Borg Brownies

RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE.

It's voltage divided by current.

A River Wild, A River Rogue

A river wild, a river rogue. A summer day long ago, a day of rushing water, a summer on the edge of adulthood.

I remember it as an unusually hot day for the land we lived in. We were itching to cool off, to break away from the confines of starched clothing and rigid rules around the house, one last good swim before school started up again. Time to run off, to the water, to the ledges overlooking a mountain pool. This area had been a spot for years. We knew where the rocks were that would ruin your day with a good C 6 or 7 fracture. We knew where the current would gently propel you to the shore when you started to go numb with the cold that stole into the pale rigidity of the rest of your bones.

We didn't have a mall, we hung around the water, near bridges that could be jumped off of, near streams in which you could paddle around like a pre-school kiddie pool. The older kids, the braver ones, would jump off the rocks or grab an inner tube and then propel down through some rushing water to a pool further down. Not I, for I was still too shy, too fearful of the rush of ice cold water, the rocks.


There was a boy there that I'd had a crush on since about 4th grade, one of my older brother's friends. He was friendly to me when he was at my family home but not so much around the popular kids. I was younger. I was a band geek. I had braces. It did not stop me from having the feelings that a person thinks only exist for the young. I paddled around, hoping he'd notice me, hesitant to grab a inner tube and hit the faster water, cursed by my shyness, but emboldened by something I couldn't even name yet. I was the youngest person there. I was immensely out of my place yet in my element, outdoors. But I saw the other girls, they of the tight clothing and disdainful eyes, gathered around him. I figured it was now or never. With a deep breath of courage I went up to him and asked. "Do you want to go to the dance with me?" It was one of those Sadie Hawkins things where the girls ask the boys.

He looked at me as the girls giggled, standing straight and rigid, the curiously formal angle of his arms gleaming in the sunlight, immaculate and empty but for my heart which he now held.

He looked at me and said "God no."

The words that struck were no louder than the striking of a flint against rock, a short, sharp sound that spoke with profound finality. In that moment I truly saw him, not the romantic version I'd created in my girlish head, but the real person, there underneath, the eyes cold, the mouth hard and open like a dark, empty cave.

I retreated to the sound of the girls laughter. Tears stung my eyes, but I wasn't going to let them see how deeply I was hurt. I turned and grabbed an inner tube, and head held high, dived right in. My tears mixed with the water as I rode the rushing flood of water that came sluicing down, the water moving fast, grabbing my baggy little kids shorts and pulling me on, hurry, hurry. down and forward.

The water was not so deep and fast to as to be overly dangerous for a good swimmer, but enough, so that for this moment, this little band nerd was part of something wild, wet and unstoppable, something so much bigger than this single day in a life. As I came rushing down the sluice way in that torrent of water, something as well spilled out of me, was released in me, and and I rode it until the water ran still.

We've all had that experience in one form or another, in deep water or clear sky. The one that scares the stuffing out of you, or rips open a wound in a place that would know an endless capacity to hurt. Those moments, bringing out instincts ingrained in your breath, making you reticent to get back anywhere near what caused the situation in the first place. "Getting back on the horse" as they call it. Sometimes it's a near fatal accident, a misadventure, more often it's just a badly broken heart. You'll get through it, even as the reality of it clamps down hard with sharp weasel teeth that leave scars no one else can see. But eventually the teeth will pull free, perhaps taking small bits of flesh, exposing nerve endings to the cold, but you are alive and you're learned something. That in itself is something to be thankful for, even if your heart, as they say, won't "buff out".


Talk to people who've had a near death experience on a mountain top or some other loss and some say I'm not going back. I'm not going to climb again, I'm not going to get another dog again. I'm not going to trust again. A few don't. But only a few.

The rest look at the such events not as a failure, but a measure of that which they have proven they can handle. The event may fade in time, but that which it brought to you can never be destroyed, it's cataloged back in memory to be retrieved in later years, when it can and will save you again. It's that moment when you know what you are made of, and what you are capable of.

Years later, I'm back, kayaking the same area with a couple of friends when we come across the same stretch of water, the pools milling around like restless teens, hoping to be left alone, while desperately wanting to be noticed. There's been some rain, just enough to raise up the water level to the level of our spirits. We grab our kayaks and go in, the water yanking at the edge of that last bit of fear, pulling us down, water fast and huge and furious. Once we picked up the paddle, there was no going back, we had to be there, to see if to the end or die trying, water in a place that's inside of us, water in a place that's somehow holy.

