Pretending to Farm

Happy Valentine's Day

Those of you who have read this dribble for any amount to time know how much I love my husband. You read it in my words; you see it in our pictures; and you just feel it in your bones.

Just in case that's not enough, I'll shoot a little EBB his way as he is traveling back from Calfornia. This is my favorite love poem.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

I love you, David Dillon.

Once upon a time...

...there lived a Silver Spangled Hamburg named Wayneisha, named after a Hurricane Katrina victim. Her counterpart, Rolexis, with the same name origins, had been brutally mauled by Marshall the Bloodhound who thought she was a whatchugot and not a real, living chicken.

All her life, Wayneisha has wanted to be a mother, an active mother, going through the entire cycle of laying, setting, hatching, and raising chicks of her own. Alas, it never happened. A few Silver Spangled Hamburg eggs were incubated but, as they were stolen by the humans, she never knew if the chicks that returned to the coop were indeed hers or those of one of her counterparts. Plus, by the time the chicks were allowed to enter coop-world, they were old enough to care for themselves and didn’t need a momma to love, protect, and care for them the way Wayneisha wanted to do.

After years of failure and her biological clock ticking, Wayneisha was ready to adopt.

Enter Severus. Wayneisha was somewhat aware of Severus’ origins since she liked to hang out with the turkeys more often than she did with the chickens. They were quieter and mellower and enjoyed the occasional intellectual discussion. She knew that the wild turkey (the bird, not the booze) who would rather wander on her own instead of staying in the safety of the turkey pen had gotten eaten by wild dogs called coyotes and that the eggs that remained in her nest had been taken away by the humans.

A month later, the human who farms in pajamas (rather than the one who farms in boxers) brought a beautiful grey and blonde baby named Severus to the turkey known as Lynda and set him underneath her wing. Wayneisha was envious and set her plan to order. After all, she had seen the turkey leave her nest of poults before more often than she deemed prudent.

Offering friendship and poult-care relief, Wayneisha sidled into the nesting box with Lynda and drank in the smell of baby, a perfume better than new car, a smell unduplicated by anything or anyone. She longed for this child. Finally, she had her chance. Lynda, feeling hot and claustrophobic, left to stretch her wings and Wayneisha extended hers. She bonded with baby Severus, cooed sweet nothings in his ear, and offered him praises unheard from his duller in color and personality up-until-then caregiver. He was smitten.

When Lynda returned, she saw what had happened in her absence but, as she was already jaded by the loss of poults in the past and since she also knew what a self-sacrificing individual Wayneisha was, she put aside her feelings and allowed the hen to take over Severus’ care.

Today, Wayneisha and Severus are inseparable as they scratch, drink, eat, and sleep. At night, they jump as one into the nesting box and whisper their hopes and aspirations to each other until together they let their eyelids droop and fall into Dreamworld.

Let’s hope they live happily ever after.

Every Little Thing He Does Is Magic

During my ongoing convalescence, I haven’t been lacking for company. Take my towel-covered bed for example, Millie (whose sensitive canine soul always knows when I am sick or down) lies beside me, Magic stares in front of me, Zorro (behaving for once) sleeps across from me, and Marshall supervises from the other end of the room. Last night we actually added up all the living creatures in our home, not counting the ones outside, and came up with a grand total of 22, four dogs, two cats, two hamsters, five fish, one shrimp, one duck, one turkey, and six people. Wow.

This morning, however, I’d like to concentrate on one whose company has been constant and welcome, my friend Magic.

Consider the duck. He or she considers me enough. When not sleeping, he always looks at me, sizing me up, trying to solve the puzzle that is Lauren.

Even when nuzzling his head under his growing wing, he looks at me. I think he loves me but is perplexed by the emotion of it all; the feeling is mutual. He’s become my certified buddy.

I love his feet,

Whether sprawled or standing.

I love his perfectly tucked wings.

I love how he can relax around me,

How he trusts me implicitly and can fall asleep beside me.

Aren’t babies angelic when they sleep?

I Can; I Can; I Can!!!

