Confessions of a lousy housekeeper
Yeah, I confess. I'm bad. I am so far removed from Donna Reed that I don't even bother to put on pearls and a housedress when I dust. Sad, isn't it?

Now in my own defense I will remind readers that I have a bad back. This makes chores like scrubbing the bathtub or mopping the floor painful, difficult and, well, stupid. I can do it, but I'll need at least 8 hours of recovery and several vicodins to recover. Is it worth it to have a pristine white bathroom? I'm am dubious. But the end result is that our house is most often a mess.

Poor Husband tries. I know he gets fed up with the clutter, especially since he's hard at work at the Bad Place all day while I'm at home with Cipher, the World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm). You'd think that I'd feel so guilty at being "kept" that I'd be a veritable demon with broom and mop. But, alas for poor Husband, while I do feel guilty I don't exactly do anything about it.

However tomorrow we have friends coming over for dinner (The Lurker and Mr. Lurker), which means, if nothing else, I have to at least clear a layer off the dining room table.

But the problem is, and this is really what keeps me from tidying up on a regular basis, there's just no place to put anything. You'd think 2 people living in a 3 bedroom house would have plenty of space for stuff. But you'd be wrong in our case. Our two main clutter items, books and CDs, take over every available flat space we have. And we're fresh out of official storage for both. Every bookcase is crammed, ever CD rack is full. And yet we acquire more. From where I sit I can see 13 books on the dining table, that's 13 brand-new books, none of which we have room for. So where the heck am I gonna put them?

The "spare room" is full of pile upon piles of books already. Not to mention boxes of CDs. We have this grand plan of turning the room into a music room for Husband, complete with comfy chair, nice stereo, and a place to write. But in order to do that we'll have to find a place for the piles to go. Which means more bookshelves. And a new CD rack. And (as confessed before) since I'm not working we really should be watching our finances -- so buying new furniture is really not the best idea for our 1-income family.

So I pick things up and move them around. This pile goes here (at least for now), that shelf can hold two or three more books if I lay them horizontally on top of the other books. We can probably put all these CDs in a new pile since they haven't been listened to in about a year and oh look, I wondered where that was.

Honestly it's enough to make me want to say "Hey Lurker, mind if we do this at your beautiful, always have enough room, larger than ours by quite a lot house?"

Sigh...

Nope, not scared
This morning I watched Rosemary's Baby, which I haven't seen in ages. I recall it being very creepy. Today, not even a shiver. Of course it was broad daylight, 80 degrees in the house, and not at all an atmosphere conducive to the creeps. But the fact is that when you're an adult and you watch a movie that scared you as a kid you very rarely (if ever) feel that thrill of fear again. Oh it's still a good film (although it gave me the giggles at the end when Ruth Gordon what shouting "hail Satan!") but I was completely unmoved.

What I find fascinating is how different the experience is when it's about a book. If I ever happen to pick up a book that I loved as a child, I find that the same book still enchants and delights me. And quite often when I pick up a book that I was forced to read in high school, and hated, I find that as an adult it's a completely different animal entirely.

I wonder why that is? Why is a childhood memory of a book still true and a childhood memory of a film so false? While wandering through a bookstore recently I came across a children's book that held fond memories for me. Turning the pages I was still charmed and it was all I could do to resist buying it. And yet a few months back I watched a movie that I recall as being hilarious as a child and was stunned at how entirely un-funny it was.

Very strange thing, the mind, ain't it?

Postcards from abroad
Perhaps it's the child in me, but I love, love, love to get postcards from friends who are traveling. In today's world where the personal letter is a thing of the past, it's really the only type of personal mail that still exists. It's especially wonderful when you didn't know that the person who sent the card was out of the country.

Yesterday's mail brought a postcard from Ireland, where the Belle of Belfast City is on vacation in the land of her ancestors. The Belle is a wonderful woman; beautiful, smart, funny, loyal, the type of friend that anyone would love to have. I am, however, luckier than most in that there's a whole host of women like the Belle who add color and warmth to my life. The Lurker. The Foreigner. Mama D. The Haiku Queen. SdeM. I'm not sure what wonderful things I may have done in my past life to deserve such great friends, but I'm very grateful that I did them.

