Adventures In Sugar Land

     The other day I got to babysit my newest grandson, Baby Aiden, while his parents had to do Grown Up Stuff. I call him “baby” Aiden because I’m in denial about how BIG he’s gotten—five-almost-six- months old, 17 very solid pounds, and a little man hairdo; a serious hair do that makes him look like he’s ready for Baby’s First Briefcase.

   

Aiden and Millie, best of friends.

Aiden's parents went out to be Grownups, Aiden and I stayed home to hang out and play with his toys, and his doggie, and tell each other all kinds of nonsense-- it was great. I even got to feed him mangos and avocado baby food—because why even have a baby if you don’t get to put delicious stuff in his face? For the record, he thought the combination was delightful. I managed to refrain from licking the lid to the jar of baby food—something I always did when my kids were little, because I need to know if it tastes good before I expect them to eat it, right?

    There is a darker side to feeding a baby that time had mercifully blurred in my memory: in a bite of mango-avocado, out a diaperful of something more nefarious.

    Diaper changing is just like riding a bike—you might be a bit wobbly at first, but you get the job done. And diaper technology is light years a head of where it was 25 years ago, so that’s nice. Restickable Velcro-like tabs mean if you don’t get it right the first time you can try, try (try) again. And his parents even have a wipe-warmer, so that the wet wipes aren’t cold on his little tushie.

   Mission accomplished, Baby A and I went out to look at the Zoo. Ok, so maybe it’s not really a

Petting Zoo

zoo, maybe it’s an enclosed cat-patio his parents made for their two giant cats, but Aiden is young and impressionable and I like him thinking of Nana Sugar as Zoo Nana. “Oh, yes,” I’ll say to him, “when you were a baby I took you to the zoo all the time.”

  While we were watching the Big Cats, I became aware of something warm and squishy making its way up Aiden’s back...

To be continued

Weather Rules: 2020 Edition

I don’t make the rules. 

Apparently.

My understanding of the weather was that it followed certain basic patterns—rules, if you will.

Rule #1: It starts raining in earnest in November and does not stop until April.

Rule #2: The prior rule maybe superseded by periods of snow.

Rule #3: The rains, from April to July, turn to showers and may be periodically interrupted by the sun. Or snow.

Rule #4: Summer—warm to hot, day after day of sunshine, no rain—you know, SUMMER? Summer begins on July 5^th—unless July 5^th falls on a weekend, then summer begins on the following Monday and runs—WITHOUT RAIN—until the second weekend in August, (Logger’s Jubilee, for the uninitiated) which **may** have a shower or two. THOSE ARE THE RULES.

Imagine my dismay to find Mother Nature flagrantly flouting this time-honored tradition! What use are rules, if she’s not going to follow them? Why was I so stoic all thru June, if not to be rewarded with WALL TO WALL SUNSHINE in July? How will I grow enough zucchini to menace my friends and family?

Last week, I started wondering if maybe we shouldn’t unplug Mother Nature, count to ten, and then plug her back in. Something was clearly WRONG. Since I didn’t know where her power cord plugged in, I had to settle for percussive maintenance, and stomped around, muttering under my breath.

That seems to have worked—based on all the happy little sunshine icons my phone weather app is now showing me for the foreseeable future. You’re welcome. But it got me to thinking—perhaps I should run as an alternative candidate to Mother Nature? I’m mildly qualified—I’m a mom, I love nature, except for the part where the mama lion eats the baby gazelle. Or the part where she **doesn’t** and then goes back to her starving babies. Clearly, that part needs improving. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.

Oh, sure, if I get the job I know I’ll have to put up with people complaining all the time; “Snow, I love snow, more snow.” Or “I like it cooler, could we take the temperature down a few degrees?” Or “Last week was perfect, can we just have last week all the time?”

Fine. If you like your weather, you can keep your weather, I promise. But for the rest of us—I’ll just lay out some Weather Rules, and since we all know what to expect—NO COMPLAINING.

Jack and the Cinderella Pumpkin Stalk

I have a tale to tell, but it’s kind of hard to believe. You remember the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and how he traded his mother’s cow for some magic beans? He threw them away after his mom got a little bit miffed about the poor bargain; in the morning there was a towering beanstalk that reached into the clouds, and there was a giant, some thievery, bone-grinding and bread making, a talking musical instrument –I think it said “Help, help, I’m being oppressed!” But I could be misremembering that part. Anyway, the story ends with Jack chopping down the beanstalk—possibly killing the giant, but probably in some sort of pseudo self-defense—and living happily ever after with his ill-gotten gains. One hopes he at least bought his mother a low-mileage cow, if not a new one.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if this story was more an allegory about Wall Street than a fairy tale, but I digress.

My story is kind of like that. Except my name isn’t Jack, my mom hasn’t owned a cow in 50 years and the seeds in question are pumpkin seeds—Cinderella pumpkin seeds, to be precise.

Perhaps it is the Cinderella part that infused these seeds with magic, because I planted those things and holy cow! (Hah! There is a cow in this story after all!) Those seeds are growing at a phenomenal rate. They have already taken over my entire straw bale garden—it’s all pumpkin vine, stem to stern—the vines have forced me to remove my inner-pheasant fence by threatening to climb right over it, and now seem intent on neighborhood domination.

So far, there have been no talking musical instruments, ill-gotten gains, or bone-grinding. There was a bit of bread making-- but everybody is making bread these days so I’m discounting that.
But if a really, really tall guy starts hanging around mumbling “Fi, fi, foe, a deer, a female deer,” or mice begin to talk and offer to make me a ball gown-- I am out of here.

Once upon a Time on Facebook

“It’s time for the American people to take back our USA!”—Facebook Post

Take back “our America...Take it back, from—whom? Who came and stole our America? Perhaps we gave it away—traded it for some magic technology beans, for bread and circuses; for stuff, and things, and more.

Perhaps our American ran away from home, got sick of our nonsense and longed for the open road. “YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF AMERICA!” she cried. Doors slam. Windows break. Tears. Tear gas. Broken bodies of those who would have justice—to whom equality is just a dream. America, struggling to grow up.

Where does our America live? What zip code does she call home? Does America have a home? Homeless America, too many of us, broke or sick, addicted, or haunted.

Or is it the American Road Show—appearing contentious, unable to stay on one continent—circling the globe—fighting her demons, but doing it abroad. Our America, her better angels taking flight…missiles by dawn’s early light. And when we come home, our demons come with us.

Our America you say? What does she look like?

Seriously. I wonder if I know her at all.

Our America. When was she ours?

When we waded ashore and wrapped up her First Peoples in blankets of death? Was she ours, when we built her with blood and sweat, from the ground up? The blood and sweat and stolen labor of people we enslaved? Was she ours then?

When was America our America? When did she stop? When we grabbed her by the —-?? Well, you get my drift. But she was asking for it. Wasn’t she?

We made America great! Once? What did that look like, I wonder? When America was great, when she was ours, when —when was that, exactly? When did she stop?

America, “My America,” is more an idea, than ideal. My America is still becoming—she is still being born, and some times, brother, let me tell you—-birth is messy. It is bloody, it is sh***y, and beautiful, and painful, and all of those things at once.

I don’t want to take her back—I want to push forward. I want some thing BIGGER. I want something BETTER than whatever “same as it ever was” was like.

I want an Our America —for All of Us.

Happy Birthday America.

Thinking of Lanston Hughs--Let America Be America Again
https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again