The fear of my youth was gone, replaced by a world much bigger than a small clickish school. My heart was strong, built up by being broken down, bad choices and healed wounds, one defined moment of sacrifice as a teen that became my biggest act of courage. The water lifted us, and we were part of it, strong, fast, so much bigger than ourselves. Water flew up around me and licked my skin, turning parts of me hard, and parts of me liquid, water rushing on, rushing in.

That first step is always the hardest, whether it's walking away with your head held high, or embracing something you've yearned for with a longing you didn't know was in you. Tiny leaps upward propelled by desire and only held back by the gravity of restraint. Why do we hesitate? It's the hesitation born of fear. Fear is not conceived in one quick fumbling in the dark, but repeated sweaty couplings in the arms of that which raises your heart rate and the hairs on your arms. But you also know you can handle the fear. You have learned life's lessons, lost on the youth. You have the capabilities. It's only fear of the what you don't know that holds you back, while upward a huge unknown, your future, beckons. Awaits in a rush of roaring water, awaits in a still pool in the evening, where past hurt is left lying upon a drifting and imponderable shore, washed clean in the yellow afternoon.


At the end of the run, as we got the kayaks to shore, I saw a man in jeans with dark hair, a man who resembled someone at this very spot so very many years ago. It wasn't of course, but for just a moment I hoped it was, so he could see what he'd passed up and I could validate why things can make us stronger, if we only dare.

For now, it's time to head on down river to the cars and soon a place to camp. Time for a warm fire and the laughter of friends, releasing our day with the stories we tell. We paddle gently down into a calm pool, floating down streams, like veins, that let the forest bleed.

Internet Stalker

I have a stat counter which posts the visitor count, but I'd not really looked at where they were coming from. There's a wide assortment, 90% from the states, maybe 8 % from Canada and the rest an assortment, including a military base far away. I then clicked on visits from my State, which broke down by City.

I really didn't expect anything unusual, Broad Ripple, some friends in Zionsville and further north, but there it was, sticking out like a sore thumb. A frequent, really frequent visitor from the town right next to my little burg. 15 minutes away. Three visits on some days. Some lasting an hour or more. Early morning, late night. A couple of Saturdays, logged on all day, one visit in the total count, but all day. Did they log on in the morning and just forget about it like I do a lot. Does this person not have a LIFE?

I have to admit, it bothered me a bit. None of my friends live there, one coworker but he doesn't read blogs, hardly touches the Internet. This person just seemed to be tailing my every blog post. Sometimes staying for hours late at night, multiple visits on a daily basis. Creepy. I pictured someone living in their parents basement, mall ninja by day, sitting home alone playing with their Wookie action figure at night.

So I looked at Stat counter to see if I could see the IP address. There it was, the IP address, the Internet provider.

IT WAS ME.

Apparently, my little town doesn't show up with the IP, the next closest town does. Now, I have a healthy ego and all, but I'll do eharmony.com before I stalk myself

And yes, I do feel like a complete dork.

You all have a safe and happy week!

Love - Brigid

Range Day - On the Road

Range Day.

Mr. B. and Midwest Chick and I loaded up and headed to a private range to do some group therapy with a couple friends of theirs. A good time was had by all.

Gear.

The one on the left is my trusty P220 in .45. The firearm on the right (I'll let my readers take a guess as to what it is) has had a trigger tweak from Mr. B's friend Mike. Wow. that's not a trigger, that's art.


More Gear!
And even more new gear!


Midwest Chick nails a bowling pin. (click to enlarge).


Steve fires. Great stance equals consistent groupings.

I liked their pistol range. What's not to like with a club house that actually knows how to decorate the women's restroom for the female shooters! Pardon me, I need to go wash the lead residue off my hands again.


Then, firearms tucked away at home, we waved goodbye to some of the gang. Then B and MC and I went off on a drive to meet Mr. and Mrs. Og at a Indiana winery for a wine tasting. We missed the IND blog meet which was too far away to make it, but this was sure a good way to enjoy the day.


Anderson's Orchards and Vineyard. So many good wines to try. I liked the Rhubarb the best, a recommendation of Mrs. Og. The staff was quite welcoming, and we got to try a sampling of many of their fine products (except for our designated driver who got some tasty water).