Anyway, back to the postcard. It's such a minor thing. I mean I know how it is. You stop at some little shop and by a dozen cards. Then you spend an evening writing them all to friends and family, struggling to find a way to fill up three inches of white space. But it's so wonderful to receive one. Like small gifts. Amid the bills, catalogs, and junk mail there's this small cardboard scrap of humanity.

I know, I'm all soppy. But I do so love to be reminded how lucky I am. Thanks, Belle.

Shakespeare dreams
Lately, for some reason, Shakespeare has been on my mind.

A long time (another lifetime ago?) I was an acting major with dreams of performing all the grand female roles. Although I never saw myself as Juliet. She was too soppy. I am too plain. But ah, the others. Portia. Rosalind. And my absolute favorite, Beatrice.

But reality got in the way. In spite of being a damned fine actress I came nose-up against the glass wall that decrees that talented men who are less that gorgeous can still be cast in a role. But talented women without beauty cannot. Relegated to best friend, servant, and comic relief parts, I gave up my dream; realizing that my fragile ego was no match for the cruelty of casting.

Yet lately Shakespeare has regained his place in my brain. Perhaps it's having just watched season 2 of the Showtime series The Tudors. All that pre-Elizabethan history no doubt shook some dust off of old memories and vanished dreams. Snatches of long-ago monologues sneak into my brain as I fold laundry or drive down the highway.

I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake lest thou a fervent life should entertain and six or seven winters more respect than a perpetual honor. (That's Isabella from Measure for Measure in case you're wondering.

And now, like an odd TV omen, I channel surf ahead of insomnia and find a repeat of the fascinating documentary In Search of Shakespeare. At the moment, Michael Wood and his dulcet British tones is in a timbered school that Shakespeare attended as a boy. I remember the first time I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon and attended a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I thought I was in heaven. My acting days were not long behind me and I had marvelously harmless daydreams of being up on that stage. I walked by the river, under trees drooping with green leaves, and wandered into the church where the Bard is buried. It was like a pilgrimage.

But the 17th row is about as close as I'll ever get to performing Shakespeare again. And yet, at odd times....while waiting for a light to change or standing in line at the grocery store...I'll smile to myself at the memory of those days, long ago, when I was a Shakespearean heroine.

I don't want to live that long
And This is why I think John Cage is a loon. A concert that takes 639 years? Give me an effing break.

A happy story

For years, Husband and I have supported that wonderful organization, Heifer International. This story in the New York Times is a great illustration of how a small action can produce a huge reward. It's a total warm fuzzy.

I've always been terrified of him
Gosh, aren't we ever so enlightened? The US government has just (just!) removed that known terrorist Nelson Mandela from its terror watch list. (Of course I had to find out about this from BBC news. Good lord! Why was he on there in the first place? One of this century's greatest and bravest humanists and we had him blacklisted? I am ashamed.

Photo of the day
Just back from kitten duty. (The first of 3 shifts this week.) This little guy is Kobe. He's the runt of his litter, but he's so darned cute.

Photo of the day
Cipher, The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm). Making it impossible for me to read the paper.

VERY bad poetry
I can't recall where this slim little volume came from; whether I bought it for Husband or he for me. But for sheer crap, nothing beats Very Bad Poetry. Edited by Kathryn & Ross Petras, this book contains the absolutely worst poetry ever written. It's been on our bookshelves for a few years now and I still pick it up now and again and laugh at the awful rhymes, atrocious grammar, and hideous themes.

Since I have nothing else on my brain today, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a few of my favorites. (Read on, I'll end with my absolute favorite.)

