The Tragic And Unlikely Tale Of Herbertina

It was a restless day, which never bodes well when you hang out with Fancy Phil...and then the boys got hungry, and it was all over. We were now about to have an adventure.

No run to the local supermarket for Fancy Phil. We found ourselves trolling around the warehouse district in midtown, looking for seafood wholesalers. At last we found one monolith with a faded silhouette of a crab painted on the side. Reluctantly leaving the safety of the car, we wandered in a side door and found ourselves in a cavernous dimness hung with pipes and thick hoses. The floor was strewn with hip-high vats/above-ground swimming pools full of bristling, dark, nightmarishly large live crabs. A disreputable Eastern European man helped us pick out a crab, make our purchase, and threw in a weird philosophical discussion to boot.

We escaped with our prize, and brought home our new bouncing baby sea monster. We had no idea how to turn it into food yet, so we deposited it in the bathtub with some ice water -- you know, to reinvent its natural environment. They googled ways to kill and cook giant crabs without an appropriately sized pot, and I named it Herbert. Because its mouth fringe looked like a mustache, duh! Then they found out how to sex a crab -- because somehow, part of killing your food is getting to know it better? -- and we amended that to Hebertina.

It was such a distinguished mustache

We couldn't boil her without killing her first, because she was big enough to take us on, so talk turned to how to kill her. It was decided that the most merciful way would be to stab her through the brain before dismantling her into the relevant bits. The only problem with this is that crabs don't have a centralized brain, a thing we learned only moments after my dear sweet darling ran the thing through with a giant kitchen knife.

My effort-intensive Paint skillz

Her time in the bathtub had not been good to Herbertina. Perhaps we'd sprinkled too much Morton's salt into her artificial sea, or perhaps the kitty's hate-stare-daggers were starting to take effect, but Herbertina's continually gesticulating giant jagged limbs had taken on a distinctly more languid motion. It's hard to tell with a giant crusty sea-spider monster, but she seemed to be flagging. So when she became a living kebab on a kitchen knife, she just couldn't seem to muster the energy to care. Her nervous system, such as it was, didn't seem to have communicated the urgency of the situation appropriately. She casually sort of waved it off, with leisurely gestures that lasted a disturbingly long time into the killing process.

Needless to say, I didn't join them for seafood that night; even though they assured me it was delicious. Alaskans are hardcore.

The Tale Of Crazy Boots & Hot Tub McGee

Soooo, Tiffany wanted to know my terrible get-together story, which was only slightly less terrible than her own. It turned into quite the odyssey, so I thought I'd make a post out of it!

I really, really didn't care for my guy AT ALL when I first met him.

I had two buds that lived together, and they decided to take a summer road trip to the Lower 48, so they asked me to pet/plant/house-sit. All good so far. But then suddenly this chick, whom I barely knew as a friend-of-a-friend that I sometimes saw in the Arts building between classes, suddenly upgraded me to Bestest Friend EVARZ to try and swing a spare free bed for the summer. I resisted, but she got one of the road-tripping buds to say yes in the ask-the-other-parent style of getting the answer you like, and in she went.

Cute as a button, but mad as a mittenful of monkeys

 

It was intense. She decided to promote me from her outermost to innermost circle of intimacy, and did that by telling me terrible, unforgettable things she claimed had happened to her. She had either a whole HOST of issues, or a bad case of psychological-malady hypochondria, because she told me hideous things I could only hope were lies -- for her sake. She loved talking about it, which seemed like a sign, and she LOOOOOVVVED sympathy. Big buckets of it. The more, the better.
 

But, there's other things to do, other people to hang out with -- things to talk about other than Miss Crazy Boots, and that was pretty rough on her. Things would escalate. She'd sigh, and mope around. If that didn't get the sympathy ball rollin', she'd go fetal upright on a chair or couch, refusing to watch/engage in whatever me and my friends were doing. That was usually nervously ignored, in which the rocking began. But that could hold her for only so long before she'd jump up, tear out the front door and INTO THE NIGHT -- in Anchorage, after dark, in a seedy neighborhood that boasts its own corner liquor store. Without shoes or a coat. Argh. Just remembering makes me cringe. Someone would have to retrieve her and assuage her neurosis, and quickly before she could take it to the point where our evening became a cautionary tale.

There wasn't really a hobo.
BUT THERE COULD HAVE BEEN

I know I haven't even mentioned a guy yet -- here's the guy. Crazy Boots had just been broken up with, and she was SO NOT over him. I half suspect that her escalations were a way to get him back into her life, even if it was just to pick her up and take her to the ER. He felt partially responsible for her emotional distress and therefore her crazy behavior, and so as soon as she called he'd come straight over, apologize to the rest of us and cart her off. I loathed the whole thing: Her repetitive self-centered antics, his feeding into it, his weakness perpetuating the situation...the fact that I had to share a bathroom with this hot mess. Finally one time when he came over, I told him that I was not at all impressed with how he was dealing with the situation. Apparently this flipped his "Wow, she's sooooo sensible, I love that," switch. Not what I meant, but hey.

Also, I had not dressed for a responsibility lecture...

That may have clouded the issue somewhat

He started coming over BEFORE she could flip out. Next time she did flip out, he took her to STAR, a program for abused women that keeps you for a greater period of time and does a full work-up of your mental/emotional situation. So she was gone, but he was still coming over. Turns out we had a mutual friend, and the three of us started hanging out more. Oh, Anchorage -- everybody knows everybody, it's crazy, right? LOLZ!  Cough cough.

