Signs of Crispiness!

Certain things ought to be crisp. Snappy comebacks, breakfast cereal and, with a little creative spelling, Kremes. However, Mockingbird probably ought not to be so golden-brown around the edges of her temper.

Spring break is looming and, once lists of lists of things/errands/chores are tended to, it's off to the calm blue ocean for a few days which will (hopefully) be characterized by large amounts of sugared junk food (I gave up the scale for Lent, you see), and a total lack of binary code and things that go "ping!"

Aside from the calendar, how could I tell it was time to get out of Dodge for a bit? Well . . .

1. Turkey vultures (they're buzzards, all right? Large, hulking carrion birds looking for something stinky and dead) roosting in disturbingly large numbers in several trees in my neighborhood. Seriously, it's like I'm an extra in a National Geographic special about the Shelby-geti. Shudder.
2. Weather that whipsaws from eight inches of snow to eighty-two degrees in the space of a week. 'Taint natural.
3. Having a sinking feeling every time I look at the headlines. Every day, I'm expecting to read "Torrential Rain of Toads Soaks Town." It's bad out there, sure, but I still don't think the Apocalypse is coming to town. But lately, it's harder to remember that.
4. Being so focused on multi-tasking (remember the lists of lists I mentioned), that I managed to dribble both toothpaste froth and salad dressing on my clothes today. The only bright spot was that these were two separate incidents, rather than indicating that I was brushing my teeth while eating. (Although, given the way things have been lately, that's not as far-fetched as you might think, more's the pity.)
5. Feeling my own internal jack-in-the-box getting closer and closer to the "YAAAHH!" point.

So it's off to a porch swing, the new Christopher Moore book (a re-telling of King Lear in his own inimitable style), and an adjusted perspective.

Back soon.

In Praise of Rainy Days

February in my neck of the woods continues her schizoid ways. Today, the final day of the month, is grey and rainy with (get this) a decent chance of a major snowstorm developing tomorrow night. March may well come in like a lion. My poor daffodils - it's either leave them to freeze or cut them all today.

Sigh.

I took care of grocery shopping yesterday, so I have a good supply of milk and bread, in case the Big One actually hits. (Let's not get distracted by the weirdness of laying in a supply of quickly-perishable items in Southern storm preparation. It's just what we do, and I needed both milk and bread.)

Overall, it's a great day to stay inside and be lazy. I don't get to do that very often, so I am trying hard to enjoy it. I have work to do (don't we all), but it seems very easy to put it off on a day like today. I doubt I get any further out of the house today than the mailbox.

And good for me, I say!

Spear and Magic Helmet!

I'm a romantic, so this may come as a shock, but I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day. That's been true whether I've been in a relationship or not (although, truth be told, I've had a few years that were distinguished by a strain of openly vehement anti-V sentiment). I just don't like the idea too much - if you love somebody, they should know it all the time. You ought not to need a day circled on the calendar to remind you to tell them. And then it tends to be overdone - I mean, all of a sudden, you say to yourself, "Hey, I love so-and-so. I think I'll run out and get a balloon bouquet and a stuffed red bear"??? This makes very little sense to me.

What made sense to me was getting tickets to "Bugs Bunny on Broadway" and sneaking to the Internet to buy plastic Viking helmets and a huge skein of yarn to make Brunhilda braids (fastened on with duct tape, no less!) as a surprise.

It's safe to say that quite a while ago, I needed to accept that what makes sense to me doesn't necessarily make sense to most others folks.

The long and short of it - we had a fabulous time! "Bugs Bunny on Broadway" is based on the concept of live music and pre-recorded cartoons - sort of like old-style silent movies with a live organ providing the music. Only these cartoons are the very cream of American animation. C'mon, don't you remember Elmer and Bugs doing a seven-minute version of Wagner's "Ring Cycle"?

Of course you do. And so did I.

This was the symphony, after all, so FryDaddy and I dressed to the nines. And then donned our helmets. Children were amused, adults were delighted, and we were tickled. If I do say so myself, we did a pretty fair imitation.

Happy V-Day, everybody!

Digging in the Dirt

Like the groundhog, my neighbors and I have come blinking into the light. After a week or so of too-cold (with the added insult of no snow) temperatures, we've been graced with a couple of way above average balmy days. These are days that make hooky seem like not just a good idea, but a moral imperative. (Honestly, I think I smelled charcoal last night as someone celebrated by cooking out!) I cut off the heat pump and flung open the windows. Spooky's gotten some much-needed long walks and I spent a calm hour today re-potting some houseplants that badly needed it.

Which got me to thinking.

I've heard that you need to re-pot your plants at least once every two years. In that time, the plant's roots have sucked all the nutrients from the soil and, if you don't put the plant in fresh soil, the poor thing will essentially starve.

There's much I can learn from a philodendron.

