtuous. Now, if I can only keep it up. Since most of my non-parenting work requires me to sit at a computer and bury myself in the rapid fire of keys (at least my fingers get some exercise), I must find a way to get my legs moving and my heart rate up--I mean, not by hyperventilating or throwing nervous fits, but by beneficial, orderly exercise. And a steady diet of bonbons. My mother just sent some to Martin for his upcoming birthday and so I had to sample, just to make sure they were good enough for him. They aren't--they're good enough for me, me, me!

I'm working on an essay right now, my first essay in quite a while since I turned my attention to other things, like poetry, newspaper columns, fiction and bonbons. The personal essay is perhaps the trickiest genre for me, and brings up many questions, such as how much artistic license I can take for the sake of coherence and flow, while still at least lurking in the doorway of nonfiction. I think I outwitted the genre this time by braiding reflections about my grandmother with a story based on the legends and tales of my Finnish ancestry, all mashed about in my imagination. It's been a lovely bit of diversion during the last couple days of steady snow and cold that grips my fingers when I work upstairs in our freezing bedrooms. Now, for instance, I am dressed in layers with a blanket wrapped about my shoulders and a warm cup of tea on my desk--and my hands are still as cold as if I'd been storing them in the refrigerator. Ah, the charms of an old, beautiful house.

Friday night. More bonbons in my future, I think. Happy weekend, dearies.

Lessons From Grassy Sam

Sonya-on-the-ridge apparently got much more snow than we did down here in town. In fact, it dumped so much wet, slushy snow that her father, snaking around in a tractor trying to pull her husband's truck up their driveway, almost slipped into the next world. That's a high price to pay for the beauty of the ridge, but at least Sonya seems to be strapping and muscular from shoveling, walking the dog, and whacking night creatures with a big flashlight (I just cannot let that last one go). She looks more fit every time I see her.

I, on the other hand, waited until I was in the comfort and privacy of my own house today to unbutton my jeans and let the winter happiness free (the winter happiness is my ever-growing gut, I'm afraid). I got some exercise by baking banana bread with two sticks of butter, which I will consume during the next two days. Things are not looking good for me; in fact, they're looking a bit Winnie-the-Poohish. Elevenses, here we come, and tut, tut, it feels time for a little something to quench the rumblies in the tumblies.

Friend Sal told me that I've been indoors so much lately that when I finally do emerge, everyone will be watching to see if I spot my shadow or disappear again. Sounds about right. Grassy Sam, Wazoo Farm's resident groundhog, is smarter than he looks. Right now he's curled up in a warm nest somewhere under our shed, dreaming of eating our spring garden.

Oh, looks like it's time to put the kids to bed, which means I must walk up the stairs. Don't. know. if. I. can. endure. that. much. exercise.

Slushy Snow

I keep glancing outside to check for more snow. Today the sky spit and glopped down a great big mess on us. No feathery, light snowflakes dancing and spinning like fairies to glaze our gardens. Nope. Big shovelfuls of wet stuff that proved almost lethal for pedestrians (I watched my friend Michelle dance the watootsi on her way across the street in her Just-Come-From-Work pretty red toe shoes.) With slush in my wheelwells, blocked breaks and a lot of luck, I slipped into the intersection from the grocery store (yes, the classical music was blaring, so we were absorbing a little culture at least) into an unusually empty street. "Well, I guess I'm going," I said as we slipped down the road. I've had this experience several times in the past on icy roads, and I've felt that same mixture of dull panic and resignation--probably, ironically, the closest I'll ever get to zen ever. I'm out of control! So be it!

I'm happy to report that the sky has stopped dumping, I imagine much to the relief of my friend Sonya-up-on-the-ridge, who was talking crazy earlier, all panicked about stocking up on water and the generator still wrapped and in the garage and how her husband had to be pulled up their endless slushy driveway by a tractor. There was no resignation for her--no, siree, not after last year when they were without power, water, or heat for two weeks in the middle of a blizzard. I'm glad to think she must be feeling a bit better--and now she's all clean, too, since she thought ahead to impending disaster and grabbed a hot shower while she still could, picturing herself possibly without water for the next fortnight.

But, look, no snow! And though we had an early dismissal today, I do believe the children will be disappointed tomorrow. School looks likely, blizzards unlikely. And now Martin is ready to ditch all our work for the evening to eat cupcakes and watch TV, and I'm more than ready to join him. It's hard to feel like working in the face of a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing, wouldn't you agree?

Just Another Exciting Grey Day

More snow, light but it comes steadily.
On the agenda today: get off another column, stay sane, stay happy, keep the kids happy, make a big outing to store to pick up diapers, milk, and kleenex. Just another exciting morning for Wazoo. I think we'll play classical music in the car for a little bit of culture, and then we'll eat chili for the third time in a row for lunch, and then we'll take a nap. Perhaps somewhere during that time someone will rent the clouds asunder and send down a blast of sunshine, in which case we'll be so confused and excited we'll dump our plans and go to our central park, strip down to our skivvies, and perform a wild dance of gratitude. But I have a funny feeling it will be the former agenda we'll be pacing ourselves through, finding reasons to grin, like a big kleenex sale or extra-wet disinfecting cart wipes.

Letter Corner

Letter Corner:
From a Reader, to Wazoo, received this AM, Re: Last Sunday's Caption
Letter Follows (I'm serious, I actually just got this letter in my e-mail; it's from a man, [hint: related to me by marriage] in Washington State). I include the photo once again for further edification.