Well, to start with there's this delightful air by that most famous of authors, Anonymous:

Ode to a Ditch

Oh, ditch of all ditches
Death's storehouse of riches,
Where wan disease slumbers mid festoons of slime!
Oh, dark foetid sewer
Where death is the brewer
And ail is the liquor he brews all the time!

Where to start? First off, who the hell would write a poem about a ditch? Secondly....well....who the hell would write a poem about a ditch??? (Plus it goes on for four more stanzas.)

Dear old Anonymous also gives us a lovely piece of dental work:

My Last Tooth

You have gone, old tooth,
Though hard to yield,
You have long stood alone,
Like a stub in the field.

Awfully glad not to have the author read his own work on that one.

Missing body parts seems to be a popular theme with bad poets. Witness Cornelius Whur's contribution:

The Armless Artist

Alas! Alas! the father said,
O what a dispensation!
How can we be by mercy led,
In such a situation?
Be not surprised by my alarms,
The dearest boy is without arms!

Yes, well very nice. Thanks for sharing.

Next we have the unforgivable Bertha Moore, a Victorian "poet" who specialized in (God help us) baby talk. With apologies I share with you the atrocious A Child's Thought:

If I were God, up in the sky.
I'll tell you all vat I would do,
I would not let the babies cry
Because veir tooths was coming froo.
I'd make them born wif tooths all white,
And curly hair upon veir heads
And so vat vey could sit upright
Not always lie down in veir beds.

Makes you want to womit, don't it?

I could go on, and on (and on), but I shall have mercy and merely end with what is, in my opinion, the very pinnacle of poetic poo.

On Visiting Westminster Abbey
By Amanda McKittrick Ros

Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust.

Personally, I think that "Holy Moses! Have a look! Flesh decayed in every nook!" is as near to perfection as possible when looking for the absolute worst opening line to a poem. Plus it rhymes.

Have a Very Bad Poetry day!

Forget policy, the question is: does he like The Stones?
You know when pop culture as crossed the line and now passes for "real" culture when presidential hopefuls make their iPod playlists public.

The ever- charismatic Barack Obama will be featured in a cover story in the next issue of Rolling Stones. Here's a sneak preview of his carefully thought out musical tastes. No Butthole Surfers. No Pansy Division. Nope, it's Dylan, Coltrane, Stevie Wonder and the Boss.

Ya gotta wonder though. Is this really the music he likes or is this what his PR crew decided would give him the most "cred?" The London Times article points out just how politically varied his choices are. Bruce Springsteen for the hardworking factory dude. Jay-Z (what? No Eminem?) for his street-smart side. Coltrane and Charlie Parker for the hipster crowd. Elton John for baby boomers (and, possibly, the gay crowd). And Stevie Wonder's classic R&B to "celebrate his blackness."

Kinda makes you wonder what "the other guy" would put on his list.

Random waves of grain
It's all about context, isn't it? Check out Requiem for a Day Off.

In a gourmet celebration of summertime fruit. The ever-fascinating Finny shares a looks-freakin-delicious cherry pie recipe.

In the "when will you learn?" category. Those no money down home loans which have left so many would-be homeowners in financial ruin are largely a thing of the past. Except if you go through the government.

Why does Arkansas have such a bad rap? Because of folks like this yabbo His crime? Kidnapping and assaulting his mother because her pet dog killed his pet skunk. (No I'm not kidding.)

Rotating skyscrapers with floors moving independently so that the silhouette is ever changing? Not as far-fetched as it sounds. Only problem is it looks like a sex toy.

Parking in San Francisco? Don't forget your spark plug-resistent windows. A decoy car parked by the SF Police showed a car broken into in 90 seconds. I just want to know how you break a window by throwing a spark plug at it.

My late Christmas present
Oh that Husband. All I did was mention that blank wall space and he goes and buys me a Monet. How much? Just a record $80.4 million. And while the papers may be filled with phrases like "anonymous buyer" and "unknown client" I'm here to tell you that it was, indeed, Husband.

It's called Le Bassin aux Nympheas which is French for "does not go with our sofa." (But one can always buy a new sofa.) I suppose I should say "oh, you shouldn't have. It's too much." But I suppose I'm worth it.

