Styrofoam worms on a blustery day

Once, a friend of mine had to chase her wig through Safeway parking lot.

This was a long time ago, when I lived in Tornado Alley; AKA Oklahoma. 

My friend, I’ll call her Dorothy, was what my Grandma would call a “character.”  Her life had angles and quirks I hadn’t encountered before I met her at Tulsa County Courthouse where we worked.

Once, she was late for work, really late.  Unheard of for her.  She called at about the 45 minute mark to say she’d been to work on time that morning, but upon turning into the parking garage, discovered she had forgotten to put in her bridge, a piece of dental work that contained only two teeth, from alternating positions, right in front of her mouth. 

We had no cell phones, so, from her landline at home she called to say that she refused to come into the Courthouse without those teeth in place “looking like a Halloween pumpkin.”  It made perfect sense to her to turn around and drive all the way back home and call from there.  She retrieved her teeth and came to work about brunch time, smiling.

And she wore this wig that she didn’t really need.  She had perfectly good hair.  But, in her estimation, said hair would behave badly on occasion.  When it did, she punished it by collecting it into a net and stuffing it under the wig. 

Or maybe she just slept through her alarm and didn’t have time for her regulation coif.

In any case, the wig looked OK, for a wig.  Close to her natural brown hair color and shoulder length.  Shiny.  Pleasantly styled into a “flip.”  Bangs.

But, to a trained observer, it could be spotted for the pretender it was – no scalp in the part line.  Always a dead giveaway.

Once I saw Dorothy in the process of forcing her glasses back under the thing after she’d taken them off to swab away the residue of Midwestern humidity; so I thought it fit pretty well.  Which begs the question:  I know we’re in Oklahoma, but how big a wind was that?

There was no tornado on the occasion of Dorothy’s escapade.  Just a blustery, gusting wind that must have caught her in an upburst – the kind of upward explosion that will blast your kilt right up over your head. 

It came sweeping down the plain.  (Sorry.)

This tempest surged right through the Safeway parking lot just as she was loading groceries into her car after a hard day’s work.  The gust yanked her hairpiece off, flung it over her car and threw it across the path of oncoming shoppers and their carts.

She said the wig surged ahead of her and paused like a terrier with its toy, teasing her into believing she’d caught up.  Then it lurched again and bumped along the ground, bouncing and rolling like a macabre, shaggy tumbleweed.  It took her all the way from Safeway past Baskin Robbins and beyond.

As she chased it, she formed a plan to put an end to Nature’s little game of keep away.  At last, when she got in range, she lunged forward and stomped on it, flattening it like the bag of hair it was. 

She snatched it up and stood tall with as much dignity as she could muster for one victorious moment.  Then, wig in hand, natural hair plastered to her head and contained under its net, she stalked back to her car and drove her groceries home.

I was missing ole Dorothy this morning after I received an object shipped to me in a mid-sized box stuffed with Styrofoam worms.  That box was housed in a second, inappropriately large box, a huge box, a box for the ages, also stuffed with Styrofoam worms. 

Let me just say that those worms wanted out of those boxes.  And fortuitously, when gust of wind came up in the alley by the recycling bin, they bolted and ran ahead of me like so many minions.

They skittered gleefully toward my neighbor’s fence, laughing all the way, with me behind them in a life-sized game of Whack-a-mole, frantically stomping and collecting them one-by-one, Dorothy-style.


If she could see me now!

A fool and her internet

I’m a sunflower.

Yep.  Oh yeah.  I am a regular ray of sunshine.  Facebook told me so.

The social media giant’s newest package of postponement is delivered as, “What kind of ________are you?  Take this simple quiz and find out!”

I found my floral identity this morning shortly after reading the DailyGood’s article entitled, “How to eliminate procrastination.”

By the by, according to another Facebook/Quiz Social questionnaire, the best tattoo for me is …wait for it … a human skull!  Yes, that’s right.  This little sunflower has a dark side.

Quiz Social zeroed in on my shadow personality and matched me perfectly with that symbolic representation of my cranky alter ego. 

The skull is suited to me, says Quiz Social, because it’s “bold and powerful.”  That is so me! 

