Tuesday, November 25, 2008

“Take Me Out, It’s Garbage Day!”

My hiking buddy is a wild man and, maybe because I met him on Halloween 1999, he does some pretty scary things. I’ll spare him the embarrassment of his one swift move under a swing, but this story will inspire environmentalists and wildlife preservers.

One morning Bob (pictured below) got up and was going to take his garbage can to the curb, when he heard rustling inside the can. A quick peek revealed a cute little skunk looking upward into the eyes of its rescuer or its executioner. Apparently it had been too interested in the can’s contents as it peered down from the adjacent concrete wall, leaned over, and toppled in.

Perplexed, Bob went back inside and called me. “What would a person do if he found a skunk in his garbage can?”

“Invite the poor dear in for breakfast. It must be hungry.”


Not buying my advice, Bob pondered longer until the wildlife lover–conservationist spirit enveloped him. He put a cover on his garbage can and placed it, skunk and all, in the rear of his ancient blue Volvo station wagon.

When he later told me this story, I figured he was being his strange-humored bohunk self and selling me a line of goods. “You’ve got to be kidding. What if the skunk sprayed?”

“If its tail can’t lift up, it’s unable to give you a shot.” Mmm, now I’m satisfied.

So Bob took the little feller on an excursion up Ute Pass, found it a nice green, grassy meadow, carried the garbage can out of his car, and let the furry creature waddle away. And he didn’t spray…nor did the skunk.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Regret

What a beautiful day. She glided on the crisp, cool spring breeze catching updrafts that lifted her higher. Though they had moved nearer to the city to avoid the crowded woods, the air was still so fresh up here.

Her mate, being a bit of a risk taker, soared so high she thought he might not breathe. Then she’d catch him in her peripheral vision, drawing in his wings so he’d drop a hundred feet. She’d turn her head and fly in a different direction, pretending she didn’t see him.

But how she loved and respected him. Of all the mates who could have chosen her, she wanted him most. And they’d had so many perfect eaglets. Each had left the nest and found a niche in the world.
She knew that even at this age she still had the energy to raise two more fledglings. Obviously her mate was preparing to make it so.

A month and a half later, she sat on her two eggs. One deeply warm, one warmed only by her body. When the sun was at last warming her nest, she flew out and hunted. Her mate had always hunted while she warmed the eggs, but now she had no choice. She had to hunt alone because of the two-legged creature taking her mate to the ground. The creature had seemed pleased; she wondered why. Her heart ached. She had never been alone before.

It didn’t take long to see four voles scurrying to safety, or so they thought. Shrewd, swift, and with accurate aim, she caught the third one and took it high into a leafless tree to replenish her energy. She then returned to her nest to rest and provide warmth.

At last, a month later, she found an eaglet’s beak protruding from its shell. She was exhilarated, yet sad, but she tried to mask her feeling of aloneness and envelop herself in this wonderful event.

She squirmed her body around in her nest to accommodate the struggling life’s movements, until finally all the shell’s pieces lay far below on the earth.

Later that week, she sat alone high in the sparsely leafed tree enjoying a meal, remembering her mate. Surprisingly, a blackbird flew onto a nearby branch and began a loquacious greeting. Just a couple of months ago, she would have feigned a hunt and dropped toward the ground to avoid such garrulousness, but today as she reminisced, she welcomed the talkative fellow.

He said he’d been in the area for a few years and wondered why they hadn’t talked before. She shared of her wooded home of last year, and her mate’s plan of settling closer to the city. And, oh, how her belly ached for him.

Acquaintance made, they parted company, and she flew back to her young one.

The next day, again dining on her morning meal, she was greeted by the blackbird who began his chatter. He had a pattern, she noted, of mentioning the condition of the day, then talking about his past, and seemed never to tire of his stories. The present moment and future didn’t seem to occur to him.

Nevertheless, the two very different feathered creatures became friends, more or less, sharing life experiences—the blackbird’s more than the eagle’s, for she had always been somewhat reserved, sharing only her most intimate with her mate. Their manner of communication dissimilar, they still found common ground to relate to each other’s lives.