While the menfolk went out for a cigarette, the women engaged in female small talk. Children? No. Doilies? No. Church bingo? No.


Quotes from Airplane ("oh Stewardess, I speak jive"):

Jive Lady (Mrs. Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver): Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don' want no help, chump don't GET da' help!
First Jive Dude: Say 'e can't hang, say seven up!
Jive Lady: Jive ass dude don't got no brains anyhow!

(It's even funnier when Midwest Chick and Mrs. O did it)

Young Frankenstein:

"What knockers! Oh Thank you Doctor!"

and, of course, the unashamed politically incorrect Blazing Saddles:

"It's twue! It's twue".

And the men wondered why we were all giggling when they got back.

I'm fortified by two glasses of wine. I wonder if Magnum P.I. would like my shirt?


Too soon, time for the drive back to the home and hospitality of my friends, where the black labs, Barkley and Schmoo were defending the perimeter and G-cat was guarding the house along with her feline stealth forces.


You can take my gun when you can pry it out of my cold cold paws (did I mention I also have back-up claws??)


It was a great day, my friends. We'll do it again soon.

Come to the Edge

Barkley and I are hanging out with Mr. B and Midwest Chick for a few days. I needed this. I will be back with photos of pork, pistols, and more phirearm phun :-)

Weekend Group Therapy

Midwest Chick to me
show details 5:58 PM (3 minutes ago)
We can shoot handguns and rimfire rifles. If you have targets, bring
them and we can also shoot bowling pins... wheee!

I'm out of here. Barkley and I will be back in a couple of days with a theraputic range report.

Strength Under Fire - one for Dad

Do you ever wake up alone and not know where you are? You sense a room, slightly cold and roll over in bed to drape your arms across one whose form would feel like gold in your hand, to nuzzle the soft hair there at the base of the skull. But there is only cold air, and it dawns on you that side of the bed is empty and still. That realization rushes you into wakefulness with the sense that you are somewhat lost, a feeling that hovers constant in the corners of the dark. Half awake, you aren't quite sure where you are, how you got to be here. It's not much different than when you were a little kid and you wake from a nightmare of monsters and homework, calling out to a parent who rushes to your side to let you know you are safe.

What woke me was a bad dream, metallic form tumbling end over end, driven by provoking gusts, tumbling away from me even as I chase after it. I close the distance, sparks bursting out like fireworks, flames spraying towards me as I walk towards it unharmed, attempting to reach its precious cargo before it's immolated. But in my dream, there is nothing left but ash, and I stand there in a halo of fire that smells of burning flesh, slapping at the small and blooming holes of fire that are erupting on my shirt like crimson flowers sprung from my heart. There's no going back to sleep after that. Days like this you need the extra big bowl of Corn Pops. But it's just a dream, and now I have to go, as I have my own things to protect

I look out the window, the landscape is flat, the shadowed forms of the city in the distance rising out of the dawn. There are no mountains, and no more of the thick cloud cover that has been the sky for the last several months, clouds hanging like sodden towels on the peaks of buildings, making distance and form deceptive. I'm either in Texas or Oz, one of the two.

I won't be out West until Fall, another trip to see Dad. But I still call him at least twice a week. It doesn't matter how old I get, I'm his little girl and he worries about me out in the world. He worries about me even more lately, wanting to make sure before he leaves, that I'm happy and safe. My guys. Barkley is 8, getting a little white around the muzzle and slowing just a little. Dad is still going full tilt. Hard to believe he turned 91 a couple of weeks ago.


I give my Dad a lot of credit. He's not a big man but he's an imposing figure. But he's incredibly strong, still working out with weights several days a week. A golden glove boxer, a veteran of WWII, retired as a Lt. Colonel. He and my Mom Grace lost their first child, a little girl, born early, only surviving days. After that, with complications from the birth, they remained childless for over 15 years, watching their friends have kids, then grandkids. Mom said "adoption"? I imagine his first words were "but I'm retired?!" But he soon took up the monumental task of filling out all the paperwork, with hope and joy and adopted more than one. It can't have been easy at that age. Being a parent, isn't about blood lines or age or paternity, it's simply a love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart as you look on your child. It's making tough sacrificial decisions, decisions that say without words what is important to you. It's remembering the lessons your father passed on to you, for a father with a sense of honor wants to be even more than he is and to pass something good and hopeful into the hands of his child