I am the bold and powerful sunflower who declares her “opposition to the natural order of things and her unwillingness to be limited by anyone's rules or expectations.”

This nonconforming little blossom cannot be repressed. 

And this:  In the yin and yang yoyo of things, if I were a super hero, I’d be none other than Superman, the Goodie Two Shoes of the super hero set! 

And here’s how they reconcile the skull tattoo with the embodiment of truth, light and the American Way:  “Sometimes you are tempted to use your powers for evil, but lucky for the rest of us, you have a heart of gold.”  It’s me!  So very me!

                                                                       
In a past life I would have been an Egyptian queen, states the Department of the Obvious.

In the next life?  After I answered their quick quiz, the pronouncement came down – I’ll be reincarnated as … a single grain of sand?! 

Not sure I’m looking forward to that in quite the same way I was anticipating my return as a mountain lion or even redwood tree, or Empress of the Universe.
                                                    
But Quiz Social trots out none other than William Blake to make life on the beach with the masses seem Zen: "To see a world in a grain of sand ...  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand…"  OK…

Sensing the lack of enthusiastic response to such a gritty future, the quizmaster extrapolates, “There is nothing that separates us from the sand.  Nothing separates the sand from God.  We are all here.  We are all everywhere.  We are all forever.”

Oh brother!

I’m beginning to see the wisdom of Fred Stutzman, a 2009 graduate student at the University of North Carolina.  DailyGood reports that Fred had trouble concentrating long enough to finish the work for his thesis.  He blamed access to the internet.

Stutzman, like other people I’ve heard of, found himself distracted by the endless supply of sappy pastimes and useless but fascinating crapola at his fingertips — even when she, er, he really wanted to get something done.

Like any addict, he told himself he could disconnect any time he wanted to.  But it wasn’t that simple.  He tried aversion therapy and the ‘step down’ method.  He went cold turkey.  He wore the patch.

OK.  He didn’t do any of those things, but it was hard for him to look away from the screen.  No.  It was impossible. 

So he did what any red-blooded, skull-tattooed sunflower would do:  He went home and created a software program that would solve his problem.  Oh, I should have mentioned – Stutzman was a computer programmer studying Information Science.  

His creation, called “Freedom,” is simple.  All you have to do is turn the application on – after you pay your $10 – tell it how long you want to focus on something, anything other than the electronic pabulum you’re Jones-ing for and it blocks your computer from going online for that amount of time.  

If you have to have a fix before your time is up, you have to turn your computer completely off and reboot, which, in theory, is so much trouble you’d actually rather accomplish something you’re not ashamed of or embarrassed by instead.

I’m thinking of getting it.  Right after this last quiz:  What Tarot card are you?

Seven quick questions and…The Fool!?  I beg your pardon!

The devil and Hobby Lobby

Effective this week, a for-profit corporation has line item veto rights to federal law.  Isn’t that convenient?

Because it is owned and operated by a Christian family, Hobby Lobby can now choose not to comply with any portion of the law that offends their sensibilities.   

Thank you, United States Supreme Court. 

Reminds me of an axiom circulating online this week:  Things happen for a reason; and sometimes the reason is that you’re stupid and make bad decisions.

Ahhh!  That helped a little.    

My goal each week is to give you a laugh Dear Reader, but this week’s Supreme Court decision just sticks in the marrow of my funny bone.  It felt good to vent.  Glad to have it out of my system, for the moment, at least. 

But as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared in her dissenting opinion, “The fight isn’t over.”

I’m with “Notorious RBG” as Justice Ginsburg is now being affectionately called.  I wanna dig out a tie-dyed t-shirt, paint my face and carry a torch.  I wanna sit in.  “Hell no!  We won’t go!”

OK, wrong slogan. 

Breathe.  Breathe.

What the hell are they thinking??  Don’t they have a big picture point of view?!  Of all people the Supreme Court should be able to process the implications of their decisions.  Can’t they see that allowing Hobby Lobby et al to cherry-pick the parts of healthcare LAW they want to abide by sets a bit of a precedence!  Hello?!

You know, I don’t like it that as part of that same “mandated” healthcare package my tax monies pay for Viagra. 

This is a deeply held belief of mine – a when-it’s-over-it’s-over philosophy that I believe men should accept.  I’ve lived my life accordingly mostly because that issue doesn’t affect me. 