Weeks into their relationship, and after her unhatched egg had provided sustenance for the six-leggeds below, her eaglet tested her own wings. It was glorious—short, though delightful to watch her take a brief flight to a higher branch. Soon she was flying to other trees, while still depending on her mother for food, but her mother didn’t mind.

Inspired by her young one, the eagle flew to the meeting place and shared the good news with the blackbird, who was already awaiting her. Together they flew and, in a spirit of fun and friendship, competed for airspace, soaring, falling, and flying toward each other so hard and fast that they screeched when they didn’t collide.

That spontaneous event built trust between them. Before returning to her nest, the eagle and the blackbird conveyed gratitude that they had forged their unusual, yet devoted camaraderie.

In the days that followed, they watched the eaglet fly. Even others would pause to breathe in the young eagle’s first-awkward, then smoother flaps of her wings. Eagles, the observers would share with the mother, were uncommon in this part of the city, and her offspring was certainly a sight to behold.

The blackbird observed how the mother gave more attention to her young and all the others than to him, and it bothered him. He had grown accustomed to bathing in her presence alone, without competition. The less time he had with the eagle, the more he would fill their scant time with his incessant chatter, until she felt so smothered, it was as if she would suffocate.

On a cool, cloudy morning when it appeared the sun would stay asleep, the eagle glided over a field searching for a meal to share with her young one. An unaware rabbit below nibbled on weeds and grasses until he sensed the eagle above. Sitting motionless for a moment, he planned to bound directly toward the gulley, or as directly as his genes would allow.

When the eagle perceived the rabbit’s fear and calculated his probable route, she targeted ahead and successfully achieved her aim.

She flew back to the nest to share the food with her developing eaglet, enveloped in the moment. Focused on their meal, she didn’t hear the two-legged far away. With a bang and a burning sensation on her back, she winced and briefly fell aside. Gathering her strength, she and her young flew high and away from the menacing danger.

Days later she was healing well, for the sharp fire had only grazed her body, but she was feeling old and not nearly as sharp and agile as she used to be. Her eaglet could almost be called an eagle, soon to fly to her own home. And the eagle’s mate, well, she still thought about his flying antics, displaying his strength and virility for all the world to see, though she knew it was all for her.

The blackbird had grown more caustic, complaining to the eagle how she didn’t seem the same since she was hurt and her young was spreading her wings, though he carried on his loquacious banter as if her life were just her ears. She didn’t hear how angry her blackbird friend had become, because she was not well-versed in such emotion. She was unable to help her friend in his time of need. Nor he in hers.

So he plotted. He had made an acquaintance one day over an unlucky deer—a coyote who was always looking for a meal for her young. The blackbird helped her understand the patterns of his slowly waning friend, the eagle, so perhaps the coyote might rid the field of such a large-beaked creature.

Gliding down to a pond in the field surrounded by cottonwoods, marsh bushes, and cattails for a drink, the eagle didn’t see or suspect a thing. An alpha coyote leaped on her, while two others came out from hidden brush and took her down.

Then one day her young one flew to her own new home, while the blackbird stayed near the same field, sitting in the now-barren tree, looking for others to listen to his chatter.

He missed his friend and wondered why he had betrayed her. He felt loneliness that he'd never experienced and a regret that would never leave him.
(Puzzle pieces 25–27 of 38.)

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Hot Tub Healer

Hot tub healer is not a misspell. It’s not saying to a cute young fella, “Hey, let’s tub,” and he heels. No, I mean hot tubs can heal and help a person lose weight.

A few years ago I discovered that when I was hungry and chose to tub rather than eat, I lost my hunger.

My daughter and I have noticed that when we have a scratch, scrape, or bite, soon after sitting in the tub, it goes away. Sooner than if we hadn’t tubbed.

And the healing is not just physical, it’s emotional. My friends and I have learned that with a bottle of wine and a late-night tub, all the stuff from the past that needs to come out, does. And the unspoken rule is, nothing leaves the hot tub. What you say in there stays in there. It’s what friendship is based on: trust.

