Category: 2016 Resolution

Bus Sketch III

An empty bus, from the inside, sketched in black and white.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” the woman shouted from the front of the bus. She was almost backed up against the massive windshield, pushed and pushing as four more people got on a bus that was overcrowded when the two got on the last stop and the family of four and a guy got on at the stop before that. 

The bus driver was impassive and neutral. She was not interested in refereeing the soon to be melee. She was driving. She was not enforcing the “stand behind the yellow line” rule. She wasn’t asking passengers to make room. She was simply pulling up at the bus stop, pressing the gear to open the door and then shutting it when people stopped forcing their way on. She also did some high quality glaring until people paid their fares. That’s what she came to do. No more. 

“HeyHeyHey, HEY-yay! Can someone give me their seat?”

There was that brief almost exchange among the other riders. In the mid-morning there’d be a discussion. The mid-morning bus passengers were a different group. They interacted. They told each other to sit down. They helped guy who was confused, one said he was a junkie, the other said you just didn’t know and couldn’t he use a hand?

The evening rush riders? Not so interactive. If you looked at someone you might be compelled to give up your seat and join the other bodies lurching fore and aft. Or maybe you’d make eye contact with that woman who was talking a stranger’s ear off. You just pushed your speakers into your ear canal, closer to your brain.

“I got a card that says I’m disabled. Somebody give me a seat?” She couldn’t see past the people in front of her so she couldn’t bore a guilt stare at those seated. Some seats were taken by parents with young kids. You definitely did not want the munchkins to be tossed around like doll babies. People sitting without kids looked around to see if they were in a more protected class than their seat mates. 

“Is there not a GENTLEman on this bus?” The people standing between her and the seats were feeling a little salty. She seemed tired, sure, but they were, too. And they were cued for a seat via the universal maxim of “First come, first served.” 

There was some shuffling on the benches. Space was being made. The law of firsts was getting upended. The woman with the disability card squeezed her way past the standing mom with her standing three kids, bulldozing the smallest of the them into other riders. The riders were close to falling into each other like toppling dominoes. All the movement compressed the commuting horde impossibly tighter. 

“I’m sorry,” a short standing rider hidden by a hood directed her apology to the rider seated in front of her. They had inadvertently knocked knees. The seated rider was just below her eye level. Looking up she saw a pair of large brown eyes framed with long black lashes and a shy smile that barely contained her joy.

It was curious that on a bus packed with tired, cold commuters this one girl–maybe she was eleven or twelve–couldn’t help herself. She was simply happy. The knee-knocked rider smiled back and heard her sniffle. It was from the cold. 

“Are you cold enough?” The girl smiled less shyly and bounced her head up and down in agreement. She held eye contact as they debriefed on the new cold weather. They decided it was colder because it came out of nowhere. 

The bus turned another corner and started to empty. The woman who made the fuss to gain her rightful seat only sat in it for two stops. She pushed her way out as the girl with the warm smile disappeared into the humanity. 

Posted on by docthink 1

Fronting

Fall evening with a streetlight illuminating a tree and a grey and blue sky.

November had been pleasant, so far. The leaves had been doing their job since October, turning gold and orange and bright red until they fell to the ground and transmuted to brown and tan and crunchy. 

A front came in yesterday, swapping out a sunny warm day to an afternoon that had us scrambling for Toto. There wasn’t a twister, but the clouds were dark and heavy and the wind pushed the shopping carts across the parking lot, launched the plastic grocery bags into the air and chased the people into their cars. That great idea to grab a Novemberfest at the pop up biergarten was blown away. 

Tonight the sky was blotchy with more dark, heavy clouds. Night hadn’t forced out day. The sky to the north east was still robin eggs blue. The sun was almost dropped to the west. 

I zipped my jacket up to my chin and arranged my cabled infinity scarf closer. I had warn gloves one day last week, but it was almost for show. Tonight it was for necessity. I tucked the cuffs into the sleeves of my coat to protect my wrists from the elements.

The wind went from a low moan to an angry growl and back to the moan. It lifted my hair and whipped it around in front of my eyes, trying to blind me. I should have grabbed a cap before I left.

While this town cycles through weather patterns and we can expect another set of warm days, the season has definitely flipped. Winter is coming. 

I fished my gloved fingers into my pocket. I flipped a treat into the air. The Beast captured it before the wind could change its trajectory. He wasn’t crazy about the cold either. We hustled around the corner as the blue seeped out of the sky. It was warm in the house. I had a turkey in the oven. The Boys were both home. I left the chill outside as I closed the door behind me. 

Posted on by docthink 1

Eye Seventy Five

A potted plant with a leggy herb of some sort sitting on a potting bench.