Not much has changed around here this week, Zorro continues to stalk and attack me, leading Hunky Husband to rationalize that in fact Zorro is sexually attracted to me and that is the reason for his behavior towards me. Nice try, hunny, must be those lesions that are doing it for him. Magic, who is growing with each shake of his tail feather, still enjoys his morning baths in the kitchen sink, taken while I simultaneously feed the Pint-Sized Farmer, three slobbery beasts, one little brown mutt, and Apollo the cat who won’t leave me alone until he has his morning egg. And no, I don’t cook it for him. Raising too many fowl creatures equals an abundance of eggs which equals very lovely coats for the regular domestics.

Severus the new turkey poult is doing well out in the, shock, out of doors, but his nest-mate as we expected didn’t fare as well and died about 24 hours after hatching, poor thing. Excuse the very trite expression but it was for the best. One of his eyes never opened and he never hopped and peeped like healthy poults do.

Me? I’m trying to focus on what I can do rather than what I cannot. Believe it or not, I garnered this little gem of personal advice from the wheelchair-bound character on the children’s cartoon “Dragon Tales” and thought I should do my best to follow it. No Dr. Phil for me, darned high-fallutin’ getting-real know-it-all. I prefer taking advice aimed at pre-schoolers (All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten, anybody?) What follows is a small smattering of things I can do:

1. I can legally ingest narcotics. Lindsey Lohan, eat your heart out.

2. I can turn my head right.

3. I can knit a simple pattern with a medium-sized needle, such as a 7 (4.5 mm). Don’t ask me about lace or socks; they are not on this list.

4. I can guilt my children into administering much-needed and appreciated neck/feet/hand rubs.

5. I can lie in bed and cuddle with a Pint-Sized Farmer guilt-free no matter the time of day.

6. I can be at peace knowing my house is dirty for a legitimate reason for once and not feel too self-conscious about it.

7. I can accept the fact that I will always be a pretend farmer and be happy with our small spinner’s flock. For once, I don’t need to have ambitions of Shetland breeding greatness.

8. I can ingest gold without any apparent side effects. Amazing grace! It goes well with my new gold necklace with a pearl solitaire pendant courtesy of my awesome in-laws. They know how to cheer me and then some.

9. I can appreciate all my friends who have been calling and writing and telling me that they’d wait patiently for me to post once again.

10. I can type for about 10 minutes before agony sets in. The joy of writing overrules the pain of arthritis.

Thank you all for being here for me. This blog has brought me so much more than I ever realized it would.

Happy Father's Day, Again!

Today I offer you an encore presentation of my Father's Day post of 2006. In the year since I wrote it, my readership has steadily risen and is many times more than it was then. Many people, therefore, have not read it, and, as it is one of my favorite posts about one of my favorite people, I humbly present it to you. Those of you who still have your daddies, hug them tight; those of you who like me do not, send them special thoughts over the prayer waves. I will be doing just that but a big hug would have been so much nicer.

Today is Father's Day. To all you daddies out there, I would like to wish you a happy one, particularly my father-in-law, Matt, my husband, and father of my three children, David, and my own father.

I know it sounds trite; but my father was my hero. Unlike anyone else in this world, he had the innate ability to make me feel better when I was lower than down, and the gift of inspiring hope and ambition in just about anyone who knew him.

He was funny and talented and smart beyond words. His math professors would bring him out of other classes to explain complex Calculus problems to their students because he was the only one who could communicate the solution in a way they could understand. Because of his great intelligence, he got a perfect score on his SAT, the only person is the United States who did so the year he took it, and was awarded a full tuition scholarship to Duke University for academics. Professionally, he quickly rose through the ranks from engineer through the levels of management, until, at his death, he was director of world operations and ran the manufacturing division of Tyco Toys in Hong Kong. Despite this, Daddy did not parade his achievements. He drove a VW Bug even while he was VP of Brunswick and asked me to just tell my friends he was a manager. Daddy treated the garbage man just the same as he treated the CEO, which was with friendship and respect. He was a great man.

My father was corny and silly and social to a fault. Leaving church with him was near impossible as he had to say hello to each and every person he knew and introduce himself to the people he did not. He loved Benny Hill, The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers but also appreciated Madame Butterfly, Aida, and Faust. He had many roles, many faces, and, in my eyes, many wonderful qualities.