So it just naturally follows that I would not fund distribution of such a drug.  Therefore, next April, I’m going to draw a red line on my Form 1040 and reduce my tax burden accordingly.  That’ll work.   

All right, Carolyn.  Mellow!  Mellow! 

You know what?  My blood pressure is up and I want to eat a bag of fun-sized Snickers. 

But I can let this go. 

Let’s talk about something else.  Something completely different...

I woke up again this morning with parrot tongue.  This is a bad sign because I’m being told that someone in this house is snoring.

In case you’re unaware, parrot tongue is a well-documented syndrome whereby an otherwise cultured and genteel person tenderly rests her head on her memory foam pillow and falls asleep instantly, drawing her life’s breath orally.

That is to say she closes her eyes and steps off the precipice into the darkest depths of guilt-free slumber post haste.  Sheep uncounted.  Lips parted just so.

When she wakes, some seven stress-free hours later, her tongue is the tongue of a Mojave Gila monster; her house pets cower in the bedroom corners and her husband hovers gleefully with his iPhone recording ready to play. 

“Ha ha ha!” says he.  “Listen to yourself, Honey!  You could peel the paint off the walls!  Tee hee hee!  Wait until our son hears this!” 

First of all let me just say that, squirrel mouth aside, I do not accept that the racket on that recording came from me.  My assertion is that my husband accumulated those sound effects over time in revenge for that innocent prank I played long ago when I dipped his hand in warm water.

No – those sounds came from somewhere else.  Something else.  Just recently, for example, he had to pry bent nails from warped boards on our deck.  He could easily have had his recorder in his tool belt.

Our neighbor’s dog snarls at the slightest provocation.  We visited Yellowstone when the buffalo were feeling frisky.  Our house is haunted!

I don’t know!  It wasn’t me, I tell ya!

All right.  Let’s say Spouse A is possessed by the devil.  She cannot control the proclamations of the Dark One!  He has a lot on his mind and the volume set on 10.

Spouse B may be laughing but he’s looking frazzled.

This can’t be healthy physically, mentally or matrimonially!  Medical science surely has some relief.

No worries.  This one’s tailor made for Christian healthcare.

Taking Mr. Top 40 down

Mimus polyglottos, how I loathe thee!

Oh, computerized chess games may seem relentless. 

The IRS.

Sharks.  They never sleep.  Or at least that’s what their press agents want you to believe.

But on a cool summer’s night, when you have the windows open to a luscious breeze; when you’ve just drifted off with a hint of a smile and begun to float in dreamland.  Just then, just at that perfect moment, there’s nothing quite so ruthless as a mockingbird. 

Like Santa, he knows when you are sleeping.  That’s his cue to take the stage at treetop, just out of reach of your super-soaker.  I imagine he feels glorious up there as he drinks in the moonlit panorama from his vantage point.  And so, he draws a deep birdy breath and begins to “sing.”

An unmated male is the likely culprit.  Figures.  Like a drunken Romeo he prattles on as though he can win the heart of his Juliet with a continuous loop of tunes from around the ‘hood.  Second verse?  Same as the first!

His performance plays like the demo tape of a tribute band.  Nothing original.  Eight bars of everything from warbler to car alarm.  All of it in brass. 

Initially, we put his appearance down to the super moon.  You know, that dazzling full moon that rose on Friday the 13^th.  The one that moved wolves to howl and the undead to stir and walk their funky walk.  That one.

We supposed it motivated him too.  Mr. Mocker.  And like Foghorn Leghorn, he reckoned he’d better announce what looked to him like the start of the day.  And announce.  And announce.  And announce.

That morning, after thrashing his way through the night, twisting the sheets and stuffing his pillows into his ears, my husband stood bedside and glared at me with an expression that, try as I might, I cannot unsee.  Eyes bloodshot, hair disheveled, he swayed on his feet, pointing toward me as though I were the one who squawked through the wee morning hours. 

“I’m going to get that bird,” he declared.

I actually have a grudging appreciation for this avian blowhard.  According to Chris Clarke, natural history writer and environmental journalist, male mockingbirds can learn as many as 200 distinct songs.  If only they wouldn’t sing them all!