He was sort of obliquely courting me, complete with a chaperone like in the Good Ol' Days. He took us out to eat at fancy places, and to windswept sightseeing spots...yeah, it was kind of apparent what was going on. I was still unimpressed, because I was seeing someone else; and who tries to make moves on someone who's already taken? Not someone I could ever like. But he was falling hard, and just went right ahead and did it anyway. He confessed to me later that he actually made his first and last (so far!) psychiatric appointment, just to get a second opinion on this crazy situation. Was he nuts for doing this? Apparently she said no.

Like a swain

Eventually he got into a long debate with me in the mutual friend's parent's hot tub (I know, I know) about the current fellow I was with. It was not going well, the lad had some problems -- and this is me saying it, not Mr. Hot Tub McGee. But I'm not into bailing on people because they need help, so I was still feeling positive and committed to my relationship. It was a bit of a one-way-street arrangement, though, which was presented to me that night in the hot tub, Debate Team style.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he won me with words. His emotional awareness, earnest yet easy manner, great vocabulary and intuitive communication skills got me all a-twitter. I swear it wasn't just the hot tub.

Okay, maybe the hot tub helped

There was a climactic scene the next day at the Ren Faire (spot-on, after all that wooing and swaining) with the Crazy Boots, becorseted bosom heaving, screaming at us about betrayal while fairgoers looked on with legs of mutton. It may have been mistaken for a show. Finally there was a long talk between my new guy and Boots, ending with a very literal demonstration of how he was walking away from the cycle, and wouldn't be running to the aid of her self-inflicted dramas anymore. By leaving her ass at the ass-end of the parking lot.

Then we went home so I could make The Call; my first time ever being the Break-Up-er  instead of the Break-Up-ee. He took it like he'd been expecting it, which threw me, and all the while my new flame of passion took a nap on the couch. Boys. Where do they GET this level of chillness?? It's baffling.

And that was the bizarre and terrible start of our relationship, which has turned out to be the best one I've ever been a part of. A relationship coming up on its 6th year anniversary, might I add, this June -- at the Ren Faire.

Totally Toasted OR: Smoke Em' If Ya Got 'Em

When I was a kid, I had this dark HBO-esque fantasy where I would take two pieces of bread, and they were like two biddies going to a spa day together. I'd put them into the toaster oven/tanning bed, imagining some invisible & insincere attendant promising them beautiful, golden tans. Then they'd come out, all stiff and brown, and I'd imagine his mock horror; "Oh dear, ladies, let's get something soothing on that right away," as I smoothed the margarine on. Then I imagined the complimentary "natural preserves treatment" he added as an apology -- usually my Mom's homemade peach-nectarine jam -- and coddled them in fluffy fresh white paper towels. Then, just when the affronted duo were just beginning to settle down, I'D EAT THEM OM NOM NOM NOM NOM. And the attendant, who'd been in on it, laughed and laughed. I know -- creepy.

But that was when we got the new toaster oven, sleek and spiffy and white; that was after the Incident With The Last Toaster.


Ahhh, memories - crazy, terrifying memories

The last toaster was my first toaster, in that it had already been a well-established resident of our household before I was born. It had served us well, or at least I assume it did, through my infancy and toddlerhood -- it's hard to be definite about anything before I was tall enough to see over the counter, of course. Unfortunately, as I was almost through kidhood and just about to cast my eye upon the pree-teen era, it started to show Signs. You know; getting tired easily, its jointings stiffer, all the hallmarks of advancing age. We were worried about it, of course -- started keeping a closer eye on it, seeing how it was doing, etc. But sometimes you need to make some toast AND do something else, gods forbid, and as riveting as the toasting process is through that little window, you walk away. This model had a spring-action linked to its timer function, which would cause the little door to burst open and the tray to pop out, presenting you with your toast with a flourish and a rather celebratory-sounding ding! And I'd had a few years to be trained to that sound, my Pavlovian promise of the first meal of the day.

So I go, preparing for my day in the way children do -- not caring about my hair, or my clothes, only techincally brushing my teeth, blah -- waiting to hear the ding. But on this, the secret final day, our toaster was Godot. I eventually came back to the kitchen, wondering why it hadn't dinged yet, and looked over to find our kitchen counter the stage for some dark and tortured hellscape now being enacted. The toaster's hatch was still shut tight, but through its little window I could see rolling smoke and tongues of open flame. I was appalled, and uncertain of how to proceed. Our friendly, once-familiar toaster was posessed. I advanced one tenative step towards the monster, and the hatch sprung open -- probably at the vibration through the floor and not, as it appeared to me at the time, to gobble me up -- and twin pillars of flame stabbed upwards as the tray popped out. At the base of each fiery column was the charred remains of a piece of toast.

I do not remember if it dinged. I know -- its last words. Haunts me still.

 I do remember yelling for Mom, in the way that any sensible person under the age of twenty thirty forty might do if they know there's someone more capable around. I remember her bustling with terrified efficiency to tame the fire demon, and a looooonnng lecture afterwards about fire safety in which I was like, Tell it to the toaster. And I still had to go to school, which seemed like a terrible waste of an emergency -- this was like the death of a family pet, it should have at least been a half day with a note.

RIP, First Toaster -- you will always be remembered. Because trauma will do that to you.


Trying Snowboarding OR: In Which Our Hero Valiantly Decides To Stay Home From Now On

People from back home always ask me the same few questions about Alaska* -- have you seen a polar bear, have you gone skiing yet, blah-I'm so original-blah. And, no. No I have not. Because Alaska is a howling wasteland of killer cold and giant monsters who can survive in that cold, which means all of the outdoors -- whether its a bear, or black ice, or just the dry freezing air itself -- wants you DEAD.

DEADDDDD.

