The Worm and I

Skepticism is not overrated. In fact, it ranks up there with breathing and not walking in front of trains when it comes to self-preservation.

For the record, I am a life-long skeptic.

I’m a skeptic, dammit. I don’t order diet pills or vitamins. I don’t even listen to AM radio.  

I just don’t do these things.

Liposonix. Non-invasive weight loss. No diets. No exercise. No way. Who buys that kind of malarkey?

Apparently, me.

It doesn’t hurt… that bad. It’s just a little burn.

Bull shit. It’s a little bit of a burn like when I put the cattle prod on my own foot and pulled the trigger. Yeah. That’s what it’s like. I raised a finger, signaling for the technician to pause in her torture before I twitched off the table like a fish flopping on the shore.

I drew a shaky breath. I don’t think this is going to work for me.

She actually seemed surprised. Clearly, she has not sampled the wares. Why not?

Because if you touch me with that thing again, I’m going to have to kill you.

Either the conviction in my voice or the drool dripping from my chin convinced her. Oh. Okay. Hmm.

I laid my forehead on my folded arms and felt the electricity leaving my body in jaggedy sparks. Holy hellfire it hurt.

You could try the coolsculpt.

What’s that?

It freezes the fat and explodes the fat cells.

Exploding fat cells works for me. I only have this one day off and I am already here, already on the table…already have the squares mapped off on my flanks like a Google grid. If at first you don’t succeed, try something else. That’s how I roll.

She scooted the machine over to me and drew out one long hose. I tried hard not to think of how much it looked like an alien worm, with its fat gaping mouth as she prepared my flesh for the suction cup. The worm pressed its lips to my flanks and began to inhale. I had to look away. It was just … wrong.

The technician asked me if it hurt. I shook my head and put in my earbuds, cranking up Joss Stone. After near electrocution and setting myself on fire, pain was relative. She dimmed the lights and left the room. One hour later, she was back and prying the worm off of my butt. I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder. 

For real. 

For real, there was a stick of butter beneath my skin. Frozen butter. Technician began to knead. The tickling sensation was unbearable. I pressed my face into the towel and banged my fist into the table, giggling like a sugared up five year old.

Roll. Reattach the worm on the other side. Repeat.

I woke up this morning and prayed no accident befell me on the way to work, lest I end up in the hospital. Because I’m not sure they’d believe THAT is how I got two giant hickeys on my ass. 

It can take up to 12 weeks to see the results. At that point, I'm supposed to be so impressed I will want to suffer through another session.

I am... skeptical.

Just Look At What You've Done

I found out this week I’m going to have another little granddaughter. Each of my other two have had such individual personalities, it’s hard to imagine they even carry the same genetic suitcases. According to my daughter, the newbie is following suit. Like her sisters, she is determined to blaze her own trail.

I can’t help but wonder what she will look like. The oldest is faerie-fair with eyes of jade set against the palest of skin and golden hair that spins gold like cobwebs in the early morning sun. She believes in magic and mermaids and Grammas who control the weather with a twitch of the nose.

Next came the little firecracker of the family: Her red curls embracing a heart shaped face with a smile that hints of more than a little devilry. When asked if she was being a good little girl, she confessed with what seemed like more weight than any three year old could carry. “Actually, Gramma. I’ve been mostly bad.” And then she giggled.
And now there will be three.

Will the new one favor one or the other? What exactly has God packed in her little genetic suitcase? As I ponder these things, I can’t help but remember my own mother, sitting in a pottery class, surrounded by an array of daughters, granddaughters, great granddaughters. Loud laughter formed a parenthetic circle – a hug of creativity and joy dotted with smudged noses and splattered paint. She clapped her hands together gleefully at the chaos. “Just look!” she declared. “Look at what I started!”

As I peer into my granddaughters’ eyes, I see mischief and innocence, intelligence and naiveté, great beauty and strength and my heart is filled with gratitude for so many, many things in my life – the good and the bad – that led to this place. And I smile.

Look at what you started, Mom. Just look at what you’ve done.

