You’re It!

My former roommate used to sell insurance and wanted to make a presentation to her friend Steve.

Both leading active lives, they played telephone tag for a week, leaving messages on each other’s answering machines—Steve less frequently than Joanne. These were the days before mobile phones overcame the world, where there are few places to play hide and don’t find me.

After a week of missing each other, Joanne called Steve’s number and again heard “Hello, Steve isn’t home right now, so Mira is protecting the house. If you’d like to leave a message, however, start speaking after the beep.”

Being an occasional hiking companion of Mira, Steve’s golden retriever, Joanne creatively responded, “This message is for Mira. This is your friend Joanne. Your master has been a bad boy, and I’m very upset with him. I keep calling him, but he doesn’t call me back, so I want you to bite him!”


The next day, the following message was on Joanne’s answering machine: “Grr-ruff, ruff, ruff. Ouch! Grr-ruff, ruff. Ouch!”

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Registered?

At a local softball game, my friend David and I sat behind the outfielders while Katie, his energetic golden retriever, gamboled about, greeting other spectators.

Two guys offered Katie pieces of hamburger, which she eagerly accepted. One man looked over at David and asked, “Is she registered?”

Without missing a beat, David replied, “No, she doesn’t vote.”

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Skinny Jeans

My friend and I had gotten together for our weekly lunch and were running through the usual topics—work, men, weight.

I was feeling exceptionally thin, having taken off a few pounds, so I said, “It’s great! Every time I put my skinny jeans on, they fit more loosely.”

“Did you ever think of washing them?” she replied.

(Puzzle piece number 37 of 38.)

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Grenade Prank-Stopper

As a freshman at the University of Arizona in Tucson years ago, my dad was constantly aggravated with pranks played on him by Tim, an upperclassman.

After a couple months of Tim’s shenanigans, my dad had his fill. He went to the experimental lab, from which he took a grenade loaded with gunpowder and a smoke-causing substance—nothing lethal, but certainly explosive enough to grab someone’s attention.

Dad then walked to Tim’s dorm, opened his door, and as he threw the grenade into Tim’s room, he calmly said, “Good-bye, Tim.”

Tim never pulled a stunt on Dad again.

(Puzzle piece number 36 of 38.)

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Lost Car, Lost Mind

My aunt, my grandma, and I had been shopping all day in a huge Phoenix mall. When we stepped outside into the dry heat, my aunt said, “You know, I’ve forgotten where I parked the car.”

My grandma simply, but quite seriously replied, “Ask someone!”

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Frustration and the Denim Bag

Do you ever do something you know will frustrate you? You know, maybe things are going a little bit too well and you need a little tragedy in your life, so you drag out a can of paint—and open it. Or worse, you browse The Cheyenne Edition.*

I do it all the time—frustrate myself. Recently I thought, I have so many denim scraps and old jeans, I’ll make a straitjacket to severely restrict my ex-boyfriend from giving my phone number to all his creditors.

Upon reconsideration I decided to simply sew a tote bag. And that I did. I headed downstairs, dragged out the sewing machine, set it on the ping-pong table, and began sewing pieces of old jeans and a sofa arm cover together.

As usual, I had to rip out almost as many seams as I made. I thought I had put both right sides together before stitching, but I hadn’t. Frustration numbers one and two. But I was in a good mood that day, so irritation didn’t find its way into my life easily and I kept at it.

Within an hour, I had a really cool-looking bag! So the cat jumped in.

But it needed a handle (actually two, I later figured out, which resulted in ripping out several more streets of stitches). To make a handle, I took an old director’s chair back, cut a portion of it lengthwise, and sewed the long edges together.

Attaching the handle to the bag led to a deeper type of frustration (guys, think no love in 18 months). Trying to stitch through 12 layers of canvas and denim was like using a finishing nail on concrete—I kept breaking needles and my top thread kept breaking. Ahhhh! I moaned and groaned and wailed and wished for someone to rescue me.

And when I came back to reality and realized that most people want me to rescue them, I finished my bag!
It’s for sale: $40. The cat’s free.


* The Cheyenne Edition is a little local rag with more errors than a government bailout. This pseudojournalism has been riddled with more mistakes in the 25 years I’ve lived here than kindergartners trying to recite Shakespeare with an accent. But don’t try to help them: their cup is full.

If someone publishes anything, it should be printed using correct and accurately spelled words, verified facts, proper grammar, and perfectly placed punctuation. Continuity in style would also be a sweet feature. This goes for the ArtsFocus too.