I remember coming home crying when I was about 10, wrapped in angst because some boy I liked had said something very cruel to me, crueler in that I thought he was my friend. So I went to my Dad, for he was that approachable, golden authority on everything from dugouts to Daisy rifles in whom I held total faith and trust. I told him what the boy said and asked "is that true? " He looked e in the eye and said, "I once caught a steelhead as big as a cow." HUH? I thought". He repeated "maybe it was as big as a Buick" and I started to giggle knowing that wasn't true. Then my Dad said "Just because someone says something, doesn't make it true."and then he added under his breath "remember that when you're old enough to vote" and chuckled. And in that simple moment, spoken with humor, Dad showed me the importance of honesty. I went back to school, whacked the snot out of the kid that said it, and felt immensely better.

When I was a teen, I was a volunteer at a nursing home. The elderly people thoroughly enjoyed the visits, and often would keep me in their room for what seemed like hours to someone my age, as I brought juice and some blessed company. But for a teenager it was not a fun way to spend the afternoon and one time when Dad was dropping me off, I said "You know, I don't really want to do this". The silence echoed in the car like a question. Then Dad quietly said, "Did you tell them you would do it?" I said, "Yes." That was that. I knew exactly what he meant. They were counting on me. I missed an afternoon at the mall with friends and felt right for doing so.

Dad showed me dependability.

Later I had a chance to work and go to college far from my hometown. The first leap into independence is hard for anyone, the time when you know who you are but not what you may be. Hesitant to take the step, to move so far from home, I did what I still do, I called my Dad."What if I don't make it" I asked. Dad told me about leaving Montana behind as a young man and going to England on the Queen Mary to be an Army Air Corp area police officer during WWII. How hard that trip was to make. After listening to him I realized a simple trip across a state border was nothing and packed my things. I harnessed my dream because Dad showed me the important thing is to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. Dad showed me courage even as things change.

Dad probably doesn't remember these conversations, but I do. The things that leave the biggest impression on a child may not be obvious to them until they are grown. They are not money given, or cars bought or video games provided. It's being a pillar of strength and support, patience and compassion. What will make you memorable to your children will be the things you don't think they see, and perhaps they don't now, but when they get older and step back from you, leaving for their own life—then they will measure the greatness of your example and fully appreciate it.

Did I always follow his example? In a word. NO. Over the years I've been headstrong and stubborn and foolish and more than once insensitive. But he has always stood by me, even if in the vagrancy of foolish dreams and adrenalin, I have disappointed him. Still, I tried to learn from his examples. I still do.

My Dad has always been active in the community and the church, especially working with the Lion's Club, where for a time he was Club Secretary, raising money for eyesight programs, the Red Cross and Service Dog programs as well as and local scholarships for area children.

One thing he was particularly proud of was their newspaper recycling fund-raising program, which provided income for these programs but not without a lot of hard, volunteer work. The shining marker of that program was a Newspaper Recycling Building built to further expand on that community project. The members constructed it themselves, husbands and fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers, laboring in cold and rain, hot and sun, often at the expense of their own sleep. In November 2000, newly constructed, vandals burned it to the ground,

There was nothing left, but a few support timbers, lined up in stark order like gravestones at a military service. The men, my father, simply stood there stunned, as water dripped from the remains, strips of clouds like bayonets against the sky. A lot of work went into it, all volunteer and many of them in their 60's and 70's. You would have expected my Dad to storm and rage against a senseless act of destruction. But he didn't, though I was not so naive that I didn't miss the simmering outrage within which lives a betrayal too intense and inert to ever be articulated.

I read somewhere that heartache is to a noble what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.So true and words my Dad lived by. From him I have learned that whatever terrible things may happen to us, there is only one thing that allows them to permanently damage our core self, and that is continued belief in them. Dad's lived these beliefs. He's survived cancer, and a small stroke, buried two beloved wives, married to them over 60 years. He held my hand during 34 hours in natural childbirth, when Brigid Jr.s father abandoned me, and swept me away to our cabin after I handed her over to her adoptive parents, listening to me cry myself to sleep for months. I was a teen, barely out of high school and he never judged, never said he was disappointed in me, never said I told you so, for a choice in first loves that he had warned was going to be a bad one.