Right Job, Wrong Tool

Yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting at a red light, it occurred to me how often I make things harder than they have to be by trying to do the right job using the wrong tool. Butter knives as screwdrivers. Shoes as hammers. Not always with good results.

I don’t know what made me think of it - I hadn't done anything particularly stupid that day. 
It was at the corner of Maryland and Serene and I was idling along about midway between the beginning and the end of a long line of traffic waiting to make a right hand turn. There was road construction on Maryland but there wasn’t an arrow and I always forgot how long the line grew between greens. I had one foot on the brake the other on the clutch as I waited for the car ahead of me to inch forward because God forbid I not take advantage of four inches of progress. The cars behind me might self-combust with honking indignation.

Anyway, I was staring through the windshield thinking how I needed to wash my car but it was monsoon season so that would be a waste of time, and watching the clouds drift behind the tall steeple of the LDS church on the corner, when a guy on a crotch rocket got tired of waiting and cut across the parking lot. There wasn’t an outlet on the Maryland side of the church, but maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe he was going to jump the curb. I didn’t know. It crossed my mind to follow him.

That’s when I thought about Cissy.

She was a blood bay. I always had a soft spot for bays. Crooked streak down her face, ending in the black velvet of her muzzle. Liquid eyes. Old timer snorted at her. Said you can't ride pretty. I knew that. But dang if she didn't make me want to try.

Backing up a bit, the first dozen years or so we lived on the ranch, we rode ranch horses. This stock was not a bunch of pets. Hell, they were barely horses. They did not approach to be petted. They barely stood the indignity of grooming and even that was a quick once over with the curry comb. They were work animals, nothing more than tools. I tried to love up on them at first but it only made them nervous and the men laugh, so I gave up. So there I was in 1983. And that’s how I learned to ride…on a beast that tolerated my presence only so far as my skill allowed. Get off balance a little bit? Any one of them would be glad to help you the rest of the way out of the saddle and then leave you there to walk home. Talk about an incentive program that worked.

And God forbid you take them out for anything less dignified than moving cattle. They were NOT (all caps, emphasis on the not) trail riding ponies - which was okay for a cattle ranch, really. Except they weren’t exceptionally cowy either. They were too long legged to squat, their necks tied in at an odd angle so they couldn’t really round their backs and most of them had clean throats but they were too hard headed to tuck their chin.  But seeing as how that’s all that was on the menu, we made the best of it for a dozen years or so.

Until Cissy. That little mare was about as pretty as a piece of apple pie. Only five, somewhere along the way she’d met already up with a bit of bad luck: her front right fetlock was circled with angry scars that looked a whole lot like the work of barbed wire. She was funky about standing tied. She’d do it, but it made her nervous. Men made her nervous, too. But women and children were welcome in her world which was fine with me because that’s why we bought her.

The first time I worked cattle on her, God, I remember like it was yesterday-we were in the pasture around the hill-a big old full section and a half with cuts and draws and old downed fencelines that shoulda been cleaned up a hundred years ago. It was rife with mesquite. Not little bushy stuff either-the tall as a tree version with branches big around as a man’s leg just aching to drag you out of the saddle and thorns like a ten penny nail. 

The cows in that pasture weren’t exactly social. Oh sure, they were friendly enough all winter when the feed wagon went honking, but come spring when the grass started greening they were done with the small talk. It was less like herding cattle and more like hunting.

I got sidetracked, sorry.

 Anyway we set out after this yella charolais with a big old white steer on her and she hightailed it into the mesquite. I’m not going to go all Louis L’Amour on you but it got really western for a while. When it was all said and done and the yella cow and calf were tucked back into the herd and my legs expanded in rhythm with  Cissy’s ribs, she snorted and gave a little jig and I slid my hand under her mane, resting it against the sweaty hide on her neck. She calmed back to a walk and all I could think was how different it was to ride a horse that worked with me and not against me. How much easier it was. How much more fun.

See, I didn’t know working cows could be fun. I thought it had to be all about getting yelled at and bucked off and then yelled at some more.