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Somnambulism

Shiloh the ferocious dog barked throughout last night. Ever since his major mishap (see auntieeartha.blogspot.com/2008/07/tragedy.html), he barks continually. Maybe anesthesia heightens hearing.

So today I’m somnambulant. While preparing for this morning’s feeding frenzy, I tried to fit the milk jug in the microwave and cracked an egg in the fishbowl. The fish is still wondering how she could have spawned something so grand, especially since she’s single.

I’ve been somnambulistic since I was three, but I had a catalyst: Joan the Clean Freak. Mom didn’t want any bedwetting in her house, no siree, so she’d awaken my comatose three-year-old body at midnight to empty my little bladder. Mind you, I said awaken my body, not my mind. Makes you think of all the somnambulant drivers out there.

My feet would hit the blue shag carpet, and I would wander off while Joan the Chambermaid would straighten out my bed after she scattered the simians. Seems that a barrel of monkeys was released each night in my bedroom, and they loved to frolic in my bed. It occurs to me now how otherworldly my dreams were.

I must have been a funambulist, in the second sense of the word, because with my mental agility I knew why I’d been so rudely awakened. I sleepy-strolled toward the bathroom and apparently thought the walk too long. So I shortened my trip, opened the clothes chute door, and, when Mom found me in the darkness, I was trying to hoist my little fanny up the wall toward the opening.

My direction quickly changed.

Another midnight rendezvous with Joan the Insomniac brings values into the picture. While Mom frantically chased out the chimps and baboons, this time I chose the road on the right.

Now I must preface this episode with my mother’s likeness to Imelda Marcos, the former globally powerful Filipino who turns 80 in July and owns more than 1000 pairs of shoes. She’s Mom’s rival. Mom still has shoes and clothes in every closet. The more closet space, the more stuff she buys. It’s incredible.

The road on the right leads to my closet, which means Joan of Arch’s closet. It was filled with three shoe racks that each held nine pairs of shoes—those spiky, high-heeled, pointy pumps. Still sleeping, I gently opened the closet door, pulled down my jammy bottoms, and squatted over Mom’s pointy-toed shoes, just to show her how I felt about all that waste. She gasped, ran to me, and redirected my path.

The moral of the story is: Let cavorting monkeys frolic, and don’t tidy up at midnight with a somnambulist on the loose.

(Puzzle piece number 35 of 38.)

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Hearing, Etiquette, and the Single Man

I’ve determined that I attract hearing-impaired men. The problem isn’t necessarily physical; it’s psychological, and sometimes, a matter of etiquette. Some teenagers have the same malady.

“Honey, don’t forget to make your bed and bring your water mug into the kitchen by 6:20,” that’s a.m., I’ve reminded my daughter for nine years during the school year. She has yet to remember these things.

But if I say, “Honey, grab your eyeliner and let’s go out for a bite to eat,” the pencil’s in hand and she’s in the car. Hearing depends on content and underlying desire. Let me pose some scenarios.

For five years a friend has driven by my house two or three times weekly. Why? “Just to see if you’re okay.” He rarely stops and knocks to see if I’m okay—or even alive, for that matter, which is fine because I don’t like to be disturbed during my workday.

During this period we’ve had our home broken into, I’ve had a procedure for precancerous-cell removal, and numerous other ripe cowpies have fallen from the sky—none of which this person learned via drive-bys.

After telling this friend over the phone several times to stop driving by because it’s weird (think stalker), he continues to do it. So I keep my blinds closed. What would you do?

On a few occasions Mr. Drive-by has knocked on my door. “Gee, I hope I didn’t bother you.” Not at all. Just trying to work. “I was wondering if you could take a look at this and tell me what you think. It should only take a half hour.” Etiquette. Maybe I need to be more complete when I say things—not that they’d be heard.

I write, edit, research, and design from home and need to focus. Some think that because I work from home, I have more discretionary time. Not true.

It’s true that I spend much less time in my car (3,559 miles in 2008), less time shopping (’cause I don’t like to shop and have no money), and less time conversing with others during the workday than most. But I also do my own home repair, have too many animals to clean up after, and have to look for missing mugs.

Being hearing impaired could be a benefit. Often I don’t answer the phone or door, because they might interrupt my little train of thought. And once my engine veers off the track, it’s difficult to get the little choo-choo chuggin’ again.

Now what was I saying?

I’ve also made it known to my friends that I go to bed early because I get up early. Where etiquette states not to call after 9:00 p.m., I tell friends I’m a little old lady who goes to bed at 8:30. I jump on my warm heating pad and read.