So I stay the hell indoors, like a smart person. Except for this one time...


I'd only just come up for college, so that may explain the dumb. I was seeing this guy, and he and one of my other dorm buds were into snowboarding. So they decided I must also like snowboarding, and must now go experience it to begin the lifetime love affair immediately. (They said none of these things, but I'm eloquent in my bitterness -- over what transpired next, dun dun dun.)

They put me in her car, one of those new-model VW bugs. He has long legs and she was driving, so I was in the back seat with the gear; just try to imagine my fun at the drive out to Alyeska** Ski Resort. Thankfully it was merely an hour's drive, so I didn't even have anything to complain about...from their perspective, maybe. (I'm from Hawaii, people. If it takes more than twenty minutes to get there, there's usually a boat or a plane involved.) It could've been worse, they assure me. Most resorts are way more remote. I try to think of how that should make me like their sport.

Then they strip me of some of my possessions, start shoving me into more layers, and strapping me into things. They inform me with benign magnanimity that it's fortunate for me they have enough stuff between the two of them to almost fully outfit me, otherwise it'd be crazy-expensive.

Tried again to see how to connect that dot to the "this is an awesome pastime" dot -- no luck.

So they bundle my Stay-Puft form over to the snowboard rental kiosk, and in the transaction there perfectly good money is turned into this big heavy piece of plexi-plastic bristling with angry-looking black plastic foot-traps. They pick up one of my moonbooted feet and plug it into this contraption, telling me to move it along by pushing off the ground with my other foot, "Like a skateboard." They were unmoved when I told them I'd never been on a skateboard. That should have been my first sign.

Oh, yeah -- I was immediately helpless. The big heavy boots were unbending, and I had to keep my foot at a rock-hard 90-degree angle at all times -- more like a stone sculpture of a foot than any actual pedal extremity I was accustomed to performing physical feats with. Even if push-off foot hadn't been a weird scary statue, the one strapped to the board was now a giant artificial flipper of fail I couldn't even begin to work with. I proceeded in a series of slides and falls to the end of the line for the ski lift.

Guess which one *I* am

The line should have been my second sign that these people were not my friends. It went up a twenty foot high subslope to the foot of the mountain, where the ski lift actually began. Apparently this benighted activity is so popular the lines are as long as a Disney ride's; and so to conserve space, and to mitigate the steep grade of the slope, the line zigzagged up the side of the hill with little landings at each direction change for people maneuver their gear around. This is a great idea, which is only ruined by the physical reality in which I CAN'T FREAKING STAND ON A HILL WITH A GIANT HEAVY BOARD STRAPPED TO MY FOOT. Other people can, apparently. But they're obviously wizards.

It was cute, the first time the line shuffled forward and I slid down that first bit of incline into the people behind us. We laughed, they helped me up; I apologized with rosy cheeks that were only partly due to the cold.

They weren't speaking to us at all by the time I struggled onto the first landing, gasping with effort and recovering from my seventh slide down the line on that treacherous incline, or what I like to think of as the (ha!) inc-line***...or vicious Sisyphian hellscape, whatever's easier to remember. From there it was a sort of grim effort of the tight-lipped strangers behind me to prop me up, and sort of push against me whenever the line moved -- you know, so as to keep me from knocking over the entire line like a row of bowling pins and rocketing off the edge of the last landing, back down to earth. The usual. My so-called friends offered no support or sympathy whatsoever; honestly, I think they were probably busy trying to hide how mortified they must have been. I was the quintessential total n00b, making all the wrong moves and appeared to be nothing less than a danger to myself and others. No wonder they were pretending I wasn't there nothing was wrong.

We finally got to the top of the line, and blessedly flat ground. Here was the ski lift, a giant rearing apparatus that splayed its awesome length all the way up the mountain. I looked up at it, and then learned in my usual pass/fail way that I'd found yet another thing you shouldn't do with a snowboard strapped to your foot. I picked myself up not from snow this time, but freezing water; the fricative heat of the lift, it seems, melts the snow underneath the machine. So now I was trying to sort of float/hydroplane this hateful hobble over alternating water and slush. Wooo. Dripping, exhausted, bruised, I looked up at the start of our stated objective -- a whole gorram mountain of this chicanery.

The other two looked at me, and said since the lift took two at a time, they'd go first -- so I'd have time to get ready and see how to do it. Sounds nice, doesn't it? That's why they said it. It's hard to be mean to someone who has just fallen in a puddle and is dripping pathetically at you. They made good their escape onto the chair, and vanished up into the sky. I thrashed incompetently towards the space their chair had just vanished from, and fell with a magnificent sploosh into the even deeper slush lake under the actual chair area -- which was for the best, actually, because just then a high-speed chair-shaped missile rocketed inches over my head and blasted right through My Bubble. I grinned feebly at the lift attendant as I tried to get clear of the puddle before another death chair could decapitate me. He glared stonily at me, and in no way indicated any intention of helping me to my feet.

"Whew," I said, sheepishly. "This is harder than it looks, ha ha."

"If you can't even stand up," he asked icily, "Why are you in line for the advanced slope?"

...

Yeah. That's right. Think about that for a minute. THE ADVANCED SLOPE.

I had nothing to say to him, because the people who had tricked me into this horrorfest had admittedly given no outward sign that they were my friends for the last twenty minutes -- I couldn't very well expect him to believe I had just gotten in line with my friends (BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T) and hadn't even known about there being different classes of slope. (Because it's a mountain -- I didn't know that came in finely-delineated grades of complexity. I thought you just survived getting down a mountain, and called it "fun".) What a putz, right?