She carefully took the paper out from the bottom of the secret shoebox. She handled it with care because she’d touched it many times. She was worried that it was becoming fragile. Sometimes she simply opened the box, moved aside the things on the top and caressed the parchment with her eyes. Just to make sure it was there. And to remind herself.

Other times, like today, she unfolded it. There were many folds and there was a specific order. She always enjoyed folding it back up. Matching the up grooves in the paper, seeing where the breaks were. Opening and closing when it didn’t line up right, triggering more study. It was a silly puzzle, but one that required just enough concentration to make it seem important.

Unfolding, on the other hand, now that was an exercise in revealing. The first open was like a book, really more like a pamphlet. Then she released it like an accordion, or, maybe, a fan. She used to pretend she was playing an instrument and pull the folds open and closed. She didn’t do that anymore. Mostly because the creases lost their spring over the years, and increasingly because she thought she should be more gentle.

After she spread out the panels, she unfolded it from the bottom, doubling the size in her hands. She could start to see markers appear. She unfurled another layer and it was spread out all in front of her.

She ran her finger along the long red line. There were other red lines that were parallel, others that crossed, but there was only one that followed from the top all the way to the bottom. From the beginning to the end.

She lived near the top of the line, relatively. One time she got very close to the top, crossing over the Mighty Mac for a family trip that began with such hope, as they always did, but ended in a worn down cottage and standard issue disappointment. The bridge was impressive, though. And a little scary.

But the most scary, and the most wondrous, was the endpoint of that long red line. One thousand, six-hundred and twenty-six miles away. But she only knew about 175 miles away, personally. The possibilities of more than a thousand miles away was exhilarating.

She only knew from TV. Palm trees. Alligators. Salt water. Hurricanes. Coconuts. Shrimp. Black beans and rice. Spices!(!) Waves. Rocks. Bright blue water with concrete pylons and a road connecting rocky islands.

She was from the world of cars, of motoring. And yet she took her beat-up green short bed truck only within a sixty-mile radius of her home.

When she took out her map, and opened it up, and laid it out, the entire world was in front of her. At least a world that was near the 1-75 corridor. That road that would take her to paradise.

She opened up the map and imagined her adventure. She swore she would take the road herself, one day. But she had to finish high school. She hoped to make it to the next stop, maybe along that corridor. She wanted to see a bigger world. That kept her in school. Kept her working to make some grades. Kept her from messing with the boys that called her cute, after they called someone else out.

She heard the argument getting louder downstairs. She very very carefully refolded her map. She put her dream back in the box under her bed. But in her head, she was trying to push the accelerator down with her right foot. As hard as she could.

Posted on by docthink 3

Tastes Like Metal

Leeks, garlic, parsley, yams, sweet potato and parsley, beautifully photographed still life.

There were many many many many and many ingredients in the Magick Mineral Broth. Of course there were carrots, onions, celery and potatoes. But that would not be very magic.

The recipe calls for leeks and garlic, too. Not only that, but sweet potatoes (preferably Japanese) and garnet yams. The spice mix included the standard bay leaf and peppercorns plus the flavor and medicinal value add of juniper berries–just don’t substitute gin. Added to the boil, just so you really had to go a fancy grocery, was kombu–also known as seaweed sheets. It adds a bit of fullness of flavor, like saltwater with fish.

You can drink it warm for breakfast. You can add noodles and an egg and eat a bowl full of soup. You can use it as a base for another soup. You can put it on your cereal.

Seriously, I might as well have.

The technique is simple enough, throw everything in a big pot of water, boil the hell out of it and add salt to taste.

I got this recipe from a cancer cookbook I ordered. The idea was to use this combo of beautiful, healthy, colorful foods to prep my body for chemo and to make myself less unwell after treatment. To be honest, I think that the real purpose was to give myself a mindless yet mindful project. Distraction from the unknown. You’ve heard about an idle mind?

You don’t know what chemo does. And different combos have different impacts. And those impacts will be different for different folks. Will you be puking? Hair falling out? Just generally feeling gross? Will your feet and hands feel like sand? Will you hurt? Get sores in your mouth? Will you be cold? Hot? Exhausted? Couch or bed bound? And, behind all those unknowns is the real question, the one you don’t want to ask. Will this poison cocktail work?

Preparing the broth, the rich golden elixir full of antioxidants and magical minerals, was a step into something knowable. I could cut and cook. I could control that part. I could calm–or at least distract–my active imagination.

So, I chopped and I boiled and I added salt. It topped off my 12 quart stock pot. I disposed of the spent vegetables. Then I strained it into a many large jars. The magical mystery broth makes a ton of soup.

Later, I used a cup or so and made the noodle bowl. It tasted very good that day. I think I tweeted about how awesome it was.