He taught me patience and compassion

I've watched him sit a vigil at his wife's bedside that lasted days, sleeping only in naps in a chair, never letting go of her hand. He was simply there, a constant presence next to her tiny, silent form, from which weariness and exertion had yet to depart, holding her, never doubting the actuality of his faith, guarding with sharp and unremitting alertness those minutes that he knows are fleeting. For a man such as this, that vandalism was merely a setback. He and his friends simply set out to rebuild what was lost. They did so with the help of kids from the local Elementary school, who amassed more than 600 pounds of pennies to help pay for the new building, with the adults, amazed at the kids efforts, donating the rest. The kids had a little contest between boys and girls and had their own little assembly line, putting the pennies into bags to take to the bank, learning the value of hard work and what it can bring. Those little kids raised well over $1000 from just pennies they rounded up at home and school, in thanks for what the Lions had done for them, a covered play area and an improved playground accessible to all the children

That new recycling building still stands proudly today, a testament to the faith of children and the loving example of fathers.

It will soon be time to give my Dad another call. For he too will be waking up in a lonely bed, wondering where he is. We can pour ourselves a bowl of Corn Pops and have our biweekly chat, while I tell him how very proud I am, that he chose to be my Father, through it all

Armadillos - Nature's Speed Bumps

I'm somewhere far away on Squirrel business.

I'd hoped to have a unremarkable trip and it just didn't end up that way.

There are always bumps in the road. Some are just harder than others.

But I'm in Texas and I'm OK. For now, though the armidillo population remains statis, the bovine population will be reduced by one, or at least the tasty portions thereof.

B.

"Splody!" - A Trip to the Powder Room

Some women deal with stress or other angst by traditional methods. Ice cream. Shopping. Good old fashioned tears. Tried that. Doesn't work.

I prefer blowing something up.

Black powder therapy. Cannon ready. Range style.

You just need a few spare parts from the shed, garage, or evil laboratory and perhaps a friend or relative to divide the blame. And a golf ball

The golf ball is essential.

Now I'm not going to explain how to build one. Sure enough I'd leave out one step, someone would lose an eye and the next thing you know, I'd have 5 drooling personal injury lawyers on my porch (zombies!).

Do your homework, check your state and local laws for restrictions on such things (many modern subdivisions have a "no cannons" covenant). Don't mix blackpowder with tequila, alpacas or enclosed areas. But there are directions on the net on a number of legal, family-friendly, build this science experiment in your garage kind of websites and there are even golf ball cannons for sale, that look like something out of Bladerunner (and are about $280 and up).

With the right amount of black powder, dry, losely packed material (yes that is cloth) and a quick but thorough check of the area to make sure no people, animals, news choppers, Conservatives, or Girl Scouts with cookies are in the line of fire.

FORE!!

Almost 1000 feet. You couldn't even see it go. Of course, the successful first strike raised the question.

What would this thing do with aircraft gun sights? Then, with sights, you could take it deer hunting. Kill AND gut the deer in one. . . . . no never mind. I still haven't heard the end of this
.


Beats the hell out of shopping.

A Question for my Readers - Buying Photoshop

A couple of readers have asked me if I use photoshop. No, don't own it or use any of the commercial grade editing software. I've seen what bloggers such as Pioneer Woman have done with it and it's awesome. I have used photobucket to "pop" the light and color of a portrait type photo or turn color into black and white, or fade the edges, but that's really basic.

I like to sketch. I'm working on learning to draw the whole body, not just the face and have photos of nudes from which to draw. It's interesting in that there are all kinds of bodies. I took a class at the community college and we practiced in class drawing them all, thin, heavy, young, old, the lines and wrinkles and all, sometimes as beautiful as the young perfect ones. I look at some of Oleg's photography work that he has shared with me, with models who are nude, or mostly. If that isn't art I don't know what is. I don't take a class any more, but I'm still honing the skill using friends or web photos, the jut of hipbone, the curve of cheek. Skin, muscle and line of flesh that for some would be profane, but I see the beauty of form, captured simply. I'm an amateur but I LOVE to create, with strokes and lines and brush. So perhaps doing something with photo editing might be fun.