So basically I had been seen as being deliberately obtuse this whole time, a know-nothing wannabe @$$hole posing in the advanced line. I staggered in the vague direction of the bunny slope the attendant indicated, totally crushed by this knowledge. Unfortunately, I had ascended the subslope ziggurat but had not gone up in the intended lift, so this was not actually an area designed to be flailed ineptly across.

Won't someone crash this pity-party??

I eventually just lay down and allowed myself to slide cautiously, if gracelessly, to the flat area below. I was so tired and disheartened, though, I couldn't get up; I just lay there in the snow for a while. I was looking into the resort chalet, where hundreds of happy outdoorsy types were getting burgers or cocoa. I wished with all my heart that, even if I had been tricked into coming all the way out here, I could've had the good sense to immediately dive into that warm happy place -- and refuse point-blank to allow this money-wasting demon plank to be strapped to my body. Cold, sore, tired and full of self-pity, I stared through the window until I saw someone I recognized from the college.

I am to this day profoundly grateful that it was the guy it was -- the most unselfish, cheerful and giving human I have ever taken pitiless advantage of. He's the good kind of fraternity brother, I'm talkin' seriously good, like a golden retriever had a baby with sunshine and lollipops****. I latched onto him in an exhausted sub-hysteria, and demanded that he take me home.

You know, to Anchorage...an hour's drive away.

Away from whoever he came with and presumably wanted to spend the day with. As bad as this sounds, I honestly didn't care if he minded. I didn't even care about all my stuff in my friend's car -- I left it all behind like a fleeing refugee, even my street shoes.

An exchange was made later -- stupid expensive snowboarding gear for my precious belongings -- and the whole bailing issue was carefully avoided. And now I may go sledding, or ice skating, even though I'm still terrible at it...but the serious winter sports can just stay outside in the cold as far as I'm concerned. I will be at home, or maybe -- maybe -- at a chalet. Pitying those poor misguided people wizards on the death-planks.

_________________________________________________
*People from Alaska just ask "WHY did you MOVE???"

**Gosh, you might think, That sound an awful lot like Alaska, what a coincidence. No co-inky-dink -- this place has a magnificent history of naming bloopers that would (and does) make a linguistic anthropologist gibber.

***A line on an incline? Get it?? GET IT???

**** FB Relationship Status: "It's complicated".

A Belltower Promise

When I was small, my working single mother was alone in a new State with a baby and no support network. But she was a visionary, so she took us to church; i.e., a wonderful pre-assembled collection of sweet and compassionate people. Although spiritual, my mother is and was primarily a Science teacher, and she carted carrier, infant, diaper bag and purse out to that old stone church every Sunday morning not for God, but for a little compassion and a sense of community. Fortunately, they had it in spades.

We moved again when I was four, so only my earliest memories contain any trace of that place; the muggy heat of the assembled congregation, the subtle smell the old hymnals generated that filled the whole room, the big-girl purse I carried that contained nothing but a packet of travel tissues filched from my mother's own purse...the fact that the Sunday school's bathroom had a smirking frog painted on the the toilet seat lid. And, my first-ever regret.

Strange, of all life's firsts, to remember one's first regret, no? But I do.

The Sunday school/daycare, for the congregation's tiniest members, was taking a little excursion across the yard to visit The Church Itself. We were going to be taken up the belltower, to see the big bell and look out the windows. This was pretty rock n' roll stuff, for toddlers/lambs of the Lord.

Doesn't look that dangerous,
but appearances are decieving

I was delighted to be out and about, but when I started to climb the spiral paddle stair case, and I could see the receding floor between each paddle, I became frightened. My perception, warped by fear, made it seem as though the paddles were barely there; mere slips of solid matter to divide up the massive amounts of thin air. I had to go back downstairs and wait at the bottom of the tower for the group to come back down. It took ages and I felt miserable.

I regretted my cowardice almost immediately. Even a few short months later, and little Kana felt silly to admit she'd been afraid to climb those stairs. But there were no more belltower excursions in offer; the opportunity had passed. I grew older, and moved away -- we lived on a different part of the island, and I didn't see the church very often. Every so often, though, when our plans took us upcountry and we passed it, I would look up at the belltower and feel this strange sense of loss.

I grew up, and learned the word regret -- got to know it, had it over for drinks -- and eventually it made a home in me, as it does in most grown-ups. Fortunately my regrets are relatively few, but that first one -- that belltower one -- itched at me. Quietly, at the back of my mind, for nearly all my life.

Sorry so dark; but it wasn't Midday Mass, now was it?

Until this Christmas, that is! We went upcountry to see friends, and attended a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at that old stone church. One of my mother's card-game friends is the current minister's wife, and after entertaining them with the story of my belltower misadventure, she asked me if I'd like to rectify (Ha! Church pun!) that lapse. I don't think she was ready for the level of passion in my response -- it took her a minute to catch up, because in my heart I'd been climbing those stairs for years.

"Oh, you mean, right now?"

OF COURSE I looked down

I did it! I got to see that bell, and I (most evidently) photodocumented the holy heck out of it. And, as ridiculous as it may seem, I did get a little panicky about two turns from the top. It's not that the stairs were as ludicrously insubstantial as my childhood fears had decided; it's just that there's a gap at all, so you can see how high you are. The trick is to have someone else walk right in front of you and not look down.

Although it was too dark to enjoy the view out the window, I felt terribly pleased to have finally made the excursion. I'm sure my mother's friend was quite concerned for the poor aetheist girl, who is so likely mentally ill...but thanks to her graciousness, I got to make good on my first-ever regret. I think in retrospect that it was better, more satisfying, this way. It felt like closure.