For years I’ve said, I wish everyone had a hot tub, ’cause the world would be a more peaceful place. And you don’t have to buy a new one. Knowing they are mechanical devices, even you could fix one if it breaks down. I have several times (I’m a handywoman). Go ahead, take a tub, and feel peace warm your soul.
(Puzzle piece number 24 of 38.)

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Save a Tree, Take Your Sticks

I’m like Heloise with an attitude. Like her, I’m creatively conservative and environmentally conscious. Unlike her, I’m a geek.

One thing Heloise goofed on years ago was that https didn’t indicate a site was secure. However, hypertext transfer protocol over a secure socket layer is used for secure communications. She should have asked me.

But on the reduce, reuse, recycle course, I’m on her ride. I’ve been reusing things since I was seven, much to my parents’ chagrin. Maybe wastefulness was a sign of the ’60s and I was born too late or too early.

I have never liked misusing or trashing things, but I also don’t collect or save stuff I don’t need, such as food or relationships gone bad. As Tom across the street says, “When in doubt, throw it out,” and I do.

My weekday breakfast is NPR’s Morning Edition plus latte on steroids. Today a tree usage story piqued my cerebral branches. Take a look, particularly paragraph 10, where they mention chopsticks: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96758439. The world currently is allotted 61 trees per person. In America, I would presume we use much more than that, especially if a person eats a lot of Chinese food.


Next time I go to my friend Mei’s Hunan Springs restaurant, I will take my own chopsticks and not use the wood ones I’m offered. I may even take the metal Korean chopsticks my friend Brooks gave me, though food slips off them easier than with Japanese or Chinese chopsticks (筷子), and I like a mouthful.

So save a tree with me. Eat less and take your sticks!

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Nice Guy, My (bad word)

I’ve ascertained that when a guy tells me he’s a nice guy, the worst is on its way. But he’ll still think he’s a nice guy. It’s you who has the problems (yes, plural).

Three of my best guy friends have shared: “All men are scum. They want one thing.” “I can be quite a stinker (actually a different term).” “Don’t trust men.” “I certainly have moments when I’m not very nice.” When I hear lines like these, my tension is eased, because they’re as imperfect as I am.

Give me honesty, not deception. Or just let me keep my freedom.
(Puzzle piece number 23 of 38.)

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Sniff, Sniff

I like my home to smell good, which is quite the challenge with a Labradog, two cats, a fish, and being a gastronome. And though I daily put baby shampoo on our Lab’s feet and rinse them off in a trimmed vinegar container filled with water, his feet still smell like Fritos.

Now that cold weather has dropped on my life like a Thanksgiving turkey, and I can’t open my windows without putting on a dreaded bra and sweater, keeping our home semiodor free is much more challenging. So I compromise.

I turn on Clarity, our Honeywell Enviracaire air purifier, and periodically move her to various places in the home. Then I spray peppermint water high in the air and in our trees and plants throughout. Sometimes I even add my friend bleach, but just a few drops, because intense bleach doesn’t like me quite as much as I like him.

One or two droppersful of peppermint in a quartsize spray bottle of water freshens with its mist and makes the dog sneeze. A little acidic wipe of doggie boogie from the wall, and voilà, I feel as if I’m back in college having a schnapps hot chocolate cleaning up after my roommates.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Irony

Magazines are published on nearly every topic these days. Every trade has its journal, every sport, its serial.

Back in my high-tech, physics, and chemistry days, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Solid State Technology, particularly when I suffered from insomnia.

When my daughter was in Edinburgh, she ate lunch at the Elephant House café where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. As she stepped out of the restaurant, she looked down and, lying on the sidewalk, was Concrete magazine.

I’m going to ask her to start reading Money.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Nurture vs. Jail, and Rappelling the Financial Wall

Across America, I’ll bet voters approved very few tax increases. Here in Conservative Central, we decided not to approve an entire one percent increase to build yet another jail.