Having a mockingbird in your yard is somewhat akin to having a batch of teenage girls in the car who know all the words to all the songs.  And you’re driving to Nevada. 

Changing stations won’t solve the problem.  They can pick up in the middle of whatever the airwaves toss out.  With gusto.  Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall…ninety-nine bottles of beer!

My own personal theory is that mockingbirds suffer from low self-esteem.  Why else would they try so hard to sound like some other bird, any other bird, but themselves?  Poor, poor feathered fellows!

Another thing in their favor is that female and male mockingbirds fearlessly defend their nests this time of year, dive-bombing cats and birds of prey, even humans if they’re perceived to be interested in climbing a tree and bringing home a clutch of speckled eggs to scramble up with some Jimmy Dean sausage.

But none of that offsets a sleepless night for my beloved.  No.  He’s tired and cranky and he will have his revenge.

I reminded him that most of the things he is willing to try aren’t worth the jail time:  His potato launcher might be effective, but the ammunition has to come down somewhere on the other end of the arc, where our neighbors live with their beloved pets and small children. 

His Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle with the compass in the stock, though technically a toy, is most likely illegal to fire in city limits.  And will, as you certainly know, shoot his eye out.

So I’m surprising him with a plastic owl ‘scare crow,’ some SureFire EP3 Sonic Defender Earplugs and a white noise machine. 

If that doesn’t work, I’ll aim my iPhone at the offender and unleash my iBirdPro app’s recorded screeches of an eagle.  

From there I can go to scaffolding and a pressure washer.


Mr. Top 40 thinks he’s relentless?  He doesn’t know relentless.

Zzzzz

I knew it!  I should be napping!

I hope my husband is reading this because he is one of those extremely annoying people who goes all day without even the tiniest flutter of his eyelids.  He just goes and goes and goes.  Wide awake all the live-long day.  Sheesh. 

And you know what he told me?  If he feels tired during the day?  He just sits down at his desk and keeps on working.

Well.  Yeah.  He is employed.  That could be a factor in his persistent awareness.

To be fair, if I think back to my days as a high school principal, I don’t recall getting sleep breaks.  I have to grant him that.  No sleeping on the job! 

Poor guy.  All that enforced alertness.  It must be a real drag.

His company is so 20^th Century on this issue – According the National Sleep Foundation, about 34% of U.S. employers now allow napping at work!  Where were they when I needed them?   

And 16% have even designated napping areas!  For example Nike employees can sleep in “quiet rooms.”  It sounds so civilized, doesn’t it?  Not at all like public school where it’s loud all day every day. 

Google’s Mountain View campus includes ‘sleeping pods.’  Absolutely kindergarten-esque! 

Both Continental and British Airways allow pilots to nap during long international flights.  OK.  I get the point.  Just don’t tell me Sully’s sawing logs during in-flight turbulence!

These nap-friendly companies report that permitting rest breaks during the work day boosts revenue, productivity and employee satisfaction.  I’m just sayin’.

So I don’t see how my husband’s compulsory wakefulness justifies the routine ribbing I endure if he should discover that I’ve had a dose of shuteye during the day. 

Therefore, I don’t always include my siesta in my response to “How was your day today?”

Good, Honey.  My day was good.  Due, not in small measure, to my little kip.  Surmise all you want.  I’ve straightened the bedspread and re-plumped the pillows.  Covered my napping tracks, if you will.  My eyes are bright and my lips are sealed.

Really.  If I’ve been at the computer all morning, seeking depth of knowledge and insights to share with you, Dear Reader; and I’ve had my noontime snack; if at that moment, after folding a load of fluffy warm clothes at bedside I begin to circle that self-same bed and find myself wobbling in orbit…well!  What’s a person supposed to do?  Dust?

And besides, it’s confirmed now:  Sleeplessness can kill you! 

That’s right.  In a study called “Sleep or Die,” YourLocalSecurity.com reports that poor sleep habits can lead to as much as a 12% higher risk of death!

Not sure exactly how that factoid is supposed to help me sleep.  It actually kind of keeps me awake – worrying about dying in my sleep or waking up too early only to die from consciousness.

It’s a conundrum. 