Some of you might now be wondering, Well, what did it look like up there? Don't worry -- I gotcha covered. The camera clicked probably once every fifteen seconds the whole time. Well, that's what adults do when they're taken on excursions, right? If toddlers don't, well that's their own fault. A grown-up went up that tower, and was very proud to do so. So...click, click, click!


This window was labelled, for some reason;
click to enlarge

Totally worth it



Over The Fence

Once, when I was about 14,  my mother had taken us out to dinner. This was not so unusual, and at the end of the evening she began to do something very usual -- that thing adults do, where they fall into a well-worn groove of endless circling futile conversation that tests the patience (and, frequently, the bladder) of even the quietest and most well-behaved children...which I was not. It was after dark, they were just wittering away at one another by their cars -- and the night, she was calling to me. Who was I to deny her?

Yeah, that looks promising

I decided to go for a stroll across the parking lot to where a large, weed-filled vacant field stretched off into the non-illuminated night, only to be limned in the distance by Stygian orange sodium lights outlining excitingly industrial architecture. This seemed like an excellent plan to me, as my mother was now lost to the ever-hardening amber of polite nothings. I'd only gone a few yards into the knee-high tasseled weeds when I heard a distant wailing, wheedling sort of cry in the night; like a champion decision-maker, I headed towards it. Because if there's pain, death and judgment being handed out somewhere nearby, you don't want to miss out on your turn, right? Of course right.

It came and went, and I changed directions several times, trying to figure out where the wails were coming from. They were coming, of course, from the monstrous facility on the other side of the field. This place, it had everything, man. Steam was hissing up into the black night, billowing orange under the sodium lights...there were excitingly chunky shapes rendered in concrete...plenty of valves and dials about the place...it was positively ideal for an inadvisable night-time adventure.

Except for the fence.

It stretched to a towering height -- probably about 9 feet, an actual keeping-people-out height not hitherto seen before by this good little girl (ha!) who was more familiar with 4-foot playground fences -- and it stretched as far as I could see in either direction behind the scrubby hedge planted all along the border of this strange dystopian kingdom. I stood with my fingers curled through the diamond-shaped holes, so very like the fences at school, that when the cry came again from within the facility I began to climb almost automatically. Some sort of jungle-gym auto-response had me 7 feet in the air before I had begun to seriously consider my acrophobia. But a tragic pleading moan kept appealing to me from the steaming shadows beyond, and I kept climbing.

I reached the top, and the air was cooler there above the scrubby hedges. As I'd flung a leg over, my twisted posture pointed my face back across the field to the bright lights of the parking lot, now tiny twinkles in the distance -- I had a passing urge to just go back, and see if they'd even noticed my absence. But the cries came clearly again after a moment, and it seemed ridiculous to stop now.

Who's more trapped, here, really?

I'd flung one foot over, toes now tangled in the fencing from the far side, but I couldn't quite figure how to swing the rest of me over to join it without dying of heart failure -- I really am quite afraid of heights. Several pained and laborious strategies were attempted, and eventually I'd graduated to having both feet on the far side of the fence -- but oriented all wrong, with the toes facing out toward the facility, not in towards the fence I needed to climb down. My hands were braced painfully on the top of the fence underneath me, where the triangular zigzag pattern was leaving me no good options for supporting my weight. I swayed there, ponderously, painfully, and listen to the crying rising up into the night air. I was paralyzed by my view of the distant orange-lit ground, but was beckoned by the piteous sound of what I now was confident was a kitty whose voice was distorted by metal reverberation; visions of a tiny, worried furry face peering from within a trash barrel or air vent kept me there, facing my fear.

It went on for a subjective eternity; my arms burned, my knees sagged, and I came to rest upon my thighs on the horrible triangular top of the fence. Gravity continued to exact its horrible measure, and I could feel myself sliding, now upon my buttocks upon the fence-top, and rather feeling like wailing myself.

And here I was barefoot from climbing the fence

I'm not entirely sure how I got down from that position, but the exigencies of the situation brooked nothing less; I found myself within the facility grounds, and wandering amongst the strange and complex geometric shapes in the black and orange bi-chromatic night. Roaches skittered away from my footfalls, so large their bristly feet pattered audibly in the echoing canyons between the buildings.

I followed the wailing sound, quite loud now, to a loading dock. I stood at the edge of the artificial cliff, and looked down at what I'm sure you have already so sagely predicted; two cats, rutting and having a grand old time, sharing their feelings unabashedly with all who would listen.

My rescue was was not needed, had not in fact been requested. I'd never heard cats go on like that before; I live in the kind of neighborhood where all the cats have been fixed, because that's what responsible homeowners do. I was scratched, bleeding down the backs of my legs, dustily barefoot in what was most likely, from the smell of it, a water-reclamation facility; there was no adventure, and now, I'd have to climb back over that horrible fence.

I was suddenly disillusioned, weary, and my shoulders hung like millstones from my neck as I turned back the way I'd come.

I looked the place over, searching for a door; or barring that, an easier way back over. As I faced back towards the field I'd come across, I saw to my right a huge pile of loosely stacked building materials, the sort of thing you tend to find in large workyards of any description. My decision-making portion of the brain was still churning out doozies, so I scrambled cautiously up onto the heap. I was about a third of the way up the height of it when I heard the only thing that could make me feel younger, weaker and more afraid than I already was; my mother's frightened voice, calling for me.

My mother has traditionally expressed her relief at finding me after an unplanned separation by making me wish I'd never been born. For a moment I crouched on the rubble, weighing the pros and cons of life in a water treatment plant versus alerting my mother to my presence; but only for a moment, before calling out to her. I was ready to be grateful for whatever lecture/punishment combo she had planned -- scratches and pervert cats will do that to a girl.