More on the kittens
Just back from kitten duty. This week I'll also be there tomorrow and Wednesday, so it'll be a major dose of cuteness for me. And work.

When there were only a few kittens it was a fairly easy job. Mix up some food, squirt it in their mouths, cuddle. Repeat. Now, however, every nursery is full and the kittens are old enough to tear up their space in between the morning and afternoon shifts. This means nearly every one needs to be cleaned and changed. Old towels out. Old newspapers thrown away. Everything moved, all kittens out. Clean the walls and floors and rebuild their space. New litter box. Fresh water and food. Plus kittens to be fed and played with. It's a surprising amount of work. Anyone who thinks kitten duty is just playing with cute little kits is in for a rude surprise.

One litter is pretty sick, unfortunately. The vet came in while we were doing our shift and said they're getting better (yay!) but it's an uphill road. (Boo!) Today, at least, we had 3 people. On Friday there was only 2 of us and it was a completely exhausting shift.

I love being at the Humane Society and doing something to help the animals. But sometimes it's sad, too. A few weeks ago two of the kittens got sick and had to be put down. And there's a separate area for unsocialized cats, many of them fresh off the streets, and they all look so confused. One bib, beautiful black girl had stitches in her head...she must have been in a fight, poor thing. And then there are all the sick cats and dogs. I just wish all of them could find safe, loving homes.

I look at Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) and am truly grateful for all the love and life she's brought into our home. Husband says she's made our little family complete. I agree (though I am continually tempted to add to our family by adopting one of the kittens. New favorite? A gorgeous little tortie named Ella.) and wish that every family with a little extra space and a little extra love could come to the shelter and make some animal's life.

And now, a vicodin, a hot bath, and then there's one more cat to feed. And she's letting me know that I'm keeping her waiting...

Got a match?
Ron Liddle in the London Times writes of books he'd like to burn. Not in a Nazi way. But in a "I can't believe I read that tripe" way.

Among the authors and titles listed were several I agree with. Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Salman Rusdie's Midnight's Children. I would, of course, have to add anything by Saul Bellow (sorry Lurker), Ayn Rand, the drivel that is The Da Vinci Code and, of course, The Beans of Egypt, Maine.

It's interesting the way that books take on a marketing life of their own. So often so-called blockbusters are total crap (again, The Da Vinci Code) that sell like hotcakes because of word of mouth. Conversely, there's a huge range of amazing novels that people ignore because they have the reputation of being difficult to read or, worse, dull. One of the reasons why I adore Husband is his complete open mindedness when it comes to books. I think that his list of top ten would include two books that many people avoid: Moby Dick, and Don Quixote. (As an aside, one of the critics mentioned in Liddle's article lists the Cervantes epic as the worst novel ever written!)

Over the years our book group has read many a tome that I have enjoyed flinging across the room in disgust; But very few would I burn (Bellow, Rusdie, The Beans, and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow being the exceptions). But then again it's too hot for a fire right now.

In praise of Thelma Ritter
One of the reasons why I love classic movies is because of all the wonderful character actors lurking in the background, thanks to the studio system. And my ultimate all-time most favoritest character actor of all time is the wonderful Thelma Ritter.

In every role she played, no matter how small, she was truly unforgettable. And it takes something to steal a scene from Bette Davis (All About Eve). She was one of those natural talents, both comedic and dramatic, that made every line she delivered seem utterly effortless and completely effective.

The one thing that makes me love her so much is that in all of her movies there's one moment -- one scene or one perfect line -- that you remember long after you see the film. In Pillow Talk it's her drinking Rock Hudson under the table. In the Fred Astaire/Leslie Caron musical Daddy Long Legs it's her nagging her boss into reading his ward's letters. And in the Hitchcock classic Rear Window it's as the bossy nurse telling Jimmy Stewart to stop spying on his neighbors.