And then I never touched it again. The jars sat in the fridge for a while until I made the Spouse spill out the contents into the sink and wash it away.

To this day, three years later, when I think of that magical broth, the smell, the taste, even the color, I feel a little sick. As I’m typing the words that described me eating it, that described pouring it into tall Mason jars, my stomach is getting queasy and I’m swallowing thickening saliva.

That liquid that extracted all the flavor and benefits from the ingredients tastes like chemo to me. The drugs are pumped into a port in your chest, but the scent and the taste get in the back of your mouth and violate the tastebuds at the back of your tongue. I think of the golden soup and I think of drinking something made from cheap metals that would turn your finger green. The minerals tasted more like slate and pencil shavings and solder.

So I had it that one day and I couldn’t take it again. I decided that I hated that book, too. The Cancer Cookbook or some stupid name. It did have some great advice–to avoid eating your favorite foods on the days surrounding treatment. They said that chemo could ruin them for you. Forever.

Chemo sucked, but it didn’t ruin my taste for dark chocolate with hazelnuts–or dark chocolate anything. It did, however, turn me against that awful veggie broth. Oh, and two months ago I left the cancer cookbook in my local Little Free Library. I hadn’t opened it again. Not since I cooked up that nasty broth three years ago. Maybe someone else can use the distraction. Me? Not looking back.

Posted on by docthink 0

There’s No Place Like Home

I texted the Baby Bear this morning.

Don’t miss your plane.

I included that smiley face emoji with the hearts for eyes. It was mostly to annoy. Our children get very annoyed when us Olds use emojis. It’s best–regarding maximum annoyance–when I use them inappropriately, like using the pile of shit emoji as if it’s a beehive. But even appropriate emoji use is an affront. You know, parents trying to be hip. They hate that. So I do that for my amusement.

Seven hours later I texted him again.

You on a plane yet??

I wasn’t thinking that he was late, but there was no emoji.

We had to change busses on the way delayed us a bit. In security now.

Seemed on target.

Thirty-five minutes later my phone rings. Guess who was standing at his gate with the door to the jetway closed in front of him and no Southwest staff to be found? Yup. Our hero. As I was telling him to find an open counter, I switched from the primary conversation to talking to myself as he engaged a guy. It was like when you get butt-dialed from someone in a bar and all you hear is muffled words and clinks. Until the line goes dead.

I went online to see what was coming out of Denver into one of the three Washington airports tonite. Yeah, it’s good to have options. That said, it’s less good to be looking for afternoon options when you’re flying east.

Baby Bear swore that he left with enough time to get to the airport. He knows exactly how to miss a flight, and those hard lessons have prodded him to always take the earlier bus. I believe him. The problem was the early bus was driving into a blizzard.

Of course, the first snow in Boulder would occur as he’s trying to get to the airport. The roads were a mess and they were further delayed when they had to switch buses. The security lines were long at the airport and he was getting antsy. He texted.

Wish I could barge to the front

That’s where I lost contact. Adding insult to injury, when he finally made it to the security screening area, the puffer picked something up. He was moved to secondary screening. Mild panic was beginning to seep into the corners of the reptilian part of his brain. No reason to get huffy with TSA, though. That never goes well.

The Bear offered that he was pressed to make his flight as the burly man came up to him. The agent explained that he was in training and they needed to wait for his supervisor for the grope. Baby Bear was deflated and nearing distraught.

Can’t your boss just do it?

Of course not. The agent took off his blue gloves and pulled on a fresh pair. As he snapped one rubber glove on–latex free mind you–it broke. He removed that pair and walked over to get another pair. The clock in Bear’s head was ticking at greater and greater volume.

The agent pulled on another pair of gloves. He once again snapped the left glove on and broke that one, too.

C’mon, man!

Third time being the charm, he started the pat down.

Sir, I am going to put my hand along the top of your pants.

Fine!

Sir, I am going to touch the inside of your leg.

Really? The guy is going to insist on getting affirmation for each step in the process? YES! YES! YES! Said Baby Bear who simply wanted the guy to hurry up and pat his junk so he could make his flight.

Of course, his flight was in C. Translated that means the far end of the large airport. He hustled to his gate–risking breaking his swag–to that closed door. He could see the plane. So close. A man opened the door and told Baby Bear that he lost his seat ten minutes ago to standby.

But there is an empty seat on that plane!

There was indeed a seat on the plane. And, also indeed, the plane door was secured. They were not going to open it up. No way. No how. No matter the pleading of a young man who was just trying to get home. No matter that his solution was just beyond a closed door.

Sheesh.

Baby Bear pulled himself from the abyss of his disappointment that was flirting too closely with anger as he walked to the counter to see his options. He relayed his disastrous TSA delay to the airline staffer who nodded vehemently.