Particular things spring to my mind when I think about growing up and Daddy, Sunday brunch at Tulsa's version of Tavern on the Green after church, just the two of us, help with my algebra that I could not understand and his frustrated sympathy when I cried because letters could not be multiplied, a police stop that resulted from his kidding around in the car to make me laugh. As an adult, I remember him walking me down the aisle, visiting San Diego while I was pregnant, and clowning around at Jessica's first birthday party with a balloon animal hat on his almost bald head, loving his new role as a grandfather.

At the age of 52, my father, my hero, died of melanoma. In barely a year's time, the monster that is cancer quickly ravaged his body and invaded that beautiful brain that got him so far in his short life. When he passed, Jessica was barely three years old and our boys had not yet been conceived. Not a day goes by that I do not miss him and regret that my children do not know the great person that he was, that he is. I feel him with me sometimes, though never enough. It could never be enough. Many years ago, but since his passing, I was going through a difficult time and I looked to the ceiling and asked him if he was there. I wanted so desperately to have him there to take care of me as he had always done in life. Quietly, my rarely used music box began playing and I knew. He still looks over me, my mother, and my family.

When I started writing this blog, two of my father's old friends from North Carolina, Bernice and Sylvia, individually said after reading it that I reminded them of my father. I don't think anyone could have said anything else that could have made me more proud. I am aspiring to greatness.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I love you.

The Other Meaning of Tiananmen Square

I read the following in the NY Times this morning, triggering a flood of memories:

On June 4, 1989, Chinese army troops stormed Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush the pro-democracy movement; hundreds - possibly thousands - of people died.

For most of you, the demonstration and massacre at Tiananmen Square is an historical event. It is for me as well but in a different way. At the time, my parents were visiting from their home in Hong Kong and I was heavily, as in 65 pounds gained heavily, with the child who would be Jessica. If I remember correctly, June 4th was my due date. I had just visited my OB/GYN and was told that nothing was happening, that I was not having this baby for at least another week, perhaps two. Determined to contradict him, the next day, David, Daddy, Mom, Meagan, and I went hiking the Kilimanjaro Trail at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and I went into labor that night.

So it was that on June 6th, as I was mid-labor, experiencing the worst pain I had ever endured, my father had to up and leave. Because of Tiananmen Square and the general unrest that was spreading throughout China, and because he was running a toy company (Tyco) that had manufacturing interests there, he had to return to Hong Kong for the good of the company. This was not for the good of my spirits and, I have to admit, for years I resented his action until one day my mother told me that the CEO of the company forced his return and Daddy had no choice in the matter. He was always a good soldier.

Although these were pre-cell phone days, I also found out that he had arranged with the doctors and nurses to keep in contact with him via the airlines and his plane’s pilot. And that is the way my father, and 200 some other passengers found out that I had given birth to a healthy 8 lb 4 oz girl minutes after it happened. Daddy always had a way of getting things done.

And there’s your piece of history for the day. Now for a few current goings-on here at Rancho Laurena…

Lost: The final baby turkey to the German Shepherds next door. We are sad; Lauren the Turkey is sadder. As I write, she is stubbornly sitting on more eggs, some of which are chicken-laid, in a persevering do-over.

Found: This snake skin in the feed shed. Oh, my. Methinks I will don my cowboy boots and keep a wary eye before farming in the future. I truly don’t care for creepy crawly things with no arms or legs, especially when they interfere with morning farm therapy. Snakes are not Zen-like in my book.

Discovered: Seaman Recruit Jessica walking into my bedroom at 10:30 last night. Freshly debarked from her Mexican cruise ship, she wanted to visit her family. I was delighted, shocked, and surprised. I couldn’t stop hugging her. It sure is nice to see her car parked in the driveway again, if only for a few days.

Finished: The spinning of Cookie’s first shearing (as you can see, I was experimenting with skein size). The color is called moorit and it is 100% lamb’s wool weighing a total of 1 lb 8.5 oz or 695 grams. That’s almost fourteen 50 gm balls which is very sweater-worthy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must move on to Leroy’s fleece. For the first time ever, David the Husband has requested a sweater knit from a combination of our sheep and, being a good wife, at least knit-wise, I aim to please (and like to spin and knit, I’m not totally selfless, you know.)