I'm sure she was nearly expiring from maternal instincts as she had to wait on the far side of that fence, listening to me slither up this loose rubble sight unseen. She relieved it by exerting an incredible amount of pressure on my arm once I had climbed down the far side -- nothing will get you over a fence that before had held you terrified like your mom furiously expecting you to hurry up -- and she dragged me back to civilization like a very unsuccessfully escaped convict.

Bleeding scratches spared me from the dragon-wrath more than anything else -- nurturing is even more fun than punishing, in the Book of Moms -- and I winced every time I got them wet, for weeks...bear in mind I lived in a beach- and pool-rich environment, not to mention the regular bathing nonsense. Hot water was worse than salt or chlorine, but at least at home I didn't have to explain the terrible scratches. Rubber ducky expects nothing from me.

Yes, those are nipple tassels

I think my baseline compassion as a human being shrank a size that day, sort of a reverse-Grinching; I'm now much more prone to phrases like "Ah, it's probably nothing." And then I lock my door.

You ruined it for everybody, kitty. You and your kinky exhibitionist lifestyle.

Mountain Dew: A Lifelong Love Affair

*K-CHIKaaahhhh*

The stuff of dreams

Yeah, you know what time it is. Tasty beverage time, à la every drink commercial you've ever seen. Beading condensation, a refreshing spray; whatever your fantasy is, baby. Soda pop is here for you, and always has been.

I first got my habit from hula lessons -- no, I know, really -- where our hale, for some unknowable reason, had electricity running to a large incongruous vending machine "out da back." Since there was nothing else remotely stimulating to the American eight-year-old in the vicinity -- being disappointingly full of stupid things like trees, well-mown play fields and other children, while totally bereft of televisions and bright plastic toys -- I turned to the glowing monolith as my only contact with the materialistic consumer real world. After every lesson, I'd take my small change out back where the vending machine stood humming on a pallet in the grass, plugged in right next to the electrical meter -- whose sole purpose was to monitor its lone charge's (ha!) consumption. There's nothing like a cool drink on a hot tropical day -- and there's nothing like soda pop to a little kid. It was, between us, the only reason I could bring myself to go to those lessons. There is something fundamental to my very biological makeup that prevents me from being able to wield puili without hurting myself.

Once I had imprinted on this delicious nectar of the gods, nothing could dissuade me from Doin' the Dew. Not the older girl at hula class who said it was pee-colored, and so therefore was pee-flavored. Not the fact that my mother suddenly decided she wasn't going to shell out for the privilege of caffeinating her child every afternoon, necessitating the gathering up of every coin I could find in order to get that sweet taste; pushing in every dirty penny one at a time with great deliberation, lest my childish motor control somehow ruin this countdown to Dew. It didn't matter -- none of it did. I had Mountain Dew.

When I was ten, the great test of our love struck on a sunny afternoon during Teacher Conferences. Not only was I out of school for two bonus days, but my mother was a teacher, so I was unsupervised & free as a bird on some high school campus I'd never seen before -- for hours each day. Shit got EXPLORED.

It was a wonderland of comically oversized school trappings; desks and chairs and lockers, for children who were the size of grownups? How droll! There was an especially wonderful outdoor staircase that, instead of having handrails, was sided by giant (in hindsight, probably 4-foot high) steps! They had to be conquered. But first, a refreshing Dew!

I had brought one along with us with almost god-like (for a ten-year-old) foresight, and once I had broken into the meeting and wheedled the car keys from my mother to let me go get it out, all was anticipation. I raced to the car; the door opened with a gagging whoosh of superheated air. I had somehow forgotten a phenomenon I had witnessed firsthand every day of my life to that date -- cars parked in the Hawaiian sun get HOT. I extracted my precious Mountain Dew, now almost too hot to touch, and returned the car keys, crestfallen. I stared at my once-frosty midday treat; what was I to do? And the answer is, drink it anyway. Besides, Mom had told me to wait a few hours for it to cool down with her in the air-conditioned conference I was continually interrupting, so of course I had to keep my treasure out of the hands of that longstanding Mountain Dew-hating nemesis. Besides, I knew what I was doing! Yeah!

I knocked it back like a champ. I don't know if anyone else in the Universe has found occasion to drink an actively hot soda, and I really don't think the lone survivor of that experience would happen upon this blog, but if the unthinkable has indeed happened -- you know what I'm talking about. There's just nothing else quite like it. (And you're glad there isn't, because that would be a nightmare world with acid-trip demons and shit.)

But I had accomplished Dew, and that meant I was victorious; and now, giant stairs! I had come from up-campus, so first I got to scramble down them; hop, hop, hop. Awesome! This was like being Alice in Wonderland! I drank something weird, and now I'm tiny! I jumped down at the bottom, spiked the landing, and looked back up the stairs; this was gonna be epic.

It was going to be much harder, my tiny brain suddenly realized, to get back up the giant stairs than to get down. But I was determined, I was ten, I was caffeinated; and most importantly, I had all day. And that, my friends, is the secret formula to achieving any goal. Can't get that spare bedroom cleaned out, or finish that last chapter you've been meaning to write? All you need is a time machine to Being Ten, a soda pop, and no supervision. I SOLVED those stairs, yo; with energy, brains, and good joint strength. If you run at a stair, I found, then sort of grab the lip of it and pull yourself up with the momentum, you'd get the upper half of your body onto the next stair; which is, of course, enough of you to then flail and heave yourself up to victory. It sounded sort of like:

Patapatapata HEAVE
Flail, flail, strain, flop
Grin, pant pant pant
...!
Patapatapata HEAVE...