Damn. I wasted a lotta years riding knotheads.

Back to the corner of Maryland and Serene and the maverick on the crotch rocket – he was probably going to cut across the parking lot and then out a back road on the other side and then back on to Maryland on the other end of the construction. Not a bad idea, altogether. If I had been driving The Beast, maybe I’d a followed him… but in the little car? No. Right idea. Wrong tool.

I think maybe there’s a lesson in all of that. One that I need to apply to relationships. If I figure it out I’ll let you know. For now I’m just not going to take Serene.

Old Friends and Flea Collars

I had dinner with an old friend the other night. Not old friend as in, someone who is old – Old Friend as in, someone I’ve known a long time.

You know, one of the best things about time-worn relationships is the ease, the familiarity – the groove. As always, our conversation started exactly where we left off, as if we had merely been interrupted for moments not years.

First we talked about careers. Mine more than hers because it is new and shiny and a little bit crazy. We discussed moms. Her mother has just moved in with her and she is adjusting to the ‘not-empty-nest’ syndrome. Mine has just been widowed. Diets, weight, (ugh!) the indignities of aging.  Common friends came up next, and then kids and grandkids. Lots of laughing. Lots of pictures. Lots of eye-rolling at the antics of 4 year olds.

But eventually – inevitably –  gravity pulled the chit-chat down to the nitty-gritty of it all - relationships.

Shit got real.

For once, I had nothing to bring to the table. Zero. No drama with the ex. Nothing. So, I leaned forward, ready to listen to her tales of man-woe… but it seemed she was equally impaired. Words dwindled to silence as we studied the sweet potato fries.

“I’ve given up on men,” she admitted.

Given up on men… my brow furrowed. Lots of things darted across my mind, I admit.  I mean, sexual preference is ambiguous these days.

“You mean…”

She stabbed a fry into the dressing. “No! God, no. No no no,” she laughed. “I’m just done with the whole dating thing.”

I should insert here - I don’t date either. Hell, I don’t do a lot of things. I don’t win the lottery. I don’t win American Idol. But I haven’t given up on them. I still imagine what I’d do with the big cardboard check. Still wail along with the radio.

Still hope there is soul mate out there somewhere, drinking his morning coffee, thinking of all the little things in his life that he wants to share with me.

I asked if she got lonely.

She said she bought a dog and whipped out a picture.

I admit. It scared the shit out of me. If this confident, attractive, smart, witty, financially secure, emotionally stable woman had failed to find a mate, where did that leave me?

I studied the little shaggy beast. A flop of hair fell over his eyes. Admittedly, he was cute. He probably didn’t leave dirty dishes in the sink.   

We visited a bit more and then parted ways but two weeks later the image of that damned dog laying in the middle of her sofa is still stuck in my brain.

Friends, I beg you this – the day I start showing pictures of my dog/cat/fish on my phone, just shoot me… because if my soul mate wears a flea collar, life is simply no longer worth living. 

Starting Over

Congratulations! You figured it out! Yes, it's true... Smart Mouth Girl is back. Actually, she's been driving me nuts the last several months, prodding me to get back to the blog. I've been successful at ignoring her, for the most part, but lately she has found other outlets for her mischief, so I guess to be honest, I'm just trying to reduce the collateral damage by giving her limited access to the keyboard. 
Where do I begin? 
In the two years I have been absent, much has changed. I'll spill the details later, but the sum of it is this: I lost it.
I lost it and I didn't blog because hey, it was fugly. And ain't no body got time for that, right?
But I finally reached the other side and I think (hope) I'm ready to open the closet and let the skeletons spill across the web-miles. Fingers crossed, I headed for the computer this morning, armed with coffee and some serious musical inspiration.
Once I remembered my password, I entered my blog only to discover the entire internal layout has changed. It may look the same to you, but to me it felt as if someone had rearranged my dresser drawers. 
Sigh.
Starting over is hard. I forgot about that. But let's face it - I have lots of experience.
It's really, really good to be back, friends.
Here goes ...