I thought it improper to compete with the anonymous winner of the
amorphous prize in the caption contest. Now that due recognition has
been granted, I'd like to point out that having just one caption is
inappropriate, given the many layers of meaning that must be carefully
peeled back, as an onion, to find the deeper layers beneath.

9. Fungal transmission
8. Vladivostok Vixen votes vor Victor.
7. Now the rage, in Connecticut.
6. Today's podiatry: Empathy
5. Tickle Me Timothy
4. Hey, look, now we can count to 42!
3. Happiness is amorality.
2. Does it matter who these toys love?
1. What does it mean to be a man?

Monday Night Confession

At this point in January, my head begins to feel fuzzy from lack. My fingers have not encountered soil outside in months. My eyes have not seen green; I look at the deciduous trees that ring our property, their bare skeletons, and feel a dull longing. I begin to dream about my own childhood floors, flooded in sunlight, about standing under huge trees waiting for the bus, the wind sweeping up through coffee bushes, around the red clay track where I once ran hurdles (yes, me, really and truly), and sweeping around my own seventeen year old legs. I do not feel sentimental for this afternoon, for the wind and the sky wider than the sea, because I want to be seventeen again. No. It's because I want to feel warm again, and alive, and full of the energy that comes from sweater-weather and being outdoors with all my senses open and receiving, in no hurry to rush anywhere.

I tried hard this year, as I believe I try every year, to feel optimistic and full of vim for winter. This year, I swore to myself, I will get out every day for a walk. Winter will not get me down. A friend asked me yesterday if I suffer from SAD, and I don't think that's it so much as the fact that I was utterly spoiled growing up in Nairobi, where it was never colder than sixty-something degrees and never hotter than mid-eighties. My entire school experience was marked by outdoor living; we sat in classrooms (often with the doors open to the sweet air) and then walked outside to talk around our lockers (they were indeed also outside), to eat lunch under trees on a hill. The whole concept of a high school being contained within walls was foreign to me. I spent most of my years in Nairobi, whether it was at home or at school, barefoot.

And I hate being cold. I can't spin it any other way, and I will not tonight. I will just admit it: I am pathetic, and I absolutely, positively, abhor being cold. I see it as something I must endure, and that makes walks sort of silly; and though my brave, lovely mother has made us have picnics in sub-zero, snowy weather, and admonished us to think of it all as a great adventure, I have a hard time convincing myself that this is a good idea.

I have never been allowed to complain about anything. Instead, I've been charged to always see and seize the positive and celebrate it so furiously that the negative melts to nothing but a little puddle at my feet. So be it, but not tonight. Winter, I am tired of you. Runny noses, I am tired of all of you. Colds, begone. Frigid sheets, yuck to you too. Hats, scarves, mittens, coats, wool socks and snow boots, to all the mornings I have been tempted to swear as I bundle yet another child, end immediately. Bring on the robins, the mud, the flip flops and faces lifted to sun. I'm ready. Now.

THE WINNER IS. . .

Some fight. Some sing. Some dance. And others simply sit foot to foot, staring each other down in order to win the favor of the female.


* * * *
To claim your sizeable prize, Anonymous, please write your bank account number on the bottom of a merigue, strawberry, and whipped cream cake, and send it to Wazoo Farm. Your prize will appear in your bank account in twenty years or so.*

*Wazoo Farm cannot be responsible for loss of prize, failure to give prize, or lack of follow-up whatsover.

Thanks for playing, everyone! That last one was a hard picture to make sense of, and you all did an admirable job. . .and kept this rather freezing woman laughing. Kudos.

SUNDAY ADD-A-CAPTION GAME

Alright, you know the rules. (If you don't, check them in the category for "ADD-A-CAPTION-GAME" at right.) Feel free to add as many captions as you think will increase your brilliance. Good luck.

Just a reminder, Wazooers. Sunday Add-a-Caption Game is just one day away. Martin's got a new wild photo, and you've got a new brilliant caption. Start whetting the old noodles.
Oh, and there's no column from me in the O-R, due to extended worship of the porcelain goddess.

Crazy Thief Bird

The sledding hill studded with footprints from a few brave souls, the garden glittering, capped with domes of snow--it's bright with sunshine and frigid temperatures in the negatives this morning and climbing now to single digits. Inside, the kids are watching Saturday morning TV, Beatrix is on a chair watching Martin flip pancakes, and NPR is whining out some filler jazz.

Last night I had a wild dream about a bird who chased me around a hotel. I'd seen the bird--an orange-feathered, sharp-beaked, rather pretty, rather large avian--about to steal eggs from a little mama bird's nest. The entire tree was full of unattended nests just waiting for this orange thief to pilfer. I knew I was messing with nature, but before the defenseless eggs were broken and scattered, I rushed over and waved my arms at the orange bird. And then he turned on me. The remainder of that section of that dream was spent trying to shake the bird from around my feet, which he seemed to be obsessed in snapping up like worms.

My friend T, whom I like to call Sonya in my columns, would have known what to do. She would have taken care of the whole situation by whacking the crazy bird with a big flashlight--or she would have blown the crazy thing away, if it were dangerous, with buckshot, and then planted an acre of garden, put up ten bushels of cherries, whipped up a pancake and sausage breakfast for fourteen, mended her daughter's toys, and hung out a fresh load of laundry, all before heading off to work for the morning in the OR. It's her birthday today. That crazy country girl deserves a happy break. All the best, dear Sonya. You're wonderful.