The first one was easiest, because I had an unlimited space for my run-up; the following ones could only be the length of the stair I was on. But I had. ALL. DAY.

I think there were something like four to six of these stairs -- numbers have never really been my thing -- and by the time I got to the top, I was the happiest little mess you'd ever seen. I ran a jelly-legged victory lap on the lawn at the top of the stairs. But strangely, as elated as I was, my stomach didn't feel so hot. Or rather, it felt like I'd put hot Mountain Dew in it and then slammed it into the edge of several giant stairs. Whatever you want to call that; maybe slammy.

Essentially, I had regrets.

Slammy tummy or no, I at least wanted to look back at my achievement -- but when I went back to the top of the stairs, instead of admiring my hard earned view I immediately threw up (still) hot Mountain Dew over the edge.

Of course, by the time Mom got out of conferences and the shadows were growing long, all distress had been forgotten -- after all, that was like, four hours ago -- and all I remembered was that I'd climbed Alice's Stairs. And that I didn't want any Mountain Dew.

It wasn't until high school that I managed to return to Mountain Dew's embrace -- but it was there, waiting for me. It understood, it forgave; we fell in love all over again. Unfortunately, since then I had developed a terrible chronic headache, and caffeine apparently made it worse; but after surviving the Alice-Stairs Incident, what was a little more head pain between friends? And to this day, I just chase my (now Diet) Dew with water, or at least try to take it with food; but most importantly, I just drink it anyway. Like a ten-year-old champ.

Glass Cat Wars

You might have seen them. Stupid, pointless impressionistic pseudo-cat shapes made from glass, which serve no purpose but to gather dust, and seem to spontaneously manifest and congregate in old ladies' window sills. This is what my mother thought I would want, one fateful birthday so much like this last tragic Christmas. Well, she was "that guy" even then, and handed over this glass cat with a pleased smile, which I tried to match. WARNING: Results may vary. 

"I am a dumb!"

It was molded of clear glass, and it had no face, or any other recognizable features -- but if you looked very closely, in just the right light, you would realize it had two ever-so-slightly raised areas on one side of its blank head, which were eyes, and THEREFORE IT HAD BEEN LOOKING AT YOU THIS WHOLE TIME. Ick. It stood, unwanted and somehow accusing, in whatever random corner was the least trafficked, for at least a couple of months. Until Fancy came over for some drinks with HunBun. Now, it's hard to tell whether or not Fancy is drunk, because he's, well, he's just...Fancy. But when he's drunk, apparently he likes glass cats. Or at least our glass cat. We gladly handed it over, hoping he'd at least accidentally break it so we could throw the damn thing away, but he wandered home in the morning still the proud, slightly tipsy owner of the glass cat. 

Mexican pervcat says: Hola, señora
hermosa. ¿Puedo sentarme en su regazo?

It was a far more sober Fancy that returned it to us the following weekend, to our great disappointment. But my ingenious Bunny tricked him back into it, saying he "had a present" for him, and so all was well again. Until Button and Fancy were married, honeymooned in Mexico and returned, sunburned and with nick-knacks. Ours? Was a blue Mexican glass-ceramic cat, with ornate South-American flowery embellishments all over. And a mustache, I believe. This was the beginning of the Glass Cat War, and terms were laid. 

-It must glass, ceramic, or somehow fragile. Lightness is key.

-It must be a cat, and not only a cat, but a cat in that stupid pose, sitting with its head turned at a right angle to the rest of its body, tail in close.

-The giftor must trick the giftee while still alluding to it being "a present" -- the keyword my Sweetie had tricked Fancy with initially.

-It cannot be mailed as a package, or presented at Christmas or birthdays...or any time of great gift-giving.

With these rules laid out, the real challenge began, and we were at a disadvantage, holding both of the existing cats in play. But Lovely went into a whirlwind of plotting, and got rid of both over the next month; cramming one (unconvincingly, I thought) into a Fallout game case and demanding that Fancy "check it out". He did, and howled for us most delightfully. But the real triumph was discarding the original hated glass cat. For Fancy was wary now, and on the lookout for Bunbun's treachery. 

But he still wasn't ready for The Glass Cat Mastermind.  

The trap was carefully laid; a drinking night, lowering Fancy's defense against glass-cattery. A huge glass mug, that Fancy, as a heavy drinker, prefers to use. The presence of YouTube videos. While he stared glassily (ha!) at a YouTube video, my love went into action; to the kitchen, in which to remove the glass cat from the junk drawer that had been its rightful home. Placed ever so gently, ever so silently into the tall glass mug. Then ice from the refrigerator dispenser to, ah, 'cloud the issue', before actually mixing the poor fool a drink. The YouTube feature draws to a close, as Sweetness comes bearing "My gift to you, Buddy." And BOOM. He'd been glass-catted. 

Oh, the look of astonishment, of defeat, of drunken dismay! 

Oh, glorious victory.

 

Picture this with fur. Yeah.

That's when Fancy got the womenfolk involved, and Button made the next foray several months later, offering me the most obscene bag I could have ever imagined -- all cute-as-a-Button like she is, saying "Look what I got for you! It's a preeeesseeent." I was all unsuspecting, as all my warning bells were already in a clamor about the bag itself, not What Lay Within. It was made out of red, blue, orange and green Kool Aid pouches. It was trimmed with blue faux fur. It was vivid, metallic, and truly awful. So full of garish visual stimuli, I had no time for what my ears were hearing. I took the bag. It was heavy. It had the blue cat in it.

It went nicely with the faux fur, actually.