She was too average looking to be a leading lady, but her talent was undeniable (6 Academy Award nominations) but her sassy, brassy, bossy wisecracking second banana roles were alone worth the price of admission.

They don't make 'em like that anymore. Pass the popcorn.

What's age got to do with it?
I was looking for some pure, unadulterated trash to read and I remembered an author mentioned by a dear friend (a.k.a. "the Lurker"), so I checked out the writer Jennifer Crusie. The book I picked up is called Anyone But You. It was nicely humorous, had a sexy hero, and had a dog as one of the main characters (a plus in my book). But there was one big problem with the book as far as I'm concerned: the issue keeping the heroine from jumping into the arms of the hero was the fact that he was 10 years younger than she.

Husband is 10 years younger than I and it never, for one moment, occurred to me that he was too young/I was too old. The heroine in the book (Nina) just turned 40 and the hunky young ER doctor downstairs just turned 30. That's pretty much exactly the ages Husband and I were when we started dating. Nina was all freaked out because she had 40-year old breasts and didn't want to date "a child." Am I really weird that this never bothered me?

Perhaps I'm dreadfully immature. Perhaps Husband is unusually mature (he is -- but still delightfully goofy). But I honestly never notice the age difference. Even now the only time we notice it is when we compare notes about childhood cartoons and songs that remind us of high school.

Husband is also of a different race than I. And from a completely different background. I'm the youngest of 5 of a typical mom and dad family, solidly middle class, thoroughly suburban. He was raised by a single mom with very little money in Philadelphia. On paper, it would seem unlikely for us to be friends, let alone spouses.

And yet he is perfect for me. I knew it on our first date when he knew all the words to I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal, You. That was also the day I found out that he was 10 years younger. And I experienced not one moment of "oh god, he's just a puppy!" Not for one minute did I hesitate to jump with both feet into wherever that crazily wonderful first date was leading.

So I just couldn't understand the heroine's angst about how young he was. It was completely foreign to me. I'm not sure if that makes me odd, well adjusted, or just not concerned about other people's opinion. (It was probably that last one ... I'm notorious for not caring what people think.) But it's also amusing, in a way, because the whole younger woman-older man thing is still more common and, therefore, more acceptable to society. But hey, if society wants to think I'm robbing the cradle, so be it. I don't mind. After all, I'm the one with the Husband who knows the Frankfurter Sandwiches song...

Book of Crap
It's hot. The kind of hot that makes watching National Treasure: Book of Secrets on pay-per-view seem like a good idea. Here's a tip....it's not. I blame the fact that we sat through the whole mess on the fact that we were too stupified by heat to hit the off button. Oh my lord is it bad.

The first National Secrets film we saw in a hotel room in Portland. (We're married, we don't have wild hotel sex anymore.) It was mildly amusing. The sequel was more than mildly annoying. The plot (such as it was) made no bloody sense at all. Especially Ed Harris as the bad guy. He spends a large chunk of the movie shooting at Nicholas Cage. (Oh if only his aim was better!) Then, at the end, he spends a large chunk of time saving Cage, Cage's sidekick, and Cage's love interest. For no apparent reason. Just saving them. Then he tries to kill them again. Again, for no apparent reason.

Cage breaks into the Queen's private study in Buckingham Palace and kidnaps the president, all so he can prove some dead ancestor of his was not part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Seems like a lot of felonies to go through just to show a completely couldn't-care-less world that Uncle Dead Guy was innocent. Oh, and how the hell did they get Helen Mirren to agree to be in this disaster? Do the producers have blackmail photos of her?

My favorite line of the movie was something like: "he's a professional mercenary and a dealer in antiquities." I told Husband I want that on a business card.

The scariest thing about the movie is that it completely set up National Treasure 3: Written by Baboons. If they actually make that film I think they can use it in Gitmo as a way of torturing suspected terrorists. Geneva Convention be damned!

Send my brother to Baghdad
Most people in Iraq are trying to get out. My brother is trying to get in.