Studies have also shown that insomniacs are 10-times more likely to develop depression and 17-times more likely than their counterparts to have significant anxiety.

So there.

I am neither anxious nor depressed.  I am relaxed and happy, happy, happy!  I sleep the sleep of those unencumbered by guilt, except of course, for the small shame of deceiving my husband regarding my habits of slumber. 

But what’s the definition of a white lie?  It’s an unimportant lie, especially one told to be tactful or polite.  See?  I’m being courteous.  That’s all.  I’m protecting his sensibilities. 

There’s no harm in a tiny prevarication told in the interest of face-saving and spousal bliss. 

Not that he begrudges me my catnaps.  It’s just poor form to rub it in:  “Oh?  And while you were dealing with a terrible human being who holds sway in your work environment, I was snoozing and smiling in my slumber.”  Not nice.

And I am a nice person.  Probably because I am a napper. 

Visual.ly found that forty winks can elevate a cranky person’s mood and alertness and improve the quality of her interactions.  Translated:  We nappers don’t respond crabbily to those who snicker when they learn we’ve had a lie-down in the daylight.

So get off my back about it, OK? 


Oh!  Sorry to be so snippy.  Must be time for my nap.

Dear Memory: Photo not available

Once, I forgot where I parked my car.  At LAX.

That was a problem.

If you’ve ever seen the parking structures at LAX you understand.  They form a sort of 3-D, M.C. Escher, house-of-mirrors kind of nightmare.

Sure, those configurations are commonplace at airports these days, but at that time I was a girl from Oklahoma who had only lived in Long Beach a few months.  I still couldn’t figure out how the forty-minute drive to the airport on the 405 Freeway north had me heading straight into the setting sun.  It went against the laws of nature. 

That was disconcerting enough, but on that particular day I was doing a favor for a friend.  I was picking up her friend, whom I’d never met.  My friend had an emergency and couldn’t meet her friend at the airport.

So I said sure.  I’ll go. 

Back in those days – Yes!  Tell us Granny Plath!  Tell us how it was back in the olden days!  
OK Dearies – Just imagine – You could walk right into the airport and directly up to the gate to meet your friends and loved ones as they exited their planes! 

No bare feet on cold tile.  No full-body public X-ray with arms in the air.  It was lovely. 

So I had a description of my friend’s friend.  She had a description of me.  We found each other and introduced ourselves and negotiated baggage claim and headed out to the parking garage.

Remember?  This is a story about finding one’s car in the maze of a concrete Overlook Hotel. 

And my memory failed me. 

Suffice it to say that it took a good long while to find the correct level in that labyrinth – H!  I’ve never forgotten it since.  And the right section – 8!  Appropriate somehow.   

And that was before wheels on luggage.  Before it was cool to travel light. 

By the time we found the car, I don’t think my friend’s friend liked me very much.

I haven’t seen her since.  The honest truth is, I don’t even remember who I was helping out that day!  Her name is a vapor.  I can’t call her face to mind at all. 

But I will never forget H-8 and the mortification.  That is the lasting memory lo! these many years later.

Memory experts say that if you attach emotion to a memory, or action to an image, it’s much more likely to stay with you.   

Which brings me to some recent mind games:

Each year I sit on an interview panel at my old school.  It’s a privilege to spend time with staff members whom I loved and respected during my tenure there.  So when the day is over, I send each one a little note of appreciation.

With note cards in hand, I began recreating my experience and writing, first to the teacher who sat on my right.  Then to the one on my left. 

Next I wrote to the Career Center Coordinator who sat across from me.  And finally, I prepared to write to the person next to her.

Who was a woman.  Pretty sure.  Past that, I had nothing.

OK.  Dark hair?

It’s not that I saw her face but didn’t remember her name.  Nope.  All I could see was a gray silhouette on white background like someone on LinkedIn who didn’t provide a profile picture.

Not to worry, I told myself.  It’ll come to me. 

I busied myself with the minutia of the day:  dishes, dusting – no memory.  Writing, walking – no idea who the heck I worked with for seven years and sat across the table from for three hours YESTERDAY! 

Retracing my steps in the aisles of my mind, pulling out the drawers of the card catalog…I’ve got to update this system!  How can I express my gratitude?!  Who was that?? 