Apparently my dear sweet Muffin had immediately called shenanigans right at the door when she'd said "present" -- he has no time or mental space of purses, but apparently plenty for treachery -- but had agreed to let her try it on me, with the agreement that she not even try to play again til after Christmas. It was July. Even though his lady let him down, and totally fell for it, it was still a steal of a deal. When Button attended her first D&D game with us in August, Bunny gave her her own dicebag with a full set of die. And a glass cat stuffed in for good measure.

Pants shook it up by introducing two small, incredibly broken and just generally shitty cat figurines from her parent's house -- one now resides with Fancy, the other is on our kitchen counter to this very day. But it wasn't me! Honey totally fell for it. Who knows what ingenious revenge plot he is concocting? He definitely knows how to play the long game.

A Well-Spent Childhood In Our Friendly Skies

Actual podiums my mom worked on Maui, c/o
http://hawaii.gov/ogg/ticketing-check-in/ticket-counters

When I was but a little lass, my mother worked for a nonspecific but very patriotically named (hint hint) airline. She worked the check-in counter at the main lobby of Maui's first commercial airport when it first opened, abandoning LAX for paradise -- or so she thought. She caught an STD (namely me) off some male model-nee-tour-bus-driver, and grew so fond of the little parasitic wart, she didn't bother to go get it fixed. (This is still me, not him. That wart dropped off of its own accord.) But the long and short of it was that now she was a young mother in a strange place with a demanding job. She did the best she could by smuggling me to work with her while I was still small enough to be smuggled inside things. (Really, REALLY not in the traditional airport-smuggling place of choice. Just FYI.) So if you wondered why your checker seems so harried, distracted or ready to cry/kill you, it might be because there is a fussy baby hidden in the podium between her and you and it is down there that her thoughts are truly centered. Is it going to cry? Spit up? WHY has it been fussing for four hours? If it throws up, I'm going to lose my job -- or maybe just my lunch.  Just for your future consideration.

What was nice about Mom's early job for Patriot Airlines was that we could fly in unprecedented style. You know, whenever she could afford to be doing something other than working. We flew to California see my new grandparents, who were as happy with me as they were mad at her; thirty, unmarried and now a bastard child? ("Awww, lookit that, Hal! She spit up on herself. Isn't she an angel.") They took me to Disneyland so many times I had the layout memorized, and would blithely inform my mother that I would meet her "back at Minnie's house" like I was house-sitting for the mouse. But even more fun than Disneyland, as anyone who has flown to California will tell you, is First Class on an airline. There should be a theme park to commemorate it. I haven't had the privilege of inspecting First Class compartments any time recently, as my mother moved on to another job when I was seven and if a Coach Class flier even looks too hard at the First Class cabin, burly flight attendants ask you to leave and you get stranded in Seattle AGAIN. And while Seattle may be aces at coffee, it's deuces at sandwiches -- two guesses as to which one of those I actually like, and da firs' one don't count.

 

"We're making money RIGHT NOW."

Brian Regan describes it pretty well in his skit; First Class people are lords, nobility who are disgusted that we commoners even get to walk through their special court on our way to the ox-stalls. And I've seen for myself that way they look up at you after they've pre-boarded and you're just shuffling by; they're sitting in their massive leather easy-chairs, laptops and PDAs already out, obviously making money even now. Only a fool like you would pay for the privilege of that sky-borne cattle car back there; they're getting paid to sip mimosas from underneath the corner of a complimentary hot towel, and put their feet up on baseboard storage compartments.

And that is where this tale comes at last to its long-awaited point.

In all the trans-Pacific travels of my childhood, whether for my mother's surgeries at UCLA (carpal tunnel is a big reason why she eventually quit Patriot Airlines) or those legendary grandparents-and-Disneyland sojourns, I spent most of my time in those baseboard storage compartments. They were huge compared to the overhead storage, just right for one little girl's BatCave. I'd drag my chosen toys of the day and their sundry paraphernalia off to one of the empty ones, and set up camp in there. It got so regular in my young life that everything started to have its particular place, and all baseboard compartments were in essence One; dolly's bed went over here, and the little bag I carried to show I was a "big girl" like Mommy (filled with more toys and crap) went over here. It was a constant in my travel-filled life, and I got fond of it. But now, as a slightly less self-centered adult, I wonder what that had been like for the hundreds of First Class passengers who had not realized you could store children in the baseboard compartments*. I imagine it would go something like this:

Livin' the high life - mimosas and hot towels await

Huh? Wuzzat?

Was that a GIGGLE?

But what can you say? "Excuse me, Miss,
I'm hearing crazy things at 40,000 feet?"

That's it, I'm getting to the bottom of this!
I'm a high-powered business executive and
I won't stand for this sort of mystery on my flight!

So as long as nobody's looking...

I hope it's not a talking animal, I hate that Disney shi-

Holy monkeys, a kid!

Eyaa!

Umm...Wha...?

I would like to think that my rabid little child face did not peer up at them in the sudden light amidst my mess like some sort of feral weasel found in one's garbage bins, but I don't think I should fool myself; I was most likely published at least once as the "Wild Child of the Skies" before my mother could shamefacedly claim me. I probably bit at least one of them, in a child's experimental, easygoing way. It was probably a really big deal for a while, with a picture of the bitten passenger under the headline and my crouched four-year-old figure as the side panel shot, with the caption "An unexpected flight hazard of the Friendly Skies." Maybe I even damaged Patriot Airline's profit margin as they damaged my mother's wrists. I would find this highly acceptable.

--------------------------------------------
*First Class people lead charmed lives that would prevent them from finding out about such unfortunate things as babies and the need to take them with you places. I have decided that the First Class decided that babies come from nannies.