I've a gal friend who is really good with it and has demonstrated what it could do. Photoshop doesn't just enhance a photo, it changes it. I mean really changes it. They were neat but I didn't hardly recognize the outcome. Case in point, a picture of me in a formal dress worn to a ball thing a Presidents or so ago. She took a picture of me in my ball dress and a picture concept from somewhere else, a ultra modern stylized model pose and blended that concept with my photo. The hair was more neat, the waist more defined, the dress a slightly different color. There was none of the details of my photo, no background, no furniture, just the dress, a light background, a more defined, glamorous look. It was beautiful, more like a painting than a photo. But yet, it wasn't really me by the time she got done with it. It was me, in the the angles of the neck, the tilt of head, my generous hips, the hair, and yet it wasn't. I put it up as a little picture just on the sidebar with a funny saying on it and got some comments. I took it down because I didn't like the resultant picture nor the type of comments it generated. Though a couple friends I sent it to later got a smile I hope out of the caption we put with it and the proof that yes, I have worn a dress.

Here's my question for my readers. Visiting blogs, which pictures resonate with you more? Ones like most of mine, just taken with a point and shoot camera as is, using angle and light to capture something. Or would you like to see what I could do artistically, by buying Photoshop, even if by doing, the result is more art than actuality?




I'll leave this up as the #2 post for the next few days or so as I'm getting some great feedback here on what is out there and why or why not it's good.

Saturday Rain

"I never wanted anything so much

than to drown in your love

and not feel your rain."

- Sara Bareilles - Gravity.

Cleansing rain. They say that water washes away sin, but if sin is just words, then so is salvation.

I woke this morning to the sound of pouring rain. It had not been forecast, so the sound woke me up, as I seem to be tuned to wake to anything I do not expect or recognize. I didn't want to move, laying underneath a roof of rain, thinking of home, out West, of waking in my bed in my old room, of familiar sounds around me. The warmth there with me, like rain.

The rain washes clean, but it as well leaves its mark. Gouges from rivulets in the calloused summer soil, as if scraped by hard nails. Marks that will not fade until further rain falls.


There is something magical about water, I'd stand in it thigh deep, fishing, I'd wade in it, as a child at camp, the small laps of waves from passing canoes pressing up against my back, coming and going, but always present. As children , rain crashing down, we'd rush to go out in it, seeing not cold, not wet, but drops of wonder on everything around us. We'd look at our shadows on the ground as the sun came back, wondering why the shadow was shaped like us, but nothing else, a mirror that is not a mirror. Wondering why when I looked straight into the sun, I saw a perfect pure circle of light. Hope personified.

We spent so many days in the water, at hotels on trips to California to visit my Aunt and Uncle who raised almonds on a large spread of land. Afternoons sluicing down an irrigation ditch, evenings at a hotel pool on the drive home. My Mom could never get us to come in from the water, even if a thunderstorm threatened, cumulus clouds forming mighty towers in the hot sky overhead.


I'd hear her voice call out and pop up to the surface with a shout, surging forward to lay chase again to some silvery form rushing away. My parent's watchful eye, and admonishment to come in simply a mirage in the distance, dismissed by the shimmering water. Turn, splash, dive. Diving down deep into the waters of the womb, or perhaps swimming clear of it.

It was a summer of freedom and blue skies. I'd sleep to time's carousal and wake to the laughter of God, echoing in the splash of the perfect cannon ball into the deep end. The deep end, where I'd threw myself, my reason and restraint, into the blue and simply wait for it to embrace me even as I heard someone call out a warning.

For I was a stubborn child, not about the big things, the little things. Eating those beets, coming inside, riding my bike too fast. Even now, it's still there, of only a stubborn determination to believe.

But I didn't totally ignore the warning of the waters, growing up so near to it I was taught to be wary of it. "Never turn your back on the ocean" my Mom said so many times, Never go out into the river when the spring thaws run. But water was everywhere, blue streams tickled with trout, dying fall leaves flinging themselves into the water, flotillas of the lost, splattering the water with yellow light. There's still waters as green as the scent of rain, frogs moaning with boredom in hushed summer light. Soft pale air breathes on skin, a lover's moist breath. Pine needles snap under my feet as I'm drawn to the water like flame, a rush of steelhead scented water over stone, the communion of movement.


So many summer swimming holes, and soon, wheels to take us there. One summer, some parents out of town, I defied orders to stay home with my big brother and jumped into the back of a car to go to the river to swim, to erase the sticky hot chains of being a teen with a curfew. The warm air was like a balm, fireflies flirting with twilight, the wind rippling my hair along with the summer pines, the sound almost that of silence. I looked up, hoping to see a thunderstorm erupt, unknown power in the atmosphere that would only be washed away with the rain. Water cleansing the earth.