But there’s a person who not only used to call every day, every day, but calls after 9:15 p.m., not because he’s in jail and needs to be bailed out, or he’s drunk and needs a ride home, or even that he’s depressed and feels like going back to his wife. He just wants to hear my voice.

But after my saying “hello,” he begins an incessant oratory. I hear about how he’s still in love with the wife he’s divorcing, his actions on lawsuits, his financial dealings. This man doesn’t care about me and knows very little about me. That would take his questioning me and my being permitted to answer. If he were to ask me a question, I’d think I’d have lost my hearing and be speechless.

Dad once said, “You can tell a gentleman by asking him questions. Then, if he turns to you, asks you questions, and appears genuinely interested, you might have a gentleman before you.”

Say what?

(Puzzle pieces 33 and 34 of 38.)

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Electric Cat

What is it about animals that, seeing each other for the first time, causes them to get more excited than a grown man looking at a 1960 Thunderbird?

Between the raised hackles, drooling, and butt sniffing, I feel as though I’m watching college students groping each other at a bar as they stumble over each other for first dibs on the cutest co-ed. Pheromones.

Later when the conversation wanes and the sniffing has all been snuffed, the parties seem to ease into each other’s presence without much more ado. Lust begone! Unless, of course, the parties are a mountain lion and a deer or a 10-year-old and a bunny.

My daughter’s dad had been wanting a cat forever, so when he verbalized his wish to our daughter, she was thrilled. Ivy spent weeks browsing through a name book and made a list of forty possible names for the forthcoming pussy cat.

Finally, Ivy and Jonny drove to a lady’s house in Black Forest and came home with a female feline, which, out of the forty names she’d chosen, Ivy named something completely different: Aphrodite.

One day before driving Ivy to her dad’s, I invited Shiloh the Lab to join us for the ride. He leaped into the back of our Trooper with the verve of a teenager who’d just drunk three Red Bulls and away we went. Just to be annoying, the dog bounced back and forth in the back of the truck like an overgrown tennis ball, whimpering and whining all the way.

When we parked in Jonny’s garage, I said to Ivy, “Hey, how about if we introduce Shiloh to Aphrodite?”

“Yeah!” she replied expectantly.

So she traipsed in before me while I seized the hyper canine with his leash. He was less than two years old at the time and given to rambunctiousness and uncontrollability. Training him took quadruple the effort compared with my other dogs.

He quickly dragged me up the garage stairs into the family room as I held on to the reins. Then we flew up more stairs toward the living room where Little Miss Aphrodite spied the gigantic yellow mass of muscle invading her personal space. Freaked, she flew up more stairs toward Jonny’s room with Shiloh lunging at her and me holding on for dear life.


Finally, the cat stopped, turned around, and gave her best imitation of a growling saguaro. What a live wire.


copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Eccentricities 2

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. —André Gide

As I alluded in my February 2 post, “Eccentricities,” I possess peculiarities that to some might seem absurd. The more mature I become, the less bothered I am that others see these features. In general, I think about everything I do and consider my actions’ impact on others. My neighbor, Bette, is the same way. I suspect we’re oddballs is an otherwise less contemplative world.

Grocery shopping, for example, is a three-hour affair. As much as I like the good folks at King Soopers, I try to make my shopping trips every three weeks. After a half hour total drive time and one hour to shop, it takes me an hour and a half to put everything away. The step most shoppers probably neglect is cleaning the newly purchased items.

Before anything is allowed into my fridge, freezer, or cupboards, they are rinsed and/or wiped—packages and all. I carefully scrub and rub my fruits and vegetables, so when the time comes, all we have to do is reach and eat. Since I have to clean the food anyway, why not do it all at the same time and keep the fridge smelling and being fresh?

I also Murphy Oil Soap my hardwood floor. A sidestep I make is on the carpet. Over time, carpet has a way of looking worn and dirty on the high-traffic areas. The reason it looks worn and dirty is because it is. To slow that process, I don’t permit shoes past the foyer, and I step to the side of frequently trod pathways just enough to reduce wear and tear.

What’s really strange about this behavior is that I’m not the only who’s thought about it. A hundred years ago I was at a play. One of the main characters was an older, eccentric woman, who, by play’s end, had all the characters walking around the high-traffic area of their carpet, not on it. Vindication!

I’m also timely. As a student, I started class on time. As a salesperson, I met others on time. As a friend, I knock on people’s doors when I say I will. When people want something done, they know they can rely on me. I’m dependable and honest.


Lately, though, I wonder if I’ve behaved differently. Do you know the phrase, “Treat people the way you would like to be treated”? Well, I must have done something out of my normal character, because I’m seeing unreliability and lack of respect from some I’ve considered close friends. What have I not done to be a good friend, I wonder.