No matter how hard I squinted my eyes, or how many Zen strategies I employed, she always came back:  Photo not available.

Finally, in a panic, I called the Career Center Coordinator.  “Who WAS that person sitting next to you?” I shrieked.  “Who was she?  Who was she??!”

“Oh!  Of course,” I said, regaining my composure.  “I remember now.  Thanks.”


That’s the kind of emotion that solidifies a memory.

Look sharp!

So I was mining the tailings of my electronic inbox the other day, sifting through subject lines – “Battling Saggy Skin;” “Cultivating the Art of Spontaneity.”  (Really?  How can one cultivate the extemporaneous?)  – When I came across a gem:

No, not “6 Things the Most Productive People Do Daily;” though I did save that one to read another day.

Nor did I dwell on a TED Talk entitled “Why People Need Poetry.”  (Spoiler alert:  We need it, according to poetry critic Stephen Burt, because "we're all going to die -- and poems can help us live with that."  Thank you so much.)

No, Dear Reader, I wouldn’t trouble you with such esoteric diversions.  On your behalf I am ever watchful for the pragmatic, life-changing pearls that you and I can apply post haste.  And so, for our edification: 

“10 Lazy Ways to Appear Smarter.” 

See?!!  Who loves ya?

This article has potential right away because age-old wisdom tells us that laziness paves a sure-fire path to knowledge, success, and, and…well, I don’t know.  Let’s skim the article and see what we can see!

That’s right.  I said ‘skim’ the article.  What else would a truly gifted, yet slothful person do?  You wouldn’t expect me to read the whole thing, would you?  Word for word?  You so crazy!

Here we go.  The gist.  For your indolent self.  According to Psychologist Dr. Jeremy Dean, the founder and author of the website ‘PsyBlog,’ appearing smarter is much easier than actually being smarter.  All you have to do is:

1.      Speak with expression.  Try to EMPHASIZE important WORDS.

OK, that’s stupid.  We’re not deaf.  We’re dumb and lazy, remember?

Let’s jump right past that one on to something more useful.  Here we go:

2.      Cover up.  Smart people don’t show a lot of skin. 

I tried telling this to the misguided cleavage-heavy young women at the school where I was principal.  Turns out they weren’t interested in looking smart.  Sigh.

Dr. Dean cites a study showing that when people see exposed flesh, it makes them think about your body, rather than your mind.  Ipso facto, you come across like a booby.

Bonus!  There’s a lazy means to accomplish this effect – wear the blanket off your bed!  Easy peasy!  I’m feeling smarter already.  And it leads us directly to –    

3. Sleep later! 

Hooray! 

One study cited in the article found that those who are more intelligent go to bed later and get up later.  The ‘very dull’ went to bed at an average of 11:41PM and woke up at 7:20AM.  In contrast, the ‘very bright’ went to bed at 12:29AM and got up at 7:52AM.

Throw in Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and it all makes perfect sense.

4. Make more eye contact

Apparently, if you train yourself not to blink, you win the fake intelligence test, since Westerners see those who make more eye contact as confident, strong leaders, who are more intellectual.  There you go!

5. Worry, a lot.

The key here is that you don’t really have to worry.  Thank God.  That just wears me out. 

We just want to look more intelligent, right?  And, people of high intelligence are more prone to anxiety than those of moderate intelligence, according to this clever-looking blog author, who wears glasses and everything. 

Therefore, the appearance of worry is sufficient to add the perception of brain power.  

Check.

6. Smile.

When you’re not looking worried that is.

7. Power pose.

Your mother was right:  Stand up straight.  Upright posture has been shown to increase how powerful, confident and brainy you appear.   

8. Change your name.  Especially if it’s Ima Doof.

9. Use a middle initial.

Or simply emphasize your middle initial.  Scientific studies confirm the use of initials conveys greater status and intellectual might.  Which scientists?  Why, W. A. P. van Tilburg & E. R. Igou, who else?

And finally –

10. Just believe it.

Yes, studies show that believing you can get smarter is enough to make you smarter.  The good Doctor cajoles us not to be held back by stereotypes, limiting beliefs or other mental obstacles.


Don’t be stupid, in other words.  At least try to look smart.