It was a small hatchback type car, with two doors and a small back seat. I'm alone in the back, trying to get out of my shorts and T- shirt as my swim suit is on underneath, ready to hit the water as soon as we stop. My head is down and I have no sensation of movement. All I remember is an abrupt "bump bump bump" pushing me forward into the seat. And the car is down a brief embankment into the water.

They say when you think you are going to die your life flashes before your eyes. Not true, all you see is water, and even before it touches your body your movement is slowed as if running a nightmare's marathon through it. My friends were out before the hood was completely underwater. The water hisses at the windshield like a really pissed off cat, and I pull away out of instinct, anxious to protect my limbs. I was in the back, trapped by the seat. I either get over and out, or I drown, it's as simple as that. The windows were down, an escape, even if it provides a way for the water to say hello sooner. I clamber over the seats, get into the front and move towards the window as the water pushes me away. One of my friends grabs my arm to help pull me up and out and then accidentally lets go of me, as I head, vulnerable as a leaf, downstream.


There is no real chance that I'd drown at this point. The water is not that cold or particularly deep, the current is manageable. I'm a strong swimmer. But trying telling that to the fear. Pull, I tell my arms. My arms obey, and I break through the current and head towards shore, the vain instants of solid ground underfoot, touching me and then receding again, leaving me to flounder. But the water is not all that deep, nor all that swift, and the shore is within reach. We gather there, staring, stunned, other motorists around, as water drips through my eyes like tears. The car is submerged. No one is hurt. It hit me then, not how close we came, not that the little Pinto at the bottom of the river probably won't buff out. What hit me was - "I'm going to be grounded for a YEAR".

It was only a month, and for that I am grateful, but a lesson was learned, even if I still wouldn't eat my beets. Take no chances with the cold, precious waters. The river is wider than you think.

It's still raining as I take Barkley out for his morning run. I see the photo of my Mom on the mantle and think back to all the things I was warned about. Don't swim for an hour after you eat. Don't stay in the water during a thunderstorm. We wary of the river that looks so cool and inviting for that is the one in which you will drown.

Thunder rumbles as I stay silent, stubbornly refusing to listen to her voice in my head. Drops fall from the sky, salty, dense, leaving wet trails down my cheeks. The water rushes down, affirmation, promise, even as it erodes the memories that remain.

Someone's looking pretty relaxed. Barkley, you didn't . . .

Get into my vicodin did you??

They gave me a pretty big bottle, but I only needed one after the wisdom tooth removal. I was on similar pain meds for a fair bit of time after my surgery this January and it made me a bit mentally and physically wobbly (but happy). Glad I could avoid it this time. After the first 36 hours after the teeth it was just jello and a few aspirin and I was fine. Thanks to all you that checked on me and my face (even though I probably sounded like Joe Biden with a mouth full of marshmallows right after).

Chippy the Chipmunk

Harriet D.

September 9, 1923 - June 15, 2010

You had some pretty amazing shoes to fill, and you did. I couldn't have had a better StepMom for the many years I did. Dad couldn't have loved you more. You were pretty darn lucky

So were we.

Quotes for the unspecified temporal interval that is Monday

Science:

So far I have been speaking of theoretical science, which is an attempt to understand the world. Practical science, which is an attempt to change the world, has been important from the first, and has continually increased in importance, until it has almost ousted theoretical science from men's thoughts. ... The triumph of science has been mainly due to its practical utility, and there has been an attempt to divorce this aspect from that of theory, thus making science more and more a technique, and less and less a doctrine as to the nature of the world. The penetration of this point of view to philosophers is very recent. - Bertrand Russell

Mortality:

"Mortality had remained a conveniently hypothetical concept, an idea to ponder in the abstract. Sooner of later the divestiture of such a privileged innocence was inevitable, but when it finally happened the shock was magnified by the sheer superfluity of the carnage."-Into Thin Air


Philosophy:

"That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There's No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles."- The many and varied advantages of philosophy - Terry Pratchett - Small Gods

Dominion:

"Nantucketers saw no contradiction between their livelihood and their religion. God Himself had granted them dominion over the fishes of the sea." In the Heart of the Sea - Chapter 1

Kaboom:
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" - Marvin the Martian

Problems:

"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not become still more complicated"-Poul Anderson -Tau Zero

Generic Last Rites:

"I see by your outfit you may be a preacher."

"Yes, I am, - of the non-theistic, non-sectarian sort."

"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen" - Roger Zelazny: Creatures of Light and Darkness