Some of the one percent would have gone to worthy programs, such as scraping pigeon poop off the General William Jackson Palmer statue in the middle of Platte and Nevada avenues, but for two consecutive years 50 percent of that money would have been spent on building and maintaining another jail.

Colorado Springs voters decided, perhaps two years ago, not to build another jail. Still, the county cheated on us and built one anyway, on the sly, behind our backs, using COPs. No, not police, certificates of participation.* I did not participate, nor did a lot of other constituents.

If parents would nurture, educate, and hold their children accountable for their actions, we wouldn’t need to incarcerate as many deviants.

If judges acted judiciously, which is akin to saying, “if drug addicts wouldn’t take drugs,” fewer people would live free, off our tax dollars, like judges do. [Auntie knows there are three good judges out there. The criminal in the following story isn’t one of them.]

I know a judge who sent someone to jail knowing the person was innocent. For this example, we’ll call the judge Loser Larry. Larry was fully aware that an opposing party contrived a story out of vengeance. Larry knew, because he was a party to the conspiracy and played along with the setup scheme of two attorneys, Kimmie and Lizzie.

Loser Larry conspired with them in his chambers without the pro se victim present. His action was illegal. Then, through his course of action, Larry denied due process. This is the Readers’ Digest version, but in Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District, travesty against victims is not unusual.

But if the county’s leaders really want more motel space for judges to fill, maybe our voting against the one percent tax will discipline judges a mite. Disciplining a judge in Colorado is like trying to control crazed groupies at a Stones concert, yet both parties smoke pot.

Some of us can sleep better knowing our taxes have temporarily stabilized, while others are losing their jobs.

Why do people have to lose their jobs? Were their positions superfluous? If they were, why did the positions exist?

If the people are necessary, why can’t employers simply reduce pay? Follow the airlines’ lead: “You want to keep your jobs? Take a pay cut.”

In 1996 I quit my job to more actively parent my daughter. If anything in my life was unessential to living and breathing, I eliminated it. Bare bones, babycakes.

Remaining only as a memory were massages, lunches out, subscriptions, call waiting, and my excessive gift giving. I now work from home, earn $34,000 less a year than I used to, drive less (4,000 miles per year), pollute less, waste little to no time. Plus I have time to take a daily hike.

Abundance comes through peace of mind (except during financially freaky times), continued healthy gourmet meals, more socialization, and playing music with our group.

Even in poverty, thank God for a simple life.

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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* certificate of participation: Financing in which an individual buys a share of the lease revenues of an agreement made by a municipal or governmental entity, rather than the bond being secured by those revenues.

Warm Milky Concoction


It’s chilly vanilly here in Colorado Springs today! My daughter has the day off from school and is working on a movie project, while I’m writing as writers do.

But once in a while, I get up and do what people do, then grab a cup of something, so I’ll eventually have to do what people do once more.

I just poured myself a huge mug of milk—I love huge mugs, should’ve seen the one on my last boyfriend—heated it in the microwave till it steamed (the milk, not his mug), then drizzled some honey, dribbled droplets of vanilla, and shook several sprinkles of cinnamon into the steamy white liquid.

A few spins of the spoon and yummers! a new Auntie Eartha concoction was born. And the one I birthed likes it too : )

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Sunday, November 2, 2008

To My Friend and Love

The skies are blue, but deep inside
I feel an ache my eyes can’t hide.
The cloud of tears my being holds
awaits release, the wind unfolds.

My body’s hot from holding in
mounds of fear and grief within.
But you walk in and share your smile,
you draw me near and pause awhile.

The comfort felt from all those years
allows my pain, expressed through tears.
You know me, yet you love me still.
Listening, caring, emptiness filled.

Suddenly, I see the sun.
You know that you’re the only one
to help me through, to calm my heart.
You’re always here, never apart.

And when God takes my breath away,
and life presents a different day,
where peace will fill my lonely soul,
know it’s you who kept me whole.
(Puzzle piece number 22 of 38.)

copyright © 2008 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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