I had lunch with him today and he told me of the friendships he'd struck up through the Adopt-a-Unit program. Regardless of your feelings (or mine) about the war, I think it's pretty cool of him to want to go. Actually, I'm jealous. I'd love to go myself but I look awful in a burka.

It was weird having lunch with my brother. In spite of my mother's delusional belief that we're The Waltons I find we're more like The Osbornes. (Or some other famously dysfunctional family. The Medicis? The Borgias?) OK, we've never poisoned anyone (and I can hear all those jokes about my mother's cooking) but we're still not all love and Hallmark. The brother I lunched with was estranged from our family for about 20 years. Nobody ever told me why. Now he's back. He's a pretty cool guy and I'm proud of him for being fire chief and all the other good stuff he does. It's just kind of strange to sit down with a relative stranger who is, in reality, a strange relative. (No, he's not strange I was just going for the interesting parallel construction.) I think I like him, though, which is good. I just hope we get to know each other better.

Sometimes I envy people who are really close with their family. I know The Lurker counts her sister as probably her best friend. And my friend H comes from a truly remarkable family that genuinely love and like each other. In my family....uh....not so much. Despite being the youngest of five I feel, in many ways, like an only child. An only child who kinda raised herself. By the time I came around (as one of those notorious Catholic accidents), my folks were pretty much over with being parents and spent a large chunk of my childhood going off on their own for weekend trips. My eldest sister and my eternally crabby grandmother would watch over me, but mostly I read and took care of myself. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't neglected -- just kinda not noticed.

It worked out in my favor in many ways. I'm more independent and stronger than my sisters and it made me really enjoy my own company. But when my four siblings get together it's like listening to an entire different family talk. I don't share their memories. I don't have the same stories in my history. They recall names that are unfamiliar to me and reminisce about times before I was born. On the flip side I have memories that no one shares. It makes for a sense of detachment when I'm around them. I feel duty but I'm not always sure I feel love. (This is beginning to sound like the summary of a Chick Lit book. I see myself in a cartoon sketch, on a pink cover, walking a white poodle.)

I'm gonna bunny hop my way across America!

A 61-year old British grandmother has just spent the past 4 1/2 years running 20,000 around the world. Her reason? To "raise awareness about cancer after the death of her husband from prostate cancer." OK, noble. But I gotta ask....why???

What prompts people to do things like this? What weird gene kicks in that makes biking across Finland or circumnavigating New Zealand in an inflatable canoe seem like a smart thing to do? I mean when my best friend died of AIDS my first thought was not "I'm gonna publicize the AIDS epidemic by riding a yak across South America."

Do gesture like this really inspire people? Would you read this news story and think, "you know, I haven't had a mammogram this year." I don't. Mostly I read about such events and just shake my head. Perhaps I'm just not adventurous enough. I'm sure this woman met all sorts of interesting people (including some crazy guy with a blood-stained axe) and no doubt has a lifetime of stories to tell. ("Every hear about the time I was running across Siberia and all my fillings froze and cracked?") But this really does not appeal to me.

When my friend died, what I did do was volunteer at an AIDS organization where I helped train others to be caregivers. I thought that was a practical way of taking my pain and doing something positive with it. And while I know for certain that I did have an effect on others, should I wonder if I would have had more of an effect with the yak and South America? I was only able to help dozens of people -- the running lady was on The Martha Stewart Show. Well I can't compete with Martha. But again, does being sandwiched between a recipe for Foofyberry Tartlets and a feature on how to turn old cashmere sweaters into pot holders really make that big a difference in raising awareness about cancer?

And again, how much awareness do we need? Is there anyone who hasn't heard of cancer? (OK, maybe those natives in the Amazon they just terrorized with a helicopter.) Is there any woman who doesn't know she needs to get a mammogram? Any man who doesn't know about prostrate screening? Anybody who doesn't know that smoking is bad for you? So what, exactly, am I supposed to learn from a 61-year old woman who just ran around the world?

The only thing I've learned is that she's in much better shape than I.