So today I began interviewing friends in a quest to uncover areas in which I need growth. My daughter just says, “On your chest.” Friends who frequently see me and have known me for a decade or two said I have maintained my good character, and that it is not me who was changed.

I think some people just hate who I am. Time to go to the toilet and contemplate further.

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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Balls

My friend said he has big balls.

I told him it’s just edema.

He said that they’re dark blue.

I told him a different shade would better complement his natural coloring.

Last Friday this friend went into the hospital for an “overnight,” plaque-removal procedure in his leg. He ended up in ICU for five days, then in cardiology for one. The artery cleansing was supposed to take up to an hour; instead, it lasted five hours and involved a close-to-death experience.

On the same day I didn’t have transportation, because my vehicle needed a new starter, soon after I’d bought a new battery: two things my body could use. Sometimes life’s events are like bouts of diarrhea.

So I didn’t see him until Saturday morning, and we both teared up when I said how scared we all were. He was too.

I love this guy. He’s a good person who brings out the best in me and sweetly, kindly encourages me to push myself to become better—to play piano better, to sing better, to play guitar better, to play golf better, to play tennis better. Note the word play. He works hard as a software engineer-consultant, and when the work is done, if he’s not in the bathtub, he’s playing (with) something.

As with any relationship, it isn’t perfect. We always do something that the other doesn’t like. He doesn’t like it that I have so many male friends, not noticing that I also have a lot of female friends and spend most of my time alone.

I never liked his smoking or his pitting me against another female—the mean, self-absorbed, controlling type. Fact is, in our 11 years of friendship, we’ve parted company several times for these two reasons. Bad stuff.

And once, after he said, “Huh?” for the eighty-sixth time in an evening, I said, “That’s it! Leave. And don’t come back till you have hearing aids!” A couple months later, he called to say he’d gotten hearing aids.

But he doesn’t wear them. Funny thing, though: his hearing has improved, especially around dinnertime.

I asked him yesterday, “Do you know how hard it is to love someone who smokes?” Watching someone you care about suffer through self-infliction is heartbreaking. Knowing that they will probably die a painful death is exhausting. Truth is, even though I’m quite an energetic person, I am physically, emotionally, and mentally drained from feeling my dear friend’s pain. I simply could not separate myself from being a part of him.

Meanwhile, his self-obsessed female constantly wore everyone down with her perpetual intrusions. My friend, who should have had a loving and calm environment to heal his mind and body, was inflicted with high blood pressure, trying to make peace between her and his 89-year-old mom and daughters. She sure kept me away until my friend requested my presence.

So here my friend and I go again, hanging around like his big balls. But time will tell how big they really are. Will he really stop emasculating himself by putting a cigarette to his lips? Can he grow with the positive? Will he notice all my girlfriends? Or will we be playing ping-pong with body parts?

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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You Are Not Alone

In this big world of 6.76 billion people,* my dad taught me not to be dependent on anyone. (The population at that time was around 3.6 billion.**)

He also used to say, “Take care of your things, and they’ll last longer.” I’ve always taken that concept a step further: Take care of your friendships, and they’ll last longer. But it takes two.

Late last year I was diagnosed as having precancerous cells. The prospect of having the same type of cancer as my mother had, scared me.

Concurrently, I was ghostwriting a biography for a person I thought to be a friend and who had become my client. Less than one month after receiving my adverse-health news, my client-friend withdrew his friendship and, using registered, certified mail, “demanded” his advance money be returned to him. This unfortunate event was strange on two accounts: First, he said he sincerely liked and respected my work and intuition on his book; second, friends don’t dump friends when they’re down.

Fortunately, God has blessed me with the best friends on earth, on whom I can and do depend. All who knew about my condition rallied for and supported me through a short, but dark hour.

But what if I had few friends? What if all my friends were like the former client? Would I, in my distraught state, have taken my life quicker than cancer could have?


One of my former client’s “friends,” an energetic, handsome, perpetually smiling man, recently took his own life. His memorial celebration was attended by hundreds of prominent people.

Why would such an attractive personality draw death upon himself? Did he subtly reach out to one of his friends, who couldn’t hear him? Did he present a weaker side that a friend humorously brushed off? Or, as with many men, did he feel he couldn’t ask for help?

We’ll never know.

But I will be a better friend and listen with my heart, because I want my friends to live full lives…
and die naturally.

copyright © 2009 by Auntie Eartha. All rights reserved.

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* U.S. Census Bureau via Wikipedia
** http://www.infoplease.com/year/1968.html