Feelin' the Love

The Land of Blogs is a vast one, full of dragons and ogres (not the Shrek kind, the Anne Coulter kind) but also full of sprites and fairy godmothers and, especially on my little spit of Blog Land, delightful, funk-preventing/curing friends. On that puddle of a Friday that Seaman Recruit Jessica moved away from her/our family, in addition to the offer of wolf wool, I received an unexpected package in the mail. My dear cyber-friend, Michelle, thought enough of me to send this amazing proof of her talent my way.

She explained that in the 80’s she had the idea of creating dog breed portraits on scratch board to sell but then realized that people wanted portraits of their own dogs, not just the breed in general. As a fellow artist, I know these attempts to keep afloat. Shame that it is, the general public does not appreciate the time, talent, and effort that goes into creating a work of art, no matter the medium, and those that actually buy and sell art are very politically driven. Therefore, if your work is not “in,” you scrape by to make a living, frequently taking much less for your work than it is actually worth but hey, it’s at least a little money to pay the rent and buy some groceries.

Michelle knew I had been down and, knowing that I have bloodhounds, three enormous wrinkled slobbering lummoxes, she sent this amazing work of art my way as an attempt to cheer me up and it worked. As she said in her accompanying letter, “Just a little something to hopefully lift your spirits; when you see it, just remember you have lots of friends who love you!”

The print’s arrival on that bittersweet day, the day that Michelle did not realize was arriving so soon, was serendipitous, a blessing from Michelle and the powers that be.

Thank you, Michelle. I will always think of you as I admire your lovely work. (And I will do my best to frame it ASAP before the beasts that it represents sling some slobber in its direction.)

I love my little spit of Blog Land; there’s lots of love here.

Keeping You Informed

As I got very little sleep and am still mourning the Suns’ loss last night, I was not going to post today and instead try to have a low-key day if that’s possible around here but first guilt and then the need to keep you all informed induced me to move my big fat ass from one place to another.

We actually had a very nice time at the game. Since this was a business schmooze-fest, we had a “suite” stocked with beverages of all kinds, munchies, and real food (vegetarian and turkey wraps, hot dogs, veggies, and Buffalo wings). I behaved until the final quarter (drink a beer, drink a bottled water, repeat) when those dirty-pool-playing Spurs just pounced on us. We had been ahead the entire game, at times with an over ten point lead. The Spurs are a very mean basketball team and I couldn’t help it if my anger got the best of me and I happened to yell God F**king Damnit in their general direction. No one seemed to notice or even mind except David the Husband who gave me “the stern look” and basted on me as we left the game about it. Oh, well, he knows me and realizes I feel things stronger than the average bear. As he has stayed married to me for 20 years and one day, it can’t bother him too awful much. (However, I do have a feeling that I might not get invited to any more schmooze fests. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.)

Speaking of years of conjugal bliss, Melanie wanted to know how David and I met. The short answer (too tired for long one) is that I was attending college at UNC Wilmington and renting a house by the ocean with two surfer dudes. David was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne stationed at Ft Bragg, NC and, as he was a San Diego born and bred surfer dude, would drive down to Wrightsville Beach on weekends to ride the waves. On one of those weekends, he met my roommates in the water and they invited him over. I had just gone clothes shopping and bought a grey leather miniskirt which I, influenced by the Fates, walked out to model for my roommates just as he walked up. The rest is history.

What else is history is my old email address. After attempting to change my email address everywhere important, though I am sure I have missed a few places, and giving it a week or so, I cancelled my Hughesnet account just minutes ago. I updated the link on the blog but those of you who have just been emailing me from a saved address need to change it to [email protected].

Excuse me now as I once again relocate my BFA. Between my fatigue and the spider who is crawling around my desk and freaking me out (I forgot spiders, tarantulas, black widows, and brown recluses, and scorpions of many different species the other day when I mentioned the things that can kill you here), I must be going now. LOVE.

Happy Anniversary My Love

Today is David the Husband and my 20th (!) wedding anniversary. I could muse about the ups and downs of marriage and philosophize about how we got this far (it wasn’t all tea and cupcakes) but I won’t. The world is jam-packed full of enough nauseating Dr. Phil-types without me adding my take on things and telling you to get real. I hate to vomit and I’m sure you do, too; I don’t want to be the one who puts you over the edge. The bare facts? We have stayed married 20 years and that’s a good thing, Martha.