Sure, winter's not over yet, not even here where it's been a mild one. But we can all use some new soil every now and then. Shake off the doldrums of grey skies, cold temperatures and bad news (I swear, watching the news is like reading Revelation these days) and try something different around your roots. Like what? Here are five ideas to get you started.

1. Make curry for dinner instead of the spaghetti you have every Tuesday.
2. Try a kickboxing class.
3. Take up needlepoint.
4. Listen to country-&-western instead of NPR for a day.
5. Throw the diet into the ditch and have buttered popcorn for dinner.

True, not everything you try is likely to be a smashing success, but who knows? You just may discover a whole new way of looking at the world.

Not bad for February.

Sheep and Ox (not Moose and Squirrel)

According to the Chinese calendar (I guess I'm continuing the theme from the last post), we are now in the Year of the Ox. As you may think, an "ox year" is one best spent hunkering down and proceeding in a "cautious yet determined manner." Nothing wrong with an ox year, but it's one of those "slow down and take a look around" sorts of times. Not bad advice at any time.

Curious (I don't plan my life around astrology; choosing to believe that huge whirling chunks of rock have little to do with my day-to-day life - but then again, who knows? And it's always fun to read the place mats while I'm waiting from my no-doubt authentic Mandarin pepper steak), I examined what the year is supposed to hold for me. According to the Chinese calendar I consulted, I'm a Sheep. (Keep your comments to yourselves, please!)

Alas, it is at best what in college sports would be called a "building year." I apparently don't have a single "favorable month" in the next twelve, although I seem to be laying the groundwork for later prosperity. Sigh.

And it turns out that I'm an insecure daydreamer who needs to let others run the show sometimes. Hmmm - could be some truth in some of that . . .

It Is Later Than You Think

So I'd been waiting until Inauguration Day to write, thinking that I'd post about hope being stronger than fear (it was a good line from Obama's speech, I thought) and the groundswell of optimism that has awoken in our country and how good it all made me feel. All that's true, and I thought it'd make a good post.

But -

I find myself writing a totally different sort of post.

In the last couple of days, I've had some losses and a (rather large) scare. Fear not, all is well with Mockingbird and those who encircle her nest. But it served as a king-sized wake-up call.

Years back, I read a story about people whose lives had been deeply affected by a brass plaque in a beautiful walled garden in China. The characters on the plaque read "It is later than you think." At the time, I thought it was a rather neat story, with random people being brought together by the bit of Eastern wisdom and thinking to myself, "Ahh. How very wise."

It means something different now.

It really IS later than you think. And if you allow yourself to get caught up in the minutiae of life (in my case, grading and a high degree of fretting over not getting more done - I haven't answered enough e-mails, I haven't checked in on my students often enough, I haven't researched enough, I haven't read enough, et freaking cetera), you're going to wake up and discover that there are some very important things you haven't done. I'm not talking about "100 Places to See Before I Die" sorts of things; I mean things that are actually important.

Like what? Well, how about this -

Forgive someone. Tell a friend that they matter. Dare to be wonderful. And, for the love of God, don't wait to tell someone that you love them.

It's later than you think.

Type A Minus

It's a New Year, sports fans! The Panthers are in the playoffs (well, at least until the fourth quarter). Sorry - I know we're favored to win tonight, but I've seen a lot of these games just - sort of - trickle away - somehow . . . where was I? Oh, yes. So we'll have to see how that plays out.

School's started back and things are just terribly interesting at the Casa de Cleveland. Unemployment in my community has (very unfortunately) cracked into the double digits, which means an awful lot of people say, "Hey, I better go back to school!" Good idea, but I'm sorry for the reason. My area has been hurting for the last - oh, let's say at least six years. Since at least the Second World War, the main industry around here has been textile manufacturing. Go to your closet and see how many of your clothes, towels, sheets, etc. now bear a tag reading "Made in China." Those are jobs my neighbors don't have anymore and not a whole lot has come into the area to make up for the shortfall. For myself, my job is secure but my students are far more nervous than usual - even given the fact that I teach public speaking, a required course that very few people actually want to take - at least for the first few weeks.

So - to the title. I've been a whirlwind of stress lately. Far too much to do, far too little time and money. So I resolved this year to try mightily to slow things down a bit. I probably will never be one of the "smell the roses" people - as much as I often envy those folks, my approach tends far more to the, "Yeah, yeah. Flowers. Gotcha." But a group of friends and I recently went to an exhibit of artifacts from Pompeii and I had an epiphany of sorts.

You remember Pompeii, right? Bustling, prosperous town that was blithely minding its own business when WHAMMO! That innocent looking mountain that people used to climb in order to picnic turned mean. Vesusvius literally blew its top and more than 20,000 people were wiped out. I'm pretty sure their last thoughts were not, "If only I'd sent that memo to Rome."

I may never get away from being "Type A," but this year, I'm going to shoot to downshift at least to a "Type A Minus."

I think it's a good goal.