Yep, it’s summer

Sometime Friday, I took pity on Guinness’s panting self, closed the windows, and turned on the air conditioner. I’d been putting it off to spite the profiteers. Today, I left The Compound for the first time since… I don’t know when. Wednesday? And HOLY CRAP IT’S HOT. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’ve been sick.

My mother has been reading poems to a mentally challenged resident of “Shady Pines,” and she wanted to know if I had any books of children’s poetry, because these are apparently favorites. The last time I entrusted any of my children’s books to my mother, I ended up with little golden spines and nothing else–some kind of book-eating bastard bug in the place where she stored my stuff. Not that I’m BITTER or anything, but no, not even for a mission of mercy can she have the meager remnants of my early years. So I went to Half Price Books and bought three volumes of children’s poems. That should keep them busy for a while.

Because I’m not leaving the house again until October.

More springishness

Even though I’m not a mother, I kind of experience some mom things. Like…I’m rarely in holiday photos because I’m always taking them. In the photo albums, there are more pictures of the “kids” (in this case, dogs and Tim) than of the “parents” (me and Tom).

I’m the one who willingly cooks, organizes occasions, bakes birthday cakes. And I’m the one who does stuff like this…

…with a complete sense of acceptance that it likely won’t be done for me.

Since my own mother recently moved into “Shady Pines,” my resignation to being the grown-up who won’t get treated to kid things has become more entrenched. So imagine my surprise when I got to her apartment yesterday to find this:
Continue reading “More springishness”

Currently reading…

You just can’t beat for sheer fun with language. The first book of his I ever attempted to read was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and after a few pages of going, “Huh?” and “Do what?”, I put it down and vowed never to try again.

A few years later, my brother told me that I must read Another Roadside Attraction. Maybe I just needed to be older, because suddenly I plugged in to the way Robbins writes and became an ardent fan. To the point that if I ever had written that Master’s thesis that I didn’t write, its subject was Tom Robbins’s work.

Maybe it’s better than I left him in the realm of pleasure and didn’t turn him into another halfhearted academic exercise. Although I wasn’t as deeply thrilled with his later works (Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Villa Incognito), even those are crisper and more inventive than almost anything else I read.

The ones I enjoy most–in addition to Even Cowgirls… and Another Roadside Attraction–are Still Life with Woodpecker and Jitterbug Perfume (the latter’s descriptions of New Orleans remain among my favorites), with Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas and Skinny Legs and All in that middle land between the ones I love and the ones I sort of love.

Trivia: Tom Robbins played the toymaker in one of my favorite quirky movies Made in Heaven, and I just discovered he’s also in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a film I haven’t seen.

Wild Ducks Flying Backward is not a novel, but a collection of shorter works and essays spanning Robbins’s career. Sometimes he’s playful, sometimes profound, but Robbins is always a master of words, whether with imaginative metaphors or frivolous puns. I just love him, and Marla, if you’re reading this LJ entry, thanks again for this book.

Addition

I felt a little bad, because when I reread my last entry, I realized that I called my brother brilliant and said nothing about my sister, Debby–other than that she’s a big loser at progressive rummy. (heh heh)

She denies that she tried to kill me several times during my first few years on this planet, but other than that, she’s a great OLDER sister. She’s bolder, livelier, and more outgoing than I am. We had all the usual arguments as teenagers (mostly over phone and TV privileges, because those were the days when there was only one phone and one TV–with no remote!–in the house, and neither was in our room).

We sustained each other during our turbulent twenties, even when each of us thought the other might have lost her mind. She got married and had kids. I went to college. Later, she became a nurse. I continued to try to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sometimes she’s the stable one. Other times, I am. We can go several months without talking, and even a year or so without seeing each other, but both of us know that should one of us need the other, that need will be met. (She just proved this to me again.)

I know that I’m very fortunate to get along with my brother and my sister, because that’s not always the case. Our relationships are not without their low points, but the great thing about getting older is that a lot of the things that annoyed us when we were growing up just aren’t important anymore.

For many years, I was awed by my sister’s work as a pediatric nurse. Very often, she dealt with terminally ill children, but she never stopped being strong and compassionate–and she never loses her sense of humor. Those qualities serve her well in her present work as a hospice nurse.

She’s pretty special, that sister of mine.

March at The Compound (so far)

As I mentioned before, March 4 was my mother’s eightieth birthday. My brother and sister came for that, but also because we had a lot of family business to take care of. Oddly, both of them ended up seeing doctors or dentists and taking painkillers and antibiotics. I had no idea spending a couple of weeks at The Compound could be so hazardous to anyone’s health.

I wish I had pictures of the night when a minute in a people-free house allowed Guinness to flip a ham from the table to the floor. Sadly, none of the photos quite capture the more dramatic moments of the last three weeks.
see images