I don’t know what it is, but they’ve been really bad.

Baby Bear got rebooked through Nashville, which has the nonsense airport code BNA. He’ll be an hour later than originally scheduled, but, most excellently, he still comes into DCA versus IAD or BWI, two options much further from headquarters.

Call it National. We don’t call it Reagan in this house.

What a day of travel. Blizzards. Bad buses. Security delays. Poor customer service. And a door slammed in his face. I can’t wait to see him!

I’m thinking that Santa may put some TSA Pre-√  in somebody’s Christmas stocking.

Posted on by docthink 1

Bully Pulpit

A school playground that looks inviting. And fun.

Kyle was the biggest kid in the school. The school itself was small, with just three groups, pre-school, pre-k and kindergarten. Pre-school was in the front room with the guinea pig named Piggy. Pre-k and kindergarten learned together in the next classroom over, on the other side of the kitchen where the littlest kids opened the huge refrigerator door to store their lunches.

Kyle was the oldest. He may have waited an extra year before enrolling, as was the fashion for boys then. Their parents thought it would give their sons, especially the ones younger or less mature, a better start.

Kyle definitely took advantage of his advantages. He was taller and stronger than the other kids. He was more coordinated. He had more words. And he was more aware of the way the world worked, or at least the ways he could work the world.

His mom and dad were full professors at the university. They were old parents with graying thinning hair, knees that sometimes popped and less patience. Their short patience span was manifest in letting Kyle be Kyle. They saw no reason to fully resist him. He could regularly wear them down without too much effort, so why not skip the struggle and just let him be? They were happiest when he was happy. Whether that was an occasional ice cream bar for breakfast, watching more TV than was allowed or skipping his bath some nights, they’d go along to get along.

The school was focused on letting the kids be kids. It wasn’t a free for all. No, not at all. The teachers and their assistants were well in control. They let the children lead their learning via their activities. This worried some parents. They wanted worksheets and homework so that their offspring would be “ready” for big-kid school. The faculty resisted. They guided lessons through the curiosity of the kids. The success of their approach was evidenced by ten years’ of kindergartners leaving their tutelage reading books. And asking wonderful questions. And taking responsibility for their learning.

The kids would make up their own games, build forts under blankets hung from cubbies and publish their own books with stapled spines. Sometimes, when the teachers weren’t looking, Kyle would walk by a classmate and push off of them with his hand. Or, you could say, he’d walk by and shove a kid. If there was any resistance, he would claim that he was misunderstood. If it was an extremely egregious hit, he would sheepishly apologize. His physical outbursts weren’t frequent.

More frequent were his exclusions. His parents thought that he was a natural leader. He would provide value–usually his attention–to some of the kids in order to isolate another. This was a rotating position, the one of outsider. One day you’d be out and the next day you would be part of the group barring someone else. It was fair, in a weird way. Except if you were Kyle, because you were never out. Kyle was always in. Everyone loved him, despite the hitting and despite the emotional manipulations. Kyle was the oldest and the biggest and the best.

There was at least one mother who noticed the dynamic. She noticed even before the day her pre-k son, a year or maybe two, younger than Kyle came home sad that he was sidelined. When her boy told her that he couldn’t play the game around the tree and that he felt left out, she felt left out, too.

“What stopped you from playing the game around the tree?”

“Kyle said that I couldn’t play.”

He needed some tools. They role played and practiced. Sometimes she was Kyle and sometimes he pretended to be Kyle. They sometimes played out their script in the car. There were no further incidents.

The mother brought him into school late one morning, after snack and before lunch. He had a doctor’s appointment. The school was adamant about taking the kids outside everyday, rain or shine, hot or cold, snow or wind, but today the downpour was too much. Some kids were playing “fort” near the cubbies. There were blocks stacked to protect from intruders. Her boy approached the “entrance” to the fort so he could drop off his backpack and hang his wet jacket in his cubby.

“Stop!” It was Kyle who stepped out from the group huddled in their “fort.”

“You aren’t in the club. You can’t come in here.”

The mother drew in a breath and felt her hand tighten on the handles of her satchel.

“Kyle, you aren’t the boss over me,” said her son, just like they had practiced. And he stepped over a block to his cubby.

Kyle didn’t miss a beat as he stepped aside. “You can be in the club.”

The boy hung up his coat and stepped back out of the fort. “No, I’m going to paint over there with Emily and Christine.” This second part was a freestyle. Not bad.

The mother’s heart was beating faster. First, because she was afraid, and now because she didn’t need to be. Her lesson was to let him find his own way with her guidance. Perhaps the school was teaching her as much as they were teaching him. They both had a lot to learn.

Posted on by docthink 0