We are celebrating by going to the Suns/Spurs playoff game. (Yes, this is something David had to do for his work and he finagled a ticket for me as well. Some stranger schmoozing will be required but hey, playoff tickets, food, and, cue the trumpets, drinks!) What more could one marriage-celebrating sports fan ask for? Well, maybe for the NBA to get their asses in gear and un-suspend Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for leaving the bench to protect the MVP of the entire NBA, Steve Nash, who had just been dealt a cheap elbow knock down shot by the Spurs’ Jerkface Holly. Amare’s the guy. He and Nash make the team. Our chances of winning have been lowered exponentially. I’m steaming mad.

Note to self: Watch your drinking tonight, young lady. You know how you get when you’re really pissed off about something and you add alcohol. These are important business associates with whom you’re mingling. Behave! (Oh, I do hope I listen to myself.)

To end the post today and in celebration of our 20th anniversary, let’s take a little walk back in music history to that special year. (Please excuse this blatant theft of your idea, Ann.)

The Top Ten Hits of 1987:

1. Walk Like An Egyptian, Bangles
2. Alone, Heart
3. Shake You Down, Gregory Abbott
4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Whitney Houston
5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Starship
6. C'est La Vie, Robbie Nevil
7. Here I Go Again, Whitesnake
8. The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
9. Shakedown, Bob Seger
10. Livin' On A Prayer, Bon Jovi

Hmmm. Apparently, we picked a bad music year to marry with the exception of that Bruce Hornsby song (and perhaps the Bangles one as well; even though it was total bubblegum, I involuntarily did the head and hand Egyptian thing every time I heard it and still do. Yes, I am here to embarrass myself; you’re very welcome.) Thankfully, neither Whitesnake nor Starship and the rest of the bunch have affected our marital bliss.

Happy Anniversary, Darlin’. I love you. Here’s to another 20!

Rescue Me

The year was 1985 and David the Husband and Lauren the Wife were David the Boyfriend and Lauren the Girlfriend. Surrounded by semi-new-relationship aura, we decided to borrow our friend’s motor boat and my roommate’s dog and head to Masonboro Island. This small spit of land was an inlet’s ride from Wrightsville Beach, NC, where I lived, and only accessible by boat. Few people went there, particularly overnight, and we considered it the perfect romantic rendezvous spot.

We gathered David’s camping gear and what at-the-time we considered “sophisticated snacks,” White Zinfandel, summer sausage, cheese, and crackers. (We were 22, for goodness sakes, and besides the White Zin, today’s Boone’s Farm, the rest is still more than passable, though not quite sophisticated.)

Now at this point in time, my parents were living in Hong Kong, my father working for a toy company. This being the eighties, the era of looking-much-better-than-the-Joneses, fake luxury watches were ripe for the picking on the streets there. My dad got me a “Rolex,” a “Piaget,” and other assorted counterfeit timepieces. Each lasted no more than a year but I looked darned impressive (in my 22 year-old mind) wearing them.

I wore one of these camping; stupid, yes, but I have also been known once upon a time to wear a mini skirt and heels hiking.

After setting up the gear, sharing our “sophisticated snacks” with Waldo the Wonderdog, and participating in various other amorous activities, we all snuggled in our sleeping bags for a satisfied night’s sleep.

Did I happen to mention there was a full moon that evening?

In the dead of night, I was suddenly awakened by David the Boyfriend picking me up bodily, throwing me across the tent so violently that it broke the crystal of my watch, and yelling at me to get out of the way of the train. Somehow in his slumber, the full moon shining brightly through the tent canvas translated to a speeding locomotive bearing down on me and, collective aaaah here, he rescued me. It didn’t matter that the watch was broken, or that I had a lump on my head the size of Japan; what mattered was that even in his sleep, he cared enough for me to risk his own life to save me from an oncoming train.

I knew then that I wanted to marry this knight in shining armor and, although it took us another two years to make it official, I will always remember the full-mooned night on Masonboro Island when David saved me from the train.